An inch (Letter from the moviescript V from Vendetta)

I was born in a rainy burg in Nottingham in 1975.  I passed my eleven plus and went to girl's grammar.
I met my first girlfriend at school.  Her name was Sara.

Her wrists.

Her wrists were beautiful.

I sat in biology class staring at the pickled rabbit fetus while Mr. Herd said it was an adolescent phase that people outgrew.

Sara did.  I didn't.

In 1994, I stopped pretending and took a girl called Christine home to meet my parents. A week later I moved to London to go to college and study drama.

My mother said I broke her heart.

But it was my integrity that was important.

Is that so selfish?  It  sells for so little but it's all we have left in this place...

It is the very last inch of us...

London.

I was happy in London. I played Dandini in Cinderella. The world was strange and rustling with invisible crowds behind the hot lights and all that breathlessglamour.

Work improved.

I got small film roles, then bigger ones. In 2006, I starred in "The Salt Flats."  That's where I met Ruth. We fell in love.

Every Valentine's Day she sent me roses and, oh god, we had so much. Those were the best three years of my life.

In 2010, they came. And after that there were no more roses...

Not for anybody.

Why are they so frightened of us?

They burned her face with cigarettes and made her give them my name.  She signed a statement saying I'd seduced her.

I didn't blame her.  God, I loved her but I didn't blame her. But she did.

She killed herself in her cell. She couldn't live with betraying me, with giving up that last inch.

Oh, Ruth.

They came for me.  They shaved off my hair.  They held my head down a toilet and told lesbian jokes. They brought me here and pumped me full of chemicals. I can't feel my tongue.  I can't speak.

It is strange that my life should end in such a terrible place but for three years I had roses and apologized to nobody. I shall die here.  Every inch of me shall perish...

Except one.

An inch.

It is small and fragile and it's the only thing in the world that's worth having. We must never lose it or sell it or give it away.  We must never let them take it from us.

I don't know who you are but I hope you escape this place.  I hope that the world turns and things get better and that one day people have roses again.
I don't know who you are but I love you.  I love you.

Valerie.