Not Another Happy Ending. David Solomons

run your fingers through its luxuriant tangle, or the intense stare from behind his Clark Kent spectacles. OK, it might have been some of those things. His distracting features were currently arranged to display a mixture of anger and puzzlement, but, she noted with a sinking feeling, they definitely tipped towards anger. She was also vaguely aware of a draught located around her backside and knew then that in her pursuit of the runaway award her skirt had ridden up and currently resided somewhere around her waist. As she covered her modesty (oh, way too late for that) she made a show of polishing the golden award with one corner of her sleeve.

      ‘I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to—I was just, y'know, touching it. I mean not touching—that sounds like molesting, like I'm some kind of pervert …’ she drew breath, ‘which I'm not.’ She ventured a smile. ‘Young European Publisher of the Year … Runner-up? That's really impressive.’ Don't make a joke. Don't make a joke. ‘I have a swimming certificate.’

      Across the room the secretary chuckled, for which she was immensely grateful. Duval silenced him with a scowl. Certain that her submissive kneeling position wasn't helping her case, Jane picked herself up off the floor, laying a hand on the vertiginous stack of manuscripts for leverage. She leaned on the unsteady pile and the scripts toppled over, crashing to the floor. Random pages flew up around her ears.

      Duval narrowed his eyes. ‘Who are you?’

      She stuck out a hand in greeting. ‘Jane Lockhart …?’ Duval ignored the proffered hand. She withdrew it awkwardly, turning the action into a waving gesture she hoped came across as insouciant. ‘I wrote The Endless Anguish of My Father?’

      ‘Ah,’ he grunted. ‘Yes.’ He turned his back on her and began to walk away.

      So that was it, she thought—another rejection. And I've shown him my pants.

      ‘What are you waiting for?’ he snapped over his shoulder.

      She threw a questioning glance at the secretary, who motioned her to follow the disappearing Duval. Hurriedly gathering up her hat and umbrella she stumbled after him.

      She was not sure what compelled her to do so—blame it on the confusion of believing she was about to be unceremoniously ejected onto the street—but by the time he had led her into his office she was again wearing the bowler hat. She was confronted with his broad back as he gestured her curtly into a low seat, then slid behind his desk and looked up. He leaned in with a quizzical expression, mouth half open.

      ‘It's my lucky hat,’ she pre-empted his question.

      ‘No one has a lucky hat.’

      Something about this man made her want to argue. ‘What about leprechauns?’

      He screwed up his face. ‘What?’

      ‘They're lucky. They wear hats.’ Oh god, she was doing it again. Stop talking. Stop talking right now. ‘Y'know, with the green and the buckle and … Ah … Ah!’ She sat up, raising one finger triumphantly. ‘You can have a thinking-cap.’

      He sneered. ‘It's not the same thing at all.’

      ‘No. No it isn't.’ Sheepishly, she removed the offending bowler. ‘I only wore it to offset the umbrella,’ she confessed, then asked brightly, ‘Have you ever wondered why it's bad luck to open an umbrella indoors?’

      Duval gazed at her steadily. ‘The superstition arose during the late 18^th century when umbrellas were larger, with heavy, spring-loaded mechanisms and hard metal spokes. Open one in the confines of a drawing room and the consequences could be destructive.’

      ‘Oh.’

      He drew a tired breath and fished a manuscript from under a pile. She recognised it immediately as her own, although the pages appeared crumpled at the corners and was that the brown crescent of a coffee stain on the cover? This must be a good sign. Clearly, the turned-down corners were evidence of the hours Duval had spent reading and then rereading; the stain conjured a long, espresso-fuelled night, his head bent over her novel mesmerised by the spare, elegant prose, those sharp, intelligent eyes tearing up at the emotive tale.

      ‘I'll be honest with you,’ he said, tossing the well-worn manuscript down on the desk, ‘I put this in the bin without reading a single word.’

      Or, there was that.

      She looked down and played nervously with her ring. It was made from an old typewriter key, the word ‘backspace’ in black letters on a silver background. She'd bought it with her last pay packet, a fitting gift to launch her on her new career as a novelist. She felt a lump in her throat and swallowed hard. She swore she wouldn't cry in front of him.

      ‘That title …’ He made a long, sucking sound through his teeth.

      She had a feeling it wasn't the only thing that sucked. She glimpsed a straw and clutched at it. ‘But you took it out again.’

      ‘Hmm?’

      ‘Of the bin. Something must have made you take it back out.’

      ‘Yes.’ He fiddled with the small bust of Napoleon. ‘A fly.’

      Had he just admitted to using the novel she'd slaved over for the last year and a half as a fly swatter?

      ‘It was a highly persistent fly,’ he added in a conciliatory tone. He pushed a bored hand through his hair. ‘I'm busy, so I'll keep this brief. I read your novel. I'm afraid it needs work. A lot of work.’

      Hot tears pricked her eyes. She blinked furiously, trying to hold back the waterworks. She hadn't cried in years, not since her dad left, and now here was this man making her feel like that little girl again. It wasn't the rejection—she'd shrugged off dozens without resorting to tears. It must be him. The bastard. To actually reject her face to face.

      ‘But it has potential, so I'm going to publish it.’

      What a complete and utter shit. Making her come all the way here just to wait in his stupid little office, only to be told—

      Wait. What?

      ‘Ms. Lockhart?’ He peered into her stunned face. ‘Are you all right?’

      ‘Publish? Me?’ She just had to check. ‘In a book?’

      He gave an exasperated sigh. ‘I'm offering you a two-book deal. It will mean a lot of rewriting—definitely a new title—and neither of us will get rich. But I think you have it in you to be a writer and, unfashionable as it may seem, that is what I came here to find.’

      She waited for the punchline, searching his face for the appearance of a grin that would say, ‘only joking’, but it didn't come. He was serious. This man wanted to publish her novel. This kind, wonderful man. There was only one rational response to the news.

      She dissolved into tears.

      She'd always wondered how she'd feel if—she corrected herself—when the moment finally came and the flood of ‘no's’ was stemmed by one small, clear ‘yes’. In the end it wasn't even a ‘yes’ so much as a ‘oui’. Vive la France! Vive le Candleriggs! But this was more than an air-punching victory, it was … happiness. That's what it felt like. Through great hiccupping sobs she could see him watching her, confused. ‘I'm sorry. I didn't mean to …’she blubbed. ‘It's been so … so long … so many rejections … I have a board.’

      ‘You have a board?’

      ‘Of rejection letters. I call it my Board of Pain.’

      ‘Well,’ he said with a straight face, ‘that's completely normal.’

      ‘It is?’ Oh good, that was a relief.

      ‘So, how many publishers turned you down exactly?’

      ‘All of them,’ she said, palming away tears. ‘Well, obviously not all of them. All of the big ones, I mean.’ She caught his eye. ‘Not that I'm saying you're not big. I'm sure you're very … important. I mean, really, I should