Writing Jane Austen (22 page)

As though to challenge her to say anything about the cigarette, Livia sent a perfectly formed smoke ring into the air, where it floated before wavering and disappearing.

The door opened, and a young woman came in. Tall, poised, polished, sleek from her shining black hair and silken olive skin to her gleaming patent leather boots.

Georgina had always had a hankering for a pair of patent leather boots. Of course, with the money in the bank, she could treat herself to a pair. After all, if her advance had to be paid back, what difference would the price of a pair of boots make? A few hours’
work. Work as what? In a flash, Georgina saw herself serving burgers, waiting on tables in a sleazy joint somewhere in the Midwest, leaping through traffic to wash windscreens, standing on a freezing street corner handing out free papers to indifferent passers-by. Selling umbrellas in the rain…

Dan’s voice snapped her out of this vivid and, she knew even as she had the thoughts, pointless, imaginative reverie. “Prue here is handling the publicity. Since you had to come into the office right now, it’s a good opportunity for her to get to know you and liaise with you on the details. Prue?”

Prue leapt into action. Lights dimmed, a large rectangle of light appeared on the office wall, and a vivid jumble of faces, words and what seemed to be a large spear jazzed themselves on to the screen. The images faded, to be replaced by a copperplate signature: Jane Austen.

If Georgina had given it any thought, which she hadn’t, she would have guessed that Dan Vesey would issue a press release announcing the momentous discovery, and that some reporters would pick up on it, it would be a minor news item, and then there would be a follow-up in the publishing press about the completed book. Higher-profile stuff would wait until publication approached, maybe she’d get an author tour, maybe she wouldn’t.

She couldn’t have been more wrong. Schedules, videos, internet action, websites flew across the screen. Press conferences, author visits, book festivals, television shows—in America, then the UK. “We have a star, a world-class celebrity,” Prue announced. “Jane Austen. But Austen’s dead, so she’s no use to us. Therefore, Georgina has to be our action point.” The lights went up, the pictures vanished and Prue advanced on Georgina.

“Stand up. Over there.”

For a moment, Georgina thought that Dan, not content with kidnapping her, was going to march her off and lock her away,
the key hidden until she emerged with a hundred thousand words under her belt.

Prue prowled round her. “Teeth okay, but whitening needs freshening up. Veneer would be best.”

Georgina ran a nervous tongue along her teeth, which had never been whitened, and certainly weren’t going to be veneered. She knew all about veneering, which weakened your teeth and left you in thrall to your dentist for ever.

“Hair a disaster. It’ll need the works, cut, colour. Skin not bad, nothing that a course of facials and a touch of Botox won’t fix. Clothes—we need an appointment with a personal shopper. I’ll brief her. And there’s a lack of radiance, fitness will see to that, we’ll arrange a personal trainer.”

Enough was enough. “Lay off, if you don’t mind. I’m a writer, not a freak show. I’ll stay just the way I am, thank you.”

“Read the contract,” said Livia. “You agreed to all this stuff. These days, the way an author looks and behaves for the media is more important than how she writes.”

“She?”

“No one gives a damn how male authors look. They just need to write well. Like newscasters: men have gravitas and know what they’re talking about, women are there to look good. And take that prissy expression off your face, it’s the way things are, get over it.”

“That’s not the way you run your business.”

“You bet it isn’t, or I’d be on the heap inside a year. I’m not front-line, you are. Or you’re going to be, as soon as you’ve finished this book. Talking of which, how many words have you done? How much have you sent to Yolanda?”

Why did she ask questions to which she knew the answers? Which were zero and zero. “I’m well into the first draft. I’m not sending anything to Yolanda until it’s finished, that would be a waste of both our time. And I’m not spending hours at the dentist’s having
my teeth veneered nor going to the beauty parlour when I could be writing. I’m not a piece of furniture.”

Dan, who had been talking in a loud voice to Prue, switched his attention back to Gina. “Did I hear
draft
? You haven’t got time for drafts, just finish the goddam book, you should be nearly there by my reckoning. Send the stuff to us, and then we can start work on it. You need to get some moxie behind the book, Georgina, you really do. Once we’ve got it, then Prue’s team will take over, like she said.”

He stood up. The meeting was over.

“Do I get a lift back with Robert?”

Livia was now deep in conversation with Prue. Her eyes flicked in Georgina’s direction. “You’ve got an Oyster card, use it. Tube, bus; up to you.”

Henry was unsympathetic. “Kidnapped, indeed! Why did you get in the car? Why didn’t you yell? You could be murdered and strewn across Epsom Forest by now, where’s your sense of danger?”

“Obviously working quite well, since I wasn’t in any danger. Physical danger, that is.”

“Was he dashing, your abductor?” Maud asked. “Have some more rice, I’ve finished. Lovely food, Anna, how do you do it? Don’t you ever get bored with cooking?”

“More chicken, Gina, you need protein for your brain.”

Brain? What brain? She had never felt more witless. Or helpless, or feckless or a good few other
less
es.

“Did they just haul you in for a progress report?” Henry wanted to know. “Or was it something particular, the third degree from Dr. Yolanda, with you suspended by an inter-textuality or two?”

“She wasn’t there. It was all about publicity.”

“They must have asked how it was going,” said Maud.

“They did.”

“And you confessed all—or rather, nothing?”

“I lied.”

“You need a routine,” said Anna. “Perhaps you should go to work at the library, from nine until five, with a break for lunch.”

Maud vetoed that. “All those books? She wouldn’t write a word.
Self-discipline is the virtue that takes you through life, self-discipline together with self-resilience will take you girls to the top.”

Georgina felt she’d missed something. “You girls?”

“It’s what my headmistress was always saying; yawn, yawn.”

Henry was looking business-like. “Okay, let’s get down to basics. Are you a lark or an owl?”

“Huh?”

“Do you work better in the morning or in the evening? I think you’re a lark, you’re compos mentis first thing and a bit slack after nine at night. So, you need to rise early and get stuck into your writing.”

Anna was enthusiastic. “I rise early, I can wake you, with coffee, and then you write, and then you have breakfast, for half an hour, and then you write, and then you have another cup of coffee at eleven, and then you write, and then half an hour for a nutritious and balanced lunch, and then—”

“And then I write and write and write, great idea, only it doesn’t quite work like that.”

“It has to,” said Henry. “No, don’t have another glass of wine, you’ll want a clear head. A chapter a day, you’ll be through it in no time.”

“Assuming always that the spiders walking through jungles approximate to a plot,” said Maud. She got up, stretched and said she was going to go and play the oboe. “Slow movements of Baroque Concerti are what you want, Gina. It sets the brain humming at the right wavelength for creative endeavour.”

Henry stared at his sister. “Wherever did you pick up that piece of nonsense?”

“It isn’t nonsense, it happens to be true, and if you were a real scientist you’d check it out instead of dismissing my words of wisdom.”

“She should be at school, quickly,” said Anna. “She is bored and thinks too much.”

Henry sighed. “God, I forgot, I’m taking her to look round one tomorrow. Which means I’ve got to get back to my desk, I’ve a heap of stuff to get through.”

“Where are you going? Is it far?”

“Hampshire.”

Maud’s head came round the door. “Glad you remembered that. Gina had better postpone her routine for a day and come too, because it’s Austen territory; only a few miles from Chawton.”

“Chawton?” Henry said.

“Sharpen up, Jane Austen’s house. We can go there after my interview. Gina gets inspired, you get some culture and I can cry in the room where she was ill. Oh, and we’ll do Winchester Cathedral while we’re about it, she’s buried there, that’s a must-see for Gina.”

They were clear of London traffic and Henry was driving in his usual relaxed way, when his phone went off. He dug it out of his pocket and passed it to Georgina, who was sitting in the passenger seat at the front. “Answer it for me, would you?”

Georgina did so, and to her horror, the sharp, familiar tones of Livia Harkness’s voice filled the car, making Henry sit up in alarm.

“Good God! Who the hell is that?”

“I recognize the voice,” said Maud’s voice from the back. “It’s Georgina’s friendly agent.”

Georgina was holding the phone as though it were red hot. If it had been her phone, she would have let down the window and flung the offending object out into the hedge.

“Georgina? I know that’s you. I can hear you breathing.”

Georgina tried to hand the phone back to Henry, but he waved her away. “Can’t talk while I’m driving,” and then, in a whisper, “give it to Maud.”

Georgina flicked the phone into the back, where Maud neatly
caught it. She held the phone to her ear. “Hi, can I help? This is Henry Lefroy’s phone, by the way. I am his sister. Who are you?”

“Put Georgina on. I know she’s there.”

“Georgina is presently at home. Sitting at her computer, writing furiously.”

“She isn’t. She’s in the front seat of a silver VW Passat, driving out of London. Heading for the M3.”

Henry had had enough. There was a parking place signed at the side of the road, and he braked and turned into it. He turned round and seized the phone from Maud. “Henry Lefroy here. Have you something to say to me?”

“I don’t have time to waste. I want to speak to Georgina. Now.”

“My sister told you that she is not here.”

“She is. She was seen. Put her on.”

Georgina and Henry looked at each other. Maud was hanging over the back of the front seats, pulling terrible faces in the direction of the phone. Georgina made miming gestures to Henry, urging him to turn the phone off. He did so, but two seconds later, it was vibrating into life. He passed it back to Maud. “Turn it off,” he said. “Oh, and before you do, see if you can disable the voice mail. I don’t want to have a string of messages from that woman ringing in my ears when I turn it back on again.”

“How did they get hold of your number?” said Georgina. “And how on earth did they know I was in a silver car with you, heading to the M3?”

“I don’t know about the telephone, although your Mr. Vesey does seem to have ways of getting telephone numbers, but I expect somebody who knows you saw you in the car,” Maud said.

“I don’t believe it,” said Henry. “That would be a coincidence too far. It’s much more likely that someone was keeping an eye on the house, saw you come out and set off after us.”

“Robert, I expect,” said Georgina. “Do you think I could sue Dan Vesey for harassment?”

Maud swung her head round and looked out the rear window. “Do you mean that someone is following us?”

They sat in the lay-by, watching the traffic. There was very little of it, as they were now on a country road, going cross-country. A lorry rumbled by, a man on a motorbike, a people carrier driven by a woman wearing sunglasses. Henry switched on the engine. “We aren’t being followed.”

“I’ll send her a message,” Georgina said a few miles later. She felt in her bag for her phone. “No,” and “Don’t do that,” came from Henry and Maud simultaneously.

“If you text her with that SIM, then she’s got your new number,” Maud pointed out.

“If I use Henry’s, the minute I turn it on, she’ll be there again.”

“I doubt it,” said Henry. “A snappy woman like that will have moved on, she’ll try again later. Go on, you’ll see I’m right.”

Georgina read her message aloud. “Have gone to visit Jane Austen’s house at Chawton. Back late. May contact you tomorrow.” She quickly turned the phone off again, and handed it back to Henry.

“I predict a tirade of abuse about that one,” said Henry.

“Are you really going to contact her tomorrow?” said Maud.

“No.”

They turned off the road at a large sign which read: warburton’s school, independent day & boarding school for girls aged 11–18.

Georgina said she’d stay in the car. “This looks scary, I’ll keep my head down in here.”

“We shan’t be long,” said Maud cheerily as she got out of the car. “I can tell at a glance that this isn’t my kind of school.”

“I wish you would make up your mind exactly what is your kind of school,” said Henry. “Then I needn’t waste all this time traipsing around the countryside.”

It was peaceful in the car. Henry had parked in the visitors’ car park, which was a neat area surrounded by trees. Peering through a gap in the trees, Georgina could see what must be the gym block, with exercise bikes lined up behind a large expanse of plate glass. Birds sang, there was a faint sound of someone playing uncertain notes on a trombone, but otherwise the silence was only broken by the distant rumble of a tractor.

Georgina took out her notebook, turned the pages back, uncapped her pen and set to work making more wild diagrams. These continued for about ten minutes until a bell sounded, so loud that it made the air vibrate, and startled Georgina into dropping her pen. Suddenly the landscape was full of girls. A large group in sports gear trotted past the car park in one direction, another crowd with bags over their shoulders and files under their arms approached from the opposite direction.

Could she imagine Maud in all this mêlée? No, she could not. Henry had said that it was a big school, and there was a kind of determined purposefulness to these young women that made Georgina certain that Maud wouldn’t fit in. Certainly her appearance was all wrong, as these girls all had shining hair and make-up-free complexions.