Then Emma heard something that could have been a mirror breaking. Had he worked out that it wasn’t just a regular compact?
‘Emma!’ Hearing a harsh voice from upstairs, Emma hugged the bottle close. ‘Come upstairs.’
Casting a look up the stairs, Emma saw Sol’s face in the doorway, oddly pale, his expression twitchy.
‘I don’t want to.’
‘Just come up.’
Reluctantly, Emma forced a smile. ‘You promise not to get angry?’
For a brief moment, Sol gave her the very faintest of smiles. ‘I promise. Just come up.’
With the bottle and two glasses in hand, Emma slowly made her way upstairs.
‘What’s this?’ Sol pointed to the bits of the screen now strewn across the floor.
‘It’s a mirror.’
Sol’s eyes glinted with a fierce light. He stared down at the ruined screen for a while.
‘Yes, I can see it’s a mirror.’ He seated himself on the bed. ‘A mirror with an inbuilt translation device,’ he added, as if speaking to himself. How did he know?
‘Would you, um… like a drink?’
‘Are you an alcoholic now?’ Sol’s voice was calm and restrained. He didn’t take his eyes off Emma.
‘No.’
‘Yeah, I’ll have a drink.’
She handed him a glass and poured him some of the liquor. Sol wasn’t wearing a jacket. She looked round and saw it on the chair. Its third button had been ripped off.
‘Luana found it. She’s a sharp one.’
Luana? But she was the one who’d egged Emma on! Surely not her, that didn’t make sense. Had she deliberately tried to incite Emma’s jealousy?
‘When did you two meet?’ Emma tried to sound casual, but her voice was trembling.
‘You introduced us, half a year or so ago.’
‘I didn’t!’ Anger flared up in Emma.
‘But we only got friendly about ten days ago. There’s something I needed her help with.’
‘So you used her. Like you did me.’
‘Tell me when exactly I used you.’ Sol’s tone was forceful.
‘Don’t get angry. You’re the one who said it.’
‘So you were watching? Well, in that case you’ll know that it wasn’t me that said it. It was Jebba.’
‘Yes.’
Emma’s tears took her by surprise. Once she’d begun to cry, there was no chance of her stopping. She stood stock still, clutching her glass as the tears rolled down her face.
‘What a rotten man you are!’ Her voice was trembling – trembling so much it was hard to get the words out.
‘That’s not true. You’ve misunderstood.’ Sol stood up and went to embrace her. ‘I was trying to get Luana to get us stuff – reagents, drug samples and so on. That’s why I needed to get friendly with her.’
‘Don’t touch me. You can’t fool me like that.’ Sol ran his fingers through her hair.
‘She has her suspicions about the Space Bureau’s methods, you see. They look for other planets’ weak spots and then try to worm their way into the holes. For them Meele is just a… come on, stop crying! What’s wrong?’ Sol attempted to raise her chin. Emma resisted.
‘I’m not crying any more… But you’re a spy, aren’t you?’
He snorted. ‘Your way of thinking is so childish! A spy? It’s your friend that’s the spy.’
In the soft light of the room, Sol’s face had resumed its regular expression. The tense paleness had gone.
‘Who?’
‘The man who brought you to the door. Where did you meet him?’
‘Does that matter? He’s just some guy I know. Not a friend, and definitely not the kind of friend that—’
‘I’m not questioning the nature of your relationship,’ Sol cut her off sharply. ‘I’m asking where you met him.’
‘Um… Outside the hat shop. I was standing by the window.’
‘Oh. Who started the conversation?’
‘He approached me, obviously!’
‘Really?’ He peered into her eyes.
‘Really.’
Sol sat down on the bed. With his slippered toes, he attempted to draw the broken screen close to him.
‘This breaks just like a mirror. Designed so that people suspect nothing… What’s his name?’ Sol shook his head, moving the hair that had fallen across his forehead.
‘Ceno.’
‘And what does he do?’
‘He said he works in TV.’
Sol said nothing for a while. Emma poured liquor into their glasses and sat down beside him.
‘Would it bother you if war broke out between Earth and Meele?’ he asked finally, in an extremely kind and gentle voice – the kind of voice people used with children or the simple-minded.
Emma felt like she might cry again. ‘Yes.’
She felt like she was standing alone, barefoot and totally exhausted, in the depths of the night.
‘Why?’
‘Because you’d be put in a camp or something.’
‘You wouldn’t want to leave me?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Emma replied, without confidence.
‘You don’t think so. That’s so typically you.’ Sol grinned.
‘Is there going to be a war?’
‘Lately I’ve been feeling like one’s coming. Yesterday, when I got off the Subterrail, I came over all dizzy and then my mind filled with all kinds of images.’
‘What’ll happen to us?’ Emma asked in a frail voice. Sol hung his arms between his knees and lowered his head. In a very low voice he said, ‘I had a vision of you dying.’
‘Struck by a bomb?’
‘No. You were on a bed. It doesn’t mean it’s going to happen soon. Maybe in a few years… I mean, in a few decades everyone alive on Earth now will be dead anyway.’
‘True,’ Emma said, but inside she felt wretched. The majority of Meelians took their own lives. It was death, just the same as what befell the Terrans, and yet it was totally different. Sol was an alien.
Emma squeezed his hand.
‘There’s nothing to be frightened of,’ he said.
‘Right.’ Emma’s head also began to droop.
‘How do you feel about the idea of getting out of here?’
Emma knew what Sol was thinking, so she replied quietly,
‘Not as badly as I used to. But I don’t completely trust you.’
‘You’re so honest.’ He patted her head. ‘Honest and good.’
‘Although I do feel like I’m coming to trust you.’
‘You see? Did you watch me with Luana?’
Emma shook her head.
‘You didn’t? Well that’s a relief.’ Sol gave a cheery smile. It was as if he was trying to cheer her up.
‘Was it full-on?’ Emma smiled for the first time that day.
‘Yes, pretty full-on.’
‘Enough to make me lose trust in you?’
‘Yes, most likely.’
A faint bitterness spread through her. Was this jealousy? But, no, as far as Luana was concerned, it wasn’t jealousy that Emma felt. This was a feeling she’d had before. Without being aware of it, Emma was jealous of Sol’s very existence in this world.
Sol was impossible to understand.
Even when she clung to him like this, she felt that the largest part of him was off wandering through some unknown territory all alone. Even in her arms, he was always able to liberate himself from her, to make himself free. She envied him that. Sol was an alien.
‘What is it?’
‘I feel so lonely.’
‘That feeling will go away when you learn to trust me completely.’
‘Complete trust is a delusion.’ Emma rested her head on his shoulder.
‘What about complete forgiveness, then?’
‘Complete forgiveness…’ Emma lifted her head and looked at him. Then she said very slowly, ‘That’s really difficult. I don’t think I can do it.’
‘But if you could, you wouldn’t feel lonely.’
‘True,’ she agreed weakly.
‘The thing about you is that you’re never satisfied.’ Emma knew that he wasn’t talking about any rational satisfaction – he was talking about her spiritual condition. Now he wrapped her in his arms.