One Minute to Midnight (28 page)

‘Well,’ she slurred into my neck, ‘it’s been a fucking fabulous evening, but I think I’ve had just about enough. I’m off to bed.’

She bent down and picked up her shoes before weaving her weary way out of the room.

‘Jesus,’ I said. ‘What a bloody night.’

Dom didn’t say a word, he was just looking at me, his expression inscrutable.

‘Is Julian all right?’ I asked him.

‘Yeah, he’s fine. He and Karl went off to bed. He said to say he’d do resolutions with you in the morning.’

‘Thanks,’ I said, slipping my arms around his waist and pulling him closer to me. ‘I’m sorry I missed the countdown.’ I kissed him, longer this time, a proper kiss.

‘You can’t help yourself around those Symonds boys, can you?’ Dom asked as he broke the kiss. ‘Julian, Aidan, you just go running …’

‘That’s not true.’

‘You might want to pay the same attention to Alex, Nic.’

I pulled away from him. ‘What do you mean? I care about Alex. You know I care about Alex. And I know she’s having a hard time, I spoke to her earlier—’

‘Hey,’ he said, pulling me back towards him, ‘don’t be defensive. I know you care about her, I know how much you love her. I’m just saying. She seems … really lonely.’

‘Did she talk to you?’

‘A little. She misses you.’

‘I miss her, too. I know I should see her more, but it’s not always easy when I’m spending half my life on the other side of the world.’

‘True.’ There was a little pause, and then he said, ‘Maybe you should try spending more time in England. Let work take a back seat …’

I sighed loudly. ‘Oh, we’re back to this, are we? This is not about Alex, is it? This is about
you
wanting me to travel less …’

He smiled, a guilty little smile. ‘It’s about Alex
and
it’s about me.’

We snuck away from the party and up to our room. I was fidgeting with the hook at the top of my dress, Dom came up behind me, undid it and slowly unzipped me. He slipped his hand inside the dress and around my body, pulling me up against him.

‘I’ve been meaning to ask you something …’ he said softly, turning me around, kissing me on the mouth.

‘Oh yes?’

‘I want you to marry me,’ he said. ‘Will you marry me, Nic?’

I was so shocked by this that I actually jumped. I literally gave a little leap into the air.

‘What?’ I asked him, half-laughing. ‘Are you serious?’

‘Of course I’m serious,’ he replied. He looked a little wounded by my reaction, so I took him in my arms and kissed him.

‘We’ve only known each other two years, Dom,’ I said to him. ‘Don’t you think it’s rushing things a bit?’

‘I knew the first time I met you I wanted to marry you, Nicole. I can’t even remember what my life was like before we met, and I don’t want to think about a life without you.’

‘Dominic …’ I kissed him on the mouth again and began to unbutton his shirt. ‘I love you. I do, but you were at that party tonight. Tell me honestly, which couple would you rather be: Karl and Julian or Mike and Alex?’

‘Mike and Alex aren’t unhappy because they’re
married
, Nic. They’re unhappy because they’re unhappy. We wouldn’t be unhappy.’

‘I like how we are now.’

‘What about living together then?’

‘But I’ve been thinking about buying a place of my own,’ I told him.

‘We could buy somewhere together,’ he pointed out.

‘I think I need the security of my own place, Dom. Plus, buying a house together is a huge commitment.’

‘Nicole, I just asked you to marry me. I
am
committed.’

Later on, just as the sky outside was turning black to charcoal, he asked me: ‘Do you still love him?’ He was talking about Aidan.

‘No,’ I replied. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘I can wait, you know. Even if you do still love him, you won’t for ever. One day, you’ll look at me the way you look at him. I know you will.’

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.