The Paying Guests, Sarah Waters

A love story of sorts set between the wars, the overwhelming feeling of this novel is one of constraint. 

     As the story opens, there is the burden of financial constraint, as Frances Wray and her mother, robbed of husband and sons by the war enter into the spinsterish twilight of genteel poverty together. In an attempt to make ends meet in their now-too-grand house, they take in lodgers, Mr and Mrs Barber, whom they squeamishly refer to as ‘paying guests’. The Wrays and their paying guests comprise a taut, repressed household of things left unsaid: mother and daughter, husband and wife, never tell it like it is.

     There is the social constraint of living in close proximity to people who are strangers, and over whom you have no control. As expressed by the consternation caused by Mrs Barber choosing to have a bath at mid morning, requiring heroic bangings and knockings from the ancient geyser, a gas-gobbling water heater that the two resident ladies dare not use for the expense. They are of course too polite to mention it.

     As Frances and Lilian’s (Mrs Barber) love affair begins to take shape, there is the constraint of hiding in plain sight: whispering on the stairs, snatched meetings in the scullery and outings to the park. This building pressure can have no good outcome, and it is not sexual but emotional frustration that finally seizes the day.

     For fans of Sarah waters, there is constraint in the plot also. There is a twist at the end; but not perhaps the knockout sort we’ve come to expect from this master of the genre. Much of the engagement of the reader is in actively looking for a twist that never comes. Ah…we think, I’ve got it… but Waters turns our expectations back upon ourselves. Perhaps this is her true skill. In our wish to inhabit a world that eludes us, to walk alongside the author and see drama where there is none. In Fingersmith, Tipping the velvet et al, Waters has written masterly novels to entertain a demanding audience. This one she seems to have written for herself: it is we who are the paying guests…

The King's Curse, Philippa Gregory

  

‘Margaret Pole was going to be a victim, but instead as I learnt more it became the story of a vendetta.’ So says Philippa Gregory of her latest novel, ‘The King’s Curse’, about the last Plantagenet princess, Margaret Pole, who lived a long life at the Tudor court but whose luck finally ran out ending in a brutal death. The more Gregory researched, the more she became intrigued by the dynamic between Margaret and the Tudors. ‘It became a darker book. Really, it is about a king whose power increased immeasurably until he became a tyrant. Finally she was a victim of his paranoia.’ The King of course, is Henry VIII. She laughs, ‘I’ve spent the past twelve years with Henry, which is more than most of his wives.’

Why ‘The King’s Curse’?

'It was going to be called ‘The Last Rose'There is a legend that the Tudors are cursed. After all, they bring the ‘sweat’ to England and they cannot get an heir. In the White Queen series I fictionalised a scene with Elizabeth Woodville cursing the murderer of her sons, the princes in the tower. Now a real 'curse' has come to light.'

What is this curse?

‘New medical research shows that Henry VIII is likely to have had Kells disease, which is hereditary. It is carried down the female line. It can cause miscarriages, stillbirths and infant deaths.’

Who was Margaret Pole?

'Margaret was entrusted with the care of prince Arthur at Ludlow. She was also one of Catherine of Aragon’s ladies, and governess to princess Elizabeth. But so little survives of her because I believe she was plotting against Henry and therefore she probably destroyed everything she wrote.'

Have you ever been tempted to write non-fiction?

‘There’s something about writing fiction which is infinitely superior to writing history. You can write a truth, which is not a fact. I look at the events and what people did and speculate. I can tell you the colour of Margaret Pole’s dress when she came to court, because we have the wardrobe records, but no one can tell you her thoughts.’

How much research is enough?

'The more I write, the more I understand what you have to leave out. Just because I have spent months learning something doesn’t mean you are damn well going to know it too. A novel cannot be a thinly disguised history lesson; it has to have drama of its own, a great story.'

How do you create such strong female characters?

‘I write about people very like us in a society very unlike ours. You have to remind readers, at that time all your property belonged to your husband, he was entitled to beat you as long as he used a stick no thicker than his thumb. Women wouldn’t have behaved as we do now.’

What is your writing routine?

'I write anywhere and at any time. I have a laptop with me on my book tour. But I never write more than four hours a day; otherwise I begin to dream in character. That way madness lies.’

Did you study history?

‘No. I got an E in A-level history. So, I became a local journalist, then went to university having worked a few years, where I picked up history again as an extra course.’

If you could go back in time, when would it be?

‘I wouldn’t be anything other than a modern woman. If you are a woman before 1834 all your property will belong to your husband. If you are a woman before 1918 you will have no vote, and if you are a woman before 1960 no contraception. Of course, you can be a rich man at any time in history.’

PHILIPPA GREGORY WAS SPEAKING AT THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES, KEW. THE KING'S CURSE IS OUT 14TH AUGUST 2014.