by Mike Gayle
‘No.’ Jo grinned. ‘I made the whole thing up – that’s what we writers do – but I did draw on my own experience.’
‘So does that mean you’re Ruth?’
‘Ruth and I share some similarities,’ said Jo, ‘in that we both drink too much, smoke roll-ups and have a predilection for locking ourselves in other people’s bathrooms when we’re upset.’
‘Does that mean there’s a Danny in your life?’ asked the man, and chuckled.
‘That,’ said Jo, carefully, ‘would be telling.’
Over the next twenty minutes Jo fielded questions such as ‘Who is your favourite author?’ (to which she answered, ‘I’m a big fan of any Russian novelist who can write well about being miserable . . . which is basically all of them’); ‘Have you had any film interest in Fifty Words For Snow?’ (to which she answered, ‘A few people have indicated an interest but there are no solid offers on the table yet’); ‘Have you ever had a conversation about house prices in Chorlton and Didsbury?’ (to which, once she had stopped laughing, she answered, ‘Yes, lots, even though I lived in Levenshulme’); and finally, ‘What’s your next book going to be about?’ (to which she answered, ‘It’s called How Soon Is Now? and it’s about the impact that losing a brother in a car accident has on a young woman in her twenties’).
She glanced at the audience to see only two hands in the air now. One belonged to a studenty-looking girl wearing a denim jacket who had already asked, ‘Who is your favourite author?’ and the other belonged to an old man with a matted beard, who had been clutching his plastic cup of wine to his chest all evening and mumbling to himself. Jo guessed that his question would be, ‘Is there any wine left?’ because he had asked it at regular intervals ever since he’d walked in off the street. She was about to point to the denim-jacket girl when another hand shot up from the back row.
‘Okay,’ said Jo, pointing, even though she couldn’t see the hand’s owner clearly. ‘The person at the back – you can have the last question.’
‘I’ll stand up to ask it, if you don’t mind,’ replied the hand’s owner, and a big grin stretched across Jo’s face.
‘Hi, Jo,’ said Rob. ‘My wife bought me your book for Father’s Day on behalf of my little girl and I have to say, although I wasn’t sure about it to begin with, I loved it. I’ve got one question, though, and it’s about the ending. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t read it yet but I’m desperate to know what made you decide to let Ruth and Danny get together in the end. It could’ve gone either way, couldn’t it?’
‘Didn’t you like the ending?’
‘It’s not that,’ said Rob. ‘But wouldn’t it have been more true to life if they hadn’t got together?’
‘I can see what you’re saying,’ Jo said, holding Rob’s gaze, ‘and “true to life” was the way I wrote it in the first draft. But when I’d read it through I thought. Do you know what, Jo? This is your world and these are your characters and whether they’re real or not I don’t think I’ve ever met two people more deserving of a fairy-tale ending.’
Rob sat down, and the woman from Waterstone’s stood up and thanked Jo for her talk, and the audience for coming. As she turned off the microphone, Jo scanned the room for Rob but a few people from her publishers came over to say goodbye and when they had disappeared she was escorted by the woman from Waterstone’s to a table covered with copies of Fifty Words For Snow. A long queue had formed already and Jo had no choice but to get out her pen and turn on the charm.
Half an hour later, as she shook the hand of the last person – a fifty-something woman who had bought two copies of Fifty Words For Snow for her two twenty-something daughters – Jo had finished. She stood up and looked round the now empty room for any sign of Rob.
‘Well, that went well,’ said Matt. ‘You had a great turn-out.’
‘Thanks,’ replied Jo, disappointed that Rob had gone. ‘It was great, wasn’t it?’
‘There’s a taxi downstairs,’ said the woman from Waterstone’s. ‘It’ll take you straight to your hotel.’
‘Thanks,’ said Jo again, as she picked up her Biro and dropped it into her bag. ‘That’s very kind.’
‘Oh, and before I forget,’ said the woman from Waterstone’s, ‘a member of the audience came up to me a while ago and said he knew you and wanted to say hello but that he had to go. He said to give you this,’ she handed Jo a red plastic WHSmith’s carrier-bag, ‘and that you’d understand.’
Jo took the bag from her and looked inside. It was a DVD of Dirty Dancing, still in its shrink wrapping. Across it he had written in marker-pen: ‘Another for your collection.’
‘Who is it from?’ asked Matt.
‘No one, really,’ said Jo, smiling to herself. ‘Just an old friend.’
Also by Mike Gayle:
His ’n’ Hers
My Legendary Girlfriend
Mr Commitment
Turning Thirty
Dinner for Two
Wish You Were Here
Life and Soul of the Party
The To-Do List