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

‘Oh, yes. Silly me.’ Iris fished it out of the case. It was old and much used, the leather covers barely holding the pages between them anymore. As she flicked through it she noticed how many of the names she’d crossed out over the years and felt sad. All those friends dying and leaving her to carry on alone.

She got her mobile out. She still didn’t like these newfangled things, but she had to admit they had their uses.

‘You know you can store phone numbers, don’t you?’ said Mei-Ling.

‘Yes, dear, but I prefer doing it this way. Otherwise, if I lose my phone, I’ve lost my friends.’ She carefully punched in each number, holding the phone as if it was an alien object. She cupped her hand round the mouthpiece as she spoke.

‘Doreen? Is that you? It’s Iris here.’

Her eyes roamed around the carriage as she listened to what Doreen had to say.

‘No, I know. Awful. I just–’

Doreen was speaking so loudly Iris was sure everyone around her could hear what the other woman was saying, the urgent, forceful tone of her voice. She caught Mei-Ling’s eye and shrugged, as if to say, she always goes on like this.

‘I’m sorry to hear that, Doreen. I was just telephoning to tell you I’m on my way home.’

She listened for a moment. ‘Yes, I know I said I wouldn’t be back until Thursday but my plans changed. How’s Charlie?’

After another pause, ‘Yes, I know, but he frets, I know he does. Thank you, dear.’

She pressed the red circle and sighed as she let the phone fall into her lap.

Mei-Ling smiled. ‘Your friend likes to talk, doesn’t she?’

Iris laughed. ‘Oh, yes. She’s old and lives on her own. Any opportunity and she’s off, telling whoever’s listening about how she was evacuated to Somerset in the war and the latest bargain at Aldi, all mixed together, but she’s been a good friend over the years.’

She turned towards the window again but instead of watching what was going on in the field, she found herself thinking again about her son. Did he really think she’d turn her back on him if he told her he was gay? If he did, he really didn’t know her at all and that saddened her. She’d tried to teach her children to be open-minded and tolerant. Obviously she’d failed. She’d often wondered if she should be the one to raise the issue, but it was his life, his choice to tell her or not. She had dropped hints, made positive comments about gay men. She’d even been on a Gay Pride march some years ago with her friend Betty and sent him a photo of them under a rainbow banner, but he hadn’t taken the bait. It had driven a wedge between them, this lack of honesty. Not that she wanted to live in his pocket, nor have him in hers, but it felt like he’d shut the door to a large part of his life in her face and it hurt. And if the death this morning had proved anything, it was that life was too short to wait around for other people to do things. She sat straighter, pulled her shoulders back and made a decision. She would tell him she knew. She wouldn’t wait any longer for him to come out of the wardrobe or wherever he thought he was hiding.

That settled, she felt like talking again.

‘Do you live in Milton Keynes, Mailing?’ She wondered if she’d got the name right. It was so unfamiliar. Why didn’t she just call herself May? That was a sturdy English name. She hoped she hadn’t got it all confused.

‘Not completely – since the IVF and everything, Jenny and I are trialling living together. I’m still trying to get used to the commuting and not having all the excitement of Camden Town on my doorstep. It’s a big step, moving out of London.’

‘That’s nice, though, isn’t it, moving in with your friend. How long have you known her?’ asked Iris.

‘We went to school together. We’ve known each other forever, and now we’re going to be parents!’ Mei-Ling smiled.

‘I hope it all works out for you both.’

‘Thanks. I don’t think I’ve ever told a stranger so much about myself,’ said Mei-Ling, frowning.

‘I’m not a stranger. Some people you meet you just get on with, and others, doesn’t matter how long you know them, you can’t get along.’ And some, Iris thought to herself, you think you know and get along with and one day they turn on you. Like her friend, June, years ago. She still wondered about her sometimes.

She rummaged in her pocket and brought out a tube of mints. ‘Want one?’ She offered the packet to Mei-Ling. They sucked on their sweets for a while in companionable silence. Iris gazed around at the other people in the carriage, the man with a newspaper on his lap, a worried look on his face, the woman next to him who was tapping messages into her phone as if her life depended on it. Maybe it did. You never knew, did you? But soon her mind was back with her daughter. What had happened, or more to the point, when had it all gone so wrong?

Laura had been such a loving little girl, and loved too. Her blonde curls and big blue eyes had seen to that. She always had a smile on her face and a kind word on her lips. She never even gave Iris anything to worry about through her teens, the way some girls did. Betty’s daughter got pregnant at fifteen and refused to give the baby up for adoption. Betty and her husband took him on when Justine got tired of being a mother and wanted to go out with her friends again. No, Laura was a fine teenager and got a good job at Boots when she left school. It was when she turned thirty she started getting all moody. Iris couldn’t