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

my balance go and I stumbled forward, grabbing hold of the side of the wall and knocking one of the framed paintings askew. Titus and Rachel both turned to see my baffled, and no doubt guilty, face looking back up at them.

‘It’s … time to go,’ I said to Titus. I was slightly cheered by the fact that he didn’t put up any protest at his and Rachel’s time being cut short. Instead, he came down the stairs, his normal cheery self, and we all started saying our goodbyes and thanking Jerome for a splendid dinner.

‘He didn’t cook it himself,’ Anita said, slightly sneeringly. ‘If you want to thank somebody, his Vietnamese housekeeper is the one you should bring out of the cupboard and speak to.’

‘She’s not in the cupboard,’ Jerome replied. ‘And don’t you think you’ve had a little bit too much wine, my dear?’

Anita said nothing in response, but clutched her glass protectively close to her, as if it might be snatched away at any moment.

On the drive home, I decided to bring up what I had seen on the stairs, aiming for a casual, making-conversation sort of tone.

‘You and Rachel seemed to be enjoying Jerome’s art collection.’

I heard Titus yawn, then say, ‘Yeah, she seems to like the same sort of thing.’

‘What painting was it you were both looking at? You seemed hypnotised.’

Titus considered for a moment, ‘Oh, er, it was called Justice and Divine Vengeance Pursuing Crime.’

I nodded, as if I knew it well.

‘By Pierre-Paul Prud’hon, I think.’

I drove on for a few seconds in silence, but the more I thought about this, the more it bothered me. Taking a deep breath, I just asked him outright. ‘And what did she say to you about this bleak-sounding painting that meant she needed to whisper in your ear?’

I looked in the rearview mirror and saw Titus frown a little, then shrug. ‘She had just described what was happening in the painting, saying how powerfully she felt the main themes of the piece are conveyed. And she didn’t whisper, she just spoke quietly; I think you’re probably going deaf.’ He smiled, playfully, but I was too distracted to acknowledge the teasing.

‘What themes?’ Matthew asked, acting the casually interested parent.

‘Retribution and revenge,’ Titus replied.

He said the words as if they were nothing. But they continued to haunt me all the way back to Chelsea.

Chapter Twenty-Two Rachel

Five months to go

I expected the Allerton-Joneses to be surprised at my new job and I was pleased with the way Meryl dealt with Charlie’s obvious, snobbish disapproval.

Over the months that followed, as winter became spring, I threw myself into executing my role as best I could. I arranged appointments for Meryl, sorted out her social calendar, did the shopping, booked a mini-break away for her with her son, who was based in the States but flew to meet his mother in Paris every February. I’d worried at first that her housekeeper, Iona, would think her job was being taken from her, but she seemed thrilled to have fewer responsibilities. Meryl clearly enjoyed my company, taking me out to dinner at least once a week, but I never found her overbearing. I had a large room and bathroom all to myself in the house, on a floor above her bedroom. Meryl even had plans for me to eventually move into the house on Belgrave Place that she was in the process of doing up. I would end up living in one of the new apartments there once the renovations were finished.

Me, in a luxury flat to myself in Central London, in one of the most desirable neighbourhoods in the country. It was something I’d never have dreamed of. I think, for years, I had been ruminating on how I wanted to change the past, rather than shape my future. Finding myself in this situation in London, working for Meryl, friends with famous actors like Jerome, and of course the Allerton-Joneses, made me realise how things can change. How the impossible can suddenly be made possible. I felt a little guilty for enjoying it all, considering why I had come here and what I was supposed to be doing. But I’d lived under a cloud for so long, it was impossible not to look up and enjoy it for a bit. To move on, at last. No, move on wouldn’t be the right words. That suggests I was ready to let things go, to step off my chosen path. To move forward. That would be more appropriate. And a conversation I would have with Meryl that spring would show me just how far forward I was moving.

It was when we were going through her upcoming appointments for April that I found out her plan. We were sitting in her beautiful lounge; it was truly like something from Upstairs Downstairs, only with a more modern edge, and I had to force myself to stop staring at the décor around me. I had her diary open on my legs and was pencilling things in when I turned the page to the first week of May. ‘Goodness, how this year is racing by,’ she remarked, ‘I hardly feel it’s begun. Our New York holiday will be here before we know it.’

This was the first I’d heard of anything to do with New York. ‘Oh, I didn’t know you were going to the US. I’ll mark in the dates, so we don’t book anything over it.’

She produced her iPhone – into the calendar app of which I would later painstakingly copy everything from the written diary – and scrolled through her messages. I could see from the contact name at the top it was a message thread with Cassandra Allerton. ‘Let me see… Saturday 9th to Wednesday 20th. Flying out Saturday morning and flying back home the Wednesday afternoon.’

I flicked forward in the diary to those dates and wrote at the top of them New York.

‘You’re so organised, my dear,’ Meryl said, admiring how neatly