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

‘Here, what on earth’s going on?’ he said, as soon as I got in the door.

‘Hi Dad,’ I said. ‘I’m stopping here, just for a few nights while I find somewhere new to live. That OK?’

He stared at me with an open mouth as I started to haul the bags up the stairs.

‘But … but I don’t understand? I thought you said you were very comfortable in the flat above your manager’s house?’

I sighed with the effort of the lifting, Dad still standing at the bottom of the stairs, too busy gawping at the situation to think of lending me a hand. ‘It didn’t work out. And anyway, flat is an overstatement, and it was above a garage, not a house. I’m better off out of there.’

He ended up wandering away, saying he was going out for some fish and chips for dinner and that he’d get me some. I shouted back my thanks and set about taking my laptop from my bag and plugging in the charger at the wall, then doing the same with my phone lead. I sat down at the same desk where I wrote my school essays twenty years previously and navigated to Instagram on the laptop’s browser. I remembered the account handle with no problem – it was burned into my mind from when I first saw it. I went through, picture by picture, studying each frame, each colourful golden-hued square, every single one primed to show off the perfect life. His perfect life. Their perfect life. After twenty-five minutes, I heard the front door go; Dad was back from his fish-and-chip-shop run.

‘Only me,’ he called up.

Well who else would it be? I thought to myself. Everybody else is dead.

Five minutes later he called up to say the food was ready. I didn’t mind. I’d found out what I needed to know. Everything was there to see.

I had a hurried meal with Dad in the dimly lit lounge. Dark, depressing, it irritated me he never switched the lights on until he really had to. ‘What’s the plan, then?’ he asked, eyeing me as if I were a strange, dangerous animal he’d only ever seen in films but never up close.

‘The plan,’ I said, crunching a bit of the batter from the huge fish he’d served me, ‘is to move to London.’

His jaw literally dropped.

‘London?’

‘Yes,’ I said, grabbing the salt. ‘London. There’s … a photography course I’d like to do there. I was thinking of getting back into it. It’s been over a year since I properly photographed anything.’

He seemed to be mulling this over. ‘I suppose … I suppose there’s more of that sort of thing going on. In London.’

I nodded. ‘Yes, there is.’

‘But … honestly, love, I’ve been and it really isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. There are these gangs of boys on bikes that stab people with knives. I’ve seen them on the news. And there are terrorist attacks almost every day now.’

‘They’re not every day,’ I said, rolling my eyes. ‘And we get stabbings here in Bradford.’

‘Not that many, love. Not as much as London.’ He said this whilst wagging a finger to me as if he was the only one who knew how the world works.

‘I’m going, Dad. I’ve got that bit of money from Mum still put away. I’ll use it to rent a flat there.’

He looked distressed at this. ‘You always said you’d use that to start up another gallery of your own. Support local artists.’

I couldn’t bear the thought of having this conversation again. ‘Because that worked out so fucking well last time, didn’t it!’ I put my knife and fork together and stood up.

‘Here, don’t go mouthing off at me. The recession wasn’t my bloody fault.’

‘I know that, Dad. I know. I’m sorry for snapping. I need to go back upstairs. I’m looking for flats and it may take a while. Don’t wait up for me.’

I offered him a small, sad smile, then left him there, in the gloom, on his own.

Once I’d got back upstairs, I woke up my laptop and looked at the Word document I had open next to Instagram on my browser. On it, I’d written down all the key locations from the past few months of photographs that Charlie Allerton-Jones had posted. One thing was immediately clear: aside from a few daytrips and holidays, the family lived and spent the vast majority of their time in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. If they weren’t there, they were either in Belgravia, Pimlico, or other parts of Central London. They seemed almost never to venture to East London or very far south, or at least if they did, they didn’t document their trips there for all the world to see. Charlie had been careful enough not to show their exact address, but a comment under one said, ‘Tough life for the Carlyle Square Crew’ with a wink emoji under a photo of Charlie in a hammock in what was presumably their garden. From the interaction between Charlie and the user, it sounded like they were friends – and this friend had given away an important detail. I googled Carlyle Square, discovering it was indeed in Chelsea, SW3, just off the King’s Road.

I set to work on my research on flat rental sites. The prices were horrendous. I’d known, of course, that London was expensive, but the rates people were expected to pay for a one-bedroom flat with a kitchen and bathroom shocked me. After half an hour, I was close to crying. I couldn’t bear the thought of living in a flat share – the thought of being with a bunch of ‘young professionals’ in their twenties horrified me. They’d all be twenty-five, skipping off to work, full of the optimism of youth and all the things I’d thought I’d have when I opened my gallery and believed I could actually be a photographer and run a business