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

over it was the sense of calm he felt, as if the old man was reaching out to him and reminding him that life was all right. Next to the portrait was another photograph, also in black and white, of a pair of hands, the gnarled, weather-cracked fingers interlinked, resting on a stained wooden table.

‘They’re amazing, aren’t they?’ Felice nodded at the pictures as she came in with two mugs of tea. ‘Liam took them in Portugal when we were there last year. They’re of a fisherman we met in this tiny village in the north.’

Trevor raised his eyebrows. ‘I didn’t know he went to Portugal with you.’

Felice settled herself on the sofa and motioned to her father to take the chair. ‘We weren’t an item then, just friends. Six of us went.’

‘I knew you went with friends, I just didn’t know he was one of them.’ He sat, the mug of tea burning his hands. ‘So, how long have you been “an item”?’ And why haven’t you told me about him, he wanted to ask. When had she started shutting him out?

‘Since that trip. We’ve known each other since first year at university, but that trip changed everything.’

‘I thought you said you met him at a party.’

‘I did, in Oxford. He was at Keble, I was down the road at Wadham. There were always parties.’

Trevor considered that for a moment. The boy had been at Oxford. He must have been okay then, not suffering from a mental illness or taking too many drugs. He wasn’t naïve enough to believe that any teenager these days was entirely straight.

‘What did he study?’

‘Politics, philosophy and economics. He got a first. He’s very bright.’

‘So what happened?’

‘What do you mean, what happened? He finished his degree, realised he didn’t want to do any job available to someone with those skills and decided to do what he loves. He’s at LCC now.’

Trevor realised he must have looked blank because Felice went on, ‘The London College of Communication. Doing photography. Or did you mean, what happened to make him end up in hospital?’

Trevor looked down at his feet, the scuffed shoes, mismatched socks he only now noticed. He didn’t know what he meant by the question. He wanted to know everything and nothing about this boy, Liam; why she loved him and whether he deserved her love in return, why he felt so jealous. Trevor knew his relationship with his daughter would never be the same again, that the special place he had held in her heart now belonged to another. He took a deep breath to let the pain of that realisation pass. When he looked up, Felice was staring at him with such softness his throat constricted and his eyes stung with unshed tears.

‘Are you okay, Dad?’

He suddenly felt very tired. All he wanted was to lie down and sleep, and wake up five years ago, before Felice had left to go to university, before Frostie had become ill.

‘Your grandparents have made a will. You are to receive everything when they die, being the only grandchild. I had a meeting with them this morning. They wanted you to know. I don’t know why they didn’t tell you themselves.’ It was easier to talk about trusts and wills than it was to think about the loss of his daughter.

Felice had sat straighter and looked shocked. Whether it was because of the abrupt change of topic or what Trevor had actually said, he didn’t know.

‘Wow, I always thought I might get something in their will, but I imagined they’d leave most of it to charity or the church.’

‘Apparently not. You will be an heiress. I don’t think there’s much cash, but the house must be worth quite a bit. What does Liam do for money?’

‘He doesn’t live off me, if that’s what you’re thinking, and he won’t want to fritter away my inheritance. He gets a bit from his parents and he works in a photography shop a couple of days a week, photographs the occasional wedding. He lives in a dive with four others, so the rent is low. He gets by.’

Trevor imagined a dope den. Five young men spending their time getting stoned day in, day out.

‘Look, Dad, I know what you’re thinking, but give him a chance, please. For me. I think you’ll like him when you get to know him.’

Trevor didn’t know anything anymore. He’d been so proud when Felice had been offered her place at Oxford. His main worry was that she’d meet a toffee-nosed type who looked down on her family. He couldn’t have imagined that not only would the boy she fell in love with be from a wealthy family but he would also be mad. No one expected such a thing, surely.

‘Just tell me what happened.’ He had to know. He didn’t want to like this boy. He didn’t want anything bad to happen to him, he just wanted him gone from his daughter’s life.

‘He wants to tell you himself, and it’ll be better coming from him.’

A silence lengthened into the shadows of the room. Trevor considered leaving, running back to Milton Keynes, but he couldn’t outrun the future.

He drank his tea slowly, as if by doing so he could slow time down. Felice talked to him as she prepared dinner in her tiny kitchen. He was perching on the edge of the sofa, watching her through the open door, trying to remember every detail of their time together, just the two of them.

He imagined himself at home later, thinking back to this time, calling it The Time Before. He had always divided his life into eras.

There wasn’t much he wanted to remember from his childhood. His brothers were bullies and although he knew his mother loved him she was ineffectual, unable to intervene in what she must have known was happening. Perhaps she had been as scared of his brothers as he was. Or maybe she thought he should toughen up and deal with it himself. Well,