The Making of Minty Malone

by Isabel Wolff

  Melinda looked as if she were going to cry.

  ‘I never understand Sophie’s explanations,’ she whined, as Sophie returned to her rotas. ‘But I can understand yours, Minty, because you’re not as clever as her.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, tartly.

  ‘I mean, you explain things better than her,’ she corrected herself. ‘Please, would you give me a hand?’

  ‘All right, then,’ I said looking at the clock. ‘We’ll swap. You cut down this piece for me – you’ve got twenty minutes, by the way – and I’ll write your link for you.’

  ‘But you know I don’t know how to edit, Minty,’ she whined.

  ‘Well, I’m sorry, but I simply can’t do two jobs.’ She looked at me resentfully, but I didn’t soften. I hadn’t forgiven her for what she’d said about the programme ‘sufferwing’ while she was away. Anyway, why should I help her? She never did a thing for me. A few minutes later we all went down to Studio B, ready for the rehearsal.

  ‘And in an hour from now, Capitalise, presented by Melinda Mitten,’ said Barry.

  ‘Are the tapes all ready?’ said Jack, as he scrutinised the script.

  ‘Yes,’ said Wesley.

  ‘De-ummed?’

  ‘Yes. All clean.’

  ‘Got the sound effects?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And music?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Wesley,’ said Jack wearily, ‘I’d rather you didn’t practise your paternity skills during working hours. Would you kindly put Melinda’s baby down?’

  ‘Sorry.’ Wesley stopped dandling Pocahontas and put her back in the car-seat, which he then proceeded to rock with his left foot, rather too violently, I thought. I had visions of one of us having to catch her, but luckily she was well strapped in.

  Five minutes later, the studio door opened and Monica showed in Sir Percy. He looked affable enough, though a little out of breath.

  ‘Now, don’t get oop, lads and lasses,’ he said in his broad Yorkshire brogue. ‘I’m quite ‘appy to be sat ‘ere.’ He took a seat on the padded bench by the door, then smiled benignly at Melinda as she waved at him through the studio glass. ‘Don’t mind me, folks,’ he reiterated. ‘Youse all got work to do fer t’programme and, anyroad, I don’t need nowt.’

  ‘Are YOU shamed by your grammatical mistakes?’ enquired a cultivated male voice, as we waited for the programme to start. ‘Does YOUR poor command of English let you down? Then try our stunning correspondence course! Here’s what one satisfied customer had to say:

  ‘Six months ago I couldn’t even spell “executive”,’ announced a Michael Caine soundalike. ‘Now I ARE one.’

  ‘Just £69.99,’ explained the first voice again. ‘Payable in three easy, interest-free payments. Most major credit cards accepted.’

  Beep. Beep. Beep. ‘And now time for today’s edition of Capitalise,’ said Barry, ‘presented by Melinda Mitten.’ Sir Percy was grinning approvingly.

  ‘Hello, evewyone,’ crooned Melinda. ‘Today we look at attitudes to the Euwo – are the pwo’s now gaining gwound? We have a sobewing weport on the spwead of child labour. We pweview the new Steven Spielberg film, and we’ll be talking to the distinguished architect, Sir Norman Foster, about his wonderful new ewection.’

  We all suddenly expressed an interest in the carpet, but Sir Percy hadn’t noticed a thing. He seemed to be enjoying himself and, overall, the programme wasn’t too bad. The mix of items was good, the tapes were all fine edited, and the programme finished bang on time with the ‘live’ interview with Sir Norman.

  ‘Well, it’s been an honour talking to a man who’s cocked up so many fine buildings,’ Melinda concluded happily. ‘Sowwy – clocked up!’ she corrected herself as she peered at her script again. ‘Do join me again tomowwow, listeners, but for now, fwom me, Melinda Mitten, goodbye.’

  ‘Bah gum, that were a right interestin’ programme,’ said Sir Percy appreciatively as we all trooped out of the studio. ‘Right interestin’. But I would like to see t’office too, seeing like as ‘ow I never really cum down ‘ere. And I’d like to ‘ave a word with you, Jack, about future of t’station. Ratin’s, an’ all that.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Jack. ‘We’d be delighted to show you round.’ And so we all went up in the lift to the third floor, and Jack put on the coffee machine, and someone went to get nice cups and saucers. And then Sir Percy said he’d like to nip to the gents, and Monica poured us all some coffee, and Melinda opened a box of rather delicious-looking cakes. There were nine dainty little sponges, in pleated wrappers, each with a pool of snow-white icing, topped by a glistening, crimson cherry. We were all starving because we never have time for lunch. But we politely waited for Sir Percy to return from his ablutions.

  ‘Melinda, m’duck, well done!’ he exclaimed warmly as he came back into the office. ‘I thought that script of yourn were right good.’

  ‘Thanks vewy much, Uncle Percy,’ she said. ‘I wote it all myself.’

  As Monica handed Sir Percy a cup of coffee, his eye caught the open box of cakes on Melinda’s desk.

  ‘Fairy cakes, eh?’ he said. ‘My favourites. There’s nowt like a fairy cake. Very thoughtful of you to bring those in, Melinda, m’duck. Don’t mind if I do.’ And he grabbed one, and sank his teeth into it, and began chewing. And chewing. And Melinda had taken one, and had just offered the box to me.

  ‘Did you make them yourself?’ I enquired.

  ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘I’m a hopeless cook. Wobert sent them to me.’

  ‘WOBERT SENT THEM TO YOU?’ we all cried.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘Awfully sweet of him, wasn’t it? He said he wanted to give me a pwesent.’

  We all stared, aghast, at Sir Percy, whose face had suddenly frozen. And now his eyes were registering a combination of puzzlement and shock. And he had stopped chewing. And he was choking. And spitting. He began to spit the cake out of his mouth. And out it came in damp, half-masticated bits, with vivid red flecks of maraschino cherry. And as he pebble-dashed Melinda’s desk, his coffee cup fell from his hand. Then, with an astonished expression on his bucolic face, Sir Percy crashed to the carpet-tiled floor.

  ‘Dearly Beloved,’ said the vicar, ‘we are gathered here today …’ I couldn’t help thinking about it. Not even the sight of Helen and Charlie smiling blissfully at each other in front of the altar on their wedding day two weeks later could eradicate the awful scenes at London FM. ‘Dearly Beloved …’ That’s what the vicar had said at Sir Percy’s funeral on Thursday …What a shock. What a sensation. What an absolute bloody nightmare. I sighed, and tried to distract myself by reading my Order of Service: ‘St John’s Church, Holland Park, London. Saturday February 14th.’ And in the bottom left-hand corner it said ‘Helen’, and then, to the right, ‘Charles’. The church was full. It was a freezing day, with light snowfall, and we were all in our winter gear. But however hard I tried to concentrate on the wedding, the dreadful events at work kept springing into my mind. It didn’t take the police long to trace Robert. He’d made a fundamental error, you see. He’d put his address and phone number at the top of all his letters. So they paid him a visit and told him he was nicked. And in his statement he insisted that he hadn’t meant to kill Sir Percy. He said this was a vile slur. He’d intended to kill Melinda, as a punishment for ‘ignoring’ him.

  ‘I loved her,’ he told the police. ‘I loved her despite her screechy voice and her speech impediment, and her glaring factual errors. But she didn’t appreciate my devotion. She took it for granted, failing to reply to a single one of my ninety-four letters. Yet despite her callous rejection, I continued to love her. But I could only take so much. It was a crime passionel,’ he added, knowledgeably, ‘so with a bit of luck, I’ll get away with a couple of years.’

  Poor Sir Percy. Robert had injected the maraschino cherries with cyanide. It’s very quick. But what an awful way to go. We felt terrible for him. He seemed so amiable. And of course Melinda was distraught. Distraught.
She was very fond of him. He was her uncle. Her favourite uncle. More importantly, he was her patron. And I fancied that the tears she shed at Putney Crematorium were for herself, as much as for him.

  What would happen now, we all wondered, as the shock quickly gave way to consternation about the future of London FM. Jack attended an emergency board meeting with Sir Percy’s MG consortium, and was told that it would be business as usual for the time being.

  ‘Thank God,’ we heard Melinda murmur, when Jack answered our fearful questions in the boardroom later that day. ‘I think we should keep things just as they are,’ she announced. ‘As a twibute to Sir Percy. It’s what he would have wanted,’ she went on confidently. At that Jack maintained a significant silence. None of us were prepared to lay bets on anything. Our future seemed as fragile and complex as a cobweb. London FM might be sold. We could all lose our jobs. The number-crunchers might close it down, or turn it into a music-only station. Anything could happen. Anything at all.

  The story was in the papers, of course. In fact, it made quite a splash. ‘PRETTY PENNY BARON POISONED!’ screamed the Sun. ‘TIGHTS KNIGHT MURDERED!’ said the Mail. Sir Percy was obituarised in the Telegraph and The Times as a ‘man of vision’ whose contribution to the hosiery industry could not be underestimated. ‘He swiftly climbed the ladder in ladies’ tights,’ declared one commentator. ‘He was always on the run,’ claimed another. ‘He filled more stockings than Santa,’ announced a third. Poor, poor Sir Percy. He was only sixty-four. How sad. And it could so easily have been Melinda, I thought with, yes, I admit it, just a soupçon of regret.

  I adjusted my fur hat and glanced discreetly around. I’d never been to a wedding here. The church was early English Gothic, the brown brickwork exterior stained black by exhaust fumes and acid rain. But inside it was light and bright, painted a creamy white, with two rows of battered mahogany pews. This was the first wedding I’d been to since my own. Helen said she would quite understand if I didn’t feel like coming to the service, but I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. After all, I had started the chain of events which had led to it. Or rather, Dominic had. It was the Dominic effect, again, I thought ruefully. Not that he was invited, of course. And I found myself wondering whether he’d have the nerve to marry Virginia Park in church, and whether she’d have to wear a Neil Cunningham dress too. How much would their reception cost? As much as twenty-eight grand? She was loaded, so perhaps it would cost even more. And would Dominic offer her father a comprehensive insurance policy to cover them in case of disaster? And would he have the gall to make a speech? And if he did, what on earth would he say?

  Behind us, from the gallery, the choir sang ‘God Be In My Head’. And I found myself wondering how long it would take me to get Dominic out of my head. And I found myself wishing that I could press a ‘Fast Forward’ button like I do when I’m editing tape, and spin right through all the pain and the crap. But I couldn’t. I knew I’d have to endure it, in real time, minute by minute, day by day, until at last it began to recede. I looked at the flowers. Helen had done them herself, of course. They were red for Valentine’s Day. On either side of the steps leading up to the altar were two spectacular displays of scarlet amaryllis, relieved by sprays of large white orchids. And she’d attached a hand-tied bunch of red ranunculus to the end of every pew. In front of her, she had carried a huge bouquet of crimson roses, designed to cover, as far as possible, the swelling curve of her bump. Helen has Great Expectations, I thought with a bittersweet smile.

  Amber had been a bit down this morning, not surprisingly, when she saw me getting ready. But her mood lifted when she opened her mail. She had a card. A Valentine’s card. It had a little black cat on the front. She read the inscription, and snorted.

  ‘That’s very sweet of you, Minty,’ she said. I looked up, surprised, from my toast.

  ‘Very thoughtful of you,’ she said, laughing gently, and shaking her head. She handed it to me.

  ‘To Amber, with lots of love and kisses from your little pet,’ it was signed. And there were several crosses and four tiny paw prints.

  ‘I expect Perdita asked you to buy it for her, didn’t she?’ She planted a kiss on the cat’s nose.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It was a little conspiracy between you and Perdita, wasn’t it?’ she said with a knowing grin.

  ‘No,’ I said truthfully, ‘it wasn’t. Amber, I really can’t guess who it’s from …’ I lied. ‘Can you?’

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Oh yes.’ And the penny crashed to the floor. And she suddenly looked disconcerted.

  I don’t say anything to her about Laurie and how suitable he is, and how witty and amusing and nice. If I did, she’d run a mile, because she’s perverse like that. I mean, Laurie’s ideal. But she just can’t see it. I don’t know how anyone can be so blind.

  ‘Marriage was ordained for the mutual society of man and wife,’ I heard the vicar say, ‘and for the procreation of children.’ I braced myself. And then it came – the awful moment when Charlie was asked to make his vows. And the memory of Dominic’s reply to the very same question made me feel physically sick.

  ‘I will!’ Charlie said it so loudly that there was a slight echo. ‘I will,’ he said again. He was smiling. And so was Helen. Despite my current problems at work, and my bitter marital memories, I couldn’t help smiling too. And it’s true that the more you smile, the more you feel like smiling, so by the time Helen and Charlie were walking down the aisle together, my mood had lifted once more.

  As we shuffled out of our pews to the strains of the Widor Toccata, I turned and glimpsed a familiar figure. It was Joe. He was looking at me, warily. I anticipated that he’d be as cold towards me as the February day – after all, we hadn’t spoken for over two months. I didn’t know what to do, so I gave him a tight little smile. The kind of smile that indicates neither hostility nor overt affection. The kind of smile that, in the right circumstances, can simply open the door. And now he was coming towards me. But then we could hardly avoid each other, and so it was inevitable that we’d have to speak.

  ‘Hello,’ we said, in unison.

  ‘How are –?‘ we both tried again.

  ‘I –’ we said, simultaneously. And then, all of a sudden, we laughed. That’s all it took. From a distance the ice had looked thick enough to stand on, but we’d decided to skate on it instead.

  ‘What a hideous hat,’ said Joe. My heart leapt.

  ‘Thanks,’ I replied happily. ‘I hate your coat.’

  ‘Do you really mean that?’

  ‘You know I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t.’

  ‘Your singing voice is awful,’ he added, as we walked out of the church, getting, here and there, I have to admit, some rather odd looks from other guests.

  ‘Is my voice really that bad?’ I enquired.

  ‘Like a bagful of cats,’ he said. ‘No, let me re-phrase that: like a bagful of cats on their way to the gravel pit to be drowned.’

  ‘That’s awfully nice of you,’ I said warmly. ‘I’ve been having lessons, actually.’

  Joe and I stood side by side in the churchyard while Helen and Charlie posed for photographs, happily thinking up sweet-and-sour nothings to say to one another. Beneath our offensive badinage, I was thrilled that our rapport had been restored.

  ‘Your hair looks like a bog brush,’ I pointed out, as we walked down the path in the sunshine.

  ‘Thanks. Your lipstick’s vile.’

  ‘I’m afraid your socks do not harmonise with that suit.’

  ‘And your telephone manner is dire. That is,’ he went on pointedly, ‘if you deign to come to the phone at all.’ Ah. Game over.

  ‘I didn’t feel like it,’ I said as we turned left into St John’s Gardens.

  ‘Do you two want a lift to the Belvedere?’ Helen’s sister Kate called out as she unlocked the door of her car.

  ‘Oh, no thanks,’ we both said simultaneously, ‘we’d like to walk.’ And then we looked at each other and smiled.
It wasn’t far to Holland Park. And in any case it was a fine morning. The birds were singing and the crocuses had begun to pierce the frozen earth like tiny spears. Though it was bitingly cold, there was the hint of a thaw. And on the overhanging branches we could glimpse slivers of green as the tight brown buds began to unfurl.

  ‘Why wouldn’t you speak to me?’ asked Joe, serious now, as we turned into Lansdowne Road. ‘Was it because I was so unfriendly to you after …’ He sighed. ‘You know?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ I said, ‘that wasn’t the reason. Though at least we’re quits now, I suppose. The fact is that when you phoned, I wasn’t talking to anyone at all.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I was just so …miserable.’

  ‘Why? No, let me guess: it’s Dominic, I suppose?’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ I said wearily. ‘He’s getting married. He’s otherwise engaged.’

  ‘That’s quick work,’ said Joe.

  ‘It certainly is,’ I replied.