The House Guest by Mark Edwards(8)

‘It’s hard to imagine.’

‘Right?’ She sighed. ‘You know, if this was my house I’d stay here all the time. I wouldn’t go off on a retreat or a cruise or anywhere. I’d never want to go out. Some people just don’t realise how lucky they are.’ She tapped the book. ‘Have you read this?’

‘No.’

‘You should. It’s about this guy who inherits loads of money and buys a big house in the middle of nowhere with a basement. Then he abducts this woman and keeps her locked up there. You know what I keep thinking when I read it? If some rich guy abducted me and kept me in a place like this, I wouldn’t mind. It would still be better than where I came from.’

She smiled at me but there was a slyness to it. Like there was something she wanted to say.

I waited. But she opened the novel and said, ‘I can’t wait to find out what happens.’



Ruth got her new SIM card and spent the evening messaging her friends and contacts, giving them her new number. Then she went up for an early night while I had a bath, needing to wash away the grime of the day. I sat in the tub and thought about my miserable meeting with Sam and wondered what I was going to do with my life. It would be easy to wriggle out of the lie I’d told Ruth – the industry was full of flaky people whose enthusiasm waned faster than it waxed – but I still felt guilty about it. And I knew that admitting the lie, telling her why I’d done it, would be opening a can of worms. Giant worms with teeth.

I got out of the bath, dressed, and looked in on Ruth. She was asleep but I was wired. I went downstairs and found Eden staring at moving images on her iPad. Familiar images.

Eden reacted like I’d caught her masturbating. She slammed the cover of the iPad shut and her face turned pink with embarrassment. For a moment I wondered if I was mistaken and she had in fact been looking at porn.

‘Oh my God, did you see what I was watching?’

‘It was The Immaculate, wasn’t it?’ I sat in the armchair opposite.

‘Yeah. You caught me.’

It was a strange reaction, but I guessed she was worried I would think she was being deeply uncool. Or something. ‘What do you reckon?’

‘I love it,’ she responded. ‘It actually made me cry.’

‘Really? Which part?’

‘The part where her dad calls her a slut and throws her out – you know, after she tells her parents she’s pregnant. And then she realises she’s all alone.’

It was a powerful scene, beautifully played by Ruth, but I was surprised it would make anyone cry.

‘And now everyone’s after her. The government. The cops. That weird priest. It’s so clever, isn’t it? The way that reality shifts and cracks around her . . . like, all these signs that the world is falling apart and everyone just keeps going about their business. It’s giving me chills.’

‘It’s a great film,’ I said.

‘And Ruth is incredible,’ Eden said, eyes wide. ‘When she’s on-screen it’s like . . . you can’t look away. Do you want to watch the rest of it with me?’

I had already watched The Immaculate a dozen times but I nodded. ‘Sure.’

To make space for the iPad, I moved a pile of books to the edge of the coffee table. They were all self-help books with titles like The Power of Now and Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home; then there was a book by the Dalai Lama and another about kundalini yoga.

‘Are these all Ruth’s?’ Eden asked.

‘Yeah. She’s a seeker.’

Eden raised an eyebrow.

‘I mean she’s always looking for something. Something to believe in. To belong to. Like, when we were first together she decided she was going to start going to church. She took me along a few times then said it wasn’t for her and moved on to the next thing. She flits from group to group. And she buys a lot of these books but never finishes them.’ I smiled. ‘She says she’s still looking; that she’ll find the right fit eventually.’

Eden nodded like she understood.

‘I guess you must be used to that kind of thing, living in LA.’

‘Oh yeah,’ she said. ‘Totally.’

She placed the iPad on the coffee table and hit ‘Play’. I snuck glances at Eden as she watched the film. She was enrapt. When the character known as the Saviour appeared and took Ruth’s heroine in, giving her shelter from the hunters and the collapsing world, Eden exhaled like a young girl watching the most beautiful wedding scene. During the climax, I was as gripped as Eden, marvelling at the special effects that had been achieved on a tiny budget: the sky the colour of a blood orange; black clouds like cancer; the screaming hordes fleeing the fires and floods and quakes that tore the world apart while Ruth and the Saviour sheltered in a cave and she gave birth to her miracle child. It was overblown and clichéd in parts, but the rawness of Ruth’s performance made it seem so real.

When I tore my eyes away from the screen I saw that Eden was crying again.

She wiped the tears away. ‘I’m such a loser.’

‘Join the club,’ I said.

She gave me a quizzical look.

‘Forget I said that.’ I left her tapping at the iPad, skipping back through the film to watch part of it again, and went to bed. At the top of the stairs, I glanced out the window.