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.’