The Dinner Guest B Walter (readict books TXT) 📖

might say. The feeling of the tectonic plates of one’s life shifting towards a new future.

‘Indeed,’ I said.

I went home with Matthew that night. We became an item almost immediately. That vague, ‘seeing each other’ period never really happened to us. I was introduced to Titus the following week, who was an angelic child and seemed devoted to Matthew. I started to spend more time with the two of them in their apartment near Marble Arch within the month. Moved my stuff over bit by bit. Matthew got used to my habit of leaving half-drunk mugs of tea, odd socks, and old newspapers about the place. I tried to get used to his neatness. And very quickly, after I sold my Eccleston Square flat, our two separate lives became stitched together into one. Everything fitted wonderfully. But still, I never joined his book club. It just seemed odd, a bunch of people – such different people at various points in their lives – meeting to discuss a book they’ve probably only skim-read. Or worse, studied word for word so they could have really in-depth discussions about a character’s motivation and emotional journey. I mean, I love Meryl, and she’s always seemed very fond of me, but the thought of her debating the latest Rushdie with an ageing film star and his bitter daughter-in-law … well, the whole thing seemed too bonkers to comprehend. So I resisted Matthew’s charming efforts to make me join, and the years went by and I just never caved in.

Until, of course, Rachel came into our lives.

‘I just don’t understand why now? Don’t get me wrong, you’re very welcome to join. It’s just never seemed like your sort of thing before. I thought that was why you’ve always arranged to be out when the meeting’s here.’ Matthew said all this as he stepped out of the shower, slipping a little as he hopped over the mat and back into the bedroom. He started drying himself with the towel, beads of water flicking onto me as I sat on the bed, only half listening. I didn’t know why, but I had a strange underlying sense of anxiety about the evening. Matthew seemed to suspect exactly why though.

‘Is it because of her? Rachel? Is that why you’re coming?’

I looked up at him and shrugged. I’d been filtering an image on a photography app. It didn’t really need any more work on it, but I felt oddly restless and needed something to focus my mind.

‘Charrrrlie? Hello?’

There was something about the way he sometimes said my name, extending the Rs a little and making it kind of sing-song-y, that had always irritated me a little.

‘It isn’t because of Rachel. Why would it be because of her?’ I didn’t look at him properly as I said this, just glanced up quickly, then carried on with colour, contrast, and shadow reach.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw him pause, then heard the sound of him towelling his hair. It’s strange how quickly things can change. There was once a time when I wouldn’t have been able to sit still with him standing naked so close to me. I’d have been pulling him close to me, the scent of his shower-gel-scrubbed skin sending ripples of attraction through me, a desperation to get him onto the bed and have his long strong legs wrap around me almost impossible to ignore. But, like a string of Christmas lights that have lost their vibrant once-new glow, here the feeling of arousal fluttered briefly and dully through my body, then faded as quickly as it had arisen.

Christ, I thought to myself as Matthew finally moved away from me to pull on a pair of boxers from the chest of drawers, have we really reached this stage already? A sense of disinterest and indifference around each other’s bodies? We were only in our mid-thirties, for fuck’s sake. Was this really when things started wilting and dying?

‘I’m not coming because of Rachel.’ It was a lie, and I think he knew it. If I ever lied to him, whether it was about my whereabouts (‘I’m just working at the moment,’ a.k.a. watching Netflix on my iPad in the study) or sorting out the clothes to take to the dry cleaner’s (‘Sure, all done,’ a.k.a. I’ll get around to it soon), I’d feel this strange ripple of electricity in the air, which remained present even when we weren’t in the same room. It was like my mind punishing me for stepping over some of my most closely held values: loyalty and honesty.

‘And you’ve read the book?’

I sighed a little in frustration. ‘Yes, I told you. When we were on holiday. Look, I think I even Instagrammed it. Hang on.’ I switched over to the app on my phone and began scrolling back.

‘I don’t need photographic evidence…’

‘Well you’re getting it, whether you like it or not.’ I did a sort of mock-annoyed voice to show I wasn’t really pissed. Was I pissed? I wasn’t really sure how I felt. I had this weird, slightly vertigo-inducing sense that we were on the verge of something not exactly pleasant. A feeling of foreboding I hadn’t felt as strongly as this before.

Titus was doing his schoolwork in his room while we got the house ready before the book club members descended. ‘What are you working on?’ Matthew asked when the boy made an appearance to steal a slice of cake.

‘Wars of the Roses,’ he replied, dangling on the door frame, stretching his arms. He’d grown tall recently and was in that stage some teenage lads go through when they’re a long tangle of limbs, not used to their own height, or the fast-paced changes their bodies are going through. I was the same at Titus’s age. I’d been so ravenously hungry. Every second of every day. And always felt as if I could run a mile or four, even at 11pm after a long day of school