The Train, Sarah Bourne [dark books to read .txt] 📗

call social services and have me committed. She wants to take early retirement and was going on about all the things she’d do if only she could afford to.’ Iris suddenly felt calm. Sitting here telling Barry about it, she felt that everything would be all right. She’d been silly to work herself into a lather about it.

‘She’ll do no such thing,’ said Barry. ‘But do you need anything – I mean help around the house, that sort of thing?’

Iris looked at him and a tremor started ascending her spine. It had been the same with Laura:

‘Mother, you can’t live on your own, you need help, what if you have a fall? What if you have a heart attack and nobody knows?’

That had been her reasoning. Malice dressed as concern. Cruelty masquerading as kindness. Iris straightened her spine and stared into her son’s eyes.

‘I need about as much help as you do. I can still cook for myself.’ She thought of her TV dinners and decided not to mention them to Barry. ‘I can clean my house.’ Although she had started noticing that she missed places sometimes when she was dusting and couldn’t be bothered going back over them. ‘I can get myself up, dressed and washed, and out to my appointments. I’m fine.’

She didn’t want help, she didn’t want charity, she didn’t want people feeling sorry for her and she certainly didn’t want people telling her what to do. What she wanted was to stay in her house.

‘Well,’ said Barry, ‘if you’re sure, that’s that. Perhaps you could come over for a meal with us more often – make it a regular family dinner. And if anything needs fixing, Luke and I are quite good at that sort of thing.’

Iris smiled at him. ‘And maybe you could call me Mum rather than Mother. I like it better.’

Barry laughed. ‘That’s taking it a bit too far!’

He grew serious again. ‘It’s more than Laura wanting you out of your house, though, isn’t it?’

He’d always been perceptive, Iris thought. As a child he’d been the sort to watch and take things in. It had unnerved her on occasion when he was a youngster. One time when he was about seven or eight he’d asked her why her friend, June, had made a face at her and a rude sign with her fingers as soon as Iris turned away.

‘I don’t think she likes you, Mummy,’ he’d said. ‘I think she’s just pretending.’

Iris had dismissed it as a fancy. She and June had known each other for years – they’d looked after each other’s children and cried on each other’s shoulders when their parents had died. But a week after Barry had made his comment, June and she had a fight, their first ever. June accused her of changing, of becoming selfish and hoity-toity because she’d said she couldn’t look after June’s twins for the night so June could go out dancing with her new fancy man. Iris had been so surprised she hadn’t been able to say anything. June had left and they had never seen each other again; Iris’s attempts to talk to her had gone unanswered. She’d read her obituary in the local newspaper a few years later and hadn’t known how to sort out her feelings – she was sad but she was also angry, disappointed and confused.

‘Are you going to tell me?’

‘Oh sorry, dear. I was miles away thinking about June. Do you remember her?’

‘We were talking about Laura.’

‘Oh, yes. What was the question?’

‘I asked what else happened.’

‘Well, more of the same really. She said she couldn’t let me go home, that I had to stay with her until everything was sorted out. I didn’t know what to do so I said I’d think about it and went to bed but I couldn’t sleep. I heard Laura come upstairs and I was terrified she was going to come in and keep at me, but she went into her room. Hours later I needed to use the bathroom. Her bedroom door was open and I heard funny chirpy noises – you know how sound carries in those ticky-tacky houses – so I peeped in. She was sitting at her desk, a nearly empty bottle of wine next to her, playing a card game on the computer. That pokie game, I think.’

Barry took a deep breath. ‘Poker. You think she’s gambling?’

Iris nodded. ‘That’s what I said. And yes, she is gambling. She must have heard me and caught me watching her. You’d have thought I was the one doing something wrong the way she shouted at me. She said it was my fault she had to do it, that I’d always been mean with money and I’d never helped her when she’d asked for a loan in the past. Which isn’t true, by the way – I’ve given her money and never been paid back. Anyway, she called me every name under the sun, threatened to call the police to have me committed and accused me of making her life a misery. She said John wasn’t on a business trip but had left her because she never seemed to think he was good enough and she’s up to her ears in debt and can’t wait until I’m dead for her share of her inheritance.’

Barry raised his eyebrows. ‘She actually said those words?’

Iris nodded. ‘Exactly those words. Her share of the house. She said that if I transfer it to her now and live another seven years there’ll be no death duty. She said she wouldn’t want to waste money on that.’

Barry put his arm around his mother’s shoulders and drew her close. ‘That’s awful. Sounds like Laura’s the one who needs help, not you.’

Iris shuddered. ‘I didn’t know what to do so I set my alarm for six o’clock this morning, just in case I fell asleep, although there was no way I was going to after that. I knew she’d still be snoring away – your sister’s always hated getting