The Jane Austen Marriage Manual

by Kim Izzo

  Clive was the picture postcard Englishman. He wore a Savile Row pinstripe suit and bold striped shirt, a silk tie, and pocket square. His face was clean-shaven, with a ruddy complexion and his hair appropriately tousled. His manners were refined, his wit pitch-perfect, and his bank account flush.

  “I see you two have had a few,” he noted gravely. “Let’s get some water.”

  “Oh, come on, luv,” Emma teased. “Have a pint or five.”

  “I need it,” he answered and slumped into the chair and loosened his tie. I didn’t know Clive very well, but I sensed his dark mood.

  “Something wrong?” I asked.

  “The stock market is about to go tits up,” he said bluntly, then continued in a tone that said he was making an obvious understatement. “No big deal, really. Just a few American mortgage companies are filing for bankruptcy, investment firms are losing billions.”

  “Boring!” Emma pronounced.

  “You won’t think that when we’re flat broke,” he snapped.

  “Don’t be alarmist,” she teased, then turned to me. “He always thinks we’re headed for the poorhouse.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t gotten around to telling her that I’d already fallen victim to the recession and that this trip was my swan song as an acting beauty editor. And I had no idea what their financial situation was. I didn’t think of Emma as a big-ticket shopper but their house looked expensive. A woman could get used to that style of living very easily.

  “Are things really that bad?” I asked sympathetically, remembering Brandon’s warning to me.

  “It’s not good,” Clive answered glumly. “I’m not sure I’ll get my bonus this year.”

  “Is that all?” Emma chided him. “We can get by without your bloody bonus.”

  But the look on Clive’s face made me doubt that was true.

  We let the subject drop and ordered more wine. As we drank and chatted about nonfinancial matters, like where all those shag rugs came from, Clive spotted someone he knew.

  “Excuse me,” he said and left the table. I watched as he stood talking to a man who was about our age.

  “Who’s that?” I asked nonchalantly.

  Emma looked over, a bit bleary-eyed, and smiled. “He’s a childhood mate of Clive’s,” she explained. “They went to school together. He lives in the country near Clive’s mum. I’ve only met him once or twice.”

  “Well, he’s on his way over,” I said and sipped my pinot grigio.

  As the two men got closer I was struck by how different he was from Clive. For one thing, he was far less stylish, dressed in a baggy pale blue cotton button-down, faded blue jeans with frayed hems, and scuffed brown loafers. He was tall and skinny, and I mean really skinny, like rock star skinny. But once he stood at our table I could see his physical attributes trumped his taste in clothing. His complexion was pale like ivory, skin a supermodel would die for. And then there were his eyes. They were oversized and pale blue, the color of antifreeze poured over ice. All this white and blue was made more extreme by his thick jet black hair. He was quirky looking but strikingly handsome all at once. Suddenly scruffy jeans didn’t seem such a fashion crime.

  “Kate, I’d like you to meet Griffith Saunderson,” Clive said.

  Was Clive so drunk he was lisping? Griffith?

  The man held out his hand, and a wide smile slowly unfurled across his face, revealing a set of straight, white teeth.

  “Grifter?” I said carefully so as not to lisp like Clive had. “With a name like that I hope you’re not in banking, too.”

  “Griffith,” he repeated impatiently. “Not Grifter. People call me Griff. And no, I’m not in banking. I manage a country estate in Dorset.”

  “Oh, you’re from the country,” I slurred. “That explains it.”

  “Explains what?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Your clothes. You’re a kind of farmer?” I smiled up at him.

  Emma burst out laughing.

  “No, I manage a bed and breakfast,” Griff repeated, clearly offended. I shrugged; maybe it was all the wine but I couldn’t fathom that what I’d said was insulting. At least it wasn’t intentional.

  But Clive, positively horrified, glared at me. “What precisely is wrong with Griff’s clothes?” he asked icily.

  “I didn’t say anything was wrong,” I protested, but it was too late. Emma burst out laughing and answered on my behalf.

  “Griff, you are dressed a bit scruffily,” Emma sputtered. “Kate works at a fashion magazine in New York. She’s accustomed to men swanning around in Armani.”

  Before I could disagree, Griff rolled his blue eyes to the rafters and sneered at me. “Well, I wouldn’t want to insult such a discerning eye as yours,” he said seriously. His tone was so solemn and condescending that I, too, burst out laughing and felt compelled to defend my innocent, albeit drunken, farmer observation.

  “I’m sorry. It’s just that your shirt is practically worn through! And those jeans are frayed at the hem; when you said ‘country’ I assumed you worked outside. Maybe you’ve got to get yourself some new things,” I said simply. My remark sent Emma into another fit of laughter and I wasn’t far behind.

  “Kate!” Clive snapped and loomed over us, seething with embarrassment. Griff, not amused in the least, sniffed and looked away.

  “Don’t bother,” Griff said dismissively. “I’ve got to catch the train back to Dorset.”

  “Kate’s about to turn forty,” Clive said in an attempt to get even.

  “Clive!” said Emma through her laughter.

  “Really?” Griff mocked me. “I would have thought you were much older.”

  The following morning brought the worst hangover of my life and little memory of the night before. I crawled to the bathroom and forced myself to stand in the shower, clinging to the wall for support. I felt very sorry for myself. But as I stood there, my head pounding, my body sweating, I had a memory flash of Clive’s friend and of being slightly rude to him. Was I rude? What was his name? Biff?

  Eventually I managed to make my way to the living room, where Clive was cooking a fry-up for Emma.

  “God, you look as bad as I feel!” she blurted as I collapsed on the sofa.

  “What were we thinking?” I groaned.

  “You both ought to be ashamed,” Clive said. “You behaved like … what do you call it in America? Trailer park trash.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, offended.

  “He’ll get over it,” Emma said dismissively.

  “Who?” I asked. “Biff?”

  “Griff,” Clive corrected me sternly. “You two made such severe fun of his fashion sense that he left, quite embarrassed I’m sure.”

  “He has no fashion sense, that was Kate’s point.” Emma smirked.

  It all flooded back to me. I had told a complete stranger he was a fashion disaster, and worse, I had done so in public. I was a horrible person.

  “Christ,” I groaned again. “I’m sorry, Clive. Should I e-mail an apology?”

  “I already have,” he explained.

  “Bollocks,” Emma said. “You did no such thing.”

  “I do feel awful,” I admitted. I turned to Clive and pronounced, “I vow that if I ever see him again I will be polite, complimentary, and sweet.”

  Of course the fact that I would never see him again made my vow extremely easy to keep.

  As Clive served up the bacon and eggs, my BlackBerry went off.

  “Sorry,” I said, and rummaged in my purse for the offending PDA. But my mood changed when I saw it was my grandmother calling. She never called when I was on a business trip. It was a rule we had made long ago; no phone calls unless it was urgent. Seeing her name on the display terrified me.

  “Hello?” I answered, panic in my voice. What I heard was the unmistakable, and disturbing, sound of my ninety-three-year-old grandmother crying.

  “Kate?” she asked faintly.

  Suddenly my hangover cleared and I sat bolt
upright.

  “Are you okay?” I demanded. “What happened?”

  Hearing the urgency in my voice, Clive switched off the radio in the background.

  “My mouth hurts,” Nana answered through tears. “I can’t chew, I can barely put my teeth together.”

  It was at that moment I remembered yesterday’s ENT appointment. I had completely forgotten.

  “Did you take the liquid Tylenol?” I asked, desperate to help. “What did the specialist say?”

  “He found a tumor and he did a biopsy,” she explained. Her crying had stopped. She relied on me for comfort as much as I did her.

  “He did?” I asked, choking on the fear I felt swelling in my throat. A wave of guilt washed over me. I should have been there. “I’m coming home,” I said. “I’ll be there as soon as I can catch a plane.”

  I hung up and realized that I was shaking, partly from the hangover, but mostly out of fear. I was suddenly very afraid.

  “Everything okay?” Emma asked.

  “No,” I answered. “I don’t think so.”

  6.

  House Hunting

  There, I will stake my last like a woman of spirit … I am not born to sit still and do nothing. If I lose the game, it shall not be from not striving for it.

  —Mansfield Park

  On a bright Friday morning my cell phone rang. I was in my bedroom and instinctively knew to sit down when I answered. When I’d flown home I’d arranged with the doctor to call me directly, and not my grandmother, as was her wish because if there was anything complicated she wanted me to understand and explain it to her. But the call came faster than I’d expected.

  “It’s cancer,” the doctor said without hesitation. “I’m sorry. I’ve made your grandmother an appointment with an oncologist on Monday and he’ll explain the options to her. But where the tumor is, it’s very difficult to treat, especially at her age.”

  I don’t remember what I said to him. I simply sat on my bed, half-dressed, and looked out my window at the trees blowing lightly in the breeze. I thought what a beautiful sunny day it was and I suddenly despised the perfect weather. I knew what I had to do. Nana, Iris, even my sister, Ann, didn’t need to know the truth, not right away. I wanted to give them one last weekend of believing there was hope.

  When I came downstairs there was my grandmother on the sofa with her cookbook, plotting the weekend menus, which she now made solely for us since the pain in her mouth had made eating anything but soups and mashed potatoes impossible. Iris was sitting in the kitchen checking her lottery numbers yet again, still chasing a life of luxury. Right now the only luxury I wanted was time, time to spend every precious second with my grandmother.

  “The jackpot is thirty-nine million dollars,” Iris announced as I came into the room and sat beside Nana. I held her hand; her skin was soft and warm. I’d always admired her hands; she had long thin fingers, “piano hands,” she would call them. But what I loved most was how elegant they looked. Even to dust or stir a pot, her hands were ladylike.

  “Did you buy a ticket?” Iris asked.

  “You know I didn’t,” I said but forced the irritation out of my voice. Now was not the time. “Do you want me to get you a ticket, Nana?”

  “I’ve got mine, love,” she said sweetly and squeezed my hand. I squeezed back.

  “Do you want to come for a drive with me while I buy one?” I asked.

  She looked up from her cookbook and gave me a puzzled look. Buying lottery tickets was out of character for me. But the great thing about my grandmother was she never asked questions. She always said that if I wanted to tell her something, I would.

  It took all of five minutes to drive to the corner store and buy a ticket for the lottery. But I had another destination in mind.

  “Want to go house hunting?” I asked, using our shorthand for driving around and picking out our “what if” homes.

  “Yes!” she answered and clasped her hands together in excitement. I got behind the wheel and we were off. The weather was so oppressively lovely, we rolled down the windows and hung our elbows out as we cruised through neighborhood after neighborhood, street after street. We noted sale signs. We criticized poor taste. We discussed what we’d do if we won the lottery. We acted like there was a future with both of us in it.

  “This is so nice,” she said wistfully. Her beautiful wrinkled face turned to the window, with a pensive expression that clouded her features. Was she worrying about her biopsy results? I wondered if she was afraid, like me, or if at ninety-three she was prepared for this. I wasn’t going to ask; there were too many beautiful homes for us to dream about.

  Our drive took us into the countryside and onto a meandering dirt road. We passed farms with grazing cattle but eventually the road turned up a steep hill and ended at the driveway of a large Georgian-style mansion surrounded by fir trees. I stopped the car at the bottom of the drive. The rich red brick and black shutters were so welcoming. It looked lived in, it looked loved, the sort of house you’d want to spend your life in and you’d want to die in.

  “Now, that’s what I call a home!” I said, grinning.

  My grandmother nodded and pointed to the house. “You’ll have to marry a very rich man to live in a place like that.”

  I chuckled, thinking of the article I had yet to start. “Nana, I think it’s too late for that. Rich men don’t want women my age.”

  She turned to me, her expression serious. “It’s never too late, my love.” She smiled, her eyes never leaving mine. “Promise me, should anything happen to me, you’ll take care of yourself.”

  “Don’t be silly,” I began, but she cut me off.

  “Promise me!”

  “Fine, Nana,” I teased, desperate to lighten the mood. “I promise to marry a rich man and live in a mansion.”

  “Good girl,” she said with a laugh. “I just want to know you’ll be happy; that’s all the promise I need.”

  Monday came abruptly and suddenly I was staring blankly as the cancer specialist sat perched on his black leather stool and gave my grandmother her prognosis. “You have tongue and throat cancer,” Dr. Wexler spoke succinctly. “We can’t operate.”

  Nana sat facing Dr. Wexler as if she were a prisoner in an interrogation room. Iris, Ann, and I stood against the wall and listened, our arms folded, our backs stiff, as if we were police backup. But there was no good cop, bad cop, just a conviction and a death sentence.

  “Are there any options?” Ann asked, her voice shaking as she spoke. “Treatment or something?”

  He nodded. “We can do radiation. But it will be very painful,” he said solemnly. “And it will only prolong your grandmother’s life by maybe six months or a year.”

  After he’d finished speaking my grandmother did what I had never seen her do in my nearly forty years—she cried in front of a stranger.

  When she gathered herself, she said quietly, “I don’t want radiation. I want this to be over.”

  I wanted to interrupt and force the doctor to convince her otherwise; even an extra six months would mean the world to me. But he listened to her, and he sympathized. I had known she was in pain but the extent of her suffering was only now clear. The tumor was torture and it hurt so much she wanted to die. Her mind was made up.

  “I’ve had enough,” my grandmother repeated.

  “I understand,” he said and put his hand on her knee. “You’re very brave.”

  “Can you get rid of the pain?” Nana asked and rested her hand on his.

  “We can give you morphine,” he explained.

  I don’t remember the drive home from the hospital. I recall only a blur of passing scenery, each red light punctuating the reality as it sunk in. My grandmother was going to die. I had kept the secret to preserve my family’s hope for one last weekend. But I soon understood that by withholding the truth, by not saying “cancer” out loud, I had also given myself two more days of denial. We were in shock, all of us, but somehow my family picked up that it wasn�
��t as much of a shock to me.

  “Did you know?” Nana asked me point blank.

  “Friday, when the hospital called,” I confessed.

  “You kept it to yourself?” Ann asked incredulously.

  “I wanted you all to have one last weekend thinking everything was all right,” I admitted quietly.

  Nana patted my thigh. “Thank you.” And that was the last we spoke of it.

  We pulled into the driveway but no one got out of the car. We were frozen to our seats with no clue what to do next. After several minutes Nana sighed. “I need to lie down.”

  “Why don’t I go and get your prescription?” Ann offered.

  “Thanks, love,” Nana said softly. Glad to have a task to perform, Ann darted to the pharmacy. Her slamming of the car door jolted the rest of us into action. As if on cue, we unfastened our seat belts, the click, click, click, slam, slam, slam, providing the sound track to our slow march to the front door.

  Once inside, Iris’s mood shifted. She shuffled through the day’s mail and, tucking an envelope under her arm, practically ran upstairs.

  “What’s that about?” I asked when she was out of earshot.

  “Your mother is having money troubles,” Nana explained as she tried to make herself comfortable on the sofa.

  This revelation wasn’t exactly news. Iris had been known to splurge. Often it was a wardrobe binge that would take two years to pay off. Once it was kitchen gadgets and stainless-steel appliances, though she never cooked. Another time it was running up long-distance charges calling Tasmania to speak with a man she’d met online. A small part of me was curious as to what bills she’d run up this time, but before I could ask, Ann returned with the morphine.

  “This should help,” she said as she held the full dropper up to my grandmother. Nana opened her mouth, letting the tiny droplets fall onto her tongue.

  “I’m going to my room to lie down,” she said softly and went upstairs for a nap.

  Ann and I sat in the living room listening to each muffled step. When her door closed, Ann burst into tears. We are not an affectionate family by any means. We greet each other with the requisite hug and kiss but otherwise we aren’t big on physical displays. So when Ann collapsed on the sofa in sobs, I just sat there and watched.