The Dinner Guest B Walter (readict books TXT) 📖

in case you haven’t fully realised how deep my hatred goes, I’ll give you some context. I was happy before Collette came along. I’d opened my own photography studio and gallery space in Bradford. I’d made a life for myself. But then Johnny needed to borrow money. He said he’d been stupid and borrowed some money from dodgy types. I gave it to him, of course. I couldn’t bear the idea of him being beaten up by thugs for the sake of a hundred quid. But then he needed more. And more. His behaviour became alarming. Once I’d got a handle of what was going on – the drugs, the drinking, and who was the cause – I went to Collette’s flat. Spoke to her properly. Begged her to leave him. She told me to fuck off. Accused me of being a meddling bitch. Told me they were in love. Well, that love didn’t exactly go very well for them, did it. Nor me.

‘I sold my gallery space to pay for Johnny’s rehab, along with a good chunk of my parents’ savings. It didn’t work. He absconded. And, of course, ended up jetting off to Norway with her. He told me where he was going, at least, which wasn’t always the case, giving me the chance to follow him over there. I tried to confront him a few times, but he acted like I was being whingey and stopping his fun. He told me I was an embarrassment in front of his new friends. But I saw the way they looked at him, with his strong Yorkshire accent amidst their plummy Oxbridge vowels. Him boasting about getting his first batch of fitness clients for his personal trainer business while the others smirked behind their hands at him. He was embarrassing himself enough without my help. Not that I excuse their snobbery. I firmly believe they’d have been the same towards him even if he’d been more reserved, less hyper. He hadn’t gone to Eton; he hadn’t grown up in a townhouse in Chelsea or amidst the rolling hills of a country estate. He was an outsider. They’d have made him feel it regardless.’

I shake my head. ‘You don’t know that. Not for sure.’

She rolls her eyes at me. ‘Still defending the clan, are we?’

I breathe out slowly, trying to control my emotion. ‘Stop grouping people together like that. It’s identity politics, pure and simple. And I detest identity politics.’

‘Well, you would, wouldn’t you? Maybe because you’ve had advantages handed to you from birth that others can only dream of. But yeah, do correct me if I’m wrong. I do love being lectured to about privilege by a male millionaire with aristocratic ancestors.’

‘It may have escaped your notice,’ I say, through gritted teeth, ‘but I have, all of my life, been in relationships with men. And it wasn’t so long ago when my so-called privileged elitist community would have ostracised me if I had chosen to carry on being true to myself and not been a good little boy and married a woman to keep up the perception of respectability. So don’t you dare think my position in this rich-people fantasy you’re so keen on believing in has always been so safe. I lived with the chance of being an outcast every single day of my youth. I’m just lucky to have been born when I was and not a few decades before. But of course, none of that suits the narrative that you’re so desperate to craft, so do feel free to ignore it.’

Her eyes flash and she places her hands flat on the table. Her voice takes on an ice-like whisper. ‘May I give you some advice? Stop pissing off the woman serving your jail sentence. You are playing with fire.’

The words hit home. I hate myself for it, but I close my mouth, biting back the retort I so want to fling at her.

A pinched, angry expression has settled on her face now, and it remains as she opens her mouth to speak, then stops, clearly finding the sentence she’s trying to get out too difficult to say aloud.

‘I did something … unforgivable,’ she said, brushing away a tear from the corner of her eye. ‘We did something unforgivable. Me, Mum, and Dad. We let Titus go. After Johnny died, we let him be taken in by Collette’s brother, a man who I had never properly met, and Collette went home with them. At the time, it was too painful for us to even recognise the baby’s existence. Mum’s Catholicism, mixed with her grief, warped her into something close to madness. Then followed cancer and chemotherapy. It’s no wonder she couldn’t face reality. Dad was of the opinion that the child would have a better life growing up with a rich family. And to be honest, I don’t think he had the strength left to fight or even be involved in the care of a young child. When I think back, there are so many things I regret, but I think my actions around then weren’t made by the same person I am now. Watching my mother die before my very eyes, dying herself just after her own son had passed away, knowing she was leaving behind her a father and a daughter fucked up by grief … that sort of thing changes you. Pulls you inside out. It’s easy to look back now and say how, if I had that time again, I would have fought for us to be a part of the life of our nephew and grandson, our last connection to Johnny. But it sends you mad, that sort of thinking. If you dwell on it for too long. Maybe it did.’

For a moment, I wonder if she’s finished talking. The angry expression has now been replaced with a far-off look. I get the feeling I could get up and walk away and she wouldn’t see me. Then, at last, she speaks. ‘I suppose