by Alice Feeney
He did.
‘I wasn’t scared…’
I was.
‘… I’m just tired from the drive and I can’t find anything to eat.’
‘Did you try in here?’ he asks, heading for an arched door in the corner of the kitchen.
‘Yes, but it’s locked,’ I reply, without looking up. Adam always thinks he knows better than me.
‘Perhaps the handle was just a bit stiff,’ he says, as the door creaks open.
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 recognise, 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 labelled with elaborate joined-up writing. There must be over a hundred dinners for one in here, and quite the selection: lasagne, 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 I realise that some of the giant slabs we are standing on are old tombstones. People were buried here once upon a time, and someone thought they should be remembered. But the names that were engraved have 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:
shenanigans plural noun secret or dishonest activity or manoeuvring. Silly or high-spirited behaviour; 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 favourite screenplay. I’m convinced Rock Paper Scissors will 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 rollercoaster for us. Getting married on a leap day was my idea, going to Scotland for our honeymoon was yours. If there is a more beautiful 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 of A Christmas Carol for 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 you often mostly sometimes seem 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 time daydreaming staring 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 favourite 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 old banger 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 favourite 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 over 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 bed covers. Your thirties suit you. You are growing into your good looks.
‘You know why,’ I said.
You stopped pretending that you didn’t, but shook your head. ‘He has never said yes to any TV or film adaptations of his books. Ever. His agent dying isn’t going to change that, and even if it does, Henry Winter is never going to agree to me writing a screenplay of his work, when he has spent a lifetime saying no to everybody else.’
‘Well, I agree that you don’t stand a chance with that attitude. But with the gatekeeper removed from play, isn’t it worth a shot? Maybe his agent was the one who didn’t like the idea? Some authors do everything their agents tell them to do. Just imagine if he said yes.’
Your hair fell over your eyes – always too busy writing to visit the barber’s – so I couldn’t see what you were thinking. But I didn’t need to. We both knew that if you could get Henry Winter to let you adapt one of his novels, it would be a gamechanger for your career.
‘I think you should get your agen
t to set up a meeting,’ I said.
‘My agent is bored of me. I don’t make him enough money.’
‘That isn’t true. Writing is a fickle business, but you’re a Bafta award-winning screenwriter—’
‘The Bafta was years ago—’
‘With a star-studded CV—’
‘I haven’t been nominated for a single prize since—’
‘And a string of successful adaptations. What harm could it do?’
‘What good could it do? Besides, if Henry Winter’s agent just died, the poor man is probably grieving. It would be inappropriate.’
‘So is not paying this month’s rent.’
Your naivety about some of the authors you admire so much baffles me. You’re one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met, but you are easily fooled see all authors through rose-tinted reading glasses. The ability to write a good book doesn’t make someone a good person.
I could tell this wasn’t a battle I was going to win without changing strategy, so opened the drawer in my bedside cabinet, and took out a small brown paper parcel.
‘What is this?’ you asked as I put it on the bed.
‘Open it and see.’
You untied the string with such care, as though you might want to keep the wrapping. We both didn’t have much to call our own as children, and I think a little of that ‘make do and mend’ mindset follows people like us into adulthood. Finding the money to pay for our wedding was another challenge this year. It wasn’t the venue – the rows of chairs in the register office were mostly empty with no family on either side, and only a handful of close friends living in London. I adore your mother’s sapphire engagement ring. It fits perfectly – as though it were always mine – and I never take it off, but there were still wedding rings to buy, and a suit, and a dress. Getting married costs a pretty penny, and pennies are prettiest when you don’t have many of them.
‘It’s a crane,’ I explained, saving you from having to ask what the gift was when you held it up to the light. ‘Paper is the traditional gift for a first wedding anniversary, so when an abandoned poodle called Origami was dumped on the doorstep of Battersea Dogs Home overnight last week, it gave me the idea. I taught myself to make it by watching a YouTube video, and chose the crane because it is a symbol of happiness and good fortune.’
‘It’s… lovely,’ you said.
‘It’s meant to bring good luck.’
I knew you would like it more once you knew that. You’re the most superstitious man I’ve ever met. I’m actually very fond of the way you salute magpies, avoid walking under ladders, and are appalled by people who open umbrellas indoors. I find it endearing. Luck, whether it is the good or bad variety, is something you take very seriously.
I smiled as you slipped the little paper crane inside your wallet. I wonder if you’ll keep it in there forever? I hope so, I like the idea of that. Unless something luckier comes along.
‘I didn’t forget,’ you said. ‘I just didn’t know we were doing this today. Technically it isn’t our anniversary until 2012.’
‘Is that so?’
‘Well, we got married on 29th February 2008. Today is the 28th. It won’t be a leap year again for another three years.’
‘We might be dead by then.’
‘Or divorced.’
‘Don’t say that.’
‘Sorry.’
You’ve been so busy lately. I’m not surprised you forgot. Besides, you’re only a man, forgetting anniversaries is something you’re pre-programmed to do.
‘You’ll just have to make it up to me,’ I said.
Then you slipped your hand inside my pyjama bottoms. I think you’ll remember what we did after that without me writing it down. I didn’t tell you, but I made a wish. If we have a baby this time next year, you’ll know it came true.
I knew you needed to work this weekend – despite it being our anniversary – and the studio is barely big enough for three at the best of times, so I left you to write, and Bob to sleep, and went out to spend an afternoon in town. I quite enjoy my own company, so I’ve never minded that you need to be alone too. I wandered around Covent Garden for a while, then spent a couple of hours at the National Portrait Gallery. I love looking at all those faces, and it’s somewhere we can never go together. Not being able to recognise anyone makes it a bit of a dull day out for you.
When I got home, our little basement flat was so full of candles that you had to remove the batteries from the smoke alarm.
The coffee table – we don’t have room for a dining one – had been set with two plates, two sets of cutlery, two glasses, and a bottle of champagne. The menu for our favourite Indian takeaway was leaning against it, along with an envelope with my name on. You and Bob watched as I opened it.
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!
It read on the outside. The three words on the inside were less predictable:
He said yes.
‘What does this mean?’ I asked. The smile on your face and the look in your eyes already told me the answer, I just couldn’t believe it.
‘You are looking at the first screenwriter in history to ever be trusted to adapt one of Henry Winter’s novels,’ you said, beaming like a schoolboy who just scored the winning goal.
‘Are you serious?’
‘Almost always.’
‘Then let’s open the champagne!’
‘I think your lucky paper crane got me the gig,’ you said, popping the cork and filling the tumblers – we don’t have flutes. ‘My agent called me, completely out of the blue, to say that Henry Winter wanted to meet me. I thought I was dreaming at first – what with you suggesting the idea only this morning – but I wasn’t, it was real! I met him this afternoon.’
We clinked glasses. You took a sip and I took a large gulp.
‘And?’
‘My agent gave me an address in North London, said I had to be there at one o’clock on the dot. There was a massive gate outside, I had to be buzzed in, and then this woman – who I presume was some kind of housekeeper – led me through to a library. It was like being in a Henry Winter crime novel, and I half expected the lights to go out and someone to attack me with a candlestick. But then in he walks, a little shorter in real life than I was expecting, but wearing a tweed jacket and blue bow tie. He poured two glasses of whisky – the first of many – and then we just talked.’
‘And he asked you to write a screenplay of one of his books?’
You shook your head. ‘No, he didn’t mention it once.’
My excitement started to fade a little around the edges when you said that.
‘We just talked about his novels, all of them, and he asked lots of questions about me… and you. I showed him the crane you made for me and it was the only time he smiled. The whole afternoon felt so surreal, as if I had made it up, but then my agent called again half an hour after I left and said that Henry would like me to write an adaptation of his first novel, The Doppelganger. If Henry likes it, he says I can sell it! Such shenanigans!’
‘Nobody has used the word shenanigans since the war,’ I teased. ‘Maybe that could be word of the day, or even the year?’
Then I cried.
You presumed they were tears of happiness and at least some of them were.
‘I’m so proud of you,’ I said. ‘Everything will change now, you’ll see. Once you’ve written the first adaptation of Henry Winter’s work, there will be studios banging on the door begging you to write for them,’ I added, knowing it was true. Then we clinked glasses again and I downed my champagne.
We finished the bottle and then celebrated in my favourite way – twice in one day! Several manuscripts were hurt as a result, but there isn’t a lot of space in our flat and we couldn’t quite make it to the bedroom. In some ways, tonight felt like the best night of our lives. But now you’re fast asleep and I’m wide awake – as usual – and for the first time since we got married, I have a new secret that I have to keep from you. One I’m not sure I can ever share
. We weave our lives out of threads of opportunity and stitches of chance, nobody wants a future full of holes. But I worry that if you knew Henry Winter only trusted you with his book because of me, it might be the end of us.
I suppose I can’t share this letter with you now either. Maybe one day.
All my love,
Your wife
xx
Amelia
Adam heaves the rickety trapdoor open. A set of stone steps lead down, and he doesn’t hesitate.
‘Be careful,’ I call after him, and he laughs.
‘Don’t worry, I think a lot of old chapels have crypts. Besides, what’s the worst that can happen? Unless it is a secret dungeon, containing the rotting corpses of the last people who stayed here. That would at least explain the smell.’
I stay where I am, but listen to the sound of his footsteps until he disappears from view. The torchlight flickers, then goes out.
Everything is silent.
I realise that I’m holding my breath.
But then Adam swears, and a light comes on down below.
‘Are you OK?’ I ask.
‘Yes, just bumped my head on the low ceiling when the torch died. Probably needs new batteries. But I’ve found a light switch, and I’m pleased to report that there are no ghosts or gargoyles down here, just racks full of wine!’
Adam emerges like a triumphant explorer, with a smile and a dusty bottle of red. I manage to find a corkscrew and – even though neither of us are wine snobs – we take a sip and conclude that 2008 was an excellent year for Ribera del Duero. Some people say that marriage is like wine and gets better with age, but I guess it all depends on the grapes. There are definitely years that were more pleasurable than others, and I’d have bottled them if I could.
I start to relax once I’ve had a glass and we have eaten. The frozen chicken curry was surprisingly tasty after being blasted in the microwave, and I can feel myself begin to unwind as we drink our wine in front of the fire, in the lounge that is more like a library. The comforting hiss and crackle is hypnotic, and the flames seem to skip and sway, casting shadowy patterns all around the room full of books.