Once again Cormac felt homesick, less interested in shaking up all the new experiences London had to offer him—he felt completely nonchalant now, strolling down the south bank, crossing Tower Bridge.

He didn’t see Robbie, although he looked for him every day, for another week, and then he recognized his old trainers, sitting in one of the underpasses.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey yersel,” said Robbie.

“How’s it going?”

Cormac couldn’t help thinking of Robbie leaving his wallet, of how difficult it must be for someone with nothing not to have taken it. But to imply he would have would have been so awful.

Robbie shrugged.

“Listen,” said Cormac, wondering. He’d need to ask Lennox, but it might be worth a shot. It wasn’t like Lennox wasn’t used to all sorts coming along to help with the harvest. “If I knew of a job, would you be interested?”

Robbie shrugged again. “I’ve got a record,” he said. Then he glanced up at Cormac, his eyes wild and haunted. “Not for anything bad! Just a bit o’ street drinking and that . . .”

He trailed off.

“Nothing bad, you can check.”

Cormac believed him. “It’s hard work. Just harvest. But there’s a bed and three meals a day.”

“I’d like to work hard again,” mumbled Robbie.

“Let me have a word,” said Cormac.

Back at the nurses’ home, it didn’t help that Yazzie, while absolutely delightful, was proving slightly difficult to avoid, seeing as they lived in the same building, and much as he was generally pleased to see her, it did seem to be mounting into something he didn’t quite have the full inclination for and he was relieved when she went on nights.

Jake, uncharacteristically, was furious when he heard about this.

“What?” said Cormac. “I thought you’d be thrilled I’d kind of started seeing someone.”

“No,” said Jake. “You do this all the time! You’re out do-gooding.” (Cormac had told him about Robbie.) “And you use that as an excuse so you don’t make any effort, and some girl moves on you and you just go for it because you are lazy as shit and they get upset. You should see Emer moping about the village.”

“Um,” said Cormac, surprised he was getting a telling-off from Jake of all people.

“Well, I’m not,” said Jake. “There are lovely women out there in the world . . . lots of them nurses . . .”

His voice took on a slightly dreamy turn.

“. . . and all they want to do is do good in the world and help others, but it doesn’t mean they block out other people . . . and they deserve someone who is absolutely crazy about them.”

Cormac paused. “Who are we talking about here exactly?” he asked. It wasn’t like Jake to be quite so romantic.