Silk

SILK

Word of the year:

redamancynoun. The act of loving the one who loves you; a love returned in full.

29th February 2020—what would have been our twelfth anniversary

Dear Adam,

I’ve been writing you letters on our anniversary since we got married, but this is the first one I’m going to let you read, and I strongly suggest that you read it alone before sharing any of its contents. The thought of finally being completely honest feels good. The first thing I want you to know is that I never stopped loving you, even when I didn’t like you, even when I hated you so much I wished you were dead. And I confess that I did for a while. You hurt me very badly.

It is exactly twelve years since we got married, on a leap year back in 2008. You must know by now that Henry Winter was my father. There are so many reasons, good ones, why I never told you. He was there so often in our marriage, always lurking in the background, even on our wedding day. You just never recognized his face, the same way you didn’t always recognize mine. But I lied to you only to protect you. My father didn’t just write dark and disturbing books, he was a dark and dangerous man in real life.

I had a complicated relationship with my dad, especially after my mother died and he sent me away to boarding school. I knew you were a huge fan of his novels, but I never wanted what you and I had together to be contaminated by him: I wanted you to love me for me. I never wanted him to have any hold over me, or you, or us. But I did ask him to let you write a screenplay of one of his novels all those years ago. Having asked for his help, even just the once, it made me feel indebted to that monster in a way that I never, ever wanted to be. I don’t expect you to understand, but please know how much I loved you to do that. Hindsight tends to be cruel rather than kind. Looking back now, perhaps if you had known who I really was, we would still be married and celebrating our twelfth anniversary. But there are so many things I could never tell you.

In public, Henry Winter was a brilliant writer of novels, but in real life he was a collection of unfinished sentences. He bullied my mother until she couldn’t stand it anymore. When she died, he bullied me. As a child, he often made me feel as if I wasn’t really there. As though I were invisible. The characters in his head were always too loud for him to hear anyone else. His lack of belief in me as a child led to a lifelong lack of belief in myself. His lack of interest made me feel as though I were of none to anyone. His lack of love meant that I was never fluent in affection, except with you. I sometimes think he would have kept me in a cage if he could, like his rabbit. And like my mother. Blackwater Chapel was her cage and I never wanted it to be mine.

Henry’s books were his children, and I was nothing more than an unwanted distraction. He called me “the unhappy accident” on more than one occasion—normally when he’d had too much wine—even wrote it in a birthday card once.

To the unhappy accident,

Happy 10th Birthday!

Henry

The card arrived two weeks after my birthday, and I was only nine that year. He never called himself Dad, so neither did I.

Nothing I did as a child was ever good enough. We are our parents’ echoes and sometimes they don’t like what they hear. I realized that the only way for me to have a life of my own was to remove my father from it. But Henry wasn’t just exceptionally private, and a little peculiar, he was also very possessive. Of me. I felt like I was being watched my whole life, because I was. I left home when I was eighteen, changed my surname to what had been my mother’s maiden name, and didn’t come back until the day he called to say he was dying.

Everything I’ve done since I did for you, and for us.

I’ve written a novel, two now actually, both in Henry’s name. Nobody else knows that he is dead, or needs to. Here’s the pitch for the latest book:

Rock Paper Scissorsis a story about a couple who have been married for ten years. Every anniversary they exchange traditional gifts—paper, copper, tin—and each year the wife writes her husband a letter that she never lets him read. A secret record of their marriage, warts and all. By their tenth anniversary, their relationship is in trouble. Sometimes a weekend away can be just what a couple needs to get them back on track, but things aren’t what or who they seem.

Sound familiar?

It’s a combination of your screenplay and the secret letters I have been writing to you every year since we got together. I’ve changed a few names, of course, and blended fiction with facts, but I think you’ll like the result. I do. When Henry sends it to his agent, he’ll include a letter to say that he wants you to start work on the screenplay straightaway. You’ll finally get your own story on screen, just like we always dreamed.

But only if you end things with Amelia.

My plan isn’t as crazy is it might sound. It could be good for you, and us. I miss us every day and wonder if you might, too? Do you remember that tiny basement studio we used to live in? Back when we were still learning whether we could live with or without each other. Some couples can’t tell the difference. That’s the version of you I miss most. And the version of us I wish we could find our way back to. We thought we had so little then, but we had it all, we were just too young and dumb to know it.

Sometimes we outgrow the dreams we had when we were younger, happy when they turn out to be too small, sad when they prove to be too big. Sometimes we find them again, realize that they were a perfect fit all along, and regret packing them away. I think this is our chance to start again and live the life we always dreamed of.

There are other things that you didn’t know about Henry, aside from him being my father. He hired a private investigator for years to keep an eye on me, and you, and us.

A private investigator who knew that you were having an affair before I did.

Who knew things that I didn’t know and that you still don’t.

The private investigator is a man called Samuel Smith. He still thinks my father is alive—along with the rest of the world—but aside from that huge miss, he seems pretty good at his job. Thorough. He sent weekly reports about us to my father for years—unknown to me—and they were both fascinating and sad to read. He didn’t just follow us, he followed anyone we got close to. Including October O’Brien. And Amelia. He even sent my father pictures of our home, before and after I left it (I don’t like what you’ve done with the place). Samuel Smith the private investigator knew more about us than we knew about each other. I thought for a long time about whether or not to share this information with you. It brings me no happiness to cause you pain, but like I said in the beginning, I love you. Always have, always will. Always always, not almost always, like we used to say. That is why I have to tell you the truth. All of it.

It was no coincidence that Amelia started working at Battersea, befriended me, and was always asking questions about you. You were always part of her plan. Your paths had crossed almost thirty years earlier, but you couldn’t recognize her face. Samuel Smith found out more than he bargained for when you cheated on me. It’s a question nobody ever wants to ask, or answer, but how well do you really know your wife?

Amelia Jones—as she was called before you married—has been lying to you since the moment you met. She lied to me too. Amelia has a criminal record and has been in and out of jail since she was a teenager. She lived in a series of foster homes growing up and was almost always in trouble. At one point, she was living on the same council estate as you. She even attended the same school for a few months, when you were both thirteen. That’s when she progressed from shoplifting to joyriding. Amelia was suspected of stealing seven cars, before she was arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving. The police questioned her about a hit-and-run, but she was underage and her foster mother came forward as an alibi—something the woman later confessed was a lie—and the cops couldn’t make it stick.

The car they caught her in was the car that killed your mother.

The only witness—you—couldn’t pick her out in a police lineup, because you couldn’t recognize the face of who was driving. But she knew you.

Amelia Jones moved to a new foster home, far away. She turned a new leaf and started again. Maybe she felt genuine remorse for what she had done? Maybe she felt guilty for getting away with it? Maybe that’s why she followed you for years, and came up with a plan to get close to you, through me? Perhaps in some twisted way she was trying to make up for what she did. You’ll have to ask her.

I know I lied to you about my father, but at least my lies were to protect you, and us. Nothing you think you know about Amelia is true. Your wife was to blame for your mother’s death when you were a child, and I think it’s only right that you know that, before making a decision. Don’t believe me? Maybe try telling Amelia that you know the truth, but be careful, she is not the woman you think she is.

I know this will be hard to take in, let alone believe, but deep down, didn’t you always feel as though something wasn’t quite right about Amelia? The first time you met her, when she arrived uninvited at our home claiming to have had a bad date, you described her as an actress. It turns out your first impressions were right. I found the notebook by the bed where she writes down every detail of your nightmares. Did you ever wonder why she does that? I’m sure she said it was to try and help you remember the face of who killed your mother, but maybe it was to make sure you never did? It’s no wonder she needs pills to help her sleep at night, the guilt she must feel would keep anyone awake.

Knowing what you now know—and I have all the private investigator emails and documents to prove it—do you still love her? Can you ever really trust her again? What happens next is up to you. It’s a simple choice, like when we used to play rock paper scissors.

Option one—ROCK: You try to leave with the woman who killed your mother.

Option two—PAPER: You walk out of there alone and come find me and Bob in the cottage. We’re waiting for you, and I want nothing more than for us all to be together again. I will move back to London, we can publish Rock Paper Scissors as a novel using Henry’s name—nobody else ever needs to know—and then I promise you will finally get your own screenplay made. You won’t need to adapt anyone else’s work ever again and can spend the rest of your life writing your own stories.

Option three—SCISSORS: You don’t want to know option three.

The choice is yours. I know what I’m asking you to decide sounds difficult. But it really is as easy as rock paper scissors if you can remember how to play.

Your Robin

xx