The Secret Path

by Karen Swan

  ‘We’ve got some supplies for you,’ Tara said in her best Spanish, when the numbers finally subsided. ‘I’d have called ahead, but I didn’t want you to go to any trouble and start laying on some kind of welcome.’ She could only imagine what they might have done with forewarning.

  ‘Tara, you are so good to us,’ Yorleny said in halting English, so that Holly and Dev could listen too.

  ‘It’s the very least I can do. I’m sorry I couldn’t bring more. But I will next time, definitely,’ she promised, knowing she would be back again soon. She’d cut off her own nose to spite her face by refusing to come back here for so long. She had let Alex Carter drive her out as though this country wasn’t big enough for the both of them. But of course it was.

  ‘Do you mind if I have a look around? I’d like to see what you’ve got and what you don’t. I can write up a sort of inventory for what to bring next time.’

  ‘Tara, this is your clinic, you do not need to ask.’ She looked at Holly and Dev. ‘You are doctors too, yes?’

  ‘That’s right. I do trauma. My husband is a radiographer. X-rays,’ Holly said, enunciating every word with comic effect.

  A gleam came into the clinical director’s eyes and Tara knew what she was thinking. There had to be fifty patients in the waiting area, and so far she’d counted only four doctors in white coats, including Yorleny, the clinical director. ‘Then perhaps . . .’

  ‘We’ve got a free hour or so, if you’d like some help?’ Tara offered on all their behalf. ‘And actually, we’ve brought a couple of ultrasound scanners for the pregnant mothers, so Dev could set them up for you?’ She looked over at him.

  ‘Sure,’ Dev shrugged, easy-going as always.

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ Yorleny said, looking amazed.

  ‘Just point us where to go. We can work out the rest.’

  An hour passed in what seemed like fifteen minutes. Tara and Holly were set up in adjoining rooms and between them they assessed and cleaned wounds and scrapes, took temperatures and palpated swollen stomachs, measured blood pressure, took bloods, administered inoculations and gave out iron tablets . . . It was like being medical students again, going back to basics and dealing with the business of life, not death, of connecting with patients without the high-octane drama that characterized their roles back home. It was all a long way from her intensive care unit, where everything flashed and beeped and there was more machinery to see than patient. She felt in her element here.

  Jimmy had been tasked with tidying the toy crates and putting the right bits of jigsaw back in the right boxes. Dev had moved on from setting up and explaining the Dopplers to seemingly running his own obstetric clinic as he scanned the expectant mothers himself, giving them printouts of their foetuses and explaining what they were seeing. Jed was unpacking the boxes and stacking the shelves – and seemingly repairing them, too.

  ‘Jed, where are the gauze swabs we brought?’ she asked him, popping her head out of her room. He was working in the cupboard opposite, down on his hands and knees and hammering something into the back wall.

  ‘Down the corridor, in the office second door on the left,’ he said, his voice muffled. ‘Beside the speculums. I’ll get them for you.’

  ‘No, don’t worry. It’ll only take me a sec,’ she said, patting his shoulder as she passed. She saw Holly holding up her fingers and getting a young boy to follow them as she went past her door. She was smiling, her eyes bright. No sugar required. She never looked like that on the A&E ward.

  Tara found the office and knocked. There was no reply, so she went in. Jed had stacked the supplies conscientiously so that all the labels were facing forwards.

  She took two boxes, her gaze falling to the view outside the window as she closed the cupboard. It had begun raining. She could see the patch of scrubland at the back where the local kids played football around the thick tufts of grass, heavy-headed trees bowing low as the cloudburst passed over with casual, familiar ferocity. Two women were walking with bags in their hands, not bothering to run; they knew the rain would be gone within another few minutes, that there was nowhere actually to run to. She could see Jed’s Jeep parked up in the lot, surrounded now by several other trucks. She frowned. They were all clustered together, like sheep huddling for warmth. She made a mental note to have parking lines painted – something else to go on her list – but she would have thought logic would dictate where and how to park?

  She walked back up the corridor.

  ‘Jed.’ She waited for him to crawl backwards from the cramped space. He looked up at her, flushed; he was far too big a man to fit into something of that size. ‘You might want to ask around and see if some people can move their trucks? We’re a bit hemmed in.’

  ‘Oh. Okay.’ He frowned, seeming puzzled.

  ‘It’s not a problem, but I reckon we’ll be good to go in ten minutes or so, that’s all. It’s a holiday after all, and remember we’ve promised Jimmy a swim in a waterfall.’

  ‘Sure.’

  She went back in to her patient, a seven-year-old boy with an infected leg wound. ‘Right. Now, where were we?’ she smiled.

  Tara lay on the rock, out of breath and still laughing at Holly’s wedgie on her last ‘run’. Jed had taken them to the waterfalls she remembered visiting as a child. They weren’t as high as in her memory, nor as azure as Instagram led everyone to believe, but the river feeding into them was wide and fast and the falls fanned round the pool in a crescent. In the far corner, a short sequence of smooth-bouldered runs acted like chutes and it was possible to slide down them – which was what they had been doing for a couple of hours now. Jimmy couldn’t get enough, and Holly and Dev had been taking it in turns to ‘cannonball’ with him. They were all feeling very waterlogged.

  ‘Anyone hungry?’ Jed asked.

  ‘Me!’ Holly’s arm shot up like she was in school.

  ‘I would murder for a coffee,’ Dev panted, wading through the pool to where Jed was sitting on the rocks and opening up his large rucksack.

  ‘Not got coffee here, but how about some fresh papaya juice and some mangoes?’

  ‘Oh my God yes,’ Holly said, hurriedly wading over too, elbows out like she was a sales shopper. ‘This is like one of those posh spas – waterfalls. Mangoes. Papaya juice.’

  Tara lay flat out on her rock, basking like a seal, her eyes closed and listening to the sounds of the jungle all around them. It was so much busier than her sleep apps suggested. The air positively thrummed with noise, it dripped with scent, even her own skin quietly beaded with sweat as though that too was brimming to overflowing. It felt like sensory overload and she had a feeling of becoming grounded and settling back into her own body again. Even her headache was on a dim setting.

  She heard a distinctive shriek and opened her eyes in time to see a keel-billed toucan flying between the trees. She smiled, still able to remember the first time she’d seen one. She’d been ten.

  ‘Here, T-t.’ Jed was squatting on the rock beside hers, reaching over with a glass of juice.

  She scrambled up onto her elbows and took it gratefully. ‘So this is heavenly.’

  ‘I sure think so,’ he grinned.

  ‘Having fun, Jimmy?’ she called over. He was still clambering over the rocks and shooting down them without stopping, but he couldn’t hear her over the thunder of the falls.

  Dev was watching him with an unwavering gaze and Tara felt a rush of love for her old friend. He was such a good father, such a patient husband. Tara didn’t think there were many men out there who would or could put up with Holly; she was strong, demanding, generally uncompromising. She always shouted longest and loudest – and yet, somehow, Dev steered her to where she needed to be. They made a good team. She couldn’t imagine either one of them without the other and yet she remembered a time when Holly had been so determined to cut him out of her life. It seemed inconceivable now. ‘He frightened the hell out of me,’ Holly had admitted years later. ‘I had this sense he was going to
be The One and it really pissed me off. I thought I was going to get a lot more shagging around in first.’ The revelation that Holly had been pregnant at the same time as Tara had been just one of many shocks for them both in that period. It was the only one she could look back on with warmth.

  ‘So, Jed,’ Holly said, settling herself on the rocks, her elbows resting on her knees. ‘Twig told me you’ve known her since she was a little girl . . .’

  Tara grinned at her friend’s tone of voice. Uh-oh.

  ‘. . . That means you must have some dirt on her.’ Her blue eyes twinkled.

  Jed laughed. ‘Well now, if I did, it would be more than my life’s worth to share it.’

  ‘Huh, that’s very disappointing, Jed,’ Holly quipped. ‘I think you and I are going to need to crack open a bottle of rum sometime soon and see what you have to say then.’

  Everyone chuckled.

  ‘I can’t believe we’ve got this place all to ourselves?’ Dev said, looking over at Jed. ‘I assumed it would be overrun with tourists.’

  ‘Well, there are some much bigger falls than this a few kilometres away. They usually go there and mainly it’s the locals come here, ’cos it’s close by. But it will all get busier once the new park opens. What is it they call it? Eco-tourism?’ He gave a wry smile.

  Dev grinned. ‘I still can’t believe your family owns a national park, Twig.’

  Tara blushed. ‘Well, technically it’s still just a private conservation project until the weekend. Only once it’s gifted back to the Costa Rican people will it become a national resource.’

  ‘Oh, just call a spade a spade,’ Holly scoffed. ‘It’s a goddam national park!’

  Dev looked back at Tara. ‘It’s an incredible thing, what your family’s done.’

  ‘It’s really nothing to do with me.’

  ‘But for your family to use their money like that, to realize such a bold vision. I mean, how many other people in your position would have committed to something of that scale? It’s all very well and good signing up to the notion of good causes but actually following through on it . . .’

  ‘Dev – stop talking?’ Holly muttered, seeing Tara’s frozen expression. It was several seconds before he caught up and remembered the background story. Realization ran openly over his face. He had been there, back then; he remembered the fallout from this Great Idea, the sacrifice to the Grand Scheme . . .

  He looked at Jed instead, flustered. ‘How is it regarded by the Costa Ricans?’ he asked, looking for safe ground.

  Jed gave a cautious nod. ‘Most people are pleased.’

  ‘Only most? Not all?’

  ‘Well, not the mining or the logging or the oil companies, nor the ranchers, or the farmers or the plantation owners. All the ones who have to cut back the forest for their profits, they don’t care about saving the planet.’

  ‘Mmm. I guess this is the problem, isn’t it?’ Dev said. ‘These high-minded ideals of preserving the forests, protecting wildlife, reducing carbon emissions – they come with the best intentions, but for the guy on the ground who’s lost his livelihood . . .’ he shrugged. ‘It’s a kick in the teeth.’

  ‘Yes. Some people have been very unhappy.’

  Tara watched Jed. She knew him too well. He was a born diplomat, careful with his words, but she knew that often the truth lay in his silences. There was something he wasn’t telling them. Or rather, her.

  ‘At least you’re on the right side of the fence,’ Dev continued. ‘Holly told me you and your family are very important to Tara’s family.’

  Jed smiled, glancing at Tara almost shyly. ‘Well, that is good to hear. They are very important to us. We feel honoured to work for them.’

  ‘What is it your father does exactly?’

  ‘For the moment, he is based at the rangers’ lodge in the middle of the park. He manages the rangers. It is a varied job – maintaining boundaries, catching poachers, illegal farmers.’ He gave an amused laugh. ‘He caught one of the villages illegally trying to build a road not so long ago. It would have run across one of the main breeding areas for jaguarondi, which are endangered, of course.’

  ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘Yes. So he is very busy. And of course there has been much to do to get ready for the handover.’

  ‘It sounds a mammoth task,’ Dev sympathized. ‘And here you are, looking after us and bringing us to waterfalls!’

  ‘I caught the long straw, for sure!’ Jed laughed. ‘But it is important, making sure you are happy.’

  ‘Jed, I’m not sure I’ve ever been happier,’ Holly murmured, lying down to bask on a warm rock, her eyes already closing.

  ‘Does your wife work?’ Dev asked.

  ‘She does. She is a teacher in our village.’

  Tara frowned. ‘Village? But I thought you lived in Puerto Viejo?’

  ‘Not anymore. You see? Much has changed since your last visit. My wife is Indigena – she is of the Bribri. They live past Manzanillo, in the mountains.’

  ‘But I thought . . . do you mean you travel over here, every day?’

  ‘Only when your family is here. Otherwise I help my father, usually at the rangers’ base station.’ He smiled, seeing her expression. ‘It is not a problem for me to come to the beach, T-t.’

  Tara said nothing, but she knew that journeys here weren’t like they were at home. It wasn’t a matter of hopping on buses or trains, of walking down roads or even through fields. This was a land of tropical forests – rainforests, cloud forests, dry forests. Moving even ten metres could be a challenge in some parts. To get to the beach in time for her family to wake up every day, he must be leaving his home well before dawn.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be easier to stay in town in the week and go home at weekends?’

  ‘Easier? Yes,’ he grinned. ‘But for my wife left with the babies? Believe me, my life is easier if I am there too.’

  ‘Oh I hear you!’ Dev nodded. ‘And amen to that.’

  Jed chuckled, understanding the joke as Holly looked on with a mock-peeved expression. His smile faded. ‘. . . Sadly our second boy is sick. It takes two of us to be there at night. One to look after him, and one to look after the others.’

  Tara frowned. Something in Jed’s tone of voice, his altered speech pattern, put her on high alert. ‘Sick how?’

  ‘Bad stomach pain. Fevers. He cannot eat. His skin itches all the time.’

  ‘Any joint pains? Swellings?’ Holly asked, turning her head on the rock, a deep frown on her brow. Briefly, her gaze met Tara’s.

  ‘Yes. In his hands. And a lot of nosebleeds.’

  ‘Nosebleeds?’ Tara echoed.

  ‘Is he jaundiced? Have his bloods been taken?’ Holly pressed, propping herself up on her elbows.

  Jed looked taken aback by the rapid-fire questions, but Tara knew exactly where her friend was heading.

  ‘Has he seen a doctor, Jed?’ she asked gently.

  ‘The Awa is treating him.’

  ‘Awa?’ Holly echoed.

  He reached for the word in English. ‘The shaman. The doctor in town will not visit the village, and anyway my boy is too weak to travel. It is safer to keep him at home.’

  Holly and Tara shared a knowing look. If he was too weak to travel, that was proof alone that he needed to be in a hospital. Tara’s gaze slid over to Dev and Jimmy. This was their trip of a lifetime; it had been one thing helping out at the clinic for a couple of hours, but Holly couldn’t start trekking cross-country on a busman’s holiday.

  ‘Jed, would you allow me to take a look at him?’ she asked, treading carefully.

  He blinked, looking suddenly nervous. ‘Thank you, but it is not necessary. The Awa is treating him.’

  ‘Of course. And I respect that. What does the Awa say is wrong with him?’

  ‘That he has the spider sickness.’

  ‘Spider sickness.’

  ‘The sickness is a thread that goes through the veins and around the body, like a spider walking on a web.’

>   ‘Right, yes, of course.’ Tara plastered a smile on her face; she had never heard a potential case of hepatitis being called that before. ‘Well, would you let me take a quick look at him anyway? Just to offer a second opinion. I would like to help if I can. You always do so much for my family, it would be the least I could do.’

  Jed hesitated, the fearful parent suddenly visible in his happy-go-lucky face.

  ‘Please. Whatever I might recommend would be entirely for you and Sarita to decide if it was what you wanted,’ she added. ‘There would be no pressure from me. He’s your son.’

  ‘. . . Okay,’ he said finally.

  ‘Great. What’s his name?’

  ‘Paco.’

  ‘Paco, lovely.’ She kept her voice deliberately calm, her cadence slow. ‘So then, maybe I could travel back with you tonight?’

  ‘Tonight?’

  ‘Mm-hmm,’ she said casually, hoping he wouldn’t be alarmed by her urgency.

  There was a hesitation. ‘But it would be very dark. You would not be able to get back until the morning.’ Jed looked concerned by this.

  ‘That’s fine – as long as there’s somewhere I could sleep for the night?’

  He thought for a moment. ‘There is a bed I know of. Our neighbour’s son went to San José for work.’

  She nodded, not exactly relishing the idea of sleeping in a complete stranger’s house. ‘Uh-huh. Well, if you’re sure your neighbour wouldn’t mind, just for the night . . .’

  Jed looked back at her. ‘Of course not. If you really think it will help?’

  ‘I do, Jed,’ she nodded. ‘I really do.’

  The sun was beginning to sink when they finally made their way back. The original plan for a quick excursion to the waterfalls had led to an all-afternoon escape as they took it in turns napping, sunbathing and swimming with Jimmy. At one point, Jed took the boy off to see some rarely sighted grey-crowned squirrel monkeys which he spotted nearby.

  Now, with dusk falling, the forest was becoming even louder – emerald cicadas scratched, sending a deafening hum into the sky, monkeys shrieked, parakeets flapped and cawed, tapirs shuffled heavily through the undergrowth. Everything could be heard, but almost nothing was seen; life teemed and pulsed just out of reach – a flash of colour here, a slow blink in the leaves there.