The Train by Sarah Bourne (fiction books to read txt) 📕

the carriage, badgering him. As they passed the toilet, Tim heard a thud and a groan from inside and knocked on the door. The Suit tried to push him forward, insisting that he find out what had stopped the train. Tim turned and glared at him. He wanted to punch him in the head and tell him to stop being such a tosspot, but he’d lose his job if he did. He sighed and shook his head. Then he heard a grating sound, like someone clearing their throat, and the door opened.

‘Are you okay, sir?’

‘What happened?’ The man leant against the sink. He had a cut on his head and blood was oozing down his cheek. Tim rolled off a wad of toilet paper and handed it to him.

‘Emergency stop, sir. You must’ve got thrown around a bit.’

He nodded. Blood was beginning to seep through the toilet paper.

Tim looked at the Suit again. ‘Please go back to your seat while I look after this gentleman.’

The Suit looked him up and down, a sneer on his face, but retreated back to first class.

What a tosser. Some people thought they were so important. He glowered and watched him go. He walked like he had a poker up his arse.

‘Better come along with me, sir,’ he said to the man in the toilet. ‘We’ll get you cleaned up.’

He wished the day was over. In fact, he wished he could get another job altogether. Trouble was, this one paid all right and at least it was inside. He’d done his time labouring, breaking his back for eight quid an hour, being told to stay at home when it was raining and they couldn’t do anything. You can’t plan for things when you don’t know how much’ll be in your pay packet each week. Nah, this was better, for now. And although sometimes it was challenging, dealing with the passengers, at least every day was different. He nodded to himself and made his way towards the front of the train to find out what was going on, keeping his head down and trying to be invisible so no one stopped him to ask any questions.

As if that’d work.

An elderly woman grabbed his jacket as he went past. ‘Excuse me, young man, but how long do you think we’ll be here?’

He gently pulled his arm away and put on his apologetic, representative-of-the-company smile. ‘Can’t say, I’m afraid. I’m on my way to find out more right now. We really are sorry for any inconvenience.’ Train conductor speak.

The old lady sighed and slumped back into her seat. She reminded Tim of his grandma; white hair, soft, creased skin, too much blue eyeshadow. But his grandma had never had a bruise like that on her jawline, all purple and swollen. He felt sorry for her. She must be shaky on her pins and taken a fall. His grandma had been healthy until the day she died. One massive stroke and off she went. Just the way she would’ve wanted, his dad said, but Tim knew she didn’t want to die at all. She had more living to do. He shook his head and carried on towards the engine.

It seemed to take hours to make it to the front of the train. Tim had to fend off inquiry after inquiry until he wanted to scream he’d never know what had happened unless they let him go and find out. As he neared the front of the train he saw the flashing blue-and-red lights of police cars pulling into the field. A few minutes later he made it to the engine and saw Brian sitting on the engine step, the door wide open, talking to a policewoman and he knew there’d been a jumper on the line. Brian was wrapped in a silver blanket. He mumbled something and the policewoman wrote it down in her notebook. Why didn’t they record the shit people said instead of jotting it all down? Maybe it was about tradition. He was always hearing about ‘traditional policing methods’ on the news, like they were something to be proud of rather than outdated and cheap.

‘You okay, man?’ he asked when there was a break in the mumbling.

Brian turned to him and Tim suddenly realised what ashen-faced meant. Brian’s skin had turned grey and he looked ten years older than he had half an hour ago.

‘Shit, man–’ Tim didn’t know what to say so he sank onto his haunches and put his hand on Brian’s shoulder only to pull away when Brian let out a sob and crumpled in a heap.

‘I didn’t see her, honest, I didn’t see her. She was suddenly just there.’ He started rocking.

Tim put his hand back on Brian’s shoulder, feeling bad he’d taken it away in the first place. People in shock needed support – the comfort of a familiar face, the weight of a friendly hand. He’d needed those things when his mum left and when his grandma died. And when Tess dumped him. He took a deep breath. He didn’t want to remember any of those things.

‘It’s all right, man, no one thinks you did it on purpose.’

The policewoman was still standing around and he looked to her for support. He nodded at her, eyes wide, and then cocked his head at Brian, dragging a few words of comfort out of her. Stiff bitch.

‘Yes, that’s right. No one thinks that,’ she said with about as much warmth in her voice as yesterday’s tea.

‘Fuck,’ said Brian. ‘Fuck.’

‘You’ll be all right, man,’ said Tim because once again, he didn’t know what else to say and thought the words probably didn’t matter but the hand on the shoulder did. Brian had stopped rocking at least.

Tim peered out the door to see what was going on outside. Several men in disposable white overalls knelt at the front of the train. Scraping blood and guts off the engine, he thought, and imagined he could hear the scrape of spatulas and the pluck, pluck of tweezers.