Happily Ever After Read online

  A shadow fell over the table. “All right, mate?” Alex said, leaping up.

  “Hi, mate. Hi, everyone. Hi, Elle.”

  “Hi, Fred,” Elle said, her heart thumping in her chest. “How’re you?” she said nonchalantly, flicking her hair and sounding uninterested—this was something she’d picked up from observing Cara, who had men flocking round her like bees round honey.

  Fred nodded. “Good, good. It’s nice to see you, Elle, how’s the first day been?”

  “Good,” she said, pleased. The girl from work was grinning expectantly up at her. “Yeah, this is one of my new work colleagues,” she said. “Um…”

  Fred waited, as Karen stared at her.

  “I’m sorry,” Elle blurted out eventually. “I can’t remember your name. I’m really sorry. I—I met loads of people today.”

  “That’s OK. It’s Sam!” Sam stood up. “Hiya! This is my boyfriend, Dave. I’m Sam! What’s your name?”

  Fred smiled at Elle. “Go on,” he said. “What’s my name?”

  “Er—” Elle couldn’t believe it, but she had to think for a moment. “God. It’s Fred. I’m going mad.”

  Fred sat down, next to Alex, who slapped him on the back, while Cara smoothed her short Afro back from her forehead, and took another sip from her drink. Karen smiled at Fred ingratiatingly, while Elle, thoroughly flustered now, stared at the ground, thinking she’d better go to bed early, and then remembering with a sinking heart that the bed that awaited her was orange-and-green seventies acrylic, and had fag butts stuck down its back. She was so tired all of a sudden, all she wanted to do was sleep, get into work, and attack this job properly. Tomorrow is another day, as Scarlett O’Hara would say.

  “So—” Sam leaned forward, speaking loudly into her ear. “Do you want to come and see the flat? I mean, I don’t want to pressure you or anything, but it’s pretty nice and cheap, and I’m going to be spending lots of time with Dave, obviously, so I won’t be around much, and it’s Ladbroke Grove, and you could move in right away, and we could go to work together and be like amigos, you know, look out for each other.” She lowered her voice. “I think it’s actually amazing, in fact, don’t you? The universe is telling us it’s supposed to happen, otherwise why would me and Dave come in here the same night you’re in here?”

  There were several things Elle could have said to this speech, and if she’d been older and more jaded she might have done, but she was sick of sleeping on a manky sofa, and she wanted to put her books out and her CD player up.

  “I’d love to come and see it,” she said, turning to Sam. “When’s good for you? Tomorrow?”

  “Yeah!” said Sam, clapping her hands together. “Amazing!” She clinked her glass against Elle’s. “You’ll love it. What a day! Just think, this morning we hadn’t even met!”

  This morning seemed to be a thousand years ago. All the things that had happened. It felt as if, finally, she was on her way somewhere. Elle pulled discreetly at the armpits of her raspberry sweater. Amidst the maelstrom of new faces and facts she’d learned something concrete today, at least. Don’t wear tight-fitting, pale-colored, wool-mix knits when you’re nervous.

  September 1997

  ON THE FIRST day of the month Elle woke early, with a pounding headache. Her throat was dry, her eyes puffy and sore from the crying she’d done the previous day. The room was too stuffy. She opened the window and lay on her back, looking up at the ceiling, blinking. Cool air blew in from the street, though Ladbroke Grove was quiet, and Elle knew suddenly that, even though it was only the first day of September, autumn was here. She sat up in bed, rubbing her tender eyes, as the memory of the previous thirty-six hours slowly returned.

  She wished she didn’t have to go to work. Could she just call in sick? She’d drunk an awful lot over the weekend, which was partly why she felt so dreadful, but it was the crying too; she’d cried all day. She had forgotten how crying always made her feel rubbish the next day, as if she’d been beaten up and left for dead.

  Elle and Libby had been at Kenwood House on Saturday night, listening to the open-air concert (on the other side of the boundary, so they didn’t have to pay). They’d taken a blanket, some crisps and wine, and though they didn’t have a corkscrew and Elle had had to jab the cork into the bottle with her hair clip, it had been loads of fun. It always was fun with Libby, whether they were eating pasta at La Rosa, the tiny Italian place in Soho that only bouncers and strippers frequented, or arguing drunkenly over books (Elle, at Posy’s recommendation, had just read the Cazalet Chronicles by Elizabeth Jane Howard, and thought they were the best books she’d ever read; Libby refused to touch them on account of their pastelly covers), or films (Elle wept through The English Patient, Libby snorted with laughter every time burnt-out Ralph Fiennes appeared on-screen), or boys in the office (to Elle’s fury, Libby tormented her about her alleged crush on Rory, and Elle couldn’t come up with anyone in return, for as Libby said, “Publishing boys are total losers, Elle, get a grip”).

  They’d ended up at the Dome in Hampstead, and drunk even more. It had been a brilliant evening. When Elle had fantasized about the life in London she’d wanted, it had been something like this, sitting in cafés discussing life and books long into the night, feeling the city under her feet, the still-terrifying but exhilarating sense of possibility out there. Daily life at Bluebird was alternately monotonous and scary: after four months she was starting to see just how far away was her dream of being a glamorous editor. You didn’t get to be a glamorous editor by sending faxes to important literary agents called Shirley that began, “Dear Shitley.” Glamorous editors didn’t leave prawn sandwiches in filing cabinets, stinking out the office for a week with a smell so awful Elspeth became convinced they were being haunted by the ghost of a disgruntled author. They didn’t photocopy four hundred pages of manuscript upside down, resulting in an entirely blank pile of paper, and they certainly didn’t pass out in a corner of the pub after too many house whites, to the amusement of their colleagues. Yes. Elle knew she had a lot to learn.

  The two of them had stayed out so late that they were shivering in the night air as they said their good-byes. As ever, Elle had felt guilty, creeping back to Ladbroke Grove at two in the morning, but Sam had been fast asleep. However, the next morning she woke Elle up by knocking on her door in floods of tears, her eyes huge, her fingers in her mouth.

  “Princess Di’s dead,” she said, and Elle made her repeat it, because it just didn’t sound true.

  They had spent all day crying, watching TV and listening to Capital play sad songs, going out in their pajamas to the shop next door to get chocolate and Bombay mix and cheap wine and now it was Monday, and life was supposed to go on as normal, and of course it would, because it was stupid, Elle hadn’t actually known Princess Diana. But, like so many girls, she felt as if she had, as if she—not that she belonged to her, that was stupid. But as if she sort of knew her, that if they’d ever met they’d have been friends.

  Tears pricked Elle’s eyes as she remembered the coffin coming off the plane, the Prince of Wales standing ready to greet it, his face lined with grief. “The breaking of so great a thing should make a greater crack”: that was Shakespeare, wasn’t it? Oh, how pretentious it was, quoting Shakespeare. If Libby could hear her, she’d laugh her head off. Elle pulled the duvet over her, the Monday morning feeling of dread stronger than ever.

  Suddenly, footsteps came padding loudly towards the bathroom, and the door was slammed with a bang. Elle winced, preparing herself. The radio came on, Chris Evans’s voice slow and clear.

  “It’s Monday and, well, look, it’s a hard day for us all, and we want to remember a wonderful woman, so here’s Mariah Carey and ‘Without You.’ In memory of our Queen of Hearts.”

  “Yooooou…” came Sam’s voice, shrieking tonelessly through the paper-thin walls. “. . . WITHOUT YOOOOOOOU…”

  Sam was “a morning person,” as she frequently told Elle when Elle asked her to please not tuneles
sly wail “Mr. Lover-man” at 6:45 a.m. Being a morning person, it seemed, meant not being bothered by the fact that you were totally tone deaf. Elle turned onto her stomach and screamed into her pillow, as she did every single morning. If she was ever called for jury service and there was someone on trial who’d killed their flatmate or neighbor for something similar, Elle knew she’d have no hesitation in finding them not guilty. Every evening, she told herself Sam wasn’t so bad, that actually they had a laugh over a glass of wine and some trashy TV. And every morning she woke up to what sounded like a drunk tramp gargling with petrol and razor blades, and she felt murder in her heart.

  She even blamed Sam for the breakup of her semi-relationship with Fred. They’d seen each other, admittedly rather halfheartedly—he’d gone away for two weeks and not told her—during the summer. The second or third time he’d stayed over, Sam had woken them both up by singing the Cardigans’ “Lovefool” in such a painful way that Fred had left without having a shower, claiming he had an early meeting and needed to get home and pick up a suit. Since Fred was, as far as Elle knew, working in a café off Portobello while writing his screenplay that was going to win him an Oscar, this was clearly a lie, but she couldn’t blame him. He hadn’t called her since. Elle had tried to mind, but she didn’t, to be honest. Fred belonged to the era of sleeping on sofas, watching daytime TV, and feeling totally hopeless, and that all seemed years, not months, ago.

  Forty minutes or so later, Elle was showered and dressed. It was still early, just after eight, and as she stood in the kitchen, her hands wrapped around a mug of tea, she sifted through her feelings, trying to work out why she still felt she’d missed something. Was it Princess Di, throwing her off? Or was it work? The trouble was, she could never remember anything specifically she hadn’t done. It was the horror that there was another bomb, an uncollected urgent manuscript waiting in the post room, or another Dear Shitley fiasco, just waiting to explode, that she feared the most. In her darker days—and this was one of them—she wasn’t sure what the future held. How on earth was she supposed to show them she’d be a good editor when no one had the faintest idea who she was, except maybe vaguely as the idiot who’d ordered Rory a cab that took him to Harlow instead of Heathrow? She was still staring into space as Sam came in.

  “Hiya,” she said. “What a strange morning. I feel very emotional still. Do you feel emotional?”

  “Yes,” said Elle coolly, the post-shower-singing fury having not quite worn off. “It’s weird.”

  Sam looked pleased. Her nose twitched. “We’re so similar. Ready for another Monday?”

  “Not really,” said Elle. “I feel like crap.” She sighed.

  “I don’t,” said Sam. She tucked her hair behind her ears and slung her flowery Accessorize bag over her shoulder. “But then I’m not the one who stayed out with Libby all night Saturday! Am I!”

  She laughed, just a little too heartily but Elle, still cross, bit her tongue. Sam always wanted to come along with Elle. Elle hadn’t minded at first, but after Sam had fallen over onto Karen’s birthday cake at her party in July and then got so drunk she’d passed out at Elle’s friend Matty’s housewarming in Clapham under a pile of coats in the hallway, Elle had started reining in the invitations. They were flatmates, they weren’t joined at the hip. She’d spent her university years being the one who took the drunken mess home and she was damned if she was going to do it anymore.

  “I’m off,” Sam said. She was always in by nine, and usually left before Elle. “You in this evening?”

  Then Elle remembered. She said, “I knew there was something I had to remember. Rhodes is coming over tonight.”

  “Your brother?”

  Elle nodded. “I totally forgot. That’s why…” She trailed off, and added, “I haven’t seen him for—” She tried to remember. “Well, since Christmas, and then he left early.”

  “How come?”

  “Had a big row with Mum.” Elle didn’t say any more.

  Sam picked up her rucksack and changed the subject. “Wow, this manuscript’s heavy. I’ll see you in a bit?”

  Putting her mug in the sink, Elle grabbed her bag. “I’ll come with you,” she said. She double-locked the flimsy woodchip door, and followed Sam down the stairs, out into the September sunshine.

  “Did you finish it?” Sam said. Elle looked blank. “Polly Pearson? Isn’t it brill?”

  Her handbag was suddenly heavy on her shoulder. Elle peeked at it, saw a thick manuscript, untouched since Friday. “Oh, my God.” Elle’s face paled. No wonder her hungover brain was trying to tell her she’d forgotten something. It was two things. Rhodes tonight and now… and now this. She clutched the heavy bag. Of course. “I promised Rory… I said I’d finish it over the weekend.”

  “But you’ve read most of it,” Sam said perkily, holding the straps of her rucksack and whistling as she strode along, like one of those stupid creatures in the Girl Guide handbook. Elle looked at her with loathing.

  “That’s not the point—” Elle squeezed her eyes tightly shut. “I wanted to gather my thoughts, have a proper response. Be… you know, like Libby. Have something to say.” Rory and Posy never asked her opinion on anything. She was virtually invisible, to them, to Felicity, to everyone. This was the first manuscript about which they’d said, “Elle, we’d like to know what you think.” As though they were interested in her opinion. Libby was the one who could chat fearlessly to Rory and Jeremy in the pub, whom the authors knew when they rang up: “Yes, Paris, it is Libby,” she’d say, if she picked up Elle’s phone for her. “How are you? What can I do for you today?” She was able to go up to agents at launch parties and introduce herself, and she always knew the right thing to say: “Hi, I’m Libby, Felicity’s assistant? Yes, we spoke last week! I just wanted to say how much I loved Broken SWAT Team / Mother of All Ills / Lanterns Over Mandalay.”

  Sam cut in on her thoughts. “Hey, do you want to go to Kensington Palace after work and lay some flowers?”

  “No,” said Elle crossly, though she did want to, very much. She pulled the dog-eared manuscript out of her bag and started reading it as she walked along the street. “I need to finish this before we get in.”

  “Fine,” said Sam. “I’ll hold you.” She took her elbow and grinned at Elle, as Elle walked off the curb. A bus swerved to avoid her, then hooted loudly, the passengers shaking their fists at the pair of them.

  SAM GABBED ALL the way in on the Tube, about how much she loved Dave (though Elle had met him but once since she’d moved in), and about how her sister had told her yesterday if the baby was a girl she’d call it Diana Frances, in tribute. But Elle had become adept at blocking out Sam’s voice. She smoothed the manuscript on her lap and began to skim the last seventy pages, eyes darting in panic over the double-spaced lines. It was eight thirty. She had an hour.

  The novel was called Polly Pearson Finds a Man, and unusually it had been sent to Rory, not Posy. It was by an Irish fashion journalist called Eithne Reilly, and already there was an offer on the table of £150,000 for two books, a sum so huge Elle found it hilarious.

  “Jeremy says everyone’s going to go mad for it,” said Sam. “Oh. We’re at Oxford Circus already, isn’t it amazing how quickly the journey goes when there’s someone to chat to!”

  Elle looked up, wild-eyed. “Help me. Does Colette get her comeuppance?”

  “Yes, she gets fired. And it turns out Roland is a real bastard, and Max is lovely, and she’s got it all wrong, because Colette lied to her about the Gucci account.”

  Elle turned to the last page.

  “Damn you, Polly!” Max Reardon said, striding towards her. “I want you to come back to Dublin with me. As my wife, not as my features editor!”

  “Max…” Polly stared at him with huge blue eyes, filling up with water and running down her cheeks. “Oh, Max… Yes, please! Only one thing?”

  “What, darling?” said Max, enfolding her in his arms and kissing her.

  “I want the job
too. And I know what my first commission will be. ‘How to Find a Man.’”

  The End

  “That’ll have to do,” she said, stuffing the manuscript into her bag. “At least I know what happens in the end. Big surprise, it ends happily ever after.” Elle followed Sam as the Tube doors slammed open.

  “Isn’t it amazing? Did you like it?” Sam said, as they climbed onto the escalator, surrounded by silent fellow commuters.

  “Sort of,” said Elle. “It’s so cheesy but it’s romantic. I loved Max even though he’s got the same name as my awful ex, which shows it must be good.” Libby had thought it was rubbish, but Libby would. Elle couldn’t help it, she’d enjoyed it, but was that wrong?

  “I couldn’t put it down,” said Sam. “So funny! The bit in the All Bar One!” She hugged herself, and then whipped out her Travelcard. “Here we are, back on Tottenham Court Road,” she sang. “What a lovely—”

  “Look, Sam,” Elle said, suddenly desperate for a moment of peace and quiet, “I’m going to treat myself to a coffee and a croissant. I’ll see you in the office. Don’t wait for me,” she added, amazed at how firm her voice was.

  Elle stood in the queue, hugging her bag to her chest, smelling the coffee and feeling calmer already. Yes, this was a good idea. Sure, it was £3 she didn’t have, but she needed a pick-me-up, because all that crying and wine-drinking had left her feeling very feeble. She’d think of something intelligent to say about Polly Pearson as she walked to Bedford Square, and all would be well.

  As Elle turned off Tottenham Court Road, clutching her paper cup of coffee, with her croissant in a waxy paper bag, she inhaled again, and smiled. It was a beautiful day now, the trees in the square at their darkest green, about to turn. She was early, too, for once. “Polly Pearson is a serviceable piece of chick lit, which I found to be—” No, too pompous.