Philippa Gregory - Zelda’s Cut

‘Were you drinking at lunchtime?’ he asked disapprovingly.

‘Only a glass of wine.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘That Troy always tires you out,’ he said. ‘Why didn’t you just post the manuscript to him? What d’you have to see him for?’

‘He’s amusing,’ she said. ‘I like him.’

‘I suppose he’s a change from me.’

‘It’s not that, darling. I just like to deliver the finished manuscript. It’s a bit of a lift, that’s all.’

‘I’d have thought you had enough to do without becoming a courier service as well,’ he said grudgingly.

‘I do have,’ she said. ‘I’m going to start a new novel at once. I got the idea over lunch.’

‘What will it be about?’

‘Something about the notion of personal responsibility and whether people can genuinely reform,’ she said vaguely.

He gave her an encouraging smile. ‘That sounds a bit like The Dream and the Doing ,’ he said, citing one of her earlier books. ‘I always liked that one. I liked the way the heroine had to make a choice not between which man she married, but actually between two contrasting moral systems. It was a very thoughtful book.’

‘Yes, I think it’ll be very like that,’ she said. ‘Are you coming up to bed?’

‘I’ll have a nightcap before I come up.’

Isobel paused. ‘Oh, come up before I fall asleep.’

He smiled. ‘Of course,’ he said evasively.

Since his illness, his desire for Isobel had almost completely disappeared. He refused absolutely to discuss this either with Isobel or with his doctor, and if Isobel insisted that they go to bed at the same time, or if she tried to kiss and caress him in the morning, he would gently but firmly push her away. It seemed to be another of the many things that had melted away from Isobel’s life, like her looks, her youth, her sense of joy, and now – her ability to make money from her fine writing. She did not complain. When Philip had first become ill she had gone down on her knees to pray. She had made an agonised bargain with the god of her imagination, that if He would spare Philip’s life she would never ask for anything ever again.

When they were finally told, after years of tests, that Philip would become progressively weaker for the rest of his life, but would not die in the near future, she thought that God had taken advantage of her trust. God had cheated on the deal. Philip would not die, but the man she had loved and married was gone forever.

Isobel felt that it was not in her power to withdraw her offer to God. She had promised that if Philip lived then she would never ask for anything again and she intended to keep that promise. She would never make any demands of Philip, she would never ask God for extravagant luck or wonderful opportunities. She thought that what lay before her was a life of duty which would be illuminated with the joy of self-sacrifice. Isobel thought that she might create a life which was itself a thing of beauty – a life in which a talented and devoted couple turned their energies and abilities into making some happiness together despite illness, despite fear of death. She thought that she and Philip might be somehow ennobled by the terrible bad luck that they had suffered. She had thought that she might show him how much she loved him in constant, loving, willing self-sacrifice.

Instead, what she actually experienced was a slog. But she knew that lots of women were forced to slog. Some had disagreeable husbands, or arduous jobs, or difficult children. Isobel’s witty, charming husband had become a self-pitying invalid. Isobel’s love for him had been transformed from the erotic to the maternal. Isobel’s sense of herself as an attractive woman had been destroyed by night after night of the most tactful but unrelenting sexual rejection.

She thought that it should make no difference. She was still determined to keep her side of the bargain with God. She had promised never to ask for anything ever again, and she was holding to her side of the deal.

‘All right,’ she said, smiling, making it clear that she would embarrass neither of them by making a sexual advance to him. ‘You come to bed when you like, darling. Anyway, I expect I’ll be asleep.’

She did indeed fall asleep almost at once but she woke in the light of the summer morning at five. Outside the window she could hear the birds starting to sing and the insistent coo of the wood pigeon, nesting in the oak tree beside the house. For a moment she lay beside Philip, enjoying the warmth of the bed and the gleam of the early-morning sunlight on the ceiling. She turned and looked at him. Peacefully asleep, he looked younger and happier. His blond forelock fell attractively across his regular features, his dark eyelashes were as innocent as a sleeping child’s on the smooth skin of his cheeks. Isobel was filled with a sense of tenderness for him. More than anything else in the world she wanted to provide for him, to care for him as if he were her child. She wanted to earn enough money so that he could always go to the housekeeping jar to take whatever cash he wanted, without asking, without having to give thanks. She wanted to provide for him abundantly, generously, as if her love and wealth could compensate for the awful unjust bad luck of his illness.

Isobel crept out from the warmth of the bed and put her dressing gown around her shoulders, and slid her feet into her sensible fleecy slippers. She left the bedroom quietly, went downstairs to the kitchen and made herself a pot of strong Darjeeling tea and then carried her china cup through to her study.

The word processor came alive with a deep, reassuring chime. She watched the screen gleam into life, and then created a new document. The blank page was before her, the little line of the cursor waiting to move, to tick its way into life. She laid her fingers on the keyboard, like a pianist waiting for the signal to play, for the indrawn breath, for that powerful moment of initiation.

‘ Devil’s Disciple ,’ she typed. ‘Chapter One.’

Isobel wrote for three hours until she heard Philip stirring in the bedroom above her study. She shut down the file on the word processor and paused for a moment. Philip very rarely came into her study and read her work in progress, but he might do so, there had never been any suggestion that Isobel’s work was private. Now, for the first time in her life, she did not want him to read what she had written. She had a very strong sense that she did not want him to know that she was writing a form of literature that they both despised. Also, she did not want him to know that she was spending hours every day letting her imagination roam over erotic and perverse possibilities. Philip would find the scenes of the heroine tied on the altar immensely offensive. Their love-making had always been gentle, respectful of each other, sometimes even spiritual. The notion of his wife writing soft pornography would have disgusted Philip. Isobel did not want him to know that she could even think of such things.

She closed the file and considered what name she should give it to ensure that Philip would not read it. She leaned forward and typed in the name: ‘letters to the bank’. Philip never concerned himself with money now. Since he had taken early retirement from Paxon Pharmaceuticals he had handed over to her all the control of their finances. They held a joint bank account into which Isobel’s royalty cheques and advances were paid, and it was her task to draw out what was needed and to make sure that the housekeeping money jar on the kitchen worktop was filled once a week with whatever cash he might want. When they went out together, Philip paid with his credit card; he liked to be seen paying in a restaurant. If he wanted new clothes or magazines, books, or CDs, he used his credit card and then Isobel paid the bills when the monthly statement arrived. If he wanted a tenner in his pocket when he walked down to the pub, he simply took it.