Not Another Happy Ending

by David Solomons

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It's what I know. Where I came from.’

  Darsie toyed with a chrome Alessi fruit squeezer. ‘But you're not there now.’

  Jane folded her arms defensively. ‘So you're saying I should forget about my past?’

  ‘No. I just wonder who you're writing this stuff for. Because, I'm telling you, the kind of people you write about in your book aren't the same ones reading it. If I saw your novel in Tesco, I'd never pick it up—and it's my story.’ She cocked her head. ‘Not like you'd ever write me going to Tesco, either.’ She slipped off the counter. ‘You'd like to think you're exposing the dark underbelly, but in fact all you are is a misery tour guide.’ She stepped lightly through the door into the hallway. ‘This way, nice ladies and gentlemen, for the awful tale of Darsie the Dipso.’

  Irritated, Jane followed her out.

  ‘What you're doing is dishonest,’ said Darsie. ‘You live in one world and write about another.’

  ‘That's not fair,’ Jane objected. ‘I'm rooted in that world.’

  ‘Aye, right. Rooted.’ Darsie sniffed. ‘So how's that filo pastry coming?’

  The pastry! Jane scampered back into the kitchen and flung open the oven door. The strudel was beginning to catch around the edges. Quickly slipping on a pair of oven gloves she rescued it and put it to one side to cool. She pressed a finger to the outside. Brittle and yielding. If she were a pastry, she thought, she'd be filo.

  ‘Am I you?’

  Jane jumped back, startled. Darsie stood next to her, swirling a now-refilled wine glass.

  ‘Don't be ridiculous,’ said Jane.

  ‘That's a relief.’

  She wished her protagonist didn't sound quite so pleased. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I have an arc. My story's going somewhere. I have the capacity for change—you've written me that way. But you.’ She shook her head. ‘You I'm not so sure about.’

  That cut deep. There's nothing like being judged wanting by a figment of your own imagination, Jane decided. But Darsie was wrong. She could change. Just look at her—unrecognisable from the little girl regularly locked up in the twelfth floor flat while her dad went out drinking. Life wasn't neat like a novel, but that didn't mean people were incapable of change. An insistent chime swam up through her thoughts and it was a moment before she realised it was the doorbell.

  ‘Dad,’ said Jane on opening the door, surprised to find him on the threshold. Their last encounter had ended with him stalking off in a fury. She was used to him walking out; seeing him again so soon after was novel.

  Benny said nothing. He stared at the doormat, clearly wrestling with some internal struggle.

  ‘Come in,’ she said, holding up her oven gloves. ‘I just made a strudel.’

  Benny looked up at last. ‘I can't stay. I just wanted to …’ He raised his eyes to the heavens and sighed. ‘I had it all straight in my head … what I was going to say. You wouldn't understand, being a writer—can't imagine you're ever stuck for words.’

  Ha! These days she seemed to spend her life stuck for words.

  ‘Truth is, we don't really know each other and … I'd like to. Get to know you.’ He shook his head. ‘And I'm messing it up. Like at the cemetery. I was out of order and … I'm sorry, darlin’.’

  In that moment she couldn't remember if he'd ever apologised to her. Taken aback, she said nothing. Couldn't find the words, ironically enough. His face crumpled; she saw that he took her silence as a rejection.

  ‘Right. I've said it. I'll be off then. Got to meet the boys for quiz practice.’

  He began to trot down the stairs, his polished shoes clipping on the stone steps and echoing off the high Victorian ceiling.

  ‘Dad.’

  He paused, standing there like a small child awaiting the next blow.

  Rooted in that world. Whatever her alter ego said, she knew how to connect to this man.

  ‘Can I be on your quiz team?’

  Benny's face creased into a question and for a moment Jane was sure she'd misjudged the situation.

  He shook his head. ‘You're too busy to be bothered with a daft wee pub quiz.’

  ‘Please,’ she insisted. ‘I'd like to. Get to know you.’

  He stood in front of a large window that overlooked the communal back court. The residents of the flats shared a square of lawn and a border planted with camellias and rhododendrons. Every year since she moved in she'd planted Busy Lizzies, just like she and her dad had done together in the window box on the twelfth floor. The buzz of a lawnmower rose up from below.

  ‘Be great to have you on the team,’ he said, his voice breaking. He cleared his throat, gathered himself. ‘We need you. Between you and me, I think Rory might have a touch of dementia.’

  Tom watched Jane and her dad leave. He and Roddy were parked in a disabled bay opposite the front door. A less noticeable spot would have been preferable but it was the last space available. They slumped down in their seats to avoid being spotted. Roddy followed the departing Lockharts through a pair of high-powered binoculars.

  ‘Are those entirely necessary?’ Tom asked doubtfully.

  ‘Entirely,’ insisted Roddy.

  Tom shook his head. Although initially a reluctant participant in the plan, Roddy had quickly become obsessed over every detail of the operation. Or ‘op’ as he preferred to call it. As well as his ubiquitous parka jacket, he sported what appeared to be a leather helmet and goggles belonging to a World War One flying ace. Apparently, they'd come as a joint lot with the binoculars. This was their first time out in public. Or, as he would have it, ‘in the field’.

  ‘OK, she's gone.’ Roddy lowered the binoculars and arched his wrist. He wore a watch with a face the size of a dinner plate on which glowed a myriad of tiny luminescent dials.

  Tom reached into the back seat for his ‘tactical mission equipment’, which was contained in a plastic supermarket bag. Once he'd gathered it up, he opened his door. Roddy put out a hand.

  ‘Wait, where are you going?’ he said. ‘We haven't synchronised watches.’ He adjusted the bezel on his enormous wristwatch. ‘Aw, bugger it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I think I reset Karachi.’

  Tom sighed. ‘I'll be back in ten minutes. Just warn me if either of them comes back.’

  Roddy put aside the binoculars and reached for his mobile phone. He held it up to his mouth. ‘Copy that.’

  Tom rolled his eyes and slipped out of the car. He made his way inside the tenement building and up the stairs to Jane's front door. After carefully setting down the plastic bag he reached above the door and felt along the lintel. The spare key was where she always left it. With a pang he remembered that the last time he'd used it they'd still been together. He closed his fingers tightly around the key.

  ‘Target acquired. Over.’ Roddy's voice whispered from his mobile.

  Tom knew Roddy would be in the car, pointing those stupid binoculars at Jane's bay window. He muttered to himself and then responded. ‘It's a pot plant, Roddy. Not a North Korean reactor.’

  ‘Roger. That's a solid copy.’

  Tom swept up the plastic bag and let himself into the flat. He padded along the empty hallway to the living room.

  Willie's presence pervaded the space. He'd spread through Jane's delicate quirky flat like knotweed. Half-naked women burst from his film posters, on the bookshelves screenwriting manuals pushed out Jane's vintage Penguins, framed photographs of the grinning Big Man with his arm round a succession of Hollywood B-listers colonised the windowsill and coffee table. In the bay window his hulking desk seemed to mount her slender-legged writing table. Tom shook himself. He didn't have much time and this was not about Willie. He was here to create some low-level misery in Jane's life. He crossed to her record player and riffled through her vinyl collection.

  ‘Upbeat … upbeat … upbeat … ah!’ The Prophetic Sad. That was more like it. He moved the album to the front. It wasn't going to make her melancholy al
l by itself, but he figured that every little would help.

  He noticed her laptop open on her desk and a thought struck him. Would it be so wrong to take a peek at her novel? There wasn't time for an extensive read, so perhaps he would email himself what she'd written so far. OK, so yes, he'd agreed not to read a word until she finished the manuscript, but she was so nearly done and, after all, he'd paid her a fat advance. He sat down in front of the laptop and prodded the spacebar. The dark screen pulsed into life, presenting him with a password request. What the hell! This wasn't like Jane. When had she become so paranoid? Who was she trying to keep out, for god's sake?

  With a stab of regret he realised the answer. She was trying to keep him out.

  After the sixth failed attempt at cracking her password he gave up. No matter. The mission was still on course. His eye fell on his principal target. Once Roddy had seeded the idea of putting Jane into a state of creative melancholy, it hadn't taken him long to fasten on this object as the means to the success of the plan. He made the exchange and was about to head out of the living room when his pocket grumbled. His phone was tucked in there, the line open to Roddy's so they could maintain contact. He pulled it out and listened. Roddy wasn't trying to warn him of Jane or Willie's return, he was sitting in the car, bored, evidently having forgotten that Tom could hear every word.

  ‘Maverick to Iceman, we are Oscar Mike.’

  It was sub-Hollywood action movie gobbledygook. No wonder the British education system was in such a dire state if this was the nonsense spouted by its teachers.

  ‘We are five klicks from extraction point—’ A sudden clatter from the other end of the line, suspiciously like a phone being dropped, and a muffled shout of ‘Bollocks’.

  Tom had had enough of Roddy's Mission Impossible routine. His finger slid towards the disconnect button and was a heartbeat away from killing the call when Roddy's voice burst from the handset.

  ‘Tom. Tom! She's back.’

  He crossed hurriedly to the window and scanned the street. He could make out Roddy in the car, waving up at him and gesticulating wildly to the tenement entrance. Tom glimpsed a flash of red hair beneath the canopy of trees as Jane disappeared inside.

  ‘She's coming up the stairs! Get out of there!’ yelled Roddy. ‘Abort! Abort!’

  ‘Shit.’ There was no time. If he went out now he'd have to pass her on the stairs. There was only one way in and out of the flat and these old buildings had no fire escape. He looked around for a place to hide.

  Jane's key turned in the lock and the front door swung into the hallway. Tom ducked behind a bookcase and held his breath. Moments later Jane dashed into the living room. It seemed to Tom that she was in a hurry, as if she'd forgotten something. That made sense, since she'd left with her dad less than fifteen minutes ago. There was one bonus being trapped in here with her; it provided him with a ringside seat for the scene that was surely about to happen. He ventured a peek over the counter.

  Jane dug down the back of the sofa and turned cushions over in search of whatever she had forgotten. Not finding it, she moved to a bookshelf. As she made her way round the room she eventually reached the desk in her bay window. She stopped and let out a little gasp.

  She'd seen it.

  Her precious umbrella plant lay before her, shrivelled and brown. She stood there staring at the plant, not making a sound, her shoulders shaking. He was pretty sure she was crying. God, he hated it when she cried. But that was the point, wasn't it? He'd coldly calculated what would reduce her to tears and had hit the bullseye. He knew how Roddy would characterise it: Mission Accomplished! So why didn't it feel like a victory?

  He crept out to the hallway, picked his way across the stripped wooden floor, conscious of every creak and bow, to the front door.

  A minute later he hustled out of the tenement and clambered into the car, relieved to be out of Jane's flat. Roddy was glued to his binoculars, which were trained on the bay window.

  ‘Ooh, that's horrible. She's really upset. I'm not looking at that.’

  Tom snatched the binoculars out of his hands and focused on Jane. She sat despondently at her desk, the dead plant before her. From time to time she wiped a palm across her cheeks.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘That should do it.’

  Roddy landed a punch on his upper arm. He felt it go numb and rubbed vigorously.

  ‘Ow! What was that for?’

  Roddy gave him a reproachful look. ‘You're enjoying this too much.’

  Was he? It didn't feel like that inside. ‘It's for her own good. Remember? And it's not as if I actually killed her plant.’

  He rustled in the plastic bag and carefully withdrew Jane's umbrella plant, as healthy and flourishing as ever.

  Roddy tapped a finger against the side of his nose. ‘Ah yes, the old bait and switch. Works every time.’

  ‘You've done this before?’ asked Tom.

  ‘Well no, not as such.’ He could see Roddy thinking it over. ‘Not at all, actually.’

  There was a ping from the handbrake and the car began to roll forward, inching towards a polished Mercedes saloon. Tom yanked the brake back on before they collided.

  Roddy checked his giant glowing watch. ‘If you put your foot down I might make Hamlet with 5c.’

  That was code. Tom understood. ‘So, we take the scenic route?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Roddy nodded. ‘I think, all things considered, that would be best.’

  Jane couldn't understand how it had happened. When she'd left the flat she was sure the plant had been in perfect shape. It was a mystery. Perhaps Willie had been right and she'd overwatered the thing. She could only assume it had been on the brink of dying and something had pushed it over the edge. It was just a plant. But it connected her to her younger self. The last gift her dad had given that Jane. Now it was gone. She started to cry.

  She pulled her laptop towards her and keyed in the password. She'd meant to change it ages ago, but hadn't quite got round to doing so. There were too many PIN numbers and passwords to remember, so it was a complete hassle to continually refresh them. That's what she told herself. With a twinge of discomfort she typed ‘Tristesse’ and the splash screen gave way to her novel and the gaping chasm that was Chapter 37. She glanced at the dead plant, palmed away another tear and rested her fingers on the keyboard. An idea, a beginning, uncurled in the great swirling confusion of her head and she—

  ‘Janey, you OK?’

  It was Willie, back from his run. He stood in the doorway, breathing lightly. ‘I thought I heard crying. Was it you?’

  She shook her head numbly. A couple of long strides took him to her side. He wrapped his arms around her. She couldn't stop herself. Tears fell freely.

  ‘It's OK, Janey. It's OK,’ he soothed.

  ‘It's … dead.’

  ‘What's dead?’

  Through great gulping sobs she said, ‘My … dad's … plant.’

  She saw him clock it on the desk, grey leaves clenched with rigor mortis. He grimaced and then his face lightened. ‘Aw come on, nothing a splash of Baby Bio won't fix, eh darlin’?’

  She let out a snort of laughter.

  ‘That's more like it. That's my Janey.’ He kissed her neck. ‘Now, I'm going to jump in the shower, but what do you say afterwards we go to that nice wee Italian place on Ashton Lane you like?’

  She nodded again. ‘I'd like that.’

  He kissed her again. She watched him walk away and smiled, feeling lucky that at last she'd found a man who wanted to make the world right; who wanted to make her happy.

  CHAPTER 12

  ‘A Little Fall of Rain’, Les Misérables Original London Cast Recording, 1985, Red

  FIRST, SHE ORGANISED the pencils in order of colour, ranging them according to the spectrum, but that didn't take long so she tipped them out of the holder and started again, this time cataloguing them in order of height, from tallest to shortest, but when she laid them out on her desk they formed a ragged line that was patently unsat
isfactory, so in search of a neater arrangement she fished out a pencil sharpener and spent the next ten minutes whittling them all to the same length.

  It wasn't procrastination, it was preparation. Coloured pencils were for making notes on the paper manuscript; a different hue to track each character. It was a system she'd used to great effect when editing her debut. But that novel and that time felt far away.

  She remembered the ease with which she used to write, as if she'd been possessed by her characters, channelling their words through her fingers. All she had to do was get out of their way and let them tell their own story. Not like now. Now she sat here day after day, head in her hands hoping to squeeze out a single word. She gathered up the pencils and jammed them back in the holder. She wouldn't be needing them anytime soon. There was no manuscript to edit. Not yet. Perhaps not ever.

  Her eyes flicked to the laptop. The stubbornly empty page was like a mute scream. Silence would have been a blessing, but her misery had a soundtrack. The bullying rattle and clank of Willie's typing filled the room. It wasn't his fault; he couldn't know the anguish he caused her, and anyway, what could he do? He was on a deadline, his screenplay due in a matter of weeks. It wouldn't be fair to ask him to change his routine, especially when it was obviously going so well. Disheartened, she turned to the window and began to count the leaves on the trees outside.

  Another sound joined Willie's relentless typing: the tapdance of fingers leaping across a modern keyboard. For a moment Jane imagined that she'd been possessed by one of her characters again. She looked down, hoping to see her hands moving unbidden across the laptop the way they used to. But instead they lay folded in her lap. The sound was coming from the other end of the room.

  Darsie sat with her legs elegantly crossed, pencil skirt smoothed to mid-thigh, a neat silver laptop balanced on one knee. Long, tapered fingers worked up and down the keyboard with the practised ease of a concert pianist. Her hair was swept back today in a ponytail, which swung in metronomic time to her typing. A pair of black-rimmed spectacles perched schoolmistressly on her nose. She leaned in; her hands became a blur. Jane recognised the signs—whatever Darsie was writing it was reaching its climax. Sure enough, she performed a final flourish and sat back, hands still frozen in the shape of the last word. She let out a long, low breath and her body relaxed.