The Secret Path

by Karen Swan

  Annie, in reply, laid flat out in the grass, as if just thinking about the notion exhausted her. ‘I despair.’

  ‘Ugh, and we’ve still got to get back down again,’ Holly moaned. ‘It’s my Saturday afternoon, fuck’s sake. I should be on a sofa right now. Eating Doritos. Watching Hollyoaks.’

  ‘You and me both, babe,’ Charlie muttered. Like Sophie, she was a veterinary student, but if it was clear Sophie was going to be returning to her roots as a big animal, farmyard vet, Charlie would be tending to urban customers, ‘treating talking parrots for laryngitis and chihuahuas for crush injuries when they hide beneath scatter cushions. That kinda thing.’

  Liv was a medical student too, on the same course as Tara and Holly, and Annie was reading politics. They’d all been friends since their first year, when they’d been on the same corridor and shared a kitchen in the student halls.

  ‘I don’t suppose anyone thought to bring us some sustenance?’ Charlie asked as she finally got her breath back. ‘I definitely burned off at least a scotch egg on the way up.’

  ‘Actually, I’ve got some tea and biscuits,’ Tara said, reaching into her backpack and pulling out the thermos. She had just had time to refresh the hot water when they’d got in.

  ‘Or . . . I’ve got some whisky!’ Holly said with a devilish wink, pulling a hip flask from her jacket pocket.

  ‘Ooh!’ Charlie said, her arm literally swerving from left to right as she went, last moment, for Holly’s offer instead.

  Everyone had a tot except Tara. Whisky was the last thing she could drink and she couldn’t explain why. Instead she fussed with pouring herself some tea, pretending this was what she really wanted, dunking the teabag repeatedly as her friends watched on in bemusement.

  She took a sip – it was both tepid and too strong – and defiantly stared out towards the distant town, a dark smudge on the horizon from here. For the umpteenth time, she wondered how Alex’s breakfast had gone with her father; she had assumed one of them would ring when he’d done the deed – Alex, elated; her father, choked; her mother (when she was finally up and dressed), emotional and teary that her only daughter was getting married and when could they meet to start pinning down details? Instead, radio silence.

  She checked her phone again for signal. Two bars. Decent. Decent enough.

  ‘Missing lover-boy?’ Liv asked with a knowing tone as she put her phone away with a supressed sigh.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I’d miss him too if he was mine.’ Liv gave one of her signature dirty laughs, followed by a wink and a nudge of her elbow. ‘Although I have to say you seem very relaxed about leaving him.’

  ‘Well, it is only for an overnight stay, so I think we’ll survive.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be so sure – lives have changed in shorter time frames than that,’ Liv countered. ‘And I wouldn’t give him too long a rein if I was you. He’s the sort of guy who attracts attention, know what I mean?’

  Tara knew exactly what she meant, but she resented the intimation. ‘Not really.’

  ‘Liv means that if he was her boyfriend, she wouldn’t leave him for a single second in case another woman made a move on him,’ Sophie explained unnecessarily. Sophie wasn’t really an expert on men yet; she was still more interested in large mammals of the four-legged kind.

  ‘Huh. What a relaxing way to live,’ Tara replied with cool sarcasm.

  ‘Hey listen, I’ve only been cheated on by every guy I’ve ever dated,’ Liv continued. ‘But yeah, call me paranoid, why don’t you?’

  Everyone laughed as the hip flask was passed around again, and Tara took another pointed sip of her tea. She felt off form, isolated somehow from the others. She couldn’t put a finger on it, but she sensed a distance between herself and them, starting when she and Holly had been put in different rooms. For the first time, she wondered if Holly had told the girls her secrets. On the one hand, she passionately didn’t believe her friend would betray her like that; but on the other, Holly clearly considered her decisions a betrayal of their friendship, and with her enduring anger and the palpable chill between them, the others couldn’t have failed to notice it.

  ‘You’ve had some rotten luck, I know. But Alex really isn’t like that.’

  ‘Hon, he’s a man,’ Annie drawled. ‘They’re all like that.’

  Tara gave a puzzled smile. Why were her friends pushing the issue? ‘Well, Alex isn’t.’ Tara automatically looked to Holly for some backup. Her best friend knew that she and Alex were far beyond the petty jealousy stage – only she knew that he was in London right now asking Tara’s father for her hand; that their child was already growing in her belly. And besides, she knew Alex well enough to defend him against these slurs – but Holly looked immediately away again. She plucked a long strand of grass and began threading it through her fingers.

  Tara felt like she’d been slapped.

  ‘What about Dev? D’you think he’s the cheating type?’ Annie asked, following Tara’s line of sight and looking across at Holly too.

  Holly looked surprised. ‘No!’ she scoffed. ‘But only because I’m the only female this side of Moscow to find him attractive and that’s only when I’ve got my beer goggles on.’

  Tara frowned. Holly hadn’t been drunk last night when they’d been enjoying their cosy night in together on the sofa. She had looked languid and settled. She’d looked happy.

  ‘Oh, poor Dev!’ Sophie cried in his defence. ‘No, you can’t talk about him like that. He’s . . . got his own charm. He’s sort of bookish-looking and sensitive.’

  ‘I think he’s lovely,’ Annie agreed.

  ‘Lovely,’ Holly repeated. ‘Yeah, because that’s what we’re all looking for. Killer in bed and . . . lovely.’

  ‘I think you make a great couple,’ Tara ventured.

  Holly looked back at her with angry eyes. ‘But we’re not a couple. I keep telling you, it’s just a sex thing when there’s no better option.’

  ‘And there’s nothing wrong with that,’ Liv sighed. ‘Sometimes it’s better the devil you know than . . . no devil at all.’ She gave another dirty laugh. ‘We can’t all be players like Annie here.’

  Annie gave a small sigh of coquettish contentment – slightly built, with a sweetheart-shaped face and long, straight light brown hair, she had a pretty girl-next-door look that men couldn’t resist. ‘What can I say? You’ve either got it or you don’t.’ She squealed as Charlie and Liv kicked resentfully at her feet.

  ‘Yeah? Well maybe you don’t,’ Charlie said provocatively. ‘Sounds to me like you’ve found a guy not that into you. He’s got you dangling like a puppet on a string, girl.’

  ‘Gay?’ Liv suggested.

  ‘So not.’ Annie arched an eyebrow and gave them a knowing look. ‘James was just playing hard to get.’

  ‘Wait – James? Who’s this? I thought you were seeing George?’ Tara asked. ‘What have I missed?’

  ‘Keep up, Ta!’ Sophie admonished.

  ‘George is dead to her now,’ Liv said in a dramatic voice. ‘This week – for one week only—’

  ‘Hey!’ Annie protested.

  ‘—It’s all about James. A mature man.’

  ‘Mature student, there’s a difference. He’s only twenty-four, for Christ’s sake.’ Annie pouted prettily.

  ‘So what’s happened, then?’ Charlie asked, looking peeved that Annie had got her man after all. ‘Last I heard, he kept blowing you off for work.’

  Annie leaned herself up on her elbows, eyeing them all like the cat who’d got the cream. ‘I went up to his office on Thursday and we had a carpet picnic.’

  ‘A what?’ Charlie frowned.

  ‘Smoked salmon, strawberries, prosecco. It was lush.’

  Charlie looked on with a wry look. ‘And did James take well to eating his lunch on his nylon carpeted floor? He doesn’t seem the type.’

  Liv spluttered with laughter; Holly too. But Tara felt sad that she had missed out on her friend’s latest love-life twist;
she’d been too busy with her own to take notice, increasingly abandoning drinks with the girls for cosy nights in with Alex. She watched her friends laughing and teasing one another and felt another sharp pang at what she was leaving behind – girlish stuff and nonsense, doomed love affairs, dramatic heartbreaks, hilarious nights in. She was barely twenty and that was already behind her.

  ‘Actually, he loved it,’ Annie insisted, with a sly look. ‘It was Alex who looked shocked.’

  Annie looked across at her and Tara startled as she absorbed the intimation. ‘My Alex?’

  ‘Yes, your Alex,’ she laughed. ‘Didn’t he tell you? They do work together!’

  The penny dropped. ‘Oh my God, you mean James is James MacLennan? But he’s such a dick!’

  The words burst out before she could stop them; months of hearing Alex’s complaints about James’s rivalry, power politics, smear campaigns and dirty tricks had left her with a low opinion of a man she’d never met. But why hadn’t Alex mentioned that James was seeing Annie? He knew they were good friends. Did he assume she already knew? Or did he just not care who his colleague was dating?

  True, Alex wasn’t an undergraduate and never had been; he’d not been inculcated into student culture in the same way, and his unconventional upbringing and life experiences rendered him older than his twenty-three years. He was passionate about his work and he displayed no interest in gossip of any sort – be it about celebrities or friends. It was one of the things she liked best about him. His discretion, too. And yet . . . it felt like such a glaring omission not to have brought this up. Annie was her friend, James his colleague and rival. Did he think she was going to suggest double dates with them?

  Annie’s smile faded at the bald insult. ‘Well, Alex would say that. He’s pissed off because he didn’t get published and James did.’ She gave a shrug. ‘Your guy seriously needs to take a chill pill. James says he is way too intense. He says you’d think he was plotting world domination, the way he gets. Can’t you have a word with him or something?’

  Tara blinked, feeling a rush of indignation gathering in her. She’d been with Alex for four months; Annie had been with James a week! Who did she think she was to start lecturing her about her boyfriend’s ambition? But, as ever – the lessons she’d learned in childhood about public restraint were too strongly inculcated to override – Tara said nothing.

  No one spoke for a few moments, no one came to her or Alex’s defence, and the tension thickened as the silence lengthened. Sly looks passed between her friends and, yet again, Tara had the feeling of words not being spoken, of secrets being kept. Were they jealous of what she had with Alex? Was that it? Or was she being paranoid? Was she touchy because of the stiffness between her and Holly? Not to mention the enduring silence coming from Alex himself; still no text, no missed call. It was almost five o’clock. What the hell was he doing? Had ‘the right moment’ eluded him again? Had her father cried off at the last moment? Or had something else happened? Had he been hit by a bus on the way over? Had Professor Hamlyn called him in? What?

  She felt a rush of despair. Why was everything proving so hard? It felt like the world was against her when all she wanted was to get on with living happily ever after. Instead, she was tired, emotional and hormonal, and stuck up a windy hill in the Shropshire dales with friends who were bordering on bitchy. She felt caught between two lives, with no one to talk to. She was immersed in secrets, and the only person who knew about them had made her feelings perfectly clear.

  Tara watched as Holly passed around the hip flask again, the flash of bitterness between her and Annie seemingly forgotten by the others already. Everyone was already getting looser as the amber spirit shot into their veins. There’d be singing on the way back down, no doubt, a takeaway curry and more drinks back at the house. What excuse was she going to use to avoid them then?

  It had been a mistake coming away this weekend, she realized that now. Like Alex pretending to be a Chelsea fan, she hadn’t thought it through. She’d thought she could pretend that she was still one of the gang for a bit longer – deny that she was already changing course – but she was already an outsider. She could feel it, and so could the others, even if they didn’t yet know why.

  ‘Come on. Let’s head back before it gets dark and open some booze,’ Charlie said, scrambling to her feet. ‘I’ve not come all the way up to bloody Shropshire to spend it getting windburn on a mountain.’

  ‘Technically it’s only a hill,’ Sophie corrected her. ‘It has to be over—’

  ‘Shuddup. I don’t care. If I’m leaving London it’s only on account of a damned good pub. I’ve done my good deed of the day, now it’s time for my reward. First round’s on me.’

  ‘Actually, my father’s running a tab for us,’ Sophie said with a hitch of her eyebrows.

  Charlie’s mouth opened wider. ‘Then what the fuck are we doing up here with sheep?’

  The girls all gathered in their legs, pulling each other up by outstretched arms and swiping grass off their bottoms. Tara simply smiled – and did her best to blend in.

  Tara stood at the bar, watching as the barman pulled on the ale lever, the glass angled precisely to create just the right amount of froth. Behind her she could hear her friends, laughing loudly as Annie regaled them with a tale about her ex, George. From what she had picked up, it involved thorny bushes, torn, bloodstained boxers and having to sleep on his stomach for a month.

  Her eyes rose to the clock, willing the hands to be further round than they had been last time she checked. Ten thirty-four. It was something, she supposed. She had blagged her way through this evening by laughing even when she wasn’t amused, suggesting a game of Ibble Dibble and fulfilling her Mother Hen duties by taking the seat closest to the bar and insisting on being the one to get each round of drinks – this was their fifth, and she had been passing off her elderflower as vodka tonic all night. Only Holly had sussed her game, disappointed looks scudding her way across the table every so often.

  The phone in her jeans pocket vibrated suddenly and she whipped it out with impressive fluidity, her heart rate rocketing up. ‘Alex?’

  ‘Twiggle! My Twiglet!’

  She frowned at the uncharacteristic bounce in his voice. ‘You’re drunk?’

  ‘No. I’m . . . what’s that word you use? . . . Sozzled. I’m sozzled.’ He laughed, the sound soft and indistinct, like his words had rolled onto their sides.

  She heard the sound of traffic rushing past him, London in her ear. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Going home . . . Taxi!’ There was a pause. ‘Fuck.’ The word was a whisper, muttered below his breath. He hiccupped. She had never heard him hiccup before. It seemed such a frivolous sound for him. ‘You should have warned me your father takes no prisoners.’

  ‘Dad? You mean you’re still together?’

  ‘All day. All day long,’ he said, sounding as proud as a boy with his first sandcastle. ‘We had the best time.’

  ‘Where are you right now?’

  ‘I’m not entirely sure . . .’ he said slowly, sounding baffled. She could practically hear his brow furrowing – as though this were the first opportunity he’d had to consider his surroundings. ‘I think St Jays,’ he slurred.

  St James. They were at her father’s club. She groaned as another thought followed on the heels of that realization. ‘Oh God. Not the port.’

  ‘Yesh the port!’ There was a small silence, then another hiccup.

  Her father had a very serious wine collection, kept in his various cellars, but he was a particular aficionado of port, and rare was the man who could keep up if he was treated to a tasting session.

  ‘So you’ve been with Dad all day?’

  ‘We’ve been bonding.’ Another short silence, another hiccup.

  ‘And . . .?’ she prompted, as he offered nothing more. She wondered if he had gone to sleep standing up, right there, in the middle of St James.

  ‘Oh. Yes. And we’re playing golf tomorrow. At his club. A
nother club.’

  She rolled her eyes, and not only because he’d completely missed her point. Getting to Wentworth meant taking a helicopter – and what had she specifically asked her father to do? Hide the toys. Hide the bloody toys. ‘Alex, do you even play golf?’

  ‘No,’ he chuckled. It sounded like it would have been a giggle except that his body couldn’t muster the requisite muscular strength. ‘But I know the concept of the game – get the ball in the hole in as few hits as possible.’

  Tara shook her head; it was hard to believe this was a PhD student she was talking to right now. She caught sight of her friends in the foxed mirrored wall. Holly was staring into space, looking a world away from here.

  She brought her attention back to the very drunk man breathing heavily in her ear. ‘Alex!’ she hissed, snapping him to attention; she heard his breathing change.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Did you ask him for my hand?’

  The guy standing beside her and nursing his pint overheard and looked at her with a curious mix of surprise, distaste and pity. Tara gave an embarrassed smile.

  ‘No!’ His ‘ew’ tone was clear and she knew his brain was translating her words literally. She waited. ‘Oh . . . No, wait . . .’ The word was stretched out as the drunken fog cleared momentarily and the penny dropped.

  No. No, he hadn’t. She felt too upset to even ask why not, resentful that she was having to push on it – as though all this marriage business had been her idea and he was the reluctant groom.

  ‘But I will. We’ve just been bonding,’ he repeated.

  Bonding. That word again.

  She didn’t say anything, but just rubbed her temples with her hand. It had been a long day. Actually, it had felt like a long week. What should have been one of the happiest times was feeling somehow contorted and forced. She was beginning to feel her engagement was like a car out of fuel, sputtering down the street, wholly unable to get to its destination. She shouldn’t have to beg for her parents to be told she was getting married. His insistence upon adhering to some old-fashioned notion of etiquette was doing more harm than good. Couldn’t he see that?