One Minute to Midnight Read Online Free PDF Page B

quizzically but he doesn’t say anything. I pick up the box and am about to place it at the back of the wardrobe when a slim slip of paper which has been caught in the folds of cardboard at the base of the box falls out. It drifts to the floor and Dom picks it up. He looks at it, gives a sad little smile and hands it to me. It’s a photo strip, one of those ones you get from booths, four little pictures in a row. Me, Julian and Alex, a tangle of arms around necks, beaming at the camera, gurning, pulling stupid faces, hysterical with laughter. On the back is written ‘London, 1999’. I put the strip back into the box.
    ‘I think I’ll put this one in the cupboard in the bedroom,’ I say. I can feel Dom’s eyes searching for mine.
    ‘I’m going to Oxford tomorrow,’ I tell him in an effort to direct the conversation away from dangerous ground as quickly as possible, ‘I have to talk to Annie Gardner, see if I can get her to do the interview for the Betrayal series.’
    Dom sips his tea. ‘Nic,’ he started, tentatively. I know he wants to say something about the pictures, and I don’t want to hear it.
    ‘We also have to think about the dogs. Shall I take them to Matt’s, or do you have time to do it?’
    ‘Nicole …’
    ‘I could do it on Wednesday.’
    ‘Subject closed then?’ he asks.
    ‘Do you know what?’ I say, ignoring his question. ‘I actually think I feel like coffee. Do you want some?’
    ‘I’m fine with tea,’ he says softly, and goes back to sorting through the notebooks from my previous life.
     
    I leave Dom to sort out the mess in the guest bedroom and decide to tackle cleaning the kitchen instead. There’s nothing I hate quite so much as the thought of domestic drudgery, but actually once you get into it it’s weirdly cathartic. And because it’s so mindless, your thoughts can drift elsewhere. So while I’m scouring surfaces I sketch out a mental plan of the days ahead. Tuesday: interview in Oxford. Wednesday: to Selfridges to find dress for party; hair appointment and manicure in the afternoon; take dogs to Matt and Liz. Thursday: New York, New York …
     
    The final traces of muddy paw prints have just been erased from the kitchen floor when Dom appears, a bulging orange recycling sack in each hand.
    ‘Right, these are all the work notebooks and papers up to 2008,’ he announces. ‘Yours and mine. You sure you’re happy for me to chuck it?’
    ‘Absolutely.’
    He takes the bags into the utility room, the dumping ground for recyclables awaiting collection. Mick and Marianne, spotting an opportunity, burst past him into the kitchen, bits of dried mud flying from the paws as they scamper happily into the warmth of the kitchen. I pretend not to notice.
    ‘Do you want to go out to dinner tomorrow night?’ Dom calls out to me. ‘I was thinking we could invite Matt and Liz? They could stay the night and then take the dogs back with them on Wednesday. Save us having to make the trip.’
    I hesitate. The email. I should tell him about the email. This is the perfect moment to discuss Dad’s email.
    ‘Ummm … Yeah. I’ll be back by four-ish I expect,’ I say. So that’s that. I won’t have time to get to Oxford and Ledbury and back to London by dinner. Dad will just have to wait. And in the meantime, his email can be added to the list of secrets, just one of many, that I am keeping from my husband.
    ‘So I’ll book something shall I? Local? How about that Lebanese place in the village?’
    ‘That’s fine, darling.’
    I glower at the flecks of mud on the floor, now being trodden on and mashed up and smeared across the tiles. There’s a reason I hate housework: it’s so bloody futile. And I remember that I haven’t cleaned the oven, which I probably should have. It’s seen a lot of action over the past few days.
    ‘Nicole?’
    ‘Mmm?’
    ‘Is everything all right?’
    Oh, bollocks to the oven. ‘Yeah, sorry. I was just thinking of Quentin Crisp.’
    ‘I’m