The Making of Minty Malone

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‘Am I? Oh well, I had some, er …stuff to do,’ he said. Oh. That was odd. ‘I hope your first day back wasn’t too bad,’ he added gently. ‘Thanks for coming in. We need you.’ And he gave me such a nice smile. So I smiled back. And there was a little pause. Just a beat. Then Jack lowered his paper and said, ‘Are you all right, Minty?’ And you know, how when you’re really low, and someone you like and respect looks at you, and asks you if you’re all right? Well, it’s fatal. Before I knew what had happened my eyes had filled.

‘It’s OK,’ I heard Jack say, as I struggled to compose myself. ‘You can cry in front of me.’ I sniffed, and nodded, and then a small sob escaped me, and suddenly my cheeks were wet.

‘Come and sit down, Minty. It’s all right.’ I sat in the chair by his desk, and he opened his drawer and handed me a tissue.

‘I guess you’ll be doing this quite a bit.’ I nodded. It was true. ‘Can I give you a little advice?’ he said softly. I nodded again. ‘It’s simply to try and remember that old expression: “And this too shall pass.”’

No, I thought bitterly. This will never pass. A part of my life has been ruined. I’d been publicly deserted. I’d been ditched. I’d been dumped. I’d been discarded, dropped, dismissed. And it hit me that in the lexicon of rejection, all the words seem to start with ‘D’. Dominic had disowned me. He had disavowed me. He had divested himself of me. He had disappeared. Through a door. Now he was distant. And I thought I’d die.

‘Nothing stays the same, Minty,’ I heard Jack say. ‘And, for you, this won’t stay the same.’

‘It will. It will,’ I sobbed. ‘I’ll never get over it. Never.’

‘You will,’ said Jack. ‘And at least, here, you’re among friends.’ At that, he placed his hand, just for a moment, on mine. ‘Now, how was the awful Mrs Happy Bot?’ he asked, changing the subject.

‘Well, she was …awful!’ I said, dabbing at my eyes, and trying to smile. ‘You know, the usual conceited guff. She’s such a pain.’

‘She certainly is,’ he exclaimed. ‘In fact,’ he added, ‘she’s an absolute fucking pain in the arse!’ And with that we both started laughing. And I suddenly wanted to throw my arms round Jack and thank him for being so nice. He has this cool, sarcastic exterior, but he’s so, so kind. And he’s so attractive, I found myself thinking, not for the first time. I’d had this secret little ‘thing’ about Jack when I first started at London FM. But nothing had ever happened because, well, he was my boss. And then he’d started seeing Jane and, not long after that, I’d met Dom. Still, Jack was lovely. A lovely man. But why on earth was he in the office so late?

‘Aren’t you worried about the time, Jack?’

‘What?’

‘It’s eleven,’ I said, glancing at the large clock on his wall.

‘Is it?’ he said, wonderingly. ‘Oh yes, so it is.’

‘Won’t Jane be worried?’ They’d only been married six months.

Jack didn’t reply. In fact, he seemed to avoid my eyes as he reached for his jacket and put it on.

‘You’re right, Minty,’ he said quietly. ‘Guess I’d better be getting along.’ Then he picked up his paper, and I saw that he’d almost finished the crossword.

‘Yes,’ he said, and he emitted a long, weary sigh. ‘I guess it’s time to go Home, Sweet Home.’

September (#ulink_957cecd3-79a1-538c-a786-a5c013d76d96)

‘What a funny thing!’ screeched Pedro from his domed steel cage. Indeed, I thought, what a funny thing.

I was standing in the kitchen, where a strange sight had just met my eyes. All the cupboards, normally a refulgent white, had turned yellow overnight. They were plastered with primrose-hued Post-It notes. Every single one. They fluttered in the stiff breeze from the open window, like tiny Tibetan prayer flags, except that they tended to be deprecatory, rather than imprecatory, in tone. ‘Snores!’ said one, and then, in brackets, ‘very loudly’. ‘Could NEVER see my point of view’, declared the next. ‘Very poor judgement’, accused its neighbour. ‘Beginning to lose his hair’, alleged a fourth. ‘Just won’t LISTEN!’ snapped a fifth. ‘Putting on weight’, pointed out a sixth. ‘“Selfish”’, announced the note on the freezer. ‘Forgot my birthday’, spat the one on the spice rack. ‘Lousy taste in ties’, trumpeted the one on the tumble dryer. ‘Could be short-tempered’, sneaked the one on the fridge. Everywhere I looked, every vertical surface, bore some unpleasant legend about Charlie. Amber must have used at least five packs.

‘I say,’ squawked Pedro. He emitted a long, low whistle. ‘I say,’ he said again. Then he clawed at the yellow Post-It on his cage (‘Failed Ancient Greek O-level’), before shredding it with his razor-edged beak.

Poor Charlie, I thought as I peeled the one off the toaster (‘Stubborn’), he didn’t deserve all this. I put in two slices of wholemeal bread and turned it up to ‘high’. There was a creak on the stairs, then Amber appeared, framed in the doorway in her velvet dressing gown, like some portrait by John Singer Sargent. What a pity, I thought. All that beauty, marred by bitterness.

‘You’ve got to accentuate the negative,’ she said, slightly sheepishly, as she removed a Post-It from the kettle (‘Complete wimp’) and filled it.

‘You should do it too, you know, Minty,’ she added as she unscrewed the jar of coffee (‘Pathetic’). ‘You’ll find it really helps.’

‘No, thanks,’ I said wearily. ‘It’s just not my style.’

And then, out of curiosity, I tried to imagine what my yellow stickies might say. ‘Jilted me, during my wedding, in front of every single person I know’; ‘Extremely domineering’; ‘Had a violent temper if crossed’; ‘Constantly tried to sell insurance policies to my friends’; ‘Very rude about my mother’; ‘Dictated what I wore’; ‘Criticised what I said’; ‘Undermined me at every turn’. Oh, they would be far, far worse than anything Amber could come up with about Charlie. ‘Shallow’ was another obvious one for Dom, while ‘Deeply neurotic’ also sprang to mind.

Whereas Charlie’s very stable. He really is. He’s also honourable. In every way. He’s the Honourable Charles Edworthy, you see, because his father’s a life peer. And Amber told me that Charlie had been a bit surprised when Dominic had asked him to be his best man, because they hadn’t known each other long, having only met through me. But I knew Dominic well enough to guess the reason at once – he’d thought it would look good in the ‘Weddings’ column of The Times. ‘Best man was the Hon. Charles Edworthy,’ it would say. But that announcement, like my marriage, had been unexpectedly cancelled.

In any case, I knew all the bad news about Dominic. I didn’t need to write it down. It had been tucked into the back of my mind for the best part of two years. But the funny thing is that I’d accepted all those negative factors. It’s not as though I wasn’t aware of them – I was. They troubled me. And though, on the surface, I made out everything was fine, inside I was filled with dismay. So I did what I did at work. I edited the bad things out. I excised them, just as I remove the rubbish from my radio interviews. At work, I review all my recorded material, and then skilfully cut out the crap – all the bits that jar, or don’t fit; the inarticulate, or plain boring parts, the hesitations and the repetitions – I remove them all, so that the end result is smooth and easy on the ear. And that’s what I’d done with Dominic. But why? Why did I? People have begun to ask me that. Well, there’s a complicated answer.

First of all, because I suppose I try to accentuate the positive. See the good things. And there were good things, too, about Dom. He was attractive, and generous, and successful. He was also very ambitious for me, which I liked. And of course he seemed to be very fond of me – though not, as it turned out, quite fond enough. But that’s why I decided that I could live with all his faults. Because I thought he loved me. Because, out of all the women he could have had, he’d chosen me. And that was flattering. Then I’m not the sort of person to make a fuss, however unhappy I feel. As I say, I always like to keep things smooth and ‘nice’. And that’s the main reason why I kept quiet – because I hate confrontations of any kind and I really don’t handle them well. Particularly when it comes to personal relationships. I’m terrified of giving offence. Because if I give offence, then I might be rejected. So I avoid giving offence, like the plague.

That’s why I’m not going to say anything to Amber about the fact that she’s making no attempt to find her own place. Nor am I going to complain about the way she leaves her washing up, despite being here all day. Nor do I intend to bring up the subject of the phone. She spends at least two hours every evening on it, droning away to anyone who’ll listen about how ‘bloody appallingly’ she’s been treated by Charlie. And I do wish she wouldn’t do this, not least because I’d like to use the phone myself.

Amber, meanwhile, had opened Pedro’s cage, and he was now perched on her shoulder, affectionately nibbling her hair. They’re very alike, I suddenly thought. Birds of a feather, in fact. They’re strikingly good-looking, attention-grabbing, profoundly irritating and time-warped.

‘Super, darling!’ screeched Pedro, as she handed him a sunflower seed.

‘I wish you’d learn how to say, “Charlie’s a bastard,”’ she said to him with a regretful air. This is extremely unlikely. a) Pedro was very fond of Charlie, and b) he hasn’t added a single word to his vocabulary since 1962. He’s like an old record in that way, and the needle is well and truly stuck.

‘He’s going in the next novel,’ Amber said, with a smile.

‘Who, Pedro?’

‘No, Charlie, of course.’

‘Oh dear. As what?’

‘As an effete toff called Carl Elworthy who turns out to be a serial killer!’

‘Poor chap,’ I said.

‘What do you mean, “Poor chap”?’ she retorted, as she applied bitter orange marmalade to my toast. ‘Poor me, you mean.’ She bit into it with a loud ‘crunch’, then tore off a tiny piece for Pedro. He took it daintily, then his bulbous, black tongue ground it around his beak, like a pestle in a mortar.

‘What a bastard,’ she said again.

I wanted to tell Amber the truth – that I didn’t blame Charlie at all. That I thought she was over the top. But I didn’t because I’m a bit frightened of Amber, just like Charlie was.

‘Scary, isn’t she?’ he’d once whispered to me, slightly tipsily, at a drinks party.

‘Oh yes!’ I said, surprised at his candour. ‘I mean, well, you know, a bit!’ And then we’d both blushed guiltily, like conspirators, and gone, ‘Ha ha ha!’

‘We’re going to get over this, Minty,’ Amber added, as Pedro waddled down her arm. ‘We’re going to forget men,’ she said. ‘We’re not going to bother with the bastards at all. In fact, we’re going to enjoy ourselves without them, we’re going to …’

‘Celibate?’ I said wryly.

‘No, cerebrate,’ she announced happily. ‘We’re going to cultivate the life of the mind!’ She stirred her coffee excitedly then buttered my second piece of toast. ‘The key words for us, Mint, are Protect, Pamper and Improve – with the emphasis firmly on “Improve”. And we’re going to spend time with women, too, Minty. Clever women. I know,’ she went on enthusiastically, ‘let’s start an all-women’s book club! They’re extremely fashionable – Ruby Wax is in one, and so are French and Saunders. We could call ours the BBBC.’

‘What’s that?’

‘The Brilliant Broads Book Club!’

‘I say!’ Pedro squawked.

‘We could have really intellectual evenings, with plenty of booze thrown in! We could hold them here!’ she exclaimed. ‘You don’t mind, do you, Mint?’

‘Oh! Well, no, all right, if you set it up,’ I said as I picked up my bag. ‘I haven’t got time to organise it myself. And – Oh Christ, I’ll be late for work!’

‘Constipated? Then take Green Light for inner cleanliness …’

Oh God, not this one again, I thought, an hour later as I sat at my desk chewing the rubbery breakfast roll I’d bought in the canteen.

‘Just one little Green Light and you’ll be raring to GO! Only £3.95 from all good chemists. Or £5.95 for economy size.’

All of a sudden Jack appeared. He was tense. We knew this, because he was twisting a length of yellow leader tape in his hands.

‘Meeting!’ he barked. ‘And you’d better have lots of ideas after our impressive performance in the ratings.’

We all knew about this – it was plastered over the front page of Broadcast. ‘London FM Loses Grip! Audiences Right Down!’ We’d slumped by a disastrous 10 per cent in the quarterly figures compiled by RAJAR. We trooped into the boardroom, where Jack was fiddling with the speakers, trying to eliminate the incessant sound of the output. It’s like trying to cope with an unwanted guest, babbling away nonstop.

‘Do YOU have athlete’s foot? Then try Fungaway, the topperformance treatment for toe fungus of every kind. Fungaway works by –’ Click. Jack had found the switch. Silence. Thank God for that.

Then Melinda’s face lit up. ‘I know!’ she said. ‘Celebwity diseases!’

‘What?’ we all said.

‘Celebwity Diseases!’ she announced. ‘We could make it a wegular spot!’ She then went on to explain that this Hollywood actor had herpes, and that director was said to have AIDS, and she’d heard that a well-known British soap star was known to have chronic piles, and why didn’t we do a weekly feature in which the stars would discuss their ailments?

‘Great idea, Melinda,’ said Jack. ‘We’ll give it the thought it deserves.’

Melinda beamed, and shot me an excited smile.

‘Anyone else?’ said Jack.

This time, shaken by the declining audience figures, we had come fairly well prepared. Newspapers and magazines had been read, Time Out and Premiere studied, the Celebrity Bulletin had been scrutinised, and the Future Events List given more than a glance.

‘– London Fashion Week.’

‘– Tall Persons convention.’

‘– New show by Theatre de Complicité.’

‘– Alternative health exhibition.’

‘– Royal Opera House – new crisis.’

Half an hour later we had come up with enough feature ideas and suggestions for studio guests to fill the next three editions of the programme. We’d bought ourselves some time.

‘Minty’s piece about marriage went down well with the listeners,’ Jack went on. ‘We’ve had lots of letters asking us to do more social affairs stories like that. So I’d like Minty to compile a series of in-depth features, and we could run one every week. Right. What are the big social trends of the moment?’

‘Um …singleness?’

‘– Divorce.’

‘– Family breakdown?’

‘– Child support.’

‘– Nursery provision.’

‘– Late motherhood.’

‘– Fertility treatment,’ added Sophie. ‘The first test-tube baby, Louise Brown, is twenty-one this year,’ she went on knowledgeably. ‘We could use that as a peg to look at what reproductive science has achieved since then.’

‘Minty could interview Deirdwe!’ said Melinda happily.

‘Why?’ said Jack.

‘Because evewyone knows that Wesley’s been twying to get her pwegnant for years!’

’– er, anyone seen my stopwatch?’

‘– good piece in the Guardian about Fergie.’

‘– we really should do something about the cleaners.’

‘– see Prisoner Cell Block H last night?’

‘I know a vewy good fertility doctor, Wesley,’ Melinda went on benignly. ‘Not that I needed him myself!’ she added with an asinine laugh as she tapped her bulging middle. ‘I’ll wite his name down for you,’ she pressed on with tank-like persistence, as she groped in her bag for a pen. ‘It’s Pwofessor Godfwey Barnes.’

‘It’s quite all right, Melinda,’ Wesley replied, curtly. ‘I’m sure I’m quite capable of getting Deirdre pregnant in the conventional way.’ It was a good retort, but I doubted it was true. I remembered Deirdre confiding in me at the London FM Christmas party that her lack of a baby was entirely Wesley’s fault.

‘It’s certainly not my eggs,’ she’d whispered, as we sipped cheap Frascati out of plastic beakers. ‘I had my ovaries checked out and they’re fine. Absolutely fine. My eggs aren’t scrambled at all,’ she went on with a tinkling laugh.

‘Oh, well, good,’ I said, feeling slightly embarrassed that she’d chosen to share this information with me.

‘The doctor said it’s all shipshape,’ she continued. ‘Even though I’m thirty-nine. He said it must be Wesley’s sperm.’

‘Oh dear.’

‘It’s lazy,’ she giggled. ‘A bit like him! But he refuses point-blank to come to the clinic.’

‘Well, I hope he changes his mind,’ I’d said. What else could I say? Poor Deirdre. She was laughing about it, but she was clearly very sad. I felt sorry for her. She was nice. And she’d lived with Wesley for eight years, with neither a wedding ring nor a child to show for it. And this must have been all the more galling for her, because she was the supervisor at their local Mothercare. No wonder she always looked so dowdy and downbeat.

‘No, weally, Wesley, this doctor’s jolly good …’ Melinda was carrying on, impervious to our embarrassed coughs, while Wesley’s face radiated a heat I could almost feel.

‘Thank you very much, Melinda,’ said Jack. ‘Meeting over. Sophie, would you ring publicity, and tell them to make sure that all the radio critics know about Minty’s series.’

Half an hour later, Jack and I had drawn up the plan for my Social Trends slot. It would be hard work, I reflected as I returned to my desk; but that was a good thing because then I’d have no time to think about Dominic. What’s more, it was a good career move, and might take me closer to my professional goal.