‘Still nothing good coming together?’
‘Not a thing.’
We spend the next hour rearranging the shop with the centre table serving as a buffet at the back and the scatter chairs positioned in rows.
‘The place looks beautiful,’ I say to Astrid, once we’re done and sitting on the couch waiting for the first of the customers to arrive. It feels great to have the shop to ourselves for a while instead of frantic with shoppers, it feels like old times! ‘I do know how hard you’ve worked this year, Astrid. Honest.’
‘I know you do.’ She gazes outside at the newly fitted awning, white wooden bench and flower pots, proud of what’s she achieved. It amazes me that in the space of a year Astrid’s managed to turn the shop from dowdy and dank to charming and cheerful with thousands of loyal customers and a comparatively healthy turnover.
‘Let’s hope Mr Love doesn’t have a major heart attack when he realises all you’ve done and spent without his consent.’
‘Oh God, I can’t believe I forgot to tell you—’
‘What?’
‘I saw him!’
‘You saw who?’
‘Mr Love.’
‘What?’ I splutter. ‘Where? When?’
‘Getting out of a taxi and going in his front door – just the other day.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘No, I’m serious. I would have gone out to ask about wages but he looked so awful, I thought I might spook the life out of him.’
‘Was he alone?’
‘He was. His clothes were all but falling off of him and he was carrying a white plastic bag.’
‘Where do you think he’d been?’
‘I’ve absolutely no idea. But I can tell you, there’s no way in this world that he’d been off seeing nursey – sex would have finished him off in the state he was in.’
‘How mysterious.’
Astrid looks up from her carving and says, contemplatively, ‘I don’t know why but today the shop reminds me of my wedding day.’ Aidan and she were married in the courtyard of an intimate chocolate shop/café in early May.
‘It was a perfect day.’ I remember how stunning she looked in her boho gown, and the smell of warm spices that filled the small café where her reception was held. We drank rich chilli hot chocolate in the courtyard as we waited for her to arrive and later, warmed ourselves inside with an indulgent afternoon tea and champagne.
‘I remember thinking, nothing bad could ever happen to us,’ she says, staring at a flickering candle on the counter. ‘So much has changed.’
‘It’s been a tough year.’
‘Next year is going to be tougher,’ she says, as the door chimes open, signalling the arrival of our first customers.
I give her hand a squeeze. ‘You’ll get through it, I promise.’
‘Hopefully.’
I put down my drink and offer glasses of spiced red wine and warm apple juice, encouraging the customers to peruse Tom’s books. As I’m doing so, Doreen arrives.
‘How are you?’ I ask, getting up to help her take off her rucksack.
‘Fuckin’ miserable.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘A’ve been dumped.’ Astrid immediately fetches her a glass of wine.
‘What!’ I didn’t think Cowboy Steve had it in him. ‘When?’
‘Last night.’
‘Oh, Doreen, I’m sorry.’ I give her a hug. The smell of cheese puffs seeps from her pores.
‘We’ll look after you.’ Astrid hands her a glass of red as Marilyn enters. Her hair is less mangy today and her clothes laundered.
‘May I join you?’ she asks, shyly.
‘Aye,’ sniffs Doreen, making space for her on the sofa. ‘The more the merrier.’
‘Doreen’s feeling a little low,’ I say.
‘The bastard said he didnae want tae marry me, that it wasnae personal, just marriage isnae for him.’
‘Oh Doreen,’ says Astrid, crouched beside her, her hand on her knee.
‘Ah, fuck ‘um.’ She knocks back her wine and reaches into her rucksack for a monster bag of puffs. ‘Love’s always better in books anyway.’
‘Good point,’ nods Astrid.
Marilyn smiles as if she knows something we don’t. All I can think is what a killer line Doreen’s just come up with and how I’ve got to use it in Truman’s break-up speech.
‘Tom’s here.’ Astrid gestures towards the door. I hastily scribble a quick bit of script on a napkin:
TRUMAN
Anna, I know it won’t feel like it now, or perhaps for a very long time, but I really feel it’s better that we call the wedding off.
ANNA looks devastated but says nothing
TRUMAN
Marriage isn’t right for me. I’m sorry I’ve only realised that now.
ANNA tries to process what she’s hearing
TRUMAN
Look at my father. Three marriages. Three divorces. I don’t want to be that guy. I don’t want you to be the woman divorcing that guy.
ANNA starts to cry, raw emotion
TRUMAN
(trying to touch her)
You deserve better.
ANNA recoils
TRUMAN
I love you. And a piece of my heart will always belong to you but, well –
ANNA looks for an explanation
TRUMAN
Love is always better in books.
Anna hits him with a right hook and floors him.
Happy with the sketch I pop it into my bag and return to the punters, who are finding seats, ready to listen to Tom’s talk.
The book signing was a success though I must confess during the question and answer segment my thoughts did drift to Ben: where he is, what he’s doing, if he’s doing that something with somebody else, those sorts of obsessive thoughts that aren’t helpful in any way.
Later, while Tom is signing books, Doreen corners me in the romantic-fiction section.
‘Where’s yaer boyfriend?’ she asks, her teeth coated in orange.
‘He’s not my boyfriend any more.’
‘You’ve been dumped too?’
‘It’s more complicated than that,’ I say, though I find myself wondering if it is.
‘How?’
‘He doesn’t want the same ending as me.’
‘He doesn’t want tae marry yae either? Like Steve doesnae wanna marry me?’
‘No, no, it’s not like that. He wants to marry Sally—’
‘Who’s Sally?’
‘He wants to marry Sally to Harry.’
‘Who’s Harry?’
I look to Astrid, who’s chatting to Tom Black, to ask, am I really having this conversation?
‘It doesn’t matter.’ I’m aware that Marilyn is loitering to my left, listening. I extend an arm to bring her closer. ‘It’s all by the by anyway.’
‘Then why are you so fuckin’ miserable?’
‘I’m not!’
‘Liar,’ says Doreen.
I’m about to walk away, defeated, when Marilyn, very quietly, says, ‘You should lay your cards on the table. That’s what my husband did.’
Stunned at her sudden loquaciousness, I stay where I am.
‘I’m not sure it’s that simple,’ I say.
‘It’s always that simple.’
‘Is it?’
‘If he doesn’t love you, you move on, if he does love you then everything else will fall into place.’
‘She’s right,’ says Doreen.
‘Make the ending true to you,’ says Marilyn, perfectly clearly and slowly. ‘Make the ending yours.’
‘Make the ending yours,’ I repeat, climbing aboard my train at Clapham Junction for my journey home to Mum’s. It took a while for Astrid and me to clear up after the signing – picking cheese puffs out of rugs, glasses from the window and sandwich fillings from the carpet – but eventually the shop was back to normal and we were able to leave, the words of Marilyn, ringing in my ears. Make the ending your
s. It isn’t so much the words rather the way in which she said them, as though they held another meaning.
After the long walk back from the station I go to the kitchen to get some miniature pumpkin pies, before heading upstairs.
‘Make the ending yours,’ I say again, turning it over and over in my mind.
I open my computer and habitually pull up the script. ‘What did she mean?’
Harry looks out to the happy couple.
HARRY
They’ll be fine.
SALLY
(sceptically)
You mean like us?
HARRY
We’re not fine?
SALLY
We’re fine.
HARRY
(a little flirtatiously)
We are?
SALLY
(succumbing)
Sure, Harry.
Sally takes Harry’s hand.
Camera pans out, showing them standing hand in hand gazing over the party.
SALLY
(squeezing Harry’s hand a little tighter)
We’re fine.
Given that Truman and Anna are no longer getting hitched, I change the location to Harry and Sally sitting in the wedding venue with caterers and florists busying around them, clearing out their stuff that hasn’t been used. I also add a break-up scene for Sally and Philip, a classic Ephron happy break-up, with no hard feelings. After a while of contemplating how to change the course of the dialogue I see that it all hinges, again, on Harry’s response to Sally saying, ‘We’re fine.’ I realise Harry needs to question Sally, to force his hand. And it’s then I think about what Marilyn said: Lay your cards on the table. If he doesn’t love you then you know and you move on, if he does love you then everything else will fall into place.
And though I’m meant to be thinking about Harry and Sally I find myself thinking about Ben and me and what I’d like to happen to us.
‘What will our ending be?’ I mutter, doodling Marilyn’s words in my notepad:
Make the ending true to you.
And that’s when it comes to me.
‘I’m supposed to write our ending for Harry and Sally! The ending I want for Ben and me is the same as the ending for Harry and Sally, that’s what Marilyn was trying to say! Be true to you, not to others. Isn’t that what Ben said? That’s what takes you far. I’m supposed to write my own happy ending.’
I begin, the words come almost faster than I am able to type:
Harry and Sally sitting among caterers and florists all busy removing their gear.
HARRY
Truman will be fine. He’ll move on.
SALLY
(sceptically)
You mean like us?
HARRY
We’re not fine?
SALLY
We’re fine.
HARRY
Are we?
SALLY
Sure, Harry.
HARRY
Because I’ve been thinking about this long and hard and the truth is, I don’t think we are.
SALLY
Harry, don’t. Not now.
HARRY
Hear me out.
Sally, irritated, doesn’t look as if she’s going to.
HARRY
Just for once.
SALLY
Okay.
HARRY
The best decision of my life was to marry you. The worst decision was to divorce you.
SALLY
Actually, the worst decision was your affair with Isabelle, the divorce came after that.
Harry looks at Sally as if to say, could you shut up for just a second. Sally does.
HARRY
And I figure, here’s an opportunity to tell you just how much I love you. How every day of my life I wish I could wake up next to you and fall asleep beside you, smell that same old perfume on my clothes. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life without you, I’ve already spent too much of it without you.
SALLY
You just feel this way because you’re caught up in the moment.
HARRY
No, I don’t.
SALLY
Sure you do.
Harry pulls a face, no.
SALLY
You’ve forgotten everything that drives you crazy. The way I insist on every piece of garbage being separated for recycling. The fact I have to put mail into the box one by one. You hate the way I leave glasses to dry the wrong way up so they get water stains. And you can’t bear to share a bathroom with me.
HARRY
So we’ll get separate bathrooms.
Sally looks at him warmly, as if for the first time she is genuinely considering his proposal.
SALLY
I don’t know
HARRY
Which part.
SALLY
All of it.
HARRY
Sally you’re my best friend, I can hardly breathe without you. You gotta marry me, or else you’ll be guilty of culpable manslaughter and you could get the rest of your life for that.
SALLY
What are you saying – it’s either you or prison?
HARRY
Pretty much.
Sally laughs, thinking about all of this.
HARRY
So how’s about it, Sally Albright Burns?
Harry, slowly, bends down on one knee
HARRY
Will you marry me, again?
SALLY
You promise no more affairs?
HARRY
Look at me, I can barely bend on one knee, you think I’m capable of extra-marital relations?
Sally laughs fondly, and nods. Harry embraces her. They kiss. Camera pans out, showing them standing cheek to cheek. Together. At last.
To this I quickly update the very final scene, Harry and Sally’s ‘divorced couple interlude’:
Fade In:
DOCUMENTARY FOOTAGE
Harry and Sally.
HARRY
We were friends for a long time.
SALLY
And then we weren’t.
HARRY
And then we fell in love and got married. We had a kid.
SALLY
A great kid.
Harry smiles at Sally, they both nod in agreement.
SALLY
(cont)
Then he had an affair and I told him I wanted a divorce.
HARRY
So we got a divorce and didn’t speak for years.
SALLY
Then we starting talking again, and we became friends.
HARRY
And I realised I didn’t want to spend the rest of the rest of my life without her.
SALLY
He told me I was his best friend, and I realised, what I knew all along, that he was mine too.
HARRY
So we got married.
SALLY
Thirty-one years to the day since the first wedding.
They smile at each other, blissfully, totally in love.
‘Crikey,’ I say, reading it back. ‘This actually works! Maybe them not getting back together was too depressing.’ I smile and feel a tingle of satisfaction at it all having become clear. I see that Ben started out as an over-stylised, over-opinionated, moron, but turned out to be funny, smart and kind, and I see how Sally would see those same great qualities in Harry, above all his other peccadilloes. ‘Who wants to believe marriage ruins relationships anyway? Who wants to prove Will right? And hey, I guess if Nora Ephron was prepared to compromise, to change her ending and in doing so produce the greatest romcom ever made, then I guess I can too.’
I pull up an email, attach the rewrite and type a message to Ben:
Ben,
I was wrong. You were right. It’s only a movie ending. The ending that really matters is ours. What will it be?
Nina
37
‘I can’t believe we have a leak in the ceiling on the busiest day of the year!’ says Astrid, as we prepare the shop
for opening on the last Saturday before Christmas. I told Mum over breakfast, in no uncertain terms, that I would not be joining her and Narissa on the annual Christmas shopping spree. After the year I’ve had it could be the very thing that tips me over the edge and besides, we’re expecting the shop to be crazy busy.
‘We should call a plumber,’ she says, positioning another bucket under the drip. The brown water mark above is growing by the minute.
‘I’ll phone. We can’t open like this.’
‘We should probably check with Mr Love.’ Astrid makes a Skype call but there’s no answer.
‘It’s been awfully quiet up there recently.’ I listen to see if we can hear Mr Love’s computer ringing above us.
‘I haven’t heard him moving around in days.’
‘He must be really bad.’
After calling the plumber I sweep up pine needles from the tree in the window, surrounded by parcels of books, and starting on the hoovering, readying the place for the day ahead and our Christmas party this evening. An hour or so later, just before we’re due to open, a van draws up.
‘Here comes the cavalry,’ says Astrid.
‘Morning,’ says the plumber, entering the shop. ‘Somebody call for—’ He doesn’t need to finish; it’s clear from the buckets on the floor and the sagging ceiling that he’s in the right place.
‘We’ve no idea what’s happened.’
‘Right,’ he says, staring at the ceiling. ‘Who lives upstairs?’
‘The owner of the shop.’
‘Is he in?’
‘He’s always in,’ says Astrid.
‘Is that his front door?’ he asks, pointing.
We watch him head outside into the crisp, cold morning, and ring the bell.
‘Good luck with that,’ says Astrid, listening to the doorbell ringing upstairs.
After several failed attempts the guy starts banging on the door, attracting the attention of passers-by who, quite rightly, might be forgiven for thinking he’s looking for a fight.
‘You haven’t got a key, have you?’ he asks, returning, after receiving no answer.
We tell him, no and he heads back outside.
‘Who’s he phoning?’ asks Astrid, when he starts pacing back and forth outside the shop on his mobile, staring up at the windows of Mr Love’s flat.
If Harry Met Sally Again Page 22