by Alice Feeney
I hear the bedroom door slowly open and more creeping footsteps. I blink into the darkness, willing my eyes to adjust to the low light, then hold my breath and step back as far as I can while the sound of creaking floorboards gets closer. I realise I’ve been twisting my engagement ring around my finger – something I only do when I’m most anxious. The ring – which once belonged to Adam’s mother – doesn’t come off anymore, and has started to feel too tight. My chest feels the same way, and my heart is thumping so loudly, I’m scared that whoever is out there can hear it when they stop right outside the bathroom door.
The handle turns very slowly. When they discover that the door is locked, they try again. More aggressively this time. I feel like I’m in The Shining, but the only window in this bathroom is made of stained glass – even if it did open, I’d never fit through it, and the fall from this height down onto the ground below would probably kill me. I search for a weapon, anything to defend myself with, but find little comfort in my Gillette Venus razor. I hold it out in front of me regardless, then press myself up against the wall, unable to get any farther away. The tiles on my bare back are icy cold.
Everything is quiet for a few seconds. Then the silence is smashed by the sound of a fist banging on the door. I’m so scared I start to cry, tears streaming down my cheeks.
‘Amelia, are you in there? Is everything all right?’
My husband’s voice confuses and calms me at the same time.
‘Adam? Is that you?’
‘Who else would it be?’
I open the door and see him standing there in his pyjama bottoms, stifling a yawn, with his bed hair sticking out in all directions. The light from the old-fashioned candlestick holder he is carrying casts ghostly shadows around the bedroom, so that now I feel like I’m in a Charles Dickens novel.
‘Why are you crying? Are you OK?’ he asks.
My words trip over themselves in my hurry to say them. ‘No, I’m not. Something woke me, I heard a noise downstairs, the lights wouldn’t work, then I heard someone coming up the stairs and—’
‘It was just me, silly. I was thirsty and I went to get a glass of water. But I guess all of the pipes must be frozen because none of the taps work.’
‘There’s no water?’
‘Or power. The storm must have out taken out the generator. I tried to find a fuse box while I was down there – just in case I could fix something – but no joy. Good job we have these creepy candlesticks!’
He holds the flickering flame below his chin and pulls a series of silly faces, like children do with torches at Halloween. I start to feel better. A little bit. At least there is a rational explanation. Then I feel foolish…
‘I thought I heard a noise downstairs. The sound of someone creeping around. I was so scared—’
‘Me too, that’s what woke me,’ Adam interrupts.
After a brief absence, my terror returns. ‘What?’
‘That was the other reason I went downstairs, to check everything was OK. But the main doors are still locked, there is no other way in or out, this place is like Fort Knox. I had a good look around, no burglars – or sheep – have managed to break in and everything is fine. Just as we left it. Besides, Bob would have barked if a stranger had let themselves in.’
That is true: Bob does growl if a stranger comes to the front door at home, but only until we open it. Then he wags his tail at double speed and rolls over to show the visitors his tummy – Labradors are too friendly to be good guard dogs.
We climb back into bed and I ask a question he never wants to answer.
‘Do you ever wish that we’d had children?’
‘Not really.’
‘Why?’
I expect Adam to change the subject – that’s what normally happens next – but he doesn’t. ‘Sometimes I’m glad we don’t have kids, because I’m scared that we might have fucked them up somehow, the way our parents fucked us up. I think maybe our line came to an end for a reason.’
I think I preferred it when he didn’t answer. I don’t like him describing us like that, but part of me does wonder whether he might be right. I’ve always felt abandoned by people I was foolish enough to care about, including my parents. Yes, they died in a car crash before I was born, but the result – me growing up alone – is the same as if they deserted me deliberately. If you don’t have anyone to love or be loved by as a child then how do you learn?
But then, isn’t love like breathing? Isn’t it instinct? Something we’re born knowing how to do? Or is love like speaking French? If nobody teaches you, you’ll never be fluent, and if you don’t practise you forget how…
I wonder if my husband really still loves me.
‘I don’t like it here,’ I confess.
‘No, me neither. Maybe we should leave in the morning? Find a nice hotel somewhere a bit less remote?’
‘That sounds good.’
‘OK. 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 least that won’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’t lie. 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 are different and 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 make me feel 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 unrecognisable 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 – l
ike me – he’s getting on in years. The running was just about getting fit and trying to take better care of myself. But of 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 rubbish the night before the bins got collected. I saw her do it. That is not normal behaviour.
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 recognising 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 still feel young, 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 to do something 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:
mensch noun a good person. Someone who is kind and acts with integrity and honour.
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 as they 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 that you asked I 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 recognised. And I’ve realised 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 pretty good 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 realise 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—’
‘This is different.’
‘Is it? The girl is barely out of school—’
‘She’s in her twenties and she’s already won a Bafta—’
‘You won a Bafta in your twenties, but it still didn’t get you what you wanted. Surely it’s a producer you need to back the project… or a studio.’
‘I’ve got a much better chance with an actress like October attached. If she knocks on doors in LA they will open for her. Whereas with me, unless I get another big book to adapt soon, all the doors seem to be closing.’ I felt bad then. It’s been tough for you this year. You’re still getting work, but not the kind you really want. I was about to change the subject, try to be a little kinder, but then you lashed out in self-defence. ‘It’s a shame you aren’t still as passionate about your career, then maybe you would understand.’
‘That’s not fair,’ I said, even though it was.
‘Isn’t it? You haven’t had a decent pay rise from Battersea for years, but you still stay.’
‘Because I love working there.’
‘No, because you’re too scared to even consider working somewhere else.’
‘We don’t all want to rule the world, some of us just want to make it a better place.’
The thought of you not being proud of me was utterly devastating hurt. A lot. I know you think I could be doing more with my life, but it isn’t all my fault. When the person you love has too many bright ideas, they can completely eclipse yours. And I still do. Love you. I spent my ambition on your dreams instead of my own.
You slept in the spare room that night, but we’ve made up since. Just in time for this year’s anniversary.
You were awake before me this morning, which is practically unheard of, and unexpected given how late you were up rewriting a ten-year-old screenplay again last night. When you carried a tray of breakfast into our bedroom, I thought I must be dreaming. In all the years we have been together, you’ve never done that before. So I should have known something was wrong.
We ate dippy eggs, as I like to call them – soft-boiled is your preferred grown-up term – with toast soldiers. I was looking forward to spending the day together, so I couldn’t understand why you were up so early, or why you seemed to be so keen to take the dirty cups and plates back downstairs.
‘We don’t need to rush, do we?’ I asked.
Your face confessed before you did. ‘I’m so sorry, I need to go and see my agent. It really won’t take long—�
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‘But we agreed to spend the whole day together this year. I took annual leave.’
‘And we will, it’s just for a couple of hours. I really think Rock Paper Scissors might actually get made this time. I just want to talk to him, in person – you know it’s the only way I can tell what he really thinks about anything – while the project has momentum again. See if he agrees about the next steps and…’
I know you couldn’t see whatever face I pulled, but you must have read my body language.
‘… I know it’s our anniversary but I promise I’ll make it up to you tonight.’
‘We’ll still have dinner?’ I said.
‘It will be drinks o’clock by 5 p.m. at the latest. I’ll call you as soon as I’m done, and I got you this.’
It was a ticket for a matinee performance of a show I have wanted to see for months. It’s been sold out since it opened. The ticket was for today, so at least I’d have something fun to do while you were working. But it also meant that you knew I would need something to do. Alone. There was only one ticket. I gave you your anniversary present then. Five years is meant to be a wooden gift so I got you a ruler with an inscription:
Five years married, who wood believe it?
You smiled, held up two ties and asked me to choose one. I loathe them both, to be honest, but pointed at the one with the birds. It seemed strange even at the time, given that you never normally dress up to see your agent.
‘It’s not for me, it’s for you,’ you said, reading my mind.
You wrapped the silk tie around my face to cover my eyes. Then you took me by the hand and led me downstairs.