Not Another Happy Ending

by David Solomons

  At least, that had been her plan. Turns out the surface area of your average fairy cake is not nearly expansive enough to accommodate your classic literary quip. And anyway, even had the cakes been bigger, there weren't enough e's in her bag of alphabet sweets to manage more than a couple of zingers from Shakespeare and the opening line of Moby Dick. In the end she gave up any attempt at cake intertextuality and settled on dropping random letters onto the icing. She was adamant that if you squinted at the last batch you could see a couple of lines from Emily Brontë.

  But the fairy cakes were a decoy. A subterfuge. ATrojan horse in sponge form.

  She eyed the stacked boxes that lined the narrow passageway, paying more attention to them than usual. One of them could contain her book. She'd been waiting for this moment since Tom announced that the edit was finished. He was happy. Or, as happy as the scowling Frenchman ever got. The manuscript had been scoured for solecisms, corrected for commas; it was ready to go to the printer, he announced. And what about the cover?

  ‘That is up to the publisher,’ he'd said. ‘Trust me.’

  And she had.

  Tom had insisted that the delivery date was a rough one, that the books could arrive any day that week. She wasn't taking any chances. But she didn't want to seem too keen. Hence the deceptive fairy cakes.

  ‘Hi, Jane,’ Roddy greeted her. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Yeah, I was just passing,’ she repeated, attempting to sound casual. ‘I was baking this morning and made too many of these.’ Lie.

  ‘Ooh, fairy cakes. With alphabet letters. Nice touch.’ He took a bite out of one, then snapped his fingers and said through a mouthful of sponge, ‘You know what would be brilliant—if you used the letters to spell out, y'know, famous lines from novels!’

  ‘Genius!’ she exclaimed with rather too much surprise. ‘I should do that.’ She waited impatiently while he polished off the cake.

  ‘Umm …’ she began.

  ‘He's in,’ Roddy nodded towards Tom's office door, ‘if that's what you're asking.’

  ‘Oh good. Good to know. That he's in.’ She scanned the small Reception room, trying to identify any new boxes. ‘Umm …’

  ‘Was there anything else, Jane?’

  Her gaze fell on a stack propped in front of a life-sized cardboard cut-out of Nicola Ball. They were unopened boxes, shrink-wrapped and pristine, lacking the telltale scuffmarks that indicated stock which had been left lying about the office for weeks. Jane snatched a pair of scissors from Roddy's desk and set about prising open the topmost box. The flaps sprang open and there before her lay four snugly fitting hardbacks.

  Her heart sank: it wasn't her novel. The hot pink cover was dominated by a photograph of a grinning little girl under an umbrella, beneath the title, Happy Ending. Relief immediately replaced disappointment; it was an awful cover, and the title stank. What kind of a writer would come up with …? Jane's eye slipped down to the author's name.

  Her name.

  No. That made no sense. She hadn't written a novel called Happy Ending. She read it again and felt a sudden sensation of falling, as in a dream, and was aware of eyes watching her. She glanced up at the cut-out of Nicola Ball. The young novelist's knowing, cardboard expression said, ‘I told you so.’

  ‘Hey,’ said Roddy, studying the top row of fairy cakes with a quizzical expression. ‘I'm pretty sure that's the last line of Wuthering Heights. Jane?’

  But she had gone.

  ‘I'll call you back.’ Tom replaced the receiver as Jane barrelled through the door, brandishing a copy of her novel, her face red with fury. With a grunt she launched the hardback in his direction. He ducked and it hurtled past his ear, slamming against the wall.

  ‘Now, Jane …’ He held up his hands defensively.

  ‘Happy Ending? Happy fucking Ending!? What happened to The Endless Anguish of My Father? You bastard, you changed my title! To that?!’

  ‘I told you. The first time we met, I said it must go.’

  ‘But we never discussed it.’

  He shrugged. ‘I knew how you'd react.’

  The supercilious, condescending … she quickly scanned the room for something else with which to assault him and immediately found just what she was looking for.

  ‘Careful,’ he cried, ‘that's my Young Publisher of the Year award.’

  Jane weighed the gold-coloured trophy and drew back her hand. ‘Runner-up,’ she said, heaving it at his head.

  It flashed past him.

  ‘Sonofa—’ cursed Jane, disgusted at her aim—two throws, two misses. What the hell was she doing?

  She slumped and the fight went out of her. She studied the man before her, searching his face for a sign, for whatever it was she'd missed that revealed his true nature. Like some spotty teenage girl she'd been distracted by his outward charms. God, she felt such a fool. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘All that time we spent together working on the manuscript. No one's ever got me the way … You told me to trust you. I did.’ She shook her head slowly. ‘It was a lie. That man would never have done this.’ The words caught in her throat. ‘I don't know you.’

  ‘Look, it was a terrible title and I changed it,’ he said gently. ‘There's no point being upset about it. What's done is done. Let's move on.’

  ‘How can this be so easy for you?’ Her voice was low, restrained. ‘You bastard.’

  He flinched and colour rose into his cheeks. Now he was angry. ‘Perhaps because I am not a talented writer whose dad left her with a pathological inability to stop worshipping her own pain.’

  ‘Worshipping my …’

  He closed his eyes, trying to regain control of himself. ‘Please, sit down. Let's talk about the launch.’

  ‘You know what,’ she said quietly, ‘our deal is one more book and then what's done is done.’

  She wanted to turn smartly on her heel, head held high and march from his office. From his life. She needed a good exit, something to show him what she was made of—a full stop at the end of their stupid little relationship, or whatever this was. But her legs felt like they belonged to someone else. And with each step she told herself don't look back. Don't look back at him. Finally, she was outside and she let the tears fall. She made her way quickly across the empty courtyard and back onto the street. With a whir and a click the gates swung closed behind her.

  Au revoir, Tristesse.

  CHAPTER 7

  ‘Only Happy When It Rains’, Garbage, 1995, Mushroom

  IF IT HAD BEEN up to Jane she would have cut all ties with Tom and Tristesse, but there was the small matter of her debut novel to promote. As a result the next six weeks were punctuated with a stream of perky communications from Sophie Hamilton Findlay in her capacity as Tristesse Books’ publicity department.

  ‘I'm pitching you to Vogue/Harpers/Stylist,’ she would announce one day, and follow up two days later with news of a rejection delivered in the same upbeat fashion.

  Sophie remained stalwart in the face of endless dismissal, but Jane couldn't help noticing that the scale of her ambition lowered with each round. The glossies gave way to the free sheets. ‘I'm pitching you to the Glasgow West Gazette/The Big Issue.’

  As the weeks wore on, Jane began to worry. Now even worse than the prospect of bad reviews was the distinct possibility of no reviews. It was not so much the sinking of her expectations as their torpedoing.

  ‘We'll start with some events.’ Sophie's jaunty voice whizzed out of the phone. ‘Nothing glam, I'm afraid. Little bookstores. But we'll grow it.’

  ‘Does that usually work?’ Jane asked cautiously.

  ‘It can.’

  ‘Have you ever known it to work?’

  Jane listened as Sophie circled the question like a bear trap. ‘Really, it's all about word of mouth. Nothing beats word of mouth.’

  ‘But people need to read the book in the first place before they can talk about it, right? You need … mouths.’

  ‘Yes.
’

  ‘And how do you get to those mouths?’

  ‘Oh, lots of ways. We have our tricks of the trade. The key is to go where the conversation is happening.’

  ‘But it isn't happening.’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘So how do we make it happen?’

  There was a pause and then Sophie announced breezily, ‘Word of mouth.’

  Jane perched on a wobbly chair tucked away at the rear of the tiny bookshop in a space in the children's section that when she'd arrived earlier that evening was occupied by a playmat and assorted squeaky toys.

  She'd pictured her first book signing a thousand times in her mind: a queue of eager readers snaking round the block, her sitting behind a desk bowing under the weight of books, happily accepting endless, unconditional praise, signing each fresh copy to the accompanying melody of the cash register. Reality was a letdown. Most of her makeshift audience had been lured in by the promise of a free glass of wine, some cheap plonk Tom had ordered for the occasion. She'd sunk two glasses in an attempt to bolster her courage before taking to the stage. Well, playmat.

  No one applauded when she finished reading. She'd chosen the chapter in Happy Ending in which her protagonist is locked in her bedroom on the twelfth floor of the high flat and can only gaze down at the other children playing outside on the first day of sunshine after a month of rain.

  She squinted into the audience. The bookshop owner had helpfully set up a reading lamp. It dazzled her as she looked out and she couldn't see their faces. ‘Audience’ was a bit grand; she wasn't sure there were enough people out there to fill a lift. Beyond the glare she could hear a cough and what sounded like the rustle of a crisp bag. This was her first public reading and judging from the silence she'd gone down like a slug in a salad.

  Nervously she tucked a strand of hair behind an ear and closed the book. The awful title assaulted her from the cover and she flipped it face down on her lap so that she didn't have to look at it one second longer. Her cheeks burned. Tom had foisted the title on her, betrayed her trust and then insisted that she go out and pretend she was happy about what he'd done.

  She hated her book. The thing—the object—made her feel sick. Such a shame. All she'd ever wished for was to be a published author, but when it happened it came in a pink cover with a title she loathed almost as much as the man standing at the back of the coughing crowd. She couldn't see him either, but had no doubt he'd be leaning handsomely up against the wall, arms folded, watching her make a fool of herself in front of five women and a dog.

  This was humiliating. She had to get out of here. Another cough rattled out of the darkness. And another. Was there something going round? The bookshop owner, a severely thin woman with an orb of white hair, stood next to the lamp. They could have been twins.

  ‘Ms. Lockhart, that was lovely.’ There was a catch in her throat. God, there really was some epidemic sweeping the city. ‘So, so …’ her voice squeaked, ‘lovely.’

  Jane thanked her quietly and got up to leave, knocking the lamp. It swung out over the audience, illuminating them with a sickly light. They weren't coughing.

  They were crying.

  At the next book signing the same thing happened. Sniffles became sobs, five people became ten. Then the first newspaper review came out. Inconsolably, wretchedly wonderful—Jane Lockhart knows desolation.

  At the reading the following evening they had to borrow chairs from the café next door. Jane read, people wept. And a new sound joined the weeping, the ring of cash registers. Happy Ending is the new black, ran one style magazine. Young women jostled the middle-aged stalwarts in the queue.

  And at the next event more than a few men lined up with a copy—or two—clutched in their hands. Just buying it for my wife, my girlfriend, my dear old ma, they stressed in loud voices, then sheepishly would ask for it to be signed ‘to Gary’. What was happening here? Sophie Hamilton Findlay had a ready answer.

  Tears everywhere. Tears on the bus. Tears on the underground. Tears falling from the eyes of miserable office workers. Wracking sobs in the suburbs. Tom thought about approaching Kleenex to sponsor the rest of the book tour.

  First was the Scottish leg and home advantage. Her people; the kind who didn't need a glossary for the slang. Then south, following in the wake of the book's sales success, until finally to London, the great nose-in-the-air of a city. Go on, impress me, said Chelsea and Islington and Shoreditch. A spot on Radio Four—Jane Lockhart unlocked—and a half page in the TLS. The literati swooned. Film producers sniffed.

  The tour continued with a triumphal return home. The big Waterstones on Buchanan Street opened up specially; tickets had to be purchased in advance now, the wine drinkable.

  Jane smiled as she signed each new hardback, her hand aching, her signature no more than a scribble after weeks of constant repetition. She'd sent out so many ‘best wishes’ into the universe that if there really was such a thing as karma she could expect something wonderful to rebound. She shook herself. What was she talking about? It had already happened. Her book was a hit. After three months on sale so wet with tears was the island of Great Britain it could have been rolled up and squeezed out like a rag.

  Tom had wanted to tour with her but she'd roundly rejected the suggestion, informing him flatly that she didn't want him anywhere near her. Grumbling, he had insisted on sending Sophie to play chaperone. ‘To look after me?’ she'd snapped back. ‘Or your investment?’

  He was here today, in Glasgow, watching the cash registers ring. Typical.

  A reader, delighted to be face to tear-stained face with the author of her misery, offered up a copy for signature. She'd read it three times; this one was for her aunty Avril.

  The book fell open at the dedication. ‘To my dad, wherever he is.’

  It had been a suggestion of Tom's which he'd made one Sunday morning in bed, during the last stages of the edit, when things were still good between them. Who knows, he'd said with a boyish shrug, perhaps he'll read it and come looking for you. She'd smiled despite herself —she suspected that Tom was a romantic, even though he kept it extremely well hidden. He caught her eye across the room. Oh, and a complete bastard. Don't forget that part.

  She swirled her signature across the page. ‘Thanks. Thanks so much,’ she said, handing over the book.

  The funny thing was that no matter how often she said it, she meant it every time. People were connecting with her novel. It was amazing. There was so much noise out there, so many other books to choose from, it was nothing short of a miracle they'd found hers. Here she sat in a bookshop surrounded by thousands of titles. She could feel them bristling at being left dustily on the shelf; their characters resentful at hers being singled out for attention. She liked to think of her own characters out there in the world, making new acquaintances. Readers were complicit, referring to them by name, as if they were neighbours or friends of the family. Sometimes the sensation was so intense she forgot that they were just that: characters. The only downside to all this gratitude was the dry throat.

  The water jug and glass laid out on the signing table were both empty. She turned to the bookseller at her side and asked for a refill, just as the next eager reader placed his copy down in front of her.

  ‘Who shall I make it out to?’ she asked on auto-pilot, turning to look up at the man who stood awkwardly before her.

  His face was as heavily lined as she remembered, but the skin had lost its sallow complexion and his eyes were no longer dull and milky, but gazed down at her with surprising clarity. In the ageing Polaroid on her Board of Pain he had more hair and perhaps the jaw-line was set firmer, but other than that he appeared younger, more vital than the last time she'd seen him. And he smelt different—cleaner. She knew at once he'd given up the drink.

  ‘Dad,’ she whispered.

  Benny Lockhart twisted his hands and looked away, unsure what to say. He offered a self-conscious smile.

  ‘Hullo, Jane.’

  In the signing
line the book group ladies, thirty-something mums and sprinkling of literate males, all highly attuned to drama, sensed a new scene developing before their eyes; a bonus DVD extra playing out right in front of them. Conversations ceased and a hush fell over the room.

  Benny shuffled his feet. ‘So, how have you been?’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Christ, what an eejit. How have you been? Like I just got back from a fortnight's holiday.’

  Jane pushed back her chair, walked to the other side of the table and, with another low, whispered ‘Dad’, flung her arms about him. The embrace was as much of a surprise to her as it was to him.

  She could see that he was uncomfortable with the public display of affection. Who was she kidding—he'd always been uncomfortable with any kind of affection. But then she felt him clasp her tightly, and knew that this time he would never let her go.

  Two weeks later Jane was taking advantage of some late summer sun with a walk in Kelvingrove Park, ducking Frisbees hurled by pasty bare-chested Glaswegian boys, listening to happy chatter ripened by the sunshine. She imagined that somewhere in the park someone was reading her book. Her idle afternoon threatened to be ruined when Tom's name flashed up on her phone. She ignored him, but he kept calling, and after the sixth hang-up she answered.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘You've been shortlisted for the Austen Book Awards. Best New Writer.’

  ‘Oh my god!’

  ‘We did it.’

  And for the briefest, blissful moment she forgot about their falling out. Hostilities were suspended in the late afternoon glow. There was a pause and in the silence she could hear the rush of the River Kelvin. She waited for him to say something else, perhaps invite her to lunch for a celebratory glass of champagne. Or maybe she should ask him.

  ‘The ceremony's in London. I'll have Sophie send you the details,’ he said, interrupting her pleasant reverie. ‘And, uh, there's not much left in the budget, so I'm not sure we can afford the train fare.’ He paused. ‘How would you feel about taking the bus?’