“I understand, Caroline, truly I do. And I think if you read the book, I believe you’ll understand I have great faith in Miss Austen as well and that I only followed where my research led me.”
The stern look returned and he realized he’d overplayed his hand. He smiled again but she merely said, “Thank you” and left. Still, a sale’s a sale, he thought.
It looked as if Caroline might be the last customer for a while. It had been a long two hours with his constant looks towards Jane Austen’s table and the long line that kept her avatar busy. Courtney had been often idle during the two hours and had seen surly looks from the people in Austen’s line.
He began to doubt the wisdom of his agent suggesting joint appearances. He had two more occasions when he would appear with Austen. The Harvard Book Store was the first store to agree to the plan with a little trepidation, no doubt worried that Courtney would be burned in effigy or tarred and feathered. Fortunately none of that had happened and civility ruled the day.
He looked at the store clock and realized it was precisely two pm and stood, relieved that he could quit the store and travel to his next book signing in the evening. The group of women at Austen’s table was still considerable, but he realized no one was actually waiting in line and he thought he could at least play a grand gesture and get a few props. He bent down to find his messenger bag under the table and saw that it had moved off to the side with his incessant squirming during the afternoon and so he had to squat down on the floor. He opened the bag to retrieve his copy of Sanditon but as he pulled it out, his iPad fell to the floor along with some loose change he’d thrown in and he had to gather those. Finally he stood, resigned that now was as good a time as any to ask Austen’s avatar to sign his copy, but as his head cleared the edge of his table he saw the woman in question standing in front of him.
“Mr Blake? I was hoping you might sign my copy of your book.” And she handed him a copy of The Real Jane Austen. He stood there with his mouth open, uncertain what to do.
“Oh, is that Sanditon? Perhaps I might return the favour?” And she put out her hand.
Her offer saved him from continuing to look foolish. He handed her Sanditon and she took it and bent to the task of signing it. He took the advantage of his chair, which was not a very gentleman-like thing to do. He opened his book and found that Austen had several Post-it notes peeking out from pages and the dust jacket was torn and repaired with Sellotap.
“To the REAL Jane Austen,” he signed. “With the hope that my esteem of your works is the primary impression I leave behind, Courtney Blake.”
He looked up from signing and saw that Austen’s avatar had finished and he quickly stood. They exchanged books simultaneously and both quickly looked at the inscriptions.
Austen’s avatar had written, in a good imitation of the original’s signature, “To Courtney Blake, Thank you for making me so much more interesting than I really was. Jane Austen.”
Fortunately his mind resumed its normal operation and he thought to capitalize on the moment. He said loudly, for he realized that Austen’s admirers stood behind the author, “Thank you Miss Austen, that is a gracious sentiment.”
She nodded regally and said, “And yours as well, Mr Blake. I hope this will put to rest any thought of ill-feelings between us.”
She extended her hand, palm down and Courtney took it delicately in his and bowed. As he straightened, he saw that many of her admirers were taking pictures with their smart phones and cameras.
She has that advantage, he thought. I have no admirers.
Austen’s avatar retreated after a gracious nod to him. The store manager came out to greet her and thank her for coming and several more pictures were taken. Courtney reached back down for his messenger bag and made for another exit so that he did not have to pass by Austen and her admirers. One book signing down and two more to go. Maybe I can be sick both days.
. . .
“He is positively grey,” Jane said to Mary back at their hotel room.
“He’s understandably nervous,” Mary admitted while stretched out on the bed, trying to find something to watch on the telly. Jane was logged into the AfterNet, which meant Mary had to entertain herself by either tackling Emma again or going old school and actually watching television. But a Saturday afternoon offered little to watch. She considered taking a shower, but knew she was obliged to say “uh huh” and “sure” to Jane’s continued belittlement of her bugbear.
“You’re not even looking,” Jane complained.
She turned her head to look at the picture displayed on the laptop that had already been posted on the facebook pages of many Janeites. It showed them offering her hand to Blake who stood looking uncertain what to do.
“Jane, I’ve seen enough. He looks confused. You completely trumped him by going to him first. We were all graciousness. But I thought he handled it well and it was a nice inscription.”
“He wrote REAL in capital letters. He clearly meant it sarcastically.”
“No it doesn’t, Jane. I mean yeah, maybe it is, but take the high road. You’re Jane Austen for God’s sake. You’re supposed to be better than this.”
She’d listened to Jane whinge ever since leaving the bookstore and was getting tired of it. She needed to take a shower before they went out again to attend a performance of a Sense and Sensibility musical. She just needed to shut Jane out and …
She realized Jane had not responded. “Jane?”
“You are, of course, correct, Mary. I have allowed myself to wallow in petty vindictiveness.”
“Well, wallow might be too strong a word,” Mary said, although she actually thought it the mot juste. “You just needed to get it out of your system.”
“Sigh,” Jane said. “You do begin to know me, Mary. I do tend to fly off the handle, but you have shown me that I must control myself.”
“Oh, right. Well if you’re done then, I’m going to take a shower. Are you going to be all right for a while or would you like to get out?”
“No, I shall remain here. Have a nice shower.”
Mary collected her things and entered the bathroom. She doesn’t want to go walkabout, she thought. That means she’s going to go online and kvetch about this to her peeps. Yup, I do begin to know you, Jane.
. . .
Jane waited for the bathroom door to close before she went back online. She contemplated the wisdom of using one of her many accounts to comment about Courtney Blake, but she had spent—or mostly spent—her ire by complaining to Mary. She suddenly realized the debt she owed Mary. It reminded her of the times when she was separated from Cassandra and did not have her sister’s moderating influence.
Instead she opened an email to Albert:
Dear Albert,
Please forgive me my recent silence for I have been monstrously busy. I did not know—really know—what work meant until this job. In my day, work meant doing one task until completion but now I must run from pillar to post leaving one task uncompleted before tackling yet another.
And so that is my excuse for not writing lately and for not arranging to set a date for our next chat. It has only now occurred to me and I hope you will agree to Sunday as usual.
Now as to my real reason for writing you today—other than my primary reason of offering my apologies: have you read that book about Jane Austen by that Courtney Blake? He apparently thinks Jane was some daughter of Sappho and has reinterpreted everything she’s written as some manifesto.
People like him do not understand the world was very different for us. They want to take the values of the twenty-first century and apply it to our lives. Why even your time on earth was vastly different to mine! What a world of opportunity did not exist for a woman of my time? Of course that would colour my outlook and how I would express myself. How could a young man of today even hope to make sense of it?
That I shared a bed with my sister
But Jane stopped writing, realizing that she was about to reveal her identity to
Albert, a step she was reluctant to take. She had begun to enjoy the fiction of herself as some poor drudge at Random House and thought it gave her an empathy with Albert’s employment. She thought of some of the books she had read of successful people long married who fondly remembered their first home and longed for that simpler time. At present, she was reluctant to give up her simpler time with Albert.
She erased what she’d written and instead asked Albert of his family and of the baseball game she had watched with Mary two nights previous. This recollection required some editing as she recalled that she had earlier told Albert that some ill-feeling existed between herself and Mary, the new girl in the office. She began to invent a rapprochement that quickly spiralled out of control.
Why cannot I be this inventive when I am trying to write something new?
She ended the email when she started to speak of her oft-remarked mention of baseball in Northanger Abbey,1 again almost falling into the trap of betraying herself.
In short, dear Albert, I shall endeavour to communicate more faithfully with you and I look forward to Sunday night.
Your very good friend,
Jane
. . .
Albert looked fondly on his sleeping great-great-great grandchild Julia. He was just enough of a romantic to believe he could see a resemblance to his wife Catherine and enough of a realist to know an eight-month-old might look like anyone with enough imagination. Julia was sound asleep in the arms of her father, who was sound asleep on the sofa, oblivious to the sound of the baseball game on the television. On the recliner beside him was Joe’s brother, Ricardo, also asleep.
Albert marvelled at the complexities of his family in America. His granddaughter Maria had moved to the United States and to Florida, where Albert’s brother had moved after the Second World War. Maria had married a man from Cuba and now Albert looked at his family that included AnnaMaria his great-great granddaughter, her husband Joe, his brother Ricardo, and the sleeping baby Julia. And that was simply the family in the house, not to mention Joe’s children from another marriage and the family of his great-grandson in Muncie, Indiana.
Conversation having grown quiet in the living room, Albert went to the kitchen where AnnaMaria was making spaghetti.
“Everyone’s asleep,” Albert said as he entered the kitchen. His words were communicated through the portable terminal that sat in its recharging stand in the kitchen.
“You told them too many stories, Pop-pop,” she said while putting the noodles into the boiling pot.
“No I didn’t. I just told them about another baseball game I saw.”
“From when?”
“Oh, sometime in the 1980s, it was just after I came to the United States. I remember …”
“Stop! I get enough baseball from them in the living room without having to hear it from you.”
He said nothing to this, a little hurt that she should stop him from talking. He was feeling a little lonely.
“What about your girlfriend. Tell me about her.”
“What? Jane? Well she’s not my girlfriend. And I just got an email from her.”
“Did she apologize for missing your sex chat?”
“We do not have sex chats, you incurable romantic. We usually talk about … well we usually talk about you … and the family. She knows all about you. I don’t think she’s made a connection with her family, but then she died so long ago.”
“You died a long time ago, but we still love you,” she said over her shoulder as she lifted the lid off the bubbling pot. Albert could see the steam rise from the pot and wished he could smell his great- great grandchild’s cooking.
“Yes, well this is an unusual family,” he said. “Not everyone is as close to their great-great grandfather.”
“She should come visit us, and for that matter, you should live here, not in that home.” She started taking plates from the shelves and to the kitchen table.
“I like it there,” he lied, “and I don’t know if Ricardo is really that comfortable sharing the house with a dead man.”
“He’s lucky to have a spare bedroom here as it is,” she said.
“You don’t need me looking over your shoulder all the time. It’s enough that I can visit you.”
“OK, Pop-pop. Now tell me more about this woman of yours. You say she’s a writer?”
. . .
“More interesting than I really was,” Courtney said quietly to himself that night while lying on the bed in his hotel room. Then he turned off the light and tried to go to sleep.
1 In Northanger Abbey, Austen wrote of her heroine, Catherine Morland: “It was not very wonderful that Catherine, who had nothing heroic about her, should prefer cricket, baseball, riding on horseback, and running about the country at the age of 14, to books.” This early mention gives lie to the belief that baseball was invented in America, according to author Julian Norridge’s book Can we Have our Balls Back, Please?
The Graham Norton Show
Indelicate questions
“So, is there anyone special in your life?”
Mary waited for Jane to say something in response to the silly question. The talk show host’s famous leer was hanging in the air like the Cheshire cat and he kept nodding his head and winking.
“No one at the moment, thank you for asking,” Mary answered, when Jane failed to say anything.
“Still the most beloved spinster in England, then.”
“As you are the most beloved old molly1 on the BBC,” Jane finally said.
“As you are the most beloved … talk show host on the BBC,” Mary said, instinctively editing Jane’s remark. She wasn’t sure what a molly was, but could guess. Fortunately the answer and Mary’s odd look satisfied the host enough to move on to the next guest.
Mary found that she had to answer on her own most of the questions addressed to Jane, and generally had to adopt the attitude of the disapproving aunt. She was baffled why Melody had insisted they appear on the show with its constant dreadful double entendres. There were certainly some aspects of British humour she didn’t understand.
The show finally ended and after shaking hands with the now subdued host, she joined Melody who’d watched from the studio audience.
“Well that could have gone better. You looked like you were hearing a Who again,” Melody said. She turned on her terminal so she could hear Jane.
“It’s not my fault. Jane froze,” Mary said in a whisper. “And then … I’m not sure, but I think she called the host an old queen.”
“I did not freeze,” Jane answered, ignoring the more serious accusation. “And I apologize for the remark. I just suddenly saw the stupidity of it all,” Jane said. “Why did you insist we appear on this show, Melody?”
“Look, let’s take this somewhere else. There’s got to be a pub nearby. If you’re going to have a meltdown I need a drink.”
Melody asked one of the production assistants they’d met earlier and learned of a wine bar actually in the broadcast centre and she offered to take them there in her car. Her presence made it difficult to talk and it took fifteen minutes before they had the anonymity of a booth and freedom to speak.
“What’s this all about, Jane?” Melody asked after she finally had a glass of wine in front of her.
“I am sorry. Please forgive me my irritableness. It was unconscionable for me to use such a term.”
“I only managed to get you a spot on the number two rated talk show.”
“She said she’s sorry,” Mary said on Jane’s behalf.
“And I am,” Jane confirmed. “This schedule must be tiring to you both, but think what it must be like for a bicentenarian.”
“You’re trying to make me sorry for booking you?”
“Actually, I’m also getting a little tired,” Mary said, in defence of Jane, and because she wondered if Jane was trying to obscure something from Melody. She took a large sip of her wine and felt the warmth go through her. Despite Melody’s usual taste in plonk,2 she found
Chateau Television Centre quite agreeable. She normally didn’t drink much, but the truth of it was their schedule was demanding. They had just returned to London after visits to Glasgow, Dublin, Paris and Barcelona, and were preparing for their visit to Chawton next week.
“Well, I’m a little tired too,” Melody said. “But you don’t hear me complaining.”
“We know you’re a machine, Mel, but would it kill you to schedule some down time? I only ask for Jane, because she’s so tired. Why she’s a mere shadow of herself.”
“Oh very witty, Mr Wilde,” Jane replied. Mary recognized the remark as a reference to the Monty Python episode Jane had insisted they watch the previous night, another example of British humour lost on her.
“Who? Oh, Oscar Wilde. Is she still watching all those Monty Python episodes? That’s why she’s getting so cranky; she’s staying up late watching TV.”
The wine did its bit to relax Mary and Melody and Jane did her best to brighten their spirits, despite her distraction. She knew the schedule was gruelling for her friends and felt concern for them, but her real pre-occupation was the question the silly talk show host had asked her.
“Is there anyone special in your life,” he’d asked, and she desperately wanted to say, “Yes, there is.”
She thought of Albert and found that she missed him desperately. They had spoken, albeit briefly, just a few days ago, but the chat made her keenly aware of the distance between them, which made no sense at all. Before her fame, when they chatted online, they were on separate continents, but it felt like they might be sitting together on a bench on a summer day. But now when they chatted, she could feel the distance between them, either here in London or whatever city they were visiting in America.
I cannot continue to lie to him. That is the reason I no longer feel close to him.
But could she actually tell the world that “Yes, I, Jane Austen, the most famous spinster in literature, have found someone special.”
“We should do something tomorrow,” Melody suddenly said. “I can delay going back another day.”
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