Not Another Happy Ending

by David Solomons

  ‘Kid? She's not much younger than you.’

  ‘Yeah, but you know. I'm a man of the world, me. I couldn't see myself with a girl like that.’ His voice rose to a strangled pitch. ‘Could you?

  ‘No,’ agreed Tom, barely listening.

  Roddy tutted. ‘Thanks. Thanks very much.’

  ‘What did I say?’

  His eyes widened. ‘She's coming over. Don't look!’

  ‘Roddy, what the hell are you on about?’

  ‘Tom?’ Nicola stood before him, a hand on one hip, an indignant flash in her eye.

  ‘Yes, Nicola?’

  ‘I was just propositioned by Tiny Tim's Crutch.’

  ‘That's disgusting,’ sputtered Roddy.

  ‘It's the name of a literary blog,’ Tom explained.

  ‘Oh.’ He lowered his head and took another sip of wine.

  Nicola was still cross. ‘He's a pervert. And not in a good way. He's the one who mailed me his socks. I don't know why you invited him.’ She huffed. ‘I hate these things.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Roddy, clearly unable to stop himself, ‘I prefer the old Routemaster Two Seven Six Oh, myself.’

  Nicola and Tom turned slowly to face him.

  ‘It's a bus joke,’ he shrugged. ‘Sorry.’

  Tom was about to change the subject when Nicola piped up. ‘No, no, I get it,’ she said gazing at him. ‘It's just, I've never met anyone else who made a bus joke before.’

  Tom watched in disbelief as the two of them stood in a silence full of potential. Roddy and Nicola? What was happening here?

  ‘Typical,’ said Roddy, gawping at Nicola, ‘you wait a century for a vintage bus …’

  ‘Then ninety-three of them come along at once,’ she finished.

  Both of them smiled.

  So bewildered was Tom by the romance blooming before his eyes that he almost missed Willie wandering off from Jane's side. She was on her own. Now was the time to strike.

  ‘OK. Here goes.’ He drained the glass and thrust it at Roddy, adding with a smirk, ‘Don't forget the golden rule.’

  ‘Bollocks to that,’ Roddy snapped back. ‘I'm not her publisher, remember?’

  ‘What's the golden rule?’ Nicola asked innocently.

  ‘Uh, nothing.’

  ‘And if you break it,’ she smiled coyly, ‘do you get punished?’

  Roddy swallowed hard.

  With a bemused puff of his cheeks, Tom struck off into the crowd.

  ‘Hello, Jane.’ He shot out of the press of people like a shark after a particularly succulent seal.

  ‘What do you want?’

  He snatched a cupcake from her tray and took a bite.

  ‘I'll tell you what I don't want,’ he mumbled through a mouthful of sponge, screwing up his face and slapping the half-eaten cake back on the tray. ‘I don't want a cupcake.’

  He flicked a nod towards Willie, holding court amidst a clique of pretty young women in dark, tailored suits. ‘I wonder what the collective noun for a group of publicity girls might be? A release? A puff?’

  ‘A buzz,’ said Jane.

  He snapped his fingers. ‘Very good. See, not so stuck for words after all.’

  She threw him a reproachful look. Which was good, he thought, since in order for his plan to work he had to aggravate Jane to the point where she would take action. Roddy had informed him, rather unkindly he maintained, that he would have little trouble accomplishing that particular feat.

  ‘So …’ he said, commencing his attack, ‘two writers living under the same roof, how's that working out? I imagine it's fantastic: sharing ideas, the ebb and flow of discussion. Willie must be … a great boon.’

  He could see immediately that Jane didn't recognise the description of her boyfriend.

  ‘Yes. Yes he is,’ she said.

  It was a game attempt to cover her unease. Emboldened, he pressed on. ‘And what does the Big Man make of the new novel?’

  ‘Uhh …’

  ‘You're right—it's not fair to ask you.’ He started to move off. ‘I should ask him.’

  A look of panic flashed across Jane's face and she shot out a hand across his path. ‘He loves it,’ she said quickly. ‘Just loves it.’

  Tom saw in her expression that she knew she'd oversold Willie's unconditional ardour. She attempted to shore up the lie. ‘Naturally, he has notes.’

  ‘Naturally.’

  He signalled to a passing waitress and plucked two more glasses of wine from her tray, offering one to Jane, who declined with a brusque shake of her head.

  ‘A buzz of publicity girls,’ he repeated in an admiring tone.

  There was another phrase on the tip of his tongue; a French one. He had lived here so long that his native tongue sounded odd in his own head, showing up like an unexpected member of the family. The British had adopted this phrase, perhaps, he speculated, because it was a peculiarly French concept.

  He was about to deliver the coupe de grâce.

  He touched the glass to his lips, felt the cold wine and then the prick of bubbles on his tongue.

  ‘Willie has not asked to read one single page of your novel, has he?’

  A gratifying red flush coloured Jane's throat. ‘He's … he's very busy with his screenplay.’

  ‘Ah yes, the adaptation. How's that going?’

  ‘Terrific. It's going terrific … ly.’

  He gave a small laugh. ‘You don't know, do you? He doesn't discuss it with you.’

  She was irritated now. ‘What's your point?’

  ‘He's using you.’ He was aware that his voice had grown loud. Roddy had cautioned him not to shout and he knew it wouldn't help to get angry. He tried concentrating on his breathing. It sounded like an angry rasp.

  ‘Using me? That's rich, coming from you.’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ he fumed. ‘I checked and the last script of his someone actually made was an episode of Rain Town.’

  ‘There's nothing wrong with writing a soap,’ she said defensively, though evidently a tad embarrassed. ‘And it was the Christmas episode.’

  Why was she with this waste of space screenwriter? Tom wondered. Never mind what he thought about Willie, why would she do this to herself? She drove him insane. Out of the corner of one eye he was aware of Roddy shaking his head in a warning—don't lose it, don't lose it.

  Too late. He lost it.

  ‘Willie Scott's writing career peaked sometime around 1998,’ he raged. ‘He is a talentless hack without a brain or conscience who doesn't give a damn about you. Even your novel has become about him!’

  The last syllable of his tirade sailed down the long line of buses and echoed back from the depot wall at the far end. An appalled silence descended over the party guests. A lone speaker, aware that his voice was the only one in the room, swiftly petered out.

  Even the smiles of the publicity girls froze on their shining faces. Willie emerged from their midst, his expression twisted into a grimace, and marched over.

  Tom opened his arms in a gesture of conciliation. ‘Hey. Big Man. No harm done.’

  Willie didn't break stride.

  Tom swallowed. ‘Yet.’

  ‘Willie, no!’ yelled Jane, but it was too late.

  Willie dipped his right shoulder and then his fist split the air. There was a crunch of bone as the punch landed against Tom's cheek. As his head snapped round he glimpsed Jane's horrified expression, which gave him a fleeting sensation of pleasure, right before someone turned out all the lights.

  He dreamt he was aboard the number 15 bus to Meiklewood. In the dream Jane was driving. She looked cute in a peaked cap. Roddy and Nicola were a couple of school kids kissing in the back seats. He was ordering them to stop, quoting reams of what sounded like bus company policy. In the dream he looked down to see he was wearing a jacket with a column of polished brass buttons and his hands clutched a ticket machine. He was the bus conductor. Alarmed, he glanced at Nicola. She smiled wickedly. He knew how this novel ended.

  Jane jer
ked the steering wheel, the bus swerved and he lost his balance. The force of the turn flung him through the open rear door, tumbling out onto the road. As the hard tarmac filled his vision he felt something cold and solid against his forehead.

  Tom sat up with a start. He was on the open top deck of one of the buses in the now empty depot. Below, waiters cleared away the remains of the launch party. In the seat beside him Jane sat holding a cake to his forehead, lending weight to his suspicion that he had yet to wake up from the dream.

  ‘Is that fruitcake?’ he ventured.

  ‘Yes,’ said Jane.

  ‘I detest fruitcake.’

  ‘Frozen.’ She rapped it against the seat in front to demonstrate. ‘It's for your head.’ She pressed it there again.

  He winced.

  ‘I'm sorry about Willie. He shouldn't have hit you, even though you did deserve it.’

  ‘He caught me off guard. Usually I don't go down after the first punch.’ Tom considered his chequered past; it wasn't the first time he'd provoked a jealous boyfriend to violence. ‘Usually it's about the third or fourth.’ Still dazed, he looked around, taking in the open deck. ‘How did I get here?’

  Jane continued to tend to his injury. ‘I made Willie carry you.’

  Tom recoiled. ‘No you didn't.’

  ‘What's wrong now?’ she sighed.

  ‘It's not very manly …’ he complained, ‘being carried upstairs by another bloke.’ Then an unmanly thought occurred to him. ‘He's not still here, is he?’

  ‘Relax. I sent him out—to cool off.’

  He glanced down, noticing her handbag open on the floor. ‘What's the capital of Ethiopia?’ Was not what he intended to say, but he'd been distracted by the book poking from the top of her bag. He took it out.

  ‘1001 Tricky Trivia Questions? What's this for? Your dad hasn't …?’ He liked Benny Lockhart. He hadn't wanted to, knowing how he'd walked out on Jane, but Benny had turned out not to be the monster he'd built up in his head. He was a hard man who'd softened around the edges, and he carried a burden in the sacks beneath his eyes; a taciturn man, animated only when talking about Jane, or his beloved pub quiz. Next to his daughter it was the most important thing in the world to Benny. What was the capital of Ethiopia? That was going to niggle him. Tom looked into Jane's face. ‘You're on the team?’

  ‘We're in the finals, actually.’

  Tom swayed in his seat still woozy from his battering. Jane reached out to steady him. He felt her hand touch him. It was a good feeling to be here with her like this.

  ‘Jane. There's something I need to tell you. Something I've never said before …’

  He was finding it difficult to focus and currently there appeared to be two Janes, both of them annoyed. He knew he had a plan—something devious and clever he was sure—but at that moment he couldn't remember exactly what it involved. He didn't know what he was going to say next, which felt oddly freeing. And a little dangerous.

  ‘Ah, no. No I … what I meant to say was … is … Happy Ending … at the end, when things became … y'know … with us and the title and … I never told you … the book. It's good.’ This was going really well. He was fascinated to hear what he had to say next. ‘No, it's … better than that. It's like la musique triste. The saddest music I've ever heard.’

  He could sense something in the air between them like a charge before a lightning storm. In that split second he felt connected. To everything. The world spun on a shifting axis, the poles flipped. The moment surged with possibility.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ Jane stood up abruptly. Her expression curdled, as if she'd swallowed something nasty. She took a wary step back into the aisle. ‘What are you up to, Duval?’

  ‘I'm not up to anything,’ he protested, just as it all flooded back to him. Kill Will. Ah, oui. So, yes, technically she was quite correct. He was up to something, had invited her here expressly in order to be up to something. But not just then. What he'd said about her novel, he meant it.

  ‘All this “It's like sad music” crap, and trying to put doubts in my head about Willie.’

  He could see she was reaching for something to unlock his odd behaviour.

  ‘Why would you do that …? Unless …’ A fog lifted. ‘Oh, wait a minute, I know why. I'm onto your little scheme.’

  Oh, shit. ‘You are?’

  Her mouth coiled into a smirk as she delivered her brilliant deduction. ‘You want me back.’

  He unclenched. She was off target. Way off target. But he could tell that she believed she'd scored a direct hit and ploughed on.

  ‘Well, if you can hear me through the obvious concussion, pay attention.’ She paused, winding up for a big finish. ‘It's. Never. Going. To. Happen.’

  He laughed. Couldn't keep the derision out of his voice. The very idea!

  Hang on.

  ‘I have a concussion?’

  She flung out a finger pointing to the stairs. ‘Off. Get off this bus.’

  He swayed to his feet and took an exploratory step into the aisle, testing his balance. The deck seemed to rock like a sailing ship in distress. He locked onto Jane's angry face, in part for a fixed point to steer by.

  ‘You really think I'd want you back …?’ he said. ‘Why? Why would I do that to myself? You're distant at the best of times and when you're writing you're utterly self-absorbed. Sometimes I thought your characters were more real to you than I was.’

  Curiously, at that moment he saw Jane jump, then turn and direct a low whisper at an empty seat. The girl clearly needed help. Well, she could find it from someone else.

  ‘So, no, Jane,’ he said, walking away. ‘I do not want you back.’

  CHAPTER 16

  ‘It's Raining Again’, Supertramp, 1982, A&M

  JANE COULDN'T CONCENTRATE and it was all Tom's fault. Back at her desk early the following morning she kept replaying yesterday's events in her mind. All of those hurtful things he had said about Willie. She ought to be annoyed. She had a right to be angry.

  How dare he meddle in her life; she wasn't his girlfriend any more. Soon she wouldn't even be his author. She wasn't his anything. But truthfully it wasn't anger she was feeling it was—what was the word? Melancholy. And not because of Willie. So why did she feel like this? Why was Belle & Sebastian playing inside her head? It couldn't be because Tom said he didn't want her back. No, that was ridiculous. She pushed it from her mind.

  Grudgingly, she'd taken a piece of his advice on breaking her block and had turned to the classics. Who better to inspire her than the finest author named Jane ever to put pen to paper? Jane Austen. She remembered reading somewhere that Austen spent seventeen years drafting and redrafting Pride and Prejudice; but then she probably didn't have an angry French publisher breathing down her neck.

  The wall clock showed seven o'clock. Willie didn't usually rise before half past. She took a deep breath and relaxed, enjoying the stillness.

  ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that a young author in the midst of her sophomore novel must be in want of an ending.’

  Darsie swept into the living room wearing a white Empire line shift dress, long silk evening gloves, her hair in a soft chignon exposing a flash of nape.

  ‘I see number nineteen has been let,’ she said, lowering herself demurely into a seat and folding her hands in her lap.

  Jane frowned. ‘Number nineteen?’

  Darsie inclined her head. ‘Opposite the chippy.’ She played with her gloves and added in a Heritage Drama accent, ‘We ought to pay a call.’

  ‘I'm sure there's a good reason why you're dressed like Elizabeth Bennet–’

  ‘Oh,’ interrupted Darsie, disappointed. ‘I was going for Kate Winslet as Marianne Dashwood.’

  ‘Of course you were.’ Jane leaned back in her chair. ‘OK, so what's the big idea?’

  Darsie cleared her throat. ‘Jane Austen is the greatest writer in English, of all time, right?’

  ‘No argument from me.’

  ‘So
, if you could write a book half as brilliant as one of hers, you'd be pleased.’

  ‘Half would be arrogant. I'd take an eighth. A sixteenth.’

  A smile flickered across Darsie's lips and quickly vanished; Jane recognised it as the expression of someone who had just pulled off a clever conversational manoeuvre.

  ‘Well, all of the heroines in her novels have one thing in common.’

  Jane guessed what was coming next half a second before Darsie said it.

  ‘They all have happy endings,’ Darsie declared triumphantly. ‘So, if it's good enough for Jane Austen then it should be good enough for Jane Lockhart.’

  Jane suppressed a chuckle. On some level she was aware that this conversation existed entirely inside her deranged mind, but Darsie seemed so real. Large as life and twice as persuasive. Perhaps she was right; maybe her story would end up happily ever after. In all honesty, Jane didn't yet know.

  She looked down at the open book she'd pulled from the shelf. It was Persuasion, her favourite of Austen's six novels. Anne Elliot breaks off her engagement to Captain Wentworth, then years later they meet again and, finally, are married. On the face of it a happy ending, except that it wasn't that simple. But for a terrible mistake the lovers could have been together years earlier, and the shadow of that lost lifetime hangs over the ending. As does another loss. It was Austen's last complete novel before she died, aged forty-one, and for Jane Lockhart, Persuasion would always be suffused with unutterably sad endings.

  She read a few more chapters and set the book aside. With dismay she realised that if Jane Austen couldn't help her she was screwed.

  Willie bounced into the room, black coffee in hand, eyes shining with anticipation as he lowered himself into his chair and strapped himself in for blast-off, his relish for work undimmed by fisticuffs in bus depots. Abruptly, a fresh sheet of paper was led out like the accused, fastened to the platen, blindfolded with a ribbon and summarily dispatched in a fusillade of struck keys.

  Jane's eye drifted back to the blinking cursor on her empty page. It was too early to make an excuse and leave the flat and she didn't feel like baking. The conversation with Tom came back to her like a bony finger poking her in the ribs. The adaptation. He doesn't discuss it with you. She was annoyed at herself for allowing him inside her head.