“I just got down on the sleeper. Didn’t think I’d sleep much, but actually it was great . . .” Cormac left space at the end of his sentence, but the man wasn’t responding. This was very odd.

In Kirrinfief, if you went up to Inverness for the afternoon that would provoke a fairly long conversation in the grocers about what you’d seen and whom you’d met and whether you’d been to the big cinema, which had something called a Nando’s. Going on the sleeper was a next-level adventure; it would have involved the input and discussion of anyone in the shop. The train had narrowly avoided a crash about three years ago and people still talked about it.

By contrast, this man didn’t respond at all, as if Cormac weren’t there or hadn’t said anything.

“So, anyway. It’s . . . Well, this place looks interesting . . .” Cormac was stuttering on, but in an increasingly confused fashion. He felt like a dog wagging his tail and getting roundly ignored. He was just making conversation, that was all, what people did. What was this guy’s problem?

The man grunted and put down a set of keys and gave him a bunch of forms to fill in, all the while avoiding eye contact. Perhaps, Cormac thought, there was something wrong with him. Yes. That had to be it.

He handed over his passport for photocopying and paid the deposit, worrying again whether he’d left the cottage clean and tidy enough for the girl who was moving in there.

Lined with old random chairs, the lobby was the kind of place that smelled of smoke even though nobody had been allowed to smoke in there for years. Cormac leafed through an old copy of Nursing Times while the man, still ignoring him rather than making conversation like a human being, shifted his bulk around photocopying and laboriously noting down all of Cormac’s details. It couldn’t be pleasant, Cormac decided, being trapped inside that booth all day.

Meanwhile, the bell buzzed and nurses came and went, loud and confident. He was used to being surrounded by women doing this job, but this was a lot by even his standards. Cormac felt slightly intimidated. Where he’d done his training, everyone had been local, more or less, and he’d known a couple of people from school and everyone was friendly. This looked like a glamorous menagerie of bold, colorful women calling, laughing, with a mix of great barking accents, saying, “Yeah, awight,” and sounding like they were on EastEnders or from across the world. He tried not to stare. It was more different types of people than he’d ever seen.

A few people gave him a glance as they passed, but most of them assumed he was someone’s boyfriend, a visitor waiting for someone. He wondered whom he’d be living next to.