Jack of Ravens

5

Ruth allowed Rourke to guide her back to her flat with a brief detour to the local for a steadying drink. Her vision of the giant with the lantern obsessed her, but Rourke adamantly denied seeing anything.

Feeling a bit woozy after the three vodkas she’d downed in rapid succession, Ruth stumbled on the way up the stairs. Rourke caught her and wrapped his arms around her.

‘Don’t worry,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘I’ll look after you.’

The sentiment was absurdly appealing. Ruth felt so disoriented, depressed and detached from the world that it would be a relief for somebody else to carry the heavy weight of her life for a while.

At her door, Rourke hugged her. ‘Are you going to be okay?’ he asked, concerned.

‘I’m fine, really.’ She wasn’t, and she thought Rourke knew that, too.

He kissed her gently on the lips. She hesitated and then kissed him back with passion. After a moment of hesitation, he returned the embrace with force.

Heat rose inside her. ‘Do you want to come in?’

Within moments they were writhing on the sofa, their hands all over each other’s bodies. After so long feeling numb, when Rourke brought his hand to her breast and gently squeezed her hard nipple the rush was almost delirious in its intensity. She felt the hardness in his trousers grind into her groin and she spasmed in response. She wanted him inside her. She wanted to feel again. She wanted to love and be loved. She wanted colour in her life, and music, and surges of wild emotion that would make her accept that she was really, truly alive. She didn’t want to be trapped in a monochromatic existence any longer, where every experience was cotton-wool padded and it didn’t matter to anyone, let alone her, whether she lived or died.

But as soon as the notion entered her head she realised it wasn’t Rourke she wanted; it was anyone. Just a warm human body from which she could leach some life and return from the dead.

‘I’m sorry.’ She gently eased him off her. ‘I can’t do this now. I didn’t mean to lead you on. I’m just a mess. It’s probably not good for you to be with me. Or for anyone to be with me, for that matter.’

Rourke straightened his clothes and Ruth was relieved to see he wasn’t offended or angry. ‘Don’t worry.’ He smiled. ‘I want it to be the right time for both of us.’

The sentiment was correct, but there was something calculated about it that was not reflected in his expression. She realised obliquely that while they had been in the throes of passion, it had almost been as if he was running through the motions. The word that came to mind was hollow.

After he had gone, she sat on her bed, hugging her knees and feeling so desperately lonely that her stomach ached. She had the strangest feeling that her life was just a role being conducted for hidden cameras; that the real Ruth Gallagher was someone quite different, living an existence that was filled with love, passion and most of all meaning. And more, she felt that in that life there was someone else who was more important to her than life itself, someone whose face she could almost see if she just concentrated hard enough …

Ruth jerked out of her reverie. She had the oddest sense that the wardrobe door had opened a little, barely perceptibly, but she was sure she had registered movement. The crack was wider than a finger and she could see the darkness within. Gooseflesh ran up her arms for no reason that she could understand.

She tried to recall what she had been considering, but the thought was gone. She went to the kitchen to make herself a herbal tea, and when she returned to the bedroom later she didn’t notice that the wardrobe door was shut once more.