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

at school, or lost his homework, or done something wrong at home. Matthew always accused me of rushing to reassure him too quickly, to tell him whatever it is doesn’t matter, and he doesn’t need to be upset about it. ‘Some things do matter, some things are worth being upset about,’ Matthew said to me one time when I’d hugged Titus before the boy had properly explained what was wrong. ‘If you tell him it doesn’t matter, he won’t bother trying.’ I objected to this. Although Matthew wasn’t one of those harsh, tough-love sorts of parents, I didn’t like his occasionally negative outlook on life and its woes. I understand why; he encountered more grief and regret in his teens and twenties than some do in a whole lifetime.

I focus my gaze on Titus, choose my words carefully, then speak: ‘I think … I think it would be useful, for us going forward, to be clear on what each of us says to the police.’

He won’t meet my eyes at first. ‘Why?’ he says, still staring at the taps. ‘There’s not much to say, is there? Rachel came into the house while we were having dinner. She killed Dad. She phoned the police.’ His eyes flick up to meet mine, now, and although the bathroom is warm with steam, I suddenly feel a chill run down me.

‘That’s it, right?’ he says, unblinking.

I stare at him, not wanting to move. My body is tense, frozen almost, the intensity between us growing. Eventually I say, ‘Yes. That’s it. That’s what I said, too. Aren’t you … I just thought you’d be wondering why. Why she confessed. Because I…’

A shake of his head stops me mid-sentence. ‘I don’t want to talk about it. Not now.’

I consider pressing on, ignoring his protestations, but something in his cold, hard gaze – at odds with the scared little boy he had sounded like moments before – keeps me silent. ‘OK,’ I say. He carries on looking at me for a few seconds more. Perhaps he’s expecting me to leave, but I stay where I am. Then he leans back and stretches out his body and submerges himself under the water, bubbles rising as he lets his breath out. While he’s out of sight, hidden under the rippling water, I let my eyes scan the shelves above the sink. I know Dad still likes to shave with a cut-throat razor, but there is no sign of it here, suggesting he rarely sleeps in my mother’s house these days. Reassured, I get up just as Titus comes up for air.

‘I’ll leave you to get dressed,’ I say, heading for the door.

‘There’s nothing to get dressed in. I don’t have any clothes here, apart from that,’ he says, jabbing a dripping hand towards the discarded tracksuit on the floor.

‘The family liaison officer will be with us tomorrow. She’ll bring some clothes for us from the … from the house.’

The sentence snags in my mind as I say it. Because it isn’t just our house any longer. It is a crime scene. The site of a murder. Forever to be tainted as such in the minds of whoever knows what’s happened there. Especially us.

‘Fine,’ he says simply. I pick up one of the folded towels from the ledge to the left, and leave it by the side of the bath for him. ‘Try to get some sleep. And come and see me if you need to talk.’

He nods and reaches for the towel. I leave him to dry himself in private, my heart thumping in my chest, a thousand thoughts scrabbling for attention as I walk towards the guest bedroom Matthew and I always stay in. As soon as I’m in the room, I collapse onto the bed. My head is pounding. Pulling myself up, I reach into the bedside cabinet and scrabble around, sure there is a box of paracetamol or ibuprofen somewhere inside. I find a box and don’t stop to check what the tablets are or if they are within date; I just down two of them dry, the bitter, chemical taste coating my mouth.

I close my eyes and try to focus on the sweet smell of the fabric softener and the slightly rasping sound the duvet makes as I brush my face along its cool surface, trying to stop my mind dragging me back to the house. Our house. Our dining room. And what happened there. The blood. The noise Matthew made after the stabbing. Him trying to form words while the life dwindled from his eyes. I press my hands into my face, trying to clear the horror from my mind. I don’t succeed. I end up back there, again and again. It’s inevitable. I know by this point in my life that the more you try not to think about something, the more it feasts on every part of your mind. But, in spite of this – or maybe because of it – I still manage to drift off to sleep. A half-sleep. In and out. I swim between dream and memory, thought and fragmented image. I feel hot and cold all at the same time. It’s as if I have flu – really bad, signed-off-work-for-a-week flu. I feel myself starting to shiver, my temperature rising in my head, pressure pounding against my temple. I shed my clothes like some deranged, desperate animal ripping off an old skin; there is something primal and strangely reptilian in the way the ugly grey tracksuit falls from me and I crawl across the bed, naked and new, relishing the sheets for both their coolness and warmth. I pull the duvet round me and clutch onto it like a life-raft. I lie there for hours, but it could have been minutes, or it could have been years. Time has stopped functioning for me. Then, dully, I become aware that someone has entered the room and is trying to talk to me.

‘Charles. Can you hear me?’

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