The Forgotten Guide to Happiness: The unmissable debut, perfect for anyone who loved THE KEEPER OF LOST THINGS. Sophie Jenkins
‘Sorry. I’m not finding it. If you have your account number—’
‘I give you my money! Hundreds! Thousands!’ the old man cried out in panic.
Imagine that! What a nightmare! Putting all your money in a bank and suddenly they’ve got no record of you.
A slim, blonde woman stood over me. ‘Are you waiting to see an advisor?’
‘Yes,’ I said, so I don’t know how the story turned out.
Better than mine, I hope.
We walked over to one of the empty desks. ‘How can I help you?’ she asked warmly as I sat down, which led me into a false sense of security. She reminded me of Meryl Streep, with her glasses and her up-do, so I told her the whole sorry story about my book being turned down. As the horror of it came back afresh, I asked her for an overdraft to keep me going until I wrote another novel and got my advance.
She turned her attention from me to the screen. ‘You already have an unauthorised overdraft which is costing you five pounds a day,’ she said blandly.
‘Five pounds a day? No wonder I’ve got no money. If you could just authorise that overdraft so that I don’t have to throw money away, that will be great.’ I was showing her how astute I was, financially speaking.
‘You have already exceeded your overdraft limit.’
‘Well, I’d like to extend it. It’s just temporary, until I get my advance.’
‘What date are you expecting to receive that?’ she asked, fingers poised so she could type it in.
I was starting to feel uneasy. ‘I don’t have an exact date because I have to write a new storyline first but I’ll do it as soon as possible, obviously.’
She frowned and I remembered I didn’t actually like Meryl Streep much.
‘Approximately how long will it take?’ she asked. Her voice was a couple of degrees colder.
‘Well …’ I began, getting panicky – it was giving me writer’s block just thinking about it, ‘I actually know two authors who’ve written a whole book in a fortnight.’ One of them is a woman with an overactive thyroid. If I ever have to have an illness, that’s the one I’d choose because it revs you up – the body is working perpetual overtime and you can get a lot done with that spare energy. An overactive thyroid is like natural cocaine. On the minus side, like cocaine, it makes you more prone to having a heart attack, but I’m just saying, if.
She lowered her fingers and turned her attention from the screen to me. ‘You’re saying you’ll only get paid once you’ve written a new book?’
‘Yes.’ I shouldn’t have poured my heart out to her – bad mistake. I thought she’d feel sorry for me, but here she was holding it against me already.
She looked at her screen again. ‘You currently don’t have sufficient funds to cover your direct debits.’
‘Exactly! That’s why I’m here.’
She was so frosty you would have thought I was asking her to lend me money out of her own pocket. Where was the compassion, the eagerness to help?
After a bit more tapping and clicking, she said, ‘As you have reached your overdraft limit, we can’t extend it. A limit is a limit,’ she explained, enunciating clearly.
It was the way she said it that annoyed me. ‘Hey, I know what a limit is! Words are my life!’ Knowing how ridiculous I sounded, but I was desperate. This wasn’t going at all the way I’d imagined. I hadn’t realised that banks love you when you have money, and they go off you when you don’t, like the worst sort of friends. ‘So what do I do now? If you stop my direct debits I won’t be able to pay my rent and I’ll be homeless. Is that what you want?’
‘I would like to remind you not to raise your voice.’ She pointed to a sign by the window which read: Abuse of advisors will not be tolerated.
I’d always wondered why that notice was there, and now I knew. I jumped to my feet in frustration.
‘Well you’re not getting this,’ I said, waving my royalty cheque. Impulsively, I tore it up and threw the bits over the table. My heart was pumping hard as I walked towards the stairs.
One day’s overdraft money lost in a pointless gesture. I immediately regretted it.
Back home, I lay on the lemon sofa and realised to my dismay I was going to have to ring my mother for help. She lives in Loano, Italy. (Literally, the last resort.) She can detect laziness even over the phone so as I pressed her number I sat on the edge of my desk so as to sound alert and also to enjoy the view which in all probability wasn’t going to be mine for much longer.
‘Pronto!’ she answered impatiently.
‘Mum? It’s me. Lana,’ I added for clarity.
‘Oh, this is a surprise,’ she said.
She’d been a teacher, and then a head teacher, and after the divorce she’d taken early retirement and gone to the Italian Riviera to boss a whole new country around for a change. I can spot a teacher a mile off. They’re the ones telling people off.
I took a deep breath and once again I felt the burning shame of failure. ‘Listen, I’ve got something to tell you. My new book got turned down yesterday.’
‘Got? You mean it was turned down.’
See?
Now that she’d corrected my grammar, she waited for me to go on.
‘Well, that’s it,’ I said. ‘That’s what I wanted to tell you.’
‘Oh,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps now is a good time to think about doing something else.’
‘But I don’t want to.’ My voice started to rise. Right. Be calm. Regroup. Clear throat. ‘I didn’t call you for advice. The point is, without Mark, I can’t afford next month’s rent.’
She was silent for a long moment. ‘You’re calling to borrow money?’
‘Yes, please. It’s just until I come up with a new story.’
‘Why don’t you try asking the bank?’
Desperation made me flippant. ‘I have tried them, and now I’m trying you.’
‘I see.’ She managed to put a surprising amount of disapproval into that short sentence.
When I was little, someone gave her a book by Libby Purves called How (Not) to Be a Perfect Mother, and she’s stuck rigidly to the concept ever since.
After a long silence, she sighed deeply. ‘Do you want to come and stay here for a while?’
Did I? It wasn’t the solution I would have chosen, but it was still a solution and I grasped it, trying not to sound too eager.
‘I sort of do,’ I said.
‘Sort of do?’
‘Is that not grammatically correct?’
‘Come then, if that’s what you’d like.’
Honestly, no wonder I prefer making things up to real life. ‘But would you like me to come? You know, with enthusiasm?’
‘You’re my daughter,’ she said, which wasn’t really an answer.
I probably expect too much of her. She’s never been a Cath Kidston, cupcake-baking type of mother. If I went to stay it would like having twenty-four-hour private tuition from her. And from her point of view, she would be wasting her teaching skills on a bratty and reluctant pupil. We love each other but we don’t get each other in the slightest.
I’m guessing this was going through her mind, too. ‘Why don’t you go back to journalism?’ she