Not Another Happy Ending (17 page)

‘So, what's the deal, are you going to stalk me until I finish the novel?’

‘Yes, I believe that's how it works,’ said Darsie matter-of-factly. ‘Now, can we talk about the last chapter?’

‘What about it?’

‘I'm a romantic heroine—I don't want to end up unhappy.’

Jane shrugged. ‘Plenty of heroines don't get happy endings. Anna Karenina, Juliet Capulet, Tess of the d'Urbervilles—’

‘Tess?’ Darsie tutted loudly. ‘Oh come on, Jane. Spoiler alert.’

Jane ignored her. ‘And anyway, I'm not yet sure what happens to you at the end.’

‘But you could make it anything you want,’ Darsie pleaded.

‘That's not how it works.’ There was a rhythm to these things; a rightness that could only be achieved by surrendering utterly to the pull of the story. ‘You don't really get to choose your ending. It has to follow from what comes before, or it doesn't feel true.’

Darsie stopped walking. ‘But that's not fair!’ she wailed. ‘What comes before my ending are four hundred
pages of unrelenting Celtic misery.’ She locked eyes with Jane. ‘Tom's right—you can't stop worshipping your pain.’

Jane stared back at her creation. Darsie needed to understand. ‘Life is hard.’

‘OK, yes,’ Darsie nodded, ‘but can it be someone else's life?’ She clutched Jane's hand in hers. ‘Please, I want it all to turn out OK. Jane …’

‘Jane Lockhart?’

Jane turned to see a formidable lady in a twin set, a bale of bubble-wrap in one hand, a copy of
Happy Ending
in the other, open at the author photo. She looked from the photo to Jane, and beamed.

‘I thought it was you.’ She marched over, tucking the bubble-wrap under one arm in order to offer up a firm handshake. ‘Shona Heywood, proprietor of Mocha Books.’ She gestured grandly to the shop, and then laid a hand lightly on Jane's arm. ‘And may I say it's a pleasure to meet the woman who helped pay for my new kitchen.’ Shona chuckled at her own little joke.

Jane joined in with a polite laugh. Behind her, Darsie threw back her head and guffawed. Jane sighed inwardly; so much for going incognito. This was exactly what she'd hoped to avoid by coming to Mocha Books. She pressed the cover of
Beat Your Block To A Pulp
against her chest and hoped Shona hadn't noticed.

‘It is. It's her!’ Shona pointed excitedly and suddenly an ambush of excited booksellers and customers materialised
from the corners of the shop to surround Jane, cooing praise and hurling questions.

Her head snapped back and forth to keep up with each fresh voice.

‘I just loved
Happy Ending
… so sad …’

‘Can't wait for your new one …’

‘Come to our book group …’

‘What's it called …?’

‘What's it about …?’

And then from the muddle a clear voice rang out. ‘When's it out?’

She looked round at the expectant faces. Good question. ‘Umm …’

Shona hadn't taken in that Jane was struggling to provide an answer; the bookshop proprietor's mind was on loftier ground. ‘It must be difficult,’ she pondered aloud, ‘having so much to live up to.’ She waved a hand as if trying to trap the thought. ‘Really, how does one follow such a staggering success as
Happy Ending
?’

By getting stuck on the last chapter of the next book for the rest of your life, thought Jane. She smiled and nodded inanely.

Shona's hand was at it again. This time it performed a graceful swirl like some interpretive dance move. ‘But we're interrupting the Muse,’ she said huskily. ‘I'm sure you're eager to get back to the page.’ And then with a twinkle, ‘And I have my eye on a gorgeous new bathroom.’

She chuckled again. Jane forced another laugh and Darsie mimicked her. But then Shona motioned to the book Jane was clutching guiltily to her chest. For a moment, Jane was sure the game was up.

‘Oh, and you must take the book,’ said Shona generously, ‘with my compliments.’

‘Thank you,’ breathed Jane, relief washing over her. It looked like she'd make it out of here without exposing her secret.

‘I must just run it through the till.’

Before Jane could react, Shona had wrested the book from her grasp.

‘No!’ Jane cried out, her outburst startling the crowd.

But it was too late. Shona's smile slipped as her eye scanned the title. ‘Blocked?’

She sounded so disappointed that Jane felt even worse. The others could see the offending book now too and a whisper went through the gathering.

‘Yes, blocked.’

‘She's blocked.’

They surrounded her in a tight circle. ‘Sorry,’ she heard herself say. ‘I'm really sorry.’ Abandoning the book she pushed her way through the throng, unable to avoid the disillusionment in every face. Flustered, she stumbled to the exit, yanked open the door and hurried out. Behind her the bell tolled.

‘Rain Dance’, Big Country, 1984, Mercury Records

A
PAIR OF
black umbrellas stalked along Wilson Street, rain bouncing off their taut canopies. Beneath them, Tom gave Roddy a dark look.

‘Your powers are useless, old man,’ said Roddy. ‘The Duval Death Stare won't work on me, pal. I'm immune, see.’

‘It's been a week,’ Tom complained. ‘My inbox is empty. Nothing.
Rien du tout
. Where's my novel?’

‘Unfinished?’ Roddy ventured.

‘Precisely. She's not as melancholy over her stupid plant as you said she'd be. So much for your plan.’

‘Hey, you said it was a great plan.’

‘That was before it failed utterly.’

‘Whoa, relax. You need to take a breath. You know what impatience gets you? Heartburn. So, chill. Leave it to me. In the words of The Carpenters: We've only just begun.’

‘First Keats, now The Carpenters? I'll give you this, you're nothing if not eclectic.’

‘Oh yeah. I've got moves you wouldn't believe.’

They came to the corner of the street just as a car raced through a puddle, sending a spray of dirty water over them.

Tom hurled abuse at the disappearing tail lights and then wiped a hand across his rain-smudged face. ‘Does it ever stop raining in this damn country?’

‘No. Obviously,’ said Roddy, shaking one sodden trouser-leg. ‘But I'll tell you where it doesn't rain. Saint-Tropez.’ He shivered. ‘Here's a thought. Why don't we put a pin in this business with Jane and take a wee holiday …?’

Tom stood like a statue. A wet statue. He grimaced. ‘You don't know what it's like. There it is just sports cars and yachts and beautiful women.’

‘Uh-huh?’ Roddy turned his damp face up hopefully.

‘I came here to get away from that.’ He stared grimly into the middle distance. ‘I grew up in a swimming pool, Roddy. My adolescence was an endless parade of girls in bikinis. By my late teens the summers were a succession of Brigittes, Mariannes and Nathalies, riding around aimlessly on the back of my motorbike. We led hollow lives with nothing to do but drink wine and have meaningless sex beneath an unrelenting sun.’

Roddy sniffed. ‘It's a wonder you're not scarred.’

Tom ignored him. ‘When the sun is shining nobody can think.’

‘Well,’ said Roddy with a rueful smile, ‘we get to do a lot of thinking round here.’

‘And that is why I like it.’ They turned into Candleriggs and walked the short distance to Tristesse Books’ gated entrance. ‘So, what do The Carpenters say we should do about Jane now?’

Roddy nodded, gathering his thoughts. ‘OK. Right, get this. Stephen King, John Grisham, JK Rowling—what've they all got in common?’

‘If I published any of them, I wouldn't need Jane Lockhart?’

‘Well, yes, but apart from that?’

‘Just spit it out, Roddy!’

‘OK, OK. They were all, at some point, rejected by publishers.’ He cocked an eyebrow. ‘Yeah? Clever, huh? Smart, with a twist of
bwahahaha
!’

Tom thought for a moment. ‘I can't reject her novel—the point is, I want it.’

‘But you're not seeing the big picture. This isn't about you. Once she's delivered on her contract with Tristesse, you said she's moving to Klinsch & McLeish, right? Big Edinburgh rainmakers. Publishers to the elite. The red and white covers every writer dreams of being published in. Well, what do needy writers hate above all? I'll tell you. Not being loved.’

He left a pause.

‘Are you waiting for applause?’

‘Maybe. Yeah.’

‘Just get to the point, will you?’

Roddy mimed sucking a pipe. ‘So, Watson, if we want Jane to fall into a state of melancholy, then we must engineer her new publisher to dump her. It's …’ He raised his chin, inviting Tom to finish the line.

‘I'm not saying “elementary”,’ Tom said flatly. However he couldn't help but agree that despite the shocking Sherlock Holmes impersonation Roddy had hit on something. What he said about authors was true, in his experience. They were all needy. It was understandable. Most spent their formative years opening the morning mail to find a rejection letter tucked in with the bills. But the same thing marked them out: no matter how conditioned they were to failure, they all lived in hope. Extinguishing that was bound to crush Jane. Tom balked at the thought, but consoled himself that he had embarked upon this distasteful project in order to help her. Crushing her hope was necessary only in the short term.

‘The hypothesis is sound,’ he agreed. ‘But how do we get Klinsch & McLeish to drop Jane?’

‘Two words,’ said Roddy, raising one finger and then another. ‘Glen. Buchan.’

There was an old adage that crime and horror writers exorcised their demons on the page and as a result were amongst some of the most well–adjusted, easy-going individuals you could ever hope to meet. Glen Buchan proved
the exception. Despite attaining a level of financial success that would choke a banker and critical praise that had elevated him from genre writer to literary darling, he remained the same misanthropic bundle of hang-ups that Tom had known back when he'd almost published his debut. All of which, Tom reflected with a thin smile, made him perfect for the next phase of the plan.

The sign in the central foyer of the Thistle Hotel pointed to the conference suite where the creative writing workshop was due to take place that afternoon. When Tom swung through the entrance he found the workshop organiser—a crinkly poet in Harris tweed—standing over the sign locked in a heated discussion with a lanky duty manager.

‘But that's what it says,’ said the duty manager patiently.

‘Wind Jar,’ said the poet, evidently not for the first time. He spoke with a singsong cadence, his voice a gentle lilt, until it rose to an exasperated squeak. ‘Not
Whinger
.’

‘Yeah,’ agreed the puzzled duty manager, shrugging his epauletted shoulders and pointing to the sign. ‘Exactly.’

Tom followed his finger. On the sign was an illustration of a curving amphora pot encircled with a sentence in a faux Celtic script. It read: ‘Whinger Scotland—
Capturing the Creative Breath
.’

The duty manager gave one last shrug of incomprehension and politely excused himself, leaving the poet to grumble his dissatisfaction to the air.

‘Donald,’ Tom hailed him, ‘still pedalling that Hebridean doggerel you call poetry?’ He made his way across the tartan-carpeted foyer towards the old poet. ‘I could never understand a word of it. Particularly when you read aloud.’ He shook his head. ‘That ridiculous accent.’

‘Duval, you little prick,’ chanted Donald MacDonald. His shaggy white beard parted like curtains to reveal a broad smile. ‘Fucking marvellous to see you.’

The two men embraced warmly and Tom was hit by an overwhelming scent of pot.

‘You're one to talk about my accent, young man,’ said Donald. ‘You, with your
unfathomable
vowels.’ He looked past Tom's shoulder.

A curious assortment of people had just walked into the hotel. A mixture of young men in black sweaters shouldering battered leather messenger bags, old men in tweed jackets like Donald's, a sprinkling of women in floral skirts and sandals, and a few more in standard issue gothic black.

‘Wind Jar?’ ventured Donald.

The group replied with amorphous nods and muttered yesses.

‘Welcome, writers,
makars
!’ he boomed. ‘Registration is in the Robert Louis Stevenson Suite. Second floor. Please enjoy a complimentary bacon roll. Halal, kosher and vegetarian alternatives are available.’

The aspirants filed past towards the lifts. Donald shook some hands and made throaty noises of recognition. When
they were out of earshot, he gazed after them with a sag of disappointment.

‘Same old faces. Same old rubbish. Not a real writer amongst them.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘I hope you didn't come here hoping to find the next Jane Lockhart.’

‘No, I came to see Glen,’ said Tom.

Donald swung round sharply. ‘Is that a good idea, Duval? He's not as fond of you as I am—and I'd happily shaft you for a five-hundred-quid advance and a book tour of the provinces.’ He pursed his lips. ‘You're sure about this, after what happened last time?’ Tom nodded determinedly. With a dubious sigh Donald reached into his jacket. ‘That Edinburgh Book Festival ban must be up soon, hmm?’

Tom pretended to ignore the remark. ‘Where can I find him?’

The old poet unfolded an itinerary of the day's events.

‘He's doing a session on “Generating Conflict” in the James Kelman Conservatory. Ground floor.’

When Tom arrived the workshop had yet to begin. A pretty volunteer in a purple Wind Jar T-shirt was setting out chairs while at the far end of the conservatory the guest speaker paced up and down between two ferns, head buried in what Tom assumed were his notes for the session.

Back when Tom had almost published him Glen Buchan had cut a figure as taut and lean as his prose, but almost a decade on his belt was a couple of notches looser
and there was the shadow of an extra chin. His debut had launched him onto the literary scene with the force of one of his famously propulsive sentences. Hailed variously as a stunning new voice, a firebrand, and a disgrace, he had gone on to confirm his reputation with his next two novels, at which point the consensus was that he'd peaked. He had produced three more novels since then, failing with each to rouse the same passions as his earlier work. And he knew it. Crippling neurosis was punctuated by moments of unbearable bumptiousness. It was during one of these moments, in a tent at the Edinburgh Book Festival a few years previously, that Tom and he had come to blows. In his usual fashion Tom had bluntly expressed his opinion of Glen's latest novel, his editor and probably his mother. Things had deteriorated swiftly. Eventually the police had to be called and Tom received a five-year ban from the festival.