Not Another Happy Ending

by David Solomons

  ‘Stop looking!’

  He covered his face with a hand and then instantly spread his fingers and grinned. She made a face as if to say, how childish, then ducked into the bedroom, returning a few minutes later wrapped in a dressing gown. He was no longer in the hall. She found him in the kitchen, standing on the counter flapping at the smoke alarm with a tea towel until it stopped. He jumped down.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ she demanded.

  ‘I came to apolo …’

  She saw his eyes drift past her to fall on the manuscript on the desk.

  ‘Is that my novel?’

  They stood for a moment, like a couple of sprinters on their starting-blocks. And then both lunged for the novel. Tom got there first.

  ‘Give that back!’

  She pursued him round the room.

  ‘I paid good money for this—I'm going to read it.’

  ‘You don't get to read anything until it's finished. That's the deal. Give it back!’

  Tom slowed to a stop. He hung his head and, appearing to relent, passed the novel back to her.

  ‘OK. Yes. You're right.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, feeling the familiar weight of the manuscript. She ran her thumb along the spine. ‘Good to know you can behave like a grown-up once in a—’ Something was wrong. It felt a tad light. ‘Where's the rest of it?!’

  She looked up and he was gone. There was the slam of a door and then a click of a bolt being thrown. He was in the bathroom. The sonofabitch had locked himself in the bathroom with—she counted quickly—the first three chapters.

  She hammered against the door with her fists. ‘Come out of there, you thieving bastard! Give me back my novel!’

  In reply came the flick of a page being turned.

  ‘Don't you dare. Not one page. That's what we agreed.’

  Flick.

  ‘OK, now you're just taking the piss. No one reads that fast.’

  Flick.

  Oh, he was so maddening. She decided that he was enjoying her irritation, and that her furious pleading was serving only as a pleasant soundtrack to his reading, so she left him to it and went back to the living room to drink more wine. About half an hour later he reappeared. He stood silently in the doorway, the chapters rolled into a scroll held in one hand down at his side.

  In her head she'd planned to shout a lot, berate him for his behaviour, say something withering about it not being a surprise given how he'd treated her previously and then eject him from the flat. The plan started well enough.

  ‘How could you do that? I can't believe you. Even you!’

  But then it encountered an obstacle; a lump in the custard—first draft neurosis. She took a sip of wine.

  ‘So,’ she said anxiously, ‘what did you think?’

  She knew that to answer correctly was akin to tempering chocolate; in order to avoid unpleasant crumbling the respondent had to heat and cool with perfect control. The answer should balance praise and criticism, ten parts to one; characters’ names should be recalled with perfect clarity, one or two favourite passages recounted with close reference to the text, the writer left with a lingering taste of validation.

  Tom shrugged. ‘It's merely the first few chapters so who can say?’

  Jane opened her mouth to object, but before she could say anything he continued. As he spoke he moved slowly and steadily towards her.

  ‘However, putting to one side that you are a whining, overpaid author who clearly got lucky with her debut, I'd say this is a very good start.’

  He held out the rolled up chapters like a baton. They were close enough now that all she had to do was reach for them where she stood.

  ‘Well, coming from a never-even-has-been owner of a third-rate publishing company, I'd have to say … thank you.’

  Their hands gripped either end of the scroll.

  ‘Naturally, I have a few notes.’

  She held his gaze.

  ‘Naturally.’

  For the next hour they discussed the opening chapters. At first Jane was aware that they were dancing awkwardly around each other, holding back their true feelings about the text, but then almost without noticing she felt herself slip into the comfortable pattern they had established while editing Happy Ending.

  She watched Tom's hands gesticulate through the air in wild circles then tight ones as he honed his point. He paced the room in his familiar long stride, palm held against one stubbly cheek as he figured out aloud what he was thinking. His insights were pointed, awkward, sometimes they stung. A novel was about choices; it was rarely a question of right or wrong, but of making the smart choice. Tom's were unavoidably, irritatingly smart. She had forgotten how good he was at this.

  He pointed to her laptop. ‘Would you mind if I …?’

  She sat back. ‘Be my guest.’

  Dragging Willie's chair round to her side of the desk so they were next to one another he scrolled to the beginning of the novel, flexed his fingers and began to type.

  She read over his shoulder as he worked, scratching out a word here, adding another there, losing an extraneous speech tag and ruthlessly hunting down adverbs. He paused, and she pulled the laptop towards her. His changes had sparked a fresh idea. The old version fell away and a new possibility branched off. What if Darsie and Tony meet earlier, before he discovers she's just a waitress?

  She wrote it up quickly, amazed at how easily it came to her; she'd forgotten how good it was to be able to do this. She had never been an elegant typist; self-taught, she worked the keyboard like a hen-party drunk trying to prove she isn't, always about to lose her feet, steadying herself just in time to avoid crashing unconscious in a Sauchiehall Street doorway. She lurched from one key to another, giddy with pleasure. The feeling swelled. She was reconnecting to a part of her she feared had gone for good. She wanted to carry on writing, not stop—never stop.

  Tom leaned over her, scanning the work as she wrote, nodding furiously. Yes. Yes. Yes, Jane.

  She turned to him, her cheeks flushed with wine and bliss. The sweet taste of violets on her tongue.

  ‘This wine is amazing.’

  ‘I know. It's from my family estate.’

  She laughed, gesturing with her glass to the wall. ‘And that painting's from my dad's private collection.’ She took another sip and ran a finger across the label on the wine bottle. ‘I'm something of a wine expert, y'know.’

  ‘You are?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. Six years working in Tesco you pick up a few things.’

  ‘Please.’ He motioned to the bottle. ‘Enlighten me.’

  ‘OK. Right. Well, you won't know this, not having my extensive experience of aisle twelve, but if you want to tell if a wine's any good there is one thing you look for.’

  ‘Nose? Colour? Length?’

  She gave a dismissive pout. ‘Pert bottom.’ She picked up the bottle and held it above their heads. ‘That,’ she said pointing to the dimpled base. ‘The perter the bottom … perter?’

  ‘More pert,’ he offered.

  ‘The more pert the bottom,’ she resumed, ‘the finer the wine.’ She lowered the bottle to the table again.

  ‘That,’ he said slowly, ‘is the biggest load of bollocks I've ever heard.’

  ‘It is?’

  He nodded. ‘There is more than one way to ensure great wine.’ He paused. ‘For example, go to France.’

  ‘They have wine in France then?’

  ‘Have you ever been?’

  ‘Does a day trip to Calais count?’

  ‘Not really.’ He refilled her glass. ‘You should go. I know this château in the south with a wonderful vineyard. There you will find many pert bottoms.’

  ‘Your family estate?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She watched him, unsure if he was teasing her. If he was, then she couldn't tell. He seemed unusually sincere.

  ‘As an expert,’ he said, ‘you will also be aware that although the grapevine is most productive in sunnier climes it p
roduces wine of the very highest quality where it is at the margin of its existence.’

  She thought about that for a moment. ‘So a Scottish wine might be really good?’

  ‘You still need some sun.’

  She looked at him. ‘French sun. Scottish rain.’

  ‘I believe that would produce a highly favourable wine.’

  He leaned in. Their lips almost brushing. His breath warm and sweet.

  Her phone chirped and the moment shattered like a dropped snowglobe.

  She considered ignoring it, the number wasn't one she recognised. But there was a good chance it was Willie. She picked up the phone. ‘Willie?’

  ‘Hi, Janey.’

  Ordinarily she would have winced at the nickname, but there was something in his tone that made her overlook it this time. She left Tom sitting at the desk and moved to the other side of the room.

  ‘So, how's the trip going? Did you meet Soderbergh?’

  He started to answer and then stopped himself. She heard a catch in his voice. He gathered himself. ‘There was no meeting. I've been stuck in the arse end of nowhere. I couldn't get a cab. My phone died. I've been walking for nine hours. In the rain. I just found a call box.’

  ‘Oh, Willie.’

  ‘I'm cold and wet and just feeling so …’ She heard him hunt for the right word. He sighed. ‘Miserable.’

  Behind her Jane was aware of Tom slipping out of the room. And suddenly she was unhappy too. She told herself it was because of Willie, not because Tom had gone, taking the sunshine with him.

  ‘But y'know what,’ said Willie, ‘I'm kind of glad the trip turned out so badly because it's made me realise a few things. I miss you, Janey. You're the best thing in my life.’

  She could hear it in his voice, knew with dreadful certainty what the next words out of his mouth would be, almost as if she was writing them herself. She held her breath. Don't go there. Please. Not now.

  ‘I love you,’ he said.

  She heard him sigh with perfect bliss, gathering confidence from saying the words aloud. He wasn't finished. There was a gathering pause at the other end of the line and then he said, ‘Let's get married.’

  CHAPTER 19

  ‘I Wish It Would Rain Down’, Phil Collins, 1990, Virgin

  ‘THAT WASN'T THE PLAN,’ said Roddy.

  They were standing near the head of the lunch queue outside Mother India's Café. The pungent aroma of cumin and saffron drifted out of the door onto the street.

  ‘No kidding,’ said Tom. It was the day after he had barged in on a naked Jane; the image of her standing in the hall was vividly etched in his mind. Regrettably, so was the moment when Willie had called. In that instant it was clear to Tom that he'd outstayed his welcome and not wishing to intrude on what was obviously an intimate conversation he had swiftly departed. He was in the hallway when he heard her repeat Willie's proposal. Married?

  He and Roddy had contrived to send Willie on a wild-goose chase so that they could focus on driving a wedge between Jane and her dad. Instead, somehow they'd brought Willie and Jane together. Talk about a plan backfiring.

  ‘Kind of Wordsworthian,’ said Roddy. ‘Willie's perambulatory journey along the rain-dappled English lanes, reflecting on his place in nature, feeling so wretched that he begins to ponder his very existence and concludes that he needs to make a change. A big married change.’

  ‘Do I look like I give a flying fuck?’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘And you can't have dappled rain. Sunshine is dappled. Dapple. Bloody stupid word anyway.’

  The queue shuffled forward.

  He'd gone to Jane in order to come clean and apologise, although he couldn't remember if he'd actually said sorry. He presumed not. Given what had subsequently happened his act of contrition would have been a sideshow. An apology—no matter how heartfelt—paled beside a marriage proposal. He certainly hadn't confessed to her about his stupid plan. And when he'd opened the familiar glossy black front door to leave her place it had flashed through his mind that it was for the last time. She was moving on. Moving to Klinsch & McLeish. Moving on with Willie.

  ‘A lifetime with Willie Scott,’ he muttered. ‘If that doesn't make her miserable, nothing will.’

  ‘Look,’ said Roddy, a note of exasperation entering his voice, ‘I know things haven't worked out for the two of you, but surely you don't really, actually, totally want her to be unhappy?’

  It was the cornerstone of their plan. But she was happier than ever—engaged to be married, for god's sake. He had failed. In every previous relationship he had always made them cry, even when he hadn't intended to. So why couldn't he do it to her? ‘It's complicated.’

  ‘Roddy!’

  Tom looked up to see Nicola Ball making her way along the pavement. She waved and Roddy waved back.

  ‘Is she actually skipping?’ asked Tom.

  ‘I would say she has a skip in her step, yes.’

  ‘So … you two?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘She's a writer. I'll grant you the sex can be imaginative—but when you look in her eye you'll always wonder if you're going to end up in her next book.’ Tom shrugged. ‘In the end you're just material.’

  He could tell that Roddy wasn't listening to a word.

  ‘She likes curry,’ he said, smoothing his hair. ‘How many girls do you know who like curry? And not just tikka masala, I'm talking biryani.’ He shook his head in wonder. ‘And afterwards we're going to the Art Gallery.’ He nodded across the road at the exuberant red sandstone façade of Kelvingrove Museum directly opposite. ‘To see the Annunciation.’ He gave a beatific smile. ‘Curry and Botticelli—that might be my perfect day.’ Then added after a thoughtful pause, ‘And sex. Obviously.’

  Nicola bounded up and the two of them embraced. They nuzzled each other and Tom had to look away.

  Her new book was selling slowly, but at least it was selling. However, the numbers were nowhere near the level to extricate him from the hole he'd dug Tristesse into. And barring Nicola suddenly gaining overnight celebrity by committing a series of grisly murders that propelled her onto the front pages, or, in an ironic twist, being knocked down and killed by one of the precious buses she wrote about, they were unlikely to amount to much. Still, he wanted to sign her up for another two books. She wrote beautifully and if he could gently steer her towards a subject more befitting her lapidary prose then he was sure she had a great novel in her. But she was a long-term prospect, and as things stood Tristesse Books was not. He had another meeting with Anna LeFèvre later today when he expected her to bring out the torture equipment reserved for serious defaulters.

  Finally Nicola acknowledged his presence.

  ‘Tom,’ she said, her demeanour turning formal.

  ‘Nicola.’ He inclined his head in a mocking neck-bow.

  ‘Lovely news about Jane.’

  ‘What is?’

  She tutted. ‘Her and Willie.’

  For a moment he'd forgotten. It came back to him like a punch in the gut.

  ‘Roddy told me. So romantic. Proposing to her in the rain.’

  ‘He was in a call box.’ He saw disapproval in Nicola's face; the social compact dictated he go along with the invented story. ‘I'm sure they'll be very happy together,’ he heard himself say.

  ‘Married writers,’ she mused. ‘Going for long walks to solve tricky plot points, discussing the day's work as they prepare dinner, pillow-talk editing.’ She sighed.

  ‘Are you kidding?’ he cut across her. Such simpering fantasy could not be tolerated. He would set her straight. ‘Married writers means two utterly self-absorbed people pretending to listen to each other, but only really interested in their own work. Bitter when the other receives a good review, furious when one is invited to a festival but there isn't a place for the other, jealously comparing the size of their royalty cheques. As for pillow talk, try separate bedrooms and most o
f the sex is imaginary.’

  He was out of breath. In the awkward silence that followed his rant the only sound was the snort of air through his flaring nostrils. Why was he so angry? He wasn't sure he even believed what he was saying, but the soft-focus picture Nicola painted had piqued him.

  ‘Your table is ready,’ said the host at the door.

  Roddy linked arms with Nicola and turned to Tom with a rigid smile. ‘See you later then.’

  ‘I thought we were having lunch?’

  ‘We are.’ Roddy angled his head towards Nicola.

  ‘So why have I spent the last half hour waiting in this queue?’ He could feel the anger rising again. ‘What am I—a bookmark?’

  ‘OK, OK,’ said Roddy. ‘Chill. Come for lunch.’

  ‘Yes, please join us,’ said Nicola.

  She looked petrified. Tom felt his stomach lurch; he hadn't meant to frighten anyone, it had just sort of happened. ‘I'm sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘I'll see you later.’ He headed off along the pavement.

  ‘No, come on,’ said Roddy. ‘Come back.’

  ‘Can't. Don't know what I was thinking—got a meeting. Nicola?’

  ‘Yes, Tom?’ she said hesitantly.

  ‘You are most definitely one of the foremost writers under the age of thirty in Scotland.’ He smiled broadly.

  Her face lit up and she burrowed into Roddy with pleasure. He caught the departing Tom's eye and gave him a big thumbs up, mouthing ‘curry, Botticelli and sex’.

  CHAPTER 20

  ‘Rain in My Heart,’ Frank Sinatra, 1968, Reprise

  THE BEDROOM GLOWED with late afternoon light the colour of Lucozade.

  When Jane walked in Willie was exactly where she'd left him two hours before, sitting up in bed wrapped in a tartan dressing gown, working on his typewriter which was propped on a wooden tray in front of him. The tray acted as a resonator, exaggerating the clack of the key-strikes. He interrupted his typing to cough consumptively into a fist.

  He'd arrived home last week from his disastrous trip down south looking deathly pale and with a streaming cold. Jane's first, uncharitable, thought had been that in such a state he'd be forced to take time off his writing. But she'd been wrong. On his bedside table towered a stack of perfectly squared-off pages, each side a sheer vertical cliff. An unclimbable alp of words. It seemed to her that following the trip, he had recommenced his work with even greater intensity than before. He couldn't have contracted a fever? Not that she wanted him to be sick. Just a little fever. Something minor to slow him down.