The Making of Minty Malone by Isabel Wolff

Author:Isabel Wolff
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction, General
ISBN: 9780007392209
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
Published: 2013-05-08T23:00:00+00:00

She cried, of course. Not at first. At first she didn’t say anything. She just waited outside the hotel while I collected our coats, and then a doorman hailed us a cab. And when we got in the back, she was silent. She just stared out of the window at the rain-soaked streets. But then she started to sniff, and by the time we were halfway up Great Russell Street she was sobbing. And she sobbed all the way to Primrose Hill. I didn’t blame her. It was a terrible shock. A door had been slammed shut in her mind. After five months of anger and obsession, Charlie had finally been consigned to the past.

‘You should have talked me out of it!’ Amber wailed. ‘You shouldn’t have let me do it.’

‘I did try to stop you,’ I said. ‘Don’t you remember?’

‘No,’ she howled. ‘Oh, all right, yes. Yes, I do remember now. Oh, Minty-’ she laid her head on my right shoulder, and I could feel her tears on my skin. ‘Oh God, I wish I’d listened,’ she sobbed. ‘I feel so bad.’

I felt bad too. I felt bad for Amber, though she’d brought it on herself. I also felt bad about the fact that we’d left the ball without saying a word to our escorts. It seemed rude, even if they were being paid. I wanted to dash in and explain that we were leaving. But Amber wouldn’t wait. She wanted to get out of there as fast as possible. When we got back to the flat, we just sat, very quietly, in the kitchen.

‘How come you didn’t know?’ she whispered.

‘Because she didn’t tell me. I had no idea.’

‘Well, if you had known,’ she croaked, ‘would you have told me?’

‘No,’ I said, after a moment. ‘Almost certainly not. Unless there was a particular reason why you had to know. But if I’d known before the ball, well then, yes, I would have told you. But I didn’t know. For a long time I thought she was keen on Joe.’

‘Hello!’ squawked Pedro. I went into the hall and picked up the phone. It was Laurie.

‘I’m sorry we left so abruptly,’ I said, ‘but Amber wasn’t feeling well. Hang on a moment …’ I covered the mouthpiece with my hand. ‘Laurie wants to know if he can have a word with you.’ Amber was hunched over the kitchen table. She shook her head.

‘She’ll ring you another time,’ I said.

‘Bloody well won’t,’ I heard her say.

‘Laurie sounded very worried about you,’ I explained. ‘I think it was nice of him to ring. He didn’t have to do that.’ She didn’t reply. She just gave me this strange, blinkless, stare.

‘Money well spent,’ she whispered.

‘What?’

‘I said it would be money well spent,’ she repeated, and then she emitted a bitter, mirthless laugh. What an evening it had been. What a shock. And it was as much of a shock for me.

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