Chapter Seven
Riley flipped to the back of Great Expectations, but instead of beginning to read, she turned the pages, frowning.
‘What’s up?’ said Joe.
‘There’s a long appendix at the back,’ she said. ‘But this bit’s interesting. It says Dickens changed the ending.’
‘Changed the ending?’ Erin found the concept absurd. Things ended the way they ended. They weren’t meant to be chopped about after the fact. Where was the certainty in that? ‘What do you mean?’
Riley glanced up. ‘Shall I read what it says?’
‘Go on,’ said Hafsa.
‘It says, “Dickens, at the last moment, changed his original ending. His friend, Edward Bulwer-Lytton the novelist, pleaded with him to unite Pip with Estella.”’
‘Goodness,’ said Susan. ‘It would have been a very different ending if they really had gone their separate ways for good. I don’t think I would have liked that at all.’
Riley continued, ‘Dickens said, “I have put in as pretty a little piece of writing as I could, and have no doubt the story will be more acceptable through the alteration.”’ She blew out her cheeks.
‘That’s messing with my head a bit. This is such a well-known book, it’s become bigger than the writer, do you know what I mean?
I suppose I always thought all books come out fully formed, especially well-known ones like this.
It feels like it was always meant to be this way and now we’re hearing there were alternative endings.
Mad. Obviously I know a bit about Dickens, I went to that Dickens museum in Kent with school, but I never really thought about him writing the words on the page, making the decisions about what happens to the characters. That’s fucked with my tiny mind.’
‘But surely you edit what you write for your performances? You don’t resolutely stick to the first draft, do you?’ said Susan.
‘Yeah, I do. It would be a pile of shite if I didn’t.’ She wobbled her head. ‘It might still be a pile of shite afterwards, to be fair, who am I to judge?’
‘It’s not,’ said Erin. She might not like the way the conversation was going, but she wouldn’t let her talented friend denigrate her own skills.
‘Thanks.’ Riley slapped her hands on her thighs. ‘I never thought of someone like Dickens going through the process, you know? It’s like imagining Shakespeare crossing out words and changing characters’ names and things like that. Imagine if Cleopatra was called Sharon in the first draft.’
‘Well, that was never going to happen, since Cleopatra was the actual Queen of Egypt, not Sharon,’ said Susan, haughtily.
‘Whatever. You get my point, though.’
‘Yep,’ said Adam, looking a bit too pleased with himself in Erin’s opinion. ‘So, what I think we can take away from this is that reading the last page doesn’t necessarily tell you the whole story.’
Erin resisted the urge to close her eyes and sigh. The last thing she needed was for him to think he was right about reading the last page first being a terrible idea. ‘Back to Great Expectations. I’m just glad Dickens went with the ending that would be most satisfying for the reader.’
‘That’s worth a discussion in itself,’ said Susan. ‘Rewriting endings is a fascinating subject, don’t you think? I wonder how many authors do that before the book goes to print.’
‘I bet loads of them do,’ said Mercy. ‘It happens a lot when books get made into films, doesn’t it?
I can’t tell you the shock I got when I watched My Sister’s Keeper.
The new ending changed the whole trajectory of the story.
I sat there blinking, thinking I must’ve misremembered the book, before I looked it up and found out they’d intentionally changed it. ’
‘I like the idea that it’s not set in stone,’ said Susan. ‘Imagine if life was like that, if we could write our own endings and change them, if we got one we didn’t like?’
‘What would you like your last page to be?’ said Hafsa.
Susan narrowed her eyes. ‘What an interesting question. I’d have to give it some thought.’
Riley bounced in her seat, her eyes bright. ‘Top idea! Let’s do it. Let’s all write our own endings.’
‘I’m not sure I want to commit my death to paper,’ said Erin, grumpily. She wanted to get on with choosing a book. All this pontificating was ruining the usual rhythm of the group. ‘It’s too morbid for my tastes.’
‘I don’t mean how we die,’ said Riley. ‘I mean our happy ever after, kind of thing. You know, how you’d like the story of your life to turn out, or where you’d like your life to go if you were the author of it …
which I suppose we all are, if you think about it.
’ She surveyed the group. ‘Am I making sense?’
‘Like, what would happen if all my dreams come true?’ said Hafsa.
‘Kind of,’ said Riley. ‘But not like a fairytale. More like what would you change in your real life to give you the most satisfying next chapters.’
‘I know what mine would be,’ said Mercy, her cheeks rounding as she grinned.
‘I’d be on a Caribbean island, sipping a pina colada.
’ She held a finger aloft. ‘No, wait. I’d be at a show on Broadway.
’ She gritted her teeth, ‘Or in Greenland watching the Northern Lights. Gah. I don’t know which to choose.
’ She chuckled and squished her cheeks between her palms.
‘You could choose all of them,’ said Joe. ‘It’s your story. Why limit yourself?’
‘Ha. Good point. I have fanciful ideas for a woman who’s never left the country, don’t I?’
‘I still find that hard to believe,’ said Adam, his brow ridged.
‘It’s true. I got a passport when I retired, but I’ve never used it.’
Erin watched Adam’s face for any sign of judgement, but he just appeared aghast. ‘What would constitute a good ending for you?’ She faced him, hoping she’d managed to keep the challenge out of her voice.
He raised his head and scratched under his chin.
‘I don’t know, really.’ He turned to Riley.
‘What about you?’ He spoke quickly, and Erin got the distinct impression he didn’t want to answer the question.
Typical journalist, wanting to get everyone else to share their stories while keeping his own close to his chest.
‘Mine’s easy,’ she said, dipping her chin coyly. ‘I want to headline a big show.’
‘A show?’
‘Riley’s a spoken word performer,’ said Erin. ‘She’s very good.’
‘She’s big on TikTok,’ said Joe, nodding. ‘Whatever that means.’
‘You know very well what that means,’ said Riley, leaning over and tapping Joe on the knee as he chuckled.
Tybalt opened his amber eyes and viewed them both with apparent disdain at being disturbed, before closing them again.
‘Don’t you pretend you’re some old duffer who’s behind the times.
’ She turned back to Adam. ‘And I’m afraid big is an exaggeration.
I’ve got a good following, but not enough to be booked for the kind of gigs I dream about. ’
‘A fellow writer. I’ll look you up,’ said Adam, appearing suitably impressed.
‘What about you, Joe?’ Hafsa said. ‘What would you write?’
The smile dropped from his face. ‘I’m not sure I should say.’
‘You’re not harbouring secret desires that would shock us to our core, are you?’ said Adam, winking at Joe.
‘Are you sure you don’t work for the tabloids?’ said Susan, eyeing Adam suspiciously.
‘Promise,’ said Adam. ‘I’m just a nosey sod.’
Joe laughed, then his blue eyes misted. ‘No, nothing that interesting. I’m worried about being disloyal to my Nuala, I suppose.’
‘You could never be disloyal to her, Joe.’ In her mind’s eye, Erin saw Joe at Nuala’s bedside when the cancer turned her into a fragile bird. She saw the love in his eyes and remembered the care he gave her until her last breath.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It feels wrong to say it, but I’ve recently been thinking how nice it would be to have some company in my dotage.
Someone to share things with. No one could replace Nuala.
She was a one-off. But the last five years have been long and sometimes the loneliness …
’ He trailed off, shifting the cat to one side so he could take a tissue from the pocket of his trousers and blow his nose.
Erin reached out and squeezed his shoulder. ‘I think Nuala would want you to have company,’ she said softly. ‘She’d want what’s best for you because she loved you. It’s not disloyal, Joe.’
He put his hand over hers and smiled sadly. ‘What about you, my girl? How does your story end?’
Erin tensed. She’d been hoping she would get away without anyone asking her.
Now that the future of her café looked bleak, she didn’t have the first clue how her life would turn out, and that scared her to death.
‘I’ll have to give that some thought,’ she said briskly, then stood, needing to get away from the expectant gaze of her friends. ‘Anyone for another drink?’