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

He got his notebook out and started sketching. He drew a woman. Was this what the dead woman had looked like? As he drew, he imagined a past for her. Her name was Mary and she had discovered her husband was having an affair. No, that wasn’t it; plenty of people got cheated on and didn’t get suicidal about it. He started again. She was Beatrix and she had just been told she had cancer. No, that wasn’t right either. People often got better from cancer these days, it wasn’t something worth killing yourself over. Her name was Jane and she had just discovered she was adopted at birth but her real parents wanted nothing to do with her. That might be enough to make a person suicidal, he thought. People felt betrayed by things like that. Unloved. He sat back. The sketch wasn’t one of his best, but he felt at least he had captured a sense of despair in the eyes. And then he realised they were his mother’s eyes and a lump rose in his throat.

His phone rang.

‘Thank you for coming round, Tim. You’re a good friend. The best.’

Brian’s voice was thick with alcohol, the words bumping against each other.

‘You okay, Brian?’

‘Yeah I’m fine. Nina’s here and we’re having a drink. I just wanted to say thank you.’

‘You’re welcome. Anything else I can do, you call, okay?’

‘You’re a good friend.’ Brian hung up and Tim frowned. He was glad Nina was there, but not that they were pissed. Brian was a recovering alcoholic and he hadn’t had a drink in months. He’d never driven a train drunk as far as Tim knew. He thought perhaps he should have seen this could happen but what would he have done about it? He couldn’t tell Brian what to do. He just hoped it wasn’t a long binge and he got himself onto the wagon again quickly. But he couldn’t get rid of the feeling he could have said more, something that would have helped Brian understand it wasn’t his fault. He wasn’t going to find answers at the bottom of a whisky bottle. He sent a text. Brian probably wouldn’t read it now but maybe when he was sober it would help.

You’re not to blame. Remember that. You’re a good man. Stay cool.

It was what his counsellor used to say to him, and he’d eventually accepted maybe his father’s violence wasn’t his fault, that as the adult his father should have been able to contain his anger instead of taking it out on his son.

He was about to put his phone away when it rang again. He looked at the caller ID. Head office. He didn’t want to speak to any of the toffs. They’d be checking to see he was okay, confirming his appointment to see the psychologist, sounding all concerned until they told him to be back at work as soon as possible. He declined the call and stuffed the phone into his pocket.

A man approached carrying a tray and asked if he could share the table. Tim looked around and realised the café had filled with the lunchtime trade. He nodded and moved his cup and plate out of the way. He thought he recognised the man but he often thought that these days, especially around the station. He saw a lot of people in his job. He watched as the man put his lunch on the table and leant the empty tray against the leg of his chair and started eating his sausage roll with a knife and fork. Tim watched, fascinated. Who ate sausage rolls with a knife and fork? The other man looked up, and Tim didn’t look away fast enough. He saw recognition dawn on the other man’s face.

‘You’re the ticket collector,’ he said, putting his cutlery down.

Tim nodded. ‘Guilty as charged, Tim Engleby,’ he said.

‘Ray Dreyfus.’ He put his hand out and Tim shook it firmly because his gran had always said you couldn’t trust a man who had a weak handshake.

‘I hope the – er – train being late didn’t inconvenience you too much,’ he said. God, he sounded like the announcements script on all the Virgin rail services.

‘No, it was fine. Well, not fine, obviously, that someone died, but I wasn’t late for my appointment.’

‘That’s good.’ Tim didn’t know what else to say but Ray kept looking at him, so he stumbled on. ‘Do you work in London?’

‘No.’

Tim watched in horror as Ray’s face seemed to collapse and tears welled in his eyes. ‘I came to see a specialist. A doctor,’ he said.

‘Oh. And–’

‘I have cancer. Inoperable cancer.’ Ray frowned and squirmed in his seat, pulled out a hankie and wiped his face. ‘Sorry. You don’t want to hear about it. It’s just that it’s been rather a shock.’

‘You talk if you need to,’ said Tim. It seemed to be his destiny today, to have people needing to talk to him. Not that Brian had done much talking. Perhaps he could help this chap more than he’d helped his friend.

Ray had pulled himself together. He gave Tim a bleak smile and got up. ‘I think I’ll go for a walk,’ he said, and left.

Tim watched him go. Maybe a cancer diagnosis was enough to make you want to top yourself after all.

By the time he thought that and wondered if he should do something, the other man was nowhere in sight.

Tim didn’t know what to do with himself. He still wasn’t ready to go home, but he couldn’t sit in the busy café any longer. It was as if something was compelling him to stay near the station. He wasn’t sure if it was because he felt the need to be near trains and the familiarity of the place or if it was more about being around people. There was an energy about stations he never found anywhere else.

He was concerned about Brian and now also worried