Not Another Happy Ending. David Solomons

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.’