Not Another Happy Ending (24 page)

Tom listened dry-mouthed as Benny relived the memory.

‘You know why they were late home?’

‘Ah … yes,’ he confessed and saw comprehension dawn on the other man's face.

‘‘Course you do—it's in the book, isn't it?’ He dredged up the horror. ‘Her ma had dropped dead in Woolworths. Her ma was dead in the Pick ‘n’ Mix aisle in Woolworths and I was out spending her Mickey Mouse money on booze.’

Benny played nervously with Jane's cap, turning it round and round in shaking hands. His eyes flicked to Tom's half-empty pint of lager and he licked his lips.

Tom felt sweat prickle his forehead. Could he really bring himself to continue with a plan that might break Benny—again?

‘I know I can never make it up to that wee girl,’ said Benny, trying to keep his voice steady, ‘but if we win the prize tonight, I'm going to take her to Disneyland.’ He paused. ‘No’ the shit one in Paris, obviously.’ He raised an apologetic hand. ‘Nae offence.’

Benny leaned on the bar.

‘Years later I found out that the police brought Jane home two minutes after I left. Two minutes, son.’ He glanced up at the wall clock. Ten to eight. ‘She'll be here. I'm sure nothing's happened.’ He swallowed. ‘Not again.’

A cry of distress rocked the pub. ‘Another near miss for the plucky Faroe Islanders!’ bellowed the TV commentator, adding in a high-pitched squawk, ‘Is history going to repeat itself tonight?

Tom looked at Benny. ‘Will you excuse me for just one moment?’

‘Sure, son.’

He moved along the bar, out of Benny's earshot, dug out his phone and dialled with shaking fingers.

The plan had seemed so simple. Aided by Roddy's illegal radio scanner—obtained cheaply off a former
News of the World
reporter—they would eavesdrop on the minicab channels until they heard a dispatcher send a cab to Jane's address. Roddy, disguised as a driver, would then arrive outside Jane's flat before the real cab she'd booked turned
up. He'd take her far enough away from the pub that there'd be no way she could make it to the quiz in time. Her dad would be disappointed, she'd be upset—enough to get her writing again. So simple. God, he was such an idiot.

‘Roddy!’

‘Tom …’

‘Call it off,’ he barked into the phone. ‘Bring her here, immediately!’

‘Tom, she's gone.’ His voice was frantic. ‘I'm back at the car. She's not here. We've lost her.’ There was a horrified pause. ‘In Rutherglen.’

Tom lowered the phone without hanging up. Roddy rattled on, his voice distant. The hubbub of the football supporters seemed to fall away. Tom stood in the dreadful silence. A voice pierced the stillness.

‘Captains,’ said the quiz master, ‘please bring your team-lists to the adjudicator's table.’

The tail lights of the bus faded behind a curtain of rain. Jane was the only passenger to disembark at the stop. She looked around. A set of traffic lights cycled from green to red in the deserted street. A short row of terraced houses lay in darkness, half their windows boarded up, obscene graffiti scrawled on their crumbling walls. Beyond them, across a patch of wasteland bordered by a razor-wire fence, a line of high flats pierced the black sky. Sickly yellow
light shone from a handful of windows and even from this distance she could hear the wind groaning around the towers. The pub lay on the other side.

She edged past the end of the dilapidated terrace, searched the fence line for a way through, and found a ragged hole in the base that looked like it had been chewed out of the wire. She dropped to her knees and scrambled through the hole, catching her coat sleeve on a spur of metal. There was a loud tear as it ripped through to her skin. She got to her feet and struck off into the darkness,

‘I'm one team short,’ the quizmaster announced from the adjudicator's table.

Tom looked anxiously at Benny, who clutched Jane's Mickey Mouse hat in one hand, the team-list in the other.

‘I must have the list right now,’ the quizmaster intoned, ‘or you forfeit your place.’

Benny's teammates urged him to go up.

‘Come on, Benny, come on!’

Sweat poured off his forehead. ‘Two more minutes, lads. Two more minutes.’

Jane scrambled across the wasteland beneath the looming tower blocks. The muddy ground was pockmarked with craters sloshing with dirty rainwater and littered with discarded supermarket trolleys and old tyres. A pack of
yowling dogs appeared out of the darkness, red raw lips pulled back over gnashing teeth. She recoiled, then a moment later saw that they were on a leash. They strained towards her, forelegs clawing the air, their fat owner anchored in the mud, arms popping as he struggled to hold them back. She skirted past quickly.

Up ahead on a low rise the dim outline of a huddle of people. Guttural voices carried on the air, spitting vile oaths. The tinkle of breaking glass as a hurled bottle smashed nearby. Jane adjusted her course to go around them, stumbled on a hoard of bottles at the edge of one of the rain-filled hollows. With a yell she went down, slapping against the mud. Drenched through, exhausted and on the verge of tears, for a moment she considered giving up. Why bother putting herself through this? It must be too late by now.

She lifted her head. In the distance she could make out the glow of streetlamps beyond the last of the high flats. The pub was on that street. Rousing herself for one final push, Jane heaved herself up off the squelching ground. She teetered awkwardly on the edge of the hole. Checked her shoe. The heel had snapped off. Pulling her coat around her, she limped on.

‘I'm sorry,’ Tom said in a low voice. ‘I'm so sorry.’

Benny's eyes were watery. ‘Hey, son, it's no’ your fault. Maybe the taxi got a puncture.’ Then he added gloomily,
‘Or maybe she just decided no’ to come after all.’ He shrugged. ‘No more than I deserve.’

Tom wanted to confess. He could feel his heart thumping.

The quizmaster cupped the microphone, turned to the adjudicator and mouthed a question. He answered with a solemn nod.

‘OK, that's enough,’ the quizmaster removed his hand from the microphone. ‘Right then, let's get on with—’

A howl rose up from the rest of the pub as the Faroe Islander's number ten dribbled the ball past three Scottish defenders before passing it through the keeper's open legs. The back of the net bowed outwards, almost apologetically.

‘DISASTER FOR SCOTLAND!’ the match commentator wailed.

On the TV Scottish players crouched wretchedly on the pitch, heads in hands. The commentator heaped on the misery. ‘They'll be dancing in the streets of Torshavn tonight!’

Benny's team-list stirred in a sudden breeze. It took Tom a moment to realise through the waves of defeated moans that the door to the pub was wide open, and another to see that in the doorway stood Jane, hair whipped across her rain-streaked face and clumped with mud, one coat sleeve ripped. She wobbled on a single shoe.

She saw him and frowned, clearly puzzled by his presence.

‘Jane?!’ It was Benny, eyes widening with surprise and pleasure. He started towards her then checked himself, turned quickly on his heel and crossed to the adjudicator's table. Mouth tight he slammed down the team-list. Expressionless, the quizmaster checked his watch and then after what seemed a lifetime nodded curtly.

Benny's teammates punched the air and took their places for the start of the quiz.

‘You OK, darlin’?’ Benny asked.

She nodded wordlessly.

‘Here. This is for you.’ He gave her the skip-cap. She turned it round to see the word ‘Captain’. Her eyes glistened.

Tom had seen enough. Jane had made it, albeit just in time and almost certainly at the expense of several years of his own life, shortened by the stress of what he now saw was a sorely misguided plan. He had no one else to blame but himself. For now, all was well in Benny Lockhart's world—and that's what mattered. Reluctant to hang around and be forced to answer the inevitably awkward questions, he slipped past the reunited pair and made for the door. The quizmaster's voice followed him out.

‘Question one. Literature,’ he began. ‘Who was William Shakespeare's wife?’

Tom splashed across the street and got into his car. He sat for a moment gazing out at the rain, then stabbed the key
into the ignition. The engine bleated like a drowning sheep. He banged a palm against the steering wheel, his frustration more to do with the events of the evening than the all too predictable failure of his car to start. After a dozen more tries he gave up and called Roddy to come and collect him.

An hour later they were parked in Roddy's car outside Mario's Fish and Chicken takeaway in Merchant City. Tom told him the whole sorry tale of what had transpired in the pub. Roddy listened quietly, wincing at the details as he ate hot chips out of a paper bag. The engine ticked over at idle and the cabin was filled with the smell of diesel and vinegar.

Roddy leaned across the handbrake and offered Tom the bag. He shook his head brusquely; he'd lost his appetite. Like a tongue probing a rotten tooth he continued to go back over the evening, torturing himself with what might have been. What if he'd succeeded? What if Jane hadn't shown up at the last second? The fan heater blasted hot air from the dashboard and yet he felt ice-cold.

‘Your plan was rubbish. Again.’

‘On the contrary,’ said Roddy, ‘my plan has been highly effective throughout. Only, we weren't looking at the right target.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Tom, it's made
you
utterly miserable. Look at you. If you were a writer you'd be ready to compose an epic poem.’

It was true. He hadn't felt this awful in years. Who
would have guessed that malicious plotting was bad for the soul?

‘The fact is,’ mused Roddy, ‘we're not dog-killers.’ He reached for another chip. ‘I mean, what's the worst thing we actually achieved? Kidnapping a pot plant.’ He popped the chip into his mouth and stared out as he chewed. ‘There's our fatal flaw—at heart, we're nice guys.’

Tom was barely listening. He'd come to a decision. ‘I'm going to tell her everything.’

‘No,’ said Roddy, alarmed. ‘You don't want to do that.’

But for the first time that night he knew with utter certainty that this was the right path. There would be no more ridiculous plots designed to upset Jane. ‘I'm going to come clean, apologise and then I'm going to stay the fuck out of her life.’ He paused. ‘Forever.’

‘Naked in the Rain’, Red Hot Chili Peppers, 1991, Warner Bros

H
ER DAD HAD
insisted she take home the trophy. They'd won the quiz on a tiebreak: which country originally made Panama hats? She'd only known the answer thanks to her shopping spree after the Austen awards. When she shouted out ‘Ecuador!’ and chalked up the winning point, her dad had leapt from his seat, arms aloft in triumph, knocking over the table and spilling their drinks.

She'd never seen anyone so happy. There was something so pure and uncensored about his delight. Hadn't she said she wanted to get to know him? Well, here he was, utterly unguarded; and she wondered if she'd ever reconcile the bullying father who'd abandoned her with this smiling man.

Then he told her haltingly that he wanted to take her to Disneyland and she'd lost it; burst into tears, full-on hiccupping sobs, snot running down her face, the works. She'd had to clean herself up in the ladies. Standing over
the sink, staring at her dishevelled reflection in the mirror, she'd noticed the now faded words that Darsie (Jane?) had scrawled in lipstick weeks earlier.
Where's my happy ending?
Maybe it was out there, she considered, buying the first of many congratulatory rounds for his mates.

They'd celebrated until closing time and then she'd taken a cab home. A black cab, not a minicab. She set the new trophy down on the shelf next to her Austen award for Best New Writer. The golden statuette of the Regency lady stood primly alongside the squat pub quiz award, a small plastic version of Rodin's ‘Thinker’, bent head topped off with a tartan bunnet. She chuckled at the juxtaposition of literary and
gallus
that tied her two worlds together; the trophies looked like they'd get on famously. Which was more than could be said for her and Tom.

When she'd blown through the door of the pub he was the first person she'd clapped eyes on. What the hell was he doing there? Come to harass her again about the novel, she assumed. During Nicola Ball's book launch she'd told him she was in the quiz final; perhaps he thought she should be making better use of her time finishing his damn novel.
Her
novel, she corrected herself. She couldn't recall seeing him again during the evening and presumed that he'd slunk off. Good riddance. She shook herself. Why on earth was she thinking about Tom?

She tried Willie again. The call was batted straight to his answerphone, so she left another message asking him to ring her back, hoping her voice didn't betray her anxiety.
He'd been out of touch all day and that wasn't like him; he'd call her from the corner shop when he went out for a newspaper.

Deciding she wouldn't sleep until they'd spoken, she busied herself in the kitchen making meringues. He still hadn't rung by the time they were in the oven. She picked up a book. She was reading Nicola Ball's latest novel in proof and had been enjoying it, especially for the fruity sex scenes—the girl had a facility for writing gaspingly good bonking that belied her demure exterior.

As she read an idea began to form. However, for this she'd need a certain amount of Dutch courage. She went into the kitchen and scoured the wine rack. There were two bottles. One of them turned out to be Balsamic vinegar—god, she'd become so middle class—the other was a bottle Tom had brought round just before they'd broken up.

She slid it from the rack. A 2003 Volnay Burgundy. She had no idea what that meant, but it sounded expensive and Tom had excellent taste in wine. He was a walking French cliché. She poured herself a glass; it was lighter than she'd expected, a foxtrot on her tongue, with a flavour that reminded her of parma violets. After downing the glass and another in quick succession she was ready.