The Making of Minty Malone (49 page)

‘Minty!’ she called. ‘Have you heard what’s happened?’

‘Yes, I have, I’m just going to meet him.’

‘What do you mean, you’re going to meet him? He’s run off!’

‘He’s run off?’

‘Yes – run off.’

‘What are you
talking
about?’ I said. This was too much in one day.

‘He’s run off,’ she repeated. ‘It’s a scandal.’

‘But he’s only just
got
here.’

‘Mr Happy Bot has run off,’ she announced.

‘
What
?’

‘Citronella’s husband’s run off with someone!’

‘Citronella?’

‘Yes, Citronella. Her husband’s done a bunk! I’ve just heard.’

‘Citronella? Oh. Wow! Well …’ I said as I resumed my downward flight.

‘Can you believe it?’ shouted Monica incredulously.

‘Yes,’ I called up the stairs, ‘I can. I mean, she’s absolutely frightful and that nanny of theirs is very pretty.’

‘Oh, it’s not the
nanny
!’ I heard Monica shout as I hurtled down the steps and flung my arms round Joe. ‘It’s not the nanny,’ she added gaily. ‘It’s a
man
!’

Pop! Fizzzzzzzz. Chink. ‘
Everything clicks with Veuve Clicquot
,’ intoned Rupert Everett urbanely. ‘
Veuve Clicquot
,’ he went on smoothly, ‘
Make your clique click with Veuve.
’

‘And now a look at London’s weather,’ said Barry, ‘brought to you by Ralph Lauren, the label which looks good in all seasons. It’s going to be another warm, sunny day …’

I reached out a hand and groped for the ‘off’ button on my radio alarm. I wanted to concentrate on the papers. ‘PRATT FALL!’ announced the centre pages of the
Mail on Sunday.
‘Un-nappy Ever After as Happy Bot Gives Chairman the Boot!’ Andrew Pratt’s predilections were hardly of public concern, but lacking other news, the
Mail on Sunday
had decided to go to town. It described him as a ‘pervert’, a man whose company extolled the virtues of family life, while his own marriage had been a hollow sham. There was a photo of the Pratts in happier times, smirking outside their country home, and an aerial shot of the copse on Hampstead Heath where Andrew Pratt had been found,
in flagrante
, with ‘a friend’. ‘We are what we are,’ was Mr Pratt’s mysterious comment, beneath a shot of him leaving his shuttered house. He had been cautioned by the police, summarily sacked by his board, and thrown out by his wife. He had now gone to France with his lover, who he described, rather grandly, as an ‘international hairdresser’. London FM, anxious to avoid adverse publicity, had swiftly found a new sponsor for the weather.

I imagined that this combination of events, not least the loss of her influence with us, would have cast a pall over
Citronella. I turned to the back of the
Sunday Semaphore
, expecting to see that she had not filed. But, greatly to my surprise, there she was. In fact, she seemed in unusually combative form, proudly displaying her emotional distress as though it were a wound sustained in war.

‘I will triumph over this,’ she thundered defiantly in quasi-Churchillian mode. I could almost visualise her giving herself a victory sign whilst chewing on a cigar. ‘I will not be bowed,’ she vowed. ‘I am suffering, yes, as my sex have always suffered, but I will hold my head high and come through. These experiences are a forge,’ she went on melodramatically, ‘in which the female heart is tempered like steel. I am determined to prove that women can not only survive, but even flourish, without men.’

‘Amazing,’ I murmured. ‘Absolutely
amazing.
’

‘Yes, Minty,’ said Joe sleepily. ‘It is.’ He threw a naked arm across me and pulled me back down into the bed and the papers slithered to the floor in a whisper of newsprint.

‘Oh, Minty,’ he said.

‘Oh, Joe,’ I replied.

‘Oh, Minty,’ he murmured as his lips found mine. ‘You’re just so …repellent.’

‘Thanks,’ I whispered.

‘You’re so disgusting to look at,’ he added as our limbs entwined.

‘Really?’

‘Mmmm. I find you so utterly …gruesome,’ he went on as his hands roamed over my naked back and our breathing increased. ‘In fact,’ he went on, as his eyes gazed down into mine, so close now that I could count his lashes, ‘you’re the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.

‘I hate you,’ he added happily.

‘I hate you too,’ I sighed.

Afterwards, we sat in the garden in the sunshine, in our pyjamas, with a tray of coffee and toast. Amber and Laurie had gone flat-hunting, or perhaps they were tactfully keeping out of our way.

‘It really
is
amazing,’ said Joe wonderingly. We were side by side on the bench, our arms entwined like the tendrils of my clematis. ‘Amazing,’ he said again, his head shaking in disbelief.

‘And would you have phoned me anyway?’ I asked him, for the fourth or fifth time. I needed to be absolutely sure.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I would. I was longing to see you again, Minty. I was really sorry about what happened in Café Kick.’

‘I was
very
sorry too.’

‘I was very, very sorry.’

‘I bet you weren’t as sorry as me.’

‘It’s very nice of you to say so, Minty, but I think you’ll find I was.’

‘No, I believe I was sorrier than you were, because, after all, it was my fault.’

‘But I was
particularly
sorry because I’d provoked you, by implying that you were a moron, which, of course, you’re not.’

‘Oh, thank you.’

‘You’re welcome.’

‘But I was terribly,
terribly
sorry,’ I persisted, ‘because the torrent of abuse I unleashed on you was, I feel with hindsight, excessive.’

‘No, no, no, I fully deserved it, Minty.’

‘With respect, Joe, I disagree. It was quite gratuitous, and I’d just like …’ and here I kissed him ‘ …to apologise wholeheartedly and unreservedly again.’

We smiled at each other smugly. It’s so nice knowing that you’re, well, nice.

‘Right, that’s enough niceness,’ said Joe. ‘Let’s go out. Let’s go …’

‘Where?’

‘To the Tate.’

And why not? So we did. And as we walked to Chalk Farm Tube in the sunshine, Joe was still expressing abundant wonderment at how we’d found each other again.

‘I was thinking about you when I got in that cab at the
airport,’ he said, as we walked over the railway bridge, ‘and the radio was on and suddenly there you were. As if by magic. As if someone had said, “Abracadabra”. And hearing you say those things about me, it just –’ he squeezed my hand – ‘it got to me. As I sat there, listening to you, jet-lagged, and in total shock, everything fell into place. I just
had
to see you – right away. So I asked the driver to take me straight to London FM. It was
you
, Minty,’ he said again, wonderingly, as we stood on the southbound platform. (Amber’s abuse, you will be glad to know, had long since been erased.) ‘It was all because of
you
,’ Joe said again. ‘I mean, one minute I’m a complete nobody, just another hopeful scriptwriter. The next thing I know, the phone starts to ring and it doesn’t stop. And agents are sending stretch limos to collect me, and producers and directors are requesting meetings. But what amazed me was that everyone seemed to know all about my script without having read it. And then ICM sign me up, and they tell me that Nicholas Cage, Kevin Spacey and Leonardo DiCaprio have all been asking to read it. And by now I’m getting invitations to galas and premieres.’

‘Which is how you met Kelly-Ann Jones, who you kissed.’

‘No,’ he said, vehemently, as the train arrived, with a roar, and we stepped on.

‘Yes you did.’

‘I did not.’

‘Joe, you know I hate to disagree with you. But you did.’

‘I did not kiss Kelly-Ann Jones.’

‘Sorry, that is simply not true.’

‘It
is
true.’

‘Joe, don’t lie to me.’

‘I did not kiss Kelly-Ann Jones,’ he said emphatically. ‘She kissed
me.
I was gobsmacked,’ he added. ‘Literally. I was so taken aback – I’d only met her once before. But one of the photographers asked for a shot, and before I knew what had happened, her arms were round my neck and her collagenenhanced lips were pressed to mine! It was all for the cameras, of course. Her star’s been waning of late and mine was rising,
fast. Anyway,’ he went on as we rattled southwards, ‘I was getting all these invitations here there and everywhere, and everyone seemed to know who I was. It was as though some
deus ex machina
had suddenly pressed the big green button marked “Go”. I couldn’t work out how this had happened. Why it was all so effortless when I’d expected to have to sweat and convince and cajole. It was only when I heard you on the radio, explaining what you’d done, that I finally understood. Minty, do you realise, you whipped the Hollywood rumour mill into complete hysteria on my behalf?’

‘I had no idea,’ I said, again. I laughed and shrugged – it had dumbfounded me as much as it had Joe. ‘I wasn’t consciously trying to talk you up,’ I explained. ‘I was just trying to find you. So, in order to identify you, I had to tell everyone about your film, and they all thought it sounded great.’

‘You did the most
amazing
PR campaign for me,’ he said, shaking his head again, in disbelief. ‘It took off like a firestorm. I was the talk of the town.’

‘Did you really not know I was there?’ I asked as we got out at Embankment.

‘Absolutely not,’ he replied. ‘If I had, of course, I’d have got in touch. I did hear that a British woman had been asking after me,’ he added thoughtfully as we walked along the Thames. ‘But I was told she was called Emily. And I don’t know anyone called Emily. And in any case, there are loads of British women working in LA.’

‘Emily?’ I said wonderingly. ‘How did I become Emily?’ And then it clicked. ‘Minty …Mindy …Minnie …Millie …Em-i-ly. That’s what happens with Chinese Whispers.’

‘Chinese Whispers,’ said Joe. ‘That’s exactly what it was. And the whispers grew into a whirlwind, and then suddenly there was a bidding war.’

‘A bidding war?’

‘Columbia were really keen,’ he said as we passed the House of Commons and entered Victoria Gardens. ‘They bid first. Then Miramax came in, and Warner, and Paramount, and they were all vying for the script. In the end, it went to Paramount.

‘Paramount?’ I said, as we strolled beneath an avenue of plane trees, then stood for a moment, watching the sun glinting off the silty water.

‘Yes,’ he said, above the hum of the traffic and the lazy slap of the river against the wall. ‘This guy called Michael Kravitz was desperate to get it,’

‘Michael Kravitz?’

‘Yes, Michael Kravitz.’

‘We met him at Barney’s,’ I explained as we stood up again, and walked on. ‘He was terribly nice. We told him all about you. He said he worked for Paramount.’

‘He certainly does. He’s their Senior Vice-President.’

‘And he’s the one who bought your film?’

‘Yes.’ And don’t think I’d be so vulgar as to ask Joe what Paramount had paid, but he told me anyway and, look, I’m sorry, I really can’t tell you, but believe me, it’s a colossal amount. Anyway, that’s why Joe’s come back to the UK, to sort out his affairs. And, yes, he will be going back to LA again, but I don’t want to think about that now.

‘So, is Kelly-Ann Jones going to be in your film?’ I asked as we strolled towards Lambeth Bridge. I hoped my casual demeanour would mask my hissing jealousy.

‘She wants to be,’ he replied. ‘She’s after the role of the boy’s teacher – the part I told you about, remember? – but, to be honest, she’s too old.’

‘She looks about twenty-five.’

‘Minty – she’s forty-three.’

‘Forty-three?’ I was astounded. ‘Well, she’s obviously drinking the right brand of coffee, that’s all I can say.’

‘No, Minty. This is Hollywood. Her face has been skilfully superannuated – twice.’

‘Ah.’

‘Close up, she’s about as natural as canned laughter. No, I need someone young and fresh-looking for that role,’ he added thoughtfully. ‘I’ve got my mental short list.’

‘And what about your phone?’ I said, as we walked up the steps of the Tate through the milling crowds.

‘Phone?’

‘I rang you several times on your mobile phone, but you never called me back.’

‘Ah – that’s because I had it stolen on day one,’ he exclaimed. ‘My hire car was broken into and it was nicked. That’s why you didn’t get a reply.’ We walked through the echoing marble corridors with their rainbow-shaped arches to the special exhibition at the back. ‘ABRACADABRA!’ we read in huge black letters.

‘Abracadabra!’ said Joe, with a smile. Inside, weird and wonderful objects met our eyes. A robotic replica of a Japanese man, a portrait, in chocolate, of Jackson Pollock; red plastic water lilies, ten feet high; and a huge sunburst made of yellow glass. And then we turned a corner and gasped, for ahead of us, on a platform, was a table football like no other. It was over twenty feet long. It had forty rods at least. It was a triple stretch limo version of a pub football game. What was more, it worked.

‘
Vous voulez jouer
?’ said Joe, and I was suddenly transported back a year, to Paris. He held out his hand.

‘Do you want to play?’ he said again. I looked at him, and laughed.

‘Yes,’ I said happily. ‘Let’s play.’

‘It’s a wonderful play,’ said Mum enthusiastically at supper the following Saturday. She and Dad had come round ‘to see the kittens’, before they leave with Amber. At least, that was their excuse. Their real reason for coming was because they wanted to check out Joe.

‘I love the theatre, don’t you, Joe?’ said Mum warmly, as she passed him the salad.

‘Oh yes,’ he said, ‘I do.’

‘
Super
, darling!’ squawked Pedro.

‘And the
Winter’s Tale
is such a marvellous play.’

‘It’s a wonderful play,’ Joe agreed.

‘It’s about resurrection, and redemption,’ said Amber with a dreamy smile. ‘It’s about being given a second chance when you thought that all was lost.’

‘And what part are you playing, Mrs Malone?’ Joe enquired politely as he poured her some wine.

‘Oh, I’m not
acting
, dear,’ she exclaimed. ‘No, I’m just helping out behind the scenes. I’m doing wardrobe. We’ve hired the costumes from the RSC – they’re very elaborate, you know. Some of them have thirty-five loop fastenings!’

‘Really?’ I said with a wry smile.

‘Don’t you want to act in any of the plays?’ Laurie asked her as I drained the new potatoes. ‘I’m sure you’d be very good.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t mind, actually,’ said Mum, blushing slightly. ‘In fact, they’re holding auditions next week and I might just have a bash. It’s Priestley,’ she explained: ‘
When We Are Married.
’

‘When are
we
married?’ Amber said to Laurie with a smile. She twisted the square emerald on her left hand.

‘Whenever you want,’ he said. ‘Name the day. I’m yours.’

‘No!
Really
?’ squawked Pedro, shaking his wings.

‘Laurie starts full time as a vet on Monday,’ said Amber proudly. ‘He’s going to help all those poor little darling animals.’

‘And the first thing I’m going to do,’ he said, as Perdita walked in from the garden, followed by her wobbling offspring, ‘is to take my scalpel to your cat.’