Not Another Happy Ending by David Solomons Page B

behind the smile and the hair: a man not afraid to look her in the eye and say what he felt. And a Scottish man too, which was the biggest surprise. She knew other men of his generation, barely able to speak, only ever dredging up passion on the football terraces or at the dog track. But Willie had left all of that behind to go and seek his fortune in Hollywood. Whether he had hit gold, she had no idea, but she sensed that he had found something infinitely more enriching.
    ‘I know this isn't cool, but, what the hell.’ He opened the novel in front of her at the title page and fished a pen from his jacket. ‘Could you make it to Willie?’
    She laughed. ‘I'd be delighted.’
    He hunched closer so that they couldn't be overheard. ‘If you don't mind talking shop for a minute, who has the film rights?’
    ‘Um, no one.’
    ‘You're kidding me. Well, they'll be snapped up now. Who you with?’
    ‘Who am I
with
?’
    ‘Representation. Who's your agent?’
    ‘Um …’
    Willie sat back. ‘You don't have an agent?’
    ‘I never needed one. Tom … my publisher drew up the contract and I—-’
    His face twisted in horror. ‘Stop! Please, you're killing me. Here.’ He dug out a small silver box of business cards and pressed one into her hand. ‘My card. My agent's Priscilla Hess at Clarion Creative Management.’ He ran a finger along a name and number printed at the foot of the card. ‘That's her direct line. Call her.’
    ‘OK.’
    ‘I'm serious. Actually, forget it, I'll get her to call you.’ He motioned to the room and beyond. ‘Jane, what you've got to realise is that out there it's just sharks and leeches.’ He laid a hand on her shoulder. ‘You need looking after.’ Then with a world-weary sigh and a shake of the head that suggested he knew what was down the road for her—that he had perhaps been down a similar road himself—Willie gathered his signed book and got up to leave.
    ‘Thanks for this. By the way, I really meant it—what I said on stage—you've got a rare talent. Be careful they don't take too much advantage of you.’ He smiled ruefully and began to walk away.
    Suddenly, Jane knew she wanted him to stay.
    ‘D'you want some champagne?’
    He froze in his tracks, then turned round with a pained expression. ‘I can't.’
    ‘Oh, I understand,’ she said, trying to make light of the rejection. ‘You've probably got some Hollywood starlet waiting at the Ritz …’
    ‘It's not that,’ he gestured to the bottle. ‘I'm off the booze. Seven years sober.’
    A layer of Willie's brash exterior rubbed off with his admission. He looked like a man far from home. And Jane couldn't help reflect that before her dad had shown up in the bookshop three months ago she had often imagined him returning to her with just those words.
    ‘We could just talk,’ Jane offered.
    He extended a hand. ‘Or we could just dance.’
    The dance floor was full of middle-aged revellers shimmying and bobbing to the song thumping out of two speakers the size of coffins. She knew this one. She let him steer her into the throng. He was a smooth mover and full of what they called in her town, great patter. But there was more to him than that. She had already glimpsed some part of it; she resolved to unearth the rest. He was damaged and she would heal him.
    The song blasted across the dance floor as Willie whirled her around. She threw back her head, and for a moment she noticed a figure at the edge of her vision. It was Tom, a statue on the periphery of the frenetic party. The only cloud on her horizon.

CHAPTER 8
    ‘Dry the Rain’, The Beta Band, 1998, Regal
    S UCCESS 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)