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

taken almost the whole six weeks they were allowed before registering her birth, just to make sure it was exactly right for her. They sang it to her, said it to each other, wrote it down with fancy embellishments and in square capital letters. And they agreed it was the most beautiful name in the world for the most beautiful girl in the universe. Fliss sounded like a waitress or something you cleaned your teeth with. Another cross.

‘So, Liam,’ said Trevor, and stopped. He couldn’t ask the thing he most wanted to know: How did you get sick and are you going to go in and out of madness all your life? Which was shorthand for Will you weigh my daughter down, or lift her up?

‘Mr Jackson, it’s so good to meet you at last. I’m sorry about my father earlier – Fliss phoned and told me what happened.’

He spoke like he couldn’t move his tongue very well, so his vowels were flat and his consonants too soft. Trevor wondered if it was the drugs or if he always sounded like that. He didn’t like this boy apologising for his father either. Mr Lawrence Kelly was, undoubtedly, racist, but he had only been doing what Trevor himself wanted to do – keep these two apart. They were allies, of a sort. He decided to ignore the comment.

‘Tell me, Liam, what it is you do?’

‘I’m studying photography and working in a photographic shop. I hope to be a freelance nature photographer but I’ll do weddings and other things too – the bread-and-butter stuff.’

‘I already told you that, Dad,’ said Felice from the kitchen.

‘So you did, Sweetpea, so you did.’ Trevor wondered if Liam ever called her Sweetpea or Starlight, or any of the other names he had for her. He drummed his fingers on the table, unable to think of anything else to say.

‘Ta-da!’ said Felice, setting a casserole dish down on the table and going back to the kitchen to collect a salad. ‘Let’s eat.’ She looked at him and then at Liam. Trevor suddenly had no appetite and no energy for this dinner. It didn’t matter whether he liked this boy or not, or if he was sane or mad, rich or poor. His daughter had made her choice, just as he and Frostie had done all those years ago and there were plenty of people telling them they were making a mistake. He loved his daughter and had to try and trust she knew what she was doing. What goes around comes around, he thought, and almost laughed.

‘It smells good.’ He managed a smile.

Liam nodded and took a deep breath. ‘Fliss is a great cook.’

Trevor knew that. He didn’t need this stakki boy to tell him. He bit his lip to stop himself from saying anything. This Liam was a hard boy to like. Or was it that his own prejudice was too great an obstacle to see past?

Liam looked at him. ‘I’m sure you want to know why I’m in hospital and what will happen in the future. I would, I suspect, if I were in your shoes.’ He looked into Felice’s eyes as if for support.

‘Yes.’ Trevor didn’t trust himself to say anything more.

‘I am ashamed to say it was all my own fault. After university I was rather rudderless. I’d done a course I loved but it led to nothing I wanted to do. My father was pressuring me into making decisions about a career. He wanted me to go into law, like him, and I suppose I rebelled. I drank too much and smoked too much weed – marijuana–’

‘I know what weed is.’

‘Of course.’ Liam nodded but didn’t look Trevor in the eye. ‘It went on for a few weeks. When Fliss’ – he looked at her and took her hand in a gesture that was reassurance and apology – ‘and my friends tried to stop me I felt they didn’t understand, that they were against me somehow, so I smoked more. I had a psychotic episode and was sectioned. I realise now how stupid I was and my doctor reckons that as long as I stay off the weed, it’ll never happen again.’

‘And can you – stay off the weed, I mean?’ asked Trevor.

Felice gasped and he realised he had sounded aggressive but he had to know.

‘Yes, sir,’ said Liam. ‘I wouldn’t want to go through it all again, for my sake or Fliss’s.’ He looked at her and smiled.

Trevor felt angry. This Liam had been a self-indulgent fool. If it was only his life he was messing up, fine, but Trevor knew that even if he never smoked again, there were no guarantees he would stay well – his cousin back in Jamaica had never been the same after his first ganja-induced episode.

The evening didn’t go well. Trevor would start to say something and hear the accusation in his voice – you are not good enough for her – and stop. Liam feigned interest in his half-statements but was defensive and didn’t offer anything more of himself. Felice tried to introduce non-controversial topics but the air was so heavy with the things none of them were saying that the conversation fell between them and settled into a congealed mass that, in the end, none of them could find the energy to wade through.

Trevor made his excuses and left soon after nine, seeing the accusation in his daughter’s eyes: You didn’t try.

He shook Liam’s wet-fish hand, tried to hug Felice, who stiffened in his arms, and went out into the night. Two young boys who should have been tucked up in bed were lighting cigarettes, shading the match with their hands, heads together. Trevor wanted to tell them to stop now, to go home and stay safe. But home wasn’t always safe as well he knew, and anyway, who was he to tell anyone else what to do with their life?

He walked slowly towards the station, hands in his pockets, trying to breathe