Not Another Happy Ending (27 page)

Willie finished the call with Priscilla and hung up. ‘We should celebrate,’ he said.

‘We should,’ she agreed blandly. What were they celebrating exactly? His massacring her novel?

He coughed again and then wrinkled his nose. ‘Now how about that cup of tea?’

Darsie was waiting for her in the kitchen, sitting on the countertop wearing a white Empire line dress and a what-the-fuck expression; a character combination that in the course of writing six novels and assorted juvenilia Jane Austen had somehow contrived to omit.

‘He's sick,’ said Jane.

‘Oh, come on, he's just taking the piss now.’

‘He said he loves me. Wants to marry me. You heard him.’

‘Actually I didn't. Maybe it was in your vivid imagination.’

‘And I kind of love him too.’ On paper, anyway. ‘I think he makes me happ—’

Willie's cry cut across her declaration. ‘Any chance of that cup of tea, doll?’ His voice dissolved into a wracking cough.

Jane studiously avoided Darsie's look of I-told-you-so, filling the kettle and setting it to boil.

She motioned to Darsie's dress. ‘Interesting. Like Eliza Bennet with a licence to kill. What's with the gear then?’

‘I'm wearing it in honour of your impending nuptials.’

Jane held up her hands, palms out. ‘Hey—there'll be no talk of nuptials. Nobody's talking about a wedding. We're not even engaged.’

‘I fear I misunderstand your meaning,’ said Darsie. ‘Is not marriage the desired end? Does not every Austen novel reach its satisfactory conclusion only with the advent of a proposal?’

‘Well, yes. True. Marriage is conventionally, as you say, the end. But not now. Eventually. Maybe.’

‘I favour spring for the wedding. With the apple blossom in full flower and the dusky scent of bluebells—aw bollocks, forget it. I can't keep this accent up. Jane, you're mental. You're not marrying that
eejit
. You know it and I
know it. And let's face it, I am you, so you know it twice over.’

Jane pondered her character's words.

Darsie jumped down off the counter. ‘I see what you're doing. Stop it. Stop it right now. Don't start with your internal narrative. I want to hear whatever you're thinking. Out loud. Admit it, you don't love Willie. You can't. Oh, Jane! Do anything rather than marry without affection.’

‘I … I …’

The kettle began to shake and steam plumed from the spout as the bubbling water inside reached boiling point.

Darsie wagged a finger. ‘Don't you dare sublimate your anxiety into a metaphor. Especially not one as crap as a boiling kettle.’

The cut-out kicked in with a click.

‘When It Rains It Pours’, 50 Cent, 2005
,
G-Unit/Interscope

T
OM KNEW THAT
the meeting with Anna was going to be uncomfortable as soon as he spotted the bottle of ketchup on her desk.

‘What's this?’ he asked, tentatively picking it up.

‘Your cash flow,’ replied Anna. She gestured to a chair. ‘Now sit on
yer erse
and listen.’

He took a seat and she proceeded to talk him through several impenetrable spreadsheets. When he looked at her blankly and shrugged, she gave an exasperated sigh and said she would summarise the company's financial position in language he understood.

‘If Tristesse Books is a vegetable then it's the last wrinkly French bean in the supermarket.’

‘Come on, surely it's not so bad,’ he protested.

‘You can't buy any more books.’

He rubbed his cheek. ‘That's OK. I'm not planning on taking on any new authors.’

‘Yeah, I don't mean that. When I say you can't buy books, I mean
paperbacks
. And if I were you I'd think twice about newspapers and toilet roll.’

Tom felt sick. He knew things were serious, but had no idea they'd sunk this low.

‘How much money have you got in your wallet right now?’ she asked.

He dug it out and withdrew a single ten-pound note. She stretched across the desk and plucked it from his fingers.

‘Hey! What are you doing?’

She brandished the note. ‘Tristesse Books owes my bank thousands of pounds. I'm taking what I can get.’

‘You can't just snatch money out of people's hands.’ He paused. ‘Can you?’

Anna raised an eyebrow.

‘But that's my dinner money,’ he pleaded.

‘You're a big lad—missing one meal won't hurt you.’

He folded his arms and shifted uneasily. ‘What about an overdraft extension?’

‘Based on what exactly?’

‘You know what,’ he mumbled. ‘Or should I say … who.’

‘Ah yes, the ever reliable Jane Lockhart.’ Anna's name-badge had worked its way loose from her jacket and she began to reattach it. ‘Have you told her how much you need her?’

Tom frowned.

Anna shook her head briskly, grasping the misunderstanding. ‘I meant need her new novel.’

‘Yes, because authors work so much better under extreme stress. Jane lives in her head, she inhabits a make-believe world—she's fragile. I couldn't …’

‘Why are you protecting her?’ Anna sounded exasperated.

He wasn't sure. Jane had given him nothing but aggravation. Her delay in submitting the manuscript threatened not only the business he'd sweated to build, but now even his ability to buy a roll and sausage.

‘Her new novel is wonderful.’

Anna leaned in, interested. ‘So, she's finished it? Why didn't you say?’

Tom gave a pained look. ‘Not finished exactly. But
nearly
.’

She sighed. ‘No novel, no overdraft.’

‘Then we have nothing else to discuss here.’ He stood up to leave.

‘Yes we do.’ She drummed her fingers on the desk. ‘Pandemic Media.’

‘I told you,’ he snapped. ‘I don't care if they've increased their offer again.’

‘They haven't.’

‘Oh?’

‘Word's out that you're neck-deep in the shit. They've reduced the offer. They still want you but you're not worth as much as you used to be.’

‘It's irrelevant,’ he said with what he hoped came across as a dismissive sweep of his arm. ‘I'm not for sale.’ He stalked to the door.

‘I like you, Tom. You might look like a Chanel model, but you're a smart guy.’

He hesitated in the doorway. He liked Anna too; her caustic tongue and plain speaking were refreshing, though rarely comforting.

‘So, tell me,’ she went on, ‘what the hell are you doing here? Why give yourself all this hassle? The Pandemic money is still generous. Do the deal, find some pretty
jeune fille
, settle down somewhere sunny and enjoy your life.’

It sounded simple when she said it like that. Maybe it was simple. A change would be good, mix things up a little. The suggestion held some appeal. Perhaps he'd go back to France for a while. Stay long enough to start thinking in French again and allow the strange Glaswegian dialect he'd acquired to lapse. Perhaps he'd stay long enough to forget Glasgow altogether. When he thought about it, there wasn't much left for him here.

Anna sat behind her desk, awaiting his answer.

‘I couldn't do that,’ he said with a half-smile, ‘I'd miss the rain.’

‘Forty-eight hours,’ she said brusquely. ‘Either you do the deal with Pandemic Media, or, as they say where you come from,
tu es totally screwed
.’

He turned to go.

‘Wait.’ With an indulgent sigh, Anna drew out the ten-pound note and slapped it down on her desk, sliding it towards him. ‘Don't buy fried food.’

The office roof had sprung a leak. He returned from his meeting to find rainwater puddling in the corridor. At first he was thankful that it hadn't spoiled any of the new books waiting to go out to stores, but then he made a quick calculation and with a horrible sinking feeling realised that the insurance claim would likely be worth more than the proceeds of any book sales. He went in search of a mop and bucket.

He'd often listened to established authors give wannabes the same advice: if there is anything else you could do, any other profession you could follow that would make you happy, then do that instead of write. Writing is hard, lonely and invariably unprofitable. As he positioned the bucket under the leak, he reflected that precisely the same guidance could be applied to independent publishing.

Through the window overlooking the courtyard he watched a courier dodge puddles as he approached Tristesse's front door clutching a package, which Tom felt sure must be from some or other creditor. He considered hiding behind a nearby book stack, but then the courier spotted him through the window and gave a cheery wave.
Reluctantly, he opened the door and signed for the delivery.

He sat down at his desk with the suspicious package. As he reached for his letter-knife his eye fell on Jane's plant. It seemed to him that even though his dim office was not the most conducive spot for life to prosper—plant or otherwise—it had indeed flourished since its abduction. He was no gardener but had tended it with great care. He took a leaf between his thumb and forefinger. Maybe it liked him. Once this was all over he'd return it, although he'd have to come up with a credible reason that explained why he was in possession of her treasured plant. That was a problem for another day.

Warily he slid the knife along the top of the package, working it open an inch at a time as if it might explode in his hands. Slowly, he drew out the contents. It wasn't from an angry supplier or the credit card company. It was from Willie.

In large letters across a cover page was typed: ‘
Happy Ending—
Screenplay by Willie Scott’. And beneath, in a much smaller font: ‘Adapted from the novel by Jane Lockhart’.

Willie had included a business card, edged in gold, his name embossed along the top, and a handwritten message, ‘Read it and weep. Best wishes, Willie.’

Tom didn't hesitate. He picked up the screenplay and hurled it across the room. Muttering furiously to himself in French, he marched out into the corridor, colliding with
the now half-full bucket of rainwater. He swore as the cold water seeped through his right shoe, soaking his foot. Willie was such a tit. His arrogant message was the work of someone who believed that he had won. But he and Willie weren't in any competition. What did Willie have that he wanted? Nothing.

In fact, in other circumstances a film version of
Happy Ending
would be the greatest gift Willie could have given him. The bump in book sales when the film came out would be huge. Unfortunately, it didn't look like Tristesse would be around long enough to benefit.

Tom retraced his steps to the doorway of his office. The script lay splayed out over the back of the sofa. He decided categorically, finally, absolutely not to read it, right up until the moment he sat down on the sofa and opened to the first page.

A wicked thought snuck up on him. Willie was a writer and if there was one thing Tom knew it was writers. He knew how to cosset them, but moreover he knew how to destroy them. He would read the screenplay like any other submission, and then hit Willie with a set of notes. These would be no ordinary notes; they would be the Ten Plagues of notes—so damaging, so foul, that their legend would reverberate through the ages. Writers would talk of them in horrified whispers for generations. Willie would never recover.

Tom read on, marvelling at the screenplay. Willie had taken everything that was rooted and heartfelt about Jane's novel and made it generic and sickly sentimental. Crucial moments were missing from scenes, stripping them of their meaning and texture. Characters were skinned alive and in a miracle of reverse alchemy, sparkling dialogue culled from the novel had become dull and lumpen. Everywhere it was possible to misrepresent or alter, he had done so; every page offered a fresh horror that proved how little he understood the novel. How little he understood Jane. It was compelling in its awfulness.

Ninety-seven pages later Tom had reached the final scene. Of all Willie's offences, none was more egregious
than what he had done to the ending. Tom read with growing disbelief.

Tom called Roddy as soon as he had finished. At the other end of the phone he could hear him addressing his class.

‘Which is why Shakespeare never left New York again. OK. Chapter twenty-four. Read. Or be punished.’ His voice grew louder as he turned to the phone. ‘What is it? I'm right in the middle of teaching Generation Uhh.’