Persuading Austen

‘Yeah, well.’

Her face burned with humiliation as the words stuck in her throat. What was the point? Her place in the family was not the femme fatale; she wasn’t the one men fell for. Her part was as the steady and boring one. The maiden aunt.

She squirmed. She hated to be pitied.

‘It was a long time ago. And things have changed. Isn’t that the car?’ she said. Annie heard the rev of an engine and thanked whatever deity had sent it. She needed a break.

‘Charlie,’ Marie’s voice screamed up the stairs.

There was a flurry of goodbyes.

And then they were gone. How could the adults be more draining than the kids?

Annie glanced over at the boys but a pair of two-dimensional moss-green-coloured eyes caught her gaze; the last time she had seen them in real life they had glared at her.

Damn him. She’d made her choice and still it felt he was giving her grief about it.

***

‘Cupcakes, beyotch, whether you like it or not.’

Annie jumped as the shout came from Cassie across the tiny hall that separated their offices, almost accidentally entering Idris Elba’s pay at three times his fee.

‘Never. I’ll compromise on Portuguese custard tarts and macarons but never cupcakes,’ she called back as she amended the cost, smiling at the ease with which she could fix work problems.

It had been two weeks since the Austen bombshell and Annie had only now stopped looking over her shoulder when she was out.

Which was stupid. London was a big place.

And, she needed to concentrate. This was her job. This is what she was good at – what she loved. The only part of her life that worked and the place she’d thrown the leftover parts of her heart into.

Cupcakes. Annie could feel the grimace on her face. Horrible overly sweet cloying invaders.

But if Cassie said cupcakes it meant there was obviously more news. Good news. If their little company got any more successful she and Cassie would be obese. Or maybe they’d have to hire someone else to spread the calories.

‘So, what will it be?’ Annie called out. There was a considered silence from the other office. She waited, her hands poised over the laptop keys.

‘If you buy the champagne then okay.’

Champagne? The news must be good. And Cassie would be dying to tell it, which is why she gave in so easily.

‘On it.’

Annie grabbed her purse and coat. She rushed out of the little basement office before Cassie could change her mind. Taking the steps two at a time, she burst onto the residential street of terrace houses. Diving down the street by the local pub, where Cass and she had spent way too much time celebrating and commiserating, Annie came on to Notting Hill Gate. Dodging tourists, she pushed open the door to her favourite patisserie.

The puff of hot air laced with cinnamon and sugar warmed Annie’s face, chilly from the outside. She took a huge breath in almost tasting the buttery pastry on her tongue.

The shop had a few tables at the back but mostly it was a long counter with a glass display case full of the most indulgent cakes and pastries. They were piled high, some oozing cream, others glistening with egg wash, and most drenched in fine powdered sugar. And to Annie’s happiness not a cupcake in sight.

‘Hey, Maggie, can I have two custard tarts and a small mix of macarons,’ she said to the middle-aged woman in an apron behind the display case.

‘So is it good news or bad news?’ Maggie was used to Cassie and her buying patterns by now.

‘Cass said to get the bubbles in so I’m thinking extremely good news,’ Annie said and couldn’t help rubbing her hands together as she waited for Maggie to fill her order.

She felt buoyant, as if she had already drunk the bubbles. There was something about work that freed her. Cut her ties to her family even for a small amount of time. At work she was Annie Elliot, production accountant extraordinaire. She liked that Annie Elliot so much better than Annie Elliot, resident doormat. And when it became Annie Elliot, producer … She smiled harder.

‘There you go,’ Maggie said closing the lid of the white cardboard box, hiding the brightly coloured macrons and glistening tarts. ‘That will be twelve pounds sixty, please.’

Annie tapped her card on the card reader, grabbed the cardboard box and her receipt. She rushed to the door.

‘Bye, Maggie,’ she called back.

Hopefully the off-licence would have some chilled champagne, she thought. Who was she kidding? This was Notting Hill. Of course it would and it was only a week since Valentine’s so they might have some on offer. She grabbed the door handle, hoping that the Pol Roger was on sale and whether the news was good enough to justify it.

‘Bugger.’

The door handle was pulled from her and she fell forward, almost dropping the cake box.

‘Sorry,’ a husky voice said and a firm male hand grabbed her bicep to steady her. ‘I wasn’t paying attention,’ he continued. Annie looked up into a pair of pale blue eyes.

The bloke had fox-like features and a slow sideways smile. He waved his phone at her and looked sheepish.

Annie felt a jolt of recognition, as if he was someone she should know. As if his name was on the tip of her tongue.

‘I hope I didn’t squash your cakes,’ he said. His voice held a resonance she recognized as trained.

Ah, an actor, she thought. That was it then. She’d probably seen him in something on the television. God, she hoped it hadn’t been in a production and she’d forgotten him? That wasn’t good for business.

Better smile, she thought as she grinned, channelling in-charge production accountant extraordinaire Annie. It wouldn’t do to piss off someone who she might work with in the future.

He blinked and opened his mouth, as if about to say something.

But for Annie there were more important things to be doing than talking to a cute bloke, like buying champagne.

‘No worries,’ she said, sliding past him.

She rushed off but couldn’t help glancing back to see the bloke still holding the door to Maggie’s open and watching her with an appreciative but calculating stare. She shook it off.

***

‘Champagne. Check. Custard tarts. Check. Frivolous French macarons, even the green pistachio ones. Check.’ Annie counted off the supplies onto Cassie’s desk. A pair of mismatched champagne flutes waited for the frothy contents.

Annie went to open the foil on the top of the bottle.

‘Hold on. I think we’re missing something?’ Cassie said.

Annie checked again. They had everything they needed. ‘What?’

Cassie winked and flourished a piece of paper in front of Annie.

It was the print-out of some emails.

Annie read it.

Then she read it again. Her hand trembled and the paper shook.

‘But …’ Cassie quickly rescued the champagne bottle that was in danger of dropping to the floor from Annie’s suddenly slackened fingers.

Annie knew that the black type were words. And she could read them all individually. In fact she could’ve read it out loud. What she was struggling with was actually comprehending what the email meant.

‘How come Eric Cowell wants me to be a producer as well as the production accountant?’ It was better to ask questions. Yes, questions and then maybe the reality would sink in.

‘I might have mentioned that Northanger was looking at expanding their expertise into producing.’

That wasn’t a complete lie. Cassie knew how much she wanted to take control and move into producing. All those long lunches and wine-soaked evenings when Annie had waxed lyrical about her ambitions.

But that had been about testing the waters with a small production, something under the radar. Not this. This was as if someone had taken her pipe-dream and put it on a course of steroids.

Could she do it?

‘And what is this?’ Annie’s trembling finger pointed at the paper. ‘The bit about Les Dalrymple offering Dad and Immy roles? They haven’t even read for him yet.’

This was unprecedented. She would have known if they’d had auditions. There was no way they would have kept it quiet.

‘He might have come across those audition videos you made them do for that Downton Abbey spin-off that never went anywhere …’ Cassie tried to look innocent.

‘How would he come across them …?’

Annie knew the videos had been sitting on the work server because she’d edited them during her downtime. But then they hadn’t been seen by the world ever since Dad had decided that Julian Fellowes was, as he said, ‘a horrible little tick’. This, of course, only after Julian hadn’t shown him quite the deference William Elliot expected was due of him at an awards ceremony.

‘They fell on an email?’ Cassie said trying to look innocent as she took off the wire and popped the cork. ‘And if we can keep your dad and sister sweet until the production is too far gone for them to be fired then we are good to go.’

The custard tart in Annie’s mouth suddenly tasted like ashes.

Her dream job that at any point could turn into the night terrors. Because having Dad, Immy, and Austen in the production was one huge perfect storm brewing. How the hell was she going to come out of it without drowning?

Chapter Four

‘Darling, I knew you wouldn’t forget your family.’ Immy engulfed her in a hug that smelled of exotic flowers that only bloomed at night. Annie knew how much the personalized scent cost down to the nearest ounce. It would’ve been cheaper to import the flowers in on a weekly basis. But it would be pointless asking Immy to change perfumes.

‘And why would Annie forget us?’ Dad said, as he adjusted his tie in the mirror over the mantelpiece.

Honestly, she thought, she wished she could forget. Life would be so much easier.

And more financially stable.

Annie watched as Dad and Imogen got ready to go out to celebrate their new roles.

They had invited Annie.

Eventually.

Even if she hadn’t known she was an afterthought, she did after Immy said, ‘I’m sure Carlo will be able to squeeze an extra chair at the table, but then we might not get the good spot …’ Immy’s forehead creased as much as it was able to.

Throw me a bone why don’t you, Annie thought. One day she was going to call them on all this. She was going to start sailing through life not giving a crap about them. Letting them sink or swim on their own.

Annie drifted off into a dream where she was an orphan. A dream where she knew exactly how much money was in the bank account because she was the only one who used it.

‘Annie.’ Imogen’s voice brought her back to the present with a bang. The world of Christmases spent alone in exotic locations popped like a balloon, catapulting her back into her real life.

‘Yes,’ she said, the taste of a fruity cocktail fading on her tongue.

‘As you’re going to be on this shoot anyway, Daddy and I have decided that it would be nice if you took care of us while we’re on location.’

Took care of them?

Any thoughts Annie had of keeping her personal and professional life separate whilst on this job were shot out of the sky by a Messerschmitt and went twirling in a smoky tailspin to the ground.

‘Look, Immy, I’m going to be working on this shoot. I have two jobs already. Accountant and producer. I’m not there to look after you and Dad.’

Imogen patted Annie’s cheek with her manicured, soft hand. The feeling of the palm against her skin made Annie cringe. Should she tell Immy that her hands were clammy with moisturizer?

Or maybe Annie was cringing because she was yet again being treated as if she meant nothing. As if she were a pet to be patted on the head and then ignored.

‘Whatever, darling; Daddy, we need to go.’

And in a flurry of clicking heels and ciaos, they were gone leaving Annie in a fog of exotic scent and anger.

Why couldn’t she tell them no?

The whisper of her mother’s voice was in her ear: ‘Promise me, Annie. Promise to look after them.’

Annie stood in the hall, her chest heaving with all the unsaid words she wanted to shout. Her throat choked by familial feelings.

This had to stop. She needed to make a stand.

***

‘What the hell?’ Annie poured the rest of the white wine from the bottle into her glass.

Taking a stand meant Annie needed to figure out the family finances. Ever since Mum died, she had been the one who managed everything. At first because Marie was too young, Immy had stuck her face in a pile of drugs and Dad, well he’d just let her.

Which was why Annie was sitting downstairs in the kitchen. She shifted as her bum was going numb on a rickety kitchen chair and her laptop wobbled slightly on the uneven surface of the table.

She took a massive gulp of wine and rubbed her eyes.

There should have been enough in the family’s account for the next mortgage payment. Everyone’s salary went in, the big bills were paid, and then everyone got an allowance in their own account. Annie had come up with the system and with a few tweaks it worked.

But now she was sitting looking at the statement on the bank’s website and it had a very different figure than it should have, a much lower amount than the one her spreadsheet said should be there.

Hadn’t she taken Immy and Dad’s cards away that linked to this account? They weren’t allowed access ever since she found Dad had left the card behind the bar at a pub and charged the whole of a wrap party’s tab to it.

Annie downed the rest of the glass, her lips pulling back as the acidity hit her tongue. She squinted at the website. Slowly she scrolled through the past month’s transactions. Her salary had gone in last Monday and almost immediately it had nearly all gone.

What the …

And there was the culprit: three thousand five hundred and twenty-one pounds ninety-nine spent at … She looked a little closer.

She was going to kill them. Absolutely annihilate them. They had spent what little financial cushion they had at a place called The Kybella Klinic. With shaking hands she typed it into the search engine.

A series of injections to get rid of fat, especially under the chin, she read.

And the worrying thing: she wasn’t sure whether it was Immy or her dad who had wasted the money because neither of them looked any different.

Annie downed the remainder of the wine.

She couldn’t do it anymore. That was her salary. She would get them standing on their own two feet and free of her or die trying.

Annie got up from the table and headed towards the fridge where she knew there was another bottle of wine.

And if she was going to die then it didn’t matter how much wine she drank in the interim, did it?

***

‘You need to rent out the house, tell them to pull their socks up and act like grown-ups. Let you get on with your life.’

The whole restaurant went quiet and Annie could see everyone’s head swivel to watch them. She wanted to crawl under the table in the Italian restaurant. She wondered how her godmother would take being asked to keep her voice down.

Not well.

Crisp and RADA trained, Lily Russell’s voice had filled the Old Vic and had projected to the back of the Olivier. It easily reverberated around the small room that made up the exclusive restaurant. She was a national treasure. Dame Lily Russell, grande dame of English theatre. More importantly she had been Annie’s mother’s best friend at drama school and beyond. She didn’t do quiet.

But she definitely did managing.

‘I know, Auntie Lil.’ Annie sighed. ‘Renting out is the only way we can get out of this mess. But I don’t know how to bring it up. Dad will have a fit, Immy will go into queen bee mode, and Marie, who doesn’t even live there, will get all sentimental about how I’m taking her childhood home from her.’ She smoothed the tablecloth as she said it, looking down so she didn’t see the faces of the other diners she knew were still staring at them.

Annie knew this because she tried to bring up the idea for renting out the house about once a year. She shuddered. And there was that one time she’d suggested selling …

The house was a millstone around their necks – or rather her neck. She should be rejoicing about the new job but she was stuck.

And now with the mortgage in danger of being defaulted on she needed to do something. She couldn’t bury her head in the sand.

That is why she’d called up Auntie Lil. Reinforcements. Or an old-fashioned kick up the backside.

‘You let them bully you,’ Lily said. ‘You have to be firm and stick to your guns. Your mother, God rest her soul, babied them all. Ruined them.’

Annie raised her eyes to stare at the picture of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, which was on the wall behind Lily. Bullied? Well, Annie couldn’t deny it. But they needed her, didn’t they? She was looking after them. Just like she promised.

‘Annie, darling.’ Auntie Lil leaned forward as if she were saying something she didn’t want overheard. Her voice came down a few decibels but could still be heard in the kitchen. ‘While you are looking after the whole family, you can’t move on.’

Annie could feel her eyes fill.

Crap.

‘Now, I know that you aren’t getting any younger. I mean, I was talking to my private doctor the other day and he said that no matter how you young people put things off, your eggs are ageing.’

Let the floor open up and swallow her. How had they gone from family finances to her fertility?

‘How will you settle down and start a family when you are too busy babying William and Imogen?’

Start a family?

What?

Annie felt she had taken a sharp turn into a different conversation.

‘I know you wanted to settle down with that callow actor fellow. That was wrong for you then. Penniless actors are ten a penny. Now … well, you can’t be fussy. And you’ll have to be the breadwinner. Maybe you’ll meet a nice chap on set?’

Annie’s heart clenched.

She had tried to forget the one disastrous meeting between Aunt Lil and Austen. No one had come out of it unscathed.

‘But …’ Annie tried to interrupt. She wasn’t looking to meet anyone and start pushing out babies. She wanted her independence. Her job.

‘Now, no interrupting me – it is for the best. I’ve arranged for Clay Shepherd from Shepherd and Kellynch to come by the house tomorrow at ten to view it. You have to take your father by surprise. It is the only way.’

And also take Annie by surprise as well.

She knew Auntie Lil meant well even if she was taking over. It was nice not to have to always be the grown-up and have someone look after her instead.

Thank goodness for Auntie Lil. Annie wasn’t sure they would’ve survived this long without her.

Although that wasn’t what her dad thought. Lily thoroughly disapproved of him and had told him so in no uncertain terms on numerous occasions. Dad hated her – not that he would ever let that be known. William Elliot couldn’t be seen to be at outs with one of the national treasures of British theatre.

Annie shouldn’t be amused with the way Lily exploited it ruthlessly but how could she not? The acidic exchanges they had about ‘what Molly would’ve wanted’ happened as regularly as clockwork and sometimes were the only way Annie could get Dad to budge.

‘It will be a month or two before we will be off on location, yes? And then when the production is done we’ll have to hope we can find them more work.’

The ‘we’ in Auntie Lil’s speech was something she was trying hard not to think about too hard. Les, in a casting coup, had cast Lily as Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Annie was trying not to think about the one-upmanship that would happen between Lil and Dad on location. Luckily they were both too sensible to brawl in public. Or too vain.

And then when the production is done we’ll have to hope we can find them some more work.

Annie wasn’t sure why everyone seemed to think she was also acting as an agent to the pair of them. They both had professionals who took a percentage of their salaries to find them work. Admittedly most of the work Dad and Immy had over the last few years was through her but there were only so many favours she could call in before people started avoiding her. Immy and Dad weren’t always the best employees. In fact they were poster children for complete horrors.

‘Yes, Aunt Lil,’ she agreed, saving her energy for an argument she could win.

‘Now, I can’t keep chatting all day. I’ve a meeting with that darling Ken Branagh. He always has the best gossip.’

Lily waved for the bill, and the waiter popped up as if from a secret trapdoor in the floor. No one kept Dame Lily Russell waiting.

With a flurry of pound notes and air kisses from the staff they were ushered through the restaurant so that all the patrons could see who had been bellowing out their troubles. When they were outside, Lily pulled Annie into a hug, and then rushed off into a taxi that miraculously appeared. Annie was left ruffled on the pavement with a slick of red lipstick smeared on her cheek. Dealing with Aunt Lil was like being in a film, where everything had been choreographed to ensure that Dame Lily Russell was the star.

It was then that Annie realized nothing had actually changed. She was still going to have to be the one to tell her family they were renting out the house.

***

‘Annie,’ Cassie said as they sat in their local, The Hill Gate, a week later waiting for their friends, Julie and Anna, fellow accountants. ‘Why haven’t you replied to Les’s invite for the pre-production party? I’m being chased by his PA for the fifth time.’

Annie screwed her eyes closed. She wondered if she could get away with sticking her fingers in her ears and singing la la la la.

‘Don’t close your eyes on me,’ Cassie said.

‘I thought we weren’t talking work?’ Annie opened her eyes and reached for her glass.

Cassie glared at her.

Decisions about the party weren’t the only thing she’d been avoiding. It was what she had been doing about the house-renting business too. She could have it on the market tomorrow and tenants by the end of the week. Financial issues gone. Freedom guaranteed.

The problem there, she thought, was telling Dad and Immy.

Why was life so complicated? Why couldn’t she make it all behave like numbers on a work spreadsheet? She took a sip of wine and looked round the pub. Where the hell were Julie and Anna? Surely they should be here by now?

Cassie kicked her under the table.

Annie rolled her eyes. Of course, she hadn’t replied to the invite because then she would actively be putting herself in front of Austen Wentworth.

And eight years ago, Annie had sworn she would never do that again.

Mind you, all she was doing was putting off the inevitable; she was going to have to see him throughout the whole production.

But maybe it would be okay. A treacherous tendril of a thought escaped out of the box she had hidden all her Austen-related feelings in. Maybe he would take one look at her and eight years would fall away. He’d look at her again with his famous green eyes, ones she knew turned from emerald to grey to brown depending on the light, and his mouth would twitch up at the edges. As if he was trying not to laugh.

‘Anne-ticipation, Anne-tediluvian, Annie-matronic.’ He’d have his arms round her waist and he’d swing her from side to side, coming up with more and more inventive additions to her name.

Austen had always said that she needed a bigger name than Anne or even Annie. That only one or two syllables didn’t seem enough to him. He’d started going through the dictionary adding endings to her name. She’d never felt as if she took up space until Austen. He saw her and in his seeing her she grew bigger in the world.

With him she expanded. She felt as if she didn’t have marshmallow for a spine but that she could conquer the world. That she mattered.