Philippa Gregory - Zelda’s Cut

Isobel glowed at his praise. She was wearing a summer shift dress in pale blue with blue court shoes, her soft brown hair was enfolded into a bun on the nape of her neck. She gave the overall impression of being a rather elegant headmistress at a select girls’ school. She was not a woman that any man had ever called gorgeous.

‘Absolutely edible,’ Troy asserted, and Isobel giggled.

‘Hardly. Where are we going for lunch?’

‘Number Fifty-two – it’s a new restaurant. Very hot. I had to almost beg for a table.’

‘There was no need – ’

‘There was every need. Aren’t we celebrating the birth of a new manuscript? And besides, I want to talk to you about things.’

Isobel followed Troy down the steps to the street and waited while he hailed a cab with a commanding wave of his hand. But it was not until they were seated in the restaurant – dark-tinted mirrors, real wood floors, marble-top tables, astoundingly uncomfortable chairs but beautiful flowers on every available surface – that he leaned forward and said: ‘I think we may have a bit of a problem.’

She waited.

‘It’s Penshurst Press,’ he said. ‘They’re not offering so much for this book as they did for the last.’

‘How much?’ she asked bluntly.

The waiter came to take their order and Troy shook his head. ‘In a minute.’ He turned back to Isobel. ‘A lot less. They’re offering £20,000.’

For a moment she thought she had misheard him. In the rattle of utensils and the hum of conversation she thought that he must have said something quite different.

‘I beg your pardon. What did you say?’

‘I said £20,000,’ he repeated. He saw that she had paled with shock. He poured a glass of water and held it out to her. ‘I’m sorry. I know it’s less than half what we were expecting, but they won’t shift. I’m sorry.’

Isobel said nothing, she looked stunned. Troy glanced uneasily around the restaurant, hating the discomfort. The waiter returned and Troy ordered for them both, and waited in silence until Isobel had taken a sip from her glass of wine, raised her neat head and spoke:

‘This is nearly two years’ work,’ she said. ‘Two years’ work for £20,000?’

‘I know. There would be foreign sales on top of that, of course, and a book club deal perhaps, and the usual extras …’

She shook her head. ‘They don’t add up to much these days.’

‘No,’ he said quietly.

The waiter brought them two little plates of appetisers. Isobel looked down at the exquisite parcels of filo pastry, her expression completely blank.

‘Why have they offered so little?’

Troy swallowed one of the parcels in a single gulp. ‘The signs were there. They’ve paid slightly less for every book that you’ve written over the last ten years. They look at the balance sheet, and they can see that your sales are going down. The fact is, Isobel, that although you win the literary prizes and there is no doubt of the merit of your writing, no question of that – the fact remains that you don’t sell many books. You’re too good for the market, really. And they don’t want to pay out in royalties when they’re not earning good money in sales.’

She took another sip of wine. ‘Should I go to another publisher?’

He decided to risk complete honesty. ‘I’ve asked around already, very discreetly. I’m afraid they all say the same sort of thing. No-one can see how to sell more than Penshurst are doing already. Nobody would pay you any more.’

‘Two years’ work for £20,000,’ she repeated. She took another sip of wine, and then another. The waiter refilled her glass and she took a gulp.

‘What you must remember is that no-one is denying that you are one of the foremost literary writers in England today.’

The look she turned on him was not one he had expected; he thought she would be offended but instead she looked terrified.

‘But what am I going to do?’ she cried. ‘I have to earn enough to keep us, I have to earn enough for me and Philip. I can’t go back to teaching at a university, I can’t be out of the house all day, he needs me at home now. If I can’t earn money from my writing, how are we going to live?’

He did not understand what she meant. ‘Live?’

‘All the money that comes into our house is earned by me,’ Isobel said fiercely. ‘Philip doesn’t have a penny.’

Troy looked stunned. ‘I thought he’d have a disability pension, or something.’

She shook her head. ‘It’s gone. All gone. I cashed it in to buy the house outright. I told him not to worry. I told him that it had paid off the mortgage and we had bought savings policies. But we hadn’t. It just paid off the mortgage. I thought I could keep him for the rest of his life.’

She looked away. ‘I thought he was going to die. I thought I’d have to keep him for a couple of years, keep him in real comfort and security. But now he’s in remission. I don’t know what will happen next. And you tell me that I can’t earn the money I need for him.’

Troy took a gulp of his own wine. ‘Could you do some more reviewing?’

‘It doesn’t pay, does it?’ she said bitterly. ‘Not like the novels ought to pay. And now you’re telling me that my novels don’t sell. To sell you have to be someone like Suzie Wade or Chet Drake. No-one admires their work; but everyone reads them.’

He nodded.

‘And how much do they get for that … that drivel?’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps about £200,000 for a book? Maybe more. And then there are film rights or television mini series. They’re both millionaires from their writing.’

‘But I could do that!’ she exclaimed bitterly. ‘I could write a book like that in a year! In half a year!’

The waiter appeared and put their first course before them. Troy picked up his fork but Isobel did not eat.

‘It’s harder than it looks,’ he reminded her gently. ‘You of all people know that. Even these commercial novels require skill. They’re not complicated stories or beautifully written; but they have a real talent for catching the public imagination, they command a readership.’

She shook her head and took another gulp of wine. The waiter refilled her glass. Troy saw with some concern that the level in the bottle had dropped quite dramatically.

‘I could write like that!’ she exclaimed. ‘Any fool could.’

He shook his head. ‘You have to really be in touch with the readers’ dreams,’ he said. ‘That’s what they’re so good at. It’s all emotions, it’s all gut consciousness. It’s not the sort of thing you do. You write from the intellect, Isobel.’

‘I could do it,’ she persisted. ‘I could tell you the sort of story right now.’

He smiled at her, welcoming any change in tone which would move her away from the horror of the initial shock. ‘What would you call it?’

‘ Devil’s Disciple ,’ she said promptly. ‘ Son of Satan . Something with the devil in it, that’s what they all want, don’t they? To believe that there are Satanists and that sort of nonsense?’

‘That’s true,’ he conceded.

‘It would be the story of a young woman who has to earn money, a huge sum of money, to pay for her sister’s operation. Something, oh, complicated. But something that we’ve all heard about.’ She snapped her fingers. ‘Bone marrow transplant. The sister is near to death and only this experimental operation would save her.’

He nodded, smiling.

‘They’re twin sisters,’ Isobel said, improvising rapidly. A lock of hair had become detached from the neat bun, her cheeks had flushed. The waiter poured more wine. ‘They’re twin sisters and the younger sister discovers that a Satanic cult will pay exactly the sum of money they need for a girl who can prove she is a virgin, who will allow anything to be done to her – for one night.’