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

a force I had never thought I’d have to reckon with – something unpredictable, filled with rage, the polar opposite to the Titus I had known and cared for and loved like my own son for most of his life. Just as the traffic started to move, my phone rang. ‘Titus?’ I shouted into it without registering the caller ID.

‘No, it’s me,’ said the voice of my mother, calmly. ‘But Titus is here.’

I let out a sigh of relief. ‘Oh, you’re home. That’s … that’s good. Sorry to shout, it’s been … well, things are a bit tricky right now.’

‘As I can imagine,’ my mother said. ‘But at least that’s one thing off your mind. Titus is safe here at Wilton Crescent and you don’t need to worry about him.’

‘I was. Worried, that is. Really worried. He sounded drunk on the phone. I was worried he was doing something stupid or reckless…’

My mother let out a slightly exasperated sigh. ‘Darling, he’s almost a young man. He isn’t ten years old. The drink will wear off and he’ll soon calm down.’

‘So he’s drunk, is he?’ I said, the volume of my voice rising again. ‘At fifteen years old in the middle of the afternoon. And where did he get it from, anyway?’

‘And you were never drunk at fifteen, were you?’ she said, slightly archly. ‘Charles, can you just give the boy some breathing room, just for today? He’ll stay the night here and I’ll drive him over to Chelsea tomorrow morning. How does that sound?’

I nodded, even though she couldn’t see me. ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘OK. I’m sorry for getting worked up. It’s just … everything’s been a bit strange…’

‘Ever since you left the Ashtons’s on Saturday?’ she asked. She didn’t sound too inquisitive, but I couldn’t face an interrogation from her about that now.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And a bit before… I can’t really explain it now.’

A large Range Rover hooted behind me; I’d failed to move on a green light. I touched the accelerator and, in a split second, made the decision to continue driving deeper into Belgravia rather than turning back for home. Something odd was happening here and I wanted to have it out with my mother and Titus without delay.

‘We can talk about all this another time,’ my mother continued. ‘Although, darling, perhaps don’t reach out to the Ashtons today, or even any time soon. I think it will be for the best.’

I digested this sentence for a bit before answering. ‘What do you mean?’ I said. ‘Reach out? That’s a strange way to put it. Reach out about what?’ The image of Pippa running down the stairs, her tear-stained face looking at me with fear etched upon it, floated to the surface of my mind. Not quite believing I was now having to ask this question of my own mother, I once again uttered the words that had been most on my mind all day. ‘What’s going on?’

I heard my mother’s slow intake of breath. She held it for a few seconds, then exhaled slowly, buying herself time. ‘Just … give me this time with Titus.’

‘Does this have something to do with Rachel?’

She ignored this question. ‘We’re going to talk some things through. Then I’ll bring him home. And then you and I will go out for a little chat.’

The steady poisonous flow of anxiety was seeping through my body. That horrible, paranoid feeling you get when the walls are closing around you. They all know something, I thought to myself. Titus, Matthew, the Ashtons, even my mother. After everything I’d been through with Matthew, all the secrets that had been brought to the surface, there was still a vital ingredient I wasn’t quite seeing.

‘Charles, darling? Are you still there?’

I took a left without indicating, causing a hoot of outrage from another driver. ‘I’m coming to yours now,’ I said.

‘No, Charles, really…’

I cut the call. I’d see her in less than a minute, anyway.

I managed to dial down my reckless driving as I came out onto the stately surroundings of Belgrave Square – too many Met police vans around for Fast and Furious antics – and before long I was slowing down as I arrived outside the pleasingly curved stretch of houses on Wilton Crescent. The door to my mother’s house opened before I’d even parked. She had her arms folded and although she didn’t look angry, exactly, she was evidently troubled in her controlled, fuss-free sort of way.

‘Charles, please do as I ask and go back home.’

I stared at her. ‘How can you ask me that when Titus is inside, smashed out of his mind?’

‘He is not smashed out of his mind,’ she said, cutting me off. ‘He is a little upset at the moment, a tad worse for wear, but he’ll be fine before long and I request you give him the chance to be upset without becoming a meddlesome parent and making things worse. Even with the best of intentions.’

Rage ignited the worry within me. ‘Meddlesome parent?’ I snapped. ‘Is that what you think I am? At least I’m there for him, living under the same roof. At least I haven’t swanned off to Belgravia and splashed out on some Regency palace all for myself.’

I knew as soon as I’d finished that I had gone too far. Hurt flashed across my mother’s face, followed by a tightening that I had come to associate with her infrequent bursts of anger. She stepped onto the pavement so she was closer to me and said, ‘Charles, please pay me the compliment of presuming I know what I’m doing. Go home, go to work, just keep yourself occupied until I’ve had time to get things sorted. And stop shouting in the street, or you’ll disturb everyone at the High Commission of Singapore.’ She nodded to the house on her left. Then she turned on her heel and walked back inside and closed the front door.

I stood motionless on the pavement for almost a full minute, then