The Making of Minty Malone. Isabel Wolff

Jack,’ I said warily.

      ‘Minty, look …’

      ‘What is it?’ I said, though I knew exactly why he’d called.

      ‘I won’t beat about the bush, Minty. When are you coming back?’

      I sank on to the hall chair.

      ‘I’m not ready yet,’ I pleaded. ‘It’s barely a week. Please, please give me more time.’

      ‘Well …’

      ‘Compassionate leave?’

      ‘You don’t qualify – you’re not bereaved.’

      ‘I am bereaved!’ I moaned. ‘In a way …’ I just couldn’t face them all yet. ‘I’m …bereft,’ I added quietly, swallowing hard.

      ‘I need you here, Minty,’ Jack said. ‘And I think it will be good for you to come back to work. Get it over with. As you know, we’re all very …sorry.’

      ‘That’s what makes it so much worse,’ I wailed. ‘I don’t want your sympathy.’ I was crying now. I couldn’t help it. ‘Dominic took all my dignity,’ I sobbed. ‘Every shred of it. Every last bit. I’d rather he’d have shot me!’

      ‘I’d rather you’d have shot him!’ said Jack. ‘A hundred years ago someone would have done it for you. Would you like me to get up a posse?’ he added. ‘I’m sure I could round up a few willing volunteers to avenge your wounded honour.’

      All at once, I had visions of Dominic being pursued round London by lasso-wielding cowboys, led by Jack, with a shining sheriff’s badge. And at that, I laughed. I laughed and laughed. And I suddenly realised it was the first time I had laughed since Saturday. Then I laughed again, madly, and couldn’t stop. I was hysterical. I was literally hysterical, I think.

      ‘Nine o’clock on Monday, then?’ said Jack brightly, after a pause. I sighed, deeply. Then sighed again.

      ‘Make it nine-thirty,’ I said.

      

      The next day, Saturday, my ‘weekiversary’, I dealt with my wedding dress and shoes. These I took to Wedding Belles, an upmarket second-hand bridal dress agency just behind Earl’s Court. I looked at the ranks of white and ivory gowns rustling on their rails, and wondered what tales they might tell.

      ‘It’s lovely,’ breathed the proprietor, as she inspected it for ice-cream stains and drops of champagne. ‘I should be able to charge £800 at least,’ she went on enthusiastically, ‘so that’s £400 for you.’ Or rather, for Cancer Research. ‘You must have looked fantastic,’ she added as she pinned a label on to the dress. ‘Did it go well?’

      ‘It was sensational,’ I replied. ‘It went without a hitch.’

      ‘And did you cry?’ she asked as she hung it up.

      ‘Oh yes,’ I said. ‘I cried.’

      And that was it. Nothing left. Or almost nothing. Dad had already taken Granny’s tiara back to the bank. All that remained now was Nearly Wed, my bouquet and my veil. So on Sunday evening, at about nine, Amber drove me down to the Embankment, and we walked up the steps on to Waterloo Bridge. Gulls circled, screeching, over the water, and the windows from the office buildings flashed red and gold in the setting sun. A river cruiser passed underneath, and up floated music, voices and laughter. I watched the wake stream out, spreading and widening to touch both banks. Then I opened my bag, took out Nearly Wed and dropped it into the water. Amber and I didn’t exchange a word as I removed my veil, and a pair of sewing shears. She helped me hold it over the rail as I cut into the voile, slicing the fabric into fragments which the stiff breeze snatched away. One by one they flew up, then fluttered down like confetti. Some pieces seemed to go on for miles, dancing up and down over the water like big white butterflies. All that remained now was the bouquet. I looked at it one last time, remembering how happy I had felt as it had lain across my lap in the beribboned Bentley just a week before. The petals were no longer plump and fresh, but hung limp and translucent on their stems. I recalled how much I had been looking forward to throwing it on my wedding day. I would throw it now, instead.

      ‘Go on,’ Amber urged.

      I grasped the posy firmly, pulled back my arm, and hurled it with a force which lifted me on to the balls of my feet. It shot out of my hand and flew down. I heard the faintest splash, then saw it quickly borne away, spinning gently in the whorls and eddies which studded the surface of the river. In a few hours, I reflected, it would reach the open sea.

      ‘Your turn now,’ I said.

      ‘Right,’ declared Amber with a fierce little laugh, ‘I’m going to change my life too!’ She opened her bag, and removed from it a well-thumbed copy of The Rules. She smiled sweetly, ripped it clean in half, then tossed both bits over the side. ‘I’m not interested in “capturing the heart of Mr Right”!’ she yelled. ‘I’m not going to give a damn about being single either!’ she added. At this she took out Bridget Jones’ Diary, and flung it as far as it would go. ‘Bye bye, Bridget Bollocks!’ she called out gaily as it hit the Thames. Then she took out What Men Want. Up that went too, high into the air, then down, down, down. ‘I don’t care what men bloody well want!’ she yelled, to the amusement of a couple passing by. ‘It’s what I want. And I don’t want babies. I don’t even want marriage. But I do want my books to win prizes!’

      Ah. That was a tricky one. I tried to think of something tactful.

      ‘Maybe you’ll get the Romantic Novelists’ Prize,’ I said, with genuine enthusiasm. But Amber gave me a dirty look and I knew that I had blundered.

      ‘It’s the Booker I was thinking of, actually,’ she said tartly. ‘And the Whitbread, not to mention the Orange Prize for Fiction. Of course, I wouldn’t expect to win all three,’ she added quickly.

      ‘Of course not, no,’ I replied. ‘Still, there’s a first time for everything,’ I said, with hypocritical encouragement as we walked down the steps to the car.

      ‘You must understand that my books are literary, Minty,’ she explained to me yet again, as she opened the door. ‘The Romantic Novelists’ Prize is for’ – she winced – ‘commercial books.’

      ‘I see,’ I said, though I didn’t. Because I’ve never really understood this literary/commercial divide. I mean, to me, either a book is well written, and diverting, or it isn’t. Either it compels your attention, or it doesn’t. Either the public will buy it, or they won’t. And the public don’t seem to buy very many of Amber’s. I wanted to drop the subject because, to be frank, it’s a minefield, but Amber just wouldn’t let it go.

      ‘I have a very select, discerning readership,’ she acknowledged, ‘because I’m not writing “popular fiction”.’ This was absolutely true. ‘So I accept that I’m never going to be a bestseller,’ she enunciated disdainfully, ‘because I’m not in that kind of market.’

      ‘But …’ I could hear the ice begin to crack and groan beneath my feet.

      ‘But what?’ she pressed, as we drove up Eversholt Street.

      ‘But, well, writers like, say, Julian Barnes and William Boyd, Ian McEwan and Carol Shields …’ I ventured.

      ‘Yes?’

      ‘ …Helen Dunmore, Kate Atkinson and E. Annie Proulx.’

      ‘What about them?’ she said testily, as she changed up a gear.

      ‘Well, they’re literary writers, aren’t they?’

      ‘Ye-es,’ she conceded.

      ‘And their books are often bestsellers.’

      Amber looked as though she had suddenly noticed an unpleasant smell.

      ‘Clearly,