One Minute to Midnight Read Online Free PDF

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    ‘Nicole,’ he says when he picks up. ‘This is a ridiculous waste of money.’
    ‘I’ve got five hundred free minutes,’ I protest. ‘I never use them.’
    Dom is downstairs, in his study, a little annex off the living room on the ground floor of the house. Yes, it may sound like I’m being lazy and profligate but it’s actually not that easy getting in and out of my office. Access is via a step ladder which has a tendency to slip and slide about, posing considerable risk to life and limb, not to mention fingers, which are liable to get jammed in the hinge as it moves. Despite its inaccessibility, I love my office. It’s tiny, you can barely move in here, but from the Velux window there is the most amazing view across the common, a view that changes month to month, week to week, a view that never bores me. Also, even though Dom’s not exactly towering in stature, he’s still too tall to stand up in here, so it’s the one place I retreat to and he can’t follow me. And sometimes you just need that.
    ‘What’s up?’ Dom asks.
    I want to tell him about my dad, I want to ask his advice, but for some reason I just can’t. I can’t bring myself to say the words because I know that when I say them out loud I’m going to cry. And I don’t want to cry over him. I’ve done more than enough of that over the years.
    ‘I think we should make a start on the Christmas decorations,’ I say instead.
    ‘You phoned me to tell me that?’ Dom asks, incredulous. ‘You do realise that if you’re going to help me take down the decorations you are going to have to leave your study and come all the way downstairs? Or are you just phoning me to issue instructions?’
    ‘I’ll be down in a sec,’ I say, hanging up.
     
    Some people find the taking down of the Christmas decorations to be a depressing ritual, but I can’t say that I do. If I’m honest, I’ve always preferred New Year’s Eve to Christmas. Christmas is cosy and familial; New Year’s Eve is thrilling, filled with possibility, the scent of pastures new, the opportunity to start afresh, to push the boundaries. And to wipe the slate clean, of course. To put yesterday away, somewhere it can be forgotten.
    Dom and I pack lights and decorations into boxes and ferry them upstairs to the wardrobe in the spare room, which was specially cleared for the arrival of Dom’s parents. Its usual contents – books, papers, files full of old credit card and bank statements, notebooks from Dom’s old cases and my old assignments – have been temporarily transferred to our room, where they were hidden under the bed so that his mother doesn’t realise how disorganised we are. Dom stows the decorations on the top shelf, I start bringing the rest of the junk through.
    ‘We really ought to sort through all this stuff,’ Dom says, ‘I’m sure a lot of it can be thrown away.’
    ‘Not this week, Dom. We don’t have time. When we get back.’
    ‘Let’s just do it now. May as well now we’ve got it all out. Won’t take a minute.’
    I sigh, plumping my lower lip out. ‘It’ll take forever.’ He gives a little shrug, the way he does when he thinks I’m being difficult. ‘Oh, all right then,’ I say. ‘You get started, I’ll make the tea.’
     
    By the time I get back upstairs, Dom’s sitting cross-legged on the floor, two boxes at his side, their contents strewn around him. He’s flicking through a notebook, shaking his head.
    ‘What is it?’ I ask, handing him the tea.
    ‘No bloody idea, your handwriting’s illegible.’
    I glance at the notebook over his shoulder. ‘Look at the front, it’ll have a date on it.’
    ‘November 2004. Madrid? Does that say Madrid?’
    ‘Yeah, that one can go. Anything up to about 2008 can go.’ I grab a third box and flip open the lid. It’s full of papers. Letters, postcards. I close it again.
    ‘What’s in that one?’ Dom asks.
    ‘Just stuff. Nothing I want to throw away.’
    Dom is looking at me