Not Another Happy Ending (15 page)

‘For fuck's sake!’ He strode out onto the wet path. The rain beat down on his balding head. ‘
Endless Anguish of My Father
… I knew it. I
knew
it was about me.’

‘No, that's not how—He's a character I made up.’

‘The folk at my work looked at me funny when it came out. God, I'm such an idiot.’ He turned his back on her and began to walk away. ‘I have to get back to the depot.’

Jane felt a nudge of guilt that was instantly swept away by indignation. ‘You never read it,’ she said. ‘You're not allowed to be hurt until you've actually read the damn thing! D'you not think I'm hurt my own dad hasn't read my novel?’

He stopped walking. She could see his shoulders heave as he tried to breathe some control back into his body, but he was stung by the criticism, trapped in his rage, and for now it had the better of him.

‘I will read it,’ he snapped. ‘Soon as I'm over my
anguish
.’ And with that he stalked off along the path, quickly vanishing amongst the statues and the rain.

Willie had gone out for his usual afternoon run, leaving Jane alone in her flat with her thoughts.

And her main character.

Darsie sat on the edge of the kitchen counter, dangling her legs, drinking her way steadily through a large glass of red wine. Jane checked on an apple strudel she'd been making. She peered into the oven. The key was the pastry; according to the recipe it had to be brittle yet yielding. It had been in for thirty minutes and was just starting to turn golden brown.

Darsie glugged down a mouthful of wine.

‘Is it not a bit early for that?’ Jane asked gently.

‘It's not my fault I'm an alcoholic,’ said Darsie. ‘You wrote me like this.’ She drained the glass and reached for the bottle.

Jane snatched it away. ‘You're not an alcoholic. You're a binge drinker. You only drink when you're unhappy.’

Darsie stared mournfully at the out of reach bottle. ‘I'm unhappy a lot.’

‘Yeah.’ Jane felt bad about that. On the page Darsie Baird was one thing, a character she could put through the grinder without misgiving. But sitting here in her kitchen, drinking her New Zealand Shiraz, large as life, Darsie posed a moral quandary. Every indignity Jane had subjected her to in the novel provoked a pang of conscience.

‘Can we talk about your book?’ asked Darsie.

Jane perked up. This was progress. She felt sure the mental aberration that manifested itself in the form of her main character was inextricably bound to her new novel. Perhaps she could talk her—
it
—out of existence.

‘Yes. Let's talk about the book.’

‘I was wondering. The way you write about Glasgow, it comes across as kind of a miserable place. When I'm walking through the streets it's always raining, the people are grey and beaten, but I've been out here two weeks now and I've got to tell you, this is a dead nice town. Most of the people I've seen are well fed, if they're not driving convertibles then they're out walking in parks, which, by the way, are beautiful—and I haven't seen a single deep-fried Mars bar. Not one.’

‘I'm depicting the
real
Glasgow.’

‘I don't know, that other stuff seemed pretty real to me. Have you seen that new Spanish deli on Byres Road? The Serrano ham looked melt-in-the-mouth. Y'know that bit in your novel where I'm running through the derelict
housing estate being chased by a pack of feral kids with their dogs?’

‘Yes?’

‘Maybe, instead of that, I could go to the Spanish deli and buy some nice ham.’

‘I don't think so.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don't write about delis.’

‘No. You don't.’

‘I write about the other side,’ said Jane sharply. ‘The non-Serrano ham eating Glasgow.’

‘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 all 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.