The man sighed. ‘Look. While I applaud your passion for her – and I think your costume is spot-on, by the way – I’m trying to run a hotel here, and if you keep shouting, you’ll wake up my guests.’ He shut the window and pulled down the blind. Jane knocked on the door again. ‘I’m calling them now!’ the man shouted.
Jane stepped backwards onto the street and shook her head. Her mind raced with confusion. She waited outside Sydney House. An hour passed, but no one came or went. It rained, and the icy water shocked her skin. Jane shivered in the darkness; she needed to find shelter else she transform into an ice sculpture. She gave up on Sydney House for now and walked back over Pulteney Bridge, returning to St Swithin’s, her father’s church. She climbed through the loose iron-glass window towards the rear and jumped down inside. She located a stash of red velvet prayer pillows and lay them on the floor. The cold marble made her shiver but as soon as she rested her head, the nervous energy of the day drained away and exhaustion gripped her. She closed her eyes and soon fell asleep.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Jane woke to a blunt object prodding her shoulder. She opened her eyes. An old man wearing a clergyman’s collar was poking her with a walking stick.
‘Do you need some crack, dear?’ he whispered.
Jane rubbed her eyes. Next to the parson stood an old woman.
‘Enough with the crack chat. You’re obsessed,’ the old woman said to him. From the way she squinted at him, with decades’ worth of resignation, Jane figured the woman was his wife. ‘You think everyone is on crack.’
The parson shrugged. ‘She looks like she could do with some.’ He turned back to Jane. ‘There’s a funny-looking fellow by the stop for the thirty-nine bus. Name’s Scab. He’s reasonable, I hear. He’ll do you a deal,’ he said.
‘Do you know George Austen?’ asked Jane. ‘He was once the curate here. He’s my father.’
The parson shook his head. ‘Before my time, perhaps. I don’t mean to be un-Christlike, but I called the police.’
Jane sat up, horrified. ‘For me? Why did you do such a thing?’
‘I’m sorry,’ said the parson. ‘I saw you sleeping here, and I panicked! That’s why I’m telling you about Scab and the crack. I feel bad about the whole calling-the-police thing. I thought maybe a nice bit of crack would make up for it. Do you like crack?’
Jane squinted. ‘I am unsure.’
‘See, Bill,’ exclaimed the old woman, ‘she’s not a drug addict!’ She shook his arm. She wore a dress painted with sunflowers. The fabric rippled in the morning breeze which blew through the window Jane had left open.
‘Yes, Pert. Thank you,’ said the parson, pulling the window shut with a grimace. ‘I see that now. But what was I supposed to think with her sleeping on the floor?’ He placed a hand on Jane’s shoulder. ‘To recap. I’ve called the police. That may have been rash. But let’s look on the bright side. Now you know, you’ve got a head start. I wouldn’t dawdle.’
The oak front doors crashed open. Two men dressed in black entered the church and paused, looking around. ‘That was quick,’ said the parson.
Jane sprang to her feet. ‘Are those the constables?’
‘I think one is a sergeant, to be fair,’ the parson said. He squinted at the two men as they walked down the aisle. ‘But yes.’
‘What should I do?’ Jane pleaded.
‘Make a run for it!’ said the parson. ‘You can escape out the back.’
Jane ran for the altar. She darted into the transept to exit through the back door. The wall of the transept held a brass plate. Jane ran past it but was forced to stop at the sight of her name.
Here worshipped Jane Austen 1801–1805.
Jane gazed at the plate in stunned silence. She read it again. It was her name. Her heart raced. She shook her head; the two men dressed in black bounded into the transept and Jane had no choice but to leave the plate which bore her name and escape out the back of the church.
Jane tripped into the daylight and gasped at the sight before her.
It looked like Bath for the most part. The honeystone terraces lined the row of Northgate Street, as they always did. The Pump Room remained, rooted obstinately at the bottom of the hill ahead of her. But dizzying structures of glass and metal dotted around each building in the dozens, making her eyes water. A carriage made of green steel galloped past her on the road. It moved on its own, with no horse pulling it. Jane yelped and jumped out of its path, hugging an iron railing for protection. A man in black leather drawers, his hair coloured purple, moved towards Jane and offered her a handbill. The paper was painted a vicious shade of pink and shone like a diamond. ‘March for trans rights, tomorrow at four,’ he said. ‘Wear the costume. It’s a scream!’ He pointed to her muslin dress.
‘Heavens preserve us,’ Jane cried. She ignored the man in his underclothes and pointed at something far obscener. ‘I see your ankle, madam!’ she exclaimed to a woman walking past. The lady wore a skirt which ended at the knee, allowing the ball of bone to be seen protruding lasciviously through her pale skin. How did the poor soul move this far down the street without being heckled or kidnapped? Jane shielded her eyes with her fingers. The woman wrinkled her nose at Jane and walked on. Jane felt dizzy at the confusing sights around her. What on earth was going on?
‘You there. Stop,’ called a voice behind Jane. The policemen from the church appeared at the top of the street and ran towards her. Jane yelped and darted away. She ran south using the faint sun to navigate. The street sign said Northgate, like it always did, but now the sign hung on an impossibly tall building made of steel. She turned left into the laneway, which was the shortcut to Pulteney Bridge, but the laneway was gone. She slammed instead into a brick wall. She rubbed her skull and turned in a daze, then continued straight ahead instead, towards the Pump Room, the thing she recognised. Jane had known by heart the layout of Bath almost as soon as she first moved there. Since she was a child, she had possessed a mastery of maps and spaces; her brain had always devoured shapes, names and numbers. She knew every brick in every miserable laneway, the columns of every inane assembly room, the paintwork of every stuffy tea house. But now she felt flummoxed as her memory was insulted over and again. Nothing was where it promised to be.
But while she tried to locate laneways that weren’t there and stumbled around buildings she’d never seen before, the two men who chased her navigated the streets like it was second nature. They rounded every corner at speed and cleared every pothole with ease, and though she had a decent head start, the two men now bore down on her from less than 20 feet away. Jane ran on and attempted to bottle her panic. Being caught by the constabulary in this confusing Bath-but-not-Bath place would be less than ideal.
She glanced towards the plaza and gasped as she saw someone she recognised. ‘You!’ Jane cried. It was the woman from the night before, the one Jane had spoken to in the wings of the theatre. She had changed from her shiny dress and now wore a man’s shirt and trousers. Giant black eyeglasses enveloped the top half of her face. The woman scowled and moved off down the road. Jane chased after her. ‘Wait! You have to help me,’ Jane pleaded.
‘No, I don’t!’ the woman called over her shoulder. She walked into a crowd of women assembled out the front of the Pump Room, and Jane followed her into the throng. Jane shielded her eyes from the exposed knees and bosoms and weaved through the strange multitude. The sea of people parted to reveal the woman walking between two men dressed in waistcoats and little else. Jane grabbed the woman’s hand and pulled her into a side passage near the Pump Room’s main entrance.
‘All right, fine, what do you want?’ the woman said with a sigh. They were shielded from view of the policemen and everyone else. ‘A selfie? An autograph? A happy birthday video for your grandmother? Whatever you want, it’s yours if you promise to leave me alone afterwards.’
Jane peered around nervously, but to her relief could not see the constables. She shrugged and shook her head. ‘I don’t know w
hat those things are. But I don’t want any of them.’
The woman exhaled. ‘Boy, I’ve wrangled some super-fans in my time, but you take the cake. What do you want, then?’
Jane stepped backwards and studied the woman. ‘Why do you keep walking away from me?’ Jane asked her. ‘You did the same thing last night.’
The woman placed her hands on her hips. ‘Let’s see. First, you appeared in a pile of curtains from thin air,’ she said. ‘Then you follow me through the village, like a stalker. Can you blame me, or any sane person, for wanting to avoid you?’ She raised an eyebrow.
Jane nodded. ‘Will you give me the chance to explain myself? Then you may leave as you please.’ The woman looked Jane up and down, then shrugged. Jane proceeded. ‘I fell asleep and woke to find Bath altered,’ she said. ‘The people wear less clothing and the buildings are made of glass and steel. Nothing is where it is supposed to be, and now I am being chased by the constabulary. I remain in a state of utter confusion. Please get me out of here. I will do anything. I could help you with something in return.’
The woman stared at Jane and appeared to ponder the offer. She crossed her arms and nodded. ‘Yes. Deal.’
Jane straightened at the unexpected about-turn. What had she said to change the woman’s mind? ‘You will help me?’
‘I will help you,’ she replied. ‘If you will help me, that is.’
‘Of course,’ Jane said. She felt certain she could offer little in the way of help, but it was her best chance of escaping capture, so she would worry about that later. ‘What is your name?’
The woman squinted. ‘Seriously? You don’t know who I am?’ She removed her black eyeglasses and struck a pose like Venus in, well, The Birth of Venus. ‘How about now?’
‘I do not recognise you,’ Jane said.
‘For goodness’ sake,’ snapped the woman, seeming annoyed. ‘I’m Sofia Wentworth.’ She held out her hand and Jane shook it.
‘I’m Jane Austen,’ Jane said.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
For Sofia Wentworth, the situation now came into focus, just like it did when you mounted a prime lens on a 35 mm film camera. When the woman had materialised in the theatre curtains the night before, Sofia justified the sight as being a simple hallucination from her own brain, which was deprived of oxygen at that point from inhaling too many times from that paper bag. On closer reflection, however, it was clear that the woman appearing in the mountain of black velvet had been conjured not from the hypoxia of her brain but from the mischief of a film producer, keen to secure their big break with that most clichéd of tropes, the hidden-camera practical joke. It was all so obvious now.
She cringed at the tearful call she’d made to her agent. He must have been in on the joke. She had suggested a Jane Austen ‘behind the scenes’ tie-in once, something for the DVD extras. The production had said no, apparently, but she saw now even that constituted part of the ruse, to keep her in the dark so she gave a more natural performance. Of course they had gone for it. Now they were hoping to maximise the extra footage by catching Sofia screaming on camera, and to achieve this aim, they had hired a Jane Austen impersonator to jump out of a pile of curtains and scare her. As she had made no screams when the ‘ghost’ of Jane Austen appeared, they had come for her again that morning to get the footage they needed.
Sofia had been minding her own business, reacquainting herself with the town of her birth, when the actress ran towards her down Stall Street. Sofia reflected that the actress chosen to play the author overplayed certain things. This annoyed Sofia. If they could not get even a half-decent actress to play the foil in this farce, they were insulting Sofia once more and confirming a general lack of respect in the business for her own talents. She wasn’t asking for much – someone who had completed a summer course at The Actors Centre would suffice – but this woman had likely nothing but failed auditions for shampoo commercials on her résumé, so little was her grasp of nuance. How dare they.
Sofia decided to have some fun. If the producers showed her such little respect, she’d pay it back in kind. Aware of the production costs and crew required to film this extended practical joke, she’d string it along, wasting as much of their money as she could on hidden-camera operators, costumes, extras and story-liners. She wouldn’t flinch first. She’d call their bluff and play along, treating the woman in front of her as though she were the long-dead darling of English prose. The producers would scratch their heads, all the while filming endless scenes of useless footage. Even better, if the footage was any good, her husband might like it.
‘So, you’re Jane Austen then,’ Sofia said.
‘That is correct,’ replied the Jane Austen impersonator. Her eyes darted about across the surrounding buildings, roads and people who walked past the laneway.
‘And you agreed to help me, right?’ Sofia asked. She refused to let her wriggle from the earlier deal.
‘Of course,’ the woman replied in a shaky tone. ‘How may I be of assistance?’
‘Make me look good,’ Sofia whispered, out of ear- and eye-shot of whatever hidden cameras might be lurking. ‘Follow my lead. If I walk into bad lighting, steer me towards a more attractive mis en scène. It’s okay, I’ve worked with semi-amateurs before. I can salvage this disaster of a production. But you need to throw yourself into this part. You need to play this like you believe you are Jane Austen.’
‘I am Jane Austen,’ the woman said.
‘Perfect! Play it with conviction. The main point is, I need to look attractive, beautiful, sensual. Come now, we can do this.’ Sofia gave her an encouraging pat.
‘I hope so,’ the woman playing Jane said.
‘Good. Okay,’ Sofia stood up and resumed a louder voice. ‘What now, Jane Austen?’ she asked.
‘My clothes,’ Jane said. She pointed to her empire-line dress. ‘For some reason, they are a beacon for attention.’
‘Good idea,’ Sofia said. ‘Wait here. Sofia to the rescue.’ She left the passage and walked back up the hill.
Jane stood in the lane and called after her, ‘Do you intend to return?’
Sofia did return, with a bag of clothes. ‘Put these on,’ she said. She had hoped to dress her new protégée in a chic ensemble from Harvey Nichols, something Hepburn-esque, but the only establishment open was the Samaritans charity shop on Stall Street. The boxy sales associate had sold Sofia a safari suit in brown paisley.
‘I trust these are the fashions of this place, that I will blend in if I wear them?’ Jane said of the clothes. A look of concern danced across her face.
‘You’ll look fabulous,’ Sofia declared. She would look ridiculous, but it was all Sofia could find at short notice. ‘Change over there,’ she added. She pointed to a pile of wooden crates which lay in the alley.
Jane ducked behind them and wiggled out of her empire-line dress. ‘These are men’s clothes.’
‘Women can wear trousers now,’ Sofia explained, playing along. She turned her head to the sky. A CCTV camera mounted on the building above pointed down at them. Sofia pretended not to see it but turned her shoulders and moved her chin to be filmed from the best angle.
‘I’ve worn trousers before, Miss Wentworth,’ Jane said. ‘I played King George in The Horrible History of England, a play I performed with my siblings.’
‘Please call me Sofia.’ She didn’t want the general public and Jack hearing her called by her last name. It made her sound aloof. And old.
‘How peculiar,’ Jane remarked. ‘The people last night addressed each other by their Christian names also. Do I leave my underclothes on?’
‘You call everyone by their first names here,’ Sofia said. ‘Yes, leave them on.’ Sofia considered how best to play this. She needed to appear like she was unaware the whole thing was a stunt, while secretly saying philosophical, informative things to re-endear her to her husband.
Jane pulled up the trousers and tucked her chemise inside. She covered the lumps with the shirt. ‘Will this do?’ He
r face bore a look of complete confusion.
Sofia looked her up and down. Jane’s tiny frame swam underneath layers of flowery beige polyester. Her Regency hairdo remained, with the tiny ringlets surrounding her face. Altogether, she resembled a shrunken clown. ‘You look smashing,’ Sofia said with confidence. She rolled the waistband up on the trousers until they could be rolled no more. Sofia crept forward to the edge of the passageway. She turned her head left and right. The coast was clear for the moment. The ‘police’ were gone. She motioned for Jane to follow her and they walked out onto Railway Street.
‘So,’ Sofia began as they walked towards the railway station, ‘have you been resurrected, then?’ She looked around for the next camera. She couldn’t see any; they must be hidden. She hoped none were in the bushes. Being shot from below was a most unflattering angle.
‘I beg your pardon?’ said Jane.
‘Or perhaps they cloned your DNA from a bonnet?’ Sofia snorted. She was trying to help the young actress along, as she may have been rusty with improvisation. But her new companion feigned misunderstanding at this, so Sofia elaborated. ‘You’re in a different time now. I was just wondering how you got here.’
The woman responded better to this invitation and now stared at Sofia with alarm. ‘What time is this?’ she asked.
Sofia paused and smiled. The time had arrived for the revelation, it seemed. This formed a key moment in the narrative, and Sofia needed to play it well. ‘What time do you think it is?’ she said in a casual voice.
‘It is the year eighteen hundred and three,’ Jane replied, as if on cue. She delivered the line quite well, with caution and confusion.
Sofia nodded, opened her mouth and gave her reply. ‘Afraid not. It is the year twenty hundred and twenty.’
‘Heavens preserve us,’ Jane said. She opened her eyes wide and paced around in a circle. Then she closed her eyes and sat on the ground and seemed to faint.
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