Five Hundred Miles From You: the brand new, life-affirming, escapist novel of 2020 from the Sunday Times bestselling author

by Jenny Colgan

  ‘Mergim Kavaja?’ said Cormac, as best he could. The man frowned at him.

  ‘Mergim Kavaja?’

  Cormac tried again, with the emphasis on a different place. The man frowned at him suspiciously as a loud stream of questioning conversation from a voice took place behind him. He shouted back noisily, and Cormac simply showed him the name printed on the file at which he sniffed before pushing open the door.

  The tiny flat, with its thin walls and cheap doors, was clean but full. Undeniably full. Through open doors, Cormac saw mattresses on the floors of each room and in the sitting room, bedding was piled beside two ancient worsted sofas. Men and boys sat around the living room and, where there wasn’t space, they sat with their heads pressed against the wall. There was a smell of cooking as well as a lot of drying clothes, sweat and deodorant. The shower was running, and so was the washing machine.

  ‘Këtu eshtë infermierja, Mergim!’ said the man, somehow making it sound totally different to Cormac had, and in the corner a man raised his hand. They spoke to one another in an unintelligible string, then the man turned to Cormac.

  ‘Doktor,’ he said, pointing at him.

  ‘Actually, I’m a nurse,’ said Cormac, but everyone ignored him as he approached the man, who was sitting in the only armchair and had his leg up, his cheap tracksuit bottoms turned up to reveal a white skinny leg thick with black hair.

  What Cormac saw was an absolute mess. He looked at it, blinking for a minute. He had stitches to take out, but the wound itself was a total mystery; it wavered up and around like a whirlpool, or a drunk.

  ‘What did you do to yourself?’ he asked, undeniably interested. He’d never seen anything like it.

  The man – he was twenty-four according to Cormac’s file – didn’t say anything, but looked enquiring out into the throng. Eventually, a slender man with glasses who had been sitting on the side reading a comic in English got up, sighing. He hissed something at the man – presumably along the lines of ‘speak English!’ Cormac guessed – and then reluctantly came over.

  ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘I Zlobdan. I speak English. Everyone else is . . .’ He shot them a look. ‘Very lazy men. Idiots.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Cormac. They didn’t look lazy to him. They looked knackered and dusty from building sites, presumably on and off shift work, sharing beds even, if the amount of trainers was anything to go by.

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘He have accident. With drill on site.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Cormac, taking a closer look at the wound. There were stitches all over the place; gaping holes that had puckered, then healed like that. It was fortunate he was young. In an old person, the skin wouldn’t have been strong enough and would have stayed that way.

  ‘He get stitched up here by . . .’

  He indicated one of the men who blushed and went red.

  ‘Is he a doctor?’

  ‘No! He idiot!’

  ‘Why didn’t he go to hospital?’

  ‘Because they are lazy idiots and didn’t realise health is free here.’

  ‘You’re European though, right?’

  ‘Yes! Albanian!’

  ‘And you didn’t know that?’

  ‘I know that! Not lazy idiots know that!’

  He gave the pair a look of withering scorn and the poor man stared at the floor.

  ‘I sent him to hospital. After all the screaming.’

  Cormac’s lips almost twitched, contemplating how difficult it must be to share a tiny house with at least a dozen other men with whom you had nothing in common.

  ‘We pay tax!’ said the man fiercely.

  ‘I know,’ said Cormac, holding up his hands. ‘It’s okay; I’m just here to take the stitches out.’

  He opened his box and took out his disinfectant wipes. Everyone was eyeing him up intensely; it was rather disconcerting. He wondered if there wasn’t much to watch on Albanian TV. He snapped on the rubber gloves, then fingered the wound. It was a shame: it was a great creeping mess that almost certainly wouldn’t have had to have been so if they’d cleaned it out properly and got a professional in. He looked at the man, who had now gone white.

  ‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘I’m just going to take them out.’

  ‘Drugs?’ said the man who spoke English.

  ‘There’s no need,’ said Cormac slightly sadly. The nerve endings would have been killed in the botch job, unfortunately. It would all be scar tissue from now on in.

  ‘Shiko nga dritarja, idiot i madh!’ said Zlobdan to the man, who looked as if he were starting to cry. The vast bear-like man stepped forward and drew out a plain bottle filled with what smelled to Cormac like white spirit. He passed it to the man in the chair, who took a huge swig, wincing as it went down. The bear-like man took it back, took a large swig himself, then put it back down.

  ‘Um,’ said Cormac, taking out the scissors. ‘Honestly, you really don’t have to worry.’

  He took out a small pair of forceps, gripped the end of the metal stitch in his right hand, and gently started to unlace it.

  There was a huge bang. One of the big bearded lads at the back had fainted out cold. There was a lot of conversation and chat about it until, sighing wearily, the big man took his bottle of spirits again and went over to revive him.

  ‘Okay!’ said Cormac, after he went over and attended to the other man, including giving him a stitch in the back of his head while the others watched over him with interest, debating what he was doing in their own language.

  ‘Everyone out!’ he said as he tried to get back to his original patient. The men were nudging the big chap who’d done the original stitching, obviously admonishing him to watch and learn. He realised as he’d ordered everybody to leave that there was nowhere else to go in the minuscule apartment. The men crammed themselves politely into the hallway and stood, tense as if they were watching a football match.

  ‘Tell him to look out of the window,’ said Cormac, not wanting another fainting on his hands. Zlobdan promptly did so, and started shaking. Cormac leaned his arm on his patient’s leg to keep it still and deftly pulled the metal stitches cleanly through the currently nerve-dead flesh. There was a little threading in and out, but the entire process was finished in less than a minute.

  When Cormac announced to the room that he was finished, there was a pause – and then a huge burst of applause. Zlobdan burst into tears as the rest flooded in. Cormac found himself picked up and hugged. The bottle was offered to him, and it was quite difficult to refuse. He told Zlobdan to explain that he had to drive a car and Zlobdan thought that worrying about drinking before driving a car was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. One of the men produced a drawing of a huge angry spider in a web which Zlobdan explained the man was going to have as a tattoo and Cormac, affixing the bandage, explained that he couldn’t have a tattoo for another three months and, when Zlobdan lifted an eyebrow, he added, ‘Tell him if he does we’ll have to take the leg off,’ which was, hypothetically, potentially true even if it was profoundly unlikely, and when Zlobdan had explained to them once more that they didn’t have to pay, the big man came out of the kitchen and handed Cormac a heavy plum cake.

  And he left to the man tearfully shaking his head over and over while his friends cheered, as if he’d performed a miracle, and he felt both acutely ridiculous given the tiny job he’d done and rather pleased with himself, hearing the music start up again as he let himself back into the stinky lift with an exhausted-looking young women pushing a filthy double buggy and coping with a whining toddler who was covered in snot and in a T-shirt too cold for the brisk spring day.

  He opened the door for her on the way out.

  ‘Can I give you a hand with the buggy?’ he asked, seeing her struggle.

  ‘Fuck off, social work,’ she barked him, and the day went on.

  Chapter Ten

  It was the silence, she considered, as she had sat down the previous evening on the deep, comfortable little sleigh bed in the s
loping-roofed spare room, with its grey-washed floorboards and faded blue and yellow rug. Well, no, it wasn’t silent, in fact: there were rustles outside and she could hear the wind moving through the trees, and the distant squawk of what, a bird? An animal? She didn’t know.

  Lissa prepared herself for not being able to sleep. She was in a strange bed, a very long way from home, cast into exile. She had a million new things to do tomorrow, a new case list to take on and a new set of worries as well as the ongoing ones, everything circling around in her brain. She was never going to be able to sleep – it was all so odd: the sweet-smelling air, the comforting crackle of the whisky-smoked wood in the fire and the faint tinkling of the stream in the bottom of the garden . . .

  When she woke up nine and a half hours later, she hadn’t even taken her contact lenses out.

  In her surprise, Lissa was too late to make breakfast or do anything other than jump into the shower and, in her haste, use some of the old shampoo already there. It smelled of almonds.

  She put on her glasses, tied up her damp hair and threw on her uniform. Of course, there wouldn’t be any food; she was an idiot for not having planned all of this yesterday. Automatically, she went to open the fridge door anyway, then stopped as her hand didn’t find the handle. That was odd. She tried it again, then smiled to herself. The door opened on the other side. It was a left-handed fridge. She supposed it wasn’t that strange in the scheme of things but even though she was left-handed too, she had always considered such a thing the height of luxury. If he had a left-handed fridge, he would have left-handed scissors too! And tin openers! It was oddly thrilling. She glanced around but there wasn’t a picture of him – or anyone or anything, in fact – up anywhere in the cosy little sitting room. Typical man, she thought. She had to email him. She glanced at her watch. Nope. No time. Damn it, and he’d have had Zlobdan’s mob this morning, whom she’d come up against before. Could always do with a bit of prior warning. She glanced at her phone; there was a long message from him telling her what she should be doing.

  Finding a half-empty box of cornflakes at the back of the cupboard, she grabbed a handful and looked at the message crossly. Well, wasn’t he organised. Show-off. There was quite a lot of it. She’d look at it later.

  Lissa squinted at the address through the pouring rain but it wasn’t making much more sense than it did before. She was parked on a narrow single-lane track, having a fight with the GPS as she had lost her phone connection which meant she couldn’t download the attachment Cormac had sent her which presumably explained exactly what to do and where she was meant to be going to meet this patient. Oddly, this was making her cross with Cormac rather than, for example, herself.

  She got out of the car and was struck once more by just how incredibly quiet everything was. She could see in the distance figures up and about on the hills – farmers, she supposed. Or shepherds. Where shepherds still a thing? She supposed they were. She looked closer. The white shapes on the hillsides had smaller white shapes prancing along beside them. She supposed they were lambs. It all looked like something out of a children’s story book; an old orange farmhouse that she’d passed as she came in, set back from the road, with its red barn, would have appeared in something you’d read to a very small person.

  Lissa had never in her life given her food a second thought beyond checking it was organic, sometimes, when she felt flush enough. She never cooked at all; why would you in London? Her mother hadn’t cooked, had said it would put her in a domestic servitude role, whereas her job was to break out of feminine stereotypes. Which was why the nursing had never really gone down too well.

  Anyway. Lissa wasn’t going to think about that right now. Instead she drove back into the centre of the village, parking right in front of the bakery, to her utter amazement. There were no yellow lines or anything. She took a photograph to send to Kim-Ange, but she couldn’t make it send.

  Nothing seemed to have a street name, or at least nothing she recognised. There was something called The Binns, something else that looked like Lamb’s Entry which she didn’t like the look of in the slightest. Why they didn’t put a farm name on when there were no signposts to farms, and they didn’t show up on Google Maps, was unhelpful to say the least.

  She looked in the window of the bakery. There were lots of things she hadn’t seen before, including signs advertising PUDDLEDUB! and LORNE! Neither of which meant much to her, but she went in nonetheless. It was incredibly cosy and warm inside, and a cheery-looking woman looked up.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, taking in Lissa’s uniform. ‘Och!’ she continued happily. ‘You’re yon lass that’s up here doing Cormac’s job for three months! Amazing, welcome, it’s lovely to see you. Now listen, do you want me to put you down for a regular ginger delivery? And also the provost says could you join the Highland games committee but he says that to anyone who turns up so you don’t have to say yes just to be polite, okay, dinnae mind it.’

  Lissa had understood about one word in six of this and was seriously unnerved by why this woman was jabbering away to her, and how on earth she knew so much.

  ‘So listen, if you join the Kirrinfief Facebook you can find out everything that’s going on. There’s a barn dance coming up if you’re no’ married – are you married? Cormac didn’t think so, said there was only one person coming, and then Mrs Ochil said, well, maybe she’s just trying to take a break from her man for a wee bit, you know men, can hardly blame her, and maybe he’s got one of them big jobs down in London or you know, I know you’re from London and it’s all lesbians there too, I suppose . . . Can I still call them lesbians? My son says I get it wrong all the time . . .’

  Her face looked worried as Lissa stood like a stone, completely unresponsive.

  ‘. . . Um,’ said the woman, running out of steam. She met a lot of tourists in the summertime, but they were usually more than happy to chat, asking about walking trails and Highland coos and buying bags of shortbread and tablet and big sandwiches overspilling with coleslaw. She wasn’t used to this. London, she supposed gloomily. She’d been once on a coach trip with her friend Agnes and neither of them had thought very much of it, and that was her settled opinion.

  Lissa was trying not to panic. The woman was only trying to be friendly – she wasn’t some spy sent to track her down – so she tried to tell the stupid voice in her head to shut up.

  ‘Um . . .’ Lissa stared, bright red at the food behind the counter. A young labourer, unshaven and ready for the day in heavy work boots, came in with a cheery grin, shouted ‘Hi, Deirds!’ and ordered five steak bridies, two macaroni pies and four cheese scones, and Deirds asked him did he lose a bet and he replied yes indeed he did, but it could have been worse and it being the last thing he had asked for. When Deirdre’s attention turned to Lissa again, she nervously asked for a cheese scone and was there the possibility of a coffee and Deirdre said of course and simply made her a Nescafé rather than asking her which of ninety-five different varieties she’d like to try, and charged her eighty pence for the privilege and handed her over a scorching plastic cup, and Lissa muttered her thanks and got out of there as soon as possible.

  ‘That’s the new girl?’ said the labourer, Teddy. ‘She’s pretty.’

  ‘Pretty rude,’ sniffed Deirdre. ‘Honestly. Why English people can’t give you the time of day is beyond me.’

  ‘It’s because they’re evil oppressors,’ said Teddy, who had grown up in a staunchly independent family and was very clear as to what he thought of the visiting influx, which was why he kept working the land rather than somewhere nice and cosy inside a tourist operation.

  ‘Aye, she’s just never been made welcome afore,’ said Deirdre. ‘When Agnes and I were in yon London . . .’

  Teddy was only twenty-two but he was no stranger to Deirdre’s conversations about how much she disliked yon London and although never minded to go there himself – Evil Oppressor Central – he knew he’d better get out to the lower field before Lennox gave him a kick
up the arse. He was a great boss, Lennox, didn’t interfere as long as the work was done, but you’d do no good getting on his wrong side during lambing season, anyone knew that, so Teddy bade Deirdre good morning and headed on his way, observing the strange English girl sitting in her car, looking as miserable as someone attempting to eat a warm cheese scone fresh out of the oven could possibly look, as word was already spreading about the village about her snotty ways, and if she hadn’t been an Evil Oppressor, Teddy would have felt sorry for her.

  Lissa finally figured out which was Collin’s Farm by asking another passer-by who, madly, also immediately knew who she was and was eager to engage her in conversation, asking if she wanted to join the village choir. She was pretty sure that wasn’t in Cormac MacPherson’s notes; he hadn’t mentioned that she’d be expected to have a full personal conversation with literally everybody she met, and not much about how to get around. The fact was that it simply wouldn’t have occurred to Cormac that she wouldn’t have got all the necessary relevant information about how to get around by cheerfully talking to everyone she met; how else did people live?

  The farm was small, a few cows and chickens mostly, the farmyard a churn of mud with the track, full of potholes, leading up to it single route. It did, however, crest a vast hill, and she suddenly caught a glimpse of the valley of the village down below beneath the shadows of the crags, with a straight train line on one side and the great expanse of Loch Ness on the other. She stared at it for a long while. It must be so strange to grow up here. All this space; all this fresh air. Did they like it? She supposed they must. How strange.

  Blinking, she stepped out of the car, up to her ankles in mud.

  ‘Hello?’ she shouted out. The farmhouse itself was quiet, with old grey stone and empty-looking windows. It was perched high up in the hills and the cold wind whistled through her, as she was completely unprotected above the low stone walls, but suddenly she felt that the view was utterly breathtaking. She felt as if she was in the middle of a living, breathing painting in a million shades of green.