500 Miles from You (Scottish Bookshop #3)(30)

Cormac by contrast was feeling antsy, oddly full of nervous energy for someone who was normally a pretty laid-back person. It was as if London had this static electricity that buzzed through it, making you wriggly. Maybe that was why so many people here were so skinny.

Lissa had to log on to her Skype session with her Occupational Health therapist next, which she was looking forward to about as much as a plate of snake spaghetti, so she thought she might as well get the emails over with first.

It was a very odd experience, sitting in someone’s front room, with his telly and his Xbox and his sofa and his cups and plates, and introducing yourself. Biting her lip slightly, Lissa picked up her laptop and began.

To: [email protected]



* * *



Hi, this is Alyssa Westcott. Thanks for the notes, they were really helpful.

She lied. She would definitely read them later.

The house is cool.

She didn’t mention how the idea of having an entire house to yourself, with a garden and a spare bedroom and a stove and a stream, was insane. She was sitting in about five million quids’ worth of real estate, if it could only be shifted 583 miles south.

Here’s what to look out for tomorrow. James Felixton’s dog will try to eat you, but Lee Cheung’s is fine. James’s is a little dog and Lee’s is a big dog. Please don’t try and talk too much at the Frasers’, they have form for reporting people. And park in the home car park on the Effinch estate but pay for street parking at the Widdings estate, they’re buggers.

Cormac looked at it. Well, that was a bit more useful. She didn’t seem very friendly, though, which was exactly the message that had been passed on down from everyone who had met her or met someone who had met her or simply liked to have a view on things. He really hoped this wasn’t going to turn out more stressful than London for her. Also she hadn’t asked him whether he was enjoying London. Probably assumed that he’d absolutely have to love London—who wouldn’t? He felt a little bristly about this.

To: [email protected]



* * *



Hi Alyssa, thanks for all of that. Let me know if you need me to draw you any maps, I know some places are hard to find. Also I like drawing. ? How are you settling in? Are you liking it?

But Lissa had already moved on to the next thing she had to do, the appointment she was dreading, and didn’t reply. Well, so much for you, thought Cormac, leaving his phone and moving to the window, trying to open it to circulate the stale trapped air of the heavily populated building. But it kept sticking in the frame, and no matter how hard he tugged, the window wouldn’t open.





Chapter 30


Lissa made herself a huge cup of tea. Anything to postpone the inevitable. She knew lots of people had therapists. She didn’t see any stigma in it, but she’d never felt the need for one herself. But that was before. And now it was 6:30. It was time.

It took a few moments for the pixels to rearrange themselves, but the figure on the other side finally settled down into a woman of about fifty, well put together, with a humorous tinge around her mouth and a level gaze visible even through the camera lens and the poor reception. She also appeared to be eating something from a bowl.

“Alyssa Westcott?” she said briskly, and rather indistinctly.

“Uh-huh,” said Lissa, finding she was sitting with her arms around her knees on the floor in front of the laptop.

The woman put her spoon down and squinted. “Sorry,” she said. “All I can see is knee. Do you mind?”

Lissa changed position but suddenly wasn’t sure what to do. She moved the laptop onto the coffee table, then found herself awkwardly kneeling in front of it like she was in church, which she didn’t like. She tried sitting up and looking down into the screen, but in the little self-image all she could see was her face looming over from above, which wasn’t a great concept. She was also increasingly aware of the fact that the more time it took her to make a decision about how she ought to be and sit, the more that would probably mean to the psychiatrist on the other end of the line sitting waiting patiently, which made her start to blush and feel uncomfortable.

“Sorry!” she said, her voice sounding high and completely unlike herself, rather like some posh English woman asking if she was on the right train. “I’m not quite sure where to sit!”

“It doesn’t matter,” said the woman calmly, which of course convinced Lissa that it did, very much, matter a lot, and she twisted around in a panic. She ended up back on the floor again, her legs tucked under her like a little girl. Then she remembered her tea and had to retrieve it.

Anita the psychiatrist was still smiling patiently at her, even with a quick glance at the upper right-hand quadrant of the screen, which Lissa interpreted, correctly, as a glance at the clock on her computer.

“Um, ha! Hello! Sorry about that!”

“Don’t spill your tea,” said Anita.

“No! Ha, it’s not tea, it’s vodka!”

Lissa had absolutely no idea why she just said that. Anita smiled politely, as if it didn’t matter to her if it was tea or vodka.

“I’m only kidding! Look!”

Lissa tilted the cup toward the camera, which led to a predictable outcome and resulted in more precious seconds lost in finding a tea towel. She was just about to apologize and suggest they start over when a voice suddenly screamed, “Mummmyyy!”