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

Not, ‘How are you, did you have a good day?’ She didn’t care about him anymore, it was all about Liam.

Lawrence dropped two ice cubes into each glass and poured the drinks. He gave Deidra one and stood looking out the French doors into the darkening garden. He was aware of his wife’s impatience in spite of her stillness, her need to hear the details of their son’s mental health and immediate future. Not one to fidget. His wife was the epitome of good manners and forbearance.

‘Almost didn’t make it there in time. There was a suicide on the line this morning.’

Deidra’s hand went to her throat. ‘I heard. Nancy rang to tell me. Such a tragedy. We knew her – you met her once, too, although you probably don’t remember her. It was Judith Strasser, the woman who organised that fundraising dinner we went to towards the end of last year. You know, for the animal sanctuary. I used to meet her in town for coffee every so often.’

Lawrence’s hand shook as he lifted his glass to his mouth and downed his drink in one. He continued to look out into the garden. Judith Strasser. He wondered vaguely if ending their affair had anything to do with her decision to kill herself but put the idea out of his mind again quickly. They’d had a bit of fun but they were both grown-ups – she’d always known it was just a fling.

‘Poor woman,’ he said and turned to the table to refill his glass.

‘And what about Liam?’ Deidra asked.

‘He’s not coming home, if that’s what you were hoping to hear.’

Deidra let out a quiet sigh. ‘But is he well? Will they let him out of hospital soon?’

Lawrence turned to her, eyes hard. She wasn’t surprised. She must know about the girlfriend and hadn’t told him. She’d let him look a fool in front of the hospital staff. Well, what did it matter? What did they matter? He’d never see them again. Jaw clenched, he looked towards the garden again, watching the last of the day’s birds flying home to roost in the tall trees separating their house from the farm next door.

He heard her getting up and going into the kitchen, the smell of meat intensifying as she opened the door of the Aga. Usually he would offer to help. She never let him but it was one of the set pieces of their marriage – he offered to help, she said no, but thank you. Tonight he stayed quiet and poured himself another Scotch.

Over dinner she tried again. ‘Did he look well – physically, I mean?’

Lawrence wiped his mouth on his serviette, folded it and put it down next to his plate. ‘He looks like a dropout. Which is what he is. I’m going to suspend his allowance. Let him find a job and support himself, the ungrateful little prick.’

Deidra gasped. ‘That’s rather harsh, isn’t it? He needs us now more than ever.’

Lawrence looked at her and spoke in a hard voice. ‘As the doctor pointed out, he’s over eighteen. It’s time he was made to live with the consequences of his own choices. He’s on his own as far as I’m concerned.’

He rose and left the dining room but out in the hall he hesitated. He wasn’t interested in sitting in front of the television, he didn’t want to talk to his wife, he wasn’t ready for bed.

‘I’m going out,’ he called as he grabbed a jacket out of the cloakroom and banged the door behind him.

The A5 was almost empty. Most people were having their dinner, at home in their boxy, boring houses. He opened the throttle allowing the bike to accelerate slowly. Seventy, eighty, ninety. So smooth, so powerful.

He knew Deidra had only asked what any mother would and that he’d behaved badly. He thought about turning back and apologising to her but then he remembered she’d known about the girlfriend and had withheld the information from him. He gritted his teeth. What was wrong with her? She had everything she could want – he left her to make all the decisions about the family so she felt she had a useful role in life and she responded by keeping secrets. His whole family seemed to think of him as a bottomless wallet and nothing else. He nudged the bike up to a hundred.

The scenery flashed by in a dark blur. Out in the country now, no street lamps piercing the dark, only the headlights of a car occasionally causing him to narrow his eyes against the glare. But this was England and too soon he was slowing down on the approach to Towcester. He knew he should go back, but instead took the A43 towards Northampton and sped up again.

He didn’t want to think. He was tired of thinking. Tired of making decisions. Tired of working to make money for a family who showed no appreciation for his efforts. Let Liam starve, it would probably do him good. At least he wouldn’t be able to buy drugs if he didn’t have any money. His daughter already had more clothes than she could wear in a lifetime. And Deidra – what did she have? A beautiful home, swimming pool, tennis court, horses, charity work. When did the wife he loved turn into a boring woman like his mother, going to town occasionally for an exhibition or a show but otherwise burying herself in the country like a mole? When had their marriage become empty of the passion and excitement that had been its hallmark in the early years? When had they last even laughed together?

The lights of Northampton rose before him. He slowed and turned off the main road, driving between high hedges where the approach of a car in the opposite direction was heralded by ghostly beams of light sweeping around the bends. The BMW surged beneath him like a living thing, straining to go faster but Lawrence kept now to a steady thirty