Rock Paper Scissors

Rock Paper Scissors might be subtitled “A Study in the Consequences of Isolation.” Each of the four main characters experiences acute isolation in some way, either self-imposed or because of forces beyond their control. For each, isolation produces a different result.

Adam, with Robin’s assistance, creates a “writing shed” in their home that he disappears into each day. Both wives would agree that he’s comfortable with his books and work projects and detests the loud company and party atmosphere of the social luminaries for whom he works. Through holing up in his shed, he produces award-winning screenplays, sometimes without even reading the books on which they’re based. Likewise, Henry lives in self-imposed isolation at Blackwater Chapel, going so far as to buy the surrounding land and businesses and create ghost stories to keep the locals at bay. His fame commenced years before his reclusiveness, so it’s clear that his success isn’t linked to isolation. The world so lost track of Henry that no one knew of his death for years, allowing others to pirate his successes.

While the male characters chose isolation, the women found it forced on them. Orphaned literally before birth, Amelia lived in multiple foster settings, emerging friendless as a young woman. Amelia remarks that no one taught her how to love, so she didn’t learn. Thus, her response to isolation involved scheming to provide herself with companionship and financial security—not by building a new relationship but by stealing one that already existed. When Amelia stole Adam, Robin lost her home, husband, work, acquaintances, and dog. Already estranged from her father, she was isolated before ever moving to Blackwood Chapel. The result of her isolation is a carefully crafted scheme to recover everything she lost and to add a lucrative new career. Feeney depicts isolation as a unique and powerful state. It allows inner creativity to flourish yet does so by curtailing any meaningful human interaction.

Much of Feeney’s descriptive passages portray the distinctions between Robin and Amelia: the honorable wife as opposed to the changeling thief. Feeney demonstrates that, while Amelia claims the title of Robin’s “twin” in appearance, the two are quite different. In one respect, however, they are extremely similar: Adam’s treatment of each as a spouse. Each wife claims with justification that she’s “invisible,” that Adam takes her for granted and uses her as a convenience.

Virtually every anniversary letter that Robin writes details Adam’s obliviousness to her personal needs and affection for him. Adam often ruins their anniversary celebrations, on one occasion failing to show up at a clinic appointment to find out that Robin is pregnant. He chooses to celebrate one anniversary by inviting a gorgeous young woman to his home while Robin is at work, ostensibly to cook Robin a special meal. He chooses to celebrate their last anniversary, with Amelia’s encouragement, by having sex with Robin’s best friend while she’s at work. At no point in their marriage is Robin clearly Adam’s priority.

Most of Amelia’s complaints follow the same track. So great is Adam’s devotion to his craft that Amelia says he has affairs with books, not women. She notes how the physical intimacy that marked the early part of the relationship has disappeared. Amelia perceives their trip to Scotland as a last-ditch attempt to rescue their marriage from Adam’s apathy. She concludes that Adam isn’t merely unable to see her face but that, to him, she’s invisible. Feeney demonstrates that the true equality of the women is in their treatment by Adam. A cynical assumption is that Adam chooses to return to Robin less out of the true love he recovers and more because Robin offers him a better deal than Amelia, who wants a greater investment from him and has nothing more to offer him.