500 Miles from You (Scottish Bookshop #3)(56)

“What were you doing?”

“I was on the trapeze.”

“Mu-um.”

“My stupid bicycle. How’s London?”

“So who set it for you?”

“Some nine-year-old up at the hospital.”

“I’ll pop up,” said Cormac.

“You won’t ‘pop up,’” said Bridie. “I am perfectly fine and Yasmeena is coming over.”

Yasmeena lived in Inverness with Lewis, the middle son.

Cormac sighed. “I can get a flight.”

“You can do nothing of the sort! You’ve got a job to do. I am totally fine.”

Cormac took stock. After his father had died, his mother’s default was “totally fine,” and she took any insinuation to the contrary as a total insult.

“Okay,” he said. “Well, at least there’ll be someone to check it for you. I wouldn’t have been allowed.”

“It’s fine!”

“I mean, I would anyway . . .”

“It’s fine! I’m busy anyway.”

“Which wrist is it?”

“My right,” admitted Bridie.

“Mum!” Cormac tsked. “It’s okay, I’m going to get the new girl who’s standing in for me to pop in.”

“I’ve seen her,” said Bridie. “She has hair all over the place.”

“So I hear,” said Cormac.

“And she’s a bit standoffish.”

“You think everyone who doesn’t come from Kirrinfief is standoffish! Remember what you said about that woman with the book bus?”

“Aye, she’s all right, Nina.”

“She is!” said Cormac. “So is Alyssa. I’m pretty sure.”

“Mm-hmm,” said Bridie.

Which is how Cormac found himself writing a note on Monday morning asking, as politely as he knew how, if Lissa could possibly go and visit his mother.

LISSA WAS CURIOUS, she couldn’t help it. Cormac sent her stupid little pictures, but he didn’t give that much away. Not that she’d been thinking about him, but given she was living in his house, she couldn’t help but wonder, couldn’t help being slightly aware of the smell of someone else’s aftershave, shampoo, pillowcases. She hadn’t snooped. But she’d considered it.

She picked up the notes from Joan, although there was nothing in them—a sixty-four-year-old woman in absolutely tremendous health with a snapped wrist from falling off her bicycle—and went around, faintly nervous.

The woman didn’t answer the bell of the small neat Victorian stone house with its arched porch and pretty pathway, and Lissa eventually found herself pootling down the little close at the side until she got into the immaculate back garden, filled with neat rows of daffodils, bluebells, and rhododendron bushes and grass so perfect it looked like someone had trimmed it with nail scissors. The woman was trying to weed with one hand, the other in a sling, and it looked like she would topple over at any moment.

“Um, hello?” said Lissa, trying not to startle her.

Mrs. MacPherson stood up with a start. “Hello?”

“I’m Lissa Westcott . . . the nurse liaison? I just came to check up on you.”

The short woman with steel-gray hair cut close to her head—no room for vanity here—looked at her beadily. “Yes, I know who you are. You’re doing my son’s job. Why are you here?”

“Well . . . because it’s procedure?”

“It’s a broken wrist! Have you come round to give me a lollipop?”

“No. Although if you’d like one . . .”

“Or perhaps I count as geriatric now, and you’re here to move me into a home where you can’t have a hot bath for health and safety reasons?”

Lissa shook her head. “Cormac asked me to come take a look,” she said honestly. “He’s just worried about you.”

“So he sent a spy?”

Nonetheless Bridie bustled inside through a small set of French doors built into the back of the house. After a moment or two, Lissa started to follow her.

“Beautiful garden,” said Lissa.

“Is this truly the best use of NHS resources?” grumbled Bridie.

Lissa could see it was an effort for her to fill the kettle. Once that was on she looked around. There were pictures of little boys everywhere—she hadn’t known he had brothers. It was impossible to tell which one was Cormac from the three sandy heads and toothless grins, and Lissa was suddenly too shy to ask. She did feel like she was spying—but not on Bridie.

“So can you wiggle your fingers for me?” she said, taking Bridie’s hand, once she’d made them both tea. “And put some pressure on my hand here . . . and here . . . good, good.”

She moved her head closer, performing the embarrassing bit where she had to sniff the bandage for evidence of rot or bad skin healing without looking like that was what she was doing.

“Are you sniffing me?” said Bridie rather crossly.

“So is Cormac enjoying himself in London, then?” asked Lissa quickly.

Bridie shrugged. “I dinnae ken. Is he staying in your hoose?”

“Well, my digs,” said Lissa. “It’s a nurses’ home really. Nothing like as nice as his place.”