Brigid Coady - Persuading Austen

Annie heard the thump as she walked down the stairs. She stared down at the handmade leather brogue that had sailed from the living room and bounced on the black and white tiled hallway. She halted briefly, her foot hovering as she wondered whether she should take the next step or turn round and hide in her room. No, she needed to get out of the house …

Could she make it down to the kitchen without anyone seeing her?

She put her foot down carefully, hoping that it wouldn’t make any sound.

‘Annie.’

Crap.

Her name echoed up out of the living room, round the hall, and up the stairs. Her father’s voice could reach to the back of a large theatre; it had no problems with their house.

‘Annie. What was the point in having you as a Wikipedia editor if you don’t keep my page up to date?’ The words bounced and caused the chandelier to tinkle. At least his shoe hadn’t taken any more crystals off it.

She walked down the rest of the stairs, a solid lump forming in her gut. She would like one day without drama. She rubbed her temple and wondered what it would have been like if she had grown up in a family where dramatics weren’t the family business.

‘But, Dad …’ she said as she scooped up the shoe and cradled it in her hands. She quickly checked it wasn’t scuffed. William Elliot didn’t wear scratched shoes and the family finances couldn’t stretch to another pair of handmade shoes.

‘Don’t “but Dad” me. You know I wanted that link to the Guardian review added to it; it came out yesterday. It should be there.’

Annie stood in the doorway of the living room, watching as her father pulled at his bottom lip and frowned at the laptop screen in front of him.

If only someone hadn’t introduced him to Wikipedia. She would like to give that stage manager who showed him Alan Rickman’s page a piece of her mind.

‘I’ll do it when I get to the office,’ she said quietly. There was no point in raising her voice or saying no. It was a waste of time and energy because they all knew she’d do it anyway.

‘Well you’d better. It isn’t as though you were doing anything last night.’ He flicked his fingers at her in dismissal. Annie realized he hadn’t looked up from the screen once during the whole exchange.

And whose fault was that? she thought. The tickets she had to see Rag ’n’ Bone Man unused because Dad had wanted her to pick him up from the theatre. She’d waited in all night for his call, before he came home in an expensive cab.

She should’ve said something. If it had been work, she’d have ripped someone a new one. Annie sighed.

Annie stroked the burnished brown leather upper; it was warm from his body heat. It was the closest she’d been to him in awhile. Carefully she put the shoe down close to his chair so he’d see it but wouldn’t trip over it.

She turned and walked across the hall towards the stairs down to the kitchen, the lump in her stomach dissolving slightly. It could’ve been worse. Her finger brushed the small hole in the plaster in the wall; that had been his phone. And after that she knew no matter how broke the family were she always had to make sure he flew first class. She was thirty-two, lived at home, and was a complete pushover.

But as Annie entered the kitchen she took a deep breath and felt herself expand and unfurl. This was her place, every battered and old-fashioned part of it. The crazy Seventies-style cupboards with mustard-coloured doors that hung slightly off their hinges and the scratched and burnt wooden worktops. Her dad and oldest sister Immy never came down here if they could help it.

There had been a brief period when Immy had invaded, thinking her smoothies would gain an extra something if she prepared them herself. Immy took up more space than her spare frame should; her presence had squashed Annie into the corners of the room. Annie had felt like an interloper in her safe space. Luckily Immy had realized she could get the smoothies delivered from the same organic supplier that the Duchess of Cambridge swore by, and Annie had breathed a sigh of relief, moving the blender to the back of a cupboard.

An expensive gadget to be gathering dust but it was worth it for the freedom.

Annie closed the door to the kitchen, sealing herself inside, and turned on the small TV she had in the corner of the counter.

‘I don’t know why women make such a fuss about not having time to take care of themselves. For your marriage to survive you need to keep up certain standards. I mean … here I am with a career, two kids, and a very happy husband.’ Annie grimaced as she turned down the blast of her baby sister’s voice coming out over the speakers.

‘And a nanny, and a housekeeper and me,’ Annie muttered as she opened the fridge. If she had the show, Easy Ladies , on in the background she wouldn’t be completely lying when Marie called to ask, or rather demand, whether she’d watched it. Technically it was Annie’s day off but the prospect of spending more time at home had her, by mid-morning, desperate to escape to the office. And it also meant she didn’t have to give Marie blow-by-blow feedback on her performance.

Ah, there was the hummus.

She grabbed the tub. Her fingers grazed the pack of carrot batons. She could use them. She should use them. She looked up and caught Marie’s bleached white smile in the screen.

No.

She shut the fridge door with her hip and reached for the bag of salt and vinegar crisps from the cupboard beside it.

Annie felt in need of reinforcement, and there was something solid and safe about the tart tang of salt and vinegar crisps coated in the smooth creamy hummus. Ripping off the lid from the tub and breaking open the bag, she took a crisp and dipped it in.

Yes, there.

The taste exploded on her tongue, released saliva and with it a feeling of warmth. A hug. She remembered the way her mother and she had hidden down here, dipping crisps and giggling over the silliness of Immy and Daddy and Marie. How her mum had held her and told her that Daddy didn’t mean it when he called her ‘Podge’ or poked her in the tummy telling her to suck it in. And he was just busy with work when he forgot to call her on her birthday.

Why was she hiding down here, yet again?

She was a successful production accountant in her own right. Hired to wrestle spreadsheets into submission and ensure the cast and crew of TV shows and movies got paid. She was bloody good at it even if she’d fallen into it hoping that by being in the same industry as her family that might make them closer. What did it matter if she didn’t have some sort of vocation for it? It had led her to her dream job, producer, and she was so close to it happening. Not everyone was born knowing what they wanted to be when they grew up. Sometimes you found it by falling over it.

Hell, Annie could stand up to belligerent directors and producers and win. But what was it about her family that made her squish down into a completely spineless marshmallow? They made her feel as if she was ten again. Or maybe six.

‘Annie! Annie! Where the bloody hell are you?’ The voice came echoing down the stairs followed by the clatter of stilettoes on wooden stairs.

Crap. Immy was having one of her ‘moments’. In anyone else they’d be called a temper tantrum.

Annie dug another crisp into the tub of hummus, trying to hold on to the comfort, but it had disappeared.

The door banged open taking another chunk out of the plaster on the wall.

Damn. Annie tried to swallow the crisp quickly and ended up choking.

Gasping for breath as she coughed, she saw her sister staring at her in disgust through the tears in her eyes.

Not even an offer of the Heimlich manoeuvre, she thought as her vision started to blacken around the edges.