One Minute to Midnight

CHAPTER Fifteen



29 December 2011

I FALL ASLEEP without even finishing my champagne, waking at the exact moment the pilot tells us he’s switching on the fasten seatbelt sign as we are about to start our descent. This is the way to travel.

‘Did I snore?’ I ask Dom sleepily.

‘Like a buffalo in need of nasal decongestant,’ he replies.

‘Oh god, really?’ I ask, looking around to see if the people sitting around me are giving me evils.

‘Not really. You snuffled occasionally.’

‘Did you sleep?’

‘Nope. Read all the papers though. I am very well informed. I will have lots of fascinating things to say to everyone at the party on Saturday. Actually, I’m shattered. Looking forward to an early night,’ he says, and gives my knee a squeeze.

I don’t want to have an early night. We’re in New York! I want to go out, feel the buzz. I don’t say anything. I’ll find a way to convince him later.

* * *

We grab a taxi outside JFK. All along the drive into the city, along the Long Island Expressway, past all those tatty houses with the stars and stripes hanging off their porches, through the tunnel and up into Manhattan, the butterflies in my stomach agitate, they swarm and circle. I can’t stop smiling. New York! It’s a gorgeous day, cold and still, the sky an icy blue. Pale winter sunshine becomes dazzling as it reflects off the tops of the skyscrapers. We traverse Manhattan, turn down 8th Avenue and on to West 29th Street, stopping outside the Ace Hotel.

It’s a little after three in the afternoon but the lobby is buzzing, just as Karl told me it would be.

‘You must stay at the Ace,’ he urged when he first invited me. ‘It’s fabulous and not horrendously expensive. And very cool. Some of the best people-watching in town, and believe me, in Manhattan, that’s saying something.’

The lobby is a long, open space with sofas and tables in the centre of the room and a bar at the far end. Hipsters abound.

‘Christ, it’s loud in here,’ Dom mutters as we make our way to the reception desk. ‘I hope our room isn’t on the first floor. We’ll never get any bloody sleep.’

I smile at him through gritted teeth. There was a time when I used to find his curmudgeonly young fogey act amusing, but not now. And I know why he’s being grumpy. It’s not just because he got no sleep on the flight. It worries him that I’m obviously so excited to be here, that New York exhilarates me in a way London doesn’t seem to these days. To Dom, New York looks like competition, and he wants to put the competition down.

We check in. To Dom’s relief, we are not on the first floor, in fact we’re on the fourteenth. From our window we can see the Empire State Building, just a few blocks away, rising into the sky like a rocket ready for take-off.

‘It’s quite small, isn’t it?’

‘The Empire State?’

‘The room.’

‘I think it’s lovely.’ There’s a double bed and a leather sofa, and bright abstract paintings on the walls. ‘Shall we have some champagne?’ I ask him. I’m desperate to get him to lighten up and enjoy this, because if he doesn’t I’m going to be tempted to punch him in the face.

‘It’ll be hellish expensive if we take it from the minibar …’ he says.

‘Dom, come on.’

‘Okay. Sorry. I’m just a bit tired.’

‘I know. We’ll drink some champagne, watch some TV … who knows, you might even get lucky,’ I say, giving him a coy little smile.

We drink the champagne, but we don’t watch TV.

* * *

Later, in the shower, I plan our night out.

‘Karl reckons we must have a steak at the Breslin,’ I tell Dom as he soaps my back.

‘Where’s the Breslin?’

‘Downstairs.’

‘That sounds perfect.’

‘And after that we could go to Flute, for more champagne. That’s not very far away. Or there’s the Russian Vodka Room … You’ll love that, more vodka varieties than you can shake a stick at.’

‘Or we could just come back up here and have more sex,’ Dom says, his hands wandering.

‘Dom, we’re only here for four nights …’ I say, wriggling away from him. ‘I don’t want to spend the entire time in our hotel room.’

Dom puts on jeans, jumper and tatty trainers. I put on a dark red wrap dress, my highest heels and the Marc Jacobs coat I got on sale last winter. I am dressing to impress. I am pointedly dressing to go out on the town.

The Breslin is packed, four deep at the bar, forty minutes’ wait for a table.

‘We could always order room service,’ Dom says hopefully, but I’m already wading into the throng on my way to the bar. A charming, goatee-bearded man lets me push in front of him.

‘Just go for it,’ he says to me. ‘Don’t be British. Just get in there.’

This is what I want! I want to have conversations with random strangers in bars, I want to get stoned with artists who live in Williamsburg and date European models with unpronounceable names. That’s what you’re supposed to do when you’re in New York. You’re not supposed to spend the whole time in your hotel room with your husband. I smile up at the goateed man, but he’s not looking at me, his eye’s been caught by someone else.

I emerge a moment or so later with a couple of dirty Martinis and join Dom who is skulking by the window.

‘Apparently it’s going to snow tomorrow,’ I say, handing him a drink. ‘I hope it’s a proper snowfall. I’ve never seen New York in the snow.’

‘I have to get some work done tomorrow,’ Dom says.

I am trying very hard not to be annoyed with him, but it’s getting difficult, all the more so because I get the feeling that he’s deliberately trying to annoy me, although I’m not entirely sure why. I think, perhaps, he doesn’t want me to have too much fun in New York. I turn around, hop up on a stool and survey the room. I smile, I can’t help it, there’s something about this place that makes the pulse race. Dom isn’t going to bring me down.

He cheers up over Shibumi oysters and the enormous (eye-wateringly expensive) rib-eye we share. It is unbelievably good, rare and succulent and tender on the bone. We can’t finish it, so we ask for a doggy bag.

‘That will make an excellent midnight feast,’ Dom says, stifling a yawn. It’s barely nine-thirty and I can tell he’s agitating to go to bed.

‘I’m not tired, Dom,’ I say pre-emptively.

‘That’s because you slept the whole way over on the plane.’

‘I know, but I’m not tired. I don’t want to go to bed now.’

‘We don’t have to go to sleep straight away,’ he says, raising one eyebrow, just like Roger Moore. Usually I would find this funny and charming, but now it’s annoying. I want to go out.

‘I want to go out,’ I say. I can almost feel my lip plumping out.

‘Nic, I’m exhausted.’

I sigh. ‘Fine, you go up to bed, I’m going to go for a little wander round the block, then I’ll maybe have a glass of wine in the bar down here. Okay?’

‘Okay. Why don’t you just have a glass of wine? Don’t go wandering about.’

‘Dom, it’s the centre of Manhattan and it isn’t even late. There are mobs of people around. I just want to get out and about for a bit. I’ll be fine by myself.’

He kisses me goodbye at the elevator.

‘If you’re going for a walk, don’t you want to change into more comfortable shoes?’ he asks.

‘I’m fine,’ I say, but I want to scream, ‘No! I don’t bloody want to change into comfortable shoes! This is what you’re supposed to wear in Manhattan! Have you never seen Sex and the City?’

‘Shouldn’t you take a map?’ he asks.

‘I have my phone.’

I pull away from him, I’m desperate to get out there. Sometimes I think he forgets that I used to face greater challenges than walking down Broadway in high heels; I’ve been to the Congo and North Korea, I was in Lebanon during the last Israeli invasion, I was in a car that came under fire in Basra. He forgets that I used to be fearless. Perhaps it’s about time we both remembered.

I walk south on Broadway, through Union Square, past Grace Church, I cross over onto 4th Avenue and into the East Village. My feet are killing me (yes, all right, he was right, I should have changed my shoes), so I stop for a drink at a tiny place that doesn’t appear to have a name. I sit at the bar and order myself a Martini. My phone is buzzing in my handbag. There’s a message from Dom.

Hope you’re having fun, don’t go too far, see you soon x



I look at the map of New York on my phone. I am about nine or ten blocks from Alex’s apartment. I knew she lived down this way, but I didn’t know I was this close. I sip my drink, weigh up my options. It’s not quite ten-thirty. I could go back to the hotel and sit in the bar and people-watch. I could go to bed. Or I could hop in a taxi and visit my former second best friend in the whole world.

Outside, I hail a cab and ask the driver to take me to the corner of Mulberry and Grand.

‘I know it’s not very far,’ I say in the best Queen’s English. ‘But my feet are hurting and I don’t really know my way around.’

The taxi driver is totally charming about it.

‘That’s okay, I know what you ladies are like with your heels, my wife’s the same.’

‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘If I did this to a taxi driver in London, he’d bite my head off.’

He laughs. ‘Lady, this ain’t London.’

Alex’s apartment building is modern and faceless. There is no concierge. I realise that I don’t know the number of her apartment, and I suddenly feel incredibly relieved. I can run away now. I’ve had the thrill of coming here, of contemplating what it would be like to see her again, what I would say, how she would react, but I don’t actually have to go through with it. Then I notice that some of the buzzers have names next to them, and there, in type so faded it is almost illegible, is A. Rose.

My hands are shaking as I go to press the buzzer. I chicken out, turn around and start to walk down the street, looking for another taxi. Then I turn around again and go back to the apartment block. This is ridiculous. She’s probably not there anyway. I press the buzzer.

By the time the intercom crackles into life I realise that I have been holding my breath, and exhale loudly.

‘Go away, Aaron,’ a voice is saying to me. ‘I’m not bloody interested.’

‘It’s Nicole,’ I say in a small, croaky voice.

‘What?’

‘It’s Nicole.’

Silence. Then, ‘Who?’

‘Alex, it’s Nicole.’

There’s a buzz and a click as the door opens.

‘Fifth floor,’ she yells through the intercom. ‘Number thirty-two.’

Once in the lift, I realise I am desperate for a pee. Why didn’t I go back at the bar? I try not to think about it, focusing instead on what I’m going to say. What am I going to say? Why didn’t I think about that back at the bar?

The doors open and Alex’s arms are around me before I even have time to step out of the lift. She’s sobbing, squeezing the breath out of me, saying, ‘You’re here, you’re here, you’re here.’

‘Alex,’ I say, pushing her back so we can both get out of the lift before the doors shut again, ‘I really need to go to the loo.’

Her apartment is tiny, just two rooms – a bedroom and living room-slash-kitchen – plus a bathroom. It is also beautiful, with enormous windows looking out onto the street and huge, dramatic black and white photographs on the walls. The pictures are familiar to me; I know them all. I try not to look at them.

When I get back from the bathroom we sit down on the white sofa which faces the windows. Alex pours us each a glass of red.

‘You’re here for Karl’s thing, aren’t you?’ she asks me.

‘That’s right.’

‘I thought you would be coming, but then you didn’t say anything, so … I’m not going. I wasn’t invited. Well, I kind of was, but I thought it was probably polite to say no.’ She smiles at me and wipes her eyes. I’d forgotten how beautiful she is.

‘You’re thin,’ I say, squeezing her thigh.

She laughs. ‘You know what misery does to me,’ she says, and we both start crying and it’s a long time before we stop.

We talk about work (she is now earning a fortune as director of sales at Dylan Publishing), her break-up with Aaron (surprisingly liberating), her sisters (all married, happily, with children). She asks me about my work (I’m evasive) and about the dogs. We’re avoiding the real stuff, but by the time we finish the first bottle and open the second, we get to it.

‘How are things with Dom?’ she asks me.

‘They’re all right,’ I reply. ‘Sometimes it’s really good. Sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes I feel like I settled. That’s just the way it is. I imagine most people feel like that at some point in their marriage.’

She reaches for my hand. ‘I haven’t forgiven myself,’ she says. ‘I never will.’

‘Don’t worry, neither will I,’ I reply, and we both start laughing. ‘Honestly, Alex, I don’t know that it hurt the marriage all that much. I mean, it did for a while, but I’m not sure that we’d have been any happier even if you haven’t slept with my husband.’

‘Sometimes I wake up and I think: did I dream that? I would never have done that. I would never, ever have done that.’

‘In the end, it was worse for you and me than it was for me and Dom. The damage done to us was much worse.’

‘I still don’t know why I did it, how I came to be in that state …’ She’s crying again, and I put my arms around her.

‘I know why you did it,’ I say, as she sobs into my shoulder. ‘You were heartbroken. You were messed up and lonely and I wasn’t there. I was never there. You were drunk, you were desperate. I understand,’ I say, and I’m amazed, even as I’m saying it, by how calm I sound and by the fact that I mean it. I do understand. I just didn’t realise it until now.

‘We should go out,’ I say to her getting to my feet. ‘Otherwise we’re just going to sit here, weeping and being maudlin.’

‘That is a very good idea,’ she says. ‘Plus you look amazing. That dress should not be wasted on my flat. And there is a very cool little place down the road, the Mulberry Street Bar, which does this blackberry Martini thing which will blow your f*cking mind.’

In five minutes Alex had changed out of her ‘sweats’, as she now calls them, and into skinny jeans and an incredibly beautiful shearling-collared leather jacket.

‘The most expensive thing I ever bought,’ she whispers to me as she slips it on, ‘aside from my car and the house on Shelter Island.’

‘You bought a house on Shelter Island?’

‘Well, I bought a third of a house on Shelter Island. Aaron bought two-thirds.’

‘And now?’

‘And now either he buys me out or we sell it or we could be incredibly civilised about the whole thing and keep it, but just agree to use it at different times. And although I would dearly love never to have to see or speak to the f*cker again, I’m tempted to go with the civilised option. It is a lovely house.’

We’ve arrived at the Mulberry Street Bar and we press our way through the throng, miraculously finding ourselves seats at the back bar. The bartender greets Alex with enthusiasm, kissing her on both cheeks. Our Martinis are set in front of us almost immediately. From along the bar we receive dirty looks from a group of women who’ve clearly been waiting ages to be served. This is what it’s like to hang out with Alex.

We clink our glasses and Alex looks as though she’s about to burst into tears again, so I lean forward and give her a kiss on the cheek.

‘It’s okay,’ I say. ‘I really think we’re going to be okay. Will you come to the party on Saturday?’

She shakes her head. ‘I don’t know. I’m pretty sure that would ruin Dom’s evening.’

‘Oh crap,’ I say, and realise I’ve forgotten all about him. It’s almost midnight – if he’s still awake he’ll be wondering where the hell I am. There are no messages on my phone, though, so perhaps he’s fallen asleep. I don’t want to call, I don’t want to risk waking him up, I don’t want to have to explain where I am. I put the phone away.

‘Never mind Dom,’ I say. ‘He’ll get over it. You should come to the party. You ought to be there.’

She smiles but doesn’t say anything. We drink our drinks and fall into companionable silence. It’s strange how easy it is to be with her, after all this time, after everything.

‘They filmed a scene in Godfather III here,’ Alex says all of a sudden.

‘I’m not really sure that’s something you should advertise,’ I reply.

‘And a scene from The Sopranos.’

‘Oh, that’s much better.’

We start giggling at exactly the same time, we’re thinking of the same thing.

‘Do you remember that fancy dress party, Nic?’

‘You were Adriana and I was Carmela. Oh my god, that wig.’

‘Those shorts I was wearing …’

‘And Mike with the grey stripes in his hair like Paulie …’ We laugh uncontrollably. I spill my Martini into my cleavage and down my dress, the barman kindly brings me another drink. The girls along the bar frown at us.

‘Do you ever speak to him?’ I ask Alex. ‘Mike, I mean.’

‘Not since the divorce came through. That was … god, when was that? August … no September 2008. He told me I was the biggest mistake he’d ever made, and that he sincerely wished he’d never met me. I told him the feeling was mutual. It was delightful.’

Now we’re back on dangerous ground, and I know I probably shouldn’t go there, but I owe her an apology.

‘I’m sorry, Alex, about how I behaved.’

‘It’s okay.’

‘No, it isn’t. I was never around when things went wrong with you and Mike, I knew you were having a terrible time and I didn’t do anything about it.’

‘You were working,’ she says, but she doesn’t look up at me.

‘And then after …’

‘You don’t have to apologise for that,’ she says, taking my hand in hers.

‘I know that I hurt you,’ I say.

‘Well, everyone was hurting everyone else, weren’t they? None of us come out of it covered in glory, do we?’

She looks at her watch. ‘It’s twenty past twelve,’ she says. She has tears in her eyes again, and so do I.

‘December thirtieth.’

She raises her glass and I raise mine. ‘To Julian.’