And with that we counted down to midnight, and more champagne corks popped, and cheesy or not I did feel like things were coming together for us, for Julian, Alex and me. And for the tiniest fraction of a second that made me nervous. And then Dom kissed me and I forgot all about my nerves and realised that for the first time in ages I didn’t really have anything to worry about.
After midnight, Julian grabbed a blanket from the mezzanine that served as the bedroom space, and he and I snuck away, back up to the roof, to exchange resolutions. We sat side by side on the deckchairs, the blanket draped over our knees.
‘Well,’ Julian said, ‘obviously I’m going to quit smoking.’
‘And I’m going to lose half a stone.’
‘I’m going to start keeping a journal.’
‘Oh a
journal
. Not just a diary.’
‘A journal, darling. To form the basis of my memoirs.’
‘Excellent. And I am finally going to get my refugee pitch ready for the BBC.’
‘That’s brilliant, Nic, it’s about time.’
There was a noise behind us, a clattering, as someone else climbed up the fire escape. Then there was a thud, the sound of someone falling, followed by soft cursing.
‘Jules? You up here?’
My stomach did a little flip. I’d know those soft Glaswegian tones anywhere.
‘Julian?’ the voice called out again.
‘Oh shit,’ Julian said, getting to his feet. ‘I’m over here.’
I turned around and saw Aidan swaying through the darkness, a hip flask clutched in his hand.
‘Happy New Year,’ he said when he saw us, raising the flask to his lips, before breaking into a tuneless version of ‘Auld Lang Syne’.
Even in the firelight, I could see he didn’t look good. Paler, thinner, haggard almost. Even more dissolute than usual. He smiled at me.
‘Hello, Nic,’ he said. ‘You look pretty. Don’t I get a kiss?’
‘I’m going back down,’ I said to Julian. I climbed over the pot plants and pulled my arm away when Aidan tried to grab hold of me as I went past.
‘You never wrote back!’ He called out after me. ‘You could have at least replied.’
After Paris, I’d seen him only once, when I went back to the flat on Queenstown Road to pick up my stuff. He tried to talk to me then, but I refused, I ignored him as best as I could and when he wouldn’t let me be, when he insisted that we talk, I screamed at him and shoved him out the door. A couple of months later he wrote to me, telling me how sorry he was, how much he’d loved me, how – as he’d told me on the boat that night – he’d never meant to fall for someone else, he’d never meant to hurt me. He told me how I’d always hold a special place in his heart. That made me gag; he could at least have tried to avoid cliché. I never wrote back to him. I didn’t think he deserved it. I kept his letter though, and every now and again, when I was feeling low or had had too much to drink, I got it out, just to torture myself. Like picking at a scab, I wouldn’t let the wound heal.
Downstairs, Karl was hovering near the front door looking nervous.
‘I didn’t know what to do,’ he said to me when he saw me. ‘I’m sorry, Nicole, but I couldn’t exactly tell him Julian wasn’t here …’
‘It’s okay,’ I said, giving him a hug. ‘He’s just a bit pissed. I’m sure he’ll leave in a bit.’ Dom was sitting on the sofa, looking at me questioningly. I shook my head as I approached.
‘It’s nothing,’ I said, but my hands were shaking as I picked up my glass of wine. I looked over at Alex who mouthed, ‘Okay?’ at me.
There was a clattering from outside, they were coming back down.
‘I’ll put some music on, shall I?’ Karl said brightly, and everyone agreed, a little too enthusiastically. Outside, in the hallway, I could hear Julian trying to persuade Aidan to leave.
‘We’ll talk tomorrow, okay? Later today, whatever.’
‘But I want to see your new gaff …’
‘Not now, Aidan. It’s not a good time.’
‘Just a quick peek …’ And there he was, reeling through the door. ‘Fucking hell Jules! What did this place cost? It’s a fucking palace!’ Craning his neck to get a look at the height of the ceilings, he stumbled into the room, knocking over a lamp as he went. Julian put an arm out to steady him, he brushed it away. ‘All right, Karl!’ he called out, ‘All right there, Alex? And er … I don’t think we’ve met?’ he said, holding out a hand to Dominic.
Dom got to his feet, introduced himself, shook Aidan’s hand. Aidan was standing there, swaying slightly, trying to focus.
‘You the new guy are you?’ he asked Dom. My heart fell ten storeys.
‘I’m sorry?’ Dom replied politely.
‘It’s okay, it’s okay,’ he said, waving a hand in Dom’s direction. ‘You’ve done well, mate. You’re a lucky man.’ Dom gave me a quizzical look; I just shrugged helplessly.
‘All right, Aidan, I think that’s enough …’ Julian said, grabbing his arm and pulling him towards the door.
I went immediately to Dom’s side and slipped my hand into his, whispering ‘Sorry’ into his ear.
‘So that’s the ex is it?’ he asked softly. ‘Seems … interesting.’ He was smiling but there was a tautness about his jaw and a colour to his cheeks that betrayed his irritation.
‘He’s just drunk,’ I said, slipping my arms around his waist.
‘Aah, look at that. Aren’t you two cute?’ Agonisingly, Julian still hadn’t managed to manhandle Aidan out of the flat. He was standing in the doorway, looking back at us. ‘I mean it, mate. You’re a lucky man. She’s gorgeous, isn’t she? Isn’t she gorgeous?’
At last Julian pushed him out of the door and closed it behind him.
Chapter Thirteen
28–29 December 2011
WE’RE IN BED by eleven. Dom falls asleep with
The Economist
on his chest at about eight minutes past. I have terrible sleep envy with Dom: he passes out almost instantly and will sleep a solid eight hours without waking every night. The sleep of a man with a clear conscience, I suppose. No surprise then that it always takes me ages to drop off, and once I do I always seem to wake up forty minutes later busting for a pee.
I try to read for a while, but I just keep getting to the end of the page and realising that I have no idea what just happened, because I’m not really reading, I’m running over the events of the day in my mind. Dad, Mum, the argument with Dom … I turn off the bedside lamp, roll onto my side and lie there in the dark, watching him sleep. I love him so much, the thought of anything happening to him, just the thought of him being sad or hurt, makes me feel physically ill, and yet I still don’t feel that I love him like I ought to. Can you just make a decision to love someone the right way? Is it just a force of will? If I could just let go of everything else, I could be happy. Happy enough, anyway. Contented. Isn’t contentment enough to be getting on with?
A little after midnight I give up. Sleep isn’t coming. I creep downstairs and pour myself a Scotch. I sit in the kitchen with the lights off, sipping my drink. I finish it and pour a second. I listen to the two answer-phone messages from Aidan; the one from before Christmas and the one from yesterday. I notice that there isn’t much whisky left in the bottle, so I decide that I may as well finish it off. I click on Aidan’s message again, I go to ‘options’. Return call? I click yes. I let the phone ring twice, end the call and switch off the phone. Why didn’t I hide my caller ID? Idiot that I am.
I pour the rest of the Scotch down the sink and go back to bed.
At two-fifteen, sleepless and desperate, I get up again. I take my laptop downstairs and read through my emails from that afternoon. Spam, mostly, plus a message from Play TV, the production company behind Betrayal. It was from the head of factual and features, the subject line read
Sex it up!
Hi Nicole, hope you’ve had a pleasant festive season. Just wanted to say, that I’ve seen the preliminary notes and interview footage on
Betrayal
and, while I think you’re heading in the right direction, it needs sexing up. This Annie woman is a great case study – but we need the sister in the programme too – what does she look like? Hopefully a bit less mousy. We need to get the husband involved, stoke things up a bit. Which one was better in bed? At the moment it’s just a bit too worthy, it needs spicing up. We’re not making Dispatches here, this is for Channel 5.
Other than that, great. I’ll talk to you in the New Year.
Best wishes,
Paul.
I hit reply.
Dear Paul,
I had a very pleasant Christmas, thanks very much.
Regarding
Betrayal
, I find your suggestion that we try to play the sisters off against each other and goad the husband into revealing the sordid details of their sex lives repellent. You can take your stinking programme and shove it up your arse.
Best wishes,
Nicole.
I move the cursor to the ‘send’ button, let it hover there a moment. Then I move it on to ‘discard message’ and click. If only. If only I had the courage. I’m pretty sure I used to. The old Nicole wouldn’t have hesitated to tell that idiot where to go.
The old Nicole wouldn’t even have considered getting involved with this kind of project. The old Nicole had principles, and stuck by them, even when she risked losing everything. The old Nicole once told her boss to go fuck himself. She’d said it loudly and clearly, in front of the entire office.
This was in the summer of 2002. I was still working for Breakthrough, the company that had given me my first big break, via Simon Carver, the man I met on the boat on that awful night in Paris. We were working late, just me and my fellow assistant producer and all-round dogsbody, Joanne. The two of us were in charge of organising a trip to Gujarat in India – the company was producing a film about Muslim-Hindu violence in the province. It was up to us to book the air tickets, organise cars, drivers, translators, handlers – that kind of thing. As was always the case, we’d been assigned this task at the very last minute and were racing against time.
We were just considering whether we’d earned the right to order ourselves a pizza on expenses when an inebriated Simon came thundering into the office, his face ruddy with drink. He’d been in the pub for a good few hours, watching England play Sweden in the World Cup.
‘Absolutely fucking useless,’ he’d bellowed as he came through the door. ‘Every single bloody last one of them.’
Jo and I exchanged amused glances.
‘Not a great match then?’ she asked him.
‘Bore draw. Bunch of overpaid, overrated wankers … Bring me a drink, will you Jo? There’s a bottle of Chenin blanc in the fridge in the kitchen.’
There was always wine in the fridge in the kitchen, and Scotch in the cupboard, a bottle of vodka in the freezer … Simon functioned best when lubricated. Or so he said. From my desk under the bank of TV screens in the centre of the open plan section of the office, I watched Jo, a diminutive blonde with a perfect hourglass shape, carry a glass of wine into Simon’s office. He was sitting at his desk, slouched forward with his chin propped up in his hands, glowering at the screen of his PC, directly in my line of vision. I watched as Jo approached with the wine, which she placed on the desk next to his elbow, I watched as casually, lazily, he reached out his left hand and groped her on the arse. I saw her react, shocked and angry, pushing away his hand and then I watched as he got to his feet, shoved her hard against the desk, his face inches from hers. I couldn’t hear what he said to her. She wriggled away from him and ran out of his office and out of the room.
The next day, I went with Jo to make a formal complaint to Gerry Marsters, the company’s chief executive. He listened to us, nodding his head gravely, expressing shock and sympathy in all the right places; and then he told us that Simon had already spoken to him about it, and he had apologised, and he was prepared to apologise to Joanne, but that would be the end of it. There would be no further disciplinary action. Jo and I were so utterly gobsmacked, we didn’t even protest. We left the office and went to the pub for lunch.
‘Apparently they went to Harrow together, Simon and Gerry. And they shared a house at Cambridge,’ Jo told me. ‘I should’ve known I’d never get anywhere with him.’
‘Sodding old boys’ network,’ I muttered, gulping down my gin and tonic. ‘You’ll have to sue.’
Jo looked uneasy. ‘I’m not sure I can afford it, Nic. And even if I won, that kind of stuff … well, it doesn’t look great on the CV, does it?’
‘You could at least threaten to sue,’ I suggested. ‘Maybe then Gerry will actually do something about Simon.’
‘That might work,’ Jo said, but she looked doubtful.
She was right to be doubtful; it didn’t work. Gerry laughed at the suggestion of a lawsuit.
‘You go ahead, love, if you want to. Good luck with that. Just don’t expect to be hired to work in TV again. Little girlies who cry sexual harassment just because someone patted them on the arse aren’t particularly attractive to employers …’