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

‘Okay. This way.’ She hooked her arm through his. Trevor’s heart felt full and he walked tall with his daughter by his side.

‘Felice!’

They turned and saw a man waving at them from the step of the building Felice had exited. Felice tightened her grip on her father’s arm. He took in the well-cut suit and the tie and raised his eyebrows.

‘The doctor?’ Trevor asked.

‘No, Liam’s dad.’ She rolled her eyes and sighed.

Before Trevor had a chance to ask more, Liam’s father had crossed the road at a trot.

‘Lawrence Kelly,’ he said, putting out a hand and then seeming to think better of it and retracting it again. ‘You must be this young… lady’s father.’

‘Yes. Trevor Jackson.’

‘I wonder if we might have a word.’

‘It’ll have to be another time, Mr Kelly.’ Felice tugged on her father’s arm. ‘Dad and I have to be somewhere.’

Trevor looked at his daughter and saw a glint of anger in her eyes but her body said resignation. Then he looked at Lawrence Kelly. By the sneer in the arch of his eyebrows and the curl of his lip, Trevor thought he knew what this Kelly wanted to say. He’d heard it so many times before. Not about his daughter but directed at himself. He drew himself up to his full five feet eight and rolled his shoulders back to make himself look a bit broader.

‘Say what you want to say.’

‘Dad–’ Felice pulled at him again.

‘Shall we go to a café and have a chat?’ asked Lawrence.

‘No,’ said Trevor. ‘You can say what you have to say right here.’

Lawrence Kelly looked around, ran a hand down his tie, moistened his lips with his tongue. ‘Very well.’ He paused, looked about again which gave him a shifty air. ‘I don’t want my son seeing Felice anymore. I’ve said the same to your daughter already, and to my son, but they don’t seem to be able to see reason. So I’m asking for your help. You look like a sensible man, Trevor. You must see that this relationship of theirs can’t continue.’ He smiled the smile of a man used to getting his way. It made him look rather like a toad, Trevor thought.

He glanced at his daughter who now had the begging look in her eyes she got when she wanted her father to come quietly, to not get involved in whatever issue she was dealing with. But he couldn’t back down. He’d never been able to when he sensed an injustice against his little girl. He looked back to Kelly.

‘Because your son is a mental patient?’

Lawrence Kelly’s eyes widened and he drew a sharp breath. ‘Now look here–’ he started.

‘Or would it be because Felice is black and you’re a racist bigot? Which one is it?’

‘Dad, please–’

Trevor turned to his daughter. ‘Just a moment, Sweetpea. One minute.’

She shook her head slowly, crossed her arms and turned away.

When Trevor looked back at Kelly, he noticed the other man’s jaw was clenched, his eyes cold.

‘Well, if you want to be so blunt, it is about your daughter. Not because of her colour, but because she… she… she just isn’t the right girl for my son.’

Trevor kept his gaze steady. ‘Not right in what way?’

Kelly looked up at the sky as if hoping for divine intervention.

‘Is it her education? The clothes she wears? The food she eats? Her choice in music perhaps? What, Mr Kelly, is the reason you believe my daughter is not right for your son?’

‘Now you’re being ridiculous – of course it’s none of those things, it’s just that she’s…’

‘The wrong colour.’

‘All right. Yes. It is. There you have it. I will not have my son going out with a black girl.’

Trevor took Felice’s hand and held it firmly. She didn’t look at him but she didn’t pull away either. He took a deep breath, working hard to keep his anger at bay. One of the reasons he’d taken his daughter’s hand was to stop himself from punching this Kelly on his bigoted nose.

‘Well, Mr Kelly,’ he said evenly, ‘I came here today to convince my daughter to break off this relationship because I do not want her going out with a drug-addicted lunatic.’

Lawrence Kelly gasped. ‘My son is a highly educated young man with his whole life before him. He may have taken a wrong turn but he’s paying the consequences. I will not have him held back by an association that is not–’ He stopped mid-sentence and smiled, a look of triumph spreading across his features. ‘So we’re in agreement.’

‘But,’ continued Trevor as if he hadn’t heard Kelly, ‘Felice is over eighteen and so is your son, so it is of little consequence what we want. They are old enough to make up their own minds.’ He turned to Felice.

‘Do you love this stakki boy?’ Felice laughed, nodded and squeezed his hand. Trevor smiled. He knew she loved it when he used Jamaican words in front of people who didn’t know what they meant. It had been like a secret code when she was little. Their private language.

‘This can’t work. You know it can’t.’ Lawrence had his hands on his hips.

‘The only thing I’m worried about is my daughter’s happiness. If she really believes your son can make her happy, I will not stand in their way. Goodbye, Mr Kelly.’ Trevor turned on his heel and walked away. He heard an expletive but didn’t grace it with a response.

‘Thanks, Dad.’ They walked for a minute or two in silence, then Felice said, ‘Did you mean what you said about wanting me and Liam to break up – is that really why you came?’

Trevor slowed down. Here it was, the moment he’d been dreading. The words he’d rehearsed had fled, and he stood in front of his daughter, the most precious thing in his life, knowing if he was honest she might hate him, and if he wasn’t he would hate himself. He swallowed hard.

‘Do you remember what your mother used to say?’ he asked.

Felice looked