Isabel Wolff - The Making of Minty Malone

‘Sorry about that,’ I groaned.

‘Forget it,’ he said with a laugh. ‘We’ll still win.’ Now my heart was pounding as Joe and Pierre wrestled for the ball again. The excitement was high as it skidded around the pitch, and it was hard to concentrate, because Joe talked all the time.

‘What do you do, Minty?’

‘Oh, er …I’m a radio journalist,’ I said, amazed that he could simultaneously concentrate on the game and converse. ‘What about you?’ I enquired, though I was only being polite.

‘I’m a writer,’ he replied. ‘And where do you work?’

‘London FM. On a magazine programme called Capitalise. ’ ‘Oh, I know it. Current affairs and features.’ Suddenly, Helen’s half-back kicked the ball so hard that it bounced right off the pitch. Play stopped for a few seconds as she went chasing after it.

‘I like Capitalise ,’ said Joe. ‘I listen to it quite a bit.’

‘Do you live in London, then?’ I asked him.

‘On and off,’ he replied. ‘I’m teaching a creative writing course here for the summer, but I’ll be back in London in mid October. Where are you staying?’

Why all the questions? I wondered. And then Helen reappeared with the ball.

‘OK – le throw-in!’ said Pierre.

‘So where are you staying?’ Joe asked again, as the ball bounced on to the pitch.

‘Umm, the George V, actually.’ I didn’t want to explain why. He gave a long, low whistle, then he passed the ball back to me.

‘Le George V. Wow!’

‘Only for four days,’ I said, as I moved my goalie across to counter the threat from Pierre’s centre half.

‘Good save, Minty!’ Joe exclaimed. ‘And when do you go back?’

‘Tomorrow. Tomorrow morning.’

Why was he so inquisitive? I didn’t even know the man. He fired at the goal. And in it went.

‘Thank you! That’s two-one,’ he yelled. ‘Can I give you a ring?’ he said suddenly, as Helen put a new ball down.

‘What?’ I said, as play resumed.

‘Can I call you?’ he repeated. ‘Can I call you when I’m back in London?’

‘Well, I don’t know,’ I replied, surprised.

‘We could play table football,’ he said. ‘We could play at Café Kick.’

‘Oh.’ How forward. And how very depressing , I thought. He was trying to pick me up. He obviously did this all the time. With women he hardly knew. I didn’t need this, I thought crossly. I’d just been jilted, for Christ’s sake. I didn’t want a man ringing me ever again. Humiliating me ever again. Hurting me ever again.

‘Penalty!’ shouted Pierre.

‘Would it be all right if I took your number, Minty?’ Joe asked me again, as he passed the ball back.

‘No.’

‘What?’

‘No, it wouldn’t ,’ I repeated tersely. I struck the ball, hard, and a shout went up.

‘Own goal, Minty!’ everyone cried.

‘’Ad a nice time, luv?’ enquired the driver of the cab I flagged down outside Waterloo. Helen had gone to Holland Park to see her parents.

‘Sort of. Well, not really.’

‘What was it, ‘oliday?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Honeymoon.’

‘Where’s your ‘usband then?’

‘I haven’t got one.’

‘You ain’t got one?’

‘No. He ran away.’

‘ ‘E did a runner ?’ said the driver incredulously. He turned round to face me and almost crashed the cab.

‘Yes,’ I confirmed. ‘During the service. So I went with my bridesmaid instead.’

‘’E did a runner!’

He was chortling and shaking his head.

‘Bleedin’ ‘ell. I ‘ope you never catch him.’

‘I shan’t even try,’ I said.

My spirits drooped like dead flowers as we drove through the dusty streets. My brief holiday was over; reality was rolling in. I could have wept as we passed the Waldorf. And the sight of a church made me feel sick. I thought, sinkingly, of work and dreaded having to return. How would I face my colleagues, and what on earth would they say? I would be an object of pity and derision, I decided as we bounced north. I would be suffocated by their sympathy, choked by their concern.

We drew up outside my flat and I saw the ‘For Sale’ sign. It would have to come down, I realised; I wouldn’t be going anywhere now. And for the first time I felt a flutter of something like relief, because Clapham Common isn’t really my scene. And I knew that the one thing I wouldn’t miss about seeing Dom was that twice-weekly fifteen-stop trip down the Northern Line. Then I realised, with a stab of dismay, that I’d have to retrieve my stuff from his flat. There wasn’t much; very little, in fact, considering that we’d been engaged. Just my toothbrush, an old jacket and some books. Dom said he didn’t want me to leave too much there in case Madge thought we were ‘living in sin’. And I was just wondering how I’d get my things back, and thinking how agonising this would be, when I noticed two bulging Safeway bags leaning against the front door. Stapled to one was an envelope marked ‘Minty’ in a familiar backward-sloping hand. I turned the key in the lock, picked them up, and went into the silence of my flat. I grabbed a knife from a kitchen drawer and opened the envelope with a pounding heart.

I thought this would make it easier for you, Minty. Sorry, but I just knew it wasn’t right. No hard feelings?Best wishes, Dom.

Best wishes! Best wishes? The man who just four days ago I was set to marry; the man whose children I was going to have; the man whose boxer shorts I had washed – and ironed – was now politely sending me best wishes ? And actually, if you don’t mind my saying so, I do have hard feelings, Dom! In fact, they’re as hard as granite or flint. No hard feelings? They’re as hard as an unripe pear. And look how quickly he’d returned my things! Hardly am I back from my honeymoon before I’m bundled out of his life in two plastic bags. Outrageous! After what he did. Outrageous ! For all he knew, I might have thrown myself in the Seine.

Fired up by a Vesuvius of suppressed anger, I tore off my jacket, threw open the windows, and put on my rubber gloves. Others may drink or take drugs to relieve stress. Personally, I clean. So I hoovered and dusted and tidied. I mopped, and polished and washed. In a frenzy of fastidiousness, I even scraped the gunge out of the oven, and wiped the grime from the window panes. Only then, when I’d spent three hours in a state of hysterical hygienicity, did I feel my blood pressure drop.

Now I felt sufficiently calm to confront the wedding presents. Dad had left me a note saying he’d put these in the sitting room. I’d deliberately avoided looking in there, but now I opened the door. Attractively wrapped packages were stacked in vertiginous piles on the sofa and chairs and almost covered the floor. It was like Christmas, without the joy. They were encased in shining silver or pearly white, and topped with tassels and bows. Tiny envelopes fluttered on the ends of curled ribbons and bore the legend, ‘Minty and Dom’. I looked again at the note from Dad. ‘Everyone said you can keep the presents,’ he wrote. ‘They’re for you to do with as you want.’ I had already decided what I would do. I opened each gift, carefully noting down what it was, and who it was from. An Alessi toaster. Dominic had asked for that. It was from one of his clients. Right. Oxfam. An oil drizzler from Auntie Clare. That could go to Age Concern. Some library steps from Cousin Peter – very nice: Barnado’s. A CD rack from Pat and Jo: the British Heart Foundation shop. His’n’Hers bathrobes from Dominic’s old flatmate: Relate, I thought with a grim little smile. An embroidered laundry bag from Wesley: Sue Ryder. Two pairs of candlesticks: Scope. I plodded through the vast pile, mentally distributing the items amongst the charity shops of North London, as bandits distribute their loot. But the most expensive things I kept for Mum, to be auctioned at her next charity ball. The painting that her brother, Brian, had given us, for example. He’s an Academician, so that would fetch quite a bit. A set of solid silver teaspoons from my godfather, worth three hundred at least. Six crystal whisky tumblers bought from Thomas Goode, and the Wedgwood tea service, of course. Mum was more than welcome to that – she’d paid for it, after all, and there was no way I could keep it now.