For my Daniel, of course

AMELIA

February 2020

My husband doesn’t recognize my face.
I feel him staring at me as I drive, and wonder what he sees.
Nobody else looks familiar to him either, but it is still strange to think
that the man I married wouldn’t be able to pick me out in a police
lineup.
I know the expression his face is wearing without having to look.
It’s the sulky, petulant, “I told you so” version, so I concentrate on
the road instead. I need to. The snow is falling faster now, it’s like
driving in a whiteout, and the windscreen wipers on my Morris Minor
Traveller are struggling to cope. The car—like me—was made in
1978. If you look after things, they will last a lifetime, but I suspect
my husband might like to trade us both in for a younger model.
Adam has checked his seat belt a hundred times since we left home,
and his hands are balled into conjoined fists on his lap. The journey
from London up to Scotland should have taken no more than eight
hours, but I daren’t drive any faster in this storm. Even though it’s
starting to get dark, and it seems we might be lost in more ways
than one.

Can a weekend away save a marriage? That’s what my husband
said when the counselor suggested it. Every time his words replay in
my mind, a new list of regrets writes itself inside my head. To have
wasted so much of our lives by not really living them, makes me feel
so sad. We weren’t always the people we are now, but our memories
of the past can make liars of us all. That’s why I’m focusing on the
future. Mine. Some days I still picture him in it, but there are
moments when I imagine what it would be like to be on my own
again. It isn’t what I want, but I do wonder whether it might be best
for both of us. Time can change relationships like the sea reshapes
the sand.
He said we should postpone this trip when we saw the weather
warnings, but I couldn’t. We both know this weekend away is a last
chance to fix things. Or at least to try. He hasn’t forgotten that.
It’s not my husband’s fault that he forgets who I am.
Adam has a neurological glitch called prosopagnosia, which
means he cannot see distinguishing features on faces, including his
own. He has walked past me on the street on more than one
occasion, as though I were a stranger. The social anxiety it inevitably
causes affects us both. Adam can be surrounded by friends at a
party and still feel like he doesn’t know a single person in the room.
So we spend a lot of time alone. Together but apart. Just us. Face
blindness isn’t the only way my husband makes me feel invisible. He
did not want children—always said that he couldn’t bear the thought
of not recognizing their faces. He has lived with the condition his
whole life, and I have lived with it since we met. Sometimes a curse
can be a blessing.

My husband might not know my face, but there are other ways
he has learned to recognize me: the smell of my perfume, the sound
of my voice, the feel of my hand in his when he still used to hold it.
Marriages don’t fail, people do.
I am not the woman he fell in love with all those years ago. I
wonder whether he can tell how much older I look now? Or if he
notices the infiltration of gray in my long blond hair? Forty might be
the new thirty, but my skin is creased with wrinkles that were rarely
caused by laughter. We used to have so much in common, sharing
our secrets and dreams, not just a bed. We still finish each other’s
sentences, but these days we get them wrong.
“I feel like we’re going in circles,” he mutters beneath his breath,
and for a moment I’m not sure whether he’s referring to our
marriage or my navigational skills. The ominous-looking slate sky
seems to reflect his mood, and it’s the first time he’s spoken for
several miles. Snow has settled on the road ahead, and the wind is
picking up, but it’s still nothing compared with the storm brewing
inside the car.

“Can you just find the directions I printed out and read them
again?” I say, trying, but failing, to hide the irritation in my voice.
“I’m sure we must be close.”
Unlike me, my husband has aged impossibly well. His forty-plus
years are cleverly disguised by a good haircut, tanned skin, and a
body shaped by an overindulgence in half-marathons. He has always
been very good at running away, especially from reality.
Adam is a screenwriter. He started far below the bottom rung of
Hollywood’s retractable ladder, not quite able to reach it on his own.
He tells people that he went straight from school into the movie
business, which is only an off-white lie. He got a job working at the
Electric Cinema in Notting Hill when he was sixteen, selling snacks
and film tickets. By the time he was twenty-one, he’d sold the rights
to his first screenplay. Rock Paper Scissors has never made it beyond
development, but Adam got an agent out of the deal, and the agent
got him work, writing an adaptation of a novel. The book wasn’t a
bestseller, but the film version—a low-budget British affair—won a
Bafta, and a writer was born. It wasn’t the same as seeing his own
characters come to life on-screen—the roads to our dreams are
rarely direct—but it did mean that Adam could quit selling popcorn
and write full-time.

Screenwriters don’t tend to be household names, so some people
might not know his, but I’d be willing to bet money they’ve seen at
least one of the films he’s written. Despite our problems, I’m so
proud of everything he has achieved. Adam Wright built a reputation
in the business for turning undiscovered novels into blockbuster
movies, and he’s still always on the lookout for the next. I’ll admit
that I sometimes feel jealous, but I think that’s only natural given
the number of nights when he would rather take a book to bed. My
husband doesn’t cheat on me with other women, or men, he has
love affairs with their words.
Human beings are a strange and unpredictable species. I prefer
the company of animals, which is one of the many reasons why I
work at Battersea Dogs Home. Four-legged creatures tend to make
better companions than those with two, and dogs don’t hold
grudges or know how to hate. I’d rather not think about the other
reasons why I work there; sometimes the dust of our memories is
best left unswept.

The view beyond the windscreen has offered an ever-changing
dramatic landscape during our journey. There have been trees in
every shade of green, giant glistening lochs, snowcapped mountains,
and an infinite amount of perfect, unspoiled space. I am in love with
the Scottish Highlands. If there is a more beautiful place on Earth, I
have yet to find it. The world seems so much bigger up here than in
London. Or perhaps I am smaller. I find peace in the quiet stillness
and the remoteness of it all. We haven’t seen another soul for more
than an hour, which makes this the perfect location for what I have
planned.
We pass a stormy sea on our left and carry on north, the sound
of crashing waves serenading us. As the winding road shrinks into a
narrow lane, the sky—which has changed from blue, to pink, to
purple, and now black—is reflected in each of the partially frozen
lochs we pass. Farther inland, a forest engulfs us. Ancient pine trees,
dusted with snow, and taller than our house, are being bent out of
shape by the storm as though they are matchsticks. The wind wails
like a ghost outside the car, constantly trying to blow us off course,
and when we slide a little on the icy road, I grip the steering wheel
so tight that the bones in my fingers seem to protrude through my
skin. I notice my wedding ring. A solid reminder that we are still
together, despite all the reasons we should perhaps be apart.
Nostalgia is a dangerous drug, but I enjoy the sensation of happier
memories flooding my mind. Maybe we’re not as lost as we feel. I
steal a glance at the man sitting beside me, wondering whether we
could still find our way back to us. Then I do something I haven’t
done for a long time, and reach to hold his hand.
“Stop!” he yells.

It all happens so fast. The blurred, snowy image of a stag
standing in the middle of the road ahead, my foot slamming on the
brake, the car swerving and spinning before finally skidding to a halt
just in front of the deer’s huge horns. It blinks twice in our direction
before calmly walking away as if nothing happened, disappearing
into the woods. Even the trees look cold.
My heart is thudding inside my chest as I reach for my handbag.
My trembling fingers find my purse and keys and almost all other
contents before locating my inhaler. I shake it and take a puff.
“Are you okay?” I ask, before taking another.
“I told you this was a bad idea,” Adam replies.
I have bitten my tongue so many times already on this trip, it
must be full of holes.
“I don’t remember you having a better one,” I snap.
“An eight-hour drive for a weekend away…”
“We’ve been saying for ages that it might be nice to visit the
Highlands.”

“It might be nice to visit the moon, too, but I’d rather we talked
about it before you booked us on a rocket. You know how busy
things are for me right now.”
“Busy” has become a trigger word in our marriage. Adam wears
his busyness like a badge. Like a Boy Scout. It is something he is
proud of: a status symbol of his success. It makes him feel
important, and makes me want to throw the novels he adapts at his
head.
“We are where we are because you’re always too busy,” I say
through gritted, chattering teeth. It’s so cold in the car now, I can
see my own breath.
“I’m sorry, are you suggesting it’s my fault that we’re in
Scotland? In February? In the middle of a storm? This was your idea.
At least I won’t have to listen to your incessant nagging once we’ve
been crushed to death by a falling tree, or died from hypothermia in
this shit-can car you insist on driving.”
We never bicker like this in public, only in private. We’re both
pretty good at keeping up appearances and I find people see what
they want to see. But behind closed doors, things have been wrong
with Mr. and Mrs. Wright for a long time.
“If I’d had my phone, we’d be there by now,” he says,
rummaging around in the glove compartment for his beloved mobile,
which he can’t find. My husband thinks gadgets and gizmos are the
answer to all of life’s problems.
“I asked if you had everything you needed before we left the
house,” I say.

“I did have everything. My phone was in the glove compartment.”
“Then it would still be there. It’s not my job to pack your things
for you. I’m not your mother.”
I immediately regret saying it, but words don’t come with gift
receipts and you can’t take them back. Adam’s mother is at the top
of the long list of things he doesn’t like to talk about. I try to be
patient while he continues searching for his phone, despite knowing
he’ll never find it. He’s right. He did put it in the glove compartment.
But I took it out before we left home this morning and hid it in the
house. I plan to teach my husband an important lesson this
weekend and he doesn’t need his phone for that.
Fifteen minutes later, we’re back on the road and seem to be
making progress. Adam squints in the darkness as he studies the
directions I printed off—unless it’s a book or a manuscript, anything
written on paper instead of a screen seems to baffle him.
“You need to take the first right at the next roundabout,” he says,
sounding more confident than I would have expected.
We are soon reliant on the moon to light our way and hint at the
rise and fall of the snowy landscape ahead. There are no
streetlights, and the headlights on the Morris Minor barely light the
road in front of us. I notice that we are low on petrol again, but
haven’t seen anywhere to fill up for almost an hour. The snow is
relentless now, and there has been nothing but the dark outlines of
mountains and lochs for miles.
When we finally see a snow-covered old sign for Blackwater, the
relief in the car is palpable. Adam reads the last set of directions
with something bordering on enthusiasm.
“Cross the bridge, turn right when you pass a bench overlooking
the loch. The road will bend to the right, leading into the valley. If
you pass the pub, you’ve gone too far and missed the turning for the
property.”
“A pub dinner might be nice later,” I suggest