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

wall standing between his conscious self and the panic he suspected was behind it.

Then, wiping his face and taking a deep breath, he entered the offices of Worthington and Jones, Tax Accountants.

The reception couldn’t have been any more different to Dr Moncrieff’s. Where the doctor’s office had soft tones and comfy sofas, this one had hard orange chairs and a nylon carpet which caused little electric shocks when you touched any metal.

The receptionist nodded to him, told him to grab a seat and got back to her phone. From the jarring bleeps and dings being emitted, he suspected she was playing a game.

He stood with his hands behind his back, looking at a poster on the wall. It was an Escher, the perspective all wrong so the staircase looked like it was going both ways at the same time, as did the people on it. It was confusing and annoying, but also fascinating, and he couldn’t take his eyes off it. It was somewhere for his thoughts to sit.

‘Ray, long time no see,’ said a voice, and he turned to see Barry Worthington, his accountant, striding towards him.

‘Barry.’ He shook the offered hand.

‘I hope you don’t mind but I’ve asked my new man to oversee your accounts. Normally, as you know, I’d give them my attention but with – what is it – three years’ worth? Four? I need a bit of help!’

At that moment Ray couldn’t have cared less who did his tax. If Barry had said his pet duck was going to have a look at his accounts he wouldn’t have batted an eyelid.

‘I’ll check it all when he’s finished, of course,’ Barry continued, obviously taking Ray’s silence for displeasure.

‘Fine. No Problem.’

Ten minutes later, he was sitting opposite a youngish man with black-rimmed glasses and a severe parting. He had smooth, clear skin and amber eyes, and Ray wished he could touch his face, trace a finger along the contours of his cheekbones. He looked vaguely familiar too, but realised he could have sat opposite him all the way from Milton Keynes and still wouldn’t recognise him.

‘Did you bring all the papers?’

Ray snapped out of his fantasy and opened his briefcase, pulling out a manila folder. ‘It’s all there.’ He slid it across the desk.

The accountant turned to his computer and tapped away, accessing Ray’s past returns. He checked he still lived at the same address, asked a few questions, typing the answers in quickly, without looking at the keyboard. Ray had always wondered how people managed that. What if you started off with your fingers on the wrong keys? – you’d create a page of jibberish, with every letter replaced by the one on its left. He shook his head, trying to clear it of the random thoughts that had replaced reason.

When the accountant had run out of things to ask he looked at the manila folder as if desperate to delve into its secrets. It was another thing Ray had never understood – how someone could get excited about numbers and finances.

‘Well, if you don’t need anything else–’ He stood, held out a hand. ‘I look forward to hearing from you when you’ve gone through it all. Thanks.’

In the foyer the receptionist mumbled a bored farewell and Ray sidled out the door with a ‘Cheerio.’

He looked up and down the road. A bus came into view with Euston written on the front and he decided he might as well catch it.

London rushed by, people walking the streets, entering and leaving shops and offices, holding hands to their eyes against the unexpected glare. How many of them have cancer and don’t know it yet, he wondered, thinking back to the days not so long ago, before his diagnosis. Days that now felt carefree and happy merely because they were unclouded by the knowledge of tumours and procedures and doctor’s offices. Even when he had gone to his GP he hadn’t expected to be referred to a specialist. He’d thought he had a urinary tract infection or kidney stones perhaps. Not prostate cancer.

He shifted in his seat and gripped the handle of his briefcase in both hands to stop from falling into the well of fear the words opened before him. Taking deep breaths, he forced his attention once more to the buildings he was passing, to the people in the streets, living their lives.

At Euston, he entered the station concourse. His stomach rumbled and he decided to have something to eat before getting on the train, preferring the idea of café food rather than the overpriced offerings on-board.

Half of London must have had the same idea. The cafés were crowded with lunchtime trade and once he had his sausage roll and drink, he had to ask permission to share a cramped table with a young man who was sitting with a coffee.

As the other man turned, Ray realised it was the ticket collector from the train that morning.

Afterwards, when he was well away from the station and the young man, Ray wondered what had possessed him. He’d broken down and told him – Tim, he’d said his name was – he had cancer. And not only that, but that it was inoperable. He felt ashamed, could feel the warmth of his blush at the memory of it. Poor young man, as if he hadn’t had enough to cope with already today with the suicide and everything. Ray’s heart was racing and he was breathing as if he’d been sprinting. The embarrassment. And the reality was, he had lied. Dr Moncrieff hadn’t told him the cancer was inoperable. He’d told him he wasn’t going to operate. At this stage, he agreed with the other urologist Ray had seen, that they should wait and see. There was no good reason to cut anything out.

Ray had been disappointed. He wanted rid of this thing, this tumour didn’t belong in his body. He didn’t want it there a moment longer. But as he was telling Tim about it his