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By Root 449 0

a lovely supper, Genevieve Lee said. Everything was going really well, until after the main course, he just stood up and went upstairs. Well, we thought, naturally, that he was going to the bathroom so I waited the sweet course, which was complicated in itself, because I needed to torch the brûlées. But he didn’t come down. Fifteen minutes at least. Possibly more, because we were quite happy, just drunk enough to be happy; that’s another thing about him, he wasn’t drinking, which always makes you self-conscious if you go to dinner or if you hold a dinner and someone’s not drinking and we all, I mean everyone else, is. Anyway, I put the coffee maker on, did the scorching, served everybody else, left them to get on with it, popped upstairs and knocked on the bathroom door and asked him was he all right. Of course he didn’t answer. Of course he wasn’t in the bathroom at all. Of course he’d already locked himself in our spare room.

He really virulently disliked what you’d served for starter and main, then, Anna said.

Genevieve Lee got quite excited.

He’s like that, is he? she said. Other people eating scallops and chorizo would have upset him that much?

Ah, well, I’ve no idea, no, I was just, you know, making a joke, Anna said.

It’s no laughing matter, Genevieve Lee said.

No, Anna said. Of course not.

You have no idea how awful this is for us, Genevieve Lee said. There is lovely, lovely furniture in there. It is a really outstanding spare room in there. Everybody who has stayed there has told us so. This last thirteen days has been hell.

Hell on earth, yes, I can imagine, Anna said.

She looked hard at the wood of the floor.

So then Eric went up, Genevieve Lee said. He knocked on the bathroom door and had the same response as I’d had, no response at all. When the coffee was poured and we were all, all nine of us, actually getting a little worried about him, his friend Mark, the man who’d brought him here in the first place, went up. Then he came down saying he’d tried the bathroom and that its door wasn’t locked, and that there was actually nobody in the bathroom, the bathroom was empty. So Eric went up to check, and then so did I. Completely empty. So we all assumed he’d just gone home, just left, you know, slipped out the front door without saying goodnight, although why he’d be that rude. And why he’d leave his jacket behind, which we realized when we were all saying our goodbyes and there it was just lying there on the couch.

Genevieve Lee gesticulated towards the couch. Anna looked at the couch. So did Genevieve Lee.

They both looked at the couch.

Then Genevieve Lee continued.

And Mark, who’s gay, she said, he’s an older man, was most upset. They can be hysterical, in a good way and a bad way. Anyway, after coffee, and a very nice orange muscat that Eric dug up in an Asda, which nobody could believe, everybody went home happy, except for Mark of course who was clearly a bit perturbed. And Eric and I went off to bed. And it wasn’t until the morning that we saw that his car was still in the Resident’s space and had actually already been ticketed—which I’m not paying for—and Josie, that’s our daughter, came downstairs and asked us why the spare room door was locked and what the note she’d found on the floor meant.

What did the note say? Anna asked.

Fine for water but will need food soon. Vegetarian, as you know. Thank you for your patience.

It was the child’s voice. It came from behind the armchair. She hadn’t left at all. She’d crept back into the room without them hearing or noticing her.

I thought you said in your email you’d been feeding him ham? Anna said.

Beggars can’t be choosers, Genevieve Lee said.

They don’t want him to get too at home in there, the Robin Day chair said.

Genevieve Lee ignored this.

Clearly he’s not all there, she said.

He is all there, the child behind the chair said. Where else could he be?

Genevieve Lee ignored this too, as if the child simply wasn’t there. She leaned forward, confidential.

We’re only glad to have been able to find a contact, she said. Mark hardly knows