Page 6 of The House Guest

Ruth went back to the kitchen to pour herself more wine. Eden was still upstairs, and I went over to the front window.

There was a man standing across the street, holding an umbrella which obscured most of his face, but I could see that he had a grey beard. He appeared to be staring straight at the house. Straight at me. And as soon as our eyes met he put his head down, pulled the umbrella lower and hurried away.

Weird, I thought. But when Eden came running back down the stairs, clutching a fistful of cash, I didn’t say anything to her about it.

Chapter 3

I emerged on to Eighth Avenue wondering if there was a manhole I could jump into. Sam Mendoza, the producer I’d just met, hated my play. He hadn’t used those words, but it was obvious. He had said it had ‘some potential’. And then he’d turned the conversation to Ruth, asking me how rehearsals forDarewere going. If I knew what kind of role she was looking for next. That, I realised, was why he’d wanted to see me. Not because he was interested in me or my writing, but because my girlfriend was a hot up-and-coming actor.

I was used to rejection and lack of interest. It went with the territory. After all, writers are as commonplace as rats. The world needs another one like it needs an extra hole in the ozone layer. I hadn’t been expecting miracles from this meeting.

But it still stung.

I got out of the Theater District as quickly as I could and walked towards Central Park. The city was as hot as hell, and crowded with tourists. In desperate need of a break from the heat, I popped into a Starbucks and bought an iced latte.

As I came out, I saw a familiar figure going into a jewellery store.

‘Cara?’ I called.

She stopped, looked around, then spotted me. ‘Adam?’

I reached her and we exchanged a quick hug. ‘This is a coincidence,’ I said.

‘Small world,’ she replied with her customary smile. It was the first time I’d seen her since we’d been in New York.

Cara had been on the cruise, the only other actress in the company. Miranda is the only female part inThe Tempest, and Cara, an Australian who had something of the young Nicole Kidman about her, with strawberry-blonde hair and a cute smattering of freckles across her nose, had been Ruth’s understudy.

‘Why aren’t you in rehearsals?’ I asked.

‘I’m not needed today. Sally keeps reworking the script and my part has shrunk from tiny to infinitesimal.’

‘Oh dear.’

She shrugged. ‘That’s showbiz.’

‘But you’re still Ruth’s understudy, right?’

‘Yeah. Again. But unless she gets struck down by a mystery virus ...’ She sighed. ‘Anyway, I’ve gotta run. I need to buy a birthday present for my sister. She’s sent me a wish list full of words like Tiffany’s and Saks. But why don’t I give you my number? We could go for a drink or something.’

‘That would be ...’ I wasn’t sure how Ruth would feel about me going for a drink with Cara. But I took the phone she offered me and tapped my number into it.

‘I’ll call you,’ she said, and she disappeared into the store, turning at the last moment to give me a little wave.

By the time I reached Central Park I was coated in sweat, but it was a little cooler and quieter beneath the trees, away from the sunbathers and children clutching helium balloons. I sat on a bench and flicked through my script. Sam hadn’t even made any notes on it. I doubted he’d looked at it.

I got up and put it in a bin, laughing at myself even as I did it. I mean, it wasn’t as if I didn’t have a copy saved on my laptop. As I sat back down I tried to ignore the whisper of panic, the voice that told me I was wasting my time, that I wasn’t good enough. I had been writing for years, since I was at college, and apart from a couple of amateur plays put on with friends, I had got nowhere. And there were no signs that I was going anywhere, either. I didn’t even enjoy the act of writing anymore. Maybe it was time—

I stood up. This was ridiculous. I was in New York, the greatest city in the world. It was a beautiful day. I was young. Sam Mendoza was a dickhead who wouldn’t recognise talent if it sank its teeth into his behind. And I had Ruth. I still had Ruth.

As five o’clock approached, I headed towards Tavern on the Green, where she and I had arranged to meet. There were a lot of people around: joggers, dog-walkers, families with kids. Walking past the lake, I got the peculiar sensation of eyes crawling over my skin, but when I turned there was no one looking at me, just a pair of young women in Lycra, running slowly in tandem. Behind them, an elderly man had a stall set up beside the path, selling paintings. He blinked at me with milky eyes and I took a closer look at his work, expecting to see portraits of tourists or etchings of local landmarks. Instead, the paintings depicted crowds fleeing down Manhattan’s avenues, pursued by screaming flocks of mutant seagulls; children weeping as their parents were led away by faceless figures in black uniforms; boiling seas and dying mermaids and scorched landscapes littered with bones and plastic Coke bottles.

‘See anything you like?’ he asked.

I hurried away.

I took a seat outside the Tavern and waited for Ruth, keen to tell her about my meeting with Sam – figuring out how I could put a comical spin on it – and the man with the frightening paintings.

Here she came, walking coolly down the path towards me. She had headphones in and a little bag over her shoulder. A plain white T-shirt and a knee-length skirt. Shoulder-length blonde hair. No different to the hundreds of other young women who were roaming Central Park right now.

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