Free The Making of Minty Malone by Isabel Wolff Page B

with me and how we’d sort of enjoyedourselves, 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 Domin ic 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