It had been a frustrating day of rehearsing for the launch parties, with Melody giving Mary instructions on how to act like Jane Austen that often ran counter to Jane’s advice.
“I would never say that,” she objected, when Melody suggested Mary employ a double-entendre joke.
“Oh right, like I couldn’t find worse in any of the emails you’ve sent me.”
“Those are in private conversation. I would not make such a joke in public. And what are you laughing about?” Jane caught sight of Mary trying hard to suppress laughter.
“Sorry, but it was funny.”
That Mary sided with Melody added to Jane’s frustration. After all, she had chosen Mary to be her avatar, but now Melody acted as if it was her brilliant choice to employ Mary. And Mary seemed to recognize that, at present, appeasing Melody rather than Jane was in her best interest.
All this was complicated by the lingering resentment between Jane and Melody after Jane’s social media broadside. Despite Mr Pembroke’s intervention, Jane and Melody were still nursing their grievances.
Of course Jane knew her complaints were just a symptom of the pressures under which they were working, but she still needed to vent and the one person to whom she could turn was Albert. And so she was delighted when she saw the message: “BertieFromHants has entered the room.”
“Albert, thank goodness. I could not remember whether you worked today.”
“I am at work. This store’s changing rooms are just on the edge of the hotspot of the restaurant next door, so I may lose you from time to time. But after getting your email, I thought I should meet you.”
“I don’t want to take you from your work,” Jane said, although she was hoping that Albert would do just that.
“I am entitled to lunch breaks, which I often take,” he said, although that was a lie. He actually didn’t mind his job or his time away from being online, but technically he was permitted lunch and two fifteen minutes breaks. He was simply taking his break in the changing room, where he could still look out for shoplifters and chat with Jane.
“Thank you,” Jane replied, “I needed your company.”
“You mentioned frustration at work. I don’t have a shoulder to cry on, but you can vent your frustrations and I promise to be sympathetic.”
Jane, however, had spent the last thirty minutes imagining what she would say to Albert and now that he had joined her, she realized how petty was her complaint.
“Actually talking with you has already improved my mood. I realize how silly I would sound if I told you my complaint.” She also realized that it would require considerable obfuscation to voice her complaint without compromising the fiction she had created.
“Well, I’m glad that’s sorted,” he said. “I guess I’ll get back to work.”
“Don’t you dare! This is our first chat in days and yes, I know the fault lies with me.”
Albert refrained from saying it was their first chat in almost two weeks and how much he had missed their conversations. Last year they spoke almost daily and at length via instant messaging. This year most of their communication was by email.
“It’s perfectly understandable. Your job has overwhelmed you. You recall my behaviour when I started working?”
The question surprised Jane. “Oh, yes. I had forgotten that.” She suddenly realized her situation was not unique.
“Both us have spent a very long time alone and without the companionship of the living. To be suddenly working and facing the demands of a schedule again can be … actually, I’m more than a little envious of you.” As he sent his reply, he noticed a man enter the changing rooms with several trousers draped over his arm, an unusual thing for a man. Women were more likely to try multiple frocks and blouses. Men usually shopped for a specific item. The man also held a carrier bag from another store, which attracted Albert’s attention.
“Really?” Jane replied.
Albert took some time before replying as he followed the man to one of the booths. The man looked casual and didn’t seem to be on the lookout for security cameras. Albert returned his attention to Jane. “Uh, yes. First, I dislike anything that robs me of your company. Now our time together is dictated by your schedule and mine, but I know this complaint is shared by millions of … uh, many people have this problem. But I am also envious because you have co-workers, whilst mine is a solitary occupation. That’s why I feel the loss of your conversation so keenly.”
“And that’s how I felt when you started working. I felt … abandoned. I am sorry that the pressures of work make it difficult for us to talk. And I warn you that I see … I think it will only get worse before it gets better. And I am sorry that your occupation is a lonely one. Perhaps you should look for another job.”
“I didn’t mean to sound so deprived. I see hundreds of people every day and that makes my job interesting. I just wish that I might … talk to them, well some of them. But I’m … I wouldn’t want to go job hunting again, not in this economy.”
“Isn’t there something else you could do? A man like you …”
“What skills do I have? I was a soldier longer than I was a carpenter. And though the military has uses for the disembodied … and a carpenter who can’t hold a hammer is useless.”
“I only meant … you’re an educated man.”
“No, I’m not. I only know how to talk above my station. Please Jane, I am content with my lot. Tell me about your job and about your co-workers.”
This request was exactly what Jane feared, not that she hadn’t prepared for it, of course. She had already populated her imaginary workplace with all manner of endearing characters culled from the many professional people she had met recently. No, her real worry was that she was compounding her minor fiction into a full novel.
“Well, I work for a woman named Melody who’s really a lovely woman, but she does think she knows the answer to everything and … well I shouldn’t tell tales out of school, but she sometimes takes credit for things she didn’t do.”
“That is the purview of every manager,” Albert said. “Our lieutenant was forever doing that and the sergeant would complain he’d take credit for the sun shining up … for the sun rising in the morning.”
“And then there’s the new girl, Mary,” Jane said and stopped when she realized her mistake.
“I thought you were the new girl, Jane,” Albert observed.
“I was the new girl, until Mary was hired.”
“O ho, I sense some resentment.”
“Perhaps a little, but you make me realize how fortunate I am to have a job and to have co-workers who are really very nice people. Thank you.”
“But I’ve done nothing except complain about my own job. You apparently resolved your problems without my help, despite the deep frustration I detected in your email.”
Had she a face, it would be crimson with embarrassment at this. “I fell prey to the curse of email. I wrote and sent it while still angry. And you still helped me because I imagined what I would say to you and what advice you would give me. And my imaginary Albert gave me very good advice indeed.”
“Better than the real thing, no doubt,” he replied. “I think I’m jealous of this better me.” He would have expanded on this theme, but the man who’d entered the booth with the several pairs of trousers exited with no trousers but with his carrier bag noticeably heavier.
“Oh, must dash. I’ve found my first shoplifter of the day. Please tell me when we can chat again. I don’t want another two weeks to go by without hearing from you.”
A new portrait
Creating a likeness of Jane Austen
“My lips might be a little fuller,” Jane told the artist, feeling quite weary. She wondered whether Mary conveyed her comment with the same weariness. They had been working with the artist for hours and it was clear Melody was losing her patience.
“You’re not Julia Roberts, Jane,” Melody said with clear frustration in her voice. Mary had to agree to a certain resemblance
between the actress and the portrait that was emerging. But she was acting as Jane’s avatar and kept her mouth shut, or rather she spoke only what Jane told her to say. Every day she was finding it easier to both speak for Jane and protect the author at the same time. She knew Jane’s patience was also wearing thin, but she did her best not to sound exasperated. That is until …
“You have no idea what I looked like,” Mary said, speaking for Jane.
Melody replied: “This looks nothing like Cassandra’s portrait. Oh, you did not just roll your eyes at me. Wait, Mary, did Jane tell you to roll your eyes?”
“She … I only do … she only did what I tell her. If you say it looks nothing like Cassandra’s painting, then it is a marked improvement. Once there’s a cap and she adds some curls …”
“Then it will look like Julia Roberts with curly hair wearing a cap,” Melody said with finality. “Argh! Why is this so hard? And why do you end up looking like somebody else every time we do this?”
Mary waited for Jane’s reply, which was slow in coming. “Because I can’t quite remember what I looked like,” she said finally, which Mary relayed.
“Oh! I … I uh, I hadn’t thought of that,” Melody said, all her frustration evaporated after that disclosure. “Hey, Barb, could you give us a minute alone?” she asked the computer artist, which was a bit of cheek for they were sitting in the woman’s cubicle.
“No problem. You two … or three … work it out; I’m going outside for a smoke,” the young woman said, collecting her purse. She left them alone and Melody said, “OK, campfire,” and from her voluminous purse she pulled out the small speaker she carried to plug into her AfterNet terminal.
Mary always felt uncomfortable about Melody’s campfires because by now she had become accustomed to acting as Jane’s avatar and felt a proprietary interest in being the author’s voice. She suspected that Melody similarly felt the loss of being Jane’s conduit, as evidenced by the fact that Melody still kept her own terminal to talk to Jane. However, if Melody insisted on addressing both her and Jane at the same time, perhaps the campfire was a good idea.
“OK, so maybe you might have mentioned this at some point Jane?” Melody asked, still disconcertingly looking at Mary. Mary looked up at the ceiling to remind Melody that it was her decision to talk to Jane directly.
“It isn’t … it’s something I hadn’t realized,” Jane replied through the speakers.
“How can you not know what you looked liked?” Melody asked. Melody’s words were more blunt than she had intended, but she was truly annoyed at the time they had wasted.
“I have not seen my face for almost two hundred years, Melody. And even when alive, I never saw my face reflected back to me with the frequency to which you’re accustomed. There were no photographs, no YouTube videos or facebook to remind me several times a day of my own appearance. And I only ever saw myself face on, in the mirror. Rarely did I ever see myself from the side. I am sorry for wasting your time.”
Mary felt the ache of Jane’s words, even through the flat tone of the terminal’s digitized voice, and it was obvious Melody did as well.
“I’m sorry, Jane. I should have realized. This explains your reluctance with the project,” Melody said.
“No, it is not entirely … I tried to ignore my inability to recall my features and it … it may explain my dissatisfaction with Cassandra’s portrait. I truly do not know if it is accurate.”
Jane fell silent, as did Melody. Melody obviously felt embarrassed that she had forced this admission from Jane. And Mary could only imagine how sad it must be to forget your own face. The silence continued uncomfortably.
“Why don’t you just make something up then?” Mary suggested.
“What?” Melody asked.
“Just make something up. Part of the problem is that Jane is trying to recall something she can’t, so she’s just picking famous faces. So instead we ask your 3D artist to make up an attractive face with the appropriate dark, curly hair, hazel eyes and flawless complexion and we say that’s what you look like.”
“How is this possible?” Jane asked.
Mary was about to answer but Melody interrupted her. “That’s brilliant. You see it on cop shows all the time. They dig up a skull and some forensic artist makes a face from it. We could have Barb do the same thing.”
“I do not relish the idea of digging up my skull.”
“Sorry, that was a bad choice of words. I mean Barb just starts with a standard Northern European skull shape and works from there. We give her free rein.”
“But wouldn’t it be a lie?”
“Maybe a little, but who’s to know. And the only one who can really object to it is you. I mean do you?”
“Well, I confess I am vain enough to not want to be represented in a poor light.”
“Being your agent, I also would not want you to be hideous; it could negatively impact book sales. We just can’t make you too gorgeous.”
When Barb returned, the concept was proposed to her. The 25-year-old tattooed computer artist with the spiky black hair seemed to listen with disinterest as they explained their proposal. With her right hand, she was doing something with her computer, apparently searching for a file, while with her left hand she was playing with the ring pierced through her left eyebrow.
Melody’s patience was evaporating as she tried to explain the concept. “You can feel free to do what you want because you can just make an idealized portrait … excuse me, are you listening to me?”
“Maybe something like this?” Barb asked, after she had finally found the file she sought and double clicked it. The window that opened caught the attention of Melody, Mary and Jane.
“Oh my God, that’s perfect,” Mary said, and then felt guilty because it was Jane’s decision and shouldn’t try to influence her.
“The nose is … prominent,” Melody said.
You should talk, Mary thought. But Jane said, “No, it is the Austen nose, Melody.”
“It’s still a little big,” Melody countered.
“Then how about this one?” Barb asked. She opened another file and the same image appeared, except for a slightly less prominent nose.
“Now that’s more like it,” Melody said. “I like that.”
“But when did you do this?” Jane asked.
“Yes, why didn’t you show us these before?” Melody demanded.
“Well, A, that’s not what you asked for. You wanted to reproduce what Jane Austen looked like when alive. And B, my boss said I shouldn’t show you work I did on my own time.”
“You did these on your own time?” Jane asked.
“Yeah, as soon as I heard you’d been found, I mean identified. I’ve been a fan since high school, ever since Pride and Prejudice,” she said, the last with some defiance.
Melody, Mary and Jane looked at this pierced, tattooed, fierce young woman professing her love for Jane. Apparently the incongruity was not lost on Barb.
“I know I don’t look like a fan, but I fell in love with Elizabeth and Darcy all the same, Miss Austen. Then I read all your books, but I probably still like P&P the best.”
“But what prompted you to create these?”
“It was that horrible portrait of you they discovered, the pencil sketch with the cat.1 I thought you looked awful and nothing like Cassandra’s portrait, which I actually sort of like. Everyone was going on about the new portrait and I thought I could do better. I’d always imagined what you looked like, especially when you were my age. I tried to base it on your family resemblance—that’s the one with the nose—but I didn’t like that one so I modified it to what I wanted you to look like.” She broke eye contact and looked down, “How’d I do?”
“It’s lovely,” Jane said. “I can’t honestly say that’s exactly what I looked like, but I certainly wish I had.”
“You look like Emma,” Melody said.
“Beg pardon?” Jane asked. “Do you mean by this I look like Gwyneth Paltrow?”
&n
bsp; “No, don’t be facetious, Jane. No I mean you look like fun. You’ve got that look I always imagined Emma would have, an expectation that the world would offer you amusement and you were looking forward to it.”
Jane paused before answering. “I think that at this age … I still did expect that of the world, before we moved to Bath and before my father died.”
None of the women said anything after that until Mary said privately to Jane through her own terminal, “Well that was a downer, Jane. You might want to lighten the mood.”
Jane could not reply to Mary directly for fear that Melody’s terminal might translate her response. Instead she said to them all: “I think your portrait is perfect Barb, with the exception that you have shown me outdoors and I would not be without a cap or bonnet. I suggest a light cap, no more than a wisp for modesty.”
“And do you think we can make her eye colour a little more hazel?” Melody asked.
“Oh, that is important Melody,” Jane agreed.
“And do you not think that as she seems to be sitting out of doors with not even a shawl that she looks like she might be a little cold,” Barb asked with a querulous voice that Melody and Mary appreciated.
“Hush, Mr Woodhouse2,” Jane said to Barb, who smiled, pleased that her reference had not been lost. Then Barb turned back to her computer and muttered under her breath: “Clients, sheesh.”
1 In 2011, Paula Byrne, who would later write The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things, announced that she had what might be a heretofore unknown pencil sketch of Jane Austen. The nose of the face in the sketch was prominent. Opinion is divided as to the authenticity of the sketch.
2 Mr Woodhouse is the hypochondriacal father of the titular character in Emma. He fears the cold and assumes others are similarly afflicted. When Emma paints a portrait of her friend Harriet Smith, Mr Woodhouse observes: “The only thing I do not thoroughly like is, that she seems to be sitting out of doors, with only a little shawl over her shoulders—and it makes one think she must catch cold.”
Jane, Actually Page 14
