Page 17 of Rock Paper Scissors
I knew this one. “Nathan.”
I watched while you shook his hand and listened while you talked shop. The boss of the studio hosting the party is one of those men who is always working the room. Constantly looking over his or your shoulder, to see who else he could or should be chatting up. He was a man who liked to tax joy, always siphoning off a little of someone else’s in order to increase his own. You introduced me, and I felt myself shrink a little under his gaze.
“And what do you do?” he asked.
It was a question I hated. Not because of the answer, but because of other people’s responses to it.
“I work for Battersea Dogs Home,” I said, and made my face smile.
“Oh, gosh. Good for you.”
I decided not to explain how or why it wasn’t good for me that so many people were cruel or irresponsible when it comes to animals. I also thought it best to ignore his condescending tone. I was taught to always be polite: you can’t cross a bridge if you burn it. Luckily the conversation and the company moved on as both always do at these things, and we found ourselves alone at last.
“Any sign of him?” you whispered.
I didn’t need to ask who. “Afraid not. We could try the other side?”
We headed down the second corridor, an indoor tunnellinking one tower to the other above the famous bridge. The view of the Thames and London lit up down below was spectacular.
“Can you see Henry now?” you asked again, and looked so sad when I said that I couldn’t. Like a little boy who had been stood up by the girl of his dreams.
There was an invisible queue of people preparing to pounce on you all evening, waiting for their chance to say hello: producers who wanted to work with you, executives who wished they hadn’t been unkind to you in the past, and other writers who wished that they were you. My feet were starting to hurt, so I was delighted—as well as surprised—when you suggested leaving early.
You hailed a black cab, and as soon as we were on the backseat, you kissed me. Your hand found the top of my new leather boots, then slid up between my legs and under my dress. As soon as we got home, you started pulling my clothes off in the hallway, until the boots were all I was wearing. Sex on the recently renovated staircase was a new experience. I could still smell the varnish.
Later, we drank whiskey in bed, talked about the party and all the people we met tonight: the good, the bad, and the ugly.
“Do you still love me as much as you did when we got married?” I asked.
“Almost always,” you replied with a cheeky grin. It’s one of your favorite things to say. You looked so handsome that all I could do was laugh.
I almost always love you too. But I didn’t mention that I’d seen Henry Winter several times during the evening, wearing his trademark tweed jacket, bow tie, and a strange expression on his heavily lined face. He looked older than he does in his author photos. With his thick white hair, blue eyes, and extremely pale skin, it was a bit like seeing a ghost.I didn’t tell you that your favorite author had been staring in our direction, constantly following us around the party, desperately trying to get your attention.
Three years and so many secrets.
Are there things that you keep from me too?
All my love,
Your wife
xx
AMELIA
Adam laughs when the sheep outside the chapel door start bleating. Even I find it hard not to smile as he drags Bob—who is still barking like mad—back inside.
When we first saw the multiple sets of eyes staring in our direction, it felt like a scene from a scary movie, but Adam’s torch soon revealed that the only nosy neighbors lurking outside the chapel were the small flock of sheep we drove past on the track earlier. They probably followed us here hoping someone might feed them. In the dark, their bodies blended in with the thick blanket of white snow that has covered everything since we arrived, so that all we could see were their eyes.
“We’ll laugh about this one day,” Adam says, taking off his coat again.
I’m not so sure about that.
I keep my jacket on—I’m freezing—and watch as he locks the front doors with a giant old key. I’ve never seen it before, but I’m so tired, maybe it was there the whole time and I just didn’t notice. I’ve been planning this trip for so long, I couldn’t wait to get away and practically bullied him into coming here, but now I feel strangely homesick.
Adam is a self-confessed hermit. He is happiest in his writing shed with his characters, disappearing so far inside the imaginary world in his head, he sometimes struggles to find his way back. I swear we’d never go anywhere if it weren’t for me. He’s proud of our home, so am I, but that doesn’t mean we should never leave it. The detached, double-fronted Victorian house in Hampstead Village is a long way from the council estate he grew up on, but Adam doesn’t tell people about that part of his past. He doesn’t just rewrite his own history, he deletes it.
I don’t always feel like I belong in such an affluent corner of London, but he fits right in, despite leaving school at sixteen to work in a cinema, with too much ambition and too few academic credits. But everyone loves a trier, and Adam has never learned how to give up. There is a theater director two doors down from our house, a newsreader on our right, and an Oscar-nominated actress lives next door on the left. It can be intimidating: worrying who I might bump into when I walk the dog. I have little in common with our self-made neighbors, unlike my husband. Not that I have anything against social climbers—I’ve always found the higher you climb in life the better the view. But sometimes his success makes me feel like a failure. Adam is the real deal these days, whereas I’m still more of a first draft; a work in progress.
