‘Sparkle in the Rain’, Simple Minds, 1984, Virgin
THREE DAYS LATER, Jane was still baking. Four loaves of banana bread nestled under a tiered chocolate sponge. A constellation of cupcakes orbited beside a tray of millionaire's shortcake. The kitchen smelt of caramel and obsession.
She cleared a space on her desk, lowered a cake stand crowned with a freshly baked lemon sponge and flicked her eyes to Willie. As usual he was attacking his typewriter as if leading a cavalry charge. She'd discovered that nothing could distract him when he was in this mood. And she'd tried everything.
‘Slice of cake?’
Click-clack-click-clack.
‘Any laundry need doing?’
Click-clack-click-clack.
‘Blowjob?’
Ting!
Without looking up he swiped the carriage return lever and began a new line. Abandoning her attempt to divert his attention, she admired the cake one last time and grudgingly opened her laptop. The blank page gaped like a wound. No, not a wound. It stood for the emptiness of the universe, she decided; the infinite nothingness which no amount of sponge cake could fill. Slowly she raised her eyes to peer at Willie over the top of the screen.
He continued to pound away, blithely unaware of the existential crisis taking place only a few feet from him. There was something inhuman about his energy. When he had first moved in she'd gawped at his work ethic, then found that her own increased, as if he was pulling her along in his wake, but lately when she eyed him across the valley of their desks she felt herself recoil. She remembered reading that the great Victorian novelist, Anthony Trollope, famously schooled himself to write two hundred and fifty words every quarter of an hour. Willie Scott farted more words. Jane imagined Willie flipping him the finger in his rear-view mirror as he eased past a furiously bicycling Trollope.
Willie added another completed page to his ever-increasing tower. Soon it would need scaffolding. Jane sighed in exasperation and—OK, she'd admit it—with envy. As he stacked up the pages she just stacked, circling forever over Chapter 37, waiting for permission to make her final approach.
She was stuck.
Blocked.
She tortured herself with idle speculation: perhaps she was fated not to finish this novel. She glanced at the ‘Jane’ trophy on her bookshelf. Perhaps this would be her Sanditon, Jane Austen's unfinished novel. She ramped up the anxiety daydream. Perhaps she'd die of consumption before completing it. She did feel a cough coming on. How bad would Tom feel about that? No, not Tom. Forget about Tom. She didn't care how he felt about anything.
She reached for her water-spray. Her hand closed around the familiar plastic bottle, index finger finding the trigger. Aiming it blindly she spritzed the umbrella plant.
‘You OK, Janey?’
She wasn't sure exactly when Willie had started calling her ‘Janey’. She knew he meant it fondly, so even though she disliked the moniker she hadn't corrected him right away. And now it was too late.
‘Yes. Fine. Just one more chapter.’
‘You not finished that yet?’
She felt her blood boil and imagined jumping out of her seat, reaching across the desk to grab a hank of his stupid wavy hair, pulling down hard and mashing his face repeatedly into his fucking typewriter. Click-clack-click-buggering-clack.
Ting!
In reality she remained fixed in her seat, smiled sweetly and said, ‘Nope. Not quite finished.’ Her trigger-finger spasmed and she drenched the plant once more.
‘Careful, or you're gonna kill that thing,’ he warned her before resuming his typing.
‘Yes,’ she agreed, her eyes suddenly murderous. ‘Yes I am.’
What was she doing? It wasn't Willie's fault she was stuck. With a long sigh she rested her head on the desk. The wood felt cool against her cheek. She glanced at the plant.
‘It was a birthday present from my dad. He gave it to me in the morning and walked out on us that night. I often wondered why I didn't just kill the thing. Chuck it in the bin. Now I think it's because I always hoped he'd come back.’ She stroked the leaves. ‘And that hope, like this ugly little plant, didn't die.’
As she struggled back from the memory she was dimly aware that the atmosphere in the room had shifted. Something significant had occurred.
Willie had stopped typing.
She lifted her head to see him staring thoughtfully into the middle distance. Grateful that her story had affected him so deeply she started to get up from her chair. She wanted to hold him. Kiss him. Thank him for understanding.
And then he said, ‘How many p's in “deprivation”?’
She laid her head back down on the desk. ‘One. One p.’
The novel may have stalled but her renewed relationship with her dad had taken its first faltering steps. It had begun with an awkward cup of tea in a café on the Gallowgate, graduated to bowling in Bargeddie and then he'd suggested they go to the pub. He saw her face fall and immediately tried to reassure her. ‘A quiz,’ he'd said. ‘That's how well I'm doing. When I think of a pub these days it's all about the quiz. I'm even in a team. “Benny and the Jets”. I'd love you to come—meet the lads, watch your old dad answer a few brainteasers. What d'you say, darlin’?’
She'd said yes and it had quickly become a regular thing. The last couple of times Willie had come along too, but she sensed that her dad wasn't a fan. When she'd pressed him he'd confessed that while he had no right to judge, fatherly concern had been stirred by the revelation that Willie was a reformed drinker. He didn't like it. Not one bit. Didn't matter how long it was since you last took a drink, he'd said, it leaves its mark. Annoyingly, Benny displayed a far better rapport with Tom.
The two of them had met during the book tour. After her dad surprised her by showing up at the Waterstones signing in Glasgow he'd made a point of attending every subsequent event. Jane was touched by his support, but less thrilled when at the end of a talk in Stirling she'd found him and Tom at the back of the hall, thick as thieves. After a signing in Dundee she'd confronted her dad leaving the library laden with books.
‘Tom gave them to me,’ he'd said delightedly. ‘I love a freebie.’
She couldn't disguise her irritation. ‘So when did you become such a big reader?’
‘Oh, I'm no’,’ he'd said. ‘These aren't stories. See, I like facts. Stuff that really happened.’
She'd considered telling Tom to lay off her dad, but that would have involved talking to him herself—something she'd strenuously been avoiding since their last phone call. On that occasion she'd intended to wind him up, but the call had backfired and she suspected he'd guessed she was blocked.
Officially, the finished manuscript was due in today, but that wasn't going to happen. She'd work on it over the weekend. And maybe the first few days of next week. What the hell, she'd take the whole week. Really, what was another week? She'd start tomorrow. She certainly couldn't do anything more today, and tonight was quiz night.
The Sir Walter Scott pub stood in a gap-toothed block that had for the last fifty years stoically resisted all attempts at renovation, modernisation or, latterly, gentrification. As the rest of the city succumbed to the inevitable arrival of chorizo and avocado the Sir Walter Scott stood tall, a beacon of stubborn resistance held together by spit, sawdust, Sky (football on satellite TV being the only concession to the modern world) and the legendary Friday night quiz.
Not wanting to disturb her dad, Jane stood with Willie at the edge of the bar and watched as ‘Benny and the Jets’ conducted a practice session.
‘Largest planet in the solar system?’
‘Jupiter.’
Benny Lockhart was a still centre of concentration, deflecting questions with the liquid calm of a Jedi master as his quiz partners fired them at him from alternate flanks.
‘Who did Ali beat to become World Heavyweight Champion for the first time?’ asked Rory, a man whose moustache could have earned him a place in the Village People.
‘Sonny Liston,’ answered Benny without hesitation.
A gaunt man with a bobbing Adam's apple, whose every utterance was punctuated with a hacking cough, hurled the next question. ‘Which is the only mammal that can't jump—ACH!?’
‘The elephant,’ said Benny with a weary sigh. ‘C'mon, the quiz is gonna be harder than that. Get serious.’
Jane glanced round the dark panelled walls of the pub, stained by decades of tobacco smoke, on which hung a series of heavily varnished paintings depicting various Sir Walter Scott heroes. Ivanhoe, Rob Roy and William Wallace gazed proudly from their golden frames. She knew that this quiz was important to her dad. He had left school at fourteen and never thought much of himself. It was the first time he'd ever been good at anything.
Jane could tell immediately that he didn't know. She caught sight of Rory's grinning mug, jubilant to have stumped the master. Benny hummed and hawed to buy some time.
‘Shakespeare's wife.’ He scratched his head. ‘William. Shakespeare's. Wife?’
Jane saw him look up hopefully at Scott's heroes on the wall, seeking inspiration. The portraits seemed to confer and then turn to him with a shrug. Got nothing. Sorry.
‘Hi, Dad.’
‘Darlin’!’ Benny spun round.
Things were still new between them, so they danced about as they figured out how to greet one another, ending up in a stiff embrace.
‘Anne Hathaway,’ she whispered.
‘What? Oh, right.’ Clearing his throat, he turned back to Rory and with a casual wave gave him the correct answer as if he'd known it all along.
As Benny ordered a round of drinks, choosing an orange juice for himself and one for Willie, Jane watched a familiar figure enter the pub, shake the rain from his Macintosh and bound up to her dad.
‘Hey, Monsieur L!’
‘Tommy! Good to see you, son. It's been ages.’
Jane couldn't help but notice her dad's face light up when he clocked Tom.
‘It has. How are you?’
‘Not bad, son. So, where've you been hiding yourself?
Tom glanced across the bar at Jane. She scowled.
‘From your daughter mostly.’
‘Aye, well, she's a tough customer that one, don't need to tell me. Wouldn't talk to me for years—not that I blame her. What'll you have?’
‘Nothing,’ said Jane. ‘He's not staying.’
‘Now Jane, c'mon …’ Benny began, but tailed off when he saw the expression on his daughter's face.
‘What are you doing here?’ she snapped at Tom.
‘My favourite author is being adapted by Scotland's most talented screenwriter.’ He made a big show of bowing to Willie, turning up his palms in a gesture that said ‘much kudos’.
Willie was settling himself happily into Tom's oily praise when Benny clicked his fingers. ‘Screenwriter, that was it,’ he said as if it had been bothering him for ages. ‘No’ screenprinter. Sorry. Go on.’
Willie's self-satisfied expression slipped for a moment.
Tom put an arm round his shoulders. ‘Naturally I want to know how the big man is getting on.’
‘I wouldn't say I'm the most talented,’ Willie said, demurring with a thoughtful shake of his head. He stopped and seemed to consider. ‘But, who else you gonna pick? Eh?’
Deciding this charade had gone on long enough Jane laid a hand on Tom's elbow and steered him to a corner of the bar.
‘You've got some cheek, showing up here like this,’ she rounded on him when they were out of earshot.
‘It's Friday. Where's my novel?’
Such an annoying man! ‘I'm working on it,’ she said tightly.
Tom shot a sideways glance at Willie. ‘So, you're not suffering with el toro blanco?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘You're not b-l-o-c-k-e-d?’
‘Why are you spelling it?’
‘It's nothing to be ashamed of, and there are plenty of strategies to overcome it.’
‘I'm not blocked.’
‘For instance, stimulants and narcotics. For a while there, Hunter S Thompson was permanently unblocked.’
She folded her arms. ‘I'm not blocked.’
‘OK, then change your surroundings. Take yourself off to that Highland hellhole–’
‘You mean the cottage?’
‘I seem to remember we had some particularly creative sessions up there.’ He winked. ‘If you know what I'm saying?’
‘Yes,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘There are single-cell organisms that know what you're saying.’
He angled his head thoughtfully. ‘But Willie doesn't know. About us?’
Jane started to answer, but the retort died on her lips.
‘Didn't think so,’ he said haughtily.
OK, that was it. Enough. She marched to the door and flung it open. A squall of blustery rain swept inside, stinging her face. ‘You have a hell of a high opinion of yourself, you know that? Well, let me tell you this, you are the biggest mistake I've ever made. I know that because I'm with someone who loves me now, someone who isn't afraid to say so. And, in case you haven't heard, I'm moving to a new publisher. For the first time in my life I'm truly happy, and it's no thanks to you. So, goodbye, Thomas Duval of Tristesse Books and late of Saint-Tropez. Oh, say hi to Roddy from me. I always liked him.’
Annoyingly, he appeared resolutely unaffected by her speech and merely squeezed past her, much closer than necessary, before stopping in the doorway.
‘Out of interest, Jane,’ he asked lightly, ‘what's the title of the new book?’
She hadn't expected that. Damn it. ‘The title? Of the new book?’
‘Yes. You have a title, right?’
‘Of course I have a title.’ She clasped and unclasped her hands.
‘Then you won't mind telling me. It'd be useful to announce it to the trade, put up a holding page on Amazon, that kind of thing.’
‘What if I do mind?’
A smile spread slowly across his face. ‘You don't have a title, do you?’
She hated that he could tell; he knew her better than she cared to admit.
In the silence that followed he leant in towards her; they were almost touching. ‘Until you deliver that manuscript,’ he growled, ‘you're still under contract to me. So, whatever's going on, snap out of it and get writing.’
Before she could stop him he had taken her head in his hands and planted a kiss on her lips.
‘Bye, Jane.’
And then the door banged shut and he was gone without a backwards look.
With a cry of disgust she wiped a hand across her face. What a cheek! She mimicked his smug ‘Bye, Jane.’
A quick glance at Willie determined, to her great relief, that he hadn't noticed the kiss. She'd seen what Willie could do to a punch-bag and, whatever she felt about Tom, she didn't want him beaten to a kung-fooey pulp. Not that the kiss had meant anything. It wasn't like she'd enjoyed it. She shuddered at the idea.
Willie made his way over, his big hands wrapped round drinks for her and the now departed Tom.
‘He's not gone, has he?’ He stared forlornly at the door. ‘But we never got a chance to talk about my screenplay.’
The door swung open again and the young woman in the red dress from the vintage store breezed in. She glided past Jane, right under Willie's nose.
‘Hi, Jane.’
‘Hi,’ replied Jane, gawping at the figure as she made her way across the packed floor of the bar without breaking stride.
It seemed impossible that she could pass unnoticed, but no one gave the stunning figure in their midst a second glance. Even Willie, who, Jane had noted on more than one occasion, could out-swivel an owl when it came to tracking a hot young thing, took no interest in her hypnotically swaying hips.
‘The French have always appreciated my work,’ he reflected. ‘Connoisseurs of film, oh aye.’
Leaving him to ponder his own genius, Jane followed Red across the bar.
‘We should have him round for dinner,’ said Willie, finally realising with an awkward start that he was talking to thin air. ‘Janey?’
Jane tipped open the door to the ladies’ toilets. A single energy-saving bulb cast a weak light across the dingy room.
Red stood over the only working washbasin, carefully applying lipstick in front of a spotted mirror. Something about her was compellingly familiar.
‘I know you, don't I?’ Jane moved closer. ‘Where did we meet?’
Red continued to paint her lips, eyes hidden behind her sunglasses.
‘Chapter 2,’ she said, between puckering up for the next application. ‘I'm in the opening chapter of course, but I'd say you only really get to know me from Chapter 2 on.’
Jane felt her skin prickle. ‘Darsie?’
Red turned to Jane, swept the sunglasses from her face and pouted, showing off a glossy red mouth. ‘What d'you think?’
Thought, certainly of the logical, coherent kind, was currently cowering on the unwashed toilet floor of Jane's mind with its arms over its head, taking a severe kicking from the thug of mental illness. ‘I think I'm talking to my protagonist.’
‘I prefer “heroine”.’ Extending the lipstick a notch, Darsie began to write on the mirror.
I'm sick, thought Jane. I've actually gone over the edge. ‘What … what are you doing here?’ she stuttered.
‘Nothing's happening in your novel, so …’ Darsie shrugged. And then added brightly, ‘I think they call it a mini-break.’
Mini-breakdown, more like. ‘But … you can't do that. Can you?’
‘To be honest, Jane, I needed to get away or I was going to go …’ she held her hands to either side of her head and widened her big, dark eyes ‘… totally mental. It's a very intense narrative. I personally have suffered a broken engagement and two bereavements so far.’
‘Yes, I know. Sorry.’ Jane winced. Why was she apologising to a fictional character?
‘Oh no, please don't apologise. I think it's going to make me a stronger person in the end.’
She was experiencing a hallucination, that was all. A temporary aberration brought on by overwork. All right, not overwork. You had to be actually working for that to happen. Maybe it was something in the sponge cake? Get a grip, Jane. She had to regain some semblance of control over this situation before it got any more out of hand. Darsie had said something about ‘the end’.
‘The end … yes. So you'll go back? Finish it?’
‘Oh, I can't do that, not without you.’ She finished writing on the mirror and held out the lipstick. It shone in the dim room like a small red flame. Jane took it unthinkingly.
‘Why can't you finish it, Jane? What are you afraid of?’
The toilet door opened and two women in bum-skimming dresses swanned in, brassy and loud, cackling over some shared joke.
Distracted by their arrival, when Jane looked again Darsie had vanished. She was conscious that the other women had fallen silent.
They stared suspiciously at the lipstick clutched in Jane's hand and at the mirror. Jane looked in horror at the phrase scrawled over the washbasin where Darsie had been standing.
Where's my happy ending?