by Nick Hornby
JACK (out of sight)
Jenny.
She continues to put her DAVID-life away into bags. She ignores him.
95 INTERIOR: UPPER HALLWAY - NIGHT
JACK is almost in tears.
JACK
Jenny. I’m sorry.
No answer.
I know I’ve made a mess of everything.
He waits for an answer - nothing.
All my life I’ve been scared, and I didn’t want you to be scared. That’s why I wanted you to go to Oxford. And then along came David, and he knew famous writers, he knew how to get to classical music concerts. But he wasn’t who he said he was. He wasn’t who you said he was, either.
96 INTERIOR: JENNY’S BEDROOM - NIGHT
JENNY is sitting on the bed, a tear rolls down her cheek and she closes her eyes.
97 INTERIOR: UPPER HALLWAY - NIG HT
JACK
The other day, your mother and I were listening to a programme about C. S. Lewis on the radio, and they said he’d moved to Cambridge in 1954. I said, Well, they’ve got that wrong. Our Jenny wouldn’t have his name in her book . . . if he’d moved to Cambridge.
98 INTERIOR: JENNY’S BEDROOM - NIGHT
JENNY’S face crumples. She knows he’s right.
99 INTERIOR: UPPER HALLWAY - NIGHT
JACK
There’s a cup of tea and some biscuits out here.
He puts them down on the floor outside her door.
100 INTERIOR: JENNY’S BEDROOM - NIGHT
JENNY puts her head in her hands and sobs.
101 INTERIOR: HEADMISTRESS’S OFFICE - DAY
JENNY has dressed soberly in clothes not unlike a school uniform for this meeting: it completes a circle. She’s back where she started from, or would like to be, anyway. If she seems older than she did when we first met her, it’s because things have happened to her, and they’ve left a mark on her face. She’s worried and tired.The HEADMISTRESS, meanwhile, is delighted by her return - but only because of the opportunities for smugness and schadenfreude it provides.
HEADMISTRESS
How do you think we can help?
JENNY
I want to repeat my last year at school and take my exams.
HEADMISTRESS
I got the impression the last time we spoke that you didn’t see the point of school. Or of me, or of any of us here.
JENNY
I know. I was stupid . . . The life I want - there’s no shortcut. I know now that I need to go to university.
HEADMISTRESS
It gives me absolutely no pleasure whatsoever to see our schoolgirls throw their lives away. Although, of course, you are not one of our schoolgirls any more. Through your own volition.
JENNY
I suppose you think I’m a ruined woman.
HEADMISTRESS
You’re not a woman.
Beat.The HEADMISTRESS is pleased with her line.
No, I’m afraid I think that the offer of a place at this school would be wasted on you.
102 INTERIOR: BUS - DUSK
JENNY looking dejected.The bell goes and she suddenly gets up and heads off the bus.
103 INTERIOR: MISS STUBBS’S FLAT - DUSK.
It’s a proper Bohemian flat.There are books and papers and pictures covering every available surface. JENNY looks around. Finally, for the first time, we see her in somewhere she can feel at home.
MISS STUBBS
Come in. I didn’t expect to see you again.
JENNY looks around.
JENNY
This is lovely.
MISS STUBBS makes a face.
All your books and pictures and . . .
MISS STUBBS
Paperbacks and postcards, Jenny.
JENNY
(apparently understanding something)
That’s all you need, isn’t it? Just somewhere to . . . I’m sorry I said those silly things. I didn’t understand.
MISS STUBBS
Let’s forget about it.
A postcard catches JENNY’S eye.
JENNY
A Burne-Jones.
MISS STUBBS
Do you like him?
JENNY pauses.
JENNY
I do. Still.
MISS STUBBS
Still? Gosh, you sound very old and wise.
JENNY
(heartfelt)
I feel old. But not very wise. Miss Stubbs . . . I need your help.
MISS STUBBS
I was so hoping that’s what you were going to say.
MONTAGE SEQUENCE
JENNY works hard, studying for her exams, the seasons pass . . .
104 INTERIOR: JENNY’S HOUSE, KITCHEN/HALLWAY - DAY
JENNY, JACK and MARJORIE are finishing breakfast. JACK gets up and puts his raincoat on.
JACK
Thank you, Marjorie.
He goes into the hallway. JENNY, still in her pyjamas, hardly looks up from her Penguin book. JACK returns to the kitchen with a letter.
It’s from Oxford.
JENNY takes the letter, opens it, doesn’t give anything away, puts the letter on the table, gets up and goes into the hallway, closing the door to the kitchen. JACK nervously hands the letter to MARJORIE.
MARJORIE
(reading)
‘It is my pleasure to inform you that your application to read English at Oxford has been accepted . . .’
In the hallway, we track in on JENNY, sitting at the bottom of the stairs, as she smiles.
105 EXTERIOR: STREET IN OXFORD - DAY
Eighteen months later. Swelling orchestral music.Wide shot of Oxford spires. Close on JENNY cycling, absorbed, happy.The camera pulls back to show her cycling through the streets of Oxford - a male student is cycling with her.
JENNY (voice over)
So, I went to read English books, and did my best to avoid the speccy, spotty fate that Helen had predicted for me. I probably looked as wide-eyed, fresh and artless as any other student . . . But I wasn’t. One of the boys I went out with, and they really were boys, once asked me to go to Paris with him. And I told him I’d love to, I was dying to see Paris . . . as if I’d never been.
JENNY and her friend cycle away into the distance.
APPENDIX: ALTERNATIVE ENDING
105 EXTERIOR: STREET IN OXFORD - DAY
Eighteen months later. Swelling orchestral music. Close on JENNY cycling, absorbed, happy, the cello strapped to her precariously.The camera pulls back to show her cycling through the streets of Oxford - a male student is cycling with her. She’s done it.We follow her for a little while. She dismounts outside a church and leans the bike against a wall. Just as she’s about to leave it, she sees something and freezes.We follow her gaze: it’s the red Bristol, parked a little way down the road just in front of her. She scans the street to see if she can find DAVID. She can - he’s coming round a corner, a little further down the street, unwrapping a packet of cigarettes. JENNY moves into his eye-line. He sees her, stops, then walks towards her.
JENNY
Good God.
DAVID
Hello, Jenny.
JENNY
What are you doing here?
DAVID
I came to see you.
JENNY
I think in this case, better never than late.
DAVID
Please don’t be unkind. And you probably know that I’ve . . . Been away, so I couldn’t come before.
JENNY
Yes. My mother sent me the cutting from the local paper. ‘He asked for one hundred and ninety other offences to be taken into consideration. ’ A hundred and ninety! You must have ‘liberated’ most of the antiques in the Home Counties.
DAVID
I wanted to make a clean start. For a new life together. I came to tell you that I’m going to ask my wife for a divorce.
JENNY laughs mirthlessly and disbelievingly.
JENNY
Don’t you understand what you did?
DAVID
Jenny . . . I can see my behaviour must have been . . . confusing. But we’ve never sat down and had a proper chat about it all. About the whys and wherefores. They can wait. The important thing is that you’re still my Minnie Mouse, and I love you, and you had fun.You know you had fun.
JENNY
Yes. I had fun. But I had fun with the wrong person, at all the wrong times. And I can’t ever get those times back, now. It was as if I got lost, and ended up in the middle of somebody else’s life. But I’ve got my own life back now. (beat) Look, David. I’m in Oxford.
She looks at him and shakes her head, as if awaking from a dream.The student stops behind her on his bike, dismounts, leans his bike against the wall next to hers, waits for her to finish. She turns her back on DAVID, and the young man offers her his arm.They walk away together, and DAVID stares longingly after them.
