‘Dry the Rain’, The Beta Band, 1998, Regal
SUCCESS HADN'T GONE to Jane's head. Actually, on second thoughts, that's exactly where it had gone. After winning her ‘Jane’ she'd gone out the following day and bought herself a hat from the venerable Lock & Co in St. James's, hatters to the gentry since 1676. After contemplating a range of fabulous Panamas (originally made in Ecuador, it transpired) and almost plumping for a cool red Fez with a black tassel, she'd settled on a riding hat—a dressage model in deep blue with a polished fur felt. When she'd studied her reflection in the mirror, red hair tucked out of sight, a few wisps artfully poking out, she decided it made her look like the Mad Hatter. She paid cash.
Back home her spending spree continued. She replaced the threadbare rug in the living-room with a handmade Persian, and the old paper lantern that for years had cast a dusty light from the ceiling-rose gave way to a multicoloured Venetian glass chandelier, which hung over her latest addition, a polished Steinway upright. Her dad had wanted her to learn the piano—all the posh kids at private school took lessons, he said—and after a lucky streak on the horses he'd paid for her to visit a prim tutor on the Southside, but then, as usual with him, the winnings dried up and the lessons stopped.
The dressage hat wasn't the only thing she'd brought back from London. Willie Scott had called her the following week. He was in town, visiting his old ma in Newton Mearns. He had some news he thought she'd be interested to hear. How about lunch? His treat. They met in town, at Rogano, an upscale Glasgow classic with a dining room like a golden-age ocean liner; the kind of restaurant where the fish was never fried, only ever tempura. Jane had mixed feelings about the venue: she'd been only once before, when she signed with Tom. Perhaps this time would take away the sting.
Lunch had gone well. Very well. Willie had no sooner sat down than he informed her that he had passed her novel to a couple of buddies in the business. She hadn't understood. The film business, he'd explained; was there any other kind? Oh, yes. Of course. So, you ready for this? One of them wants to option the book. Did he mean they want to make it into a film? No, he grinned. They want to make it into a movie.
Their starters arrived and they ate and talked about growing up in Glasgow and what it was like being an in-demand screenwriter in LA until the waiter cleared their plates. There was one other thing about the movie deal.
Willie dabbed his mouth with a white napkin. ‘I want to write the adaptation.’
‘You do? But what about all your Hollywood projects?’
She was puzzled—he'd spent the last hour regaling her with tales of his numerous movie deals.
‘Oh, them. Aye.’ He smoothed the napkin across his lap. ‘They can wait. This is what I want to do now. Your novel touched me in a way I've never felt before. I'm from that world. I know those characters.’ He reached across the table and took her hand. ‘Trust me, Jane. I'm your man.’
They'd started seeing each other the following week. Jane wasn't daft, she knew what people on the outside would say: he wasn't Mr Right, he was Mr Rebound. She didn't care; he was fun, full of great stories and she felt better about herself being around him.
A few things about him surprised her. For a writer he wasn't widely read; adamant that The Godfather was an original movie and wouldn't believe her increasingly shrill protests until she marched him to a bookstore and shoved a copy of Puzo's novel into his hands. Even his film knowledge displayed some startling gaps, though he had a ready response for each omission. Sense and Sensibility? Frock Movie. West Side Story? Musical. The Seventh Seal? Swedish. And Black and White. Some Like It Hot? He shrugged and then displayed a scoundrel's grin. Nobody's perfect.
Since returning to Glasgow Willie had been staying gratis in a suite at an achingly hip boutique hotel, having called in a favour from the manager, a friend from the good old, bad old days. The hotel had been converted from a church, and was perched at the summit of one of the city's many hill streets. Willie had the top floor belfry suite. Jane had slept with him for the first time there, afterwards lying naked on the bed, staring over the city through the long picture window, listening to Willie in the shower belting out a passable rendition of ‘O Sole Mio’. Closing one eye, she traced the skyline with a finger. The sex had been good. She revised her assessment. Really good.
Willie moved into her flat the following month. His old friend's largesse having run out, it was either Jane's place or his old room in his mum's bungalow in the wasteland of the suburban Southside. Jane insisted he move in with her. It was only temporary, he said, while he waited for a cheque from LA. Aye, as soon as that big boy landed he'd be out of her hair. Her long, red, sweet-smelling hair. He fancied renting one of those penthouse apartments on the river; sure it wasn't Malibu, but it'd do him nicely. In the meantime the living arrangements would help both of them since she'd be right there when he needed to ask her a question about the adaptation.
Jane sat at her desk in the wide bay window, absorbed in the latest chapter of her new novel. Her fingers flew over the keys, propelling her protagonist, the spirited and resourceful Darsie Baird, to another dramatic climax in her conflict with the brutal Tony Douglas, mean-spirited owner of the umbrella factory. Darsie and Tony had been going at it like cat and dog for thirty-six chapters. Just one more to go, though even now Jane wasn't sure if finally they'd end up together, or killing each other.
A flurry of keystrokes and the penultimate chapter was done. She reread the last page. She could never trust her judgement when the ink was wet; somehow the words always shone when freshly summoned. They had to stand the morning after test before she knew if they were truly working. There was nothing more to do now but to push on. After a cup of tea. She closed the laptop lid and went to boil the kettle.
Willie's desk shared the space in the bay, arranged to face hers, their ends touching. It was a hulking Victorian thing in mahogany that he'd put in storage when he left for LA, and which she'd helped lug up two flights of stairs. She could still feel the twinge in her back. Its inlaid leather surface was crowned with an ancient typewriter—a Royal portable, like Hemingway's, he'd informed her as he stroked the burnished keys. Flanking the typewriter were two neat towers of paper about equal height; one of them pristine and blank, the other filled with his growing adaptation of Happy Ending.
Over the last couple of months Jane had observed Willie at work, seated upright in his button-backed Captain's chair, methodically feeding fresh pages into the mouth of his typewriter, filling them up to the accompaniment of its machine-gun clatter. When he made a mistake, instead of whiting out the error he would rip out the entire page and begin anew. If it doesn't come out right, he'd explained, then it was a clue to a deeper malaise. He was an automaton, as mechanically relentless as his choice of writing tool. Jane enjoyed the steady rattle and clank. It made her feel as if she was one of those feisty girl reporters in a 1940s New York newsroom, or in Paris, an Alice B. Toklas to his Old Man of the Sea.
For now the room was quiet. Willie had taken himself off for a run in Kelvingrove Park, which he did, regularly, every afternoon at three o'clock. Turned out he was something of a worshipper of the body beautiful, and a practitioner of some arcane martial art that sounded to her like Wang Chung, but which she knew couldn't be right since they were an ‘80s New Wave band. He had set up a punch-bag in the box room and the sound of whacking and grunting had become part of the background. To the neighbours it must have seemed like she'd installed an S&M dungeon, but apart from the occasional curious look on the stairwell no one complained.
On the wall above Willie's empty chair hung two framed film posters from projects he had written. Their design was similar: a montage of exploding cars, a square-jawed hero flanked by half-naked girls, framed by a pair of woman's bare legs in the foreground, akimbo over the scene. Sub-James Bond stuff. Jane had been staring at the posters for a week before she realised they were for the same movie; just that one of them was in French. Fatal Payback was Vengeance Fatale, a Kurt Salazar film. She hadn't heard of Kurt Salazar or seen either version, but that was OK since Willie had loads of DVDs.
She sat down with her cup of tea and flipped open the laptop. Inserting a break to make a fresh page, she typed the final chapter number.
37.
Endings were tricky. Even this late in the novel, with the weight of the preceding narrative pressing like dam-waters, she hesitated. A sip of tea always helped marshal her thoughts.
As she drank she reflected on the significance of the moment, for here she was on the threshold of finishing the novel. A spike of mischievous pleasure surged through her and she swiped her phone from where it lay on the desk next to the umbrella plant. It was a childish impulse, one she'd probably regret later, but right now the urge was irresistible. She scratched the itch and dialled.
‘Jane?’
He picked up on the first ring, she noted, taking undue pleasure in his surprised tone. He sounded uncertain, as well he should; they hadn't spoken for almost nine months. As part of a set of stipulations, she'd insisted that there be no contact between them while she wrote the new novel, though she had been surprised—and perhaps a little chagrined—when he'd caved in without so much as a ‘merde!’
‘I'm starting the final chapter,’ she said. ‘You'll have the manuscript by the end of next week.’
‘It's about bloody time.’
‘Ah, Tom, as ever my little ray of sunshine.’ She began to spin round in her swivel chair, free as a kid on a roundabout, delighted at the rise she was eliciting from him. ‘Well, moan all you like, I've never been this—-’
‘—-Annoying?’ he interrupted.
She brought her carefree circling to a sudden stop. He could still get to her. ‘Happy. You bastard. Happy.’
The line went quiet and for a moment she wondered if the call had dropped. She was about to ask if he was still there when his voice drawled from the phone again.
‘So, one more chapter …’ he began.
‘Yup.’
‘… And we never have to see each other again.’
Did she detect a note of regret? Not after all this time, surely. Most likely it was atmospheric conditions on the line. But he was right—there would be no reason for them to stay in touch.
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Better get writing then. A bientôt, Jane.’
See you soon? Didn't he understand that this was far more final than his expression allowed. At some point next week she'd hit ‘Send’ and deposit the manuscript in his in-box and that would be that. Finis.
‘Au revoir, Tom.’
She stabbed a finger at the touch screen and ended the call. He was right about one thing—better get writing. She couldn't agree more.
She had begun writing the follow-up to Happy Ending with indecent haste, in the full knowledge that when she completed it she would have fulfilled her contract to Tristesse Books and be rid of Tom and his smug, bristly face. Forever. And this time she'd laid down conditions. She refused to have any communication with him during the writing period to discuss her progress. Moreover, she refused to let him give notes on the new novel once submitted. She had expected him to rebuff that one with particular venom, but instead he'd acquiesced at the first time of asking, conceding with a brusque, ‘Fine, whatever makes you happy.’
All she had to do was finish the damn thing.
As they'd talked on the phone an idea about how to launch into the final chapter had entered her head, but now as her fingers hovered over the keyboard the words wouldn't fall into place. She screwed up her face, chasing the feeling like she was swatting at butterflies. After a minute or two of increasingly frustrated attempts to remember, she tapped down the lid and went to make another cup of tea.
The conversation with Tom had unsettled her. In retrospect it had been a mistake. There had been no need for them to talk at all, and she certainly wouldn't be calling him again. A second hot cup of tea joined the first, which was still gently steaming.
She wiggled her fingers, trying to transform irritation with Tom into creative calm. She was a virtuoso preparing to perform. An Olympian in the blocks. She could do this. She had done this—for thirty-six chapters straight, without a hitch. She didn't buy into all that crap about waiting for the Muse to strike. You showed up at your desk every day and trusted that she'd be there. For Jane writing was as simple as that old nugget of advice: apply posterior to chair.
The cursor winked on the blank page.
There was a force-field over the keyboard, that was it. What else could be preventing her from touching it? It wasn't as if she didn't know what to write. Right? So what happens next?
The cursor was a large, dark oblong. Like a freshly dug grave.
OK, this was ridiculous. Write your way into the chapter. Just write anything. First thing that comes into your head. Doesn't even have to make sense. As soon as you put something down you'll break this hoodoo. Don't talk about a hoodoo, you'll jinx yourself. Oh great, now she'd invoked a hoodoo and a jinx.
The cursor convulsed like a twitching eye.
Jane slammed down the laptop lid. The leaves on her umbrella plant trembled. She drummed her fingers on the desk. A walk. That's what she needed. What happens next? After a walk it would all be perfectly clear. Now who was it said ‘we think at walking-pace’? Someone very wise, she suspected, then remembered with a pang who had given her the sage advice. Dammit.
An hour later Jane found herself flicking idly through a rack of vintage clothes. Mini, midi, maxi. She was pretty sure that was the Latin phrase for ‘I came, I saw, I bought an inappropriate skirt.’ Despite what it looked like, she absolutely, definitely wasn't in her favourite store, avoiding work on her novel by embarking on a wholly unnecessary pursuit of a frivolous item of clothing. Ooh, nice jacket. Kind of a Nehru thing going on round the collar and the colour was amazing; it reminded her of a livid sunset over a wasteland of discarded shopping trolleys.
The jacket was the kind of thing Darsie Baird, the main character in her new novel, would wear, and she made a mental note to go back and find a place to insert it. But not now. She'd go back later. Right now there was some serious browsing to accomplish.
And it was an accomplishment. Hell, some people did this for a living: stylists, fashion writers, personal shoppers. This was work, dammit. OK, not for her, but someone in the store must be working and she was standing quite close to them.
Research! That's what this was. Writing was a lot like playing dolls’ houses. You got to design the rooms, populate them and dress everyone down to the last detail. Clothes could say a lot about your character and her world. There was the obvious stuff: a seamed stocking for a vamp or tweed for a country lady. But there was more to it than that. An undone button in anything written before 1920 spoke of seething passion. Awoman putting something in her pocket in an Austen novel was a big deal—it being her only truly private place outside of her head.
There was a rustle of clothing from the back of the store. Jane looked round to see a young woman emerge from the changing room. For a moment she wondered if the velvet curtains concealed a time machine, since the woman appeared to have walked straight out of 1950. She wore a full-skirted berry-red dress nipped in at the waist, a scarf tied movie-star style around her head and a pair of classic big-frame Dior sunglasses. She sashayed past, high heels clicking on the wooden floor.
‘Hi, Jane.’
‘Hi,’ replied Jane automatically. Very occasionally—OK, twice—readers would recognise her in the street and stop to tell her how much they liked her book, but this didn't feel like a fan encounter. For one thing, Red didn't stop to chat, but instead her heels carried her past the clothes racks and out of the shop. The bell sounded a merry ding as the door closed behind her. Jane frowned. Red looked so familiar, like a distant cousin she hadn't seen in years, but she couldn't place her. Great outfit, though. Maybe she'd put Darsie in that instead.
Tom punched his PIN into the cash machine. Internal mechanisms grumbled like a reluctant parent and the screen flashed its decision.
INSUFFICIENT FUNDS.
Letting rip with a sibilant French oath and thumping the keypad, he retrieved his useless card and, with as much dignity as he could muster, struck off past the line of people waiting to use the cash machine. Roddy tripped at his heels.
‘So, does this mean I'm buying the donuts again?’
Tom cast him a dark look and watched in puzzled silence as Roddy flipped up the furry hood on his coat so that it completely covered his head. It wasn't raining, for a change, and the city was experiencing that most unusual of phenomena, an actual season. Instead of the indistinguishable mush of weather that passed for a climate, the last week had been discernibly summery.
‘I don't get it,’ said Roddy's muffled voice from deep within the hood. ‘Jane Lockhart made you a small fortune. I don't know anyone who's blown as much money as you have in such a short time. And I know people at the Royal Bank of Scotland.’
Tom refused to engage with Roddy's leading remark, especially since he had a point. It had been more than a year since Happy Ending hit the bestseller charts. The sales numbers were strong, but not astronomical. After all, Jane Lockhart was ‘literary fiction’, not ‘vampire romance’. The book had been profitable, but to sell those big numbers the retailers had demanded huge discounts and marketing bungs, which had eaten into his share.
Then he'd taken the remainder of the money and gone on a spending spree, acquiring three debuts within the space of a month, one of them in a competitive auction against three multinational publishers with deep pockets. As soon as he submitted the winning bid he knew he'd paid too much. Ah well, there was always a chance that Earnest Shards would find an audience. Hey, who wouldn't love a star-crossed gay love story set in the world of stained-glassmaking in Renaissance Florence?
Tom could hold off no longer. He had to know. ‘Why do you have your hood up?’
‘I don't want to be recognised.’
That was not a reasonable answer. ‘You're an English supply teacher at a state-assisted secondary school in suburban Glasgow.’
Roddy grasped the cords that adjusted the hood and tugged them sharply, sealing himself inside. ‘Exactly.’
Tom's battered green Peugeot limped into a space on the crowded street outside Tristesse Books. The gearbox gave one last tortured whine and the engine shuddered into silence. He climbed out and slammed the door. The catch was broken and there was a knack to closing it properly. Which was to slam it. Repeatedly.
‘I can give you an hour of secretarial services,’ said Roddy emerging from the passenger side clutching a warm bag of Krispy Kremes, ‘then I've got Great Expectations in Maryhill.’
Even as the barbed quip formed on Tom's lips Roddy was raising a finger.
‘Don't,’ he wagged. ‘Just don't.’
There was a rumble of tyres against cobbles and the two men swivelled their heads to see the driverless Peugeot roll gently into the car in front. Bumper lay against bumper like a tired drunk resting his head on a friend.
‘You should probably get that fixed,’ said Roddy.
‘Yeah,’ said Tom with epic disinterest, already turning his back to punch the code into the door entry system.
‘I don't care what you think. I'm telling you, that's not an opening chapter, it's an ice age. C'est une époque!’
Tom's voice shook the thin office walls as he harangued Nicola Ball, flaying the latest draft of her novel while simultaneously sorting through the mail, making one pile for bills and another for final demands. If he was honest his foul mood was largely down to the parlous state of the company's finances rather than Nicola's inappropriate semicolon on page eight.
Her eyes brimmed with tears. ‘You can't talk to me like that,’ she said, her voice quivering. ‘I was voted one of Scotland's foremost novelists under the age of thirty …’
He brandished the manuscript. ‘And that's why I won't allow this piece of crap to be published with your name on it.’
She pursed her lips and placed her hands on her hips. ‘You know what, Tom, you're even more of a bastard since you broke up with Jane Lockhart.’
Roddy stuck his head round the door and chimed in. ‘That's exactly what I said.’
‘Hey,’ Tom snapped. ‘We didn't split up. Because we were never together. It was a falling out. Got it? And, do we need to have another chat about your eavesdropping, Roddy?’
Roddy banged the wall. ‘Flimsy partition. Loud Frenchman.’ He sighed. ‘Now I am bound by the man-code to take your side in this, but what the hell, Tom? Seriously, what were you thinking? You changed the title of a book without consulting its author.’
‘You changed her title?!’ said Nicola, shaking her head in horrified disbelief.
‘I know,’ said Roddy. ‘Right?’
‘No wonder she dumped him.’
‘Uh. I am in the room. And she didn't dump me. Again, we were never together.’ He glowered at Roddy. ‘What about the man-code?’
‘Yes, yes, I know. I suppose we could put your behaviour down to an aberration—a temporary loss of faculties as a result of having sex on a regular basis with the luscious Jane.’
‘You think she's luscious?’ inquired Nicola.
‘Luscious, foxy, a little bit naughty.’
‘Oh.’
Tom watched Roddy slowly comprehend.
‘Not that I fancy her,’ said Roddy quickly. ‘Not my type. My type's much more like … um … really looking forward to your book launch, Nicola. Have you seen the venue? It's a bus garage in Bridgeton. It's going to be a swanky affair.’ He paused. ‘I'm pretty confident that's the first time “swanky” and “Bridgeton” have been used in the same sentence.’
She giggled. ‘You're funny.’ Then she sniffed and wiped a hand across her damp cheek. ‘Roddy, why do I keep letting him do this to me?’ She jabbed a finger in Tom's general direction.
‘I don't know,’ said Roddy. ‘Maybe you're a masochist?’
She appeared to give it some thought. ‘No, I tried that a few times. I quite liked the being tied up part, but in the end it turns out I'm more of a sadist.’
Roddy gulped. ‘That's nice.’
She threw a dark look at Tom. ‘It's just him. He's the only one who can make me feel this …’
‘Vulnerable? Fragile? Waif-like?’
‘… Fucking furious.’
Tom had had enough. He flung a finger towards the door. ‘The two of you. Leave. Separately.’ He glowered at Nicola. ‘Why are you still here? Go and write!’
Faced with her boiling French editor, her lip began once more to tremble. She gathered the manuscript to her chest and scrambled out.
‘Get thee to a Costa Coffee!’ Tom half-chased her into the passageway. ‘And don't come back until every word sings from the page.’
‘Bye then, Nicola,’ said Roddy trailing after her rapidly disappearing figure. ‘See you at the launch.’
She banged open the front door and hurried out, almost colliding with a woman in a dark blue business suit marching across the courtyard. The square-shouldered suit gave her a purposeful air and she observed the crying girl depart, never once breaking stride in her far from sensible heels.
Tom watched her uneasily from the doorway of his office. Without waiting for an invitation the woman clipped along the corridor, pushed past him, placed her briefcase on his desk and made herself comfortable in his chair.
‘If you try to make me cry,’ she said coolly, ‘I'll inform the Inland Revenue about your yacht.’
‘Anna,’ said Tom, hoping that he was faking enough sincerity. ‘Great to see you.’ He paused before adding, ‘Wasn't expecting to see you.’ He followed her inside, inquiring with a nervous laugh, ‘Good news?’
Anna LeFèvre possessed a French surname and was distantly related to a family of 17th-century Parisian tapestry weavers, but that's where the entente cordiale ended, much to Tom's dismay. She was his banker; a Relationship Manager in modern parlance or, as she referred to it, ‘touchy-feely marketing shite’. Spotting her name on the bank's website back when he'd opened his account Tom had sought her out, confident that their French connection would enable him to shave an interest point or two off his overdraft and perhaps bend the lending rules in his favour. His confidence had proved misplaced. Anna was as severe as her dark bobbed hair—and as straight.
She sat behind his desk in his chair while he squatted in the low seat of shame reserved for authors. Her eyes never wavered from the laptop screen as she scrutinised the company's books. Tom could imagine more painful examinations, but they involved disposable gloves and the removal of his trousers. At least Anna stopped at baring his accounts. She scrolled through various ledgers and bank accounts, pausing from time to time in order to raise an eyebrow or cluck disapprovingly. When she had finished she let out a long, low whistle and finally turned to him.
‘You and me are going to lunch.’
‘Great!’
Released from the enveloping sense of dread that had descended upon him since she walked through his door, Tom leapt up and announced happily, ‘We'll go to Rogano. On me.’
She drummed her fingers on his desk.
‘Let's go to the wee café next door,’ she suggested, then glanced back at the screen. ‘And I think I'd better pay.’
A waitress with serious glasses and more serious tattoos landed a couple of plates on their table by the window. Tom surveyed the sandwich on Anna's, then looked at his, then back at hers again.
With a motherly sigh of exasperation, she said, ‘Do you want to swap?’
Barely had she finished the question when he nodded—’Yeah’—and was already sliding the plates by each other.
‘OK? Now can we talk about Tristesse Books’ books?’
Tom took a great bite and answered through a mouthful. ‘Mmm-hmm. But if we have to talk figures, can you do that thing where you use vegetables?’ He plucked a cherry tomato from the weedy salad that accompanied the sandwich and in a business-like voice intoned, ‘Imagine this tomato is my cash flow.’
‘Perhaps you've forgotten, but a tomato is a fruit, not a vegetable.’ She took the tomato from him and plonked it down on the side of her plate. ‘Don't play with your food.’
She hoisted her briefcase on to the table and flipped it open. ‘How many new writers have you thrown money away on this year?’
‘I only throw money away on good writers. Good Scottish writers.’ He waved his sandwich and grinned. ‘I'm very patriotic.’
She drew out a glossy black folder and a typewritten list. ‘Good, maybe, but commercial?’ She read from the top of the list. ‘The Thought's Stream.’
‘It's highly experimental,’ he explained. ‘The main character is a drop of water.’
Unimpressed, her eye fell upon the next entry. ‘Death of a Conductor?’
‘Nicola Ball is one of Scotland's most exciting novelists under the age of thirty,’ he shot back confidently, before burying his head in his chest to mumble, ‘who happens to be obsessed with public transport.’
She went through the list one by one, tutting like a schoolmistress reviewing an errant pupil's exam results until she reached the final entry. ‘Earnest Shards,’ she sighed dismally.
‘Ah.’
‘Tom, what were you thinking?’
‘It's a wonderful book. It deserves to be published.’
Anna sat back and folded her arms. ‘I admire the sentiment, but you paid too much for it. Don't argue—you know you did. And there's bugger all chance you'll see a penny of it back.’
‘I might,’ he said quietly.
She banged the table. ‘Not unless you get the author to rewrite it with a bunch of vampires and a lot of kinky sex.’
Tom considered the idea for a moment and then dismissed it with a scowl. He took another bite of his sandwich. ‘It doesn't matter anyway. One hit pays for all the rest—that's how this business works. And I have a bestseller in the wings.’
‘Jane Lockhart, yes. So how's the new book shaping up?’
He made a face. ‘Je ne sais pas. I have no idea. She won't let me read a word until it's finished.’
‘You're kidding me, right? Your entire business rests on that novel.’
He gulped. It was the first time he'd heard it expressed as bluntly as that. ‘Relax,’ he said, trying to convince himself as much as Anna. ‘It'll be just like the first one: a bunch of beautifully written, utterly miserable characters, three cremations and seven types of rain. But so long as it does half as well as Happy Ending, I'll be able to buy a real yacht.’ He sighed. ‘OK, a big dinghy.’
‘I heard on the grapevine that after she finishes this novel for you she's moving publisher. I have a friend at Klinsch & McLeish says they're in advanced negotiations.’
‘Klinsch & McLeish.’ Tom blew out his cheeks disparagingly. ‘Y'know what they're called in the trade?’ He made a tight fist and then opened it abruptly. ‘Clench & Release.’ He dismissed them with another puff. ‘They're brutal. Bourgeois Edinburgh bastards. They're not right for my Jane.’ He corrected himself. ‘For Jane Lockhart.’
‘So talk to her! Persuade her to stay.’
‘I don't want her to stay. After she delivers her new novel, I want her to go. Far away.’
‘Oh for god's sake, Tom, Tristesse Books is on the verge of compulsory liquidation.’
Tom opened and closed his mouth without speaking. There was no smart answer to that.
‘And I've had an offer,’ said Anna.
‘Well,’ he purred, ‘you're a very attractive woma—’
‘Shut up.’ She took the glossy folder she had retrieved from her briefcase at the same time as the list of unprofitable novels and slid it across the table. ‘They're called Pandemic Media.’
An over-complicated logo was emblazoned on the front of the folder, the sort of thing that could only have been designed after going through three committees, a test audience and an in-depth consultation with the CEO's cleaner.
‘I can only assume they're run by a suicidal madman,’ Anna went on, ‘since they want to invest in you.’
He pushed away the folder. ‘You mean buy me out, move the company to London and let people called Jocasta and Strawberry cut half the authors from my list. Uh-uh. No way!’
‘You have to look at this, whether you like it or not.’ She tapped the folder sternly. ‘Pandemic Media want the edgy frisson a name like Tristesse Books would bring them. And trust me, you could really do with the cash.’
‘I don't need Pandemic Media. I have Jane Lockhart.’ He felt his confidence undercut by the yawning hole opening up beneath his feet. Oh god, his whole business, his whole life's work relied on that annoying woman. ‘This time she's going all the way!’ he declared with a forced smile.
Anna leant forward. ‘Are you sure? Because the trade is waiting. Two thousand bookshops have allocated shelf-space, a hundred thousand readers are stocking up on tissues, and if she doesn't deliver soon …’ She pronged the tomato with a fork. Juice oozed through the pierced skin. ‘… your tomato's looking like ketchup.’
Tom surveyed the perforated tomato and swallowed hard. ‘She called me on Monday, said she was starting the final chapter and I could expect it by the end of next week.’
Anna rolled her eyes. ‘And when in your experience has a writer ever finished a novel when she said she would?’
Tom conceded with a shrug, unhappy about where this conversation was leading.
‘Call her,’ Anna commanded. ‘Find out how close she really is to finishing.’
‘There's no point—when she sees it's me she won't even answer.’
Anna placed her own phone on the table. ‘I believe it's called a “workaround”.’
Tom stared at the phone like it was a revolver with one bullet in the chamber. He didn't want to speak to her. The last time they'd spoken Jane had called him just to give him the brush-off. It was too painful to hear her voice. For a time after they'd broken up he'd sat in his office and played old voice-mail messages from her, just to hear what she sounded like when she wasn't angry with him. One day Roddy had caught him in the act and gently but firmly encouraged him to delete the messages. It was over.
Anna gave him a look like a python considering a plump mouse. Grumbling, he picked up her phone.
‘This is a waste of breath,’ he said, dialling Jane's number. ‘She'll deliver the novel. She may be a miserable pain in the arse, but when she's writing she's like a guided missile.’
Jane's hand was a blur as she whisked a bowl full of cake mixture to an elastic consistency. This wasn't a displacement activity. This was baking. Baking could hardly be counted a lesser activity than novel writing. Baking produced actual stuff. Stuff you could eat. Almost every time.
When she'd returned from her shopping expedition she had opened her laptop and tried to squeeze out a few words, but to no avail. Rather than squander the whole afternoon, she had cracked out the flour and butter. When the mixture looked just right she dipped in a finger and tasted. Frowning, she consulted an open recipe book.
She picked up a tablespoon and studied it accusingly. As she figured out if it was possible to rescue the cake, across the room her phone rang, vibrating against the lid of her laptop.
‘Willie,’ she called to him, ‘will you get that?’
Willie sat at his desk, eyes narrowed at the page cranking steadily through his typewriter. She called his name again, but it was obvious he couldn't hear her over the clacking of keys. With a frustrated puff she blew her fringe off her forehead, shoved the brimming cake tin into the hot oven and marched across the room.
The phone throbbed on the laptop like a pneumatic drill. From the lack of a caller ID it wasn't anyone in her contacts list and she didn't recognise the number. She snatched it up, bothered by a faint sensation that she'd missed something important.
‘Hello?’
‘Thursday or Friday for the manuscript?’
‘Grease-proof paper!’ She raced back to the kitchen to find the square of parchment that ought to be lining the cake-tin instead laid out on the counter-top. She stared at it mournfully.
‘You're certain it will be finished next week?’
She'd recognised his voice immediately, but her cake crisis had taken precedence. Well, she didn't have to tell him anything. He didn't have to know.
‘What are you doing?’ Tom probed.
‘Nothing,’ she said guiltily. She winced—why had she said anything? Hang up. Just hang up now!
‘Are you … baking?’
She killed the call and cringed. He knew. He knew what the baking meant.
Almost immediately the phone rang again. She jumped at the sound. It was him, of course, persistent as ever. The handset felt like a hot scone burning her palm. There was only one rational course of action. In one swift coordinated move she swung open the fridge, tossed the phone inside and slammed the door. The muffled ringtone continued through the insulated layers.
She looked round to discover Willie peering at her over his spectacles in bemusement. She wasn't sure how exactly to explain her actions without coming across as a complete nutcase. She smiled weakly. No. That didn't help.
Halfway across the city, in the café next to Tristesse Books, Tom stared at the phone in horror.
‘She's baking.’
Anna waved her hands in mock terror. ‘Oh no! It's a cake-tastrophe!’ Pleased at her pun, she was irritated when Tom didn't even crack a smile. ‘So, she's baking. What, you don't like her Victoria sandwich?’
‘You don't understand,’ he said solemnly. Catching a glimpse of himself in the window he saw he was sporting an expression he'd only ever seen on newsreaders announcing natural disasters or the death of a much-loved Royal. He sighed and looked back at Anna.
‘Jane bakes when she's blocked.’