‘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.