Читать книгу The Making of Minty Malone - Isabel Wolff - Страница 6

‘’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.

In fact, I wasn’t going to keep anything. Not a thing. Miss Havisham might have turned herself into a living shrine to her day of shame, but I would do the reverse. There would be no reminders of my wedding: no yellowing gown, no mouldering cake – not so much as a crumb. I would divest myself of everything associated with that dreadful, dreadful day. I would remove every trace, as criminals attempt to eradicate the evidence of their crimes. I went and looked at my wedding dress again. The dress I hadn’t even liked. The dress I had bought to please Dom. It was hanging, heavily, in its thick, plastic cover on the back of my bedroom door. And on the chair were my satin slippers, wrapped in tissue, and placed side by side in their box. And the bouquet was laid out on the windowsill, where it was already drying in the warm summer air, and the sequins on my veil sparkled and winked in the rays of the late evening sun.

On the bedside table were some Order of Service sheets. I picked one up, sat down on the bed, and turned it over in my hands. ‘St Bride’s Church, Fleet Street, London,’ it announced in deeply engraved black letters; ‘Saturday, July 28th’. And beneath, on the left, ‘Araminta’, and then ‘Dominic’ to the right. There were also two boxes of confetti. Unopened. At these, I almost cried. But I didn’t. Instead I found myself thinking about Charlie, and about how well he’d tried to cope, and how awful it had been for him too, and how decent and good he is. And I thought how lucky Amber is to have him. He would never have done what Dom did. It’ll be their turn next, I reflected, enviously, as I wrapped tissue paper round my veil. But their wedding will be joyful, I thought, unlike my cruel and shambolic day.

In my study were three boxes of embossed ‘thank you’ cards, engraved with my new married name. So on each one I Tippexed out Lane, and wrote ‘Malone’ instead. Alone, I realised bitterly. I thought it best, in the circumstances, to keep the messages brief, though in certain cases, I did mention Paris and how delightful I’d found the George V and how nice it was of Helen to come with me and how we’d sort of enjoyed ourselves, in a funny sort of way. But I avoided saying how ‘useful’ I was going to find their spice racks, or their milk frothers, or their hurricane lanterns, because it wouldn’t have been true. They were all destined for other hands. And I must have been sitting there for about two hours I suppose, writing card after card after card, when it happened. The tears came, and I couldn’t see to write any more. I was just so angry. So angry. It possessed me like a physical pain. How could he? How could he have hurt and humiliated me so much? And then just casually dropping off my things like that and suggesting there’d be no hard feelings?! No hard feelings?

I did what I had resolved not to do – I picked up the phone. I’d speak to him. I’d bloody well let rip with a few hard feelings. He’d be dodging my hard feelings like stones. My heart was banging in my chest as I started to dial. 01 …I’d tell him what I thought of him …81 …I’d been so good to him …9 …even inviting his …2 …bloody clients to my …4 …bloody wedding – people I’d never even met. And Dad picking up the bill for all this …5 …without so much as a word …2 …3 …And then Dom just running out of church as though he were leaving some boring play. By now I burned with an incandescent fury that would have illuminated a small town. I’d never take him back after what he’d done to me. I was white hot. I was spitting fire I …I …Christ! Who was that?

The doorbell had rung, and was ringing again, hard. I slammed down the phone. Dominic! It was Dominic! He’d come to say that it was all a terrible mistake and to beg my forgiveness and to tell me that he would wear sackcloth and ashes for a year – no, two – if only I would take him back. I wiped my eyes and hurtled downstairs. Dominic! Dominic! Yes, of course I’ll have you back! Let’s wipe that slate clean, Dominic! We can work it out. I flung open the door.

‘Domin– Oh! Amber!’

‘Oh, Minty!’ she wailed. She staggered inside and flung her arms round me. ‘Oh, Minty,’ she wept. ‘It was so awful!’

‘Well, yes it was,’ I said. ‘It was terrible.’

She was sobbing on to my shoulder. ‘I don’t know how he could do that.’

‘I know.’

‘It was such a shock.’

‘You’re telling me!’

‘Such a dreadful thing to do.’

‘Yes. Yes, it was. Dreadful.’

‘Woof!’

Oh God, she’d brought Pedro, I realised. Her parrot. And then I thought, why has she brought Pedro? And why is she here at ten p.m. with Pedro and a weekend bag?

‘Amber, what’s going on?’

‘It’s …it’s – Charlie,’ she sobbed.

‘What’s happened to him?’

‘Nothing’s happened to him,’ she howled. ‘It’s what’s happened to me. Oh, Minty, Minty – I’ve been dumped!’

There’s nothing like someone else’s misery to make you forget your own. I don’t really like to admit this, but Amber’s anguish instantly cheered me up. Even though I’m terribly fond of her, and have known her all my life. She staggered inside with her stuff, and sat sobbing in the kitchen. Pedro was squawking in the sitting room – I’d decided to install him in there because he’s an incredibly noisy bird and our nerves were on edge.

Great fat tears coursed down Amber’s cheeks as she told me what had occurred. It was all because of me, apparently. Or rather, it was because of what had happened to me in church. I suppose you might call it the Domino Effect – or perhaps the Dominic Effect.

‘When Charlie heard Dom say those things to you, about not being able to make those promises, it really affected him,’ she explained between teary gasps. ‘He said he knew then that he could never make those promises to me.’

‘But you’ve always seemed so happy.’

‘Well I thought so too,’ she wept, throwing up her hands in a pietà of grief. ‘I mean, I was happy.’

‘I know.’

‘But Charlie was so shocked by what Dom did to you that the next day he blurted out that we’d have to break up too.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Because he said he knew he could never do such an awful thing to me. So he said it had to come to an end, now, before it went too far, because …because …He says we just don’t have a future.’ Her large green eyes brimmed with tears, then overflowed again.

‘Why does he say that?’ I asked, intrigued.

‘Because of the children,’ she howled.

‘What children?’

‘The children I don’t want!’

Ah. That. The baby issue. It’s the big issue for Amber. Or rather, there isn’t going to be any issue, because Amber has never wanted kids.

‘But he knew how you felt about having children, didn’t he?’

‘Oh yes,’ she said, pressing a tear-sodden tissue to her bloodshot eyes. ‘He’s always known, but he was hoping I’d change my mind. But I’m not going to. And he should respect that, because it’s my choice. But he can’t see that,’ she wailed. ‘Because he’s so selfish! He says he wants to have a family. Bastard!’

‘Er, that is quite an important …’ I said tentatively. ‘I mean, I always assumed he knew your views and didn’t mind.’

‘Well, he does mind. He’s always minded; and we’ve been together two years. And he said if I still don’t want kids, then we’ve got to break up, because he’d like to find someone who does.’

‘Hmmm, I don’t entirely …’

‘And so we had a huge row about it,’ she went on. ‘And I pointed out that I’m not a bloody breeding machine and he should want me for myself!’

‘I see …’

‘But he won’t accept that.’

‘Ah …’

‘So I told him that in that case he’d have to move out,’ she went on. ‘And he said, “But it’s my flat.”’

‘Oh yes. So it is.’

‘So I came straight round here, Minty. Because I need somewhere to stay. Is that OK? Just for a bit.’

‘Er …of course.’

‘Thanks, Mint.’ Her tears subsided. ‘Gosh, it looks clean in here.’

I always thought Amber should have bought her own place. She should have done it years ago. It’s not as though she didn’t have the cash. She did. We both did. Granny was loaded, you see. Her books had made her rich. And when she died, we were each left eighty grand. Robert used his to emigrate to Australia; I put mine towards this flat. But Amber invested hers very cleverly so that she could live off the interest, leaving herself free to give up the day-job and write. She’s a novelist too, like Granny. She bangs one out every year. And although she’s only thirty-three, she’s already written eight. But where Granny wrote good romantic fiction, Amber’s are harder to define. For example, her latest book, A Public Convenience, is a sort of political mystery. It was published six weeks ago, but I don’t think it’s done very well. She’s already halfway through her ninth novel, which will be published next June. Apparently this one’s an ‘unusual’ love story, set in an abattoir. Anyway, Amber had always rented before she moved in with Charlie, and that’s why she needed somewhere now.

I have the space – my flat’s quite big. And in any case, I’d never have refused. We’re first cousins but we feel more like sisters, probably because our mothers are twins. But to look at us you’d never guess that Amber and I were related. She has a shining helmet of honey-blonde hair and enormous, pale green eyes. She’s absolutely gorgeous, in a foxy sort of way, with high cheekbones that taper to a pointed chin. She’s slim, like me, though taller. Much taller. In fact, she’s six foot one. But she likes her height. She’s proud of it. No slouching or stooping there. She’s rather uninhibited. And she’s very clever. Well, in some ways she is. She’s also extremely well read. You can tell that from the way she talks. It’s Thackeray this, and Dr Johnson that and William Hazlitt the other, and, ‘As Balzac used to say …’ She reviews books too, occasionally. It doesn’t pay much, but it keeps her ‘in’ with the publishing crowd. Or what Dominic liked to call ‘Lit-Biz’.

Anyway, I gave her the spare room, which isn’t huge, but it’s fine as a temporary measure, and she installed her things in there. And of course she had to bring Pedro – I understood that. They’re inseparable. And although he’s rather annoying, I’m fond of him too, in a way. He reminds me of Granny. And that’s not just because Granny had him for so long, but because he sounds exactly like her.

‘Oh, super, darling!’ he likes to say. And ‘No! Really?’ in a scandalised tone of voice. ‘I say!’ he squawks sometimes, like an avian Terry Thomas. Or, ‘What a funny thing!’ – Granny used to say that all the time. He’s got her cackling laugh too. Down to a tee. It’s shattering, and so authentic that I find myself saying, ‘What’s so funny, Granny?’ although she’s been dead for six years. Whenever the phone rings he says, ‘Oh, hello’ – like that. And then, ‘How are you?’ And, ‘Yes …yes …yes …’ in a desultory sort of way. When he’s not having one-sided telephone conversations, he whistles, and screeches and – this is really annoying – he barks. Whenever he hears the doorbell, he emits a volley of soprano yaps because that’s what Granny’s Yorkshire terrier, Audrey, used to do.

Pedro’s a Festive Amazon, just over a foot long, with peagreen plumage, a blue and red cap, and a vivid, scarlet waistcoat which is only visible when he spreads his wings. Granny bought him in Colombia in 1955, when she was doing the research for An Amazon Affair. She’d stopped at a little town called Leticia, on the border with Brazil and Peru, and in the market was a man selling young parrots which were crammed into crates. Granny was so appalled she bought Pedro, and brought him home on the plane. He spoke very good Spanish in those days – he’d picked it up in the market. He could say, ‘Loros! Hermosos loros! Comprenme a mi!’ – Parrots! Lovely parrots! Get your parrots here! And ‘Page uno, lleve dos!’ – Buy one, get one free! He also used to shout, ‘Cuidado que pica!’ – Watch your fingers! and ‘Cuanto me dijo? Tan caro!’ – How much? You must be fucking joking! He’s forgotten most of his Spanish now, though I think it might come back if we practised it with him. He loves really authoritative female voices – Mrs Thatcher’s, for example. He used to shriek with excitement and bob up and down whenever he heard her speak. These days Esther Rantzen tends to have the same effect. Anyway, he and Granny were inseparable for almost forty years. And when she died, we didn’t know how he’d cope. But in her will she left him to Amber – ‘An Amazon for an Amazon,’ she wrote wryly – and luckily, though parrots are loyal to one person, Pedro adapted well. In fact, they adore each other. He likes to ride around on her shoulder, and nibble her blonde hair, or listen to her reading out bits of her latest book.

Anyway, Amber and I have always been very close, so the next morning she offered to drive me round London while I disposed of the wedding gifts. She said she didn’t mind, and that she’d welcome any distraction from her distress. She’d looked awful at breakfast, obviously hadn’t slept, and she kept trying to put the sugar in the fridge.

‘Are you sure you can concentrate enough to drive?’ I asked.

She nodded. ‘I’ll be fine.’

‘Woof! Woof!’

We’d already had the post – who on earth could that be? I opened the door to find a man standing there with a huge bouquet.

‘Miss Amber Dane?’ he enquired, as I stared at the profusion of pink roses.

‘No,’ I replied. ‘But she’s here.’ I signed the proffered delivery sheet and carried the bouquet into the flat. The cellophane said ‘Floribunda’. How odd. Why on earth would Helen send Amber flowers?

‘They’re from Charlie!’ Amber screamed, grabbing the tiny white envelope. ‘It’s his handwriting, and he wants me back. It’s only been a few hours, but he’s already realised he’s made a dreadful mistake.’ She ripped open the envelope and removed the small, rectangular card. She read it in a flash, then I saw the light fade in her eyes.

‘He should have sent a wreath,’ she said bitterly, handing the card to me.

‘I’m really very sorry it had to be like this,’ Charlie had written. ‘I do hope you’re all right, Amber, and that you’ll wish to be friends one day.’

And I thought, Dominic didn’t send me flowers. Dominic didn’t offer me the hand of friendship. Dominic offered me nothing but a few of my possessions stuffed into two plastic bags.

‘I can’t bear to look at them,’ said Amber, as she picked up her car keys and bag. ‘I’ll give them to the hospital.’ So we went first to the Royal Free, where she left the bouquet at the reception, then we got on with the task in hand. We had to make a total of five trips because there were so many wedding presents and Amber’s car is very small. Her black Mini hovered like a fly on the double yellow lines while I dived in with the gifts. I felt like Lady Bountiful with a horn of plenty as I distributed my brand-new luxury goods. Cut glass and kettles and picnic rugs flowed forth from my outstretched arms.

‘Don’t you want this?’ said the woman in the Red Cross shop as I handed her an exquisite Waterford bowl.

‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘I don’t.’

Amber was a bit aggrieved about the Antonio Carluccio truffle-grater and the River Café Cookbook, but I wouldn’t relent – it all had to go. Every item. Every atom. And as we drove round Camden and Hampstead her mood began to lift. And she went on and on about what a bastard Dominic was and how she’d like to kill him for what he did to me. And then she went on about what a bastard Charlie is, too, which isn’t true at all. And I don’t blame him for dumping Amber, though I’d never dare say that to her. So I tentatively asked her if she was sure she wasn’t making a mistake with Charlie and that she wouldn’t one day change her mind.

‘Of course I’m sure,’ she snapped. ‘Do you really think I’d want to go through that? It’s barbaric!’ And then she went on and on, again, about the awful things that happen when you’re pregnant. The nausea and cramps, the swollen ankles and the varicose veins. ‘The heartburn and the thousand natural shocks,’ as she likes to put it, not to mention the haemorrhoids and hair-loss.

‘Basically, Minty, a foetus is a parasite,’ she declared as we pulled away from the kerb. ‘It will suck the calcium out of your teeth, the iron out of your blood, and the vitamins from your food. It’s like a fast-growing tumour, taking over your body.’ And then she went on about the horrors of childbirth itself. The pain of parturition: the screaming, the stitches and the blood. But worse than any of these, she says, is the loss of mental power.

‘It is a well-known fact that a woman’s brain shrinks during pregnancy,’ she said, with spurious authority, as I got into the car again.

‘Well, yes, but not by the 70 per cent you claim,’ I replied, as we set off. ‘I think that statistic may be, you know, not quite right.’

‘I’m sure it is right,’ she said, pursing her lips and shaking her head. ‘I have a number of extremely intellectual friends who, the minute they got pregnant, took out subscriptions to Hello!’

And then she started talking about Dominic again and what a ‘total shyster’ he was and how, if it hadn’t been for him jilting me, Charlie would never have dumped her. I didn’t agree with this analysis, but obviously I didn’t say so. I never argue with Amber. I’ve never really argued with anyone, though I’m beginning to think I should. And then she went on and on about how she’s going to put Dominic in her next book. And I said, ‘Please, Amber, please, please don’t.’

‘Oh, don’t worry,’ she said with a sly smile as we hurtled home. ‘I’ll do it very subtly.’

Subtly? Amber has all the subtlety of a commando raid.

‘No, really, Minty, I’ll disguise him totally,’ she went on in that pseudo-soothing way of hers. ‘I’ll call him Dominic Lane, thirty-five, a blond insurance salesman from Clapham Common, so no one will know who he is!’ And she laughed maniacally at this as she jumped another red light.

That’s just the kind of thing she would do, though. Because the truth is, she doesn’t disguise people at all. It’s appalling. I don’t know how she gets away with it. For example, I featured in one of her books, Fat Chance, as ‘Mindy’, a frustrated radio reporter with ambitions to be a presenter. She’d even given ‘Mindy’ my long curly dark hair and the same address in Primrose Hill. Mum was in the next one, The Hideaway, which was a sort of Aga-saga set in London W9. And of course everyone knew it was Mum. In fact, Amber made it so obvious I don’t know why she didn’t just call the character Dympna Malone and be done with it. And when Mum and I eventually said that we’d really rather not be in any more of her books, thanks, because, well, we’d just rather not, she went into her usual spiel about how she was only creating ‘composites’ and how no one could possibly think it was us. And we’d heard that convenient, self-serving lie so many times before.

‘Why don’t you try using a little, you know, imagination, dear?’ Mum suggested sweetly. ‘Next time, why don’t you just try and make the characters up?’

Amber gave Mum this funny, and not particularly friendly look, while I stared at the floor.

‘Auntie Dympna,’ she said seriously, ‘I’m a novelist. It’s my job to “hold the mirror up to nature,” as the Prince of Denmark himself once put it.’

‘Yes, but it’s a metaphorical mirror, dear,’ Mum pointed out without malice.

At this, Amber picked up one of her books and opened it at the second page. ‘“This novel …”’ she announced, reading aloud, ‘“is entirely a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events or localities, is entirely co-incidental.” Entirely,’ she added, pointedly.

So that was that. At least we haven’t come off too badly in Amber’s books, though I don’t think Mum enjoyed being portrayed as an eccentrically dressed, late middle-aged woman, indiscriminately raising money by highly dubious and quite possibly criminal methods for any charitable cause she could lay her hands on. But it’s worse for Amber’s exes. She’s terribly hard on them. In they all go. Unfavourably, of course, as paedophiles, axe-murderers, benefit cheats, adulterers, gangsters, drug-dealers, hairdressers and petty crooks. Totally defamatory. I’m amazed they don’t sue. Too embarrassed, I suppose, to admit it might be them. I guess this is what Amber banks on, but one day her luck will run out.

Still, even though there are certain, well, tensions, there, I like having her around. At the moment we help staunch each other’s wounds. Hand each other hankies. Try and make each other eat – I’ve lost six pounds since Saturday, and my hips are starting to show.

Amber’s making Charlie pay to have all her stuff sent over in a van. She said that as he’d dumped her, he’d have to pay to get her out. So on Friday a white transit van pulled up in Princess Road and out came box after box. Loads of books, of course, and her computer; three pictures, and a couple of lamps; a bedside table and an easy chair, and several suitcases of clothes. And there was kitchen equipment too. I felt sorry for her as she took the things in, with tears streaming down her face. I was a bit concerned, to be honest, about where it would all go. Well, she’ll only be here for a while, I told myself. And I’ve a big half-landing, and a shed.

‘Hello!’ squawked Pedro. The phone. Dominic! I picked it up. Dom –!

‘Minty …’ My heart sank. It was Jack.

‘Hello, 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, Minty,’ she said, as the speedometer touched fifty-five, ‘you know nothing about contemporary fiction. No, I’m really going to go for it,’ she vowed as we hurtled through our third red light. ‘I’m simply determined to break through.’

As for me, I’d decided I was simply determined to survive.

‘Erectile problems? Try – NIAGRA!’ said the cheery pseudo-American voice-over artist as I pushed on the revolving door. I entered the building, flashed a smile and my ID at Tom, then walked slowly up the stairs. London FM’s output poured forth from every speaker; it’s a bit like pollution – hard to avoid. It’s in the reception area, the corridors and the lifts. It’s in the boardroom and the basement canteen. It’s in every single office, and the stationery cupboard. It even seeps into the loos.

‘So remember – NIAGRA! Get out £9.99 and get it UP!’

Delightful, I thought, as I studied my pale reflection in the Ladies on the third floor. And then I thought, oh dear. You see, whenever London FM is going through a bad patch, the ads get worse and worse. In fact, they act as an unofficial barometer for the station’s health, which is not very good right now.

‘Unsightly fat on your upper arms?’ enquired a solicitous female voice. No, I thought as I lifted them up to brush my long, dark hair. ‘Ugly dimples on hips and thighs?’ I gazed at my shrunken middle. Nope. ‘Introducing the new Bum and Tum Slim – THE fast, effective way to lose inches.’ I don’t want to lose any more inches, I thought – I’d lost half a stone in a week.

I glanced at my watch, and a sharp surge of adrenaline began to make my heart race. Nine thirty. No putting it off. I’d have to go in and face them all now. At least then it’d be over with, I thought wearily, as I picked up my bag. The staring. The stifled titters. The sudden silences when I walked by; the giggles by the coffee machine, the furtive conversations by the fax.

Breathing deeply, I walked through the newsroom, passed the sales department and went into the Capitalise office. Mayhem met my eyes. Once again, the cleaners had failed to show. Books and papers spilled across desks; wastepaper bins overflowed. A spaghetti of editing tape lay on the floor, while an upturned cup dripped tea on to the carpet. In one corner a printer spewed out sheets of script which no one bothered to collect. Where was everyone? I wondered. What on earth was going on? Then, from the adjacent boardroom came a shrill, familiar voice, and I realised that the planning meeting had started early. I opened the door and crept in. Good. They were too busy arguing to notice me.

‘CWAP!’ screeched Melinda Mitten, our ‘star’ presenter, and I marvelled yet again at how a woman with a serious speech impediment could have become a professional broadcaster. Actually, there’s a simple explanation for this: a) her uncle owns the station and b) her uncle owns the station. He’s Sir Percy Mitten, the hosiery king. Very big in tights. And his stockings were always said by those who knew to be the ‘denier cri’. But two years ago he sold Pretty Penny for, well, a pretty penny, and decided to buy London FM. Like many a business baron he wanted to move into the media, and owning a radio station had become de rigueur. Once derided as brown-paper-and-Sellotape outfits struggling to survive, commercial radio stations had acquired a certain cachet. In fact, they were the ultimate accessory for the successful industrialist with his eye on a seat in the Lords. And so we turned up for work one day to find we’d been the target of a takeover. Our owners had sold us, like a used car, to the Mitten Group. No one had had a clue. Not even Jack. It was a fait accompli. He’d been informed about it on his mobile phone as he made his way into work. For a while, chaos reigned. No one knew what to expect. Words like ‘rationalisation’ and ‘belt-tightening’ were bandied about like balls. Anyone over thirty-five was told to expect their cards. Bob Harper, ‘the voice of London FM’, was summoned and summarily sacked and, the next day, Melinda arrived in a Porsche and a cloud of Poison.

‘Hello, evewyone,’ she’d said amiably. ‘I’m the new pwesenter.’

In the event, apart from Melinda’s arrival, life remained remarkably unchanged. There was gossip about us in Broadcast, of course, and there were also dark mutterings about Jack. Some claimed he had lost his authority and should have fallen on his sword. But he was forty, a dangerous age in an industry driven by youth. I was very relieved that he stayed. It was Jack who’d given me my first break. I didn’t know anything about radio – I’d been teaching for five years – but all of a sudden I got the broadcasting bug, and so I pestered Jack. I wrote to him, and got a rejection letter. I wrote again, and got another. Then I went round to London FM, just behind the Angel, and asked his assistant, Monica, if he’d see me. She told me he was too busy. So I went back again the next day, and this time, he agreed. Monica showed me into his office. Jack was sitting staring at his computer. He was in his late thirties, and he was very attractive.

‘Look, I don’t mind seeing you,’ he said, after a minute. ‘But, as I told you, I don’t have any vacancies. In any case, I only employ trained people.’

‘Can’t you train me?’ I asked.

‘No,’ he said firmly, ‘I don’t have the money.’

‘Well, how much does it cost?’

‘That’s not the point,’ he said, slightly irritably. ‘It’s not even as though you’ve been a journalist.’ This was true. I wasn’t exactly an enticing prospect. ‘Whenever I appoint someone,’ he explained, ‘I have to justify that choice to Management. And I’m afraid I just don’t have the budget to run a kindergarten for beginners.’ He handed me back my CV. ‘I’m very sorry. I admire your persistence, but I’m afraid I really can’t help.’

‘But I want to be a radio journalist,’ I said, as if that were all the explanation that was required. ‘I really think I’d be good.’

‘You haven’t got any experience,’ he countered wearily. ‘So I simply can’t agree.’

But I’d stayed in there, trying to make him change his mind. Looking back, I’m astonished at my boldness. In the end, he’d nearly lost his temper. He had shown me the Himalayan pile of CVs lying on his desk. He’d made me listen to the show-reels of three of his top reporters. He’d told me to try my luck making coffee at the Beeb. But, like Velcro, I had stuck.

‘I’ll work for nothing,’ I said.

‘We’re not allowed to do that,’ he replied. He leaned towards me across his huge, paper-strewn desk, hands clasped together as if in prayer. When he spoke again, he was almost whispering. ‘You can’t edit tape; you’ve never interviewed anyone; you’ve no idea how to make a feature, and you wouldn’t know a microphone from a baseball bat. I need competent, talented, experienced people, Minty, and I’m afraid that’s all there is to it.’

‘OK, I know I’m not experienced, but I am very enthusiastic and I’d learn very quickly if you’d just give me a chance, and you see, I’ve been reading this book about radio production, so I already know quite a lot.’

‘A book?’ he said, wryly. ‘Very impressive. Right,’ he said, with a penetrating stare, ‘what are “cans”?

‘Headphones.’

‘What does “dubbing” mean?’

‘Copying.’

‘“De-umming”?’

‘Taking out all the glitches – the ums and ah’s.’

‘What about “wild-track”?’ He had picked up a piece of yellow leader tape and was twisting it in his hands.

‘Er …background noise, like birdsong, or traffic.’

‘More or less. What’s “popping”?’

‘Distortion on the microphone.’

‘OK. What are “bands”?’ He had swivelled round in his chair and was tapping something out on his computer keyboard.

‘Edited speech inserts,’ I said.

‘What’s a “pot-cut”?’ He went over to the printer, which started up with a high-pitched whine.

‘An early coming-out point on an insert, when a live programme is running short of time.’

This quiz was starting to get me down. He tapped something out on his computer.

‘What does “i.p.s.” mean?’

‘Inches per second.’

‘Very good. What’s a “simulrec”?’ And now he was printing something out.

‘I really haven’t the faintest.’ This was ridiculous.

‘The same interview recorded in two different places and edited together later.’ He was scanning the page with his eyes.

‘What’s a segue?’ he asked.

‘Oh, I don’t know.’ I didn’t like this. I was on my feet.

‘Music or speech which follows on from something else without an intervening explanatory link.’ He folded the printout in two. ‘What’s a “Lyrec”?’

‘I haven’t a clue,’ I said. ‘And I don’t really care any more.’

‘It’s a portable reel-to-reel tape-recorder, rather oldfashioned but still used for OB’s. What’s an “OB”?’

‘An Outside Bloody Broadcast,’ I said, sweeping up my bag from the floor. ‘These are just boring technical terms,’ I said. ‘I don’t have to know them. I want to be a reporter, not a sound engineer. I’m sorry to have bothered you. I think I’ll try somewhere else.’ I reached for the door handle, but Jack was holding that piece of folded paper out to me. I took it and opened it up.

‘Right,’ he said. He was behind his desk, staring at me with his dark brown eyes. ‘That’s a news despatch about the environmental protest in Lambeth. There are plans for a hypermarket there, with a new link road, and the eco-warriors are creating.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘In fact, my Moth-’ I bit my lip. I decided to keep Mum out of it. ‘It’s been in the papers,’ I said.

Jack clasped his hands behind his head, and leaned back in his chair.

‘I want you to go down there and collect some material. I want some wild-track of the bulldozers, and a few vox-pops from the protesters – no more than six – which will accompany an interview we’re running tomorrow. My assistant Monica will get you a tape-recorder,’ he said, as he turned back to his computer. ‘Make sure you hold the lead still so that it doesn’t crackle, and keep the mike no more than a hand-span away from your subject’s mouth. When you get back I’ll find a spare producer to help you cut it down.’ He looked at me, seriously. ‘I expect you to mess this up a bit, because you’ve never done it before. But if you screw it up completely, I don’t want to see you again.’

That’s how I got started. And because Mum was there, collecting for the pressure group Eco-Logical, she knew all the campaigners and helped me get some really good quotes. Jack was happy with what I’d done, so he gave me a freelance reporting shift. Then, a week later, he gave me another. And then another. Soon, I began to compile longer pieces, quite complex ones – they took me ages to begin with. Sometimes – though I’d never tell anyone this – they took all night to do. Then, a few months later, it happened: one of the staff reporters was poached by Channel 4 News and there I was, on the spot. That was three years ago. My life seemed complete. I had fallen in love with radio; and then I fell in love with Dominic too.

‘That weely is cwap!’ Melinda screeched again, as I sat down in the boardroom on my first day back.

‘I thought Wesley’s idea was rather good,’ Jack said.

‘Oh, thanks, Jack,’ simpered Wesley. ‘Do you really think so?’ And then Wesley noticed me, and smiled.

‘Oh, hel-lo, Minty,’ he said. Then his features folded into an expression of sympathetic concern. ‘Minty, look, I’d just like to say –’

‘Wesley!’ Jack cut in. ‘Kindly tell us all who you would invite into the studio for this item on astrology.’

‘Well,’ he began. ‘Well …’ Wesley never has any ideas. His mind was clearly as empty as the Outback as he pursed his lips, then stared at the floor.

‘How about an astrologer?’ Jack prompted crisply.

‘Yeah!’ said Wesley. ‘Fab! Brilliant idea. There’s that woman from the Weekly Star …’

‘Sheryl von Strumpfhosen?’ I offered.

‘Yeah. Thanks, Minty.’

‘She’s no good,’ I added bitterly.

‘Minty, look,’ said Wesley, ‘I’d really just like to say-’

I felt my face redden, and my heartbeat rise, but Jack deflected him again.

‘What other ideas do you have, Wesley?’

‘Well …’ Wesley began. ‘Well …’ He ran a limp hand over his balding head, then fiddled with the top button of his polyester shirt. He cast his watery blue eyes to the ceiling, and made funny little sucking noises with his teeth, but inspiration clearly eluded him.

‘Anyone else?’ said Jack tersely. Silence. As usual, none of the producers had a clue. They always leave it to Sophie, our new researcher. She’s just out of Oxford, ferociously ambitious, and as sharp as broken glass.

‘Sophie, are you prepared to help your clueless colleagues?’ said Jack.

She consulted her clipboard, tucked her hair behind one ear and pushed her wire-rimmed glasses up her nose.

‘There’s a report out today on drug-taking in schools,’ she began crisply, ‘and there’s another appeal being launched to save Bart’s. I see from the publishing catalogues that a new biography of Boris Yeltsin is published this week, so I’ve put in a bid for the author, and of course the shortlist for the Turner Prize is being announced in three days.’

‘Excellent,’ said Jack. ‘Anything else?’

‘Yes, I’ve spoken to Peter Greenaway’s publicist and I’ve set up an exclusive interview pegged to his new film. We’ve also got another special report coming down the line from the Edinburgh Festival.’

‘Good,’ said Jack. But Sophie hadn’t finished.

‘There’s been yet another resignation at the Royal Opera House; and I’d like to draw everyone’s attention to a very interesting new survey on the declining popularity of marriage,’ she went on enthusiastically. ‘The statistics show that marriages have fallen to an all-time low, so I thought we could get Minty to compile a report on “the myth of wedded bliss” – it’s an absolutely fascinating subject, you know-’

Jack opened his mouth to intervene, but Melinda got there first:

‘How can we possibly ask Minty to do that?’ she enquired indignantly. ‘The poor girl’s just been JILTED!’

My face reddened and my bowels shrank. Bloody Melinda. Stupid cow. Then, to my horror, Melinda stood up, and placed two fat, richly bejewelled hands across her vast stomach.

‘I’d like to say that I think we should all be vewy kind to Minty,’ she announced, ‘because she’s just been thwough something tewwible. Something weally, weally, humiliating. And I just want to say, Minty, that I think you’re VEWY BWAVE!’ She had finished. She sat down and beamed at everyone, as though expecting a round of applause.

In the embarrassed silence they all looked at the floor, while I tried to remember when Melinda’s maternity leave was due to start. It wasn’t that long now. Two or three months? I couldn’t wait. And then I looked at her again and I thought, Amber’s right. She’s right about the horrors of pregnancy, and here was the living proof. Melinda’s fat, bare legs were veined like dolcelatte; she needed iron girders in her bra; short and plump to begin with, she looked as though she’d swallowed a tractor tyre. Particularly in those defiantly tight maternity clothes she sometimes wears. Today a skimpy T-shirt was stretched over her epic bulge. ‘Let Me Out!’ it read. No, let me out, I thought. And she’s a really terrible broadcaster. She can’t say her ‘R’s, for a start. And she makes so many fluffs – it’s appalling. You could stuff cushions with them. I mean, she’s always mis-reading her script. Spoonerisms, in particular, abound. Here are a few she’s slipped up on recently: ‘Warring bankers in the City’; ‘The shining wits of New Labour’; and twice now she has managed to mispronounce the ‘Cunning Stunts’ theatre company, despite extensive practice beforehand. We all cringe – and the letters of complaint that we get! But it’s all water off a duck’s back to Melinda. She thinks she’s marvellous. The cwème de la cwème. Well, she’s certainly rich and thick. I mean, who but Melinda would have welcomed David Blunkett into the studio with the cheery salutation, ‘Hello, David! Long time no see!’ But if there’s the slightest whiff of criticism of her, she goes bleating to Uncle Percy. In the end, that’s why everyone tolerates her. We simply have no choice.

‘Vewy bwave,’ she muttered again, then gave me an earnest sort of smile.

You see, the fact is, she likes me. That’s the awful part. Probably because she relies on me to write her cues. She’s useless, you see. Especially when it comes to current affairs. For example, she thinks Bosnia Herzegovina’s the Wonderbra model. Nor is she much better on cultural things. In May she astonished Ian McEwan – and all of us – by describing him as ‘one of Bwitain’s finest Shakespearwean actors’. Anyway, because she’s so hopeless, she’s forever asking me for help. And though I don’t like her, I’ve always obliged. Why? Because I’m nice. That’s what everyone says about me. ‘Minty’s really nice.’ ‘Why don’t you ask Minty?’ I hear them say. ‘She’ll help you,’ and, ‘Oh, just take it to Minty.’ ‘Oh, no, Minty doesn’t mind,’ they add. But actually, Minty does mind. Minty minds rather a lot. That’s what nobody realises. And though I smile and nod, inside I’m in a rage because, recently, I’ve started to realise that I’m fed up with being nice. The fact is my colleagues exploit me. They really do. And it’s beginning to get me down. Wesley’s the worst. He never edits his interviews down in time, and then he rings me from the studio half an hour before he goes on air and says he’s way over and please would I come and cut six minutes out of this feature, or five and a half out of that, and so I stand there, with my heart banging like a drum, slashing tape against the clock. I could really do without the extra stress, but somehow I can never say ‘no’.

‘Vewy bwave,’ muttered Melinda again. And then her eyebrows drooped theatrically, and she flashed me this compassionate smile.

But I was determined to salvage my pride. I was determined to keep my vow. I was determined not to cave in. I was determined, determined to come through.

‘I’m perfectly happy to compile that piece about attitudes to marriage,’ I said stiffly. ‘Why on earth would anyone think I’d mind?’ They all shifted uncomfortably in their seats.

‘OK, then,’ said Jack, ‘do it, and we’ll run it tomorrow. But don’t forget Citronella Pratt.’ Damn! Citronella Pratt! I’d forgotten. Quelle horreur – and on my first day back.

‘Do I have to?’ I said, backtracking. ‘I’d rather chew tinfoil.’

‘I’m afraid you do,’ said Jack. ‘You know how it is.’

Yes, I do. You see there’s one thing I don’t like about working in commercial radio and that’s the constant concessions we have to make to our sponsors and advertisers. For example, Mazota cars advertise regularly on London FM and, believe it or not, this affects our news priorities. Balkan massacres, Middle Eastern airstrikes and catastrophic earthquakes are wiped off the bulletins if there’s anything about road pricing, or taxation on company cars. It’s sickening, and I suppose it’s corrupt; but we just have to live with it and remember that old adage about the piper and the tune. And Citronella Pratt, a right-wing housewife with a column in the Sunday Semaphore, falls into this category too. We often interview her for our programmes. Not because we admire her brain, which is mediocre, or her views, which are venomous, but because her husband is the chairman of Happy Bot, the nappy manufacturer which sponsors our weather reports. So to keep Mr Happy Bot happy, we have to interview his wife. And she would know if we used anyone else, because she listens to us all the time.

‘Sorry about that, Minty,’ said Jack, as the meeting broke up. ‘Just a quick Citronella soundbite will do.’

I went over to my desk, which had been borrowed during my absence and left in a terrible mess. I began to clear up, then realised that someone was standing over me. It was Wesley and he looked distraught.

‘Minty, I’d just like to say –’

‘What?’ I said, as I took my portable tape-recorder out of the top drawer.

‘I don’t know how he could do that,’ he went on miserably, shaking his balding head. ‘How could anyone do that to you?’

‘How could anyone do that to anyone?’ I said quietly, as I slotted in a clean cassette.

Wesley stood a little closer. ‘You’re so wonderful Minty,’ he whispered.

Oh God, no. No, not this.

‘You’re so attractive …’

Please. No. I’d forgotten that my newly single status meant that I’d be fighting off boring old Wesley again. When I was with Dominic he’d at least had the decency to stop.

‘I know you rejected me before,’ he went on, with a martyred air, ‘but I just want you to know that I’m still here for you.’

‘Thanks, Wesley,’ I said disinterestedly, as I plugged in the microphone. ‘Testing, one, two, three, four, five. Hey, who’s been using my tape-recorder? The batteries are almost flat!’

Wesley had now perched on the edge of my desk as I did my best to ignore him.

‘Dominic wasn’t right for you, Minty,’ I heard him say as I put in four new Ever-Readys. ‘And look how he’s let you down.’

‘I’m not discussing it,’ I said, rather sharply. ‘Anyway, I’ve got far more pressing things on my mind, like this feature, which I have a day to prepare.’ I got out my contacts book and turned to ‘M’ for marriage. Wesley glanced round the office to make sure he couldn’t be heard.

‘I’d do anything for you, Minty,’ he murmured, ‘you know that.’

‘Then please let me get on with my work,’ I replied. But he didn’t seem to hear.

‘I’d even leave Deirdre for you.’ Oh no. Not that again.

‘I don’t think you should,’ I said with uncharacteristic firmness as I picked up the phone. ‘In fact, Wesley, I strongly advise you against any such course of action!’ Wesley looked a bit shocked at my spiky tone of voice, and, to be honest, it surprised me too. I wouldn’t normally have been so sharp, I realised, as I began to dial.

‘Deirdre’s just not very …exciting,’ I heard Wesley say. This was true. They were a perfect match. ‘But you’re wonderful, Minty,’ he droned. ‘You’re so clever, you’re such fun –’

‘Leave me alone please, Wesley.’

‘You’ve always been the girl of my dreams, Minty,’ he whined, with a wounded air. ‘Why won’t you give me a chance?’

‘Because – Oh, hello, is Citronella Pratt there? – because I’ll never give anyone a chance, ever again.’

In the long run I was grateful to Jack for making me come back to work. I had very little time to think about Dominic as I rushed round London that first day, collecting material for my feature. I interviewed two couples who preferred to cohabit; a divorcee who refused to remarry; a woman who was happily single, and a spokesperson from the marriage charity, It Takes Two.

Then, with a sinking heart, I went to interview Citronella Pratt. I’d left her until the end, so that I could truthfully say I was short of time. I always sit there, like a prisoner, an expression of polite interest Grip-fixed to my face, while she drones on about the success of Mr Happy Bot, or the new car they’re buying, or the wonderful villa they’re doing up in Provence, or the prodigious progress of the infant Sienna.

A pretty girl, who I knew to be the nanny, opened the door of the Pratt homestead in Hampstead, a rambling Victorian house in a road leading up to the Heath. ‘Leave us, please, Françoise!’ said Citronella, as though the girl were a lady’s maid. And this surprised me, because Citronella often fills up her column with guff about her ‘miracle nanny, Françoise’, and how she’s better than anyone else’s nanny, and about the lavish gifts she bestows on her as an inducement to stay. Last week she bragged that she’d given Françoise a top-of-the-range BMW – there was no sign of this, however, in the drive.

We went through the toy-strewn hallway to the ‘study’, which resembled the childcare section of my local Waterstones. Books on child psychology, baby care and pregnancy lined the walls from floor to ceiling. This, they seemed to declare, with territorial emphasis, was Citronella’s field of expertise. I glanced at her as I unravelled my microphone lead, and wondered yet again at the gap between her photo-byline and the reality confronting me now. The girlish image in the photo, chin resting beguilingly on steepled hands, bore little resemblance to the pneumatic, late thirty-something woman with grey-blonde hair and beaky nose who sat before me now. I also found myself reflecting on the power of patronage. Citronella had never been a journalist, and had nothing very edifying to say; but her views on women chimed with those of her reactionary editor, Tim Lawton. They had met at a dinner party six months before, and so impressed was he with her poisonous opinions about her own sex, that he had taken out his cheque book and signed her up on the spot. And so Citronella had become Goebbels to his Hitler in the war he was waging against women. Her pieces should have been headlined ‘Fifth Column’, I always thought, as week after week she set out to demoralise successful, single females. She wrote of boats leaving port, and of women left ‘on the shelf’. She wrote of the ‘impossibility of having it all’. Men, she had once notoriously opined, do not want to marry career women in their thirties. In fact, she went on, they do not want to marry women in their thirties at all. For thirty-something women, she explained, are no longer attractive, and so men – and who can blame them? – naturally want women in their twenties. In her piece the following week she had bragged that the twelve sacks of hatemail she had received were simply ‘proof positive’ that she was right.

When not using her column to persecute single professional women, Citronella likes to boast of her own domestic ‘bliss’. ‘In our large house in Hampstead …’ her pieces often begin. Or, ‘In our corner of Gloucestershire …’ where the Pratts have a country house. Or she will rhapsodise about the joys of motherhood as though no woman had ever given birth before. I adjusted the microphone and pressed ‘record’ with a heavy heart.

‘I do think it’s so sad that marriage is going out of fashion,’ she said, sweetly, as she smoothed down her sack-like dress. ‘When I think how happy my own marriage is –’ Here we go, I thought – ‘to my wonderful and, well …’ she smiled coyly, ‘very brilliant husband …’

‘Of course,’ I said, as I surreptitiously pressed the ‘pause’ button, and remembered the hen-pecked little man who had carried her bag at our Christmas party.

‘ …then I grieve for the women today who will never know such happiness. Now, I have many single women friends,’ she went on. I did my best not to look surprised. ‘And of course they’re very brave about it all. But I know that their cheerfulness masks tremendous unhappiness. It’s so sad. Are you married?’ she asked.

This took me aback. My heart skipped several beats. ‘No,’ I managed to say. ‘I’m single.’

‘But don’t you want to marry?’ she enquired. She had cocked her head to one side.

‘Not any more,’ I said casually. ‘I did once.’

‘Why? Did something awful happen to you?’ she enquired. Her tone of voice was soft and solicitous. But her eyes were bright with spite. A sudden fear gripped my heart. Did she know what Dominic had done to me? Perhaps she’d somehow heard, on the grapevine. It was sensational, after all. Everyone would know. My skin prickled with embarrassment and I felt sick to think that I would now be the subject of a kind of awe-struck gossip:

‘– Did you hear what happened to Minty Malone?’

‘– What?’

‘– Jilted.’

‘– Good Godz!’

‘– On her wedding day.’

‘– No!’

‘– And in the church!!’

It was all too easy to imagine. I fiddled with the tape-recorder while I struggled to control myself. I mentally counted to three, to let the lump in my throat subside, and then I managed to speak. ‘Nothing happened,’ I said with nonchalant discretion. ‘I just don’t want to marry, that’s all. Lots of women don’t these days. That’s why I’ve been asked to do this piece.’

Citronella composed her features into a mask of saccharine concern, then smiled, revealing large, square teeth the colour of Cheddar.

‘But don’t you think you’re missing out on one of life’s richest treasures?’ she pressed on, softly, as her quivering antennae probed for my tender spots. I darted behind my bullet-proof glass.

‘My opinions in this are irrelevant,’ I pointed out with as much cheery bonhomie as I could muster. ‘I’m just the reporter,’ I added, with a smile. ‘I’d like to know what you think.’ I pressed the ‘record’ button again and held the microphone under her double chin.

‘Well, I do feel very sad,’ she went on with a regretful sigh – ‘sad’ seemed to be her favourite word – ‘when I look at women of my own generation who have had, yes, admittedly successful careers, but who now know that they will never marry or have children. Whereas my life is just, well, magical.’

‘But people marry so much later these days,’ I said.

‘I don’t think that’s true,’ she said.

‘It is true,’ I said, with a toughness which, again, felt unfamiliar. ‘According to my research,’ I continued smoothly, ‘the average age at which men and women marry has gone up by six years since 1992. And the fastest-growing group of new mothers is the over thirty-fives.’ This piece of information seemed to irritate her, but I pressed straight on.

‘However, the fact remains that the number of weddings has dropped by 20 per cent. I’d like to ask you why you think there’s this new reluctance’ – I thought of Dominic – ‘to marry.’

‘The problem is,’ she began confidently, ‘that there’s such a chronic shortage of single men.’

‘I’m afraid that’s not right,’ I corrected her confidently. Though despite my new boldness, my heart was beating like a drum. ‘There are actually more single men than single women.’

‘Oh. Oh …Well, let me put it another way,’ she said. ‘There are so few single men worth marrying. That’s the problem. It’s awfully sad. In my own case, well, I was very lucky. I met Andrew, and apparently, he was just bowled over.’

‘I can imagine,’ I said. I even smiled. She smiled back.

‘And so, just seven years later, we were married, and we’ve been blissfully happy ever since,’ she went on smugly. ‘Terribly happy.’

This was getting me down. So I stood up.

‘Well, thank you very much for your time,’ I said with professional courtesy. ‘I think I’d better be getting back now.’

‘But are you sure you’ve got enough material?’ she enquired.

‘Oh, yes,’ I replied. ‘Plenty.’

‘Did you know that the Fred Behr Carpet Warehouse is having a half-price sale?’

‘A half-price sale?’

‘Yes – a half-price sale. Isn’t that incredible?!’

‘Incredible! Half-price, did you say?’

‘Yes that’s what I said – half-price. Imagine! That’s 50 per cent off!!!’

‘Did you say 50 per cent? I just can’t BELIEVE it!!!’

‘Nor can I – 50 per cent off!! I just CAN’T believe it EITHER!!!

‘Nor can I!!! I just CAN’T believe it!!! I just can’t BELIEVE it!!!’

Personally, I can’t believe that our ads are now so bad. Lots of them are like that, presented as conversations between two increasingly amazed people. We used to have witty ads, ingeniously written mini-dramas brilliantly performed by famous actors. But now all our adverts are crap. The upmarket companies won’t advertise with us any more because they know our audience share is falling. Worse, we’re not even managing to sell all our advertising space, so our revenue’s way down. When the figures are good, we all know about it because the sales team go round with deep tans from their incentive holidays in the Virgin Islands or the Seychelles. But at the moment their faces are as etiolated as chalk or Cheshire cheese. Not that we see much of them. We don’t. They’re on the phone all day, pitching desperately. Occasionally they come into the Capitalise office and give us grief if we’ve put an ad on air in an awkward place. We hate it when they do that, though I thought they were quite justified in blowing up Wesley for broadcasting an ad for the Providential Insurance Company – strapline: ‘Because Life’s So Uncertain’ – during coverage of Princess Diana’s funeral. He didn’t mean to; as usual his timings were out and he was suddenly twenty-five seconds short. So he grabbed that ad because he knew it would fill the gap exactly. And it did. But the station got a lot of flak and Providential withdrew their account.

Wesley’d had lots of disasters like that, I reflected as I dubbed my interviews from cassette on to quarter-inch tape. The only reason he’d survived was because he’d been here so long he’s unsackable. It would cost them far too much to get rid of him. They just don’t have the cash. In fact, they don’t have the cash for anything here, least of all the new digital editing equipment; at London FM we still use tape.

‘Embarrassing nasal hair? Try the Norton Nostril Trimmer! – Removes hairy excrescences from ears, and eyebrows too! Has removable head for easy cleaning by brushing or blowing! Just £5.95, or £9.95 for the deluxe model. All major credit cards accepted, please allow twenty-eight days for delivery!’

I glanced at the clock, it was five to seven.

‘And now a quick look at the weather,’ said Barry, the continuity announcer, with his usual drunken slur, ‘brought to you by Happy Bot, the disposable nappy that baby’s botty loves best.’

I turned down the speakers in the office. I couldn’t work with that racket going on. I knew I’d be there all evening, editing, but for once I didn’t mind. In fact, I was glad, because it gave me no time to think about Dominic. I was oblivious to everything as I sat there at my tape machine with my headphones on, my white editing pencil tucked behind one ear. My razor blade glinted in the strip lights as I slashed away, lengths of discarded tape falling like shiny brown streamers to the carpet-tiled floor. I love the physicality of chopping tape. It’s so satisfying. Clicking a computer mouse on a little pair of digital scissors just isn’t the same. But that’s what we’ll soon be doing.

As I wielded the blade, a tangled mess of cast-offs and cutouts fell on the floor at my feet. Citronella Pratt sounded like Minnie Mouse as I spooled through her at double speed: ‘Very-happy – soawfulbeingsingle – terriblysad,pooryou – ohyesI’msohappilymarried – veryveryhappilymarried – Very.’ And I thought it odd that she needed to keep saying that, because I’ve always thought that happiness, like charm and like sensitivity, tends to proclaim itself. I salvaged one twenty-second soundbite from her fifteen minutes of boastful bile, then took my knife to the other interviews. Soon they were neatly banded up on a seven-inch spool, with spacers of yellow leader tape between, ready to be played out in the programme the following day. All I had to do now was to write my script. I looked at the clock. It was ten thirty. With luck I’d be home by one.

The office was deserted, everyone had gone home hours before. It had the melancholy atmosphere of an English seaside town in winter. I sat at the computer, and began to type. And I was just thinking how calm and peaceful it was and how the script wouldn’t take that long to do, and I was congratulating myself too on not crying or cracking up on my first day back, despite the emotional stress I was under, when I heard the sound of a newspaper being rustled. It was coming from Jack’s office. How odd. Who on earth was in there at this time? I opened the door. Sitting at his desk, at ten forty-five, quietly reading the Guardian, was Jack.

‘Oh, hi, Minty,’ he said.

‘Er, hi. You’re here late.’

‘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.’