New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve is a point of convergence for the novel's separate private hopes: Anita Cavanagh seeks escape from a strained marriage, Polly Drayton waits for Robbie Dexter, and Rachel Elliot returns to a party from a visit with Robbie while imagining a future with him. The night moves between a lavish London celebration and the quieter places where Robbie's absence is felt, making the holiday less a simple occasion for renewal than a test of what each character expects from love and companionship.

A Rare Occasion

For Anita, the approaching party is unusual precisely because social invitations have become scarce. She prepares carefully, admiring the effect of newly bought scarlet lipstick and trying to make the short front of her hair look spikier, while remaining dissatisfied with the grey at her temples. The effort carries both anticipation and bitterness: the Robsons' New Year's Eve gathering is a highlight in a year when evenings out have become exceptional. Anita attributes the shrinking social calendar partly to Giles's frequent work trips and to the limited welcome extended to wives attending alone. She also knows that her own drinking and behavior at dinner parties can make her a difficult guest.

Anita has behaved impeccably for two weeks, but looks forward to drinking without counting her glasses or worrying who might be counting them. She has also arranged for Will Raphael to be invited and means to make the most of seeing him. Her wish to attract Will is entangled with anger at Giles: she wants the evening to punish her husband as well as entertain her. Their marriage has repeatedly moved from a painful low point to regretful promises, then through cheerfulness and calm before trouble returns. Anita had found some comfort in the predictability of that cycle, but lately senses that Giles is no longer participating in it. The party therefore begins with an expectation of release that already contains resentment and uncertainty.

Longing Beyond the Party

Rachel's thoughts are elsewhere. During her stay with Robbie, she has secretly put aside her contraceptive cap after they have been intimate, hoping to allow the possibility of pregnancy without telling him. She reasons that, nearing forty, each cycle matters, and that she could manage alone if their future together failed. Yet the secrecy troubles her: at moments she feels she is acting a part, and memories of her confrontation with Nathan Kramer make her wary of saying too much too soon.

On the last evening before she leaves, Rachel and Robbie sit on opposite sides of a fire with their hands linked. Their impending separation sharpens the intimacy of the moment. Rachel raises the subject of godchildren, explaining that she now has four, but Robbie bows his head and does not immediately answer. The next day she must return to a party and a life that has begun to lose its appeal; Robbie faces unanswered messages, unpaid or unsorted bills and estimates, and the work of caring for forty-two pregnant sheep. At the party, Rachel misses the fire and the unhurried days she has spent with him. The holiday's public cheer cannot displace her private wish to return to that life.

Polly, meanwhile, expects Robbie to arrive. On New Year's Eve she is helping in the busy bar below, serving tables as well as assisting in the kitchen, and slips upstairs for a breather. Free drinks and the yearly party make the night familiar, but her hope is fixed on Robbie: she believes that, now the black car has gone, nothing is preventing him from coming. Her expectation rests on six years of history, despite the absence of a Christmas present from him. When her father speaks to her with an unusual gentleness, she is moved, but the kindness does not alter what she is waiting for.

Much later, after the bar has closed to its last guest, Polly goes outside to check that the black car is still gone. She finds no sign of it, then approaches Robbie's van, whose windows are covered in frost, and traces letters on the rear glass with a bare finger. The narrative does not disclose their wording. The small, private gesture follows a night in which she has waited and Robbie has not come, giving the season's promise of togetherness a lonely counterpoint.

The Robsons' Celebration

The party itself is held in an entire restaurant on the south side of the Thames. Its elaborate seafood displays, exotic salads, large flower arrangements, mistletoe and hanging lanterns make the occasion feel lavish, a contrast with the modest standing of its hosts. Guests can dance without blocking the route to the bar or the food, while those outside admire familiar London monuments along the river. This carefully arranged abundance provides a bright public setting for the strains that the characters bring with them.

Giles and Anita arrive already at odds. Earlier, she hurried him while he was getting ready, then apologized and tried to explain the difficult afternoon with the twins and their babysitter. Giles remained withdrawn, and the two travel to the party with little conversation. Among the guests, the small space between them seems to Anita like a much larger separation. Rachel arrives after a telephone call from her parents, who have described their American Christmas and their grandchildren at length. She waits for a pause before attempting to share anything about her own life, a brief reflection of how readily other people's family stories can fill the evening.

Anita links herself between Rachel and Will, teasing Rachel about her renewed relationship with Robbie and openly lamenting her own distance from Giles. Her manner is exuberant, but Rachel suspects alcohol is helping to sustain it. Although Anita engineered Will's invitation, she is uncertain what to do now that he is beside her, and feels a sudden urge to keep him away from Rachel. Rachel's apparent prospects with Robbie—and the possibility that she might become a mother—intensify Anita's envy. Their exchange exposes how the party's flirtation and humor coexist with loneliness and comparison.

Midnight and Its Uneven Promise

After speaking with Robbie by telephone from a booth, Rachel returns to the gathering elated. Their long conversation is full of mutual longing and hopes that neither has fully put into words. She joins a lively table with Anita and Will; Giles has gone home, and Anita speaks of his departure with increasing venom and wit. As midnight approaches, champagne is distributed, and the party's mood turns briefly toward collective celebration.

When asked about resolutions, Anita refuses to offer one. Rachel then describes what she presents as a close friend's experience with a work colleague who made an unwanted advance. The woman fought him off, she says, but is unsure whether to resign: leaving might feel cowardly and let the man escape consequences, while a court case is more than she can face. The account brings an unresolved workplace conflict into the party's lighthearted conversation. Anita responds with humor, and the group joins hands to sing Auld Lang Syne, repeating the lines they remember before embracing one another.

In the bustle that follows, Will shakes Rachel's hand and gently holds her fingers for several moments while Anita leans against his other arm. He asks whether Rachel will reconsider sitting for a photograph, and she agrees. The gesture is modest, but it gives the evening a quieter note of attention and possibility after Rachel's call to Robbie. New Year's Eve thus ends without resolving Anita and Giles's marriage, Polly's disappointment, or Rachel's concealed intentions. Instead, it places these different futures alongside one another: a hoped-for arrival that never happens, a marriage drifting out of its familiar cycle, and a renewed romance whose promise remains only partly spoken.