Zelda’s Cut. Philippa Gregory

and then I’ll have a rest, and then I’ll watch the news, and then I’ll have dinner, and then I’ll watch television, and then I’ll go to bed,’ he said in a rapid drone. ‘Amazing programme, isn’t it?’

      ‘We could go to the cinema,’ she suggested. ‘Or the theatre. Why don’t you ring up and see what’s on? Wasn’t there something you liked the sound of the other day?’

      He brightened. ‘I suppose we could. If we went to a matinée we could go on for dinner after.’

      Isobel mentally lost another afternoon’s writing. ‘Lovely,’ she said. ‘Could we go to that Italian restaurant that was so nice?’

      ‘Italian!’ he exclaimed. ‘We’re going to the White Lodge if we can get in.’

      Isobel dismissed the little pang of dread as she mentally doubled the likely bill for the cost of the whole evening. ‘Lovely,’ she said enthusiastically.

      The house at the end of the drive loomed up as Charity walked nervously towards it. Her little heels tapped on the paving slabs as she walked up to the imposing door. There was a thick, rusting bell pull to the right of the massive wooden doors. Charity leaned forward and gave it a gentle tug.

      Isobel hesitated. It seemed to her that there was a good deal too much landscape and furniture in this paragraph. Her usual novels concerned themselves with the inner psychology of her characters and she generally had only the mistiest idea of the rooms they inhabited or the clothes they wore. Her usual style was too sparse to allow much room for description of material things. Besides, Isobel was not interested in material things. She was far more interested in what people thought than the chairs they were sitting on as they thought.

      There was a ring at the front door bell. Isobel pressed ‘save’ on the computer and waited, listening, to see if someone answered the door. From the kitchen she could hear Mrs M. chatting with Philip as she cleared the table. There was another ring at the door bell. It was clear that although there were three people in the house, and two of them were doing virtually nothing, no-one was going to answer the door. Isobel sighed and went to see who it was.

      There was courier with a large box. ‘Sign here,’ he said.

      Isobel signed where he indicated and took the box into her study. The sender was Troy Cartwright. Isobel took a pair of scissors and cut the plastic tape. Inside the box were half a dozen violent-coloured novels. They had titles like Crazed, The Man Eater, Stormy Weather and Diamonds. Isobel unpacked them and laid them in a circle around her as she kneeled on the floor. The note from Troy read:

      just a little light reading to give you a sense of the genre. Can’t wait to see what you’ll do. Hope it’s going well. Do call me if you want some moral support. You’re such a star – Troy.

      A footstep in the hall made Isobel jump and gather the books into a pile. She threw the note over the topmost one, which showed a garish photograph of a woman embracing a python, as Philip put his head around the door.

      ‘I thought I heard the bell.’

      ‘It was a delivery. Some books for me. For review.’

      He hardly glanced at the pile. ‘Can we have an early lunch?’

      ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And have you rung the cinema?’

      ‘Give me a chance,’ he said. ‘I’m going to do it now.’

      ‘All right,’ she said and smiled at him until the door closed.

      As soon as he was gone Isobel took the glossy dust jackets off the books and crammed them in the wastepaper bin. Underneath the garish pictures the books looked perfectly respectable, though overweight compared with Isobel’s library of slim volumes. She scattered them round the bookshelves and wrapped one – The Man Eater – in the dust jacket of The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady, and left it beside her desk to read later.

      She turned back to the screen.

      The door swung open, on the threshold was a man. He had a dark mop of long black hair, dark eyes set deep under heavy eyebrows, a strong characterful face, a firm chin marked with a dimple. Charity stepped back for only a moment, fearful and yet attracted at the same time.

      Isobel paused, she found she was grinning in simple delight at the unfolding of the story.

      He took her cheap raincoat from her thin shoulders

      Isobel hesitated. ‘Cheap’ as well as ‘thin’? She shrugged. She had a reckless sense of pleasure that she had never felt when writing before. ‘What does it matter? If it’s got to be two hundred thousand words it could be a cheap, light raincoat. No-one is going to care one way or another …

      ‘No-one is going to care about the writing one way or another,’ she repeated.

      She flung back her head and laughed. It was as if the great taboo of her life had suddenly been rendered harmless.

      ‘How’s it going?’ Troy telephoned Isobel after six weeks of silence. He had been careful not to ask before, frankly doubting that she could manage such a revolution in style.

      ‘It’s fantastic,’ she said.

      Troy blinked. In all their long relationship she had never before described a book as ‘fantastic’. ‘Really?’

      ‘It’s such a complete holiday from how I usually work,’ she said. He could hear something in her voice which was different, something playful, lighter, younger. ‘It’s as if nothing matters. Not the grammar, not the choice of words, not the style. Nothing matters but the narrative, the flow of the narrative. And that’s the easiest thing to do.’

      ‘That’s your talent,’ he said loyally.

      ‘Well, I do think I might be rather good at it,’ she said. ‘And I’ve been thinking about who I am.’

      ‘Who you are?’

      ‘My persona.’

      ‘Oh yes. So who are you?’

      ‘I think I’m Genevieve de Vere.’

      ‘My God.’

      ‘D’you like it?’

      He giggled. ‘I adore it. The only thing is, that it sounds like a pen name. If we want no-one to know that it is a pen name we need something a little more ordinary.’

      ‘Griselda de Vere?’

      ‘Griselda Vere?’

      Oh, all right. But it seems a bit prosaic. Tell you what, let’s call her Zelda, like Scott Fitzgerald’s wife.’

      ‘Fantastic,’ he said. ‘Not too romantic. Leave the romance for the novel.’

      ‘I do. It is romantic,’ she said enthusiastically. ‘The hero has a dimple in his chin.’

      Troy let out a squawk of laughter. ‘I bet he hasn’t even got an M A!’

      ‘I don’t mention his academic qualifications,’ Isobel said with dignity. ‘But he does have something extraordinary in the sex department.’

      ‘What?’ Troy asked, utterly fascinated.

      ‘That’s the difficulty,’ she said, lowering her voice to a whisper and glancing at the closed study door. ‘I’m not entirely sure. I want him to have something remarkable about his genitalia.’

      Troy had a sense of an Isobel Latimer that no-one had ever seen before. He kept his voice very level, he did not want to frighten away this new side of her. He thought she might prove to be delightful. ‘Oh, any reason why?’

      ‘It’s clearly a feature of the genre. In those books you sent me, a number of the heroes have – remarkable attributes. They’re generally very well endowed, but they also have some kind of gimmick.’

      ‘What about a couple of rings?’ Troy asked. ‘Like an earring,