Page 33 of The House Guest

‘Like what?’

‘Like the end of the world.’

‘What?’ I hadn’t seen that coming.

‘Right. How we were all screaming towards the end times. None of it made much sense to me. I told her she was talking nonsense. She pressed it. We argued about it. We argued about how she still didn’t have a job, too. She stopped coming round on Sundays. Until one day, last fall, when she turned up asking if I could loan her some money. She said she needed it to take a course. She was going to train to be a masseuse. Eden was waiting outside in the car and wouldn’t come in, and I got the feeling Sinead was lying, that she wanted the money for something else. The way she looked, I thought it might be drugs. But then she laid the whole guilt trip on me, started crying, and I could never resist her tears. I gave her the money and off she went.’

He drained his pint.

‘That was the last time I saw or heard from her. She stopped answering her phone. Then I started to get a message saying the number was out of service. I went to her apartment and her roommates said she hadn’t come home one night. She still owed them rent. All her social media accounts were deleted. Of course, the cops were of no use whatsoever.’ He stroked his beard. ‘You know what I thought? That she and Eden had run into trouble with a gang of drug dealers. That the two of them were probably buried out in the desert. I can’t begin to tell you how I felt ...’

For a moment I thought he was about to start crying.

‘I spent months searching for her, going to all the places she used to hang out, talking to all her old friends, but got nowhere. So then I decided to concentrate on Eden. I knew they’d met at this spiritual convention and I found the Facebook page, which was full of comments from people who’d been too. I started messaging them, explaining the story, saying I was trying to find Eden. Most of the people ignored me and I was on the verge of giving up when someone messaged me to say he knew Eden. What he told me, well, it gave me the chills.’

It was busier in the bar now. I had to lean forward to hear what Callum said.

‘This guy told me Eden is a recruiter.’

‘For what?’

Callum paused. ‘I need another drink.’

He went to get up but I grabbed his arm. ‘For fuck’s sake, you can’t leave me hanging like that. What do you mean she’s a recruiter? For what?’

‘Adam, trust me. You’re going to need another drink.’

Chapter 15

The lights were too bright. Ruth opened her eyes and pain seared her retinas, leaving blobs of colour inside her eyelids. She turned over, burying her face in the pillow, and fought the nausea that threatened to overwhelm her. It was like being in a boat in the midst of a storm, and she forced herself to lie perfectly still, barely daring to breathe, until the lurching, roiling motion subsided.

Tequila, she remembered. So much tequila.

But why did her body ache like this? Why did her arms and legs and ribs hurt? Now she had noticed it, every breath caused pain, like there was something sharp digging into her lungs. It was as if she’d been trampled on or run over. But she couldn’t remember anything except tequila. Drinking with Adam and Eden. Where was Adam now? She turned her head to see if he was beside her – no, it was just her – and the bed began rocking violently again.

She sucked in air. Lay motionless until sleep dragged her back into oblivion.

‘Ruth. Ruth, can you hear me?’

There was a voice coming to her from far away. A female voice, gentle but insistent. She had been having the dream again, the one she’d been having since she was a teenager: of stepping on to a stage, excited, ready to show the world who she was, and the audience turning their backs on her.

‘Ruth, you should drink something.’

She opened her eyes and saw Eden leaning over her. The light didn’t hurt so much now, though the aches in the rest of her body hadn’t subsided.

‘What time is it?’

Eden didn’t answer. Instead, she slid an arm behind Ruth’s shoulders. ‘Let me help you sit up.’

‘I don’t need help.’

Except when she tried to move it was like being kicked in the ribs. She cried out in pain.

‘Take it easy,’ Eden said in a gentle voice. ‘Slow. Here we go.’

With her arm still around Ruth’s shoulders, Eden helped her into a sitting position, pulling up the pillow so it was positioned behind Ruth’s back. Eden held out a glass of water. ‘Drink this.’

Ruth took a sip and was hit by an overwhelming urge to throw up.

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