Not Another Happy Ending (25 page)

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.

‘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.’