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

sigh. Deidra wasn’t excited at the prospect. He felt a weight settling on him and anger starting to coil round his insides. Damn her.

He paused and reminded himself to use the technique he’d learned for dealing with bolshy witnesses. Unclenching his fists he pictured sending the anger back to the place it came from – a well of childhood shame and disappointments.

He looked at her again, tried to think of it from her perspective. Of course she wasn’t excited – this was all so new for her. He needed to convince her.

He smiled, looked her in the eye and blinked slowly. ‘I want to live before I die and I want you to be my companion. I’ve realised I haven’t always been the most attentive husband, but I do love you. I want things to be different from now on. I want to be different.’

She smiled. He loved her smile, the way it lit her up. She smiled with her whole face, not like some people whose smile didn’t reach their eyes.

‘So?’ he asked, holding out a hand to her, hope fluttering in his stomach making him feel as anxious as a teenager asking a girl out on a first date.

She took his hand in both of hers and Lawrence felt his heart lift and stretch to encompass long days and nights together, free of the past. He envisioned the light of southern France, the vibrant colours of India, the endless desert of Morocco. The feel of Deidra’s skin under his fingertips, the heady sweetness of her perfume, the way they used to give each other such pleasure.

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Well?’

‘Oh, Lawrence.’ She stopped. The smile faded and was replaced by a thoughtful look, her eyebrows drawing together, her lower lip slightly pouting.

‘Lawrence what?’ he asked.

‘We can’t just leave. Liam needs us. Charlotte’s doing her A levels next year. And anyway, I’m sorry, but I think we both know it’s too late for that, don’t we?’

Her response winded him like a punch in the stomach. The physical pain followed quickly by anger and shame. She was meant to be there for him, wasn’t that what their wedding vows had stated? For better, for worse, till death do us part? He had allowed himself to be vulnerable and it had ended the way it always did; rejection, ridicule.

Deidra sighed and turned back to the mirror, started brushing her hair. He wanted to yank the hairbrush from her hand and thrash her with it, leave her begging for mercy.

Instead, he got up and left the bedroom without a word.

9

Trevor

It felt like his constant companion these days, the sensation in the pit of his stomach telling Trevor all was not well. He felt it now, on the train on the way to see his daughter, Felice. He couldn’t put a finger on it, but the last time they’d spoken he’d got that heavy feeling like something was being dragged through his guts that shouldn’t be there. It was a physical feeling but the cause, he knew, was not physical.

He loosened his collar and rubbed his sweaty palms together. The air conditioning had stopped working soon after the train stopped, adding to his anguish.

The woman sitting opposite him looked about as uncomfortable as he felt. She couldn’t settle to anything. Got out her Kindle. Put it away. Got out a notebook, wrote furiously for a while. Put it away. Fiddled in her pocket, pulled out a tube of lip balm and swiped it across her mouth, then proceeded to chew on her bottom lip like it was her last meal.

He lost himself in his thoughts again, trying to put a name to this feeling he had. Dread? Fear? Both of those but also something else. He felt threatened. He knew without a doubt his life was about to change, and not for the better. If he was honest with his daughter, he ran the risk of losing her. If not, he’d lose himself.

A gasp from the woman opposite drew him from his thoughts. She didn’t look well. She’d gone pale, even for a white person. He looked around but no one else seemed to have noticed so he did the only thing he could think of – he got his hanky out and tapped her on the hand, offering it to her when she opened her eyes. She took it, wiped her face and clasped it to her mouth. No way he wanted it back after that, so he told her to keep it. She seemed grateful but Trevor was even more thankful when she gathered herself and her belongings and left the carriage. He watched as she swayed along the aisle, relieved she’d gone. Probably a nice enough woman, but stakki.

Having made his assessment, he closed his eyes again. Stakki: mad. The word had prompted the dragging feeling in his guts again. He had no idea how to tackle Felice, what to say to her without making her explode at him. He just wanted a chance to tell her how he felt, what he thought. But he knew with the certainty of night following day, she wouldn’t want to hear it.

He looked at his newspaper. Not his usual newspaper. He had no idea why he’d grabbed The Sun today instead of The Guardian. Perhaps his state of mind. His hands acting without the benefit of his head. The headline screamed out against the EU and Trevor shook his head. How could anyone truly believe that leaving Europe was a good idea. Or that the likes of Farage and Johnson knew how to tell the truth. He was comforted by the fact that the sane, thinking people of the UK would never vote to leave the Union.

Closing his eyes again, he thought about the meeting he was going to before he took Felice out for lunch. He wasn’t sure what his wife’s parents wanted this time but he knew they didn’t like him and that always put him at a disadvantage. It