Not Another Happy Ending. David Solomons

it: losing touch with friends, turning on the central heating only when the ice was inside the windows, baked beans almost every day for three months straight, all to reach this pinnacle of a moment.

      ‘Do you want a roll and sausage?’ asked Duval.

      ‘Do I want a—?’

      He marched off in the direction of the fast-food van.

      ‘Morning, Tommy,’ the owner greeted him. ‘The usual?’

      ‘Aye, Calum, give me some of that good stuff.’ Duval took the sandwich, then showed it excitedly to Jane as if he were a botanist and it a new species of orchid. ‘And not just any sausage, oh no. A square sausage. See how it fits so perfectly inside the thickly buttered soft white bap? Genius! But then, what else would one expect from the nation who gave the world the steam engine, the telephone and the television? This is why I love the Scots. Now, a soupçon of brown sauce.’ He squeezed a drop from the encrusted spout of a plastic bottle, patted down the top of the roll and sank his teeth into it. Paroxysms of delight ensued. ‘And to think that France calls itself the centre of world cuisine.’

      She wasn't entirely sure he was joking. And then she realised. He'd gone native.

      ‘You must try one. I insist.’ He clicked his fingers as if he were ordering another bottle of the ’61 Lafite.

      Moments later she stood peering at the sweating sandwich in her hands, and beyond it, Tom's grinning face.

      ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Now we begin.’

      Ten minutes later they sat beside one another in the window of a café next door to his office. Between them lay the ziggurat of her manuscript.

      ‘Jane,’ he said softly, ‘there is no need to be nervous.’

      ‘Nervous? Me? No-o-o. Not nervous.’ A coffee machine gurgled and hissed, only partially masking the spin cycle taking place in her stomach. ‘OK, a little bit nervous.’

      He smiled. ‘It's OK.’

      It was then she realised what was making her nervous. He was being nice to her. The heat had gone out of his fire and brimstone, his voice, typically tense with anger, now soothed like warm ocean waves.

      ‘Usually I need a run-up before I start editing,’ she said. ‘Y'know: tea, a walk, regrouting the shower.’

      ‘Or we could just begin?’

      ‘What, no foreplay?’ Even as she spoke them she was chasing after the words to stop them coming out of her mouth. But it was too late. He gave a small laugh, the sort of laugh your older brother's handsome friend might give his mate's little sister. Jane's embarrassment turned to disappointment. ‘So, where d'you want to start?’

      ‘Call me crazy, but we could start at the beginning.’

      ‘OK.’ She nodded rapidly, appearing to give his suggestion serious consideration, hiding her mortification at asking such a dumb question. ‘OK yes.’ She clouted him matily on the arm. ‘You crazy Frenchman.’

      He turned the top page of the manuscript. And they began.

      He gave great notes. They were acute, considered, wise. Intimate.

      As he had promised, the process of editing her novel forced them into a curious form of co-habitation. She would arrive at his office each morning and, following his customary breakfast of roll and sausage and black coffee, they would commence work. At first on opposite sides of his desk, then on the third day he came out and sat on the edge, balancing there comfortably, at ease in his body; a move, Jane did not fail to notice, which put her at eye level with his crotch.

      Often she felt like the submissive in a highly specific S&M relationship, one with no physical contact but plenty of verbal discipline. I edit you. I. Edit. You. Ordinarily, she wouldn't have put up with any man who bossed her about as much as Tom did, but theirs was a professional relationship, she reminded herself. So she gave herself permission to be spanked. On the page.

      Mostly they worked in his office, or the café next door, and whenever they reached a sticky point they would take to the streets and walk it out like a pulled muscle. Occasionally they decamped to her place. The first time he asked her—no, informed her—of the change of venue came early one morning while she was still half asleep, drowsy with last night's notes. He was on his way over, said the familiar accented voice on the other end of the phone.

      When the doorbell rang she was in the shower. She stepped out, dripping, to shout down the corridor that there was a key on the lintel above the door and he should let himself in. It felt natural to give this man the run of her flat. After all, he was going to publish her. When she entered the sitting room she found him sprawled on the floor, propped on one elbow, pages scattered about him, red pen zipping through the manuscript. He looked right at home. And, watching him work steadily, intensely, she realised that he was the first man she'd properly trusted since her dad walked out.

      They settled into their routine. Every day it was just the two of them, happily suspended in a bubble of literary discourse and fried egg sandwiches. One Wednesday morning, ten chapters into the edit, Jane breezed through the front door of Tristesse Books.

      ‘Morning, Roddy.’ She plunked a bulging paper bag on his desk. ‘I made brownies.’

      There was an urgent rustle as Roddy tore open the bag. With an appreciative smile, she turned towards Tom's office. She liked Roddy; he was a good influence on Tom. If Tom had a fault—and he did—it was an impulsiveness that shaded into arrogance, and Roddy was the one who called him on it, every time. Although it was dubious how he balanced his job as a replacement English teacher with secretarial duties for Tristesse Books, he exuded an air of moral rectitude along with an insatiable appetite for her home baking. He was Jiminy Cricket to Tom's Pinocchio, she'd informed both men one cool summer night, as they sat outside at Bar 91 amidst the buzz of revellers welcoming the weekend. Tom had almost choked on his pint. Roddy just looked disappointed: couldn't he at least be Yoda to a hot-headed young Skywalker, he'd asked.

      ‘Uh, Jane. You can't go in there.’

      She stopped at the door, one hand poised over the handle.

      ‘He's got someone with him. They've been in there all night.’

      She could hear Tom on the other side, his voice in its by now familiar trajectory, the point and counterpoint of argument, the steady inflection and unwavering logic of his contention. And it hit her. He was giving notes.

      To someone else.

      She experienced a sudden light-headedness, like an aeroplane cabin depressurising at altitude, and was still reeling when the door opened and a winsomely pretty blonde girl stepped out of the office and collided with her.

      ‘Ooh, sorry.’

      ‘Sorry.’

      ‘No, I should be the one who … sorry.’

      They disentangled themselves and the girl introduced herself.

      ‘Nicola Ball.’

      She was wearing a severe black pinafore dress on top of a white shirt buttoned to the neck. Pellucid blue eyes gazed unblinkingly from a perfectly oval face. There was a hint of redness around her eyelids, as if she'd been crying.

      ‘The Last Stop,’ said Jane delightedly. ‘I loved that book.’

      ‘Thank you,’ said Nicola, a tremulous smile appearing on pale lips. Then her expression hardened and she cast a dark look back through the doorway to Tom's office. ‘At least someone appreciates me,’ she snarled.

      ‘Why are you still here?’ Tom's voice boomed out. ‘Stop socialising and start rewriting. Go. Now!’

      ‘I hate that man,’ Nicola hissed.

      As she said it Jane felt an unexpected sense of relief. Nicola hated Tom. Good.

      ‘Please tell me you're not one of his,’ said Nicola.