by Jenny Colgan
It was a completely different world from any he had ever known; he felt there was a surprise behind every corner in London, a sense too of the huge weight of history, commerce, and grandeur that made it easy—perhaps even necessary—for Westminster to send a bunch of young lads from small towns far, far away to fight and die in a distant desert.
He was in a thoughtful frame of mind when he reached his next appointment, and what happened next did not change it.
The house, some distance away, was located down a quiet residential street, tucked away just across from the river, where the great steel towers met the Georgian byways of Shoreditch. It had big, flat-fronted windows, with brightly polished panes of ancient glass in freshly painted pale green frames, and neat potted plants of lavender and small orange trees. It was a beautiful house, 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.
An incredibly beautiful woman answered the door: tanned skin, blond hair tumbling over a pretty, flowing 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 multimillion-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.
INSIDE 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, which Cormac eyed 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 that today were flung open, meaning the indoors and outdoors mingled, and you could hear birds squawking and bees buzzing—the first time, Cormac realized with a start, that he’d heard these things since he’d gotten to London. 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 the same distant smile to Cormac. The pair of them were so tall and beautiful they could be in an advertisement, 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 books, set off with expensive lighting and polished wood shelves and the scent of posh candles. She took him into a second-floor bedroom, a beautiful, hand-painted room full of friezes of flowers and fairies dancing, with a soft pale carpet on the floor and a huge armchair, stuffed full of books and toys, including a large dollhouse propped underneath the window. It was a dream of a room 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 Filipino woman was sitting by her head with a rag she periodically soaked in iced water, wringing it and placing it over the child’s forehead.
He moved over.
“Hello . . . Titania,” he said, worried he’d pronounced it wrong. “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 gently 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 homeopathically!”
“I think that can be very useful,” said Cormac, who thought nothing of the kind, “when given in conjunction with other medicines. And when it comes to beating back a fever, ibuprofen can really help.”
“Well, you would say that,” hissed the woman. “You’re part of Big Pharma.”
Cormac wished that he were and 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 water 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, but made no move to actually comfort 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 moaning child. “It’s just not very nice for a little while. But soon you’ll be able to watch Hey Duggee again.”
“Actually we believe screen rays are 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 her 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 afterward,” he couldn’t help asking—it was his duty—“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, were 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 when they’d first met.
“It can protect other people who can’t be vaccinated,” he said gently.
The woman stared at him. “You’ve been totally brainwashed,” she said quietly.
The child moaned on the bed.
Cormac held up his hands. “I think Titania needs rest. She’s going to be fine.”
“Of course she is!” said the woman. “She’s being treated. Naturally! By me!”
And the great city had looked a little meaner to Cormac as he’d headed back home.
For no stupid reason! Because of some stupid woman who thinks she knows better than hundreds of years of medical science!!!! Stupid spoiled spoiled spoiled cow.
Then ten seconds later he realized.
Shit! This is our official NHS account!!!!
I know!!!!!!!
Shit! Can you delete that? Please? Quickly?!
It’s NHS IT. They can’t tell the arse codes from their elbow codes!
I know. But!!!
I know.
And that was how they moved on to text messaging and swapped telephone numbers.
Chapter 43
Jake finally plucked up the courage—much to the disappointment and the rather unkind remarks, if we’re being honest, of Ginty MacGuire in the hairdresser’s, who also might have mentioned in passing that if that new nurse thought that she, Ginty MacGuire, was going to do her hair for the big night, she had another think coming—to ask Lissa to the farmers’ dance that took place before
the fair arrived.
It was a big affair around their neck of the woods, and with the typical Highlands imbalance of men to women, it wasn’t like Ginty MacGuire hadn’t already been asked four or five times by shy, sturdy red-cheeked young men; but that didn’t matter. She wasn’t the least bit interested in them and very interested in the dark-eyed Jake Inglis and the excellent time they’d had last summer, but he seemed to have time for no one these days but that exotic-looking incomer, which was men for you.
In general her clientele agreed with her (it is wise, incidentally, if you live in a very small village, not to get on the wrong side of its only hairdresser). Lissa, to them, still seemed a little strange and standoffish, always looking as if she was in a hurry to get places, dashing here and there. That was English folk for you. And now (once Jake had, while slightly drunk in Eck’s, revealed his intentions to ask her to the dance) here she was, waltzing off with the most eligible man in the village, now that Cormac MacPherson was down south too. Talk about having your cake and eating it.
Then Jake had asked Cormac for her number, and Cormac had found himself slightly awkward about passing it on.
Jake asked me for your number, he sent, which was better on the text as they’d just been exchanging notes on anal polyp medication and he wasn’t sure they weren’t together.
I know, said Lissa.
I was going to ask you if it was okay to give it to him.
Of course.
Of course? thought Cormac.
Mrs. Murray and some very angry hairdresser told me he was going to ask me out. The hairdresser is quite scary.
She is. Are you going to go?
Cormac loved the farmers’ dance. He thought back ruefully to the previous year, when he’d drunk a load of cider and let Emer do what she’d been pretty clear she wanted to do for some months, given how often she happened to be walking past the cottage in full makeup. He wasn’t God’s gift, Cormac would be the first to admit, but when girls liked him, they really liked him.
I don’t know. Should I?
You should. It’s at Lennox’s farm, they always put a good spread on. And what else are you doing for fun?
Is this the bit where you show off about going to that private members club again?
In fact, Larissa had texted him, but Cormac had pretended he hadn’t seen it. It wasn’t really his scene. He didn’t tell Lissa that, though.
Well, maybe you should up your game then.
What game?
The “Who’s Having the Best Secondment” game.
That’s not a game!
That’s exactly what someone losing a game would say.
Lissa looked at the screen, slightly annoyed and amused. A tiny bit of her was, she thought, possibly—just a tiny bit, not really—hoping he might be jealous.
Piss off! And that looks NOTHING LIKE ME!!
I’m relieved to hear that.
And what’s the music going to be like? All fiddle-de-dee twiddly-dee “I would walk 500 miles” stuff?
Cormac didn’t answer and Lissa wondered if she’d offended him.
She absolutely had.
AFTER HE DIDN’T reply, she glanced around the room and noticed something she hadn’t noticed before: a small stereo system, exactly the kind of thing that a well-meaning but otherwise utterly clueless auntie would buy you for your fourteenth birthday. She had the exact same make and model, but it was in the attic at her mum’s house. Next to Cormac’s, however, was a line of CDs. Nothing as cool as vinyl, she thought, picturing her London hipster mates with their vintage record players and independent record shop habit. Who still bought CDs? She leafed through them. Runrig, Orange Juice, Deacon Blue, Biffy Clyro, Del Amitri, Belle & Sebastian. Then she pulled out one with a picture of two identical men wearing glasses and playing the guitar. Ah, she thought.
Can I play some of your music? she typed, trying to placate him.
It’s a bit “twiddly-dee” for you, came back.
She had offended him! Oh no! Boys and their music. She would hardly be offended if he didn’t like hers, e.g., her mum’s calypso music (this was a total lie; she would have been completely offended).
Maybe I’ll give it a shot, she said.
Don’t put yourself out, came back.
Lissa smiled. For a moment she found herself thinking maybe she could tease him later when she saw him . . . And then she remembered that he was in London and she was here and this was a professional work placement, and she rolled her eyes and went to look at her very limited wardrobe and do her best.
JAKE WAS INCREDIBLY pleased Lissa was coming out with him, even if it did mean bad haircuts for the rest of his life. And Cormac was good enough, listening to Jake’s boasting, not to mention that he had had a little something to do with it. And he didn’t tell Jake, or even himself, how much, in fact, he maybe would have liked to have been there too.
Tentatively, Lissa texted Zoe. It was really awkward, trying to make a new friend. She felt like she was fourteen and asking out a boy, and more or less expected not to hear from her. Instead Zoe immediately texted her back and said why didn’t she come and get dressed up at the house. Ramsay could drive them there, seeing as he wasn’t going, for the male-female ratio was already hopelessly skewed, which meant he wouldn’t get five minutes with his girlfriend without her being asked to dance all the time. Plus, he had a deep and abiding horror of having to stand around in front of everyone from the village, who would undoubtedly have much to gossip either to or about him.
Also, he had to bend over so hard to hear anyone it gave him a sore back, and the only person he liked to dance with was Zoe, because she was so little he could pick her up and stick her legs around his waist, then carry her straight home, something that he assumed would be rather frowned upon by other people.
Chapter 44
“Where is your happy face?!” demanded Kim-Ange loudly as she ran into Cormac that evening in the old battered lift.
“Ach,” said Cormac. “It’s the village dance coming up. Was just thinking about it.”
“Ha, God, I can’t imagine Lissa going to something like that.”
“She is going!” said Cormac. “I made her!”
“Seriously? LISSA?”
“Yes.”
“At a village dance?!” Kim-Ange burst out into a peal of loud laughter.
“It’s not that weird,” said Cormac.
Kim-Ange shook her head. “I know. It’s just . . . until she’s had a few, Lissa’s not much of a dancer. She’s far too shy.”
Cormac blinked at this. It hadn’t occurred to him that Lissa might be shy. She didn’t seem shy to him. Of course, they’d never been face-to-face.
They made their way through the dingy common room. Kim-Ange looked around it.
“Well,” she said, “why don’t we have a village dance?”
Cormac gave her some side-eye.
“We could have it here! They let people use it if you book it. Get some music, you can teach people to dance. Sell tickets. They can set up a bar.”
“Who’d come to a ceilidh in a nurses’ home?”
“Every drunk Scotsman in London! And there are a lot of them.”
Cormac thought about it. “I suppose I could design a poster.”
“Give me some,” said Kim-Ange. “I’ll take them up to the hospital.”
THE RESPONSE WAS absolutely extraordinary and immediate, partly because on the whole when Kim-Ange suggested you do something, it was normally easier just to do it. They sold out all their tickets, and Cormac had enough money to hire a small ceilidh band with a caller to tell people what to do and to stock the small bar with additional Tunnock’s tea cakes and caramel wafers.
Kim-Ange took over the decor and, amazingly, with a few meters of tartan cloth and ribbon and a vast amount of Ikea twinkle lights, transformed the scuffed hall and battered old tables into something rather magical. From seven P.M., hordes began pouring in. Cormac had absolutely no idea there were so many Scots in
London. Although most of them were from Glasgow and Edinburgh, he still found it comforting to be surrounded by familiar voices, red hair, freckles, loud laughter, and the sound of people calling each other “tubes” and “bawbags.”
But there were also all the nurses who lived there, who came from everywhere—all over the world. One after another they came up to him, giggling and pleased, often telling him what their local dances were like.
The band set up in the corner, and the caller was absolutely excellent, marshaled her forces extremely effectively, which meant that the Scots who had been taught the dances at school and knew them back to front and the girls from the halls could partner up extremely well. The lights flashed as Nethmi, from Sri Lanka, bounded around the eightsome reel, her small hands in the great meaty paws of Tam Lickwood, one of the hospital porters, a proud Govan man. There were consultant surgeons from the hospital (thin, austere men who’d learned their trade in the chill sea winds of Aberdeen and St. Andrews); a young radiographer from Elgin, who’d brought his entire team; a clique of Glaswegian nurses who’d trained and moved to London together, who gathered and fussed around Cormac like he was a new puppy (something, he felt very strongly, that must be of enormous comfort to their patients); a girl called Yazzie, whom he’d noticed in the halls and who now seemed clamped to his side whenever he needed a partner.
Kim-Ange wore a yellow Buchanan tartan dress, a pattern so loud that many Buchanan descendants who had arrived in Scotland on the track of their ancestors and had been shown their family stripe had turned away, deflated. She had also tied large bows of the same material into her hair, which meant wherever Cormac was in the room, he could usually spot her, clearly having an absolute whale of a time, enthusiastically twirling in the arms of a faintly concerned-looking porter called Piotr. Cormac smiled to himself and agreed to make up the third member of a Dashing White Sergeant team with Chi-Li, who lived down the corridor and had never so much as nodded to him before, but now, wearing a bright red dress with a tartan trim, looked glorious and danced beautifully on tiny feet. He did, in fact, survey the entire scene with some satisfaction and quickly sketched it in his head to send to . . . ha, that was odd. Why he was thinking of Lissa right then. He wondered how she was getting on at hers.