Writing Jane Austen Read Free Page B

grasp Georgina round the throat. The voice changed from sharp to menacing purr. “You need money and work to stay in the UK, right?”
    Georgina wished that she’d never let on to Livia how much she wanted to stay on in England. She had, and she would bet Livia knew exactly how difficult it was to get the right to stay permanently. “I have my university fellowship.”
    “You’ve only got a few months left at the university and when that’s finished, you won’t be able to get another job in the UK, not without a permit. Writing’s all you’ll be allowed to do, and you have to have money in the bank to support yourself while you do it. Write this novel and it wipes out the loss, you get big bucks, Dan Vesey gets big bucks, I get fifteen percent of big bucks, you get to stay in England, we’re all happy. Turn it down, you’re on your way back across the Atlantic, with nothing to show for your time here but a heap of faded cuttings.”
    Georgina tried to keep her voice low and reasonable. Livia was inla-la land, but with the right approach, she must be able to make her agent understand how impossible it was. “You don’t understand, I’m not being wilful nor ungrateful. It’s can’t, not won’t. I’m not capable of writing a book like Jane Austen. Oh, there are just so many reasons why I’m not the right person for this,” she finished, knowing how weak it sounded, but determined not to reveal exactly why Livia and Dan had chosen the wrong writer to do the job.
    “Don’t give me that crap. I’m the one who says what you can and can’t write. You wrote one book in fancy language, you can do another. You didn’t get sales, but you got the crits. The literati like you. You won that prize and got coverage for your book, got your face and name out there. Radio, late-night TV, Edinburgh Festival, weekend supplements, that kind of thing. That gives you the credibility Dan Vesey’s looking for.”
    “It’s huge, you say it yourself. Get a big name, any one of a dozen top writers would snap your hand off for this.”
    “Yes, and are they my clients? No, they are not. I’ve been through my entire list, don’t think I only considered you, and none of them fits the bill the way you do. Now, I’ve got a twelve o’clock. Tish will give you the paperwork on your way out. A transcription of the pages, complete with all the interpolations and cancellations, plus background stuff. It’s been authenticated by Dan’s sister, she’s an academic at Oxford and has all the right contacts. All in the family, and that’s how we want to keep it.”
    “No,” Georgina said.
    “I’ll give you, from the kindness of my heart, exactly one hour to come to your senses and get back to me with an answer, and that answer will be yes. Got that?”

Two
    Email from [email protected]
    To [email protected]
    Subject: Georgina Jackson
    She’ll do it. Send me the contract.
    Georgina hurtled out into the street, eager to put as much distance as possible between herself and Livia. She was trembling. With anger? Or fear.
    Fear. Pure terror. And relief that she had escaped without agreeing to Livia and Dan’s preposterous suggestion. She paused and looked up and down the street. She’d walk home. It would take her more than an hour, time to slow her heart rate down to normal, time to avoid Livia’s call.
    She hardly saw the pavements, traffic, newspaper vendors, snap-happy tourists, shoppers, dog-walkers or anyone or anything else as she threaded the streets between Bloomsbury and Marylebone. After a grey summer, Londoners were rejoicing in the mild air, the brilliant blue skies, the warm sunlight of an early October day, but for Georgina the sky might as well have been a mass of cumulonimbus storm clouds.
    Wrapped in thought, she almost walked past Henry’s stuccoed terrace house. She retraced her steps along the railings, looking down into the basement kitchen where Anna Bednarska,