see farther and farther as she turned her head: the rolling roofs of the little cobbled village, undulating over the fell; the neat layout of the farmers’ fields stretching ahead; the long line of the railway with a dark red train hurtling down its tracks; and the great body of water. She felt like she could touch the clouds. She wanted to stay up there all day.
Jake thought he’d have to put his arm around her—it was, he was finding, a very intense ride indeed, particularly when you’d just eaten three Scotch eggs and four Penguin biscuits, as pressed upon him by the good ladies of the St. John’s Ambulance. He felt distinctly queasy and wished the damn thing would stop. He shut his eyes to make it pass.
Lissa, meanwhile, couldn’t have enjoyed it more and wished it had lasted longer. She was absolutely blown away by the beauty and drama of the landscape; the ride had made her feel as high as the mountaintops, as close to the birds that circled in the updrafts. She sighed with something perilously close to happiness.
“That was amazing,” she said, when they finally got unclipped and rejoined the music and flashing lights and commotion of the fair at ground level. “I’d be happy just to be up there all the time!”
Jake couldn’t answer; he was very busy simply trying not to throw up and wiped the sweat off his brow.
“Are you okay?” said Lissa.
Jake nodded, wishing he could sit down.
“Do you need . . .” Lissa smiled. “Do we need to go back to the St. John’s tent?”
The thought of more Scotch eggs was simply too much for Jake. He held up a finger and charged off into the woods.
Lissa, surprised, smiled to herself. Then she glanced at her phone—out of habit, more than thinking anyone would be in touch. She wasn’t missing Instagram and Facebook, not usually. But she would have liked to have posted the view. It was quite something.
There was nothing there, of course, except a little dot on her WhatsApp. She opened it. It was a picture of three white spherical things, hard to make out.
Meat buns, she read, 90-minute wait. Excellent!!!!
She put her phone back, smiling. Well. Someone was having a good date, she supposed.
CORMAC COULDN’T HELP it. He was distracted, and that wasn’t fair. Ironically, of course, it was Jake who had told him all along: don’t be distracted, stop just falling into things. Think about the person you’re with.
He looked up at Yazzie, who smiled back at him nervously, aware this wasn’t going very well. She’d started a long story about the worst wound she’d ever seen, which, on balance, she really wished she hadn’t, especially as she had to shout above the insane noise levels in the bar. They were crammed into a tiny corner space. At least, she thought, the food was amazing—and it truly was, Cormac had never tasted anything like it; every herb and flavor superbly delineated, tasting fresh and light—so that was something.
“This is amazing,” he said. Then found his thoughts, once again, straying north and wondering if the hot dog stall was there and if Lissa was enjoying herself. He resisted the urge to check his phone; this was awful. He was behaving like some kind of bounder.
“So, wounds, huh?” he found himself saying as Yazzie picked unhappily at the delicious food.
“Did you always want to be a nurse?” she asked him.
Cormac half smiled to himself. “Ach, not quite,” he said. “Everyone in my family joined the army, so I joined up too. Became a medic.”
“Ooh,” said Yazzie. “That’s interesting.”
Cormac shrugged. “A bit too interesting at times,” he said.
“Did you get shot at?”
Cormac blinked. He almost answered the question and then reined it back. But why . . . why? Why did he suddenly feel almost ready to tell someone . . . but then had held back? This was ridiculous.
It was the newness, he decided. Everything being new. He could see, for the first time, the benefits of the big city: shaking off who you were, where you were from, what you came with, the baggage. That you were free to start over, to ditch everything, to feel lighter. He nearly told Yazzie, but something stopped him. He shrugged. The people in the queue were doing exactly what they had done, stared ferociously at people who had already managed to sit and get fed, and he felt the weight of their hungry eyes on him.