Zelda’s Cut. Philippa Gregory

story it is? And what a great all-round package – if I can use the word – you are? I think we can do great things with you.’

      ‘What sort of things?’ Troy asked encouragingly.

      ‘Oh, we’d be looking at a major advertising campaign in all the media including television. We’d be looking at a major author tour in five, maybe six or seven, cities. We’d be submitting this book for the appropriate prizes, extracts in suitable magazines, a big publicity campaign and a big push in the non-book outlets in particular.’

      ‘Non-book outlets?’ Isobel asked, confused.

      ‘Supermakets,’ Troy said briefly. ‘More than bookshops.’

      ‘You would sell my book in supermarkets? Like cans of beans?’

      Troy’s eyes snapped a warning at her. ‘Miss Vere, Justin and Freeman Press would undertake to place this book where it would sell the most copies. That’s what we all want.’

      ‘Of course we’d try for the bookshops,’ Charles said feebly. ‘But the great strength of this book, as we see it, is the common touch.’ He turned back to Zelda Vere. ‘You really know how the ordinary woman thinks. It struck a chord with all of us at Justin and Freeman. I gave the manuscript to my secretary and to my wife, and I can tell you, I knew, when those two ordinary women came back to me and said that they saw themselves in this wonderful story, that we had a winner on our hands.’

      ‘Both very normal and at the same time very bizarre,’ Susan confirmed. ‘That was what attracted me: the bizarre quality of the story. And, more than anything else, fresh; but absolutely central to the genre.’

      ‘And which genre is that?’ Troy asked.

      Susan looked at him as if there could be no doubt. ‘Survivor fiction,’ she said bluntly. ‘This is a survivor fiction novel. We couldn’t make it work any other way. This is Zelda’s own story, fictionalised and told in third person – though we may need to see an editorial amendment there – but this is the real-life story of a woman horrifically abused who survives and revenges herself.’

      Isobel felt her hand tighten on the stem of the champagne glass. ‘But if it were real life, if it were true, then Charity would face dozens of criminal charges.’ She stopped herself, realising her snap of irritation was quite unlike Zelda Vere’s slow drawl. ‘I’m sorry. What I meant to say was – it can’t be offered as a true story. Not possibly. Can it? Because Charity kidnaps two children and burns down a house, and bankrupts a business and blackmails a politician, and scars a woman.’

      ‘I assumed there was a fictional element,’ Susan said briskly. ‘And we’d make that clear. But this is a survivor fiction, isn’t it? There is a core of truth, and that a terrible truth.’

      ‘Yes,’ said Troy.

      ‘No,’ said Isobel.

      Troy crossed the room and took her hand and kissed it. Under the warm touch of his lips she felt the warning pinch of his fingers. ‘She’s such an artist she does not know the truth she has told,’ he said firmly. ‘She’s still in denial.’

       Five

      There was no time for Troy and Isobel to speak before the next pair of editors arrived, and then the next. All morning they trooped in, drank a glass of champagne, praised the novel to the skies, promised astounding sales, and all of them, every single one, tried to persuade Isobel to confess that the novel was autobiographical. When Troy closed the front door on the last editor he found Isobel in her bedroom, wig on the stand, precious pink suit discarded on the unmade bed, frantically scrubbing at her red face with tissues.

      ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked tightly.

      She turned to him, her eyes blackly encircled with wet mascara. ‘This is impossible,’ she said. ‘We invented her, Zelda Vere, and now they’re all at it. They want her to be a Satanic cult survivor and it’s nonsense. I can’t stand it. I can’t begin to pretend these things are true. And I can’t begin to pretend to be in denial about it either, so don’t try that way out. We’ll have to call it off.’

      He was about to snap at her but he held himself back. ‘How much is the swimming pool?’

      She paused and turned towards him. ‘Fifty thousand pounds … I don’t know.’

      ‘And it would help Philip’s condition?’

      ‘He thinks so.’

      Troy nodded. ‘That last editor, from Rootsman, said they would be starting the bidding for the world rights at £200,000. That’s starting the bidding. You could go to half a million.’

      Isobel dropped a grubby ball of cotton wool on the dressing-table top and looked at him in silence.

      ‘I’ll go and buy some sandwiches,’ Troy said. ‘I think we could both of us do with some lunch.’

      Isobel appeared in the kitchen doorway wearing her country skirt with the baggy waistband, a cotton shirt, and a sweater draped over her shoulders. Her brown hair was tied back in her usual bun, her face was clean and shiny without even a dab of lipstick. She could have wilfully designed her appearance to remind Troy that she was a middle-aged academic, up from the country for a visit and already longing to be home again.

      He put the plate of sandwiches before her and poured her a strong black coffee.

      ‘The money is fantastic,’ he said after she had eaten.

      She nodded.

      ‘And all the work has been done. All they want is a few editorial changes. I’ll do them if you don’t want to. I can set up the bank account tomorrow, they all understand that the money’s to be paid into a numbered account overseas. They think it’s a tax issue, so that’s all right. Then you collect the money and you’re free to write whatever you want to write.’

      Still Isobel said nothing.

      ‘The rest of your life, you can write exactly what you like. Or take a break,’ he said persuasively. ‘Go for a cruise. Go somewhere warm with Philip. Take a holiday. It’d do you both good. You can invest this and have an income, or you can buy the things you need. And if it goes to a TV mini series, which is very likely, then you’ll be provided for all the rest of your life. You can replace his shares and his savings so he’ll never know you raided them. You can take out insurance so that you know that he’s safe whatever happens to you. You need never work again, unless you want to.’

      ‘They’ll want a sequel,’ she said flatly.

      He shrugged. ‘It’s a one-book contract. They can want all they like. You can decide to write another, or we could hire a ghost writer and I could brief her. Or they can do without. It’s up to you. You’re the star.’

      Troy saw the brief gleam of ambition in her eyes before she looked down.

      ‘You’re an author who has been immensely influential in the literary world,’ he continued. ‘But you will never earn the money you need to keep yourself, let alone to support Philip. This one book can redress that injustice and nobody will ever know. This gives you the money you deserve. And if they do alter the book – why should you care? This was a book to make money, why should you mind what they call it: fantasy, gothic, survivor fiction, who cares? As long as it sells?’

      She turned on him then. ‘Because if it’s commercial fiction then it doesn’t matter that it is nonsense,’ she said fiercely. ‘They put a jacket on it which says it is nonsense. It’s read as entertaining nonsense. Once we start saying it is based on fact we are telling lies about the nature of the world itself. We are misleading people. We’re not producing fiction, we’re telling lies. We are doing something morally wrong.’

      He nodded, thinking fast. ‘People pretend all the time,’ he argued. ‘In their