500 Miles from You (Scottish Bookshop #3)(68)
“I don’t have any lollipops. Or jabs,” said Lissa reassuringly. “Are you having a good time at the fair?”
Patrick and Hari shook their heads firmly.
“They won’t go on anything,” said Zoe in despair. “They think this entire fair is a plot to kill them.”
“Mary said so!” said Patrick.
“Oh, Mary,” said Ramsay, holding the girl. “Well, at least it’s cheap.”
Zoe agreed vigorously.
“Ah disnae want to die,” said the tiniest of the children.
“You’re not going to die!”
A large ride that tipped people upside down about forty meters in the air suddenly did just that, and a huge amount of screaming rent the air. Both the lads looked absolutely petrified.
“Perhaps the spinning teacups.” Zoe grimaced, marching them off.
“Hot tea absolutely no thank you” was the last thing Lissa heard of Patrick as the oddly shaped family vanished into the crowd.
“They probably will die now,” predicted Jake. “Just to be ironic.”
“Did you bring your med case?”
“I am technically off duty,” said Jake. “So don’t let me go too near the St. John’s Ambulance tent. They are all madly in love with me.”
“That’s very cocky,” said Lissa, but she had to eat her words when they passed the tent, Jake notably skulking, only for a large older lady to come fluttering out. She had very small feet in very high-heeled shoes, given the ground was still pretty muddy.
“There’s my favorite ambulance man!” she trilled. Other women in the more familiar green outfits poked their heads out of the tent. One appeared to be busy attempting to cut candy floss out of a small child’s hair; another one was comforting a child sobbing his heart out.
“What’s the matter?” said Lissa instantly.
“Och,” said the woman thoughtfully. “I’m not sure if the ghost train is getting scarier or bairns are getting more scared.”
“The world is getting scarier,” guessed Lissa. “We probably don’t need ghost trains too.”
“Aye,” said the wee lad whose shoulders were shaking.
Jake had been bustled away and was being fed sandwiches.
“You know this lad. Always ready to help out,” said the first woman, handing him a plate piled high with sandwiches and chocolate biscuits.
“Well, it’s his job,” said Lissa, watching him, amused.
“Here you go, Jakie, tea just how you like it,” said another one, piling sugar into a large enamel mug. He looked at Lissa rather shamefaced.
“Would you like a sandwich?” said one of the women, not in a particularly friendly way. “Only they’re really just for the volunteers.”
“I’m fine without a sandwich, thank you.” Lissa smiled. “That’s okay. Jake, you eat your fill.”
Chapter 52
Cormac popped next door in response to a loud banging on the thin wall. It was definitely a summoning banging, though.
Kim-Ange was standing with her hand behind her shoulder, waving uselessly.
“Can you zip me up?” she said. She was wearing a bright purple chiffon dress with a chain belt around her waist. Cormac stood behind her as she looked at herself in the mirror. Her purple eye shadow matched exactly, as did her high velvet boots.
“Well?” she said, turning around nervously.
“You look beautiful,” said Cormac, and he meant it. “Knock him dead.”
“Not literally, like, by accident or anything?” Kim-Ange sounded uncharacteristically worried.
“No,” said Cormac. “By being your gorgeous self.”
And she was about to say something sarcastic, but she grabbed her purple clutch bag, kissed him on the cheek, and left instead.
“You didn’t wish me luck with my date!” shouted Cormac behind her.
“No, I didn’t,” said Kim-Ange, whose opinion of Yazzie was unsisterly, but it was too late, as Yazzie was already standing there, her large eyes looking at Kim-Ange tremulously. Kim-Ange decided, again uncharacteristically, to suddenly take the stairs.
THERE WAS SOMETHING about standing in a very long queue that was not conducive to a good date, however beautiful Yazzie looked—which she did, in a long orange dress that perfectly set off her dark braids and huge dark eyes.
London was still ridiculously climate-change hot, and people were walking about in shorts, red-faced, an aura of vaguely suppressed threat in the air. They walked past the skateboarders under the Royal Festival Hall, who shouted and entranced children cheek by jowl with expensively dressed older people on their way to concerts and the theater; frozen-still mimes standing in the middle of the street, balancing on poles and getting in the way; art and books for sale; hawkers; jugglers; people yelling and handing out leaflets—the whole noisy cacophony of life. The smog hanging above the water and the great towers of the east took on a pink tinge in the early evening.
The air smelled of food vans and garbage and fuel, and he felt stuffy and hot in his best checked shirt, which had made Kim-Ange pretend to vomit but then decide was good enough after all. No designer borrowing tonight, he noticed.
Yazzie was chatting about someone she’d seen on her ward rounds, and he listened cheerfully enough, as they dodged and weaved around the hundreds of other people on the narrow bridge that cut its way up to Charing Cross station, next to thundering trains on the track beside them, above gray water filled with pleasure boats and dredgers, odd flat structures covered in cement, and a lifeboat station. The clouds seemed to seal the heat to the ground. He accidentally bumped into one group of tourists, fell back, and jostled a large man who looked furious with him and swore under his breath.