Not Another Happy Ending

by David Solomons

  ‘Captains,’ said the quiz master, ‘please bring your team-lists to the adjudicator's table.’

  The tail lights of the bus faded behind a curtain of rain. Jane was the only passenger to disembark at the stop. She looked around. A set of traffic lights cycled from green to red in the deserted street. A short row of terraced houses lay in darkness, half their windows boarded up, obscene graffiti scrawled on their crumbling walls. Beyond them, across a patch of wasteland bordered by a razor-wire fence, a line of high flats pierced the black sky. Sickly yellow light shone from a handful of windows and even from this distance she could hear the wind groaning around the towers. The pub lay on the other side.

  She edged past the end of the dilapidated terrace, searched the fence line for a way through, and found a ragged hole in the base that looked like it had been chewed out of the wire. She dropped to her knees and scrambled through the hole, catching her coat sleeve on a spur of metal. There was a loud tear as it ripped through to her skin. She got to her feet and struck off into the darkness,

  ‘I'm one team short,’ the quizmaster announced from the adjudicator's table.

  Tom looked anxiously at Benny, who clutched Jane's Mickey Mouse hat in one hand, the team-list in the other.

  ‘I must have the list right now,’ the quizmaster intoned, ‘or you forfeit your place.’

  Benny's teammates urged him to go up.

  ‘Come on, Benny, come on!’

  Sweat poured off his forehead. ‘Two more minutes, lads. Two more minutes.’

  Jane scrambled across the wasteland beneath the looming tower blocks. The muddy ground was pockmarked with craters sloshing with dirty rainwater and littered with discarded supermarket trolleys and old tyres. A pack of yowling dogs appeared out of the darkness, red raw lips pulled back over gnashing teeth. She recoiled, then a moment later saw that they were on a leash. They strained towards her, forelegs clawing the air, their fat owner anchored in the mud, arms popping as he struggled to hold them back. She skirted past quickly.

  Up ahead on a low rise the dim outline of a huddle of people. Guttural voices carried on the air, spitting vile oaths. The tinkle of breaking glass as a hurled bottle smashed nearby. Jane adjusted her course to go around them, stumbled on a hoard of bottles at the edge of one of the rain-filled hollows. With a yell she went down, slapping against the mud. Drenched through, exhausted and on the verge of tears, for a moment she considered giving up. Why bother putting herself through this? It must be too late by now.

  She lifted her head. In the distance she could make out the glow of streetlamps beyond the last of the high flats. The pub was on that street. Rousing herself for one final push, Jane heaved herself up off the squelching ground. She teetered awkwardly on the edge of the hole. Checked her shoe. The heel had snapped off. Pulling her coat around her, she limped on.

  ‘I'm sorry,’ Tom said in a low voice. ‘I'm so sorry.’

  Benny's eyes were watery. ‘Hey, son, it's no’ your fault. Maybe the taxi got a puncture.’ Then he added gloomily, ‘Or maybe she just decided no’ to come after all.’ He shrugged. ‘No more than I deserve.’

  Tom wanted to confess. He could feel his heart thumping.

  The quizmaster cupped the microphone, turned to the adjudicator and mouthed a question. He answered with a solemn nod.

  ‘OK, that's enough,’ the quizmaster removed his hand from the microphone. ‘Right then, let's get on with—’

  A howl rose up from the rest of the pub as the Faroe Islander's number ten dribbled the ball past three Scottish defenders before passing it through the keeper's open legs. The back of the net bowed outwards, almost apologetically.

  ‘DISASTER FOR SCOTLAND!’ the match commentator wailed.

  On the TV Scottish players crouched wretchedly on the pitch, heads in hands. The commentator heaped on the misery. ‘They'll be dancing in the streets of Torshavn tonight!’

  Benny's team-list stirred in a sudden breeze. It took Tom a moment to realise through the waves of defeated moans that the door to the pub was wide open, and another to see that in the doorway stood Jane, hair whipped across her rain-streaked face and clumped with mud, one coat sleeve ripped. She wobbled on a single shoe.

  She saw him and frowned, clearly puzzled by his presence.

  ‘Jane?!’ It was Benny, eyes widening with surprise and pleasure. He started towards her then checked himself, turned quickly on his heel and crossed to the adjudicator's table. Mouth tight he slammed down the team-list. Expressionless, the quizmaster checked his watch and then after what seemed a lifetime nodded curtly.

  Benny's teammates punched the air and took their places for the start of the quiz.

  ‘You OK, darlin’?’ Benny asked.

  She nodded wordlessly.

  ‘Here. This is for you.’ He gave her the skip-cap. She turned it round to see the word ‘Captain’. Her eyes glistened.

  Tom had seen enough. Jane had made it, albeit just in time and almost certainly at the expense of several years of his own life, shortened by the stress of what he now saw was a sorely misguided plan. He had no one else to blame but himself. For now, all was well in Benny Lockhart's world—and that's what mattered. Reluctant to hang around and be forced to answer the inevitably awkward questions, he slipped past the reunited pair and made for the door. The quizmaster's voice followed him out.

  ‘Question one. Literature,’ he began. ‘Who was William Shakespeare's wife?’

  Tom splashed across the street and got into his car. He sat for a moment gazing out at the rain, then stabbed the key into the ignition. The engine bleated like a drowning sheep. He banged a palm against the steering wheel, his frustration more to do with the events of the evening than the all too predictable failure of his car to start. After a dozen more tries he gave up and called Roddy to come and collect him.

  An hour later they were parked in Roddy's car outside Mario's Fish and Chicken takeaway in Merchant City. Tom told him the whole sorry tale of what had transpired in the pub. Roddy listened quietly, wincing at the details as he ate hot chips out of a paper bag. The engine ticked over at idle and the cabin was filled with the smell of diesel and vinegar.

  Roddy leaned across the handbrake and offered Tom the bag. He shook his head brusquely; he'd lost his appetite. Like a tongue probing a rotten tooth he continued to go back over the evening, torturing himself with what might have been. What if he'd succeeded? What if Jane hadn't shown up at the last second? The fan heater blasted hot air from the dashboard and yet he felt ice-cold.

  ‘Your plan was rubbish. Again.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ said Roddy, ‘my plan has been highly effective throughout. Only, we weren't looking at the right target.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Tom, it's made you utterly miserable. Look at you. If you were a writer you'd be ready to compose an epic poem.’

  It was true. He hadn't felt this awful in years. Who would have guessed that malicious plotting was bad for the soul?

  ‘The fact is,’ mused Roddy, ‘we're not dog-killers.’ He reached for another chip. ‘I mean, what's the worst thing we actually achieved? Kidnapping a pot plant.’ He popped the chip into his mouth and stared out as he chewed. ‘There's our fatal flaw—at heart, we're nice guys.’

  Tom was barely listening. He'd come to a decision. ‘I'm going to tell her everything.’

  ‘No,’ said Roddy, alarmed. ‘You don't want to do that.’

  But for the first time that night he knew with utter certainty that this was the right path. There would be no more ridiculous plots designed to upset Jane. ‘I'm going to come clean, apologise and then I'm going to stay the fuck out of her life.’ He paused. ‘Forever.’

  CHAPTER 18

  ‘Naked in the Rain’, Red Hot Chili Peppers, 1991, Warner Bros

  HER DAD HAD insisted she take home the trophy. They'd won the quiz on a tiebreak: which country originally made Panama hats? She'd only known the answer thanks to her shopping spree after the
Austen awards. When she shouted out ‘Ecuador!’ and chalked up the winning point, her dad had leapt from his seat, arms aloft in triumph, knocking over the table and spilling their drinks.

  She'd never seen anyone so happy. There was something so pure and uncensored about his delight. Hadn't she said she wanted to get to know him? Well, here he was, utterly unguarded; and she wondered if she'd ever reconcile the bullying father who'd abandoned her with this smiling man.

  Then he told her haltingly that he wanted to take her to Disneyland and she'd lost it; burst into tears, full-on hiccupping sobs, snot running down her face, the works. She'd had to clean herself up in the ladies. Standing over the sink, staring at her dishevelled reflection in the mirror, she'd noticed the now faded words that Darsie (Jane?) had scrawled in lipstick weeks earlier. Where's my happy ending? Maybe it was out there, she considered, buying the first of many congratulatory rounds for his mates.

  They'd celebrated until closing time and then she'd taken a cab home. A black cab, not a minicab. She set the new trophy down on the shelf next to her Austen award for Best New Writer. The golden statuette of the Regency lady stood primly alongside the squat pub quiz award, a small plastic version of Rodin's ‘Thinker’, bent head topped off with a tartan bunnet. She chuckled at the juxtaposition of literary and gallus that tied her two worlds together; the trophies looked like they'd get on famously. Which was more than could be said for her and Tom.

  When she'd blown through the door of the pub he was the first person she'd clapped eyes on. What the hell was he doing there? Come to harass her again about the novel, she assumed. During Nicola Ball's book launch she'd told him she was in the quiz final; perhaps he thought she should be making better use of her time finishing his damn novel. Her novel, she corrected herself. She couldn't recall seeing him again during the evening and presumed that he'd slunk off. Good riddance. She shook herself. Why on earth was she thinking about Tom?

  She tried Willie again. The call was batted straight to his answerphone, so she left another message asking him to ring her back, hoping her voice didn't betray her anxiety. He'd been out of touch all day and that wasn't like him; he'd call her from the corner shop when he went out for a newspaper.

  Deciding she wouldn't sleep until they'd spoken, she busied herself in the kitchen making meringues. He still hadn't rung by the time they were in the oven. She picked up a book. She was reading Nicola Ball's latest novel in proof and had been enjoying it, especially for the fruity sex scenes—the girl had a facility for writing gaspingly good bonking that belied her demure exterior.

  As she read an idea began to form. However, for this she'd need a certain amount of Dutch courage. She went into the kitchen and scoured the wine rack. There were two bottles. One of them turned out to be Balsamic vinegar—god, she'd become so middle class—the other was a bottle Tom had brought round just before they'd broken up.

  She slid it from the rack. A 2003 Volnay Burgundy. She had no idea what that meant, but it sounded expensive and Tom had excellent taste in wine. He was a walking French cliché. She poured herself a glass; it was lighter than she'd expected, a foxtrot on her tongue, with a flavour that reminded her of parma violets. After downing the glass and another in quick succession she was ready.

  Write naked, Willie had said. Initially she'd dismissed the suggestion as the hopeful wish of an old pervert, but the more she'd thought about it the more it made sense. Free your mind, cast off your inhibitions along with your knickers. Jane hunched over her laptop, wearing her Mickey Mouse skip-cap. And nothing else.

  Darsie cleared her throat with a discreet cough. ‘I won't do nudity unless it's essential to the plot.’ She sat prissily in one of the living room chairs, eyeing Jane over the top of an open magazine.

  Jane caught sight of herself in the darkened laptop screen. Oh god. How had she become so unutterably stuck that sitting in the buff seemed like a brilliant idea? She struck a key so that the screen bloomed, wiping away her reflection. She shifted awkwardly in the chair. The moulded plastic rubbed against her bare bum.

  ‘So,’ teased Darsie, ‘feeling uninhibited yet?’

  ‘It's coming along great, actually,’ said Jane defensively, angling the screen so that Darsie couldn't see that the page below the Chapter 37 heading remained resolutely blank.

  Darsie lowered the magazine with a frown. ‘Why are you lying to me? If you really were working do you think I'd be sitting here reading Stylist? No, I'd be in your book, probably having my heart broken by that bastard Tony Douglas. Again. By the way, he'd better get his comeuppance at the end.’

  ‘What if ultimately you're meant to be together?’ pondered Jane.

  Darsie gave a brittle laugh. ‘Oh, I very much doubt that.’ She looked panicked. ‘You're not going to make me end up with him, are you?’

  ‘Would that be such a terrible ending?’

  Darsie raised the magazine, blocking Jane's view of her face. From behind it she began to cry softly.

  Jane reached out a hand. ‘Oh, don't do that. I'm sorry. I know Tony's been awful to you—’

  ‘He ran over my dog,’ wailed Darsie. ‘The dog my dad gave me before he died, Tony Douglas killed it.’

  ‘Well, no, actually he didn't,’ confessed Jane.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You find out in the last chapter. Well, you will, when I write it.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Tony wasn't driving the car. He tried to rescue Wentworth, rushed him to the vet, but he was too late. He tried to tell you—’

  ‘At the club,’ said Darsie as it dawned on her. ‘He was late and I thought he'd decided not to show, as usual.’

  Jane nodded.

  ‘And then I said those things to him.’ She clapped a hand to her mouth. ‘Those terrible things. And he had a go at me. Oh god, the fight—it was awful.’

  Jane smiled; she was particularly proud of that scene. Writing it had been incredibly liberating. By the end both characters were broken and hollowed out, and when she'd inserted the final stop she too had been a wreck, their relationship seemingly in an irretrievable place. It was good stuff, even though she said so herself. Tom would love it. He was always pushing her to go further.

  ‘What are you grinning at?’ snapped Darsie.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘We're talking about my life, Jane. My life.’ Darsie fell into quiet reflection for a moment and then leaned forward. ‘See, this is the problem with a dual narrative,’ she complained. ‘You just don't know what the other one's thinking. That leads to misunderstanding and the next thing you know you end up alone, miserable and dog-less.’ She brightened. ‘He could bring me a puppy! In the final chapter. Tony could show up at my door with a wee puppy. I'd forgive him and we'd live happily ever after. That's a great idea. Go on. Write that.’

  ‘A puppy?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You don't think that's a bit … well … shit?’

  ‘Hell, no. I get a puppy.’

  ‘I'll bear it in mind,’ said Jane.

  A stack of pages lay on the desk. Earlier she had printed out everything she had of the new novel. Until that moment the book had been nothing more than a few hundred kilobytes in a folder on her desktop marked ‘Untitled’. The mountain of paper made it something real. She gathered the manuscript in both hands, enjoying its heft, then riffled through the pages. The chapter numbers flew past, snatches of sentences, the novel accumulated in a rush—and then abruptly ran out. She had hoped that by reading it through on the page rather than on a screen it would trigger an epiphany about the final chapter. It hadn't.

  The doorbell rang. She unpeeled herself from the chair and dashed down the hallway. It was Willie. Had to be. She was about to throw open the front door when she remembered she was naked. No doubt he would be pleased to see her in her undressed state, but just in case it was a neighbour looking for fun-run sponsorship rather than her boyfriend she pressed her eye to the peephole.

  ‘You must be joking,’ she muttered
.

  It was Tom.

  ‘Jane?’ He leaned towards the door, his head bulging unnaturally in the fish-eye lens.

  ‘Just … go away.’ He looked drawn, tense. And fully dressed.

  ‘I've got to talk to you. Please open the door …’

  She was about to tell him where to go when the phone rang. It was Willie. Had to be. She padded back into the living room. Darsie offered up the phone.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘No problem.’

  The caller ID was blocked, but she was sure it was him. ‘Willie?’

  There was a brief silence then a click and a cheery automaton said, ‘You need to hear about our great deal on home insurance.’

  The last thing she needed to hear about was—

  Bleep bleep bleep!

  ‘Jane, your meringues!’ Darsie pointed to the kitchen. Black smoke poured from the oven. Above it the alarm bleated.

  ‘Oh shit!’ She dropped the phone and hurried into the kitchen, bare feet slipping on the linoleum floor. She caught the edge of the counter-top and steadied herself, then stuck on a pair of oven gloves and flung open the oven. Smoke billowed into the room. She waved at it uselessly as she slid out the tray of singed meringues.

  Above the insistent sound of the smoke alarm she could hear Tom calling out urgently.

  ‘Jane? You OK? Jane!’

  There was so much smoke he must be able to smell it. But at least he was on the other side of the door.

  There was the rasp of a key sliding into a lock.

  The spare key above the lintel.

  Oh, no.

  Clutching the tray of smoking meringues, she sprinted down the hallway, intent on reaching the door before he gained entry. But it was too late. Tom stepped inside and she skidded to a stop in front of him.

  For a moment neither said a word, then he arched his eyebrows and gave a low whistle.

  Aside from the meringues, she was stark naked. She was glad she'd whipped them into a stiff peak. His eyes roamed up and down her body.