by Isabel Wolff
‘No, thanks. I hope you remember whether you’re Russian or French when they phone you back to say the books have arrived.’
‘Oh, don’t be so silly, Minty. I always give a false number.’
‘You’re dreadful,’ I said with a laugh.
‘Look, it’s hard enough being a writer as it is. You’ve got to pull every trick in the book.’ Suddenly Perdita appeared and jumped, purring and mewing, on to Amber’s lap.
‘She looks so well,’ I said, stroking her head. ‘She’s really put on weight.’
‘Yes, but not too much, because we don’t want her becoming a little fatso, do we, darling? Now, Perdita, shall we show Auntie Minty what Mummy bought you from Harrods today?’ Amber gave me a beatific smile, then disappeared into the kitchen and came back with a fur-lined basket, and a personalised porcelain cat plate.
‘These are the dernier cri in feline accessories,’ she announced, happily. ‘Nothing but the best will do.’
‘Lucky Perdita,’ I said, ‘that someone loves you so much.’
Amber opened a tin of pilchards in aspic, then piled the new plate high.
‘Don’t overdo it,’ I said. ‘If she eats too much she’ll be sick. Anyway, I think she looks just right.’
‘No, I think she’s still growing,’ said Amber, as Perdita got stuck in. ‘And remember, Minty, we’ve got to compensate for her unfortunate start in life.’
‘Hello!’ squawked Pedro. The phone was ringing. It was probably one of Amber’s bookshops. ‘How are you?’ Pedro screeched as I went into the hall. ‘Yes …yes …yes,’ I heard him say in a bored sort of way as I picked up the receiver.
‘Hello,’ I said.
‘Is that Minty Malone?’ said an unknown female voice. Whoever she was, she sounded distressed. I was so taken aback by her tone, I didn’t answer straight away.
‘Is that Minty Malone?’ enquired the voice again, more urgently now.
‘Er, yes. It is,’ I replied. ‘Who is it?’ There was a moment’s silence, which unnerved me.
‘We don’t know each other,’ the voice went on, carefully. It was a very posh voice. ‘But I really need to talk to you.’ She pronounced it ‘rarely’.
‘Why?’
‘My name’s Virginia Park.’
The hall carpet rushed up to greet me as I sank on to the adjacent chair. My face seemed to have heated to boiling point, and my heart was banging like a drum.
‘Do you know who I am?’ she enquired in a voice which quavered with emotion.
‘Yes,’ I said quietly. ‘I do.’
‘I rarely need to talk to you,’ she repeated.
‘What for?’ I said. I felt sick.
‘Because I think you’d want to know.’
‘Know what?’ I heard myself say. I was fearful and yet agog.
‘It’s Dominic,’ she said, quietly. ‘I’m ringing about Dominic.’ Well, I knew that. Why else would she call? What was this about? Oh God. A sudden fear gripped my heart. Oh God. Oh no. Please, no. He’d been hateful to me, but I wouldn’t wish him any harm. Visions of Dominic plastered all over the Ml, or being bagged up after some unpleasant accident, sprang into my mind. That’s why she was calling me, because his mother was too distraught.
‘Is he dead?’ I said. I felt sick. ‘Just tell me. Has something happened? Is he dead?’
‘No he isn’t dead,’ she spat. ‘I bloody well wish he was!’
‘Then why on earth are you ringing?’
‘Because …’ and now there was an audible sob. ‘Because the bastard’s just broken it off.’
‘We were supposed to get married in May,’ I heard her say between teary gasps. ‘My dress was almost ready. All the hotels had been booked. And we’d posed in Leicestershire Life.’
‘I see,’ I said.
‘But last week, we were having dinner, and all of a sudden Dominic said – uh uh – that he didn’t want to get married. That he couldn’t – uh uh – go through with it. He said that he wouldn’t – uh uh – go through with it. He said that he’d made a stupid mistake, and that everything had changed.’
‘Oh,’ I said. I was too shocked to say anything else.
‘I haven’t slept,’ she said. ‘I feel suicidal. I just don’t know what to do. And I knew about you,’ she continued. ‘I’d asked him about you once or twice. I’d seen your name and phone number in his address book. He’d crossed it out, but it was still legible.’
‘Oh,’ I said, again. I found myself wishing she hadn’t told me that.
‘So when I was collecting my things from his house, I wrote your number down. And then this morning I saw that piece about you in the Evening Standard, and I just had to talk to you.’
‘Why?’ I said.
‘Because, I thought, after what he did to you, you might be able to give me some advice.’
‘How do you know what he did to me?’ I asked. ‘I can’t imagine him volunteering the information. In fact,’ I went on, and now a cold fear gripped my heart, ‘I’d like to know when you met him.’
‘Oh, years ago,’ she replied. ‘We went out briefly, in the early nineties.’
‘Oh,’ I said, ‘I didn’t know that.’
‘I was crazy about him, but it didn’t last long. And then last July I bumped into him again, in Harrods. And he seemed in a real state. He mentioned that he was getting married and told me he had wedding nerves. And I wished him good luck, and thought no more of it. But then, to my surprise, he contacted me in early August – he still had my number from before. And so I asked him how the wedding had gone.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Well, he didn’t really want to talk about it.’
‘I’m sure he didn’t. But what did he say? How did he explain it?’
‘He said that he hadn’t got married after all because, how did he put it? Oh yes. Because there’d been “a problem with the church” …’
A problem with the church? A problem with the church??? Was that what he told people? That there’d been a problem with the church! I nearly choked.
‘The only problem with the church,’ I said with icy emphasis, ‘was Dominic’s sudden departure from it, mid marriage, in front of two hundred and eighty people.’
‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘He didn’t put it like that.’
‘Of course he didn’t,’ I replied. And then something cracked inside me. Something finally broke. Gone was my suppressed sadness. In its place was rage.
‘It’s so humiliating,’ I heard Virginia Park say. She was crying again.
‘You’re dead right,’ I said. ‘It is.’
‘The engagement was in the paper,’ she wept. ‘Absolutely everyone knew. I just feel so, so, awful,’ she said. She pronounced it ‘say’. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ she sobbed. ‘I haven’t done a stroke of wark.’
‘I’ll tell you what to do,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘I’ll tell you what to do,’ I said again, louder now, as I rose to my feet.
‘Yes? What?’
‘REJOICE!!! That’s what you should do. REJOICE!’
‘I don’t know what you mean!’
‘Rejoice that you have been spared from marrying a man so low, so, so …contemptible, so craven, so caddish …’ My God, all these words seemed to begin with ‘c’. ‘Such a coward, such a cur, such a …’
‘Chicken!’ interjected Amber, who had been sitting quietly on the stairs. I could hear Virginia Park sobbing.
‘I’m sorry for you,’ I said. I was clutching the side of the hall table now. ‘I’m sorry that you’re suffering. Because I suffered too. But you asked me for my advice. And I’m giving it. Let me repeat it. Let me shout it from the rooftops: REJOICE!! I say unto you – REJOICE!! And be GLAD!! Praise the Lord! Hallelujah! For He has delivered you. GOODBYE!!’
I put the phone down. I felt sick and faint. Despite my bravado, I found tears coursing down my face while unanswered questions raced through my mind. How many guests were they goi
ng to have? What proportion of them were his clients? Was she the reason Dominic jilted me? And why had he dropped her too? Was this simply Olympic-level commitment-phobia, or was there method in his marital madness? I sat on the hall chair, staring wild-eyed into space, pressing my mental ‘Rewind’ button, and replaying what she’d said.
She said she’d met him in July, just before our wedding, and that he’d seemed very nervous. He was very nervous. I’d noticed that too. But then, when he isn’t trying to sell someone something, he does appear nervous and neurotic. Because he’s pretty insecure. So I’d simply attributed his anxiety to premarital tension and, God knows, I’d had a bit of that myself.
I looked at Amber. She was waiting for me to tell her what was going on. But I was so shocked by this latest twist in the tale that I hardly knew where to begin. And I was just about to inform her that Dominic had jilted Miss Piggy too when the phone suddenly rang again. I let it ring once. Twice. Three times. And then I picked it up.
‘Yes?’ I said, with weary wariness.
‘It’s me again,’ said Virginia Park miserably. She was still crying. I visualised her fleshless upper lip covered in tears and snot.
‘I feel so awful,’ she moaned. ‘I just need to talk to you.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. I felt exhausted.
‘Please.’
‘Look, I can’t add anything to what I’ve just said. I don’t want to get involved. It’s too painful. I’m sorry. I’ve been through enough and I want to protect myself now. I’m sorry, Virginia. I really am. Goodbye.’ I put the phone down. Ten seconds later, it rang again. Oh God, I wished she’d get the message. Some people are just so thick-skinned! I picked it up.
‘Look!’ I said. ‘I really can’t help you. I’m very sorry for you. But I can’t enlighten you about Dominic’s behaviour any more than I have. And although you want to talk about him, I’m afraid I don’t, because, to be quite honest, I’d simply like to forget that I ever met him.’
There was silence at the other end. Thank God. I’d got through to her, at last. I could do without all this. Life was stressful enough as it was. And I looked at Amber and sighed and rolled my eyes, and was just about to hang up when I heard an all-too-familiar voice say, very quietly, ‘Actually, Minty, it’s me.’
‘Don’t,’ said Amber, when I put the phone down on Dominic three minutes later. ‘Please, don’t meet him.’ I looked at her.
‘Has my hair gone white?’ I enquired. ‘Have deep cracks appeared on my face?’ She shook her head. ‘I feel I’ve aged fifty years in the last ten minutes.’ I was shaking. My palms and brow were damp. Hearing his voice again had seriously disturbed me. But hearing him ask to meet me had shocked me to my core.
‘I don’t think you should see him,’ she said again, more forcefully now. She passed me a tissue. ‘What’s the point?’ We went into the kitchen, where she reached up for what was left of the cooking brandy.
‘I have to see him,’ I croaked. ‘Because then I might understand. He says he’s going to explain everything. He says that there are things I don’t know. Things he couldn’t tell me at the time.’ Amber was rolling her eyes and had stuck two fingers to her temple. I looked at her. ‘He said he felt awful about what happened.’
‘About what happened?’ she exclaimed. ‘That’s a typical Dominic construction, isn’t it? About what he did, you mean!’
‘Yes, that’s what he meant. That he feels sorry about what he did. But he says there was a reason for it.’
‘The reason is,’ said Amber, vehemently, ‘that the man’s a flaky fuck-up with no moral fibre.’ I looked at her bleakly. ‘He has all the backbone of an earthworm,’ she added. ‘No, I’m sorry, that’s unfair to earthworms. He has less.’
‘Don’t be so hard,’ I sobbed.
‘Why not? He deserves it. He’s a long, winding Lane, Mint, leading nowhere.’
‘Oh, Amber.’ I was in floods.
‘He’s a fucking liability,’ she went on angrily. ‘So he’s dumped Virginia Pork-Pie too?’ I nodded. ‘They should attach a government warning to him,’ she said. ‘“Associating with this man, ladies, may seriously damage your mental health.” It’s a very bad idea,’ she said again, shaking her head and pursing her lips. ‘I think you should ring him back and say no. Anyway, why do you want to see him?’
‘Because I was very attached to him,’ I replied quietly. ‘And he …it …what happened on my wedding day has obsessed me for the past nine months. And because I didn’t understand why it happened, I’ve been largely blaming myself. And now, at last, I have the chance to find out the truth, and I’m not going to turn that chance down.’
Amber sighed. ‘Well, as long as he doesn’t try and get you to go back to him.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I said wearily. ‘Of course that’s not going to happen.’
‘I want you to come back,’ said Dominic, the following Thursday, at about twenty past eight. ‘I think we should give it another go.’
We’d met shortly after eight, in the Ivy. He hadn’t taken long to say what he had to say. It was as though he wanted to get it in, quickly, at the beginning, in case this tense encounter got out of hand. I just stared at him, and said nothing. I’d mentally rehearsed this moment many times. The moment when he and I would meet again. But it was an event I had not believed would ever come to pass. Because once Dominic’s made a decision, he never changes his mind. Oh yes, Dominic always knows what he wants – ‘exactly’. But, to my amazement, he had proved me wrong. And now here we were. Face to face once more.
What would you have done? Refused point-blank to go? Agreed, then stood him up? Gone to the restaurant and hurled abuse, or tipped soup all over his head? Perhaps you’d have denounced him in public. Or turned up with another bloke. I’d run all these options through my mind over the past couple of days. I’d tried them on for size as I might try on clothes in a shop. In the end, I’d rejected them all. They didn’t suit me. I’d simply decided to be cool. That’s what I would be – very, very cool. So I packed ice around my heart. But my legs were shaking as I entered the restaurant.
The waiter offered to show me to Dominic’s table, but I went straight to it, unassisted, as though I were a heat-seeking missile. I got a jolt, naturally, when I saw him – a burning surge of adrenaline. He looked the same, I thought, but at the same time he somehow looked different. His eyes were just as blue, of course, though his hair was darker, from the winter. But I was irritated to see that he looked slightly heavier. This suggested an easy conscience, or perhaps it was all those pork pies. He stood up, and there was an awkward moment when I could see he was going to try and kiss me. So I was careful to turn my head, inhaling as I did so, with a sharp pang, the familiar aroma of his Chanel. He was drinking a gin and tonic and offered me one. But I ordered a Perrier, because I knew that if I had any alcohol, I’d cry. He was very well turned out, as usual, not in the sackcloth and ashes I’d hoped for, but in a dark suit, and a discreetly striped shirt, with double cuffs, in which were visible a pair of silver links I’d given him for his birthday. He was wearing a pale yellow silk tie, which I didn’t recognise. Perhaps that was from Miss Piggy. Anyway, he looked very smart. And the funny thing was, when I was getting ready to meet him, I’d felt the usual panic that I wouldn’t look good enough for him. That he’d complain about my appearance. That he’d say my bag was ‘wrong’ with my suit, or that my jacket was too baggy, or the wrong colour, or too cheap. And I’d felt a sudden stab of guilt at throwing away all the clothes he’d given me. Then I’d sat down on my bed and slapped my brow, twice, with the palm of my hand. And I’d put on a pair of Red or Dead chinos, because he doesn’t like women to wear trousers, and a black jacket by Comme des Garçons. All my most un-girlie gear. And I’d slicked down my hair with a little gel. He’d looked slightly taken aback when he saw me. I saw his eyes flicker with surprise. But he made no comment about my Eton crop, or my conspicuous change of style. Maybe he’d seen the photo of me in the Sta
ndard. Maybe he’d been prepared.
We sat there, eyeing each other nervously for a few seconds. He tried to smile, but I met his eyes with a steady, disinterested gaze, despite the clamour in my heart. Because for the very first time in our relationship, I was the one with the power. And this was because of the simple fact that it was Dominic who had asked to meet me. We perused the menu for a few moments in silence. Then the waiter came to our table.
‘I’ll have the tricolore salad of vine-ripened tomatoes, followed by pan-seared swordfish,’ I said.
‘I’m sorry, madame,’ he replied, clearly confused. ‘But zat is not on ze menu.’
‘Oh, silly me!’ I exclaimed softly with a benevolent smile. ‘I was getting confused with the Waldorf. I’ll have the Sevruga caviar, please, followed by the roast mallard with foie gras.’ I was only sorry they didn’t have any Beluga caviar.
‘And for sir?’
‘Smoked salmon, and shepherd’s pie.’
‘Or should that be humble pie?’ I said pleasantly, as the waiter walked away. ‘I presume that’s what you’re going to eat this evening?’
‘I know I ought to,’ he said quietly. ‘And you have every right to be angry, Minty. It’s no more than I expected.’
‘Do you know,’ I said, smiling brightly, ‘today, I’m not actually angry. Not at all. I was angry, of course,’ I went on calmly. ‘To be perfectly honest, Dominic, I was so angry I thought I’d get cancer.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. And he looked it.
‘In fact …’ I went on, being careful to keep my voice low, because Dominic’s very self-conscious and can’t bear ‘scenes’ of any kind.
‘What?’ he said.
‘I had a kind of breakdown, because of what you put me through.’ He was silent. ‘Just thought I’d tell you that,’ I added, with a smile. Then I sipped my gently fizzing Perrier. ‘Still,’ I said cheerfully, ‘no hard feelings, eh? Isn’t that what you said? No hard feelings? I’m afraid I can’t say the same for Virginia Park.’ Dominic reddened at that. ‘Yes, Dominic, I’m sorry to say that, despite my extensive experience in this field, I was quite unable to help her. Oh, I gave your engagement ring to a Parisian busker, by the way.’