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

to ask Lawrence, he’d tell them exactly what he thought they should do with him.

The doctor droned on.

‘…and reduce the dose over the next few weeks, but we can monitor that at the day hospital. I think discharge on Thursday with a couple of evening passes before that to see how you go. How does that sound, Liam?’

‘Great.’

Lawrence cleared his throat. ‘I’ll tell your mother to get your room ready. She’ll be pleased to see you.’

The Chinese woman held up a hand. ‘Actually, Liam is going to stay with Felice, right?’ She turned to the black girl who smiled, showing straight white teeth.

‘Yes, that’s right.’ She looked at Liam. ‘I’m so looking forward to you coming home.’

Liam, for the first time in the meeting, smiled.

Lawrence clamped his lips together; this really was too much. He looked at his son, the boy who had shown so much promise. He was bright, had played rugby in the school’s First XV, captained the cricket First XI, was popular, outgoing, motivated. And now, here he was, sitting in a dingy room in a public hospital with a psychiatric label which may as well have been tattooed on his forehead, holding a black girl’s hand and smiling like he had it all. Actually looking happy! Lawrence’s jaw was clenched so tight he thought his teeth might shatter. When had his son started going off the rails? And why? It was probably because Deidra had always mollycoddled him and then he went off to university and got in with the wrong crowd. That must have been it. He’d come home less and less, much to Deidra’s dismay, although she had gone to see him fairly regularly.

‘Well,’ said the Chinese woman, ‘that all sounds good. You’ll keep coming to the day hospital for a while and see Faiz for follow-up, okay?’

‘Sure,’ said Liam. ‘If we’re done, I’d like to show Felice something on the ward.’ He rose and pulled his girlfriend to her feet. ‘Come on,’ he said, and they practically ran out.

‘Hold on, Liam – we need to talk,’ said Lawrence.

Liam didn’t stop.

Lawrence realised that at no time during the meeting, apart from the barbed comment at the beginning, had Liam acknowledged him. Little sod.

Faiz Noor got up to go.

‘A word, doctor?’ said Lawrence. He had, after all, come to get answers and had been given none as yet.

‘Certainly,’ said Faiz, looking at his watch.

Lawrence got straight to the point. ‘My wife wants him home where she can keep an eye on him and make sure this doesn’t happen again.’

The doctor looked the older man in the eye. ‘Your son is over eighteen and can therefore go where he likes. He and Felice have a strong, stable relationship and she is very supportive. She’s been in to see him every day.’

Lawrence felt the rebuke in the words. Before her accident Deidra had been to see her son, begging him to let them transfer him to a private hospital closer to home, but Liam had refused. Lawrence, in spite of working in London every day, hadn’t been to see him once. He wished he had the doctor in the witness stand. He would tear him to shreds. Instead, he took a deep breath, counted to ten and changed tack.

‘What is his actual diagnosis and do you expect there will be a recurrence?’

Dr Noor answered the question with one of his own.

‘Is there any history of mental illness in the family?’

Lawrence stiffened. ‘Of course not.’

‘Hmm. Your wife mentioned there may have been an aunt with schizophrenia?’

Lawrence felt a shot of ice rip through his body. Surely this man wasn’t implying that Liam was going to end up like Aunt Marjory, in and out of hospital as fast as she was in and out of reality. She’d died in an asylum, convinced the Invaders were coming, and making phone calls to politicians on her matchbox to warn them of the imminent danger.

‘No, she must have been mistaken,’ he said, as if in denying it he could protect his son from the same fate.

Dr Noor looked at him for a moment. ‘Can you tell me anything about the family dynamics – how would you say you all get on?’

Lawrence puffed out his chest. He was a big man and knew how to use his size to intimidate. The doctor, however, remained relaxed, waiting for an answer.

‘We all get on fine when we’re all sane. And I fail to see what bearing this has on Liam’s mental health,’ Lawrence sneered.

Dr Noor nodded, doing his thoughtful look again.

‘What’s my son been saying?’

‘Well, I obviously can’t break confidentiality, but let’s just say he doesn’t quite agree with your perception of the family.’

He’d heard enough of this mumbo-jumbo. It was bad enough Liam was there at all but how dare they infer it was caused by an issue within the family? His son was a disappointment, a drug addict, no doubt. He needed stern words and a strict regime, not all this namby-pamby, touchy-feely stuff.

‘Just answer my original question, if you’d be so kind,’ said Lawrence from between clenched teeth.

‘We’re keeping our fingers crossed this was a one-off but, of course, no one can say for sure.’

‘So what you’re saying is, if he takes drugs in the future, he could go mad again?’

Faiz looked at him thoughtfully. ‘We don’t use the word “mad” anymore, but he may have another psychotic episode, yes.’

What an arrogant little prick the doctor was. ‘Right. Thank you. I need to speak to my son. Where’s the ward?’

Faiz pointed to the right. ‘Just down that way.’

As Lawrence approached the ward he saw Liam and Felice hugging in the corridor.

‘See you later, babe,’ said the girl as they pulled apart.

Liam smiled at her. ‘Love you.’

‘Love you more.’ She blew him a kiss and walked off towards the main door.

‘Just a moment – Felice, isn’t it?’

She swung round, nodded, and took a few steps towards him. Lawrence cleared his throat, looked from one to the other, and said, ‘You must both know