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

enough. I don’t need to hear any more about you and your – your men friends.’

‘–gay men get AIDS,’ Ray finished. His father flared his nostrils and looked away. Ray noticed the redness of his anger rising above his shirt collar and wondered what was going to happen.

‘Have you seen a doctor?’ asked his mother, a deep crease appearing between her eyebrows.

‘Two, actually. I came to London for a second opinion today. It’s prostate cancer.’

‘And?’ There were tears in his mother’s eyes waiting to fall the minute she heard the bad news.

‘And nothing,’ said his father. ‘I’ve had prostate for years.’

‘Cancer?’ asked Ray.

‘What other sort of prostate is there?’

Ray and his mother gasped in unison.

‘I didn’t know that. Why didn’t you tell me?’ She was hovering between the stove and her husband, clearly unsure what she should do.

‘And what, precisely, would you have done if I had told you? Worried, asked me every minute how I was feeling, made me feel like a bloody invalid, that’s what.’

Ray felt his mother’s frustration. She had been deprived of worrying over something that mattered for a change. She looked like she’d been slapped and he found himself, as he so often did, wanting to protect her. But he knew if he did anything she would be accused of weakness by his father, of not being able to stand up for herself. So he watched as she went and put a comforting hand on her husband’s arm which he moved away from her touch. She looked hurt and tried words instead.

‘Oh, Stan, if only I’d known. Surely there must be something I can do?’

‘There’s nothing.’

‘But I could look after you.’ She turned to Ray. ‘Tell him, Ray – tell him how I could look after him.’

His father shook his head and snorted. ‘See what I mean? Now you’ll never shut up, will you, woman?’

‘That’s a bit harsh,’ said Ray, and his mother looked at him in surprise. He realised he had never actively supported her before and felt ashamed.

‘Oh for pity’s sake, shut it the two of you. I don’t need anyone to look after me.’

‘It’s just–’ his mother started. She stopped when Stan glared at her.

Ray begrudgingly admitted to himself his father had probably been right to keep his cancer to himself and realised, too late, he should have done the same. He had opened himself up to daily phone calls and offers of unspecified help for months to come. He felt a weariness seeping into his bones. But he also felt angry. This had been his hour, his opportunity to receive his mother’s care. However she might act later, she had been holding him when he needed it, had been providing what comfort she could. Until his father had spoiled it.

‘So it’s prostate adenocarcinoma is it?’ he asked.

His father nodded. ‘That’s what the doctor said.’

‘And the Gleason score?’

‘Seven. Always been seven. Not getting any better, not getting any worse.’

‘And when, exactly, were you diagnosed?’

‘About twenty years ago.’

Ray took a long, slow breath. His hands curled into fists. ‘You bastard. You selfish bastard.’ He had the pinched feeling in his nose again, the pressure in his sinuses. He didn’t want to cry. He drew his lips in and clamped his jaw.

‘How dare you say that to me.’ His father rose abruptly from his chair, fists clenched.

‘Now, now, you two. Be nice to each other,’ said Ray’s mother.

They both ignored her.

‘So you think it’s all right to keep these things to yourself. You probably think you’re being brave or strong, toughing it out on your own. But if I’d known – do you have any idea what it’s been like for me these last few weeks? I thought I might be dying. If you’d bothered to tell anyone what was going on for you, I wouldn’t have been so terrified. But, no. You have to go on in your selfish, self-absorbed way keeping everyone at arm’s length, hiding away in your fucking attic. You’re pathetic.’

Ray’s father straightened himself to his full height and jabbed Ray in the chest. ‘Get out of my house you disgusting poofter. That’s why you’ve got cancer – all that bumming.’

Ray started laughing hysterically. ‘So how did you get it? One rule for me and another for you, is it? Or are you a secret “poofter”?’

‘How dare you? You make me sick. Get out. Now.’

‘It’s okay. I’m going.’ He looked at his mother who was holding her hands over her face, the tears escaping between her fingers. ‘Sorry, Mother. I’ll call you.’ He gave her a quick hug. She didn’t respond.

Closing the door quietly behind him, he took a deep breath. He had never stood up to his father before and he felt elated.

By the time he reached the end of the street the lightness Ray felt on leaving his parents’ house had been replaced by guilt. Not for what he’d said but for the fact that his father, never an easy man, may take it out on his mother. He wasn’t aware of any physical violence in their marriage but there were other kinds of domination and he knew his father to be capable of nastiness. He wondered what his mother had ever seen in him and why she hadn’t left. He felt sorry for her – she was the victim in all this. Had she learned it as a defence or had she always been like that, so they were a perfect fit, right from the start? Not that it made what his father did acceptable. He was a bully. An abuser. Ray felt the shock of the word and for the first time acknowledged that it described his father.

He dug his hands deeper into his pockets and walked faster. He would never understand his parents’ relationship and he certainly couldn’t fix it. Or his own relationship with them.

He thought again about his father’s admission that he had cancer and the implied criticism of Ray for being worried about his own diagnosis. Why couldn’t he have