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

When Matthew came back he glanced at the pizza in my hands, and I instinctively offered it out. He shook his head and went back into the lounge. I followed, sat down, and allowed him to continue.

‘The holiday became something of a nightmare from then onwards. Collette stopped joining in as much with our activities. She mostly just spent time with Johnny in her cabin. When I realised he was there, I very nearly flew back home, but even that seemed impossible. I was sick outside in the snow; I struggled to get out of bed in the mornings. The closest I got to him was when Sylvia insisted we all had a photo together with our ski things. A whole bunch of other people had joined us in the week – university friends of Sylvia and a few guys David knew from home, who in turn brought their girlfriends. Somehow, the increase in numbers helped me feel a bit better. Anyway, we were having a photo done near one of the slopes – Sylvia had asked one of the staff to take it – and just as we were gathering round, I heard a voice I couldn’t forget. It was his voice. Johnny’s. He and Collette had joined us without me noticing. I’m not even sure what he’d said – something about him being fucking frozen. But it instantly took me back to that night. The black-clothed figure in the fox mask, pressing the cocaine-covered knife against my nose. And then I briefly saw Collette’s face. Her eyes. She was off her face. High as a kite. And something in me snapped. I left the group and went back to my cabin and packed up all my things. David came and found me just after I’d called reception to ask for a car to take me to the airport. He was confused why I was going. Did Collette know I was leaving? Was I feeling unwell? He kept asking all these things, but all I could do was shake my head and say I had to go home. And I did. I flew back to Scotland that afternoon.

‘My mother was concerned when she saw me getting out of the car without Collette. I’d felt relief wash over me when I boarded the plane and managed to hold myself together so I didn’t end up the mad one sobbing in first class. But once I’d stepped inside the castle, I fell into my mother’s arms and sobbed. I told her he was there. Johnny Holden was there. And I thought Collette was using again. To my shame, I abandoned both my mother and my sister after that. My mother kept questioning me. Wringing her hands about how she couldn’t get on a plane but how she wanted to go and find Collette herself. I didn’t help her. I left Scotland, went to London for a few months, and tried to bury myself in PhD research. It was March when I discovered Collette hadn’t returned from Norway. I was astounded by this news. It had been over a month, nearly two, since I’d flown back to the UK, leaving her there. My mother phoned to tell me Collette was pregnant. She was out there in Norway expecting her first child. Her first child with him. So we went out there by cruise ship. It took two weeks. Collette was dismissive and rude to us both, even though we’d travelled all that way. Johnny was belligerent and sneering towards my mother and when I started to get angry he said to me, “Calm down, love, don’t want you crying like a girl, do we?” I knew of course what he was referring to and it had its desired effect. It made me want to leave immediately. But in the end, Collette practically threw us out.

‘We missed the birth, months later – something that still pains my mother. She had a horrendous bout of flu, and wasn’t able to leave her bed – not that Collette gave us much warning. My mother pleaded for me to fly out and be with her, give her some support, so I did my best to push my fears of Johnny to the back of my mind and flew back out on what was now a familiar journey. They weren’t coping. Worse than not coping. They were a mess. It became obvious within minutes of being in their company that they were using something. I wasn’t sure what, but both were lying there like zombies on the beds, sofas, while the baby – Titus – was crying in a horrible plastic cot. I shook Collette, trying to wake her. She just murmured something like, “The birth was horrible” then went back to sleep. Johnny was dead to the world, asleep on the sofa in his pants like some teenager recovering from a hangover. Then I noticed the plate next to him. And the needles. And the bent spoon.

‘I should have taken the baby and run away with him or something – just left them both to their vile habits – but I didn’t know how they’d sorted it with passports and hospital visits. I was completely out of my comfort zone, out of my area of expertise. Collette and I had a bit of a shrieking match when she woke up properly. She took up the screaming Titus in her arms and said it was normal for mothers to go a bit off the rails in the first few weeks. I told her intravenous drugs was a bit further than off the rails. She said that stuff was just Johnny’s; she hadn’t touched it. I asked what she had touched, whether she was breast feeding, whether the drugs could be getting into her child’s mouth. She told me to fuck off and more or less kicked me out of the flat. I went for a walk around the woodland. Had dinner up at the main hotel building.