Not Another Happy Ending (30 page)

‘She isn't,’ said Benny.

‘What?’

‘With him,’ he explained. ‘Willie moved out.’

Roddy, who until that moment had been listening to the unfolding revelations in open-mouthed silence, let out a girlish squeak of excitement at this sudden reversal.

‘Behold,’ boomed Donald, ‘the
peripeteia
around which our story turns!’

‘He's gone?’ Tom had to confirm he'd heard right.

‘I bloody hope so,’ said Benny, clutching his lower back, ‘I'm no’ carting that desk back up those stairs.’

‘Well, what are you waiting for, man? The Muses have conspired to give you a third act.’ Donald gestured magisterially to the pub door. ‘
Allez-y!
’

‘Looks Like Rain’, The Grateful Dead, 1990, Arista

T
HE END CAME
swiftly. After weeks of pent-up frustration the last chapter burst onto the page as fast as she could type it. Occasionally an idea would overtake her fingers to leave a pile-up of misspelled words and random letters, which she would have to go back over and decipher. But she knew where she was going. She pushed on towards the novel's climax. In the end it was so obvious she wondered what had kept her from seeing it all this time. Darsie and Tony Douglas were clearly not meant to be together. More than that, she'd realised that they weren't meant for anyone else either.

Neither would make it out alive; both had to die in the final chapter.

She wiped away a tear for their imminent demise. Even now she had the power to make things turn out all right. One word could change the outcome. In her head she heard Darsie's desperate pleas, but hardened her heart
against them and bent to her task. The world didn't need another happy ending.

First she killed off Tony. A serial betrayer whose love for Darsie was a sham, he deserved to die. But even as she dispatched him she took no delight in his end. A flurry of keystrokes sent him to his shocking fate at the hands of the razor gang.

Then it was Darsie's turn to shuffle off the mortal coil. It would be an epilogue of sorts, set some twenty years after Tony's murder, Darsie's passing altogether slower and more painful than his swift, brutal exit. She needed to suffer all that time, broken with the knowledge that he never loved her.
Where's my happy ending?
Don't look for it here, sweetheart. Over six agonising pages she dies trembling and forgotten in an empty corridor of the hospice calling out his name.

And then it was over. She rested her fingers against the warm keys and looked up from the page, half expecting to see Darsie lounging on the sofa and in the next moment knowing that she would never see her again. The gauzy, vivacious Darsie snuffed out, her dirty laugh silenced forever. The loss palpable. That feeling of closing a book and saying goodbye to beloved characters, but amplified by the knowledge that she did this. In cold ink.

There was no point hanging around. The sooner she delivered the novel the sooner she could get on with the rest of her life. She brought up Tom's email address and attached the manuscript, but as she was about to press
‘Send’ she hesitated. One click and it would finally be over between them.

She discarded the half-composed email, telling herself she couldn't bear him thinking she was avoiding the awkwardness of a confrontation. Far from it, she relished the opportunity. She loaded her printer with a fresh ream of paper, hit print and settled down to wait for the finished manuscript. She would look him in the eye, hand him the novel and tell him precisely what she thought of him. One last time.

He wasn't in. The office was closed and the flat above it in darkness. She clutched the newly minted manuscript, still warm from the laser printer. So much for the dramatic showdown. It was one of real life's letdowns that people rarely showed up on cue.

She cupped a hand to the large plate-glass window that overlooked the courtyard and peered inside for any signs of life. As she scanned the silent and empty office a face smiled back at her from the shadowy space between two tall book stacks. She jumped back. It was her own face, smile set in cardboard. The life-sized promotional cutout was an old friend, having accompanied her on every leg of her debut book tour before being retired to the store cupboard. Tom must have fished out the doppelganger in preparation for the launch of the new book.

She remembered the day the picture was taken, turning
up at the office, excited at the prospect of a professional photoshoot only to discover that Tom was to be her David Bailey. On seeing her disappointment he had professed a deep interest in portrait photography and affected an indignant air when she teased that maybe he was just trying to save a few quid on a proper photographer. Then he'd led her upstairs to find that he'd set up a tripod and camera. In his bedroom.

When she'd given him a dubious look he explained that the light in here was perfect. His bedroom? Yes. He'd pointed to an airy window explaining that its north-facing aspect offered the classic portrait light. Think of Vermeer's
Girl with a Pearl Earring
, he'd said, and then instructed her to get her kit off.

When she'd roundly objected he gestured to an outfit laid out on the bed: a pair of houndstooth trousers, an orange shirt and a silk waistcoat. She loved it all. It was exactly the sort of thing she'd choose herself. And in the right sizes. You bought this? He'd been offended by her surprised tone, given her one of those Gallic shrugs. It was the first time she'd undressed for him.

‘Jane.’

Aware that she was smiling at the memory she swiftly wiped it from her face. But it wasn't him.

‘What're you doing
here
?’ asked Roddy.

He seemed confused to see her. In fact she would say he was disappointed to find her outside the office.

‘Did Tom get hold of you?’

So he was looking for her, presumably to continue plaguing her for the stupid novel. Well, today he was in luck. ‘No, I haven't seen him. But I know what he wants.’

‘You do?’

She noted the surprise in his voice. Why so taken aback? It wasn't as if her delayed novel was news.

‘And do you feel the same way?’ he asked tentatively.

‘About what?’

‘About him?’

Infuriating, deceitful, egotistical? She was sure he had a similar list of her bad points. She shrugged. ‘I expect so.’

Roddy reacted to her answer with a gasp of pleasure. ‘That's wonderful! Seriously, great stuff.’ He punched the air. ‘Result! I'm dead chuffed.’

Unsure why her continuing disdain for his best friend should elicit such a giddy response she offered up a thin smile and let him ramble on.

‘It's in the air. You can feel it all around. Donald MacDonald said it. Well, Edwin Morgan wrote it, but Donald said it. Your dad was right.’

‘My dad? What's he got to do with … whatever the hell you're on about?’

‘We were in the pub. I had to leave them there because I have a date. With Nicola. Just came back to get changed. I bought a new shirt. It's
verde
. Nicola likes me in
verde
. Says it brings out the colour of my eyes.’

‘You were in the pub with my dad?’

‘Yeah. Me, Donald, your dad—and Tom, of course.’

Tom and her dad had met up behind her back. Her dad had always liked Tom, but couldn't he see that this wasn't the time to be firming up their friendship? While she was endeavouring to detach herself from the clutches of her former publisher her dad was making him his new drinking buddy. It wasn't right.

Roddy opened up the office and went inside. He held the door for her. ‘I'm sure Tom'll be back soon. Why don't you wait?’

‘I don't think so. I just came to give him this.’ She held out the manuscript. ‘It's my novel. I finished it.’

Briefly Roddy lifted his eyes to the cloudy heavens. ‘It's all just coming together today, isn't it? Well done. Seriously, I know it's not been easy.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Out of interest, would you say you've been feeling any more melancholy of late?’

‘Melan—?’

‘Never mind.’ He studied the manuscript and blew out. ‘I can't tell you what a relief it is to see that. Between you and me, your book is the only thing keeping this place,’ he clapped a hand against the doorpost, ‘from going tits up.’

‘What are you talking about?’ It was the first she'd heard that the company was struggling. Although now when she thought back to her meeting in Edinburgh with Klinsch & McLeish, Dr Klinsch had made a puzzling reference to Tom's troubles. At the time Jane had assumed that the good doctor was referring to her—she was Tom's
biggest trouble, unable to finish her promised novel. It turned out she had been more correct than she knew.

‘Tristesse Books is in deep
shtuk
.’ He put his head on one side. ‘
Was
in
shtuk
. Not now. Your novel has saved the day, if you'll forgive the cliché. Ever notice that things like this rarely happen in real life? I mean, in the nick of time, one second left on the clock.’ With time on his mind he glanced at his watch. ‘Dammit. Nicola hates being kept waiting.’ He grinned. ‘I think it's writing about all those bus timetables.’ With that he launched himself upstairs taking them three at a time. Jane leaned through the doorway and called after him.

‘Roddy …’

She could hear him through the thin ceiling, clattering about on the floor above as he dressed for his date.

‘Where shall I leave it?’ she asked more to herself than him. He couldn't hear her above the sound of his own singing, an enthusiastic if tuneless rendition of ‘Singin’ in the Rain’. She debated leaving the manuscript at the door, but was pricked by the idea that Tom would find it there and jump to the wrong-headed conclusion that she was scared to step over the threshold. She refused to give him the opportunity.

Closing the front door behind her she made her way cautiously along the corridor. It was the first time she'd been back here since that day. The day she discovered he'd changed her title. It was hard for other people to understand why it was such a betrayal. In the intervening
months even she had occasionally wondered if she'd overreacted. After all, the book, with its new title, had exceeded all her expectations. But no. That wasn't the point. It was as if they'd had a child together, agreed on his name, but on the way to register it Tom had changed his mind. So instead of a ‘Luke’, they'd ended up with a ‘Pubert’.

Why was she thinking about their children?

A plastic bucket squatted beneath a leak in the ceiling. The tick of falling rainwater followed her down the corridor into Reception. Nothing had changed. From the heady tang of freshly unboxed books and the thick layer of dust on the shelves, to the complete absence of anything living—unless you counted mould. What was it with men and their spaces that left to their own devices they would be sure to instal a gumball machine and vintage jukebox, but never any greenery? Before they'd broken up she'd suggested to Tom he might sprinkle a few standard-issue office ferns around the place. Nothing thrived here, he'd said. No kidding.

The Reception desk lay hidden beneath a mass of unopened mail, proof copies of books and three wobbling stacks of manuscripts. If she left hers amongst this lot there was a good chance it wouldn't be found for years, perhaps then only by some future archaeologist excavating for evidence of an ancient civilisation rumoured to have subsisted exclusively on a diet of fried egg and sausage rolls.

She decided to leave the manuscript in Tom's office.

She stared at his door, hoping to find in its cheap oak-veneered panels the courage she needed to turn the handle and enter. She knew that he wasn't on the other side, sitting behind his desk sporting that languid grin, pushing his hand through his stupid wavy hair. That wasn't why she hesitated. Once she entered she would be in the place where their story had begun, and as soon as she put her manuscript on his desk and walked away it would be over. End where you begin. It was a common novelistic device. The familiar sense of place transported the reader in a flashback to the beginning when everything was simple and hopeful, and it was this delicious agony of nostalgia that suffused the final moments of the story. Nothing had changed, and yet everything had changed.

She couldn't remember opening the door, but then she was on the other side. Perhaps she'd walked through it like the ghost of herself. She stood in the semi-darkness of his office, listening to the sound of her own breathing. Crossing the floor she passed the same battered sofa they'd shared, the same low chair he'd made her occupy while they edited
Happy Ending
. Several rows of one bookcase were lined with copies of her novel. She ran a hand along their spines.

She stood before his desk. The bust of Napoleon, the Glasgow snowglobe, the metal holder crammed with his ubiquitous red pencils. Amongst the familiar objects she noticed something unexpected. A business card. One of
Willie's. She picked it up and recalled their last conversation when he'd told her about Tom's objection to the screenplay. An image sprang to mind of Tom on his white horse defending, if not her honour, then her novel. Was it possible that she had been too hard on him? If so, then this act was an acknowledgement of that; perhaps even the first small step on the road to a rapprochement.

She made space on the cluttered surface and set down her manuscript. That was when she saw it, tucked behind a pile of books at the edge of the desk. She could so easily have missed it, and that would have changed everything.

Her umbrella plant.

There was no question in her mind that it was hers: the same plant her dad had given her, the same plant she'd nurtured for years. She would have recognised it anywhere. But if it was here then what was the withered plant she'd returned to in her flat all those weeks ago? A substitute? But to what purpose? A cruel prank perpetrated by a disgruntled ex-boyfriend? That didn't seem like Tom's style. He was far more Machiavellian than that. A creeping sensation at the nape of her neck began a cold-fingered crawl across her scalp. It wasn't a plant, it was the tip of an iceberg.