The Dinner Guest by B Walter (best short books to read txt) 📕

direction. But then Titus texted me and asked if I could bring up a book he needed from the pile of schoolwork he’d left downstairs, so I hopped up to get it. Carrying the weighty tome under my arm, I extracted myself from the group – I think Jerome had just insinuated that Anita was racist and was being treated to an irate response from her – and went to climb the stairs. It was as I was approaching the landing that a flicker of movement caught my eye – not from Titus’s end of the landing, but from the main bedroom. Mine and Matthew’s bedroom. I walked down the landing slowly, wondering if we were being stealthily burgled or if Titus had gone looking for something (the fact Rachel was absent from the room downstairs still hadn’t properly registered). When I reached the doorway, I tilted forward a little to peer in without going properly through into the room. Rachel was there, standing at the side of our bed that leads into the en suite. She was peering to look at the photos we had lined along the top of the chest of drawers.

I was momentarily stunned – completely stunned – by this sight. Then my senses kicked in. I coughed and moved forward into the room properly. ‘Er … hi,’ I said, in a friendly but slightly questioning voice.

She turned around as if someone had fired a gun. ‘Oh, God, I’m so sorry. I was looking for the bathroom and found my way in here, and then saw the bathroom but realised it was an en suite so thought I should go and find the proper one…’

She trailed off with a mixture of hand gesticulations and head movements to indicate aren’t I such a fool, getting the wrong bathroom. I wasn’t sure if it was the way I saw her staring at the photos – photos of me and Matthew and Titus when he was a little boy – or if it was the fact she’d gone somewhere so private – a space generally reserved for just us, away from guests, with sports clothes on the floor and a wrapper from a packet of shaving razors poking out of the waste-paper basket. It felt like an intimate invasion. And she must have known it, because she went bright red at my silence and said, ‘I’d better go back downstairs.’

I think I said something daft like ‘Sure’ or ‘Great’, but I didn’t know what else I should say other than what the fuck are you doing in my bedroom? And my overall need for politeness and lack of confrontation stopped me saying that. So she left, walked straight past me and back out to the landing. I just stood there. I felt uneasy, like something major and important had occurred, and I needed time to compute it. But of course, what really had happened? A guest had got the wrong room, or a guest had been a bit rude and nosy and been caught out. Nothing more. Then why was I feeling so … strange? I shook myself a little to bring my mind back to the moment, and went to go back downstairs, but paused as I neared Titus’s room. His door was closed. After my knock, he called for me to come in, so I pushed the door open gently and found him sprawled out on his bed, textbooks and sheets of paper arranged around him, some falling onto the floor. Titus didn’t just do homework. He immersed himself in it.

‘How’s it going?’ I asked, offering him a smile. ‘Do you want me to bring you up some more cake?’

He grinned. ‘Fine. And no, it’s OK, I shouldn’t have more sugar this close to bed.’

Christ, I thought to myself, the boy’s more of an adult than his parents. I nodded, and told him I’d leave him to it. Then he said, ‘Not enjoying the book club?’

I paused. ‘Er … well, it is what it is.’ He gave a short laugh at that and so did I. ‘Why do you ask? Do I look grumpy?’

He shook his head. ‘No, I just thought I heard you come up a while ago. Seeking sanctuary, or something.’

I considered telling him about Rachel. How weird it had been, finding her in the bedroom. But the thought of her overhearing the conversation – me bitching about her to my son – even if the chances were remote, made me stop. ‘I was just directing Rachel to the bathroom,’ I said. It was the truth, to some extent.

He nodded and his eyes went back to his work. I let him be and then went back downstairs, half expecting to find Rachel going through the pockets of the coats in the hallway. Of course she wasn’t; she was in the lounge with everyone, accepting some more cake and laughing at something Jerome had said. Matthew caught my eye and raised his eyebrows, his silent way of asking everything OK? He smiled and gave a tiny nod, and carried on his conversation with Meryl. I went in to join them, slipping past Rachel’s chair, noticing as I did so her eyes dart up to me, filled for a split second with something like trepidation, or fear. Like an animal, sensing danger.

Once they had all gone and we had peace at last, I helped Matthew tidy away the plates and wine glasses. Because I’m a terrible human being, I routinely left things like this out on the countertop for our housekeeper, Jane, to do the next morning. Matthew, however, frequently told me this was rude and we should do it ourselves, and whenever I reminded him that Jane was paid actual money to tidy things away, he always went temporarily deaf.

He was putting plates into the dishwasher when he said to me, ‘Rachel was a success, don’t you think?’

I paused. That was my big mistake. I paused, and it was enough for him to jump