500 Miles from You (Scottish Bookshop #3)(32)

Chapter 31


And Lissa did feel better when she woke up, after another surprising night’s sleep. It had to be the fresh air; every breath felt like she’d never properly opened up her lungs before. But then she’d woken up very early, light creeping through, and the fear had returned. She looked out the window at the greenery in the garden, trying to calm herself, then gave up and scrolled through Instagram until it was a decent time to get up.

Her first appointment wasn’t until later, so she popped into the little grocers and picked up some amazingly cheap eggs (she didn’t know they were cheap, she never bought eggs) direct from Lennox’s farm, some local butter and milk, and some sliced bread from the baker, and she had time to make herself some scrambled eggs on toast. The sun was rising earlier; there was a chill wind, but she discovered, out the back of the cottage, the small patio next to the wall was an almost perfect sun trap, warm enough to sit out on regardless of the wind.

She tried to block out what had happened with the psychiatrist the night before, just change the mental subject, and checked in with Kim-Ange, whose Instagram was full of her dressing up and wearing different hats in what looked suspiciously like the millinery department at Peter Jones, where they tended to take a rather dim view of that sort of thing. She missed her, suddenly, missed her old life completely. It was almost the weekend. They’d be up to all sorts. Then she looked at her case file for the day, and her heart skipped a beat.

She knew she wasn’t supposed to know. But seriously, you couldn’t avoid it. “Young (f), heart and lung transplant,” and the dates matched. They hadn’t pulled this place out of thin air. Not at all.

Cormac’s notes were very straightforward: “Brilliant!” he’d headed them up with. Lissa blinked. It wasn’t remotely brilliant, and this was hardly tactful.

She stood up and washed her dishes, then found herself making up a packed lunch—a packed lunch! Who was she? But then it wasn’t her fault there wasn’t a Pret a Manger for two hundred miles. She took a picture of it and sent it to Kim-Ange to make her smile: a cheese sandwich, augmented with something she found in Cormac’s cupboards that she very much hoped was homemade pickle. No tofu. No bean sprouts. No cronuts and no bento boxes. She added a couple of russet apples and contemplated buying a thermos and smiled, just a little, wondering who she was.

IT WAS TRULY a lovely morning, and Lissa decided to walk in—she was going to the center of the village, she could put her medical bag in a rucksack on her shoulders, and it wasn’t likely that she was going to be mugged or leave it on a tube train.

And it really was a glorious day; she stopped for a full five minutes across the road, watching a full field of brand-new lambs hop and skip. They were hilarious: tumbling, jumping over puddles, then every so often making bleating noises and skittering back to the comfort and safety of their mothers, who placidly ignored them as they ran rings around them and reached their little pink mouths up to suckle. They were entirely enchanting in the sunshine and hard to watch without your spirits rising at least a little.

She focused on her breathing as she approached the little terraced house. Annoyance leaped in her once again as she wished her psychiatrist hadn’t been so brusque or, if she was being truly honest, hadn’t allowed her child to hang up the call. Stupid NHS cutbacks, she told herself, throwing her in the deep end like that. And now this.

The door was flung open almost before she had finished ringing it. The woman there, though, looked confused to see her.

“Och no!” she said. “Where’s Cormac?”

“Um, he’s on secondment,” said Lissa. “It’s me instead. Sorry.”

“Aye!” said the woman, beaming. “Oh, I heard all about you!”

“Yes, I’m beginning to realize that,” said Lissa, trying to sound as friendly as the locals, rather than slightly sarcastic.

“Is he liking it?”

“I don’t know,” admitted Lissa.

The woman looked at her. “But he’s doing your job?”

“Yes.”

“But you’ve no chatted about it?”

Lissa shrugged. “Not really,” she said. “How’s . . .”

She had trouble pronouncing the name, but the woman’s face lit up.

“Oh well. You didn’t see her before. You had to see her before. That’s why I wish Cormac were here.”

“Well, he isn’t . . .”

“I know. But I wanted him to see this.”

Lissa followed, feeling very second best, into the little tidy sitting room.

Sitting in front of Pitch Perfect was a very thin, pale little girl with black circles beneath her eyes. The fact that she was sitting up was somewhat lost on Lissa.

“Hello,” the girl said softly. Her face screwed up. “Where’s Cormac?”

Lissa smiled thinly. “Oh, well, he’s in London. I’m standing in for him for a bit. Think of me as Other Cormac.”

There was a pause while Lissa wondered if she was going to meet a hostile reception. Then the girl’s face brightened.

“Will you tell him? Will you tell him you saw me? Will you tell him everything?”

“Um, of course.”

“Will you take a photo?”

“No, that’s not allowed.”