Misery(33)

"Och, girrul," she told herself as she hurried down the hall. "Some things dinna bear thinkin" a"." Good advice - advice Ian had given himself. But both had discovered that good advice was sometimes easier to give than receive.

In the kitchen, tall hugged Misery tightly to him, feeling his soul live and die and then live again in the sweet smell of her warm skin.

He touched the swell of her breast and felt the strong, and steady beat of her heart.

"If you had died, I should have died with you," he whispered.

She put her arms about his neck, bringing the firm of her breast more fully into his hand. "Hush, my darling," Misery whispered, "and don't be silly. I'm here... right here. Now kiss me! If I die, I fear it will be with desire for you." He pressed his mouth against hers and plunged his hands deeply into the glory of her chestnut hair, and for a few moments there was nothing at all, except for the two of them.

2

Annie laid the three pages of typescript on the night-table beside him and he waited to see what she would say about them. He was curious but not really nervous - he had been surprised, really, at how easy it had been to slip back into Misery's world. Her world was corny and melodramatic, but that did not change the fact that returning there had been nowhere near as distasteful as he had expected - it had been, in fact, rather comforting, like putting on a pair of old slippers. So his mouth dropped open and he was frankly and honestly flabbergasted when she said: "It's not right."

"You - you don't like it?" He could hardly believe it. How could she have liked the other Misery novels and not like this? it was so Misery-esque it was nearly a caricature, what with motherly old Mrs Ramage dipping snuff in the pantry, Ian and Misery pawing each other like a couple of horny kids just home from the Friday-night high-school dance, and - Now she was the one who looked bewildered.

"Like it? Of course I like it. It's beautiful. When Ian swept her into his arms, I cried. I couldn't help it." Her eyes actually were a bit red. "And you naming baby Thomas's nurse after me... that was very sweet." He thought: Smart, too - at least, I hope so. And by the way, toots, the baby's name started out to be Sean, in case you're interested; I changed it because I decided that was just too f**king many n's to fill in.

"Then I'm afraid I don't understand - "

"No, you don't. I didn't say anything about not liking it, I said it wasn't right. It's a cheat. You'll have to change it." Had he once thought of her as the perfect audience? Oh boy. Have to give you credit, Paul - when you make a mistake, you go whole hog. Constant Reader had just become Merciless Editor.

Without his even being aware that it was happening, Paul's face rearranged itself into the expression of sincere concentration he always wore while listening to editors. He thought of this as his Can I Help You, Lady? expression. That was because most editors were like women who drive into service stations and tell the mechanic to fix whatever it is that's making that knocking sound under the hood or going wonk-wonk inside the dashboard, and please have it done an hour ago. A look of sincere concentration was good because it flattered them, and when editors were flattered, they would sometimes give in on some of their mad ideas.

"How is it a cheat?" he asked.

"Well, Geoffrey rode for the doctor," she said. "That's all right. That happened in Chapter 38 of Misery's Child. But the doctor never came, as you well know, because Geoffrey's horse tripped on the top rail of that rotten Mr Cranthorpe's toll-gate when Geoffrey tried to jump it - I hope that dirty bird gets his comeuppance in Misery's Retum, Paul, I really do - and Geoffrey broke his shoulder and some of his ribs and lay there most of the night in the rain until the sheep-herder's boy came along and found him. So the doctor never came. You see?"

"Yes." He found himself suddenly unable to take his eyes from her face.

He had thought she was putting on an editor's hat - maybe even trying on a collaborator's chapeau, preparing to tell him what to write and how to write it. But that was not so. Mr Cranthorpe, for instance. She hoped Mr Cranthorpe would get his comeuppance, but she did not demand it. She saw the story's creative course as something outside of her hands, in spite of her obvious control of him. But some things simply could not be done. Creativity or the lack of it had no bearing on these things; to do them was as foolish as issuing a proclamation revoking the law of gravity or trying to play table-tennis with a brick. She really was Constant Reader, but Constant Reader did not mean Constant Sap.

She would not allow him to kill Misery... but neither would she allow him to cheat Misery back to life.

But Christ, I DID kill her, he thought wearily. What am I going to do?

"When I was a girl," she said, "they used to have chapter-plays at the movies. An episode a week. The Masked Avenger, and Flash Gordon, even one about Frank Buck, the man who went to Africa to catch wild animals and who could subdue lions and tigers just by staring at them. Do you remember the chapter-plays?"

"I remember them, but you can't be that old, Annie - you must have seen them on TV, or had an older brother or sister who told you about them." At the corners of her mouth dimples appeared briefly in the solidity of flesh and then disappeared. "Go on with you, you fooler! I did have an older brother, though, and we used to go to the movies every Saturday afternoon. This was in Bakersfield, California, where I grew up. And while I always used to enjoy the newsreel and the color cartoons and the feature, what I really looked forward to was the next installment of the chapter-play. I'd find myself thinking about it at odd moments all week long. If a class was boring, or if I had to babysit Mrs Krenmitz's four brats downstairs. I used to hate those little brats." Annie lapsed into a moody silence, staring into the corner. She had become unplugged. It was the first time this had happened in some days, and he wondered uneasily if it meant she was slipping into the lower part of her cycle. If so, he had better batten down his hatches.