by Jenny Colgan
And he attached a picture of Islay he had taken for her mother, when they thought it might be the very last time they saw her alive: a blue bag of skeletal bones, connected to every tube in the ICU department; a wraith; a frail whisper of an angel Death had already clapped its scaly wings around.
Comparing the two pictures side by side and reading again Cormac’s heartfelt joy and relief at the sickly girl back from the very foot of the grave, watching Pitch Perfect, eating ginger crunch biscuits, sitting up in her living room, being cheeky, Lissa understood. She stared at the picture for a long time and felt a little spark inside her.
She meant to put the file away. Then she found herself, on impulse, emailing back,
To: [email protected]
* * *
What’s wrong with a lovely boa constrictor?
To her total surprise, after a few moments she got back not an email but a photograph of a drawing, and she smiled.
Is that you?
Did you mean, oh look at you, you poor thing, being strangled by a boa constrictor?
That’s a terrible picture!
I’ll have you know that’s exactly what I look like.
You’re definitely more scary than the snake.
Thanks very much.
And shaking her head at the odd message, and hoping he hadn’t scared James’s pride and joy too much, she went to bed.
Chapter 32
The week continued. Even as they both started to get into the swing of things, Cormac peeled a layer of clothes off every day to stop being so hot, and Lissa added a layer every day to stop being so freezing.
Lissa absolutely didn’t realize people were gossiping furiously about her and thought she was standoffish, because she generally considered not making eye contact the most polite way of dealing with strangers. But she managed to cover the vast majority of her calls—diabetes management, as everywhere; some quite complex psychiatric treatment she’d called the hospital to talk her through step by step—and Joan seemed, if not exactly over the moon with her, particularly when it turned out she had absolutely no opinion on horse racing, not entirely displeased.
At 6:30 P.M. four days later, though, Lissa was back staring at the laptop.
“Before we start, I meant to tell you, turn off your social,” said Anita, who was speaking fast and eating with chopsticks. Lissa watched her hands, fascinated.
“What?” said Lissa. “What’s that got to do with PTSD?”
“What have anxiety-creating engines designed to distract, enervate, and worry you got to do with your mental health?”
Lissa frowned. There was a cough on the other side of the computer screen.
“I know,” said Anita, but not to Lissa. The forlorn cough came again. “Sorry,” said Anita quickly. “I had to keep her home from school.”
“I’m sorry about that,” said Lissa.
“Iz fine,” came a small voice, followed by another racking cough.
“She’s not fine. She just wants to watch Frozen again.”
“Maybe you’ll start telling your clients to build a snowman,” said Lissa, and the two women smiled briefly at each other.
“Have you got the trial date yet?” asked Anita.
“No. It’ll be ages away.”
“It probably won’t,” said Anita. “They fast-track these things, particularly with young lads.”
Lissa sighed.
“So you’re going to have to be ready,” said Anita unnecessarily. “If you can’t stand up and tell your story, there might be a mistrial. The perpetrator might be freed. There might be no justice.”
Lissa’s heart sank again. “Why does that mean I have to give up my social media?”
“Are you on it a lot?”
Lissa glanced at her phone. Kim-Ange appeared to be wearing a bowl of fruit on her head. “That depends how you define a lot.”
“It’s going to really impact your recovery,” said Anita, slurping. The coughing began again.
“How?”
“It’s making you ill. It’s making everyone ill with jealousy and self-doubt, and you are particularly vulnerable and in danger from it.”
Lissa looked at Anita. She had a large splotch of curry sauce on her cheek, but her expression was serious.
“But I’m out here all alone, and then I’ll be even more alone.”
“Good,” said Anita. “Use your inner resources. Stop trying to distract yourself with tiny pictures and other people’s lives. You’re distracting yourself from things you ought to be owning up to.”
Lissa was biting her lip.
“Feel,” said Anita. “You have to feel what you need to feel. Not distract yourself every five seconds. Not be constantly waiting for pings and swipes and likes and enervating yourself. Trust me, Lissa. You are already enervated. You need to get ready to tell this story and you have only four more sessions. Embrace the way you . . . oh.”
“What?” said Lissa, but there was no need. Loud and painful sounds of vomiting were coming off-screen.
“Not . . . not on the files!” Anita screamed as she jumped up.
Lissa waited for quite a while, but Anita did not return. Lissa knew she had six sessions of therapy and six only. That was two down already, and they didn’t quite seem to have gotten started yet. And the news that the trial would be soon, when she had assumed it would be months and months away, was very worrying. She checked Google, and sure enough the mayor’s office was trying to clamp down on youth crime in London by fast-tracking everything through the courts.
She sighed. That was very bad news indeed.
BUT LISSA DID that one thing. She muted her Facebook and Instagram accounts—leaving cheery messages to stop anyone from worrying about her—and removed herself from the conversation. She thought she would be lonely and miserable. In fact, instead—and with the occasional WhatsApp check-in from her good friends—she found it oddly freeing.
She didn’t really notice, but she started talking more to the locals, simply because she had no choice. Deirdre in the bakery; Mrs. Murray in the general store. And every day she’d swapped patient notes with Cormac, mostly brisk, but sometimes funny or odd. Irritatingly, he’d normally heard about anything that happened to her, including getting the car stuck up the dyke road, because apparently everybody knew you didn’t drive up the dyke road after a heavy rainstorm, but nobody had thought to mention it to her and it had taken half of Lennox’s lads to pull her out again. He’d also caught her up with how Mrs. Marks had switched to Turkish delight, believing it to be okay.
Seriously? Lissa had written back. Did you confiscate it like I told you?
Yes!
What did you do with it?
Nothing!
And then in the next email:
I am amazed, typed Lissa, that you had to become an NPL instead of a professional artist.
Me too, typed Cormac. An endless and disappointing loss to the art world.
What do people do on the weekend round here? typed Lissa. Have you got anything to do?
In fact, he did. There were people from Kirrinfief in London—not many, and it was his mother’s idea, which rarely boded well, as she didn’t speak to him that much. But on the other hand it was either that or literally nothing at all, sitting in one small room breathing bad air, so he’d said yes.
That’s very unfair, said Lissa. You have a ready-made social life in the greatest city in the world.
So do you. Just go down to the pub.
And make friends with wee Eck?
Well, that sounds like you already have.
Lissa signed off, and Cormac made a mental note that as put off as Jake had been before, it might be worth another shot. Meanwhile, he had the ordeal of a big London night to prepare for. He popped another piece of Turkish delight into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully.
Chapter 33
The night out wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been for Cormac’s mum, who did the Rotary club with Larissa’s aunt—altho
ugh Cormac’s mum just helped out, and Larissa’s aunt, the very posh Tabitha, was the local grandee in charge, who handed out the prizes at the local pet show and chaired the ball committee. Bridie hadn’t forgiven her youngest son for ducking out of the army and taking a local job, but she wasn’t going to tell Tabitha this; in fact, she made quite the point of him going to London and hobnobbing with the hoi polloi, and wasn’t Tabitha’s niece there, and perhaps she could show him around, and Tabitha, who was a decent sort underneath it all and terrified of appearing a snob just because her brother was the Duke of Argyll, agreed and passed on Larissa’s details.
And, in fact, she’d caught her niece at just the right moment. Larissa was in an absolutely furious mood after being rejected the previous year by the local laird, Ramsay Urquart, who had, in fact, headed off with some guttersnipe nanny who’d inveigled her way sneakily into his pathetic affections—“Such a cliché,” she’d moaned to her friends, who’d all agreed with her strongly and said he couldn’t handle a strong woman with her own mind, and poured more fizz, and complained yet again about how shit all the men were these days, which was comforting.
She hadn’t seen a picture of Cormac—he wasn’t on Tinder, not that she’d been looking at it or swiping, and anyway Tinder was for absolute losers; it was kind of ridiculous, but they wouldn’t let her on Raya, which was a disgrace, all her friends agreed, which was also comforting. Tabitha said he had looked after her knee when she’d gotten it replaced and was quite the hottie, but Tabitha still thought Peter Bowles was the height of hotness, whoever he was, so she wasn’t going to take Tabitha’s word for it.
And it rather appealed to her to see someone from Kirrinfief. Let that get back to Ramsay, let him see how much she absolutely did not care and was not a snob or only after him for his title—as if. Who wanted that stupid crumbling house of his when here she was dating a nurse or something? So. Pleasing her aunt, of whom she was fond, and annoying her ex, and bringing a (hopefully) hot new man into her circle, and initiating some Scottish rube into what proper London sophistication actually looked like sounded entirely up her street, so she booked a table at her swanky London club and got lots of her girlfriends on board and got the fizz in and was in general in excellent spirits.
BY THE TIME Friday night came around, Cormac was absolutely exhausted from the driving, from the myriad different cases he now had—he’d never treated sickle cell disease in his life before, for example, and was studying up as fast as he could. He went for a pair of twill trousers he had bought by mistake online once, and never worn out in the village because everyone would laugh at them (they were a little tight, particularly down on the ankles), and a green-gray shirt Emer had bought him that she said exactly matched his eyes, which made him feel like a bit of a prick when he wore it, in case anyone thought that he had bought it for himself because it matched his eyes and because he thought he was terribly good-looking.
Kim-Ange found him ironing in the laundry room. She narrowed her eyes. “Where are you going?”
“I don’t know. Some house?”
“Somebody’s house?”
“No,” said Cormac, wrinkling his face. “It’s called a house but it’s not a house. But I don’t know what it is. I have to give my name at the door.”
“Soho House?”
“No. But like that.”
“Stockton House?”
“Yes!”
“Oh my God!” said Kim-Ange. “That’s, like, a totally cool private members club. You can’t just walk in there.”
“Why not?” said Cormac. “Is everything free?”
Kim-Ange snorted. “No! Very expensive.”
“So why?”
“Exclusive, darling. For the glamorous people!”
They both looked down at the shirt he was ironing.
“No,” said Kim-Ange. “You want to stand out.”
“I really, really don’t,” said Cormac.
“This is London, not Buttington McFuckington! You’re not going to a sheepdog-shagger trial!”
Cormac gave her a look. “You’re being quite rude.”
“Come with me,” she ordered.
KIM-ANGE’S ROOM WAS as different from Alyssa’s as could be, despite being the identical size and shape. Somehow she’d squeezed a double mattress in there, which took over the entire corner of the room next to the window. Purple-and-red cloth with tiny mirrors was draped over the walls and the ceiling, and there were large red-shaded lamps that gave the room a pink glow (“More flattering,” said Kim-Ange). Purple cushions were scattered everywhere, and scented candles cluttered up the surfaces, their scent lingering even though they weren’t lit. Fairy lights lined the old, faded curtain rails.
“Welcome to my boudoir!” said Kim-Ange, and Cormac had to admit, it was undeniably a boudoir.
“Now,” said Kim-Ange. She disappeared into the cupboard, rummaging among tightly stacked boxes, as Cormac looked at a collection of fabulously high-heeled shoes.
Eventually, Kim-Ange brought out an old cardboard box. She smiled at it ruefully.
“Sentimental reasons,” she said.
She opened up the box. It was full of carefully saved and beautifully folded men’s clothes wrapped in tissue. Designer labels, high-end stuff, all of it. Some of it was garish—bright colors and the occasional rhinestone. Plenty of it was just perfectly normal, but beautifully cut and made.
Cormac blinked as she pulled out a snow-white shirt made of a heavy, billowing material, then shook her head and expertly folded it up again.
“Was this . . . was this yours?” he asked tentatively. Kim-Ange looked at him to check he wasn’t being facetious, but he was clearly just interested.
“Yeah,” she said. “It’s like keeping an old photo album.”
She grabbed an exquisite black cashmere jumper.
“Oof,” she said. “Dries van Noten. I bought it in Antwerp.” She smiled to herself. “What a weekend that was.”
She offered it to him.
“It would fit you,” she said. “He cuts Dutch.”
Cormac didn’t know what that meant, but there was no denying it was an exquisitely beautiful piece of clothing, even to him, and he had stopped letting his mum buy his M&S undies only when he joined the army.
“Wow,” he said.
“Have it,” said Kim-Ange. “Seriously. It’s no use to me.”
She was wearing a lemon-yellow half scarf, half top, with a pink waistcoat fringed in fake fur over the top of it. Her hair was festooned with pink barrettes.
“I’ll . . . I’ll bring it straight back.”
Kim-Ange waved her hand as Cormac pulled it over his head. It fitted in a way most people would have said was perfect, but Cormac found extremely tight.
“Oh yes,” said Kim-Ange. “Have you got a white T-shirt? Brand new, nothing faded or grungy in the wash.”
He had a pack of three undershirts, in fact, and Kim-Ange announced that as absolutely fine. The trousers were still a horror story, but there wasn’t much to be done about that, and his black desert boots were passable, if disappointing.
She sent him off for a shower and shave and demanded to see him at the end.
“I’m just going to do your eyebrows,” she said. “Sit down.”
“You’re going to do my what?!”
“Just remove the spare hairs. Tidy you up, nothing dramatic.”
“My eyebrows? What’s wrong with my eyebrows?”
“You just have to be . . . a little groomed, that’s all.”
Kim-Ange’s eyebrows looked like they’d been painted on with Dulux. She caught him staring at hers.
“No, I promise. Just a quick shaping. Let me!”
She didn’t say “let me” in a way that sounded like a choice, and he allowed himself to sit down in her dressing room chair.
It hurt like absolute buggery, and it was all he could do to stop himself from swearing aloud. She smiled at this.
“Oh, so much for the big tough farm boy!”
“Ow!” And then an indignant scream. “What the hell are you doing?!”
“If you don’t want that to hurt, don’t let hair grow out of your nose” was Kim-Ange’s pert response. She took out a pair of scissors and trimmed Cormac’s eyebrows slightly straighter and neater across the top.
“There you are,” she said. “Isn’t that better?”
And as Cormac looked at himself in the mirror, in his expensive jumper, with his fresh shave and tidy, new-look eyebrows, he had to admit that, well, it was different, and Jake would laugh at him—but it certainly wasn’t worse, and the jumper did set off the tinge of green in his eyes and his curly brown hair.
“Thank you,” he said.
“That’s all right,” she said, then added with a slight twinge of regret, “And if you meet any of those pretty-boy actors . . . do bring one home for me.”
LARISSA GOT SLIGHTLY more nervous about the situation as she waited for Cormac to turn up. What if he was an absolute lout who poured crisps in his mouth straight from the packet and was monosyllabic and a drunk? Perhaps she could write it off as a joke. Maybe she would tell her friends Coco and Zafs that it was something she was doing as a favor for the old Scottish side of the family and he was some kind of village idiot, so they’d forgive her if it all went tits up. But they saw Scottish as something slightly quaint and even exotic, so they’d forgive him if he sounded like a country bumpkin cousin and was completely incomprehensible.
In fact, the large, open-faced man with curly brown hair and a few freckles on his cheeks she found lingering rather awkwardly in the lobby after he’d been buzzed up was a pleasant surprise. She didn’t recognize him at all—you saw most people around, at harvest services in the old church or at the village fete, where her aunt was usually judging the pet show or drawing the raffle. But thank God he didn’t look too bad, just a plain black top. She’d worried temporarily that he might turn up in a checked shirt and fleece, a pretty common uniform in the Highlands, or, heaven forbid, sportswear. If it had been sportswear, she thought, she would probably just have turned around and texted him that she couldn’t make it and pretended not to be there; he didn’t know what she looked like either.