The Making of Minty Malone

by Isabel Wolff

  ‘Minty-’ Dom blurted. His face expressed a strange mixture, of annoyance and contrition. Not many people have the kind of face that can do that. But Dominic’s can. ‘Minty,’ he tried again. Oh, I do wish he wouldn’t keep repeating my Christian name, I thought to myself. He’s not trying to sell me an insurance policy now. ‘Minty,’ he repeated, ‘I understand that I may not be your favourite person at the moment, but I hope you’re not going to make this evening hard for me.’

  ‘Oh, Dominic, I wouldn’t dream of it,’ I said, pleasantly. ‘I was always very kind to you, as you know.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I do know that.’

  ‘I was always very, very sweet to you.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said wistfully, ‘you were. You were always very sweet and, well, nice. And that’s why I wanted to see you again.’

  ‘So that I could be nice to you? Well, I think I might find that rather difficult.’

  ‘No. Of course I don’t expect you to be nice to me, straight away. That will take time. I wanted to meet you, because …well …I’d like to try and put things right.’

  ‘I have two questions for you, Dominic,’ I said, helping myself to a roll. ‘a) What makes you think you can “put things right”, and b) why do you want to?’

  ‘Because …’ he sighed heavily. He was clearly finding this stressful. Oh God, his eyes were shining. Were those incipient tears? To my dismay, I felt the coronary ice begin to drip. ‘Because I’m so fond of you, Minty,’ he said.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. And I think I can put things right,’ he went on, ‘because of what we once had. And the reason why I want to do it, Minty, is because I know I made a terrible mistake.’

  I made a terrible mistake. A terrible mistake? Why didn’t he say, ‘I know I did something terribly wrong?’ My heart chilled over again.

  ‘You certainly did make a bit of a mistake there,’ I said. ‘But never mind, Dom. It’s all in the past.’

  ‘Is it, Minty?’ he said, with a faint smile. ‘I hope it is. And I think we can only consign it to the past’ – We? – ‘if I explain to you what happened. If I explain,’ he went on, ‘how I came to get everything so wrong.’ How I got everything so wrong?

  ‘I’ll tell you how you got everything so wrong,’ I said. ‘I mean, this is just from my own selfish point of view of course, so you have to bear that in mind. But how you get everything so wrong, I think, is by abandoning me in church on my wedding day in front of almost three hundred people. You also got everything wrong by never once apologising to me, or even contacting me to see if I was all right. You also got everything wrong,’ I added, ‘by leaving my parents with the bill, which, incidentally, in case you’ve forgotten, was twenty-eight thousand pounds. And then you also got everything wrong, and again this is just from my own self-centred perspective, by getting engaged, within a mere five months, to someone else.’

  ‘I hope you’re not going to be too hard on me, Minty,’ he said. ‘And, yes, I am eating humble pie. Which is what you want. And it’s no less than you deserve.’

  ‘Thank you, Dominic.’ Our starters arrived. He picked up his knife and fork and I found myself looking at the gold crest ring on the little finger of his left hand. He’d bought it, second-hand, when he was twenty-five. I’d always thought it much too big. It depicted a hind with an arrow through its throat. That’s what he’d done to me.

  ‘It was all a terrible mistake,’ he said, as he squeezed lemon on to his smoked salmon. A mistake. Mistake? That word again. ‘I made an appalling error of judgement,’ he continued. ‘And I take full responsibility for what happened. I’d like to stress, Minty, that you were not in any way to blame.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, that’s a relief,’ I said, without irony. ‘Because, actually, I did think I was at least partly to blame. In fact, Dominic, I’ve been in agonies about it all for months.’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘it was entirely my fault. But there are extenuating circumstances, which I want you to know about.’

  ‘I should be very interested to hear what they are,’ I said. Because that, dear reader, was the only reason I was sitting there. Out of a simple need to know.

  ‘Why did you do it?’ I asked.

  ‘I was up shit creek. That’s why.’ He sighed heavily. ‘My whole world was about to cave in.’ This was news to me. I was intrigued. ‘Something …horrendous had happened,’ he explained. ‘Three weeks before the wedding …it was dreadful.’ The memory of it, whatever it was, seemed to make him feel ill. His eyes looked dead and blank. I felt a sudden wave of sympathy. I couldn’t help it. I put my knife down.

  ‘I don’t know what it was, Dom, but you know I would have helped you.’

  He looked at me, and smiled. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I know. But the trouble was that you couldn’t help me – no one could, because it was …’ he emitted a little groan ‘ …too awful. It was too big. And I didn’t want to get you involved.’

  ‘So you weren’t having an affair with Virginia Park, then?’

  ‘No’ he said, ‘I wasn’t. She’s irrelevant.’

  ‘Not to me. Before you carry on, could you tell me why you got involved with her?’

  ‘That was a …mistake,’ he said, with an exasperated shrug. ‘I wasn’t thinking straight. I was on the rebound.’ Rebounder, he should have said. ‘She’s irrelevant,’ he insisted again.

  ‘So what was it then? What had happened that was so terrible?’

  ‘I’d been threatened …’

  ‘Threatened?’ I repeated. My God. By who? The mafia? The Triads? The Yakuza? The IRA?

  ‘I’d been threatened with losing everything,’ he went on quietly. ‘Every penny of what I’d built up. Everything was going to be taken away from me. And I was going to be left with nothing.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’d have had to sell my house, and my car, and it still wouldn’t have been enough. I’d have had to surrender my Peps, my Tessa’s, my endowments, my premium bonds, my Post Office Savings accounts – everything.’

  ‘Why?’ I said again.

  ‘Because of a …mistake I made at work.’

  ‘You did something wrong?’

  ‘No, no – not wrong. It was a grey area.’

  ‘A grey area?’

  ‘It was about pensions,’ he explained.

  ‘Pensions? What about them? You sold them all the time.’

  ‘Yes, I did. Very profitably. But then we all ran into problems. There were investigations.’ Investigations? Suddenly, it clicked, and I knew.

  ‘Mis-selling,’ I said. ‘You were mis-selling pensions! That’s why you were in trouble.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said with a sigh.

  ‘You were advising people to take out private pensions, rather than staying in their company scheme. That’s it, isn’t it?’

  ‘Well, that’s the nub of it. Yes.’

  ‘And you were advising them to do this, even though you knew the new scheme would be less profitable than the occupational one they were in.’

  ‘Well, that’s putting it rather bluntly.’

  ‘And the reason why it would be less profitable – do correct me if I’m wrong – is because all the commission that they had to pay you would take a big chunk off the value of the fund.’

  ‘Ye-es. Yes, it would.’

  ‘And that it would take these people years and years to catch up, if they ever did. So it was like starting with a massive handicap.’

  ‘I suppose so. Yes,’ he conceded.

  ‘Whereas, if they’d stayed in their company scheme, as you should have advised them, they’d have been better off in the long run.’

  ‘You seem to know rather a lot about it, Minty,’ he said warily.

  ‘Well, there’s been quite a lot about it in the papers. And one of our business reporters has been following the story. He says three million people were conned.’

  ‘I didn’t con anyone,’ Dominic insisted.r />
  ‘Didn’t you know that you were selling them something less valuable than what they already had?’ He was silent.

  ‘No. Not really.’

  ‘I find that hard to believe. Didn’t you tell them about all the commission?’

  ‘Yes, of course I did. I didn’t pull the wool over anyone’s eyes.’

  ‘Ah, but did you tell them that your commission wasn’t being paid by the insurance company? That it was coming directly out of their premiums? Did you tell them that?’

  ‘Well …as I say, it was a grey area.’

  ‘Seems pretty black and white to me.’

  ‘Yes, but it wasn’t my fault. Remember, when this all started, the Tories had been really pushing private pensions. I genuinely felt I was helping my clients. And of course the Robert Maxwell business gave company pensions a very bad name. People wanted private pensions. Anyway,’ he went on, ‘it was the industry’s fault for failing to regulate it properly.’

  ‘And you got into trouble.’

  ‘Yes,’ he confessed, ‘I did. And it’s been a nightmare.’ He shuddered at the memory. ‘A nightmare,’ he said again. ‘It had been rumbling on for months,’ he explained. ‘And there are these plans to pay compensation. The insurance companies are going to be shelling out twenty billion pounds for this.’

  ‘Surely that’s their problem, not yours.’

  ‘Yes. But then in early July, a rumour began to circulate that some independent financial advisers might be made personally liable. And I learned that I was one of them.’

  ‘You would have had to cough up?’

  ‘Yes. To the tune of around twenty thousand pounds per client. Minty –’ he leant forward – ‘I have nearly two hundred clients.’

  ‘Yes, I know. Half of them were at our wedding.’

  ‘That works out at four million pounds.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose it does.’

  ‘I genuinely believed that I was about to lose everything,’ he said. ‘Every last penny that I’d earned. Everything I’d built up from such a tough start in life.’

  ‘Oh, don’t give me the sob story.’

  ‘But you don’t understand, Minty, because your life was so much easier than mine.’

  ‘Not once I’d met you.’

  ‘It’s not fair of you to judge me, when your background was so different from mine. You had private education. Then you went to university. And your grandmother’s legacy enabled you to buy your flat. I didn’t have any of that. I’d built up everything entirely by myself.’

  ‘Look, I know that. I respected you for it. In fact, it was always a strong point in your favour. But that’s not the issue here.’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ he insisted. ‘Because it was the threat to what I’d built up which was gnawing away at me. I can’t tell you how terrified I was to think I’d lose it all. And so I got myself in a total panic. I don’t know how I managed to function normally.’

  ‘You didn’t function normally. You jilted me.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again. ‘I’m truly sorry for what I did to you.’

  ‘Thank you. I accept your apology. Though I think you could at least have had the “decency” – if that’s the right word – to call it off beforehand. Like you’ve done with Virginia Park.’

  ‘But the wedding was just so …unstoppable,’ he said. ‘It was like a juggernaut. And every time I wanted to say, “I’m sorry, Minty, but I can’t go through with it,” you’d tell me something about your dress, or the catering details, or the flowers or whatever. You were so happy. How could I cancel it?’

  ‘Well, you should have done,’ I said. ‘It was rather embarrassing having it cancelled like that on the day. It’s passed into local legend in Primrose Hill,’ I said. ‘They sing ballads about it in the pub: “The Jilting of Minty Malone”.’

  We paused while the waiter removed the plates from our first course. Dominic couldn’t resist taking the opportunity to do a little discreet rubber-necking.

  ‘Isn’t that Stephen Fry,’ he said, ‘just coming in?’

  I glanced to my left. ‘Yes.’ And as Stephen Fry passed our table, he caught my eye and smiled politely and said, ‘Hello, Minty.’ I smiled back.

  ‘Do you know him?’ said Dominic, agog.

  ‘Not really. I interviewed him on Tuesday. But I’m going to his book launch next week.’

  ‘Oh, so Radio-Biz is obviously going well.’

  ‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘It is.’

  ‘You’ve made it,’ he said. ‘You’re a presenter.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I never thought it would happen. But I am.’ The waiter appeared and placed the duck in front of me and the shepherd’s pie in front of Dominic, then retreated. ‘So where were we?’ I said brightly above the gentle babble of the other diners. ‘Ah, yes, you were facing financial ruin, and you wanted to call off our wedding.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Now, why did you want to call it off, Dominic?’ I enquired. I felt that, now, we were getting to the crux. He dipped his fork into the shepherd’s pie, then looked at me.

  ‘To protect you,’ he said. I almost choked.

  ‘Protect me?’ I enquired.

  ‘Yes. How could I put you through all that?’

  ‘You did put me through “all that”,’ I said.

  ‘I mean, how could I put you through all the worry and anxiety of my financial ruin. It just wouldn’t have been fair to you.’

  ‘But I had a job, Dominic.’

  ‘Yes, but, with respect, Minty, you weren’t earning much. Then.’ Then? ‘I was so proud of what I had to offer you,’ he added. ‘And it was all going to be taken away.’

  ‘Yes, but I wasn’t marrying you because of what you’d got,’ I said. ‘I was marrying you because I believed I loved you. That’s what I believed. Then.’

  ‘But I didn’t feel it was fair to put you in a position where I wouldn’t be able to support you properly. Pay for anything. Buy you anything.’

  ‘I didn’t need anything.’

  ‘We wouldn’t have been able to afford a house in a good area.’

  ‘But I have a nice flat in Primrose Hill. We could have lived there, Dom. Or we could have sold it and bought a house somewhere less fashionable until you were on your feet again. There’s no mortgage on my flat, Dominic. I’m not a pauper, you know.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘But …’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘But …our standard of living would have been so much lower than what you were expecting. And I just didn’t feel that it was right for me to expose you to all my problems. In any case,’ he continued, ‘I was in a complete panic. I wanted to tell you, but could never find the right moment. Then before I knew it the wedding day had dawned, and I was standing there in the church, and I just knew I couldn’t go through with it.’

  ‘So you didn’t. We were about to make our vows,’ I pointed out. ‘But then, to my utter astonishment, you disavowed me.’

  ‘Oh God, Minty!’ he said. ‘Do you think it was easy for me? Do you think it was easy, doing what I did? Running out on you in front of all my clients?’ All my clients?

  ‘But the other problem that I have, of course, is that you said such nasty things to me. In front of everyone. You said – and do correct me if I’m wrong, Dominic. You always do correct me if I’m wrong. And even if I’m right, you still like to correct me – but you said that I was very untidy.’

  ‘But, darling, you are,’ he said, with an indulgent smile.

  ‘And you said that I talked too much and never knew when to shut up.’

  ‘Well, I was in a state,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know what I was saying. I was trying to come up with reasons, excuses, for what I was about to do. And in any case, darling’ – he reached for my hand – ‘you do talk too much. You love talking, don’t you, darling. Talking, talking, talking. Little Minty Mintola just loves to talk. And it is annoying, darling.’

  ‘It isn’t annoying. It’s normal.’


  ‘Oh, darling,’ he said again.

  My knife hovered over my plate. I put it down.

  ‘You know, Dominic, you’ve always portrayed me very falsely. I really don’t know why.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he said peevishly.

  ‘You’ve made out, right from the start, that I’m this garrulous idiot, jabbering away nineteen to the dozen, unaware that no one’s listening. That I’m “boring” everyone, as you always liked to say. That I’m droning on and on, like some tedious, uninvited guest.’

  ‘But you do talk a lot, darling.’

  ‘It’s called conversation, Dominic. It’s called making conversation. That’s what normal people do. And that’s what I was trying to do with you. To oil the wheels of our relationship, because you were often so quiet. Is it because you have so little to say yourself, that you crush conversation in others?’

  ‘No, it’s just that you do like to chatter on, and it can be quite exhausting. And you know I don’t sleep well, and I work very hard and I need to relax when I’m at home.’

  ‘But too much silence can be a strain. You see, Dominic, you talk very little, unless you’re actively trying to sell someone something. Then, of course, you talk. Out comes the patter. But you don’t really have a lot to say for yourself otherwise, do you?’

  ‘I …’

  ‘You don’t really ever express any opinions or views on anything. You’re not interested in any exchange of ideas.’

  He rolled his eyes, theatrically. ‘That’s because you’re talking so much I can’t get a word in edgeways.’

  ‘Rubbish!’ I said. ‘It’s because you don’t have much to say. Or you can’t be bothered to think of anything. You’re quite uninformed. Perhaps because you’ve spent the last fifteen years making money during the day, and watching Sky Sports by night. And apart from a few relationships and a few golfing holidays, that’s really all you’ve done.’

  ‘I …’

  ‘You’re not an entertaining or thoughtful person, Dominic. In fact – can I be frank here? – you’re boring. Did I ever tell you that? You’re a very boring man.’