gets away with it. For example, I featured in one of her books, Fat Chance, as ‘Mindy’, a frustrated radio reporter with ambitions to be a presenter. She’d even given ‘Mindy’ my long curly dark hair and the same address in Primrose Hill. Mum was in the next one, The Hideaway, which was a sort of Aga-saga set in London W9. And of course everyone knew it was Mum. In fact, Amber made it so obvious I don’t know why she didn’t just call the character Dympna Malone and be done with it. And when Mum and I eventually said that we’d really rather not be in any more of her books, thanks, because, well, we’d just rather not, she went into her usual spiel about how she was only creating ‘composites’ and how no one could possibly think it was us. And we’d heard that convenient, self-serving lie so many times before.
‘Why don’t you try using a little, you know, imagination, dear?’ Mum suggested sweetly. ‘Next time, why don’t you just try and make the characters up?’
Amber gave Mum this funny, and not particularly friendly look, while I stared at the floor.
‘Auntie Dympna,’ she said seriously, ‘I’m a novelist. It’s my job to “hold the mirror up to nature,” as the Prince of Denmark himself once put it.’
‘Yes, but it’s a metaphorical mirror, dear,’ Mum pointed out without malice.
At this, Amber picked up one of her books and opened it at the second page. ‘“This novel …”’ she announced, reading aloud, ‘“is entirely a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events or localities, is entirely co-incidental.” Entirely,’ she added, pointedly.
So that was that. At least we haven’t come off too badly in Amber’s books, though I don’t think Mum enjoyed being portrayed as an eccentrically dressed, late middle-aged woman, indiscriminately raising money by highly dubious and quite possibly criminal methods for any charitable cause she could lay her hands on. But it’s worse for Amber’s exes. She’s terribly hard on them. In they all go. Unfavourably, of course, as paedophiles, axe-murderers, benefit cheats, adulterers, gangsters, drug-dealers, hairdressers and petty crooks. Totally defamatory. I’m amazed they don’t sue. Too embarrassed, I suppose, to admit it might be them. I guess this is what Amber banks on, but one day her luck will run out.
Still, even though there are certain, well, tensions, there, I like having her around. At the moment we help staunch each other’s wounds. Hand each other hankies. Try and make each other eat – I’ve lost six pounds since Saturday, and my hips are starting to show.
Amber’s making Charlie pay to have all her stuff sent over in a van. She said that as he’d dumped her, he’d have to pay to get her out. So on Friday a white transit van pulled up in Princess Road and out came box after box. Loads of books, of course, and her computer; three pictures, and a couple of lamps; a bedside table and an easy chair, and several suitcases of clothes. And there was kitchen equipment too. I felt sorry for her as she took the things in, with tears streaming down her face. I was a bit concerned, to be honest, about where it would all go. Well, she’ll only be here for a while, I told myself. And I’ve a big half-landing, and a shed.
‘Hello!’ squawked Pedro. The phone. Dominic! I picked it up. Dom –!
‘Minty …’ My heart sank. It was Jack.
‘Hello, Jack,’ I said warily.
‘Minty, look …’
‘What is it?’ I said, though I knew exactly why he’d called.
‘I won’t beat about the bush, Minty. When are you coming back?’
I sank on to the hall chair.
‘I’m not ready yet,’ I pleaded. ‘It’s barely a week. Please, please give me more time.’
‘Well …’
‘Compassionate leave?’
‘You don’t qualify – you’re not bereaved.’
‘I am bereaved!’ I moaned. ‘In a way …’ I just couldn’t face them all yet. ‘I’m …bereft,’ I added quietly, swallowing hard.
‘I need you here, Minty,’ Jack said. ‘And I think it will be good for you to come back to work. Get it over with. As you know, we’re all very …sorry.’
‘That’s what makes it so much worse,’ I wailed. ‘I don’t want your sympathy.’ I was crying now. I couldn’t help it. ‘Dominic took all my dignity,’ I sobbed. ‘Every shred of it. Every last bit. I’d rather he’d have shot me!’
‘I’d rather you’d have shot him!’ said Jack. ‘A hundred years ago someone would have done it for you. Would you like me to get up a posse?’ he added. ‘I’m sure I could round up a few willing volunteers to avenge your wounded honour.’
All at once, I had visions of Dominic being pursued round London by lasso-wielding cowboys, led by Jack, with a shining sheriff’s badge. And at that, I laughed. I laughed and laughed. And I suddenly realised it was the first time I had laughed since Saturday. Then I laughed again, madly, and couldn’t stop. I was hysterical. I was literally hysterical, I think.
‘Nine o’clock on Monday, then?’ said Jack brightly, after a pause. I sighed, deeply. Then sighed again.
‘Make it nine-thirty,’ I said.
The next day, Saturday, my ‘weekiversary’, I dealt with my wedding dress and shoes. These I took to Wedding Belles, an upmarket second-hand bridal dress agency just behind Earl’s Court. I looked at the ranks of white and ivory gowns rustling on their rails, and wondered what tales they might tell.
‘It’s lovely,’ breathed the proprietor, as she inspected it for ice-cream stains and drops of champagne. ‘I should be able to charge £800 at least,’ she went on enthusiastically, ‘so that’s £400 for you.’ Or rather, for Cancer Research. ‘You must have looked fantastic,’ she added as she pinned a label on to the dress. ‘Did it go well?’
‘It was sensational,’ I replied. ‘It went without a hitch.’
‘And did you cry?’ she asked as she hung it up.
‘Oh yes,’ I said. ‘I cried.’
And that was it. Nothing left. Or almost nothing. Dad had already taken Granny’s tiara back to the bank. All that remained now was Nearly Wed, my bouquet and my veil. So on Sunday evening, at about nine, Amber drove me down to the Embankment, and we walked up the steps on to Waterloo Bridge. Gulls circled, screeching, over the water, and the windows from the office buildings flashed red and gold in the setting sun. A river cruiser passed underneath, and up floated music, voices and laughter. I watched the wake stream out, spreading and widening to touch both banks. Then I opened my bag, took out Nearly Wed and dropped it into the water. Amber and I didn’t exchange a word as I removed my veil, and a pair of sewing shears. She helped me hold it over the rail as I cut into the voile, slicing the fabric into fragments which the stiff breeze snatched away. One by one they flew up, then fluttered down like confetti. Some pieces seemed to go on for miles, dancing up and down over the water like big white butterflies. All that remained now was the bouquet. I looked at it one last time, remembering how happy I had felt as it had lain across my lap in the beribboned Bentley just a week before. The petals were
