500 Miles from You (Scottish Bookshop #3)(91)
Nobbo snorted and turned over. Cormac thought of them all, young lads, nothing to do, hanging about on street corners, starting fights. How much they might change; how much they were capable of. He already knew how well Robbie had settled in, and he had been in a much darker place.
He glanced at his phone again. She’d blocked him. Maybe Kim-Ange had dissed him, he hadn’t even thought of that. Told Lissa what a rube he was, how many mistakes he’d made. Maybe they’d laughed themselves silly at the narrow escape she’d had. Oh God.
He took a deep breath.
He drove on.
IT WAS STRANGE; he didn’t feel tired. Even though it was the early hours of the morning, he felt strangely alive, crossing the fells through the beautiful lake district, climbing higher and higher through Cumbria, till he finally crossed the border, and on and on they went, through a blissfully snoozing Glasgow and up north, ever north, across the Campsie Fells, and now when he opened the window the air was fresh and freezing, and clouds passed across the moon as the stars began to vanish, one by one, and at first it was the faintest passing of black to navy and navy to blue and a very thin line at the horizon to his right, promising a new day.
Chapter 80
It was just after six when Cormac reached Lennox’s farm, but everyone was up already, Lennox beaming broadly when he met the lads stumbling out of the car, blinking and rubbing their eyes, some of them already regretting their drunken plans of the night before. Nina had gotten up too and prepared a large breakfast for the incomers.
The train didn’t arrive till seven. Cormac was edgy and itchy and couldn’t put his phone away. Nina noticed.
“Can I use your shower?” he asked awkwardly.
“Why don’t you go to your own lovely house and use your own lovely shower, Cormac MacPherson?” she said.
“Because . . . there’s a girl in it,” he said.
“Oh, she’s lovely, Lissa,” said Nina. “I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.”
Cormac turned bright scarlet and tried to answer, but couldn’t. Nina gave him a very shrewd look.
“Here, I’ll get you a towel,” she said, John on her hip as she went toward the airing cupboard. “You can borrow a shirt of Lennox’s too, if you’re desperate.”
“Uh, thanks,” said Cormac.
“If you see her,” said Nina, bustling off, “tell her I’ve got that copy of Daddy-Long-Legs in I ordered for her. Actually here, take it yourself.”
And she went back downstairs, to pour thick cream and honey on the porridge and to brew fresh coffee for the new batch of harvest boys.
CORMAC FOLLOWED HER outside. “Actually, I might just . . . head back to London,” he said, head down.
Nina looked at him, frowning. “Why?”
“Um, long story. But I need to get packed up down there. Head back here. Just . . . tie up some loose ends.”
“Are you okay?”
Cormac shrugged. “Ach. There was a girl. It didn’t work out.”
Nina smiled sympathetically. “English girls,” she said. “We’re terribly tricky.”
“I might as well go back, get it sorted out. Plus, I think the lads share that car with about twenty other people. Don’t want to get anyone into trouble.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to sleep?”
“Neh, can’t really miss a shift. I’ll be fine.”
“Okay then,” said Nina. “See you in two weeks.”
He paused. “I don’t think the streets of London really are paved with gold.”
Nina looked around the bustling farmyard. In the corner, a quiet Robbie was on the ground, crawling up to little John and pretending to be a bear, while John cackled hysterically. He had adjusted to the quiet of the farm so quickly, Nina hadn’t seen him take a drink since he got there. He ate with the other laborers every night, kept to himself, but the relief in his face was obvious, and Nina always dug him up an extra slice of bacon from somewhere. Little John adored him; Robbie always made him smile, and he crawled around after him half the day. If it hadn’t been ridiculous, Nina would have thought he understood that he was needed.
At a long table set up in the barn, the South London lads were nervously joshing with one another, showing off, talking about who had the biggest muscles for working in the fields, while eating large second helpings of porridge and thick-cut bread with marmalade and surreptitiously texting their mums to let them know they were all right.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Nina.
Chapter 81
The long, rambling bus had toured the hills at dawn, and Lissa felt it was very unfair, listening to the elderly couple behind her, who were clearly having a massive argument, because it was in Gaelic, and it sounded completely beautiful to her ears anyway.
Scotland was doing this on purpose: ray after ray of sun breaking through the morning clouds, revealing fields so green they could have been made of neon; nearly grown lambs tearing about in joy; towering peaks overhead sheltering little stone villages huddled around market squares in their lee. The air had a catch of cold early-morning mist in it; you could feel it in your throat, but also you could smell, feel, a warm day ahead, when the scent would rise off the heather, where your hands would trace the high, high tops of the wildflowers, intertwined everywhere with butterflies and bees.