The House Guest - Mark Edwards Page 0,68
tell me you’re planning to go back to that loser? Adam, is it?’
‘I need to talk to him.’
‘Even though he put the moves on Eden?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t heard his side of the story.’
Gabriel opened his mouth, then clearly thought better of what he was going to say; she could see the swerve. ‘I feel sympathy for him, actually. It’s not easy to cope when the people we love outshine us. Jealousy, envy, fear of abandonment. It’s all so human. And there’s this terrible tension, of having to pretend you want someone to succeed while secretly wishing they fail.’
She cast her mind back to the actor and his talk of rats scrambling to escape a fire, and she realised she had no idea what she was going to do about Adam. She loved him – but was she still in love with him? They didn’t have sex very often these days, which she blamed on being tired and distracted. Her heart had long since ceased skipping a beat when he walked into a room. But she cared about him. And, like Gabriel, she understood why he felt insecure; why he might want to hold her back. She had felt the same when other kids in the system had found families to adopt them. Earlier in her career, she had felt envious of her peers when they landed hot roles while she was rejected. As Gabriel said, it was human. Natural. And she didn’t really blame Adam for making a pass at Eden either. She found, in fact, that she cared far less than she thought she would. And that was a bad sign, wasn’t it? When your boyfriend tries to cheat on you and you don’t really care?
She realised Gabriel was talking. She tuned in to hear him say, ‘That’s one of the reasons I created this.’
‘This? I still don’t know what this is.’
He got up and went over to the window, pressing a button on the control pad to open the blind. Ruth was surprised to see that night had fallen. ‘Come,’ he said.
She wouldn’t usually respond to a one-word command, but she found herself getting up and joining him, gazing out at the city once again: all the lights of New York, the shining capital of her dreams.
‘Watch this,’ Gabriel said.
Gabriel pressed another button on the pad and, to her surprise, the window popped open, swinging slowly inwards. At the same time, on the exterior of the building, a balcony slid horizontally out from the wall.
‘Cool, huh?’ he said, sounding like a little kid who’d discovered a nifty secret feature on one of his toys. ‘I had this put in when this place was built. I like to be able to get out into the air, to properly see and smell and hear the city.’
‘Hang on. When this place was built? You own this building? The whole thing?’
‘Oh yes.’ He stepped out on to the balcony and held out a hand. ‘Join me?’
They must have been at least fifty storeys up. Just the sight of the open air before her put a knot in her stomach.
‘Come on,’ he said, and, determined not to seem afraid, she took his hand and stepped out. There was just a metal bar to protect them. For a second she had an intrusive thought: the urge to throw herself off. She pictured herself falling, spinning to her death like a rag doll dropped from a roof.
‘You okay?’ Gabriel asked. He wore a huge grin and was still holding on to her hand.
‘I’m fine.’
He squeezed her hand but then finally let go. For a few seconds they stood in silence. A million lights beneath a sliver of moon. It was still warm, even up here. Ruth thought she could feel the heat rising from the ground: the heat of industry and commerce and art and life. It felt good to feel the air on her face again after a few days locked inside. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, and when she opened them again, Gabriel was gazing at her intensely.
‘Tell me something, Ruth,’ he said. ‘This is a city of eight million people. London has a similar population. So many human beings. So many potential friends and allies. How many true friends – by which I mean people you can absolutely trust – do you have in each of those cities? A dozen in each?’
‘I wish.’
‘How many, then?’
‘I don’t need anyone else,’ she said. ‘I only need myself.’
‘Oh, Ruth.