The Dinner Guest Read online

  I nodded. ‘I assumed it might be something like that. I just didn’t know… I’ve been so worried that they think I was trying to rob them or like I’m some sort of deranged weirdo who scares people when they’re sleeping…’

  Meryl let out a little chuckle. ‘I’m sure they don’t think anything of the kind. But I understand if you don’t want to come to the book club. In fact, you don’t need to see them again for a long while if you don’t want to.’

  I smiled back to her. ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I’ll just skip this meeting, then after that I’m sure things will get back to normal.’

  Meryl nodded. ‘Well, you can join me at the Ashtons’s wedding anniversary party in July. They’ll be there, but it will be a relaxed environment, and you can mingle and meet other nice, young people like yourself.’

  It was my turn to laugh now. ‘I fear I’m not that young anymore.’

  ‘If you’re not young, I don’t know what I am,’ Meryl said, smoothing out her cashmere cardigan. ‘Right, let’s order up a car and head to Claridge’s. I haven’t been there since Christmas, and we could do with a drink.’

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Charlie

  Two months to go

  Matthew made the decision not to tell anyone else about the odd situation involving Rachel in The Hamptons. He said he didn’t think anything good would come of making a fuss, and that it was likely Rachel would distance herself from us anyway after her embarrassment. It turned out that he was right – at least for a time. The rest of the holiday passed without incident, and she didn’t turn up to the following month’s book-club meeting (Meryl cited a summer cold as the reason). I even allowed myself to believe we might be rid of her and she would, gradually, fade away out of our lives. Of course, I was wrong. And my life started to properly fall apart the night of Lord and Lady Ashton’s golden wedding anniversary.

  The Ashtons’s manor in the Oxfordshire countryside was a major part of my childhood. With two hundred acres of grounds, not to mention all the many rooms and passageways throughout the house itself, it was a rich kingdom of exploration for an outdoorsy boy like myself. While Matthew spent most of his youth holed up in his bedroom at the top of his family’s castle in the highlands with his face buried in the works of James Joyce, I spent many sun-dappled afternoons playing hide and seek at the Ashtons’s manor, often accompanied by friends from school. When I was a teenager, I went through a phase of making out I didn’t want to join my parents for long weekends with the Ashtons, claiming it was more exciting in Central London. This wasn’t true. It’s because I was experiencing my first major crush – that kind of intoxicating first love that hits you like a freight train and drags your hormonal brain through a thicket of emotions. And the object of that first crush was Rupert Ashton.

  Ten years older than me, he had been twenty-three when my thirteen-year-old self first started to view him as a figure of desire. I’d gone through a phase of being a little shy of Rupert during the ages of eleven and twelve, not really understanding what it was about him that made me both eager to impress him and desperate to run away from him at the same time. I felt shy and awkward around him and his group of friends, and would try to keep out of his way whilst wishing I could be near him at every hour of every day. As I got older, I realised I was falling in love with him, and when I was sixteen I ended up telling him this on one long, warm midsummer night.

  It had been a garden party that day, too – a smaller, intimate gathering to celebrate his younger sister’s graduation (a double first from Oxford). I had wandered down towards the trees that lined the property, a bottle of wine in my hand that I’d pilfered from one of the tables, and I had a notion to get utterly drunk on it in a very grown-up, complicated way, using it to drown my sorrows and sexual frustrations. That was where I bumped into Rupert who, also alone with a bottle of wine, settled on a bench near the woodland, seemed to be doing the very thing I aspired to, except in a far more adult way. A few minutes into our conversation, he remarked that I seemed nervous and asked if there was anything wrong. That was when I confessed, telling him I’d loved him for years. He listened, smiled, took a sip of his wine, then put a hand on my knee. ‘I really had no idea. And I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to give this a couple of years before we do anything about it. But if you’re happy to wait, I am too.’

  I am too. Those words would stick in my mind for years to come – a promise of something coming later on, a little into the future, the thought that all may not be lost, all may not be over. And in that moment, all I could do was nod. Then Rupert continued, and my whole world lit up like gunpowder.

  ‘Do you know, Charles Allerton, you’ve rather made my night. I was in a bit of a bad mood earlier. My sister and I had an awful row. But now you’ve cheered me up.’

  He still had his hand on my knee and let it rise a few inches. It felt like his skin was mainlining electricity into my entire body. ‘And for now,’ he said, ‘I’ll leave you with this.’

  In one deft movement, he took his large, athletic frame off the bench, bent over me, and brought his lips to mine. The kiss was both long and fleeting, momentous and light. And then he was gone, away in the dying evening light back towards the house.

  The year that followed could only be described as exquisite agony. I only saw Rupert three times, although each moment became seared into my memory. One was at the Ashtons’s annual Michaelmas supper the following autumn. Once people had eaten and retreated to other rooms for drinks and chats out of sight, he pushed me up against the wall of the drawing room and kissed me with a passionate zeal that set my heart racing, his hands wandering around my body, making me breathless with my need for him. The Christmas that followed brought with it another turning point for me. That December had been unseasonably mild and after the usual polite dinner conversation, Rupert had suggested to me we take a walk outside to enjoy the evening air. I’d, of course, accepted, and he led the way around to the side of the house. We kissed passionately again, as we had a couple of months previously, and while doing so I felt Rupert guide my hand to his crotch. Then I became aware that he was putting pressure on my shoulder, as if trying to lower me down. I looked at him and he looked at me, a flame alight inside his eyes, and I allowed myself to be guided down. With hands trembling with anticipation, unable to fully believe what was happening, I undid his belt.

  We then saw each other whenever we could over the following twelve months, and then finally became an official couple when I was eighteen. Our families were initially shocked at first and then, with remarkable speed, became generally fine with it. The whole thing felt simpler and easier than I had ever imagined. But relationships for couples at different stages in their lives can be difficult, and by the time I was twenty and in the midst of my degree at Oxford, Rupert was thirty and heading up a company founded to invest and encourage hybrid and electric-car development. His work was taking him all over the world. He had set up offices in California, Texas, and Paris, and even though my uni days were spent just a handful of miles from his countryside home, he was frequently at a distance of thousands more. When I was twenty-one, we separated properly. It was tearful, distressing, filled with that heart-wrenching sense of shock and loss that accompanies the end of many first relationships.

  In the years that followed, we kept up an image of friendship so as to make things as easy as possible for our families, then as time healed the wounds and arguments were confined to the past, if not entirely forgotten, we properly became friends again – friends who had managed to shed the awkwardness of the end of our once very intimate acquaintance, and instead used the hundreds of hours we’d spent together as fuel for our friendship. All that time spent laughing, fucking, cuddling up together in front of old 80s action movies on the TV wasn’t all for nothing. And things were fine. He came to my wedding. We caught up with each other’s news at parties and events. Everything was OK. Grown-up. Platonic. That didn’t stop Matthew from maintaining a slightly suspicious ai
r whenever Rupert was around. Perhaps slightly intimidated by and aware of our shared past, Matthew often acted a little oddly when confronted with him, although this usually resulted in him making himself scarce rather than keeping a watchful eye on us. I don’t think he ever feared adultery. I suspect he was more afraid of being compared to Rupert in terms of intelligence and charisma and success, and being found wanting.

  And so, when we attended the Ashtons’s golden wedding anniversary party on a golden July afternoon, it took Matthew just a few minutes into our journey to Oxford to ask, ‘Will Rupert be there?’

  The question triggered a pang of annoyance within me. ‘Yes. I think his parents would be disappointed if their only son didn’t turn up to their golden wedding anniversary.’

  I heard Matthew sigh. ‘I was only thinking he might have some business or something – some flying-car demonstration he had to be at in Seattle.’

  This was a regular thing Matthew did – small digs, little ways of making fun of Rupert’s achievements. ‘Don’t you think it’s rather a good thing,’ I said, my jaw tensing, ‘that a young aristocrat and heir to millions, who could have just sat on his arse all his life, has decided to dedicate his time and energy to finding ways to stop the cars we drive from destroying the planet we live in?’

  ‘I thought you didn’t believe in climate change,’ he muttered.

  ‘I’ve never said that. I’ve said I don’t approve of woke hysteria. Different thing,’ I said, starting to get properly annoyed.

  Another sigh from Matthew, this one sounding like a parent dealing with a difficult child. ‘Of course, Rupert’s job is very admirable. I didn’t mean anything by it.’

  ‘Good,’ I said, ‘because I don’t see me taking up weird grudges towards your previous conquests.’

  Matthew let out a splutter. ‘Conquests? I don’t have conquests. Boyfriends would have been a better word, don’t you think?’

  ‘Would you like me to put my headphones on so you two can carry on in private?’ Titus asked, his slightly amused face staring back at me from the rearview mirror.

  I didn’t respond to him, but gripped the steering wheel, my knuckles going white, and shot a look at Matthew. ‘I don’t think “boyfriends” would work – not exactly gender-neutral, is it?’

  ‘What on earth is that supposed to mean?’ he snapped back, but another quick glance his way was enough for me to notice the blush and the tremble of his hands as he shifted them in his lap.

  A few beats of silence passed before I said, ‘Nothing. Sorry. I’m just … just feeling a bit tired and grumpy. Ignore me.’

  I didn’t really know why I retreated, why I didn’t have it out with him then and there, about my hurt at him not sharing his past experiences with women with me, about my suspicions that there was something going on with him that I didn’t understand. Perhaps it was because Titus was in the car with us, or that I didn’t want to arrive at the party and have to pretend to be all happy and polite after a potentially devastating row. Whatever it was, I carried on driving as smoothly as I could down the M40 and into Oxfordshire, and the rest of the journey slipped by mostly in silence.

  We reached the Ashtons’s house – official name Marwood Manor, although we only ever referred to it as ‘The Ashtons’s’ – at just after 7pm and were greeted towards the end of the long driveway by a young man. I gave him the keys so he could drive the car round to whichever part of the extensive grounds was being used for parking, and we wandered through the open front door. Titus snuck away very quickly to talk to the Ashtons’s granddaughter, Philippa, leaving me and Matthew to say hello to Lady Ashton out on the main patio. ‘So lovely to see you both,’ she said, still looking remarkably young for her seventy years of age. ‘I was just talking to your parents, saying what a handsome boy Titus is turning into. How is he doing at school? Working hard?’

  ‘Very,’ Matthew said. ‘I think he’s off talking to your granddaughter. Probably comparing exam syllabuses.’

  Is that what we’re calling it these days? I thought to myself, but smiled along with Matthew. Somewhere a bit further along in the conversation – it was after Lord Ashton had come to join us – I noticed her. Rachel was standing over near the rose bush, a glass of champagne in her hand. She was looking at her phone, then put it away and stared around. She looked bored. And awkward. As if she was regretting coming. What the hell is she doing here? I thought to myself, then remembered: Meryl must have brought her. Meryl and her strange insistence that the woman was a good, reliable companion, even though she’d known her all of five minutes. Even after what happened in New York. I found myself gripping my glass so hard, it was a marvel it didn’t shatter.

  Once the Ashtons had moved off to greet some new arrivals, I ushered Matthew over to a quiet section of the garden, slightly away from the nearest group of people. ‘Rachel’s here,’ I said, nodding over to where she was, now walking towards the well-trimmed hedges towards the outdoor swimming-pool area.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I suppose we need to get used to her being wherever Meryl is.’

  A sudden thought then struck me. ‘Where’s Titus?’ I said quickly to Matthew.

  He shrugged. ‘Off talking to Pippa, I suppose. Why, you don’t think he’s at risk from her, do you?’

  I frowned. I wasn’t sure what I thought. But I definitely didn’t like the idea of Rachel wandering around, unchecked and unoccupied, while Titus was out of sight. There was still something very strange about what had happened at the house in The Hamptons – something I didn’t feel like we’d ever got to the bottom of.

  ‘Oh, here we go,’ I heard Matthew say. ‘Your boyfriend’s coming.’

  I knew immediately who he meant, and turned to see Rupert Ashton walking along the lawn towards us.

  ‘Don’t call him that,’ I whispered sharply to Matthew, then turned to him and smiled. ‘Hey stranger, how are you?’

  He beamed at me, that wide, ever-charming smile that had never lost its magic for me. Whilst Matthew could be described as ‘nice looking’ or even ‘pretty’ in one of those magazine-model sort of ways, Rupert was very much the definition of ‘handsome’. More classic and traditionally masculine in looks, it was astonishing to think he was now approaching forty-six. He seemed to have stopped ageing a decade ago and only a few tell-tale grey hairs on his head suggested he’d reached forty.

  ‘I’m very well,’ he said, giving me a quick, strong embrace. He hugged Matthew too, enthusiastically slapping him on the back as if they were old rugby mates. I noticed Matthew stiffly reciprocating, his smile not meeting his eyes.

  ‘Where’s young Titus?’ Rupert asked, looking around, as if the boy were hiding.

  ‘Flirting with your niece, I think,’ I said, and Rupert laughed. ‘Your sister had better watch out or she’ll have Titus for a son-in-law in a few years.’

  ‘I’m going to get some more drinks,’ Matthew said, clearly uncomfortable with the subject. ‘Can I get you one, Rupert?’

  Rupert waved one of his large hands. ‘I’m fine, thank you.’

  Matthew didn’t wait for me to say anything; he just walked away towards the house, leaving me and Rupert standing in the shade by the trees. Rupert turned and motioned to a nearby bench. ‘Care to sit?’

  I nodded, and we settled ourselves down on the varnished wood, warm from the evening summer sun.

  ‘Takes me back. You and me on a bench.’ Rupert flashed me a wicked grin.

  ‘Behave,’ I said, but smiled too.

  ‘He still doesn’t like me, does he?’

  I didn’t need to ask who Rupert was talking about. ‘Matthew doesn’t dislike you.’

  He let out a short laugh, showing he didn’t believe me. ‘But he doesn’t approve of us remaining friends.’

  I didn’t really have an answer to this, because essentially he was right. I decided to move the conversation on. ‘So, have you cured global warming with your electric cars yet?’

  He nodded. ‘Oh yeah, didn’t you he
ar? The planet’s now saved. I’m collecting my Nobel prize next week.’ I noticed a mischievous glint in his eye that went beyond his playful words. ‘No, it’s just a question of backing the right developers and technology they’ve chosen. We’ve had some pretty exciting projects the San Diego offices are managing.’

  I nodded. ‘And are you still seeing … what’s his name? The Canadian guy.’ Rupert had told me he had started dating someone who used to work at a competing company – probably an attempt to advance both his sex life and business in one stroke. To my surprise he looked sad, and his gaze went a bit distant for a moment or two. We sat in silence for a bit – long enough for me to wonder if I’d upset him.

  ‘No,’ he said eventually. ‘It didn’t work. It never does with me, really, does it? Maybe I’m still pining for my first love.’ He turned and looked at me after that and I felt a frisson of energy ripple over the back of my neck.

  ‘I surely wasn’t your first love?’ I cast an anxious look towards the house, but there was no sign of Matthew returning with drinks. I was both intrigued as to where this was going with Rupert, but at the same time I wanted to avoid dangerous territory.