Page 8 of Rock Paper Scissors
He flicks a switch, and when I catch up, I see that the door leads to what looks like a walk-in larder. But the shelves are filled with tools instead of food. There are neatly stacked boxes of nails and screws, nuts and bolts, different-sized spanners and hammers, and a selection of saws and axes hanging on the back wall. There are also a series of strange-looking smaller tools I don’t recognize, like miniature chisels, curved knives, and round blades all with matching wooden handles. The damp, dark space is lit by a single lightbulb dangling down from the ceiling. It struggles to illuminate everything below, but it’s impossible to miss the large chest freezer in the corner of the room. It’s bigger than me—the kind you might find in a supermarket—and, unlike the fridge, I already know it is plugged in from the humming sound it makes.
I hesitate before lifting the lid but needn’t have worried.
The freezer is stocked full of what look like individual home-made frozen meals. Each foil container and cardboard lid is carefully labeled with elaborate joined-up writing. There must be over a hundred dinners for one in here, and quite the selection: lasagna, spaghetti bolognese, roast beef, steak pie, toad in the hole…
“Chicken curry?” I suggest.
“Sounds good. Now we just need some wine. Luckily, I think I might have found the crypt,” Adam says.
He has discovered a torch among all the other tools, and is shining it on the stone floor. It’s only then that I realize some of the giant slabs we are standing on are old headstones, the names engraved on them worn away after years of being walked over.
“Down here,” Adam says, shining the torch on an ancient-looking wooden trapdoor.
I shiver, and not just because this room is inexplicably cold.
PAPER
Word of the year:
shenanigansplural noun.Secret or dishonest activity or maneuvering. Silly or high-spirited behavior; mischief.
28th February 2009—our first anniversary
Dear Adam,
It’s our first wedding anniversary and, as promised, I am writing my annual secret letter to you, just like the characters in your favorite screenplay. I’m convincedRock Paper Scissorswill be a big hit in Hollywood one day, and even if I never let you read the letters I write, I still love the idea of being able to look back at the true story of you and me when we are older.
The past twelve months have been quite the roller coaster for us. Getting married on a leap day was my idea, going to Scotland for our honeymoon was yours. If there is a morebeautiful corner of the world, I have yet to find it. I hope we’ll visit there often. I got promoted at work, and you were asked to write a modern adaptation ofA Christmas Carolfor a BBC special. I know it isn’t what you really want to be doing, but the commission was a relief. After two failed pilots, your writing work was drying up. You kept saying that it happens to everyone, but it’s obvious you never thought it would happen to you.
I’ve been trying to help—reading books about writing and screenplays, teaching myself about storytelling—and you always ask me to read what you’ve written. I enjoy feeling like part of the process, and as well as being your first reader, I’ve started editing some of your work. Just a few notes on the manuscript here and there, which youoften mostly sometimesseem to appreciate. I just wish there was something more I could do to help. I believe in you and your stories.
Being married to a screenwriter isn’t as glamorous as people think, neither is living in a studio flat in Notting Hill. Our morning routine as husband and wife is almost always the same. If this were a normal day, you would have kissed me on the cheek, got up, put on your dressing gown, made some coffee and toast, then sat down at your tiny little desk in the corner of the studio to start work. Your job seems to involve a lot of timedaydreamingstaring at your laptop and occasionally tapping the keyboard. You like to start early, but that doesn’t always prevent you from still writing late at night. Sometimes you only seem to stop to sleep or eat. But I don’t mind. I’ve learned that you have a low threshold for boredom and that work is your favorite cure.
If this were a normal day, I would have ironed my uniform on the bed—we don’t own a board and there’s no room or real need for one—then I’d have dressed myself while the fabric was still warm. I would have put some of your leftover coffee in my flask, grabbed Bob, and jumped in my oldbanger of a car for my commute. Every day is bring your pet to work day at Battersea Dogs Home.
But today was not a normal day.
It’s our first anniversary, it’s the weekend, and I read something very exciting as soon as I woke up.
“He’s dead!”
“Who is dead?” you asked, rubbing the sleep from your eyes.
Your voice was an octave lower than normal, as it always is after too much red wine the night before. You’ve started drinking more than you used to, and the cheap alcohol only seems to oil the hamster wheel of late-night writing you’re currently trapped in. But we can’t afford the good stuff. The shoestring we’re living on is looking a little frayed, and that keeps us both awake.
I held my phone right in front of your face, so that you could read the headline.
“Henry Winter.”
“Henry Winter died?” you said, sitting up and giving me your half-full attention.
I already knew that Henry Winter was your favorite author, you talked about him and his books often enough, and how you would love to see them on screen. The elderly writer is famous for not being famous, rarely gives interviews, and has looked the same for more than twenty years: an unsmiling old man with an overgrown mop of white hair and the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen. In the rare photos of him online, he always wears tweed jackets and bow ties. I think it’s a disguise: a persona he hides behind. I do not share your enthusiasm for the man or his work, but that doesn’t change the fact that he is one of the most successful authors of all time. More than a hundred million copies of his murder mysteries and creepy thrillers have been sold in countries around the globe, and he is a giant in the literary world.Albeit an unfriendly one.
“No, Henry Winter is alive and well.” I resisted the urge to add the word “sadly.” “That man will live to be a hundred. It’s his agent who is dead.”
I waited for you to react the way I hoped you would, but instead you just yawned.
“Why are you waking me up with this news?” you asked, closing your eyes and burrowing back down under the bedcovers. Your thirties suit you. You are growing into your good looks.
