by Jenny Colgan
Yazzie was chatting about someone she’d seen on her ward rounds and he listened cheerfully enough, but distractedly, as they dodged and wove around the hundreds of other people on the narrow bridge that cut its way up to Charing Cross station, next to thundering trains on the track beside them, above grey water filled with pleasure boats and dredgers, those odd flat structures covered in cement, and an RNLI station. The clouds seemed to seal the heat in to the ground. Cormac accidentally bumped into one group of tourists, fell back and jostled a large man who looked furious with him and swore under his breath.
His new-found fondness for the big city was muted tonight. He was thinking about how the fair was always such a fun time. He’d normally go a couple of times. Jake would get in with the St John Ambulance ladies who got free passes to everything but never wanted to use them – it was obviously a scam; they should have gone to a much more deserving cause, but Jake had the gift of the gab and that was that.
He hoped Jake would be nice to Lissa. It would be cool there tonight. Bright as well; you wouldn’t get a whiff of sunset till well after ten p.m. There’d be a breeze probably; the right kind of evening for just a shirt and a jumper and being totally comfortable wherever you were, with a freshness and the sweet smell of the last of the bluebells on the air, as well as the gorse, warmed by the sun through the day . . . he could almost feel it. And smell the candyfloss . . . when you couldn’t be happier . . .
‘So, anyway, we drained about a litre of bile from his abdomen,’ Yazzie was saying. Cormac blinked.
‘Is that right?’ he said.
She looked worried.
‘Sorry, is that gross? Before dinner?’
‘Naw, naw, not at all,’ said Cormac.
In fact, it wasn’t before dinner at all. Lissa had been right they’d have to queue. What she hadn’t been correct about was it certainly wasn’t an hour. It was at least ninety minutes.
Something happened in the queue. Looking around, Cormac could see most people on their phones; some had been left to hold places while their presumably more popular mates whooped it up in a local bar somewhere. There were couples tight in conversation, as if they were as happy to be in a queue together as they would be anywhere else, and groups of friends were doing that noisy slightly nervous loud thing groups do at the beginning of a night out, before they’ve all managed to have a drink and settle down, were whooping at each other and shouting performatively and welcoming more and more members to their group until Cormac started to doubt whether he and Yazzie were ever going to make it at all.
‘What do they sell here?’ he said, realising that actually both of them just loitering on the pavement were finding the conversation a little slow and stilted; that, even before they knew each other, they kind of looked like one of those couples with absolutely nothing to say to one another, once she’d told him about that drained cyst.
‘Buns,’ said Yazzie, pointing to the menu in the window.
‘Buns?’ Cormac screwed up his face. He didn’t want a bun; he was starving.
‘Bao,’ said Yazzie. ‘They’re like Korean street food. They’re filled with meat and stuff.’
‘Meat buns,’ said Cormac. They had already been there for forty-five minutes. His shirt was sticking to his back and his neck felt grimy simply from standing on a narrow pavement with cabs and trucks squeezing past him every second.
‘Apparently they’re amazing,’ said Yazzie sullenly, because she had bought a new orange dress for this and told all her mates about how she’d managed to pull that hot Scottish NPL they all liked, and now she was standing on a pavement with a guy who looked like he’d rather be on the moon than here.
If it was warm in Kirrinfief, there was a little hidden bay down by the loch where you couldn’t drive, only walk, and they would light a fire there and as long as you took all your rubbish away, the polis (Duncan from Hart’s Farm; they’d all been to school together) would turn a blind eye to it, and they’d light the bonfire and drink cider and watch the sky barely darken as the hour neared midnight, and they could play their music as loud as they wanted as nobody was anywhere near to hear them, not for miles, and they watched the stars pop out, one by one, never too bright, for the night wasn’t long enough for them to shine; the north of the planet had tilted too far on its axis.
Stars were for a different season, and this was the season of light. Someone would sometimes bring a guitar and everyone else would groan and throw stones and call them a James Blunt fud, but even so, if the gentle chords of ‘Caledonia’ or ‘Sunshine on Leith’ started up, well, it wouldn’t really be possible not to sing along to that, would it, as the moon reflected on the calm waters of the loch and its endless rippling glory, with the dark shapes of the mountains on the other side, and as soon as the sun was sunk, it felt as if the lightest rays of the dawn were just appearing once more.
They had been such happy nights. Cormac found himself wondering if that’s where Jake would take Lissa, and whether she’d like it. Just a bonfire, some cider, a bit of music, some hamburgers and marshmallows. Nothing fancy. Occasionally a soft toy someone had won at the fair which would get to sit on a proper throne made of sticks, after the year Gordon Lowrie had thrown one in the fire as a guy and the nylon had sparked and melted horribly and the plastic eyes had dropped down the edge of the pink bear and all the girls had screamed and got upset with them. After that, stuffed animals had pride of place.
He smiled to himself. Yazzie cleared her throat crossly.
‘Ach. Where were we?’ he said, looking up. The queue hadn’t moved at all.
‘Meat buns,’ she said.
Chapter Fourteen
Meanwhile, three miles across town, two people had amazingly found a very quiet space.
Piotr had arrived in London with absolutely no money whatsoever; nothing more than the bus fare to Victoria station. He had spent the first six months, when he couldn’t afford even to eke out a beer at the Polish Centre, walking for miles round and round the huge, terrifying, expensive city, along unfamiliar pavements with foreign signs and extraordinary monuments and strange things. So he was taking Kim-Ange to somewhere he really liked because you could only be a tourist for so long before you started getting deeper and deeper into what was around you, and one of his endless Sunday drizzly walks had taken him to this enchanted spot. Piotr thought she might like it, and he was right, she did.
Buried deep in Holland Gardens, well off the main thoroughfares and hard to find unless you already knew it was there, was the Kyoto Garden, its colours burnished and bright in the West London evening, full of exotic plants and knotted trees and streams with little bridges. There was nobody there but a pair of cranes nested at the water’s edge, just below the waterfall. It was breathtakingly lovely.
Piotr opened the rucksack he had been clunking all the way from the tube station, and pulled out one large bottle of brown beer, one smaller one of vodka, a large bag of dumplings one of his substitute aunties at the Polish Centre had rustled up for him, a box of sushi just in case and a large bar of Dairy Milk. Kim-Ange grinned widely and grabbed the vodka and the chocolate.
‘Normally,’ she said, looking around at the tranquil site, the water trickling down through the curves of the beautifully made little streams with wooden bridges, smooth rocks and carp, ‘I hate picnics. But I might make an exception for you.’
And some time later, Piotr was sitting giving bits of dumpling to the fish until Kim-Ange made him stop and they found their two hands together, and their heads even closer and suddenly, as the fish bubbled in the water and the waterfall tinkled overhead and there was a faint rustling of perfectly manicured fronds, but nobody else at all, they kissed and even if there was a whole London, a whole seven million people around them, they were not aware of another soul.
Strolling back to the tube station, giggly, tripping over their feet, clutching hands, Kim-Ange whispered something into his ear. Piotr shook his head.
‘To me, you are only yourself,’ he
said stoutly, for his diminutive figure, narrow hips and small height belied a man with the heart of a lion.
‘Only yourself.’
Chapter Fifteen
Lissa supposed people liked fairground rides for the same reason they liked scary films: the freedom of knowing that you felt a little scared but you were actually incredibly safe.
But these rides – these were more than watching a horrible film. It was stupid, and she felt she was making up for being a kid, but it was the wind in her hair and, in fact, the view you got, even when the ride only paused for a little bit at the very top, that was like a double-edged sword while everybody else was screaming their heads off with delight or horror.
She, by contrast, wanted to try and hold the sight in her head; it was the best view she had had of the absolute vastness of the loch. It seemed to go on for ever, and even though the day was still bright, the centre of it was pitch-dark. No wonder, she thought, they believed there was a monster in there. It was magical. She almost forgot to scream as they plummeted like a stone until it looked like they would hit the ground – just in time they brushed past it and were on the rise again and the view rose up like a magnificent carpet, and she could see further and further as she turned her head: the rolling roofs of the little cobbled village, undulating over the fell; the neat layout of the fields stretching ahead; the long line of the railway with a dark red train hurtling down its tracks; the great body of water. She felt like she could touch the clouds. She wanted to stay up there for ever.
Jake thought he’d have to put his arm round her – it was, he was finding, a very intense ride indeed, particularly when you’d just eaten three egg rolls and four Penguins, as pressed upon him by the good ladies of the St John Ambulance. He felt distinctly queasy and wished the damn thing would stop. He shut his eyes to make it pass.
Lissa, meanwhile, wasn’t in the least bit nervous and couldn’t have enjoyed it more. The ride had made her feel as high as the mountain tops and as close to the birds that circled in the updraughts. She sighed with something perilously close to happiness.
‘That was amazing,’ she said, when they finally got unclipped and rejoined the music and flashing lights and commotion of the fair at ground level. ‘I’d be happy just to be up there all the time!’
Jake couldn’t answer; he was very busy simply trying not to throw up as he wiped the sweat off his brow.
‘Are you okay?’ said Lissa. He nodded, wishing he could sit down.
‘Do you need . . .?’ Lissa smiled. ‘Do we need to go back to the St John’s tent?’
The thought of more egg rolls was simply too much for Jake. He held up a finger and charged off into the woods.
Lissa, surprised, laughed softly to herself. Then she glanced at her phone out of habit rather than thinking anyone would be in touch. She wasn’t missing Instagram and Facebook, not much. But she would have liked to have posted the view. It was quite something.
There was nothing for her, of course, except a little dot on her WhatsApp. She opened it. It was a picture of three white spherical things, hard to make out.
‘Meat buns,’ she read. ‘Ninety-minute wait. Excellent!’
She put her phone back, smiling. Well. Someone was having a good date, she supposed.
Cormac couldn’t help it. He was distracted, and that wasn’t fair. Ironically, of course, it was Jake who had told him all along: don’t be distracted; stop just falling into things; think about the person you’re with.
He looked up at Yazzie, who smiled back at him nervously, aware this wasn’t going very well. She’d started on a long story about the worst wound she’d ever seen which, on balance, she really wished she hadn’t, especially as she had to shout above the insane noise levels in the bar. They were crammed into a tiny corner space. At least, she thought, the food was delicious – and it truly was. Cormac had never tasted anything like it; every herb and flavour was superbly delineated, tasting fresh and light, so that was something.
‘This is amazing,’ he said. Then he found his thoughts, once again, straying north and wondering if the hot dog stall was there and if Lissa was enjoying herself. He resisted the urge to check his phone; this was awful. He was behaving like some kind of bounder.
‘So, wounds, huh?’ he found himself saying as Yazzie picked unhappily at the wonderful food.
‘Did you always want to be a nurse?’ she asked him.
Cormac half smiled to himself.
‘Ach, not quite,’ he said. ‘Everyone in my family joined the Army. So I joined up too. Became a medic.’
‘Ooh,’ said Yazzie. ‘That’s interesting.’
Cormac shrugged.
‘A bit too interesting at times,’ he said.
‘Did you get shot at?’
Cormac blinked. This was ridiculous. He found suddenly that he almost answered the question, and then reined it back. But why . . . why? Why did he suddenly feel almost ready to tell someone . . . but then had held back?
It was the newness, he decided. Everything being new. He could see for the first time the benefits of the big city; shaking off who you were, where you were from and what you came with – the baggage. That you were free to start over, to ditch everything. To feel lighter. He shrugged. The people in the queue were doing exactly as they had done – staring ferociously at those who had already managed to sit and get fed – he felt the weight of their hungry eyes on him.
‘Nah, it was fine,’ he said briefly. ‘Shall we head?’
That was the problem with the food: it had come served in little wicker baskets, each perfect boxes of steaming heaven, but they had come quickly, and they’d eaten them even faster, and now the waitress was eyeing them up and making it very clear that if they were sitting and not actually stuffing their faces, they were costing her money, and would they mind terribly moving straightaway?
Cormac paid the eye-watering bill and they hadn’t even got up from their seats before the next couple of hipsters were on top of them, photographing and uploading selfies to Instagram before they’d even sat down.
It was still light when they hit the noisy streets.
‘We could go somewhere else?’ said Yazzie, but neither of them knew where to go, and all the bars and pubs were stuffed to the gills, spilling their clients out onto the pavement. A warm Saturday evening in central London was not in any way conducive to quiet chatting. Even if he could think of anything he wanted to say to her.
In the end, they gave up and walked home in silence, Yazzie growing increasingly irritated and very ready to go back and complain to all her friends about how that Scottish boy might be hot, but oh my God, he was the most boring man in the universe and a total waste of time.
She wouldn’t sleep with him again, she vowed to herself. This was going nowhere, and she wanted a boyfriend, not someone who lived on the next floor with benefits.
On the other hand, the sleeping with bit had been pretty good. Better than pretty good.
No. Definitely not.
‘Um, I’m not sure where . . .’ said Cormac, looking at a street spilling over with young Londoners on a night out.
‘Actually,’ said Yazzie. ‘I’m working tomorrow; I’d better get an early night.’
It was irritatingly insulting how quickly he agreed with her.
Chapter Sixteen
Jake came out of the bushes looking slightly greenish, but more or less recovered.
‘Gum?’ he offered, but Lissa smiled and politely refused. They walked on in silence. Lissa wanted another shot on the rides, but she felt under the circumstances it wouldn’t be very tactful.
Instead, Jake insisted on going to a ridiculous shooting arcade and attempting to hit enough travelling ducks with a toy rifle to win her a huge tiger, despite her protesting she really didn’t want a huge tiger and probably wouldn’t have anywhere to put it. They couldn’t agree on that, and hitting the ducks also proved – particularly if you were feeling a little wobbly to begin with – rather more difficult than Jake ha
d anticipated, and he kept missing. Unfortunately, once he’d started, he was not the type of man who, like Cormac, would simply have raised his hands and laughed about it. Instead, he gave the carnie more and more money while Lissa stood at the side, faintly embarrassed, and Jake’s ears got redder and redder and the anger made him even shakier on the trigger and the entire thing went from fun to awkward rather quickly, particularly when small groups of boys appeared from nowhere to laugh at him.
‘Aye, gies it another one, mister! You’re a really good protector of ducks, aye!’ shouted one.
‘Aye, he’s one of those environmentalists,’ said another. ‘Protecting species everywhere.’
Jake cursed at them and looked ready to lose his cool altogether until at last, after paying out far more than the cheap nylon toy could possibly have cost in the first place, he retrieved the white tiger and handed it over, looking bashful.
‘Well,’ said Lissa, trying not to smile too much in case it looked like she were laughing at him. ‘Thank you, I suppose.’
‘So listen,’ said Jake, stuttering slightly. ‘There’s a wee barbecue happening down by the loch – you fancy it? There’s a nice bonfire and that . . . um . . . music, I think . . .’
Just then, Ginty and her friends appeared out of nowhere. Lissa still had absolutely no idea who she was. She was looking really impressive, that much was clearly true, in a pair of skin-tight black leggings, enormous wedge heels, a cropped off-the-shoulder pink top that showed off her nice round belly and vast bosoms, and more hair than Lissa had ever seen on a human person. It tumbled down her back in great blonde waves, all the way to her bottom. There seemed to be no end to it; it looked like at least four people’s hair. Along with the breasts (natural) and lips (much less so), in the normally dressed-down life of the village and the beginning chill of even the sunniest of Highland evenings, she stood out like a rare orchid. It wasn’t a look Lissa could have ever worn herself, but she couldn’t help but be impressed at the commitment it took. Ginty’s huge pneumatic lips were polished to a high sheen; her eyebrows were perfectly shaded brown geometric shapes that looked carved into her forehead; her hair was absolutely everywhere.