Jane Actually

stories, Pop-pop,” she said while putting the noodles into the boiling pot.
    “No I didn’t. I just told them about another baseball game I saw.”
    “From when?”
    “Oh, sometime in the 1980s, it was just after I came to the United States. I remember …”
    “Stop! I get enough baseball from them in the living room without having to hear it from you.”
    He said nothing to this, a little hurt that she should stop him from talking. He was feeling a little lonely.
    “What about your girlfriend. Tell me about her.”
    “What? Jane? Well she’s not my girlfriend. And I just got an email from her.”
    “Did she apologize for missing your sex chat?”
    “We do not have sex chats, you incurable romantic. We usually talk about … well we usually talk about you … and the family. She knows all about you. I don’t think she’s made a connection with her family, but then she died so long ago.”
    “You died a long time ago, but we still love you,” she said over her shoulder as she lifted the lid off the bubbling pot. Albert could see the steam rise from the pot and wished he could smell his great- great grandchild’s cooking.
    “Yes, well this is an unusual family,” he said. “Not everyone is as close to their great-great grandfather.”
    “She should come visit us, and for that matter, you should live here, not in that home.” She started taking plates from the shelves and to the kitchen table.
    “I like it there,” he lied, “and I don’t know if Ricardo is really that comfortable sharing the house with a dead man.”
    “He’s lucky to have a spare bedroom here as it is,” she said.
    “You don’t need me looking over your shoulder all the time. It’s enough that I can visit you.”
    “OK, Pop-pop. Now tell me more about this woman of yours. You say she’s a writer?”
    . . .
    “More interesting than I really was,” Courtney said quietly to himself that night while lying on the bed in his hotel room. Then he turned off the light and tried to go to sleep.
    1 In
Northanger Abbey
, Austen wrote of her heroine, Catherine Morland: “It was not very wonderful that Catherine, who had nothing heroic about her, should prefer cricket, baseball, riding on horseback, and running about the country at the age of 14, to books.” This early mention gives lie to the belief that baseball was invented in America, according to author Julian Norridge’s book
Can we Have our Balls Back, Please?

The Graham Norton Show
Indelicate questions
    “S o, is there anyone special in your life?”
    Mary waited for Jane to say something in response to the silly question. The talk show host’s famous leer was hanging in the air like the Cheshire cat and he kept nodding his head and winking.
    “No one at the moment, thank you for asking,” Mary answered, when Jane failed to say anything.
    “Still the most beloved spinster in England, then.”
    “As you are the most beloved old molly 1 on the BBC,” Jane finally said.
    “As you are the most beloved … talk show host on the BBC,” Mary said, instinctively editing Jane’s remark. She wasn’t sure what a molly was, but could guess. Fortunately the answer and Mary’s odd look satisfied the host enough to move on to the next guest.
    Mary found that she had to answer on her own most of the questions addressed to Jane, and generally had to adopt the attitude of the disapproving aunt. She was baffled why Melody had insisted they appear on the show with its constant dreadful double entendres. There were certainly some aspects of British humour she didn’t understand.
    The show finally ended and after shaking hands with the now subdued host, she joined Melody who’d watched from the studio audience.
    “Well that could have gone better. You looked like you were hearing a Who again,” Melody said. She turned on her terminal so she could hear Jane.
    “It’s not my fault. Jane froze,” Mary said in a whisper. “And then … I’m not sure, but I think she called the host an old queen.”
    “I did not freeze,” Jane answered, ignoring the more serious accusation. “And I apologize for the remark. I just suddenly saw the stupidity of it all,” Jane said. “Why did you insist we appear on this show, Melody?”
    “Look, let’s take this somewhere else. There’s got to be a pub nearby. If you’re going to have a meltdown I need a drink.”
    Melody asked one of the production assistants they’d met earlier and learned of a wine bar actually in the broadcast