The Making of Minty Malone. Isabel Wolff

Minty, you are a bit of a twit – you should be wining and dining the bosses whenever you get the chance.’

      ‘Should I?’

      ‘Yes,’ he said, firmly. ‘You should.’

      Dom’s quite ambitious for me, you see. Which is nice. He’s very keen for me to do well at London FM. He thinks it’s about time I was promoted, because I’ve been working there for over three years. And I try and explain that it’s not like that. That there’s no smooth career progression from reporter to presenter. You have to be incredibly lucky for that to happen. Or incredibly well-connected, like our ‘star’ presenter, Melinda. Dom says I should be more pushy. And although I don’t really agree with him – and to be honest, I’m pretty happy as I am – I do like the fact that he’s so interested in my career. You see, I don’t really get that at home. I mean, don’t get me wrong: my parents are great. But they’re not that interested in what I do. Never have been, really. Mum’s priority has always been her charities, and Dad’s always been so involved at work. He works incredibly long hours because he’s got his own firm of chartered accountants. And then my brother Robert’s been living in Australia for the past four years. So no one in the family takes much interest in what I do. But Dominic does. He takes a close interest. And that’s nice. He makes me feel very secure, I suppose. Not just because he’s successful – though he is – but because he’s very good at organising everything. He likes to set the agenda. He’s definitely the one in charge. I don’t mind any more. I’ve got used to it. And most of the time I find myself going along with whatever he wants to do. I suppose I’ve got set in his ways. Dom has a very nice lifestyle; we eat out quite a bit, for example. He likes to go to expensive places, like the Ivy or the Bluebird Café. Which is lovely, and well, why not? He’s got the cash, and it’s fun. And he’s always springing surprises on me – like that lovely three-day cricket match at the Oval, and a super golfing weekend at Gleneagles. Not that I play myself. And fishing, of course. We go fishing a lot. Well, he fishes, I sit on the bank and read. Which I quite enjoy. There are so many nice surprises like that with Dominic. He always knows what he wants, too. He’s very clear about that. And what he seemed to want right from the very start was me. I was a bit taken aback by that, because he’s a very attractive and successful guy. I mean, he could have had anybody. But he chose me, and of course I found that really, really flattering.

      Another good thing about Dom – he’s very practical. And that makes me feel sort of safe with him. For example, he suggested we take out wedding insurance, just in case anything goes wrong. So he sold Dad a policy with Paramutual, which will cover potential disasters such as my dress not being ready in time, or the Waldorf burning down, or flash floods in the Strand. He felt it was important for us to have ‘total peace of mind’ on our big day. And he’s right. Do you know there are even policies to protect newlyweds in case their marital home is burgled while they’re on honeymoon? We didn’t think that was necessary as we won’t be away for very long because Dominic’s so busy at the moment. Between you and me, I’d have loved two weeks in the Caribbean, on Nevis, say, or Necker. Or ten days in Venice – that would have been wonderful. But we can’t do that because Dom won’t fly anywhere. He thinks it’s too risky with our overcrowded skies, and, because of his work – insurance, or ‘Risk-Biz’, as he likes to call it – he is in fact au fait with the crash and fatality records of all the major airlines. So we’re going to Paris, on Eurostar, for four days. Which will be fab. And I don’t mind the fact that I’ve been to Paris eleven times before, because a) it’s a lovely city, and b) I’m sensitive to Dominic’s fear of flying. He can’t help it. You see, he tends to anticipate things that can go wrong. And he’s right. So many unexpected disasters can happen in life, so it’s always best to be prepared. Which is why he persuaded me to fill in a comprehensive prenuptial agreement when we got engaged. I don’t blame him. He’s got a lot to lose. And, of course, we’ve taken out travel insurance for Paris. Just in case.

      Actually, that’s my secret nickname for him: ‘Justin Case’. But I haven’t told him that. I’m not sure he’d find it funny. I did try teasing him once or twice, in the beginning, but it was obvious that he didn’t really like it, so I soon learned not to do it again! But he’s a complete whizz when it comes to business. He’s got a magic touch. That’s how we met. He rang up one day, totally out of the blue, and said he was a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend (I still can’t remember for the life of me exactly which friend it was), and he said there was something ‘very important’ he wanted to discuss with me. He wouldn’t say over the phone what it was, but it certainly sounded intriguing, and he had such a lovely voice, and he was so friendly, and before I knew what had happened, I’d agreed to meet him. Largely out of curiosity. So he offered to come up to my flat in Primrose Hill. And the bell rang, and there on the doorstep was this incredibly attractive man. He was so good-looking I nearly fainted! He was tall, with blond hair – not that wimpy white-blond hair, but a deep, burnished sandy colour, as though he’d just trekked across the Sahara. And his eyes were this startling blue. Like the blue of Sri Lankan sapphires. And he stood there, holding out his hand, and smiling at me – very good teeth, too, incidentally. So I invited him in, and made him a cup of coffee while he asked me questions about my date of birth, my general health and whether or not I smoked or had AIDS, and he made some very flattering comments about my interior décor – even though he confessed not long afterwards that he hadn’t liked it at all! Then he whipped out his laptop computer and a pile of graphs and charts, and looked at me in a very serious and meaningful way which thrilled me to my core.

      ‘Now, Minty, here you are. Here. In 1970,’ he said pointing to the left-hand side of the graph, ‘and you’ve just been born. OK?’ I nodded. I was indeed born in 1970. Then he pointed to the extreme right-hand side of the chart. ‘And here you are again, Minty. In the year 2050. And you’re dead.’

      ‘Oh. Um, yes. Suppose I am.’

      ‘Now, Minty,’ he went on, fixing me with a penetrating look, ‘what are you going to do about it?’

      ‘Do about it? Well, there’s not much I can do really.’

      ‘Oh yes there is, Minty,’ he said with a zealous gleam in his eye. ‘There’s a lot you can do about it. You can protect yourself – and your loved ones – against it.’

      And suddenly, the penny dropped. I don’t know why it had taken so long, I suppose I was distracted by his genial manner and his good looks.

      ‘You’re an insurance salesman,’ I said, and I couldn’t help laughing.

      But he didn’t laugh. In fact, he bristled.

      ‘I’m an IFA, actually,’ he pointed out. ‘An Independent Financial Adviser. And it’s not insurance, Minty. It’s assurance.’

      ‘Oh, sorry,’ I said.

      ‘Now, Minty, I do think you could benefit from my help here,’ he went on with a benevolent smile. And I don’t know what it was, his compelling personality, the way he kept using my Christian name, the heady scent of his aftershave, or his irresistible charm, but before I knew what had happened I had signed on several dotted lines, thereby embarking on a life-long commitment to the Dreddful Accident Insurance Company, the Colossal Pension Fund, as well as purchasing accidental death coverage with Irish Widows. And now here I am, a mere eighteen months later, making a life-long commitment to him too. And I really couldn’t be happier. I mean, Dominic and I just clicked after that first encounter. We really clicked.

      As I say, I find him terribly attractive. You see, I’ve always had this secret thing about blond men. Some women don’t go for them at all, but I’ve always liked them. They’re unusual, for a start, and then they’re so different to me. I look vaguely Mediterranean, with long, wavy, dark hair and eyes the colour of espresso. But Dominic’s the opposite. He’s so fair. So English. I’ll tell you who he looks like: Ashley in Gone with the Wind. Gorgeous. Physical attraction is so important, isn’t it?

      And of course we’re very compatible. Well, we are now. In the beginning we weren’t. I’d be the first to admit that.