‘Correct.’ Sofia shrugged.
‘But this character is different?’
Sofia nodded.
‘So, play her differently.’
‘I don’t know how. I usually have sweet, cute things to say. Now I have inane, ridiculous words to speak. And I don’t know how to deliver them. I don’t have it in me.’
‘Tell me of the happiest moment in your profession,’ Jane said.
Sofia went quiet. She thought back through all of the red carpets, the press events, the limousines and the screaming fans. ‘Ever been to a town called Barrow?’ she asked.
Jane shook her head.
‘Horrid place. Up north. It was a tiny theatre; I was nineteen. I was Cordelia in a regional production of King Lear. The audience comprised senior citizens and a group of miners who’d got the day wrong and thought it was poker night. One man asked for his money back before we’d even started.’ Sofia paused to wipe her tears. ‘I thought about how to say my lines. I had little training at that point, but I tried to put myself in Cordelia’s shoes. My own father had left us, so there was that boring news to draw on, but that’s not where the feeling came from. Her voice and her walk came from something inside me. It was deeper than missed recitals and birthday cards. It came from my imagination.’
‘The best always does,’ Jane said.
‘I delivered her final soliloquy, then died in Lear’s arms. I stole a glance to the crowd. They stared back at me, rapt. You could hear a pin drop. It was as though another dimension had opened up. We’d entered a new plane. I wore a costume of rags, and I was barefoot. I looked up again. The rough man who’d wanted his money back was still in the audience. He was crying. He sought me out afterwards and told me he was going to call his daughter, whom he hadn’t spoken to in twenty years.’
Jane smiled. ‘Brava.’ She touched Sofia’s shoulder. ‘You already have all the tools you need to play this character.’
‘But how?’ Sofia asked.
‘What kinds of things does Mrs Allen say?’ Jane asked.
‘My first line is, “We neither of us have a stitch to wear!” They put me in ridiculous outfits. One day I wore an actual ship in my hair.’
‘What ship? A frigate? Schooner?’
‘Not sure. A tugboat, maybe. Every time Mrs Allen misses a stich in embroidery, she announces it to everyone. Why?’
‘Women are notorious for apologising,’ Jane said with a shrug. ‘An illness afflicting us from birth.’
‘She is the punchline to her own jokes,’ Sofia continued. ‘She recites a three-minute monologue about muslin.’
Jane scratched her head. ‘Who is this character I have created?’ She spoke to herself, more than to Sofia. ‘Perhaps she is based on someone I have met.’
‘Like who?’ Sofia said. ‘Is it a thinly veiled takedown of some enemy of yours? Spill, Jane.’
Jane paused. ‘I’m thinking back over all the women of my acquaintance. There is a woman who is my neighbour, Lady Johnstone. She is a vicious person. Perhaps that is who I have based her on. Is Mrs Allen cruel?’
Sofia tilted her head. ‘Actually, no. She’s not cruel at all. She’s sort of . . . sad.’
‘Ah,’ Jane replied. ‘A sad one.’ She offered a rueful smile. ‘I know this character.’
‘Who is she?’
Jane stared at the floor. Sofia normally viewed the top of Jane’s head when they talked – she towered over Jane – but now as they sat at eye level, Sofia took a good look at her face. She was smaller and prettier than her portrait at the Jane Austen Experience. Her doe eyes stared into the middle distance and seemed to pierce the space between the door and the wall. What was she thinking about all the time? Lord only knows, but she stared this way often.
‘Who is she, Jane?’ Sofia said again.
‘She is no one,’ Jane said. ‘Just a woman.’ She smiled. ‘I’ve observed in this place not how things change, but how they stay the same. Women speak more but expose more flesh. Mothers and washerwomen alike, chambermaids and duchesses. While they darn socks and knead dough, their minds wander and their hearts sing. How deep the waters run behind the masks we wear. I cannot say for sure, but I wager this character lives a second life inside her heart, and she hides some sadness behind her chatter of expensive fabric.’
Sofia nodded and sat up. ‘So how do I play those ridiculous lines?’
‘Those lines are ridiculous because women of a certain age are ridiculous. Men of sense and intelligence have deemed it so. Where I come from, her fertility and her dowry comprise a woman’s value. Now, her worth seems to lie in her looks. Never has anyone mentioned the brain – occasionally the heart, but never the brain. To grow old is a privilege denied to many, yet women bear it as a curse. She is a woman who has aged. So play her like one. With all the dignity and humiliation that entails. With all the happiness to have survived, and the sadness youth is gone. The dishonour that looks have faded, and the grace that you know this to be true.’ Jane turned her head to Sofia. ‘When I first met you, I stood in awe. You strolled around this new Bath with zest and splendour.’
‘I’m sorry to disappoint you now,’ Sofia said.
‘You sit more magnificent now on the floor of this kitchen, with your heart laid bare. Could this pass not as a tragedy, but a liberation? With your ornamentation gone, the opportunity presents itself.’
‘The opportunity to what?’
‘To tell the truth. You once hung as a bauble. You played the handmaiden for others’ desires. Now you can set yourself free.’
Sofia wiped a tear and shook her head. ‘To do what?’
Jane smiled. ‘To do the thing you were put on this earth to do.’
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Sofia waited alone on set in her green dress. ‘What is the hold-up?’ she asked Derek. ‘I’ve been standing here for thirty minutes. I’m sweating my no-makeup makeup off.’
Derek shrugged and promised to find out.
Rehearsals had entered their final week. Sofia waited for them to fire her. Today’s schedule called for a pivotal conversation between Mrs Allen and Catherine Morland before they entered the evening assembly. Twenty extras assembled in the square behind the Pump Room; they’d grow to four hundred on the day.
Derek returned and whispered to Sofia, ‘It’s Courtney. She won’t come out.’
Sofia smiled. ‘She’s in her trailer? Is she throwing a tantrum?’ She called over to Jack. ‘Mr Travers. You’d better go see what’s going on with your star.’
Jack shook his head. ‘She’ll be out when she’s ready.’
‘We’re all standing here. I know filmmaking can’t be taught, but I do know an awful lot of people are waiting, and that big light up there in the sky?’ She pointed to the sun. ‘I know how you like big lights. Once it’s gone, you can’t switch it back on again.’
Derek and some of the extras chuckled. Jack rolled his eyes and walked to the dressing rooms. He returned without Courtney. ‘She won’t come out,’ he whispered to Sofia.
Sofia stifled a grin. ‘Tell her she’s under contract. We can’t rehearse the scene without her.’
‘She said she doesn’t care.’
‘Use your charm, then.’
‘We had a fight,’ he blurted out.
Sofia bit her lip and grinned. ‘Forgive me if I do not shed a tear.’
‘You have to go and talk to her,’ Jack said.
‘Me?’ Sofia exclaimed. ‘She hates me more than carbohydrates. I won’t be any help.’
‘Just go talk to her. Like a woman.’
‘Are there any sharp objects in her trailer?’
‘Please, Sofe.’ Jack looked miserable.
Sofia sighed, handed her parasol to Derek, and lifted her skirts. ‘I will talk to her for the good of the production.’ She trudged to Courtney’s trailer and knocked on the door. There was no reply. Sofia peered through the window. ‘Courtney?’
‘Go away,’ called Courtney from inside. Her voice sounded mu
ffled and hoarse.
Sofia sighed. ‘Are you ill?’ she shouted, trying to see inside. The curtains remained drawn.
Courtney spoke through the door. ‘I’m peachy, thank you. Please go away.’
‘It’s time to start rehearsal. The extras are all in position,’ Sofia replied.
‘I’m not coming,’
‘Fine. What excuse shall I give everyone? You’re practising your baton twirling? You’re writing a speech for the United Nations?’
‘You’d love that.’
‘I’d prefer you come out and act.’
There was no reply, just sobbing. Sofia winced. ‘Is that you or is a cat being tortured?’
‘Leave me alone!’
‘I’d love to more than anything, dear. Unfortunately, I have been tasked with your retrieval. Either let me in and tell me what’s going on, or I shall continue to shout insults through the door. I have many of them, and I can talk for hours. The choice is yours.’
The door opened and Sofia fell inside. The trailer was decked in orange and red silks, gold statues and candles. ‘It looks like Gandhi threw up in here,’ she said. Courtney sat huddled in the corner, her eyes red.
‘You know these are different religions?’ Sofia said. ‘That’s Ganesh; that’s Buddha.’ She pointed to two gold statues. ‘I don’t think you should put them together. It might bring forth the apocalypse.’
‘Shut up. Just because I didn’t go to Oxford, you don’t need to make fun of me.’
‘I didn’t go to Oxford either, dear. I went to a reform school for the children of alcoholic dreamers. Still, I know the difference between Indian food and Chinese. I admire your pragmatic approach, though. Best place your bets on a few deities; you never know who might come through in the end.’ Sofia picked up an incense stick. ‘I can see Jack all over this place. He was confused by religious idolatry, too.’
‘Does he always do this?’ The floor was strewn with tissues screwed up into little balls. Courtney picked one up and blew her nose into it.
‘Does he always do what? I’m not sure that was clean,’ Sofia added, pointing at the ball of sodden tissue-pulp in Courtney’s hand.
‘Last night, my agent sent me a rough cut of Bone Dry.’
Sofia shrugged. ‘Never heard of it.’
‘It’s this new picture I’m in. It’s a biopic about a comedian who died of an eating disorder. Sounds stupid, I know.’ She discarded the tissue, now used to the point that it disintegrated into fibres, and wiped her nose on her sleeve.
‘As much as I want to agree with you, it sounds cool, actually,’ Sofia said.
‘I thought so. The script felt great. I enjoyed acting in it.’
‘What’s the problem, then?’
‘I showed the cut to Jack. He watched fifteen minutes. Afterwards, he said nothing. I was so excited to show it to him! I’ve never done anything like this role. It was highbrow, you know? I had to remember a bunch of lines. The whole afternoon he was silent, just working at his computer. I thought he was looking for something for me, acting techniques or film references. But he was buying a Rolex on eBay, like Warren Beatty wore in the seventies. I demanded he tell me what he thought of the film. He said, “I think you should get a nose job.”’
Sofia snuck a glance at Courtney’s nose.
‘You’re looking at my nose. Stop it!’
‘I’ve never taken much notice of it before,’ Sofia replied.
‘You think he’s right.’ Courtney sniffed.
‘Truth be told, dear, it is quite large. There’s a bump at the top which I never observed. Fascinating.’
‘You’re loving this.’
‘Let me finish. Your nose is big and bumpy. It is also long and elegant. In the olden days, they called noses like yours “patrician”. It frames your face well. It gives you personality and character. It’s quite beautiful. Careers snuff out after nose jobs.’
‘You say that because you want me to fail.’
‘I do want you to fail. But I am telling the truth about your nose. Change it and you’ll resemble every other starlet. You are no starlet, my dear. You are a star.’
‘Why did he say it, then?’
Sofia sighed. ‘He’s a director. They’re visual people. It’s his job to point out physical flaws.’
Courtney nodded, still sobbing. ‘But he’s my boyfriend. It wasn’t a nice thing to say.’
‘No. It wasn’t.’ Sofia rose and headed for the door. She could not blame Courtney for wanting to protect the inch of leverage she had. Sofia had done the same once, and would do so again if she still could. She reached the doorway and hesitated.
‘What is it?’ said Courtney.
‘He said something similar to me once,’ Sofia said.
‘He did?’
Sofia nodded. ‘Before the first Batman was released. We went to a preview screening and he told me I could improve if I lost weight.’
‘That was a great film,’ said Courtney. ‘And you looked good in it. I feel terrible about Bone Dry now. I thought it was great, but now I think it sucks.’
‘On the contrary, dear. If this conversation is anything to go by, it’s likely a hit. Will you come and do acting now?’
Courtney shook her head. ‘Everyone will laugh at me. I’ll be the difficult actress.’
Sofia turned to her. ‘You are a difficult actress. This is a difficult job. They can’t do what we do. So tell them all to bugger off.’
With a deep breath and one final tissue, Courtney gathered her things and they headed to set. It was a big scene between Catherine Norland and Mrs Allen – a bigger scene for Courtney’s character, but Sofia’s character stood next to her for the duration. Sofia spent no energy tripping up Courtney, she did not add in extra lines or ad lib, she did not roll her eyes. She fed Courtney the lines and played the straight man. It was a cracking scene. The older foil and the young heroine made a fabulous duo. When Jack called cut, a strange thing happened: the crew applauded. Courtney took a bow, looking thrilled. Sofia rolled her eyes, but then she bowed too.
It was all Jane’s fault. She had turned Sofia into a nice person.
As the day drew to a close, Courtney had another scene to rehearse. Sofia ducked out of Courtney’s eye line and headed for the makeup truck.
‘No, it’s okay. Please stay,’ Courtney called to her.
Sofia shrugged and stayed.
Afterwards, rehearsal ended. The crew packed up. The camera and lighting trucks drove away; everyone went back to London. They would return in a few weeks for the first day of shooting. Sofia did not expect to join them – one truce with Courtney did not mean she’d be sticking around – but then a runner found her and gave Sofia her call time for day one.
She thanked him and agreed to see him then. She stared at the piece of paper in shock. It was a call time, all right. She would be playing Mrs Allen after all. Not only that, but she knew how to play her now, and she had a great co-star, a hilarious costume and a half-decent director leading the show. This film might not actually be the bomb she had earlier predicted.
Almost as soon as she entertained these thoughts, she realised, with a small horror dawning, that this posed something of a concern for other things.
She had encouraged her brother to make some sort of grand declaration to Jane, to profess his feelings for her to make her stay. This was what Sofia wanted, and what Jane and Fred deserved, but if Jane were to stay with Fred, the novels which had been disappearing one by one from the liquor cabinet would continue on their present course and disappear entirely.
If Jane’s novels ceased to exist, then Northanger Abbey, Sofia’s film, would disappear too.
That little gem of a movie she had started to see potential in would vanish. She stiffened at the predicament. She kicked herself for all the sanctimonious demands she had made on Jane: commanding her to remain inside the house, warning her that if she did not return to her own time she would never write her books. Now Sofia had ordered Fred to manifest t
he situation she had cautioned against.
She shuddered at her own stupidity. Not only might she have single-handedly halted the writing career of the most celebrated, pioneering, bad-ass female writer in history, she might have destroyed her own career, too.
She tried not to panic. Maybe Fred would make no declaration. Maybe Jane would refuse him. Sofia knew a day might come when Jane would ask her advice on that subject. She hoped rather than knew that she would have the strength to say the right thing.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
After a week in hospital, Fred was allowed to go home. A lunch of soup went down into his stomach, then came back up again. Jane cleaned it from the floor.
‘I am sorry for embarrassing you,’ he said.
‘You do not embarrass me, sir. You are human, and you are ill. Let us get you to the privy and we can worry for the rest later.’
He needed help with everything. Sofia’s work had held her captive, so Jane cared for him. He was correct in his assertion that he might need help. A trip to the privy required three handkerchiefs to mop the sweat from his brow. The smallest move required the largest effort. She walked back and forth from the sofa. She brought him tea. She helped him eat and wash his hands and face. He had stood tall and strong before. Now his spine protruded under the skin of his back, and his shoulders sloped forward.
Six days passed, and he did not say a word on the event in the hospital. Jane wondered if he thought about it. She thought of it constantly. Barely a thought had ever occupied more space in her brain. His own neglect of the topic was understandable, having recently suffered a near-fatal accident and requiring machines to breathe for him, but this did not stop Jane from feeling aware of the topic herself, and his seeming total amnesia on the score terrorised her. She tormented herself with speculations on the reasons for his silence. Perhaps her performance was so terrible and amateurish he was trying to forget it. Yes, probably. He made no signal of regard beyond appreciation for Jane as nurse and seemed to have resigned her to the role of perfunctory helper, not even friend; rather, someone who administered meals and attended to bodily functions.
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