by Jenny Colgan
‘Plain as day,’ said Kim-Ange in an uncharacteristically grim tone.
Suddenly Cormac found himself thinking – of Robbie, yes, but also of Lissa. Is this how she had felt? Why she’d had to move?
‘Amazing,’ he said, gazing at them.
And they passed through halls and rooms of modernism; of the world sliced up and twisted round.
‘Why did they start doing this?’ he said.
‘Why do you think?’ said Kim-Ange, pointing out the Braques. ‘Look when it all started: a hundred years ago.’
Cormac blinked.
‘After the First World War.’
‘After the war,’ nodded Kim-Ange. ‘When the world got ripped apart. After Hiroshima, it got torn up again. You couldn’t look at life the way people had looked at it before.’
Now Cormac couldn’t see enough of it. He wandered through the galleries of Picassos, Dalís, mouth open.
‘They’re all soldiers.’
‘We’re all soldiers,’ observed Kim-Ange, eventually pulling him away. ‘Art is amazing. And you get a slice of cake at the end of it. Shall we?’
And Cormac was just about to enthusiastically agree, and concede that, okay, London maybe did have a bit more to offer than he’d originally thought . . . but his phone buzzed, and he took it out and stared at it disconsolately, reading the message.
‘Oh bugger,’ he said.
Chapter Three
‘Why didn’t you call me?’ he almost yelled down the phone.
‘It’s just a broken wrist,’ said his mother, equally crossly. ‘I called a taxi – honestly, don’t worry about it.’
‘What were you doing?’
‘I was on the trapeze.’
‘Mu-um.’
‘My stupid bicycle. How’s London?’
‘So who set it for you?’
‘Some nine-year-old up at the hospital.’
‘I’ll pop up,’ said Cormac.
‘You won’t “pop up”,’ said Bridie. ‘I am perfectly fine and Nadia is coming over.’
Nadia lived in Inverness with Lewis, the middle son.
Cormac sighed.
‘I can get a flight.’
‘You can do nothing of the sort! You’ve got a job to do. I am totally fine.’
Cormac took stock. After his father had died, his mother’s default was “totally fine”, and she took any insinuation to the contrary as a total insult.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Well, at least there’ll be someone to check it for you. I wouldn’t have been allowed.’
‘It’s fine!’
‘I mean, I would anyway . . .’
‘It’s fine! I’m busy anyway.’
‘Which wrist is it?’
‘My right,’ admitted Bridie.
‘Mum!’ tutted Cormac. ‘It’s okay, I’m going to get the new girl who’s standing in for me to pop in.’
‘I’ve seen her,’ said Bridie. ‘She has hair all over the place.’
‘So I hear,’ said Cormac.
‘And she’s a bit standoffish.’
‘You think everyone who doesn’t come from Kirrinfief is standoffish! Remember what you said about that woman in the book van.’
‘Aye, she’s all right, Nina.’
‘She is!’ said Cormac. ‘So is Lissa. I’m pretty sure.’
‘Mmhmm,’ said Bridie. Which is how Cormac found himself writing a note on Monday morning asking, as politely as he knew how, if Lissa could possibly go and visit his mother.
Lissa was curious; she couldn’t help it. Cormac sent her stupid little pictures, but he didn’t give that much away. Not that she’d been thinking about him, but you had to figure, given she was living in his house. She couldn’t help but be a little curious. Couldn’t help being slightly aware, even in the tidy cottage, of the smell of someone else’s aftershave, shampoo, pillowcases. She hadn’t snooped. But she’d considered it.
She picked up the notes from Joan, although there was nothing in them – a sixty-four-year-old woman in tremendous health with a snapped wrist from falling off her bicycle – and went round, faintly nervous.
The woman didn’t answer the bell of the small, neat Victorian stone house with an arched porch and pretty pathway, and Lissa eventually found herself pootling down the little close at the side until she got into the immaculate back garden, which was filled with neat rows of daffodils, bluebells and rhododendron bushes in a tight line, and grass so immaculate it looked like someone had trimmed it with nail scissors. The woman was trying to weed with one hand, the other in a sling, and it looked like she would topple over any moment.
‘Um, hello?’ said Lissa, trying not to startle her. Mrs MacPherson stood up with a start.
‘Hello?’
‘I’m Lissa Westcott . . . the nurse practitioner liaison? I just came to check up on you.’
The short woman with steely grey hair cut close to her head – no room for vanity here – looked at her beadily.
‘Yes, I ken who you are. You’re doing my son’s job. Why are you here?’
‘Well . . . because it’s procedure?’
‘It’s a broken wrist! Have you come round to give me a lollipop?’
‘No. Although if you’d like one . . .’
‘Or perhaps I count as geriatric now and you’re here to move me into a home where you cannae have a hot bath for health and safety reasons?’
Lissa shook her head.
‘Cormac asked me to come take a look,’ she said honestly. ‘He’s just worried about you.’
‘So he sent a spy?’
Nonetheless, Bridie bustled her inside through a small set of French doors built into the back of the house. After a moment or two, Lissa started to follow her.
‘Beautiful garden,’ said Lissa.
‘Is this truly the best use of NHS resources?’ grumbled Bridie. Lissa could see it was an effort for her to fill the kettle.
Once the kettle was on, she looked around. There were pictures of little boys everywhere – she hadn’t known he had brothers. It was impossible to tell which one was Cormac from the three sandy heads and toothless grins and Lissa was suddenly too shy to ask. She did feel like she was spying, but not on Bridie.
‘So can you wiggle your fingers for me?’ she said, taking Bridie’s hand once she’d made them both tea. ‘And put some pressure on my hand here . . . and here . . . good. Good.’
She moved her head closer in the embarrassing bit where she had to sniff the bandage for evidence of rot or bad skin healing, without looking like that was what she was doing.
‘Are you sniffing me?’ said Bridie rather crossly.
‘So is Cormac enjoying himself in London then?’ asked Lissa quickly.
Bridie shrugged. ‘I dinnae ken. Is he staying in your hoose?’
‘Well, my digs,’ said Lissa. ‘It’s a nurses’ halls really. Nothing like as nice as his place.’
‘Nurses’ halls. I’m so proud,’ said Bridie drily. Lissa caught sight of a photo of a handsome man wearing a smart Army uniform, including an elaborate hat that came over his chin, with a younger Bridie and a stooped man either side.
‘Is this him?’
‘Naw,’ said Bridie, her voice softening a little. ‘That’s Rawdon.’
‘He’s in the Army?’
‘So was Cormac once. Now he’s busy living in nurses’ halls, apparently.’
Her voice sounded raw.
‘He didn’t like it?’ ventured Lissa.
‘Not everyone can cut the Army,’ said Bridie sharply. ‘He’s just like his faither. Anyway.’ She changed the subject sharply. ‘Here it is. It’s a broken wrist. Well done. Can you tick your ninety-five file boxes, give me some nonsense survey and be on your way, lass? I’m busy.’
She didn’t to Lissa’s practised eye look remotely busy. The house was immaculate.
‘Is anyone helping you out?’
‘Aye,’ said Bridie. ‘This is Kirrinfief. We help each other oot. Dinnae worry about me. I ken you Englis
h types don’t really believe in friendship, but we do round these parts.’
‘All right,’ said Lissa, knowing when she was beaten. ‘Okay, I’ll tell Cormac you’re fine.’
Bridie sniffed. ‘Well, make sure you don’t interrupt him being too busy in the nurses’ halls, filling in all those forms.’
Lissa blinked. She glanced out of the window into Bridie’s spectacular garden, where a pair of starlings were pecking on the lawn. Then she got up.
‘There is nothing wrong with you – you’re healing fine,’ she said. ‘Do you want me to tell Cormac I’m popping in every day and then not come?’
Bridie smiled.
‘That would be perfect.’
In a funny way, although she had learned nothing about him, Lissa was actually quite happy. It was quite easy, when you were having a difficult time, to think of everyone else’s lives as absolutely perfect and straightforward. This was why coming off Instagram had been, on balance, quite a good idea. So although she felt slightly sorry for Cormac having a grumpy mother – she could empathise: her own mother had had pretty high expectations of her too – she also felt a little comforted.
And so she wrote to Cormac:
She’s fine. Big Army fan.
She is.
There was nothing more. So she typed:
Were you in the Army for long?
Eight years.
That is a long time! Why did you leave?
Why did you leave A&E?
How did you know I was in A&E?
Kim-Ange told me.
That’s very unfair.
You went to my mum’s house!
You asked me to!
This was straying into the realms of a very personal conversation, and Lissa was suddenly worried that she’d gone too far. She was, after all, sitting in his house. It wasn’t really fair; it was just a professional swap.
She changed the subject, anxious not to offend him.
How were the Lindells?
Cormac mentally groaned, although at least he was on safer ground. He did feel uncomfortable, wondering what his mother had told Lissa; what she told everyone else in the village, in fact. She didn’t know what he’d seen, what it was like out there. Neither did Lissa, or Emer. Nobody did.
He wrenched his memory back to his unpleasant afternoon.
It was horrible to see.
I know.
The oddest thing was that Cormac had just been thinking how surprised he had been by the city; how it hadn’t at all been what he was expecting. From the papers, you’d think it was all pollution and crime, but instead he found himself daily impressed by the contrasts. There were the layers of history, from the Roman walls in the City to the modern-day mudlarks down by the Thames with their metal detectors, searching for ancient coins and treasure from the two thousand years’ worth of boats that had travelled up and down the river. And from the shining international glass towers to the beautifully preserved old Georgian buildings – such as those of the neighbourhood he was in then – of weavers and artisans past. Walking there, he had passed an ancient building where they made up coats of arms for the great merchant companies of the cities; then, being characteristically early, he had taken a detour via the extraordinary inns of Chancery, with their fountains and gardens and mysterious shops selling wigs and pens, and signposts to the ‘yeoman’s office’. Cormac had never been academic, but even he was quietly taken aback to walk past the red brick of Middle Temple Hall and read a small plaque modestly mentioning that Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night had first been performed within its walls. He had then passed the famous circular church of the Knights Templars, with its grey stone effigies laid to rest.
It was a completely different world from any he had ever known; he felt there was a surprise, in London, behind every corner; a sense too of the huge weight of history, commerce and grandeur that made it easy – perhaps even necessary – for them to send a bunch of young lads from small towns far, far away from Westminster to fight and die in a distant desert.
And so he was in a thoughtful frame of mind when he reached his next appointment, and what happened next did not alter it.
The house itself was utterly beautiful: down a quiet residential street tucked away, where the great steel towers met the Georgian byways of Shoreditch. It had big, flat-fronted windows, and neat potted plants of lavender and small orange trees by the window and brightly polished panes of ancient glass in freshly painted pale green windowpanes. It was all immaculately restored, and Cormac could only wonder about the amount of money invested in such a project. He’d double-checked the address, but no, it was here, all right.
A stunning woman answered the door; she had tanned skin and blonde hair tumbling over a pretty, long dress. It was a sunny day, and the yellow light pooling into the lane made her appear to glow.
‘You’re from the hospital?’
Cormac showed his badge.
‘Not the social?’
The way she said ‘the social’ sounded odd with her posh accent; it wasn’t, in his experience, the kind of thing women who looked like that and lived in multi-million-pound houses normally said. They normally never met with social services at all.
‘Just the health worker,’ he said, almost adding ‘ma’am’ to it, her tone was so imperious. She sighed.
‘I’m sure you feed back to your spy network,’ she said. Cormac wrinkled his brow and tried to imagine what that might be like.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Is this a bad time?’
She shrugged in bad grace and let him in.
The interior of the house was even more beautiful, architecturally designed, full of light and slick lines. Expensive-looking art books were piled up heavily on the tables; abstract pictures hung on the walls. Cormac eyed them with a newly found interest.
It was a haven. It looked like a magazine shoot. Inside the vast light-filled kitchen, which had been extended back over the glorious garden, were folding doors which today were flung open, meaning the indoors and outdoors mingled, and you could hear birds squawking and bees buzzing – the first time, Cormac realised with a start, that he’d heard these things since he’d left Kirrinfief. A tall, incredibly handsome man wearing tortoiseshell glasses and a perfectly ironed linen shirt was making a green juice in a blender. He turned it off and gave a distant smile to Cormac. The pair of them were so tall and beautiful they could be in an advert, or identical twins.
‘Right,’ said Cormac. ‘So . . . the patient?’
The woman rolled her eyes.
‘She’s fine.’
The woman led him upstairs, past more pictures and bookshelves, expensive lighting and polished wood and the scent of posh candles. They continued to a second-floor bedroom, a beautiful, hand-painted room full of friezes of flowers and fairies dancing, a soft pale carpet on the floor and a huge armchair. The room was stuffed full of books and toys, with a large doll’s house propped underneath the window. It was a dream for a little girl.
Lying there on the bed was a pitiable figure.
Soaked in sweat, bright red in the face, was a little girl of around eight or nine. She was completely covered in red dots. Cormac looked at her, telling himself not to let the horror show in his face. A Filipina woman was sitting by her head, squeezing a rag in iced water and placing it over the child’s forehead.
He moved over.
‘Hello . . . Titania,’ he said, worried he’d pronounced it wrongly. ‘Hello. I’m Cormac. I’m a nurse and I’m here to see how you’re getting on.’
In response, the child burst into tears. Cormac carefully took her temperature, then looked at the mother.
‘Have you been giving her the ibuprofen?’ he said as gently as he could.
‘No!’ said the woman. ‘She’s my child! I think I know what she needs! I’m treating her homoeopathically!’
‘I think that can be very useful,’ said Cormac, who thought nothing of the kind. ‘When given in conjunction with other medicines. When it comes to beating bac
k a fever, ibuprofen can really help.’
‘Well, you would say that,’ hissed the woman. ‘You’re part of Big Pharma.’
Cormac wished that, if he were, Big Pharma would top up his salary once in a while. The woman’s calm, beautiful expression had gone; she now looked tight-faced and pinched.
‘Are you giving her plenty of fluids?’
‘Yes!’ said the woman triumphantly. ‘This is Kona Nigari.’ She held up a fantastically complicated-looking bottle. ‘It’s collected from a Hawaiian spring and is the purest in the world. We get it flown in specially. There’s nothing we wouldn’t do for our precious Titania.’
She smiled beatifically at the child without actually touching her.
Cormac wiped the girl’s forehead with a cloth, propping her up a little.
‘You’re going to be fine,’ he said to the child, who was moaning. ‘It’s just not very nice for a little while. But soon you’ll be able to watch CBeebies again.’
‘Actually, we consider screen rays dangerous for children?’ said the mother in a sharp voice. ‘We don’t believe in them.’
Cormac was reasonably sure he’d seen the husband on his phone downstairs but didn’t mention it. Instead, he made notes on the form, saw that Titania’s temperature was down a little and that she was probably on the mend. But seeing a child suffer for no reason was almost more than he could bear.
And afterwards, he couldn’t help asking (it was his duty, after all), ‘When she’s well, will you consider vaccinating against other diseases?’
‘Well, she can’t get measles again?’ said the mother as if he, Cormac, was being quite the idiot.
‘No,’ said Cormac. ‘But you would maybe want to consider rubella?’
‘But God knows what the government puts in vaccinations!’ she said, almost screaming. ‘Have you ever seen an autistic child?’
Cormac, of course, had seen many.
‘If you think I’d subject my perfect daughter to something the government – the government – thinks is okay, you have another think coming.’
Her face was now bright red and Cormac didn’t think she was anything like as beautiful as he had done when they’d first met.