One Minute to Midnight

CHAPTER Seven



27 December 2011

I’M ON THE A40 heading west, listening to the radio and wondering why the f*ck I’m doing this. I am seriously annoying my husband, risking all manner of nasty confrontations just two days before our holiday, purely so that I can go and visit a man who has pretty much never done anything but let me down.

Because he’s my dad. That’s why.

The last time I spoke to him was when he rang to wish me a happy thirtieth birthday. This was two years ago, the day I turned thirty-one. The last time I actually saw him was the night before my wedding. That was more than three years ago. He turned up for dinner the night before, had a drunken temper tantrum and left that night, so he never actually made it to the event itself.

Given our history, a surprise visit probably isn’t the greatest idea, but somehow I just can’t face picking up the phone and talking to him. Plus, I’ve turned off my phone because I don’t want to hear Dom’s irate messages, or read his angry texts. By the time I get to Ledbury, I realise that I’m not even sure I’ll be able to find his house, it’s been so long since I visited. And I’m right, I don’t remember the way, so I drive round and round for forty-five minutes, still not wanting to phone, until finally I spot The Castle, the horrible pub that he drinks in, which I know is just round the corner from his place.

It’s just after six when I walk up the concrete pathway to his front door. My hands are shaking. My mouth feels like something died in it – I’ve smoked six cigarettes on the way here and I don’t have any mints. I ring the doorbell. No one comes and relief washes over me. This is the best possible outcome! I’ve tried to see him and I’ve failed – but it’s not my fault. I can go to New York free of guilt. I turn and start off down the path, a spring in my step this time, but just as I’m pushing open the garden gate I hear the door open behind me and my heart sinks into my boots.

‘Nicole?’

I turn around and there he is, gaunt, grey and slightly stooped, a hundred years older than I remembered him.

‘You are here,’ I say. ‘I thought no one was in.’

‘You should have phoned,’ he says, and turns to go back into the house, calling out to me to follow as he goes. No kiss then, no hug, no tearful reunion. For a moment or two I hesitate at the gate, tempted by the almost irresistible idea of just getting back into my car and driving as fast as my Honda Civic will take me all the way back to London, to have dinner with my husband and friends.

‘I’m not bloody made of money you know,’ I can hear him shouting. ‘It’s freezing out and I can’t have the heating turned up high all day and night. Will you hurry up and close that door?’

As I step over the hearth onto the ugly orange carpet I can hear him muttering to himself. ‘Christ’s sake. With me poorly and everything she leaves the bloody door open for half an hour.’

He’s standing in front of the electric fire in the living room, rubbing his hands together like a miser over his hoard, his dirty grey tracksuit bottoms hanging from his bony hips.

‘You’ve lost weight, Dad,’ I say.

‘Yeah, well, cancer will do that to you.’ He turns and looks at me. ‘Didn’t know whether you’d come. You could have replied to my email. I don’t have anything in for dinner.’

‘We can get a takeaway,’ I say.

‘Money to burn, have you?’

‘Or I could take you out somewhere.’

Dad sits down in the chair nearest the fireplace. ‘There’s nowhere decent round here these days,’ he says.

I take off my coat and sit down on the brown velour-covered sofa. The room is unspeakably hideous, it looks as though it were decorated in 1978 by someone with absolutely no taste. Everything is brown or a dirty shade of orange. There are no books, no pictures on the walls, just an enormous flat-screen TV in one corner.

‘How are you feeling, Dad?’

‘Pretty bloody awful.’

‘I’m so sorry. When did you … when was it diagnosed?’

‘About a month ago. But I’ve been feeling rotten for a while.’

‘You should have told me.’

‘What? That I’ve been feeling unwell? What would you have done about it?’ He picks distractedly at some unseen lint on his tracksuit trousers.

‘Shall I make us some tea?’ I ask him, already desperate to put some distance between us, even if it’s just a matter of a few feet.

‘All right then.’

Standing in the kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil, I feel like I want to cry, out of frustration more than anything else. Why is he like this? Why can’t he just make an effort? There’s a feeling like nausea rising up inside me, a feeling I remember from a long time ago, from childhood. Fear and disappointment. Pity, too. God, he must be lonely.

I take the tea back into the living room. He’s turned on the TV and he’s watching Sky Sports News, the sound up high. He accepts the tea wordlessly, takes a few sips, ignores me completely.

‘The operation’s on the second then, is it? Is that in Malvern?’

Nothing.

‘Dad? Could we turn the TV down a bit?’

He turns it off. ‘I just wanted to see the scores,’ he says, exasperated.

‘I didn’t say off, I said down.’

‘Done now.’ His mouth is set in a grim line. I want to slap him.

‘I was asking about your operation. Are you going to the hospital in Malvern?’

‘Gloucester.’

‘Do you need someone to take you there? How long will you be in for?’

‘Your uncle Chris is driving me. Only supposed to be in a couple of days, but you don’t know with the NHS, do you? I’ll probably get MRSA.’

Always look on the bright side.

We sit in silence, sipping our tea. He turns the TV back on, muted this time, and swears softly when he sees the football results.

‘Did you have money on it?’ I ask.

‘Just a tenner.’ He stares down at his hands, clenches and unclenches his fists. It’s a gesture I remember from childhood, and I’m hit by another wave of nausea.

‘How about that takeaway then? Do you have any menus?’

He jerks his head backwards. ‘Second drawer down in the kitchen.’

I suggest pizza, but he wants Chinese, so for the second night in a row it’s crispy aromatic duck and black bean stir-fry, only this time the duck is oversalted and the black beans are dry. Dad doesn’t seem to notice, he wolfs his food down.

‘I’m glad to see you’ve got an appetite, despite not feeling well,’ I say.

‘Well, I don’t get to eat stuff like this very often. Too expensive. This is a treat,’ he says, and he almost smiles.

After dinner, we drink our Tsingtao beers (two free with any order over fifteen quid), and I finally pluck up the courage to ask him what I’m doing here.

‘Dad, in your email, you said that there were some things you wanted to talk about …’

He mutters something unintelligible and looks away. ‘Come on,’ I say, ignoring his embarrassment, ‘what was it? I’m here now.’

‘I was feeling a bit low when I sent that,’ he says. ‘It wasn’t really necessary for you to come.’

‘Oh. Well. I’m glad I did, anyway. It’s good to see you.’ Liar, liar, pants on fire.

Dad drains the last of his beer and puts the bottle down on the table. ‘So. How’s Dominic?’

‘He’s well. Working hard as usual.’

‘Good. Good to hear it. Still no kids then?’

I laugh nervously. ‘No, not yet.’

‘Best get on with that, hadn’t you?’

‘Plenty of time,’ I say.

‘Hah! Is that right? You shouldn’t waste time, you know. It’s always later than you think.’

‘Would you like some more tea, Dad?’ I ask, eager to end this conversation, which has suddenly veered from mundane to morbid.

‘How’s your mother doing?’ he asks, ignoring my question.

‘She’s fine,’ I say, getting to my feet and clearing away debris from the takeaway.

‘Spend Christmas with you, did she?’

‘No, not this year.’

‘Where is she then?’

‘She’s on holiday. In Costa Rica.’

An ugly sneer crosses his face. ‘All right for some, I suppose. She still with that tosser, then? What was his name?’

He knows very well what Charles’s name is, he knows very well that they’re still together. I’m not getting drawn into a conversation about it: I know what he wants to do, he wants to rail at me about how badly she treated him, he wants to insinuate that Charles and Mum were sleeping together before the split, he wants to go over and over what happened, rewriting history as he tries to absolve himself of blame. We’ve been here before, and I’m suddenly furious with myself for coming: why did I think this time was going to be any different?

I clench my fists now, digging my nails into the palms of my hands. I can’t shout at him, I can’t storm out. His illness holds me hostage. I take a deep breath, sit back down opposite him and give him the brightest smile I can muster. ‘Is there anything I can get you, Dad? Anything I can do for you?’

He shakes his head, passes his hand over his eyes. He looks exhausted. I bite hard on my lower lip in an attempt to stop the tears coming. He looks up at me, surprised.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asks. ‘Is something wrong? You’re not going to cry, are you?’ He hauls himself to his feet, shuffles across the space between us and sits down next to me. He takes my hand in his. ‘I’m not dead yet, love,’ he says, and I burst into tears.

I promise to visit again in the morning, before I drive back to London. On the way to the B&B I pick up a bottle of wine and twenty Marlboro Lights from a corner shop. The rooms at the B&B will be non-smoking, of course, but I can always hang out the window. Like a thirteen-year-old.

The B&B is nicer than I’d expected: a pretty Victorian house with large rooms and a distinct lack of chintz. I lie down on the queen-sized bed with a glass of red, luxuriating in solitude, wishing I could stay here for days. No one, I realise, knows where I am. I have disappeared. I am off the grid. It’s delicious, the best kind of escape, completely irresponsible and utterly selfish.

I can’t enjoy it for long, though, because my mobile phone, still switched off, sits on the bedside table, a silent, accusing presence. I have to turn it on some time. And so I do, and then wish I hadn’t.

Message received today at 16.24.

‘Nic, I can’t believe this. What are you doing? I’ve already invited Matt and Liz – they’re probably already on their way down. I said we’d go for a drink first. I just don’t understand … Am I honestly supposed to think this was a spur-of-the-moment decision? Christ, this pisses me off.’

Message received today at 16.32.

‘Call me back, for f*ck’s sake. You do realise we’re supposed to be getting on a plane to New York the day after tomorrow?’

Message received today at 17.15.

‘You know what, Nicole? Don’t come crying to me when this turns out to be a disaster.’

After the third one I can’t stand to listen any more, and now I know that there’s no hope of me drifting off to dreamless sleep. I lie awake, I’m anxious, guilt-ridden … I open my laptop and make a perfunctory attempt to get some work done. I type up the notes from the afternoon’s meeting with Annie, but that just makes me feel worse. Finally, I open my secret Hotmail account and check my messages.

There’s another message from Alex, sent just an hour ago.

Alex to Nicole



Are we not talking again? Or are you just busy?

Maybe you’re at the in-laws.

Well, you’ll get this some time. I confronted Aaron about Jessica this morning. I meant to be all cold and businesslike about it, but then I just f*cking lost it, screamed and cried and threw stuff. So humiliated now. He was contrite, begged forgiveness, told me it was ‘a stupid, meaningless sex thing’ – as though that’s supposed to make me feel better. F*cker. So what do I do, Nic? He promised me (before I threw the soapstone elephant that you bought me in Cape Town at his head – don’t worry, it’s not broken) that he would end it with her, that he would never see her again. I don’t think I believe him.

Ax



Nicole to Alex



I’m sorry. I didn’t read your message until late last night (we’ve had the in-laws to stay) and I’ve been working all day today. I’m really sorry about Aaron. And of course I don’t think you got what was coming to you. Well, maybe a little bit.

I know you think I can give you advice on this, but I can’t really. Our situations are completely different. There was no question, not really, of me leaving Dom back then. You’re not in a marriage yet. You can just walk away, if you want to. Do you want to? Do you love him?

Why is your taste in men so crap?

Alex to Nicole



Oh, pots, kettles and people in glass houses …

No one knows about me and Alex. No one knows about our secret email exchanges. No one would understand it. Well, no one except Julian. I certainly can’t talk to Dom about it – he freezes up at the very mention of her name. He would never understand why I can talk to her, joke with her about what happened, but cannot bear to speak about it with him. Why should he? I can’t understand it myself. Maybe it’s just because I’ve loved her for longer than I’ve loved him. Sometimes I think it’s because I loved her more.

Nicole to Alex



Oh, come on. My record has nothing on yours. There was that wanker Howard at college, there was that awful DJ in Cape Town, there was Mike, and now there’s this guy. You have worse taste in men than Cheryl Cole. But … since we’re on the subject of dark pasts, I should probably mention that Aidan called, just before Christmas. He left a message on my voicemail – he offered me some work with his company. I haven’t called him back but I’m so tempted: he’s been doing really interesting stuff over there. It would be so great to have real work to do again, to get away from the execrable nonsense I’ve been working on here. But I don’t think Dom would stand for it.

Alex to Nicole



One – you don’t think Dom would stand for it? Come on Nic. That’s not like you.

And two – are you really sure you want to open up that can of worms? We are talking about the same Aidan, aren’t we? The one who’s been breaking your heart since 1997? I should warn you, before you do anything, that if you did decide to work with him, you wouldn’t be safe. He’s not over you. I bumped into him a couple of months ago at some fundraiser thing at the Met and all he did was talk about you. How is she, what’s she up to, is she happy …

Oh, why did she have to tell me that?

I snap my laptop shut, annoyed. It’s annoying that she told me, but even more annoying than that is the fact that she’s right, and I know she is. Seeing Aidan again would be a mistake. He has been breaking my heart, ever since that encounter on the beach in Cape Town fifteen years ago. Because, of course, despite saying he would, he didn’t call me the next day. Or the day after that. It didn’t spoil my holiday; I had a great time. Alex and I climbed the mountain, we whale-watched, we sunbathed and went dancing, made our pilgrimage to Robben Island, drank vast quantities of Constantia Sauvignon Blanc. But I can’t pretend that I wasn’t disappointed that he hadn’t called. I’d thought that New Year’s Eve had been the start of something; obviously he hadn’t.

But then, of course, the day before I was due to fly back to London, just when I had accepted the fact that it hadn’t been anything special, it had just been a snog on the beach, then he called. We were planning a quiet night in – Alex’s parents insisted that she spend her last night in South Africa at home with them – but, on witnessing my excitement at finally hearing from Aidan, I was excused from the family dinner.

Alex didn’t approve.

‘He doesn’t call all week and the second he does you go running? Not clever.’

She didn’t understand. No one had ever made her wait a week for a call.

He turned up just before sunset, a motorcycle helmet in his hand.

‘What about you?’ I asked when he handed it to me.

‘I’ve got a hard head,’ he replied, rapping his knuckles against his skull.

‘What about the police?’ I asked, but he just laughed.

I hopped up behind him on the bike, trying to appear nonchalant, not wanting to admit to him that I had never been on a motorbike before. I gripped the strap on the seat in front of me.

‘You can’t hold onto that,’ he said, turning to smile at me. ‘Not if you want to stay on the bike.’ He took my hands in his and locked them around his skinny torso. I hoped he couldn’t feel how fast my heart was racing. ‘Just hold on tight,’ he said. ‘Lean when I lean and we’ll be fine.’

We drove south along Chapman Peak Drive, the magnificent, winding, terrifying stretch of road that runs along the Cape Peninsula from Noordhoek to Hout Bay, where the western side of Table Mountain plunges into the Atlantic. Clinging onto Aidan’s body, the wind whipping against us, eyes watering, the roar of the bike competing with the sound of the waves below, sun dipping towards the ocean, turning the sea and the sky from blue to orange to pink, I felt I was in heaven. I never wanted that ride to end.

It had to, though, and when it did we drove across the peninsula to Fish Hoek. We bought lobster rolls and a bottle of white wine and picnicked on the beach. Afterwards, when the wine was finished, we walked to his hotel, which was right on the bay, and went to bed. I remember being incredibly nervous, my hands trembling, fumbling to undo my jeans, almost incapable of looking him in the eye. I’d only ever slept with two people before that – Ben Maxwell, two days after my seventeenth birthday (awful), and Stewart Sommers, my tutorial partner at college (slightly less awful). Aidan was a different proposition altogether.

Afterwards, my brain drenched in oxytocin, flooded with the joy of having just had my first-ever satisfying sexual experience (with another person, anyway), I wanted to tell him that I was falling in love with him, but I couldn’t. It was ridiculous; we hardly knew each other. But I had to say something, so I told him that I’d never felt that way about anyone before, not ever. He didn’t say anything in reply. He drove me back to Alex’s place just before dawn, we kissed goodbye at the gates, he told me that he’d give me a call the next time he was in England.

‘I’ll probably be back in a few weeks,’ he said. ‘We can get together then.’

It was almost two years before I heard from him again. Michaelmas term, 1998. I had been going out with Stewart Sommers for six months by this time. It was not a passionate relationship, but it was a happy one. Stewart was sensitive, funny and fiercely intelligent. We were constantly engaged in intellectual debates, about the economic outlook of the former Eastern Bloc countries in the wake of the Russian banking crisis, the long-term prospects for peace in Northern Ireland following the Good Friday agreement, about whether or not Chumbawamba’s Danbert Nobacon was justified in pouring a jug of water over John Prescott at the Brits.

It was late November, and Stewart was away for the weekend, he’d gone hunt-sabbing somewhere in Sussex. I was no longer living in college at that time, instead I was sharing a poky hovel in Jericho with Alex and three other girls. It was Friday evening and Alex and I were in her room getting ready to go out to the pub when the doorbell rang downstairs. One of my other housemates called up to me, saying there was someone there to see me. I went downstairs and there he was, looking exactly the same as he had when I’d met him on the beach: skinny and tanned, his hair tousled, stubble on his chin, looking as though he hadn’t slept in a week.

‘Hey, Nicole,’ Aidan said, smiling that infuriating, irresistible, sexy smile. ‘I’ve been back in the UK for a couple of days, and I’ve got nothing to do, and I was just thinking, if I could do anything in the world, what would it be? And I decided that it would be to visit Nicole Blake. Julian gave up your address. Reluctantly. I threatened his Fred Perry collection.’

I just stood gawping at him, unable to believe he was really there, standing on my doorstep, the man I’d spent weeks and months dreaming about, fantasising about, agonising over, the one who said he’d call and never did. The one I’d finally given up on.

‘Nicole? Aren’t you going to say anything?’

Finally, my brain kicked into gear, I took a tentative step forward, and gave him a hug.

‘It’s good to see you, Aidan. Come in.’

By this time, Alex had come downstairs to see what was going on. She looked at Aidan, back at me, raised an eyebrow and turned to go back upstairs.

‘Nice to see you too, Alex,’ Aidan called out after her, but she ignored him. I got him a beer out of the fridge and we sat at the kitchen table.

‘Where have you been?’ I asked him. ‘Julian never seems to know where you are.’

He shrugged. ‘Around and about, you know. It’s not always easy to contact people when I’m on the road.’ He slid his hand across the table and touched the ends of his fingertips to mine. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t get in touch after Cape Town. I meant to, but then there were some problems at work, so I ended up staying a lot longer, then when I did come back things were a bit complicated … with someone … so …’ I pulled my hand away. I realised that I was sitting very straight, like a schoolteacher. I made a conscious effort to relax, to loosen up.

‘It’s fine, Aidan. It doesn’t matter.’

‘No, I felt bad. I did think about you.’ He had the good grace to look sheepish. He took a long slug of beer. ‘In any case, I’ve got the weekend in Oxford now. Can we hang out? Can I take you out for something to eat tonight? We’ll go somewhere nice. I bet you’re living on curry and kebabs.’

‘I’m supposed to be going to the pub with Alex,’ I said. He looked genuinely disappointed.

‘She can spare you for one night can’t she? Come on, Nic. It’s been …’

‘Nearly two years.’

‘Exactly. I want to hear about what you’ve been up to, I want to know what’s going on with you.’ His hand was touching mine again, our fingers interlocked. I had goose bumps all over.

Upstairs, I asked Alex if she’d mind going to the pub with the others, leaving me with Aidan tonight.

She glared at me. ‘I can’t believe this,’ she said. ‘After all this time, you go running to him, just like that? Do you remember how hurt you were last time? Do you remember all those bloody nights you sat up, going over and over things, wondering why he didn’t want you?’

‘I know, but—’

‘Go. Have dinner with him. But please, Nic, don’t shag him. Think about how you felt last time. And think about Stewart. You know, the guy who loves you and would never treat you like shit?’

The problem was that all through dinner, I thought about nothing but how I’d felt the last time. I could think of nothing but how he’d made me feel, in his bed, in his hotel room in Cape Town, on that hot, sluggish, late afternoon in January. As we ate our nam tok and Thai green curry at Chiang Mai on the Broad, I listened to Aidan telling me about covering the fall of Mobutu Sese Seko in Congo, and the overthrow of General Suharto in Indonesia, about his kidnap (for all of twelve hours) in Bogota and his car accident in Bolivia, and I realised that I’d been ridiculous back then, after Cape Town, expecting him to ring me every five minutes, to come back to England to visit me. He’d had better things to do, important things. He’d been out in the world, having adventures, making a difference, bringing the stories of people in conflict and tragedy back to England. I could have listened to him talk all night, but that wasn’t what I really wanted.

‘Where are you staying?’ I asked him when dinner was finished, pushing thoughts of Stewart to the back of my mind.

‘The Randolph,’ he said.

‘Ooh la la.’

‘Yeah, well, I spend most of the year living in fleapits, so I thought I’d splash out. It’s very nice actually. You want to come up and see my room?’

We spent the weekend holed up in Aidan’s hotel room, talking incessantly, drinking champagne and having the best sex I’d ever had. Aidan left on Sunday night, and on Monday I broke up with Stewart. Alex was incredulous. So was Julian. He rang me on the Tuesday.

‘Alex just called,’ he said. ‘I can’t believe you dumped Stewart. He was a nice guy.’

‘It’s all your fault,’ I told him. ‘You should never have given Aidan my address. You know I can’t resist him.’

‘He threatened my Fred Perrys, Nic. What else could I do? In any case, what’s going on with you two now? I hope you’re not expecting anything from him. I love the man like a brother, but you know what he’s like. He’s never around, and even when he is, he isn’t exactly reliable.’ He sounded worried.

‘Of course I’m not expecting anything,’ I replied, although of course I was desperately hoping that this might develop into an actual, full-blown relationship. ‘We’re just taking it slowly.’

‘Good.’

‘And we’re going to spend Christmas together. Me and my mum and Aidan and you – since your parents are off jet-setting again this year. And Charles, of course. And Alex, if she doesn’t go home this year. It’ll be brilliant.’

‘Okay,’ Julian said, still sounding less than convinced. ‘I hope you’re right.’

A few days before Christmas, Aidan rang to tell me he wasn’t going to be able to spend it with us.

‘Things are hotting up in Iraq,’ he told me. ‘The disarmament crisis. We’re going out to Kuwait for a few days, going to cover things from there. I’ll ring you when I get back.’

I didn’t see or hear from him again until the following summer. He turned up in Oxford again a month before I wrote my finals. The prospect of having him back in my life spun my head yet again. I couldn’t concentrate on anything, I spent hours in the library composing cool but sassy text messages to him, instead of reading Beowulf. Two nights before my exams started, Aidan rang to tell me he was going away again, to the Congo. He wasn’t sure how long he’d be, or when he’d be able to get back in touch.

I did not get the first-class degree I’d spent three years working for.

I flick open my laptop to rewrite my resolutions.

New Year’s Resolutions, 2011:

1. Get in touch with Aidan re job offer Talk to old BBC contacts about work



2. Lose half a stone



3. Stop taking the pill (or at least admit to Dom that I’m still taking it??)

4. Repaint the kitchen



5. Sort out things with Dad Make an effort to see Dad regularly – monthly dinners?

There’s one new message in my secret Hotmail account.

Alex to Nicole



Nicole? Are you still there? I have to come to London for work at the end of January. I was hoping I could see you. Any chance?

Nicole to Alex



I don’t think so, Alex.

Alex to Nicole



Please?

Nicole to Alex



I’m not trying to hurt you, Alex. I just don’t think I can see you.

Alex to Nicole



Okay. I love you, Nic. I’ll be thinking of you on Friday.

I close my laptop and ring Dom from my mobile, but it goes straight to voicemail. I leave him a message, telling him I’m sorry that I missed dinner, that I bailed on him at the last minute, but it’s a lie. I’m not sorry, I’m pleased that I came. It was the right thing to do.

I rewrite my resolutions one more time.

New Years Resolutions, 2011:

1. Get in touch with Aidan re job offer Talk to old BBC contacts about work



2. Lose half a stone.

3. Stop taking the pill – or at least admit to Dom that I’m still taking it Be honest with Dom. About everything.

4. Repaint the kitchen



5. Sort out things with Dad Make an effort to see Dad regularly – monthly dinners?