Written On The Body

The narrator agonizes for three days while awaiting Louise’s decision, drinking copious quantities of gin to cope. The narrator cries in Louise’s arms when she arrives at the flat. After giving the narrator a bath and a sleeping pill, Louise declares, “I will never let you go” (96). The narrator then speculates about the possibility of Virtual Romance in the future, although both the narrator and Louise prefer the actuality of physical relationships.

Louise brings the narrator to Oxford in order to avoid Elgin. The pair rent a room, and when Louise declares, “I’m going to leave” (98), the narrator is stunned to realize that she is leaving her husband. Elgin insists that the divorce be granted for “unreasonable behaviour” as opposed to for adultery, which Louise favors.

Louise and the narrator subsist happily despite their spare finances. When Louise leaves to visit her mother on Christmas Eve in order to advise her of plans to divorce Elgin, the narrator is delighted and imagines “how fine [Louise] would look on the Steppes of Russia” (100). Reality intervenes when Elgin appears and tells the narrator that Louise has leukemia, a cancer of the blood. Elgin explains to the narrator that Louise’s survival is contingent upon Elgin’s “look[ing] after her” (102).