The Dinner Guest B Walter (readict books TXT) 📖

‘Titus, we just want you to be safe,’ I said less firmly, laying my hands open in front of me. ‘We want you to be happy, and of course we know you’ll be … well, experimenting and trying things like this during your teen years. But really, I think what your dad and I are saying is, there’s no rush. You’re still so young. So, maybe you could just think about that and, perhaps, if this girl Melanie hasn’t quite thought through the difficult situation she’s putting both of you in, maybe she isn’t the right girl for you. At least, not at this moment in time.’

I watched as he computed this. I was worried that criticising Melanie, even though I’d tried to sound as kind and diplomatic as possible, would prove a bad move. But to my surprise, he diverted his gaze to his hands which were bunched in his lap, spent a few more seconds deliberating, then eventually gave a short nod. ‘Yes. You’re right. I’m sorry.’

I felt the tension in Matthew ease, heard the rush of his breath being let out, as if he’d been holding it ever since we’d been sitting down. Progress had been made, and suddenly the air around us was less tight, less likely to develop into a thunderstorm.

‘It’s OK. You don’t have to be sorry,’ Matthew said now, getting up and going to sit next to Titus. He put his arm around the boy’s shoulder. ‘I’m sorry for flipping off a little about the whole thing. This is all a bit new to us. I just don’t want to fail you. And … and I don’t want to fail your mum.’

This rare reference to Matthew’s sister made me start a little. I examined Matthew’s face for any warning signs. He was prone to get tearful on the occasions he did discuss Colette. He was biting his lip a little, but seemed to have a handle on himself. Titus, meanwhile, gave another little nod and allowed himself to be hugged. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again. I saw his hand rise and scratch the cut on his chin, which seemed to have a bruise developing underneath it. He was probably still shaken up about the whole experience, and part of his acting out this morning was no doubt a symptom of that.

‘We were thinking of asking Rachel to dinner,’ Matthew said to Titus. ‘Perhaps next weekend. Just to say thank you for being such a help yesterday.’

I saw him smile at this. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I really like her. She was just … well, she was brilliant.’

I felt a flicker of irritation at hearing Rachel described as ‘brilliant’, making me feel bad that neither me nor Matthew were first on the scene after Titus’s attack. But I said nothing. The truth was, she had been amazing.

Looking back now, this whole thing with Titus should have been a warning sign. I didn’t spot the clues, didn’t take heed of some things that seem plain now, with hindsight. Things about Matthew. Things about Titus. And the way Rachel managed to find her way into our lives.

Chapter Fourteen Charlie

Ten months to go

It was decided the following weekend would be a good one for Rachel to come over. Matthew and Titus would cook and I … well, I would spend the first part of the day playing tennis with my friend Archie. When Matthew said he was going out shopping to get food (unnecessary, in my view – the larder and fridge were more than well stocked, but apparently there was a ‘certain kind of pasta’ he and Titus really felt would go with the sauce they were putting together), I made a few oh-should-I-cancel-tennis-and-help remarks that I didn’t really mean, but Matthew seemed to think it was better I was out of their way. And besides, I thought it would be good for him and Titus to spend some time together. Maybe they could talk about the state of Titus’s illegal love life, which was, as far as we could gather, on a tentative hiatus.

At the tennis court, Archie spent so much time in the changing rooms showing me pictures of his two new cars, I was half tempted to suggest we ditch the tennis game altogether and just head out for lunch. ‘Goes like a fucking dream, mate,’ Archie said to me, swiping through photos that alternated between showroom-glossy exterior shots of the bright green Lamborghini Huracán Evo Spyder and interiors that looked like something from Star Trek. I went through a phase of these types of cars when I was in my twenties, but a decade later I can’t help but think they just look a bit childish. Impractical for the clogged-up roads of Central London and they have a show-off value that wears off the more people you show them to. Still, I thought to myself as I nodded and tried to look interested, if it made him happy to see a futuristic-looking slab of metal parked outside his house, who was I to argue?

After tennis, once we were settled at a table at The Roseberry in Knightsbridge, we started chatting about how things were going with work, at home, the usual stuff. Archie moaned a bit about one of his friends Dominic, who I only knew vaguely, who was apparently cheating on his wife with two mums from his children’s school. ‘He’s becoming a bit of a prick, to be honest,’ Archie said. ‘Plus, he tried to convince me a ball was within the line when we grabbed a quick tennis game the other day when it clearly wasn’t. You’re a much better player than him, I must say. I should have treated him to your old tactics and knocked his teeth into the shower walls afterwards.’

I rolled my eyes, attempting to make light of his words. He was referring to an incident when I was fifteen and furious with another boy at school, Jasper