Not Another Happy Ending (16 page)

Jane's key turned in the lock and the front door swung into the hallway. Tom ducked behind a bookcase and held his breath. Moments later Jane dashed into the living room. It seemed to Tom that she was in a hurry, as if she'd forgotten something. That made sense, since she'd left with her dad less than fifteen minutes ago. There was one bonus being trapped in here with her; it provided him with a ringside seat for the scene that was surely about to happen. He ventured a peek over the counter.

Jane dug down the back of the sofa and turned cushions over in search of whatever she had forgotten. Not finding it, she moved to a bookshelf. As she made her way round the room she eventually reached the desk in her bay window. She stopped and let out a little gasp.

She'd seen it.

Her precious umbrella plant lay before her, shrivelled and brown. She stood there staring at the plant, not making
a sound, her shoulders shaking. He was pretty sure she was crying. God, he hated it when she cried. But that was the point, wasn't it? He'd coldly calculated what would reduce her to tears and had hit the bullseye. He knew how Roddy would characterise it: Mission Accomplished! So why didn't it feel like a victory?

He crept out to the hallway, picked his way across the stripped wooden floor, conscious of every creak and bow, to the front door.

A minute later he hustled out of the tenement and clambered into the car, relieved to be out of Jane's flat. Roddy was glued to his binoculars, which were trained on the bay window.

‘Ooh, that's horrible. She's really upset. I'm not looking at that.’

Tom snatched the binoculars out of his hands and focused on Jane. She sat despondently at her desk, the dead plant before her. From time to time she wiped a palm across her cheeks.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘That should do it.’

Roddy landed a punch on his upper arm. He felt it go numb and rubbed vigorously.

‘Ow! What was that for?’

Roddy gave him a reproachful look. ‘You're enjoying this too much.’

Was he? It didn't feel like that inside. ‘It's for her own good. Remember? And it's not as if I actually killed her plant.’

He rustled in the plastic bag and carefully withdrew Jane's umbrella plant, as healthy and flourishing as ever.

Roddy tapped a finger against the side of his nose. ‘Ah yes, the old bait and switch. Works every time.’

‘You've done this before?’ asked Tom.

‘Well no, not as such.’ He could see Roddy thinking it over. ‘Not at all, actually.’

There was a ping from the handbrake and the car began to roll forward, inching towards a polished Mercedes saloon. Tom yanked the brake back on before they collided.

Roddy checked his giant glowing watch. ‘If you put your foot down I might make
Hamlet
with 5c.’

That was code. Tom understood. ‘So, we take the scenic route?’

‘Yeah,’ Roddy nodded. ‘I think, all things considered, that would be best.’

Jane couldn't understand how it had happened. When she'd left the flat she was sure the plant had been in perfect shape. It was a mystery. Perhaps Willie had been right and she'd overwatered the thing. She could only assume it had been on the brink of dying and something had pushed it over the edge. It was just a plant. But it connected her to her younger self. The last gift her dad had given that Jane. Now it was gone. She started to cry.

She pulled her laptop towards her and keyed in the password.
She'd meant to change it ages ago, but hadn't quite got round to doing so. There were too many PIN numbers and passwords to remember, so it was a complete hassle to continually refresh them. That's what she told herself. With a twinge of discomfort she typed ‘Tristesse’ and the splash screen gave way to her novel and the gaping chasm that was Chapter 37. She glanced at the dead plant, palmed away another tear and rested her fingers on the keyboard. An idea, a beginning, uncurled in the great swirling confusion of her head and she—

‘Janey, you OK?’

It was Willie, back from his run. He stood in the doorway, breathing lightly. ‘I thought I heard crying. Was it you?’

She shook her head numbly. A couple of long strides took him to her side. He wrapped his arms around her. She couldn't stop herself. Tears fell freely.

‘It's OK, Janey. It's OK,’ he soothed.

‘It's … dead.’

‘What's dead?’

Through great gulping sobs she said, ‘My … dad's … plant.’

She saw him clock it on the desk, grey leaves clenched with rigor mortis. He grimaced and then his face lightened. ‘Aw come on, nothing a splash of Baby Bio won't fix, eh darlin’?’

She let out a snort of laughter.

‘That's more like it. That's my Janey.’ He kissed her
neck. ‘Now, I'm going to jump in the shower, but what do you say afterwards we go to that nice wee Italian place on Ashton Lane you like?’

She nodded again. ‘I'd like that.’

He kissed her again. She watched him walk away and smiled, feeling lucky that at last she'd found a man who wanted to make the world right; who wanted to make her happy.

‘A Little Fall of Rain’, Les Misérables Original London Cast Recording, 1985, Red

F
IRST, SHE ORGANISED
the pencils in order of colour, ranging them according to the spectrum, but that didn't take long so she tipped them out of the holder and started again, this time cataloguing them in order of height, from tallest to shortest, but when she laid them out on her desk they formed a ragged line that was patently unsatisfactory, so in search of a neater arrangement she fished out a pencil sharpener and spent the next ten minutes whittling them all to the same length.

It wasn't procrastination, it was preparation. Coloured pencils were for making notes on the paper manuscript; a different hue to track each character. It was a system she'd used to great effect when editing her debut. But that novel and that time felt far away.

She remembered the ease with which she used to write, as if she'd been possessed by her characters, channelling their words through her fingers. All she had to do was get
out of their way and let them tell their own story. Not like now. Now she sat here day after day, head in her hands hoping to squeeze out a single word. She gathered up the pencils and jammed them back in the holder. She wouldn't be needing them anytime soon. There was no manuscript to edit. Not yet. Perhaps not ever.

Her eyes flicked to the laptop. The stubbornly empty page was like a mute scream. Silence would have been a blessing, but her misery had a soundtrack. The bullying rattle and clank of Willie's typing filled the room. It wasn't his fault; he couldn't know the anguish he caused her, and anyway, what could he do? He was on a deadline, his screenplay due in a matter of weeks. It wouldn't be fair to ask him to change his routine, especially when it was obviously going so well. Disheartened, she turned to the window and began to count the leaves on the trees outside.

Another sound joined Willie's relentless typing: the tapdance of fingers leaping across a modern keyboard. For a moment Jane imagined that she'd been possessed by one of her characters again. She looked down, hoping to see her hands moving unbidden across the laptop the way they used to. But instead they lay folded in her lap. The sound was coming from the other end of the room.

Darsie sat with her legs elegantly crossed, pencil skirt smoothed to mid-thigh, a neat silver laptop balanced on one knee. Long, tapered fingers worked up and down the
keyboard with the practised ease of a concert pianist. Her hair was swept back today in a ponytail, which swung in metronomic time to her typing. A pair of black-rimmed spectacles perched schoolmistressly on her nose. She leaned in; her hands became a blur. Jane recognised the signs—whatever Darsie was writing it was reaching its climax. Sure enough, she performed a final flourish and sat back, hands still frozen in the shape of the last word. She let out a long, low breath and her body relaxed.

Jane snatched the laptop from her knee.

‘Hey!’ Darsie objected. ‘What d'you think you're doing?’

‘I'm supposed to be the writer. You're the character. Remember?’

‘A character without an ending,’ she muttered, folding her arms.

Jane ignored her and turned to the screen. Delicate sentences formed succulent paragraphs stacked one on top of the other, baked together into a firm, crisp page. Jealously, she began to read. Absorbed in the text she walked back to her desk and set the laptop down beside her own.

Darsie hovered at her shoulder, looking from the screen to Jane, eager for praise. ‘So, what do you think?’

‘I think,’ began Jane, ‘that this is the end of
Les Misérables
.’

Darsie's eager expression didn't alter. ‘Yes. You should write something like that.’

‘Thanks. Great suggestion. Bit French, perhaps? People dying of consumption and all that? I'm a bit more … urban Scotland, Primal Scream, unhappy ‘90s childhood …’

Willie looked up, some part of the conversation having pierced the armour of his typing. ‘Sorry?’

Darsie raised a finger sharply. ‘She wasn't talking to you.’

It took a moment before Jane remembered that Willie couldn't see or hear her. ‘I wasn't talking to you,’ she said apologetically.

‘OK,’ said Willie uncertainly, glancing around the room in case he'd missed the arrival of someone else. Then he loosened his shoulders with a shake and returned to work.

Jane studied him. He was a writer, a kindred spirit. She couldn't imagine that he'd ever suffered from writer's block, but perhaps he could offer some wisdom on the subject. ‘Willie?’

‘Hmm?’

‘Do your characters ever …’ She hesitated. ‘Talk to you?’

Willie broke off and leant towards her, his eyes locking with hers. Oh god, what had she said? She shouldn't have admitted it. She was a madwoman.

‘Sure,’ he said at last. ‘All the time.’

Relief surged through her. She wasn't alone. He understood.

Willie patted his typewriter. ‘That's why I've got this.’
A half smirk. ‘Drowns out the bastards.’ He sniffed. ‘See, when I'm writing, I only want to hear the one voice.’ He angled his hands towards his chest and made a flicking motion. ‘Mine.’ Without another word he went back to work.

‘Charming,’ said Darsie, arching one perfectly plucked eyebrow. ‘Quite the hero.’

Jane considered the man opposite her. She'd come to the conclusion that there were two Willies: one the supportive, caring man who'd held her when her plant died. The other was a bit of a bastard. Not that there was anything wrong with that. Made things interesting in all sorts of ways; from the bedroom to the bay window. With two writers living under the same roof there was bound to be a bit of creative friction—and some healthy competition. Currently, the score was a whitewash. She was getting creamed.

Moreover, she knew that on some level he thrived on her discomfort. The longer she was stuck on Chapter 37, the better he looked, sailing through his screenplay. And the reason she knew with such certainty was her own dirty little secret. Uncomfortable as it was to admit, if the situation were reversed, she'd feel the same way.

There was the ping of the carriage return and Willie tore another finished page from his typewriter. He caught her eye. A flicker of a smile.

‘You still blocked?

She felt her cheeks colour. It was time to face it: no one
else was going to help. It was down to her to do something about her damn writer's block.

Mocha Books was that rarest of flowers, a new independent bookshop flourishing in the shade of the national chains and supermarkets. With a gourmet café grafted onto the bookselling side it had quickly established itself as much for its selection of artisan cheeses as its bold selection of literary fiction.

Jane pushed open the door. A bell rang to signal her entrance; more like a temple gong, she thought. She pulled up the collar on her coat, eager not to draw attention to herself.

She hadn't been to Mocha Books before, which was the point of coming here today. Given the delicate nature of the book she planned to purchase she wanted somewhere she was unlikely to be recognised. Not that celebrity was a pressing issue; it was a rare occasion when she was stopped in the street by a fan. And though she'd appeared as a guest on a couple of TV culture shows, they were of the variety broadcast between the hours of midnight and three a.m. on a channel no one had heard of. However, while ardent fans weren't a problem, her local bookstore was. She'd done several signings there and the staff knew her too well. Today she wanted to go incognito. Hence the trip to the north side of town, where the bears lived.

She went inside and made straight for the self-help
section. The plan was to get in and out with as little fuss as possible. She'd even remembered to bring cash in order to avoid having to use a card with her name on it. She browsed the bookshelves, running a finger lightly over the spines as she skimmed the titles. Finally, she landed on a likely candidate and, with a glance over her shoulder to make sure no one was watching, scooped it off the shelf.

‘
A Hundred and One Ways to Beat Writer's Block
?’ said a loud voice.

Jane winced and turned to see a familiar figure. ‘Hello, Darsie.’

Her alter ego had picked up on the undercover vibe and sported a pair of dark glasses and a headscarf. Jane experienced a twinge of envy. Whenever she'd tried to pull off the Grace Kelly headscarf thing she always ended up looking like a nineteenth-century peasant. Darsie wore it with aplomb. Rather unnecessarily she raised the sunglasses to show that it was indeed her beneath.

‘Keep your voice down,’ whispered Jane. ‘Please.’

‘Hey,’ said Darsie, tucking a stray hair under her scarf. ‘I'm not the one drawing attention to myself by muttering into thin air.’

She sashayed along next to the shelf, plucking a series of books, reeling off their titles and loading them into Jane's arms. ‘
Beat Your Block to a Pulp. Knock that Block! Lost For Words. What would Jesus Write?
’ She screwed up her face at this last one. ‘Seriously?’

Irritated, Jane set aside the books on a nearby table. One would do—she wasn't
that
blocked. She swiped the top book from the stack. She'd had quite enough of her fictional shadow.