Page 30 of Rock Paper Scissors
“No, me neither. Maybe we should leave in the morning? Find a nice hotel somewhere a bit less remote?”
“That sounds good.”
“Okay. Let’s try to get some sleep until it is light outside, then pack up and go. Maybe take another sleeping pill, it might help?”
I do as he says—despite the warnings on the prescription—because I’m exhausted, and if I’m going to have to drive for hours again tomorrow, I need to get some rest. But before I close my eyes, I notice that the grandfather clock in the corner of the room has stopped. I’m glad, at leastthatwon’t wake us up again in the night. I squint at the time and see that it stopped at three minutes past eight,which seems strange—I thought we heard the bells at midnight—but my mind is too tired to even try to understand. Adam slips his arm around my waist and pulls me to him. I can’t remember the last time he did that in bed, or made me feel safe like this. If nothing else, the trip has already brought us closer together. As usual, he is asleep within minutes.
ADAM
I pretend to be asleep, and wonder how long I’ll have to hold her before I can get back to what I was doing downstairs.
Amelia has always struggled to sleep, but the pills help, and her breathing changes when they work. So all I have to do is wait. And listen. The same way I did a little earlier. The second pill should do the trick—it normally does, even when I secretly crush them and put them in her tea. She’s a very anxious individual. It’s for her own good. As soon as she is asleep again, I slide out from beneath the sheets, take the candlestick from beside the bed, and leave the room as quietly as possible. I don’t really need it to light my way—I know where I’m going—but make a mental note to avoid the noisiest floorboards: I know which ones creak.
Bob follows me down the wooden spiral staircase, and I love that about having a dog: they are so loving and loyal. Dogs aren’t unforgiving or suspicious. They don’t get jealous and start fights all the time so that you dread being with them. Dogs don’tlie. He might be a bit deaf these days, but Bob is always happy to see me, whereas Amelia only sees things from her point of view.
I’m tired. Of all of it.
I used to believe in love, but then, I used to believe in Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy. I’ve heard people describe marriage as two missing pieces of a puzzle coming together, and discovering that they are a perfect fit. But that’s just wrong. People aredifferentand that’s a good thing. Two pieces of different puzzles cannot and will not fit together, unless one has been forced to bend or break or change to fit around the other. I can see now that my wife has spent a lot of time trying to change me, to makemefeel smaller, so that we would be a better fit.
Nobody should promise to love somebody else forever, the most any sane individual should do is promise to try. What if the person you married becomes unrecognizable ten years later? People change and promises—even the ones we try to keep—sometimes get broken.
I started running again a few months ago. Writing is a solitary profession and it’s also not terribly active. I spend a scary amount of time sitting on my arse in the shed, and the only part of my body that gets a decent workout are my fingers, tapping away on the keyboard. Bob takes me for walks once a day but—like me—he’s getting on in years. The running was just about getting fit and trying to take better care of myself. Butof course,my wife presumed it meant I was planning to have an affair. A couple of weeks ago, she put my running shoes out with the trash the night before the bins got collected. Isawher do it. That is not normal behavior.
I just bought new running shoes, but they’re not the only thing in my life that needs replacing. I might not be good at recognizing faces, but I can tell I’m looking older. I certainly feel it. Perhaps because everyone else in my industry seems to be getting younger these days: the executives, the producers, the agents. Almost everyone in the last writer’s room I was involved in looked like they should have been in school instead. That used to be me. I was the new kid on the block once. It’s strange when you stillfeelyoung, but everyone starts to treat you as though you are old. I’m only in my forties, not ready for retirement quite yet.
Am I attracted to other people? Sure, I’m human, we are designed to be. Never because of a pretty face—I can’t see those anyway. People are a bit like books for me in that way, and I tend to be genuinely turned on by what’s on the inside rather than just a flashy cover. I admit I’ve been thinking about someone else a lot lately, imagining what it would be like if I was with them instead. But doesn’t everyone have little fantasies occasionally? That’s all they are and it doesn’t mean I’m actually going todosomething about it. The last time I slept with someone I shouldn’t have it did not end well for me. I’ve learned that lesson. I think. Besides, I’m always working, I don’t have time to have an affair these days. I do my best to placate my wife’s constant jealousy, but no matter what I say she just doesn’t seem capable of trusting me.
In some ways, she’s right not to.
I have never been completely honest with my wife, but that’s for her own good.
There are so many things I can’t tell her; a bit like the sleeping pills I sometimes pop into her hot drinks before bedtime. Things she doesn’t need to know. It was me who turned the power off when she was down in the crypt earlier. She doesn’t understand fuse boxes—all I had to do was flick a switch and drop the trapdoor. I forgot about the generator outside, but I’ve turned that off now too, and we won’t be getting power back any time soon.
WOOD
Word of the year:
menschnoun. A good person. Someone who is kind and acts with integrity and honor.
28th February 2013—our fifth anniversary
Dear Adam,
I’m sorry I’ve been acting so jealous lately, I’m hoping we can put these past few months behind us. It would seem strange not to mention the baby stuff at all. I can’t pretend it didn’t happen, or that I didn’t want to be a mother. It was never about having your children (sorry), I just wanted my own. I’ve given up on giving up so many things in life, but I knew I couldn’t keep trying for a baby. Not after the last round of IVF didn’t work. The heartbreak was killing me, and my unhappiness was killing our marriage.
I still secretly hoped it might happen for a while. I’ve read all those stories about couples who get pregnant as soon asthey stop trying, but that isn’t what life had planned for us. For the first few months I still cried every time my period arrived, not thatyou askedI told you that. But I think I’ve moved on now, or at least moved far enough away to breathe again. Life can start to feel full of holes when the love has nowhere to go.
Bob isn’t a baby—I know that—but I suppose I do treat him like a surrogate child. And I’ve thrown myself back into my work at the dogs home these last few months. The unexpected promotion I’ve been given doesn’t pay much more than before, but it’s nice to feel recognized. And I’ve realized I’m a good person. Not being able to get pregnant wasn’t a punishment, it just wasn’t the plan. When I was a child I was repeatedly told that I was bad, and sometimes I still believed it. But they were wrong about me. All of them.
We had a row last week, our first in ages, do you remember? I still feel guilty about that. To be fair, I think a lot of wives might have reacted the same way. You came home drunk, and considerably later than you said you would. It might not have bothered me so much if I hadn’t made the effort to cook. But instead of picking up on my silent anger when I made a scene of scraping your cold, uneaten dinner into the bin, you told me all about October O’Brien. The young, award-winning Irish actress had fallen in love with your screenplay:Rock Paper Scissors. She’d gotten in touch via your agent, and an afternoon meeting for three turned into drinks and a meal for two. Just you and her. I hadn’t been worried at all until I Googled the girl and saw how beautiful she was.
“You’ll have to meet her yourself,” you babbled with a ridiculous grin on your face. Your lips were a little stained with red wine, at least I hoped that’s what it was. “Her thoughts about how to improve the script are just… genius!” I helped you with that script years ago. I might not be a Hollywood actress, but I read. A lot. And I thought Team Us did a prettygood job. “You’re going to love her…” you gushed, but I very much doubted that. “She’s simply delightful… so utterly charming, and clever, and—”
“I didn’t realize she was old enough to drink,” I interrupted. I’d had some wine myself while I stayed up waiting.
“Don’t be like that,” you said, with a look that made me want to punch you.
“Like what? It isn’t as though we haven’t been here before. An actor or actress says they love your story, they won’t rest until it gets made in Hollywood—”
