Persuading Austen

by Brigid Coady

  ‘Just tell me.’

  Annie opened her mouth to answer when Lily Russell invaded their little haven. She brushed through the foliage and passed Austen.

  ‘For God’s sake.’ Annie let her head drop onto the table.

  Could she not catch a break? This was supposed to be her moment of glory.

  ‘Austen, what is it with you upsetting Anne? You seem to be making a habit of it.’ Aunt Lil put an arm over her shoulders.

  Annie opened her mouth to speak for herself.

  ‘And you seem to be making a habit out of butting into things that don’t concern you,’ Austen said. It was the coldest she had heard him.

  ‘I think you’ll find Anne is family and I have every right.’

  This was ridiculous. She wasn’t going to do this.

  ‘Aunt Lil.’ She took her head off the table as she spoke and saw that Austen was striding away.

  ‘He might be all famous now but he’s still not right for you.’ Lily patted her shoulder.

  ‘You mean he might take me away from you all, don’t you?’ She was sick of this manipulation.

  ‘Well, really, Annie.’ Lily put her hand to her chest in a theatrical gasp.

  ‘I think you should go,’ Annie said.

  Lily stared at her for a moment before sniffing and walking away.

  Annie knew she was going to pay for that at some time in the future. It wasn’t as if it could bring Austen back but maybe it would bring the true Annie back?

  ‘Drink, lovely?’ Lewis wiggled a bottle of white wine in front of her.

  And maybe it would bring her new friends.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said taking a glass, glad when Lewis launched into an extravagant and loud story about a recent award show. Thank goodness for friends who knew not to pry.

  ***

  Lewis went to the gents’ and Annie couldn’t help checking the gossip sites,

  Why was she surprised? Of course, the story that Les had been given a talking-to by the producers was all over the gossip sites. Transsexual dwarf and all. Obviously Will had been sending anonymous asks and comments to every salacious place he could find as soon as he’d left them.

  How much did he get paid for it?

  But no Mr Sparkles, Annie noted as she looked through her feed. Les had been spared that. Annie wasn’t sure she could look at glitter or rainbows in quite the same way again. And she was giving a wide berth to any of the equine members of the cast if she could help it. There were certain things that couldn’t be unseen or heard.

  Well, she thought, at the very least this production had broadened her mind.

  But Will, she didn’t get how he could be like this. Annie remembered all the stories that had gone round about him only last year. The articles about the alleged drug use on set and then all those unforgiving and unforgettable pap photos of him falling out of nightclubs looking rough. Annie knew that people picked and chose the right photo to go with the story they were spinning.

  But Will was now complicit. He had a manager. He had PR, as did the soap he was on. Surely they could have shut it down?

  And then there had been a year of quiet before he’d turned up on set.

  Annie just couldn’t work out why someone who had been dragged through the gossip mill would allow himself to go through it all over again. Plus make money off someone else’s misery.

  She looked across the bar. Will was holding court, buying drinks for a gaggle of Bennet sisters.

  Using blood money.

  Enough.

  She was up and moving towards him between one thought and the next.

  ‘Annie …’ Lewis said as she passed him.

  ‘I’ll be back,’ she said, stalking by.

  ‘Will,’ Annie said, tapping him on his shoulder.

  He turned and smiled. ‘Annie, got over your snit?’

  She had always known he was calculating. Maybe she had let him get away with it or laughed it off because he was an Elliot.

  ‘Take this as an official warning. I meant what I said earlier. If I find any more stories coming out of this production and being sold to the tabloids, that NDA agreement will be enforced to the letter of the law. And I’ll make sure everyone in the industry knows you’ve violated it.’

  ‘But I’m family,’ Will said.

  ‘And?’ she replied.

  If she’d been willing to confront Immy and Dad about embezzlement, a broken NDA agreement for a distant cousin wasn’t going to bother her. Not today.

  ‘You can’t!’ Will looked round for reinforcement. The Bennet girls had drifted away, not wanting to be associated with him.

  ‘I can, Will. That is my job as a producer. You’ll have to rely on more traditional ways to get money and coverage. And warn anyone else that I’m not kidding around.’

  ‘But …’ Will stuttered.

  Annie turned her back on him.

  ‘Congratulations, Madame Producer,’ Lewis said. He’d followed her.

  ‘Quick, back to the table,’ Annie said. ‘Before I cave and change my mind.’

  Her breath was coming fast but the feeling of victory … to have taken a small step towards wrestling some control back. She could feel her back straighten; she felt inches taller.

  ‘You were magnificent,’ Lewis whispered in her ear. She could only hope that she could keep it up. Because it seemed that was all she had.

  Annie sat back down at the table, took a massive drink of white wine.

  Sod Austen.

  Sod Will.

  Sod her family and Aunt Lil.

  She’d go to LA. She didn’t need any of them.

  ***

  Annie watched the filming from the door of the production office. Something about the skew-whiffness of it now made sense. This is production was in no way stable. But as long as she could keep it from falling over completely they would be fine.

  The victory from last night’s confrontation with Will mixed with the satisfaction following the meeting with Eric.

  She wouldn’t think about Austen. The sad, resigned look on his face. But why was he so worried about her and Will? It was bloody obvious there was nothing going on.

  Mind you, the onset dynamics this morning were weird, she thought.

  Not that they hadn’t been weird before. But with all the turmoil from the day before … it was throwing people off.

  There had always been an issue with any Darcy/Bingley scene. The ease of friendship was never wholly there. Today it wasn’t going well.

  ‘Come on, Will, you need to be more innocent and naive, like you’d believe everything that Austen’s telling you,’ Les shouted at the two of them as they stopped on yet another take.

  ‘I can’t help it if Wentworth is too distracted to actually do his job!’ Will called back.

  The set, which had been quiet and scuttling, went silent, everyone pausing.

  Had Will really done that? Called out the biggest star on set and said he wasn’t doing his job? It was both unprofessional and suicidal.

  She could feel her hands start to curl into fists.

  Annie could see from where she was that Austen had flushed and was gritting his teeth, fighting to keep professional.

  ‘I’m sorry that it seems that way to you. I’ll try better,’ Austen said quietly as he walked back to his starting position.

  Annie’s fist went to her mouth.

  It was as if there was a ticking bomb and it was about to go off.

  ‘Well if you could keep your eyes off my cousin and your mind on the job then maybe we could get work done.’

  Oh Christ.

  It seemed as if everyone turned to look at her sitting on the crooked steps. Not that Austen had been staring at her – she should know. Because she had been watching everything he did.

  Immy, of course, seemed to think Will was referring to her and started fluttering and cooing, thinking that Austen had been staring at her.

  Annie could feel her cheeks heat. Would everyone stop looking?

>   Will was stirring because of yesterday. She wanted to go over and smack him round the back of his head.

  ‘Will, just go back to the start position.’ Les wasn’t shouting as he used to. He sounded resigned.

  Annie got up and went back into the office. If she wanted to keep looking like a professional and keep the job in LA then she needed to step away from all the drama.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  ‘I know that you’ve been offered the job in LA.’

  Annie jumped, her hands striking the keyboard of her laptop and a line of gibberish was suddenly being sent to the guy they owed money to for the horses and carriages.

  ‘Dad, I can’t talk now. I need to recall this email and send it with something that looks like English.’

  ‘No, Annie, you’re going to talk to us right now.’ Immy’s voice was strident.

  She hadn’t noticed her following Dad into the office. The fact they had both deigned to come and find her in her space worried her.

  What did they want?

  Annie wondered whether if she hit her head enough on the laptop keyboard she could somehow write her way out of this family.

  ‘Fine.’

  Annie got up from her desk. She needed to be on the same level as they were for this discussion. Level being a relative term as mostly it meant they were all listing at an angle. Each with one leg slightly bent to keep stable.

  ‘When were you going to tell us? We’re family.’ The way her father spoke of it was as if they could trace their lineage back to the Norman conquest and she was pretty sure they had only managed to trace the family line to somewhere on the dodgy streets of Kirkdale in Liverpool in the nineteenth century.

  ‘I only got offered the job yesterday, and all I’m doing is opening an LA office of the agency. And I didn’t think you’d care.’

  When had they given a crap about her before?

  ‘Not care? Not care? Of course we care. We have all these decisions and plans to make. Where we are all going to live. We’ll have to let our agents know that they need to start looking for US productions but I’m sure you’ll be getting us jobs so maybe that’s a moot point,’ Dad said as he tapped his lip in thought.

  Agents? Jobs?

  Annie stared at them.

  What the … They thought they were coming with her? She had put in all this work to have them stand on their own for them to just up sticks and re-create their London life in the sunshine?

  ‘But I thought you were staying here,’ Annie said with a strangled voice.

  ‘Annie, we’re family. We should all stick together. Oh, maybe Marie could do some location work there? We should look into that.’ Immy smiled as she said it. ‘I mean, if you don’t have us who do you have?’

  Annie froze in her spot.

  Who did she have? She had Cassie, yes. But, who else? Julie and Anna, but they wouldn’t be in LA.

  She was one of the musketeers, wasn’t she?

  But in LA, Harry and Lewis were Austen’s friends. And he wouldn’t want to hang out with her.

  ‘I have friends,’ Annie muttered. She didn’t need her family, did she.

  ‘Really, Annie? I mean you have Cassie here and some of those music friends you go out with, but in LA? You’ll need us; we’re family. We’re a team.’

  Annie thought of an empty apartment in LA, going to work and not seeing Cassie. Coming home to no one. Silence echoing round her.

  But she’d wanted silence, hadn’t she? She wanted to be on her own. Her family had never made her part of a team. Yet she’d never been on her own before.

  ‘But you two are settled here.’ Even Annie could hear the weakness through her words. Why, after all this time, couldn’t she say no? ‘The theatre … Dad, you always said Hollywood was soulless and that you couldn’t work there.’

  This couldn’t be happening.

  ‘I know I’ve said that. But since doing that commercial and meeting Candida, I’m convinced that I could do so much good there. They’ve been starved of great British actors. Most everyone there are just hacks,’ Dad said.

  Annie wondered how Patrick Stewart and Anthony Hopkins felt about being relegated to hack status.

  “Candida said she knew some people that I just had to meet,” Dad continued.

  I bet she does, thought Annie.

  ‘I mean you know we are perfectly capable of finding our own work now. We’ve proved that. None of us needing to resort to something illegal …’ Immy stared hard at Annie.

  Okay, so she’d got that wrong. Annie blushed.

  ‘I know that both of you are perfectly capable of finding jobs on your own. That you can look after yourselves without me holding your hand. And I’m very very sorry I thought you could … you know,’ Annie spluttered.

  ‘Annie, do you think Mum would want us to split up?’ Low blow, Immy, she thought.

  ‘Don’t say that,’ Annie replied.

  ‘Really, Annie, I think your attitude needs adjusting. You were always so spoilt by Mum,’ Immy weighed in.

  ‘Immy, you know I know about the audiobooks.’ Annie shivered.

  ‘I’m not ashamed of them, Annie. I believe one has been nominated for an Audie in the Adult Audiobook section. It’s quite popular … I, well Miss Bee Hayve, have fans’

  ‘I’m really happy for you,’ Annie said and meant it. ‘This is a good thing. Mum would be so proud of you.’ And Annie wasn’t lying; Mum would’ve been. She also would’ve been in shock that they managed to actually do something by themselves.

  ‘Would she?’ Immy asked, her face crumpling as some of her barriers came down. Annie put a hand on her arm. She wanted to hug her but that wasn’t what they did in this family.

  ‘She would be – you out there looking after yourself. You are standing up and doing things for you. She would love it. And she’d be buying all her friends copies of the book.’

  Annie wasn’t sure whether she would have, but a bit of artistic licence was allowed surely? Not many mothers would want their acquaintances knowledgeable about how their daughter sounded in the throes of passion.

  But it was the thought that counted, surely?

  ‘And all Molly wanted was the family to stay together,’ Dad said, his eyes swimming with tears.

  Annie could feel all her convictions cracking. She’d used up all her energy, all her determination getting this far. She’d got them out of the old house, got them settled.

  The production was now on track and she had her dream job waiting in LA. Could she really do it on her own? At least if they were with her she wouldn’t be constantly worryied that they had gone bankrupt.

  Wouldn’t it be easier if they were with her?

  ‘I know what Mum wanted,’ Annie started.

  ‘Then we’re all going.’ Immy didn’t ask; she stated.

  Annie stood, her mouth open, wishing the words out. Wanted to scream ‘no’, into the ether but who would hear it?

  How had this happened in less than twenty-four hours? Her greatest victory to this.

  She was as voiceless and spineless as she’d always thought she was.

  But just because they’d be in the same city, it didn’t mean she had to live with them. It could be like it was in London now. Sunday lunches, or probably brunches if they were going stateside …

  Annie felt herself nod her head. She could be Annie Elliot, producer, even if they were there, couldn’t she?

  Well, it looked like the Elliots were going to Hollywood.

  Why did she not feel like celebrating?

  ***

  ‘I’ve sent you some links to houses that we can rent when we’re Hollywood,’ Immy said as she sat next to Annie in the canteen.

  It was only because Annie wasn’t currently eating or drinking that she didn’t spew either food or liquid all over the table.

  ‘Sorry?’ she asked as she got her breath back.

  ‘Our house in Hollywood,’ Immy said as she pushed a few pieces of salad around her plate, occasionally liftin
g one up to check that nothing with too many calories was hiding underneath it.

  ‘Our house?’ Maybe if Annie asked the question Immy would see how ridiculous her statement sounded.

  ‘Our house – are you deaf?’ Immy said. ‘When we move to LA, you need to rent a house so Daddy and I don’t have to be in a hotel. We need to make sure that we keep up the Elliot brand. Ensure that everyone knows we are serious players. Really, Annie, I know it has taken you a long time to start actually being a credit to this family but you can’t be that slow. Of course, once everyone knows you’re my sister and who your father is … well we’re going to take over the world.’

  Immy delicately put lettuce in her mouth.

  Annie was obviously that slow. When they spoke yesterday there was absolutely nothing in it that said they were all living together. The point was for her to be Anne Elliot, producer, and not Anne Elliot, William Elliot’s daughter.

  They couldn’t be in the same house.

  And suddenly Annie could see her life in LA spread in front of her if she didn’t stop this right now. She would be pushed to the fringes of her own life again. Still be that person who picked up after Immy and her dad. Only useful for what she could bring to their careers. Everything she did would be for their own good and not hers. And maybe in eight more years’ time she would be so beaten down she wouldn’t wake up again. There would be no Austen Wentworth turning back up on her doorstep to hold a mirror up to her life and see how empty it was.

  ‘Immy, I don’t think you understand …’ Annie began.

  ‘No, Annie, I don’t think you understand. I know you gave that speech about Mummy being proud and you agreed to us all going to LA. But Mum would be even prouder to know we were all under one roof.’ Immy wielded the truth like a sword ready to cut Annie off at the knees in the way she had always done. Holding that promise Annie had made so long ago over her.

  Immy watched her and nodded in satisfaction as if she knew that Annie would be quiet, roll over, and give in.

  No.

  Her mother had not meant this when she had asked for the promise. She would not want her to sacrifice everything to become a nothing to keep her father and Immy happy.

  Because that is what she had become: a victim for them to feed off like emotional and financial vampires and not the sparkly stalker kind.