The Train

by Sarah Bourne

  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 was another old feeling, being treated like muck. He knew the role of the underdog, the outsider. And he knew very well where it came from – not only being black in England, but being small and bookish, he hadn’t fitted in at his South London comprehensive school, nor in his own family. He had learned to behave like the other children at school, swaggering, full of bravado to avoid bullying, and rushed home at the end of the day to shut himself in his room with his books. His brothers were both over six foot tall and half as wide and he’d had trouble getting to five foot eight. He had childhood asthma and had never been allowed to play sport. Gavin, the eldest in the family still called him Lilly Bud, Little Bird, and not in a nice way. Gavin intermittently drove a forklift. Samson was a sometime bouncer. Trevor was the only one in the family to go to university despite his school’s best attempts to quash his ambitions and persuade him to lower his expectations. He’d gone to Leeds to study English, and afterwards done a teaching diploma. He was proud to be a teacher and encouraged his pupils to aim high and believe in themselves. He loved everything about teaching, even marking assignments. Sure, there were kids who were unmotivated and didn’t hand work in, but he even loved the creativity they showed in their excuses for not having done it. Like young Peter the other day who told him he hadn’t been able to do the work set over the weekend because his parents had taken him to a nudist colony in Wales for the weekend and he wasn’t allowed to take anything with him. Trevor had laughed long and hard over that one. Wales, indeed!

  He smiled to himself and forced his thoughts back to Veronica’s parents. They had requested that he meet them in their solicitor’s office but gave him no more information than that. Fortunately, it was half term but they would have expected him to take a day off anyway. They always treated him as if he was a man to be ordered about. Even when they finally gave their blessing for him to marry Veronica, his beloved Frostie, it had felt like it was given under duress, unwillingly, as if they viewed him as unworthy. Yet they were not racist, or so they said. And it was true, they also treated many white people the way they treated him – with a certain disdain, a distance, as if they were wearing gloves so as not to taint themselves. When he’d commented on it to Frostie after he’d known them for a while, she’d suggested that perhaps they were protecting others from themselves rather than the other way around. It made no sense to Trevor but when he pressed her, a pained expression crossed her face and she would say no more. It remained one of those mysteries he thought about in the early hours of the morning before even the rubbish collectors were about and the only sound was the occasional bark of a fox in the fields behind the house. And now Frostie wasn’t around to ask.

  His grief hit him like a punch in the solar plexus, winding him and making him hunch forward, clasping his chest, panting. Not wanting to draw attention to himself, he coughed and opened the newspaper, holding it up in front of his face. Once upon a time he would have been mortified if anyone thought he was a Sun reader but right now he didn’t care. He needed something to hide his tears.

  It had been three years since his wife had died. Three years of loneliness. Three years of anxiety that he wasn’t doing enough for Felice. Three years of walking the tightrope between loving his daughter and letting her go. There were days he was so grief-stricken all he wanted to do was hug her and keep her close, but she was almost twenty when her mum died, taking her first steps out into the world on her own. His job was to help her leave the nest not tie her to it. He sighed at the memory of how exhausting it had been to pretend to be coping better than he was, of not letting on to her that he cried himself to sleep at night and sometimes at school had to excuse himself from class to press his emotions back down into the dark, churning place they had to stay so he could function in the world.

  The train still hadn’t moved. He would be late for the in-laws so he texted with apologies. He didn’t tell them the reason. Let them think he’d overslept and missed the earlier train, he no longer cared what they thought of him. He knew they loved Felice, and that was all that mattered.

  He overheard one of the other passengers tell her neighbour there’d been a suicide on the line. Trevor shuddered. What a violent way to go. Any way was a bad way to go but some were worse than others. When they were younger Frostie and he had sworn to each other that if the need arose, they’d help each other along, whatever the consequences. When the time came and his wife asked him to get her the medication required to end her life, he couldn’t do it. He agreed wholeheartedly with assisted dying, understood Frostie’s desire to be free of the pain and degradation her life had become but he couldn’t be part of ending it. Every day she’d asked, and every day he had a different excuse. Felice was coming home soon, the doctor had mentioned a new medication, it was nearly Christmas, nearly her birthday, almost his. In the end, she stopped asking, and Trevor felt guilty about that, knowing he’d let her down. He simply couldn’t imagine life without her. It was selfish but that was how it was. He made sure she had adequate pain medication. He looked after her with care and devotion and still she slipped away.

  He sighed and wondered if it took everybody so long to mourn for their wife. He still felt as if it had happened a week ago rather than years. A colleague at school who found him sobbing in the staff toilet suggested that maybe he should see someone but he didn’t want to do that. A counsellor might encourage him to get over it and in many ways he didn’t want to. Grief gave shape to his life now, where once his wife and daughter had.

  He sat straighter in his seat. The passengers were restless, raising eyebrows, looking at watches, texting work. No one was reading the paper like they normally would. Some were even talking to each other. He wondered if the food shop was open, or did they close for a suicide? He needed a cup of tea – two teabags, a good dollop of milk, three sugars. And having thought about it, he had to go and see if he could get one.

  Half the train had had the same idea and the food shop was packed. He shuffled through, excusing himself and trying to make himself smaller to fit between overweight men in suits and made-up women in high heels. Eventually he got to the counter and ordered his tea.

  ‘Like it strong, then,’ said the woman who served him. Her name badge said Sandra. ‘Just like our Tim, the conductor on this train. That’s how he likes his tea too. Put hairs on your chest it will!’

  Trevor smiled at the thought. He’d always been somewhat lacking in the bodily hair department. Plenty on his head, it just hadn’t ever stretched to anywhere else. Sandra certainly had plenty of hair, plaited in thick, neat cornrows, the dark skin of her scalp showing between them. Trevor smiled, remembering Felice fidgeting and muttering under her breath when her mother tried to do them for her once. In the end, Frostie had given up, and Felice had run round to a friend’s house and come home later with her hair burnt from the straightening iron.

  People were jostling him to get to the counter. It was a shame it was so busy. He would quite l
ike to have stayed talking to Sandra and hear more of her theories about hair growth and tea. She had a word or a joke with everyone and they all ended up laughing or smiling. Funny how sometimes a stranger made you feel better, just by being there. He squeezed along to the end of the serving area and drank his tea, occasionally making a comment to Sandra who seemed to like the attention. Maybe he made her feel a bit better too. After he’d finished the first one, he ordered a second cup, and Sandra remembered how he liked it. It was a small thing, but it made him feel happy.

  When he went back to his seat he was smiling and instead of dreading his lunch with Felice, he was looking forward to it. He’d got himself all worked up about it, but it would be all right.

  Trevor leant against a letterbox and waited for Felice to come out of the building opposite. He had been rehearsing what he wanted to say all week, but now he was here, and she was about to join him, he couldn’t remember any of the arguments that had sounded so persuasive when he was on his own, practising in the bathroom mirror. Yet after the meeting with her grandparents he was even more determined to say his piece.

  She’d said one and it was now one twenty. He hoped he hadn’t missed her, but surely she would have waited if they’d finished early? He checked his phone again. No missed calls. Nothing. He shifted to the other foot and turned his face to the weak May sun for a few moments.

  ‘Dad – there you are. Sorry I’m late. The meeting went over time.’

  They hugged and then Trevor held her away from him. His fingers itched to pinch her cheeks like he used to when she was younger. She’d always pretend she didn’t like it but she never stopped him. She’d grown up so fast – twenty-two now, and in a real job but she’d always be his little girl.

  He loved looking at his daughter, had stared at her for hours when she was little, wondering how something so perfect could have anything to do with him. She still had the same smooth, brown skin, the pert little nose, straight white teeth. But her hair was short now instead of braided and her eyes more knowing. Or guarded. Yes, that was it – she was ready to defend herself from him as if she knew what he was going to say. Trevor felt the dragging feeling in his abdomen again, accompanied this time by tightness around his heart. He didn’t want his daughter to feel she had to defend herself from him. They’d always been so open with each other. Theirs had been such a tight, happy family until Frostie got sick. He winced inwardly at the memory of his wife. He’d called her Frostie the first time they met because she was so pale, even for a white woman, and it had stuck. Frostie by name, but certainly not by nature. She was as warm and loving as the Jamaican sun.

  ‘Where do you want to go, Dad?’

  He drew his thoughts away from his dead wife and looked at his daughter again. His adult daughter. ‘I don’t mind. You choose.’

  Truth was, it had been so long since he had lived in London he didn’t know it anymore. It was Felice’s city now, her playground. Funny how you move away from a place to give your family better opportunities – good schools, less pollution, the country life, bigger house – and they end up back at the very place you left.

  ‘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 at him, eyes narrowed. ‘She used to say a lot of things, which one are you thinking of in particular?’

  Trevor smiled at the reminder of his wife’s pontifications. She did have an opinion about most things, it was true, and she wasn’t scared to voice them. He used to call her his soap-box queen. Oh, Frostie.

  ‘I was thinking about what she said about honesty always being the best policy, even, or perhaps, especially when it is hard.’ He glanced at Felice who was looking off into the distance, as if hearing her mother’s voice. He went on. ‘But if two people love and respect each other they have to be truthful with each other.’

  Felice nodded. ‘Yeah, I remember. Sometimes it hurt. Like when she told me I was a fool for thinking Tony Riley really wanted to marry me. We were eight and so in love. We held hands in the back row of form two.’