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

At university there had been little fun and lots of hard work; as the first person in his family to finish school let alone go on to do a degree, he had something to prove. And his brothers were left behind, underemployed and feckless.

Teaching followed, and weekend bike rides. Drinking. Not too much usually, but sometimes a lot, to dull the ache of loneliness. His university friends had marched into jobs all over the British Isles and he had ended up a token black teacher in a white neighbourhood and no one asked him to dinner.

Then he’d met Frostie. He thought of meeting her as the beginning of his real life, the life he’d been preparing for. His mother had recently died of a brain tumour and he had volunteered to help at a fundraising event for a cancer charity. He’d been selling raffle tickets at the door and Frostie – she introduced herself as Veronica – had been taking coats. He knew as soon as he heard her voice and looked into her eyes that she was the one for him.

Theirs was true love. He’d rush home to spend long evenings with Frostie cooking, eating, talking, going to movies, seeing friends, having picnics, bike rides. All the things that matter so much more when there are two people instead of one. And they made love, oh, how they made love. Black and white and white and black in the kitchen, on the sofa, in the bath, behind the shed where the hydrangeas offered privacy from nosy neighbours, in their bed, beside their bed, and, when Frostie was heavy with their soon-to-be-born daughter, in the nursery.

With Felice’s birth he felt a sense of completion. Now he had his own family to love and protect. The joy he felt was marred only by the anxiety he wasn’t equal to the task.

When Frostie became ill he couldn’t shake the belief that somehow he had failed her. If he’d been a better husband she wouldn’t have got sick, wouldn’t have died.

After his wife’s death there was Felice. Only Felice. His one joy, his one success. He loved her fiercely but she was already away at university. He still taught at the local high school but with Frostie and Felice gone he had nothing left in his heart for the children nor his subject. He knew he was letting the students down, they deserved more, and yet he had no reserves to draw on; he was barely managing to get out of bed each day.

So what should he do now she was living her own life, a life of her choosing, a life and a partner he may not approve of? Yes, tonight was the cusp and he couldn’t see what lay beyond.

‘Dad – did you hear me?’

He lifted his head. ‘Sorry, what did you say?’

His daughter smiled at him. ‘Honestly, Dad, you live too much in your head. You ought to get out more. I asked you to open the wine.’

‘Open the wine? But he’s not here yet.’

Felice handed him a bottle and a corkscrew. ‘It’s red, needs to breathe.’

Since when had she known red wine needed to breathe? And when had she been able to afford a wine to which breathing made enough difference to notice? He shrugged and did as he was told. ‘You are so sophisticated these days,’ he said, and smiled. She winked and blew him a Hollywood kiss, then turned her back on him to attend to something in the kitchen.

‘Felice, are you sure this is the boy for you?’ He knew it was wrong to ask again but the question was out of his mouth before he could stop it. She looked at him with eyebrows raised, took a deep breath and was about to speak when the doorbell rang.

‘Be nice,’ she said to him as she took her apron off and ran her hands through her hair. As she passed him, Trevor noticed her face had softened. And he realised that if he wanted her to include him in her life with this boy, he had to make an effort.

Trevor stood as a tall, blond man came in, kissed Felice on the cheek and then turned towards him. His first impression was that he looked nothing like his father, the angular man with the abrasive manner. A point in his favour, as far as Trevor was concerned. He also noticed how Felice looked; like Frostie had when they fell in love – more alive, somehow, as if all the cells of her body were suddenly infused with the elixir of life and were straining to reach out to him, to this man, this Liam, whose cells were behaving in the same way. It was a moment so intimate Trevor had to look away. His daughter and this man, they brightened each other.

He felt a small, sharp pain in his side and recognised it as envy. He’d had what they had and he wanted it again. The sense that the day was worth living because at the end of it you’d see the one you loved, that there was someone else out there in the world who thought you into existence during the day and was pleased to see the flesh-and-blood you when they got home.

He plastered a smile over his pain and shook Liam’s hand. It felt like a damp fish in his firm grasp. Trevor put a cross in his ledger of Liam. A strong handshake was the mark of a decisive person and this Liam had produced a limp offering.

‘Sit down, you two, I’ll get the wine,’ said Felice. Trevor noticed her voice was strained through her anxiety and wondered if Liam knew her well enough to notice.

‘Not for me, thanks, Felice.’ In his mouth her name sounded like Fliss. Was it an endearment or an attempt to make it sound more English? Either way, Trevor didn’t like it. He’d always loved her name. He and Frostie had