“ I need to confess something…I did it. Now, can you pass me the wine?”

The conversations round the table suddenly silenced for a moment then Frank threw back his head roaring with laughter.

“You almost had me for a second”, he wheezes, tears streaming down his face.

The rest of the dinings joined in with the laughter apart from Susanne who gave me the weirdest quizzical look.

For my part. I felt the discussion had been the main focus of the evening for far too long and I was getting sick of it. To be fair I was getting sick of the whole routine. Dinner parties had never been my scene but suddenly it seemed we were either going to one or hosting one every weekend.

“I really meant it”, I retorted, “I’m getting very thirsty” as I waggled my empty wine glass in the air. And yes I know booze is never the answer but if it meant I survived another evening of Frank’s sexist jokes and Matthew’s lengthy lectures on the choice of wine for the night, which of course he could get for a better price or from a better vineyard. It seemed a good way to get to know our new neighbours as we’d just moved to the village, six months in it felt more like being trapped in a recurring nightmare.

“Suzy be a darling and pass that bottle of red down this end before Carol dies of thirst” Frank called down the table, chortling to himself.

Susanne shot him an evil look, she hated being called Suzy, but picked up the bottle of red and headed in our direction.

“Shame Michael couldn’t make it”, she commented as she filled my glass.

“Missing your little helper in the kitchen then sweetheart?” Her husband, Alex, quipped from the other end of the table. Ah yes my dear husband Michael was always the one who offered to help in the kitchen with Susanne.

“All on your own tonight, we can’t have that can we Carol?” Frank leered at me.

“I’ll be fine”, I quickly replied, “he’s supposed to be back later tonight”.

“Oh good” responded Susanne, “we can get his opinion on those guitars”.

And with a smirk at me she plonked the bottle down in front of me and wandered back to her seat.

“What guitars?” Matthew asked, eliciting a groan from the rest of the table.

“Oh Michael haven’t you been listening at all?” Spluttered Alex, spilling red wine on the previously pristine white table cloth and getting a daggers look from his wife.

“The ones they’ve been on about in the village whatsapp group”, he continued, “every teenager in our street woke up the other morning to find someone had left each of them a rather nice guitar. I thought that’s what Carol was confessing to”.

At this point I took a big gulp of wine and was about to reply.

“Oh thank goodness “, gushed Pete, Matthew’s partner, who was rarely able to get a word in, “I thought she was confessing to dumping that car”

Now it was his turn for everyone to look at him with confusion.

Sensing he was the focus of attention he hesitated for a moment, too long a moment as Matthew jumped in with “oh gosh yes, that eye sore halfway down Winslow Hill. Some yobs left a burnt out car there. Of course the police have done nothing about it, I have the suspicion they just ignore my calls now as no one ever gets back to me.”

He would have carried on for the next hour or so, complaining about local services or rather lack of them was another topic not to get him started on. I took a couple more swigs of wine as I doubted I’d be able to say anything for a while.

Fortunately Alex butted in “oh I saw them there the other day, they’d got someone out on some sort of climbing harness to scale down, it’s quite steep down that bit you know. Anyway they can’t have found anything interesting as they all packed up when it started raining.”

At this point I reached for the bottle and refilled my glass.

“So no bodies then?”, Frank seemed almost gloomy at the news.

“Apparently not” Alex stated with the air of one who is always in the know.

I was beginning to feel a bit light headed , this wine must have been strong as I’d arrived late and this was only my third glass.

“You know”, I said carefully standing up, “I think I’ll go home and see if Michael’s back yet”

And when I got there, much to my surprise and confusion, there he was…..