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

were publishing in some dull-sounding left-wing polemic. I was less interested in where he’d been and more about where the passports could be, and, as expected, Matthew was able to lay his hands on them immediately in a drawer in the library that I’d forgotten even existed.

Matthew went to take a hot bath to de-stress after his hectic day and I took off my clothes and left them out for Jane to add to the other washing while we were away. I picked Matthew’s up off the floor too, emptying his pockets of his wallet, some tissues … and a train ticket. I almost missed it, caught between the tissues, and grabbed hold of it as it fluttered towards the bin. It was from Marylebone to High Wycombe. It made me pause. Why would Matthew need to go to High Wycombe? He’d said, minutes earlier, he’d been to Surrey, and blamed traffic for his lateness. Not trains. A deep, angry burn started to blush through me. Was he lying to me? He had to be, surely. But Matthew never lied. Not throughout our entire marriage had I caught him out in a lie, not even a small one. It felt incompatible with his character. Incompatible with my idea of us.

I was still holding the ticket when I heard him come out of the bathroom and walk back towards our room.

‘What’s this?’ I asked, holding it out to him. In retrospect, I’d like to say there was a definite flicker of something in his eyes, some look of being caught out. But in truth, I can’t quite be sure if there was or if I imagined it, as he answered almost immediately and smiled his usual, gorgeous grin, taking a step towards me. ‘A train ticket.’

‘I know that,’ I said, taking care not to sound angry, ‘It’s just, well, you said you went to Surrey today and the ticket is a return to High Wycombe.’

Matthew took off the towel around his waist and started to dry his hair. ‘Oh, did I say Surrey? I meant High Wycombe.’

I frowned. ‘That’s … quite a mistake.’

He pulled a face. ‘Is it?’ he said. ‘You make mistakes like that all the time. We’re getting old. Cognitive decline, I’d wager.’ He stood there, remarkably confident, his perfect naked body suddenly taking on an oddly alien, unknown appearance in my eyes, even though I knew it so well.

‘It doesn’t even start with the same letter,’ I said. ‘And you don’t normally take the train. Surely you’d drive?’

He let out a sigh of exasperation. ‘It’s because I’m going to Surrey when we get back from New York,’ he said, picking up some pyjama trousers and pulling them on. ‘I made the arrangements earlier. That’s what made me think of it. And I had a meeting in Marylebone this morning. High Wycombe is only thirty minutes from Marylebone station, and I was going with Ali, who lives in Marylebone, so it all made sense us getting the train from there.’ He looked at me, still good humoured and smiling. ‘All fine now?’

Eventually I nodded. ‘Sorry. Yes, sorry. I was just confused. The stress of not being able to find the passports…’

He nodded. ‘It’s OK, I understand. Now, turn off the light and come and join me in here.’

I smiled at him now, recognising the wicked slant his grin had taken on, but went to leave the room. ‘I just need to check Titus is all good and packed, and bring up some things from downstairs. And you should dry your hair properly; you’ll make the pillows damp.’

I left him in the room and went via the alternative bathroom, separate from our room, before I looked in on Titus. In the mirror my own face stared back at me. Still slightly flushed. Still pulsing a little with the small fire of anger that had ignited inside me.

When I got back to the bedroom, Matthew was in bed reading. Instead of reaching for my phone – Instagram being my normal alternative to Matthew’s reading – I lay back into the covers, trying to calm my cluttered mind.

‘You going straight to sleep? We don’t have an early start; it’s not even 10.30pm. You can sleep in in the morning.’

‘Don’t you just … sorry, nothing.’ I rolled over, annoyed at myself for starting the sentence.

‘Don’t I just what?’ I heard Matthew close his book and set it aside. ‘Is this still about High Wycombe?’

‘No, the holiday. I was just going to say that I still find it, well, odd, that we’re going on holiday with Rachel.’

A sigh greeted this. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but … well, do you begrudge Rachel her, I don’t know … her ascent?’

I pulled myself up on my elbows and looked at him. ‘Her ascent? What does that mean?’

Matthew looked a little pained, as if unsure how to broach the subject. ‘Well, she’s rising in the world, isn’t she? From council flat to Eaton Square.’

‘Her Churchill Gardens flat was privately rented.’

Matthew tutted. ‘You know what I mean. It must be quite a step up from her previous jobs – working in a garden centre or being a dogsbody in an office. Being Meryl’s live-in assistant can hardly be a difficult job – she’s so independent, I’m convinced she did the whole thing as a favour…’

‘Which you have to admit is odd in itself,’ I interrupted. ‘And she’s not just live-in; I believe Rachel has been given the option to live in Meryl’s additional property on Belgrave Place, which is being done up just for her. I mean, is this just a way of giving her a house? She might as well just transfer thirty-three million into her bank account and be done with it.’

Matthew looked shocked. ‘Why are you being so bitter about this? Are you jealous or something? And it’s not a house; it’s an apartment. And it wouldn’t be worth thirty million.’

‘I’m not saying I’m jealous. Of course I’m not fucking jealous…’

‘Then it must be