Abbie Frost - The Guesthouse

Of course: the holiday to County Mayo in Ireland. Ben had persuaded her to book a room at The Guesthouse, a beautiful country home, and she had forgotten all about it. They were supposed to go together.

Hannah clicked on the message from the host: Henry Laughton. His photo showed a solid-looking man wearing a Barbour jacket, standing at the foot of a green hill with a muddy dog at his side.

Hi Hannah and Ben,

I hope you’re looking forward to your stay at The Guesthouse. As promised the kitchen will be stocked with enough food and drink to last the whole of your stay. Fallon village has a small local store for any other essentials and there is a supermarket fifteen miles away if you need anything unusual or exotic.

As this is self-check-in, I may not be there to meet you. Entry is by key code – a second code will let you into your own room – and you may arrive any time after 2pm. Please make yourselves at home.

Other rooms for use by guests are the large eat-in kitchen, the drawing room and the library. So plenty of space to spread out and be solitary or sociable as you prefer.

She finished reading and closed her eyes. Couldn’t stop herself remembering when the offer email had first arrived. Sitting at her desk with Ben beside her and her life intact.

She had pointed at the email from Cloud BNB on her screen. He looked over her shoulder, his head close to hers. Hannah clicked through to the website and they both read the description. The Guesthouse was owned by Preserve the Past: a charity dedicated to restoring historic Irish buildings.

They moved on to the photographs. The luxurious bedrooms with large windows facing sweeping countryside views. Roaring fires and stone floors. Wide-angled shots that made the rooms seem enormous. The building itself had classical lines and some original architectural features inside.

Ben leaned over her shoulder and clicked back to the offer email. ‘Wow, so cool – and cheap. We should go. Can we go? It’s perfect, and a great area for walking too.’

She laughed. ‘OK, well you’ve managed to put me off completely now.’

‘The offer is for the opening week. We’d be the first visitors, so they’re throwing in all sorts of extras. Food and drink in the fridge, logs for the open fires, free run of the house.’ He kissed the back of her neck and slid his hands down to her breasts, whispering in her ear. ‘We might be the only guests. Imagine cuddling up in front of a roaring fire miles from anywhere.’

Hannah continued to look through the photos. ‘I love the building, but it’s kind of … outdoorsy. And …’ She touched the screen. ‘There are five visitor bedrooms, so it could be packed.’

‘We’ll just take a bottle to our room and lock ourselves in for the week.’ Ben kissed her again and again. Short sharp kisses on her neck on her face, her lips, and then everywhere and they were soon making love on the sofa.

An hour later they booked the best bedroom on offer and organized their flights.

Hannah bit her lip and killed the app. She was due to arrive in Ireland in two days’ time. She couldn’t go – there was no way – she should reply to the host and cancel. Pulling on a jumper and leggings, she forced herself to go downstairs.

Her mum had gone to do some work in the study and a pot of pasta simmered on the stove. At the kitchen window Hannah poured herself a glass of water with a shaking hand. Outside in the garden, autumn had crept up without her noticing, the trees heavy with red, orange, and golden leaves, their colours glinting in the evening sun.

There was a reason she had chosen County Mayo. It was probably why the offer email had been sent to her in the first place, after she had spent long nights trawling through Cloud BNB, zooming in on Fallon village, refreshing the page, waiting for a sign to appear there like a beacon. It was a reason she didn’t want to think about now, something that she had only ever told Ben.

What would Ben say if he could see her now? She could remember the smell of his aftershave, the way he held her at night when she awoke screaming from a nightmare.

The way he looked at her when he found out that she was cheating on him.

She took a sip of water, trying to ignore her shaking hand. When Ben realized what Hannah had done, their argument had spiralled into a fight that ended their relationship. She’d tried to make him understand, promised it would never happen again, but it had been no good. He’d stormed out into the night, and that had been the last time she would ever see him.

Hannah looked around the kitchen at the immaculate surfaces. Her mother’s constant, almost oppressive worry, this house like a pristine cage. Maybe she should go to Ireland, to get away from it all. She watched a magpie hop down onto the lawn and begin to peck at something dead in the grass. Her mum and Lori would certainly be relieved to see the back of her.

Everyone would.

Because Ben was dead, and it was her fault.

She regretted it as soon as her plane landed. She’d left London in sparkling sunshine and arrived at Ireland West Airport to drizzle that turned to rain. And it got worse as the taxi headed for Fallon. Water flooded down the cab windows, the frantic swish, swish of the wipers failing to drown out the driver’s annoying country music.

At least he didn’t speak to her and he held his thick red neck so stiffly it was obvious he wouldn’t welcome any chatty comments from the back seat. She tried to relax as green mile after green mile sped by, distorted by the streams of grey water. It didn’t matter what the weather was like: she wasn’t here to enjoy herself, just to get some respite, to get away from social media and from London’s clubs and bars. Ben had encouraged her to make this trip and had paid half the cost. At least this was one tiny way in which she wasn’t going to let him down.

She must have dozed off, because the cab door suddenly opened, and the driver was standing staring in at her. The rain had eased to a thin colourless veil, as if a net curtain hung in front of the fields.

The fields that stretched out for miles on both sides.

She sat up in her seat and looked around. They were parked in a layby in the middle of nowhere. ‘Sorry, excuse me, I think there’s been a mistake. I asked for The Guesthouse.’

The man nodded.

‘It’s on an app called Cloud BNB. It’s where I’m staying.’ She pulled out her phone. ‘I can show you a picture.’

He said nothing. His wide, ruddy face expressionless as he gave the screen one fleeting glance.