The Secret Path

by Karen Swan

  Ten years contracted to a single breath as the sudden contact of her skin upon his made her own laughter fade. She could feel the scars beneath her fingertips, skin she had once known so intimately now marked by events experienced in her absence, and it made her wonder – how much had he lived without her? How many stories and adventures; how many women . . .?

  She felt a white flash of pain sear inside her, memories she had long ago suppressed shooting up like fireworks. ‘Alex—’ She tried to pull her hand back but the pressure on her hand increased.

  ‘Tara.’ His voice split and at the sound of it she instinctively looked up. A mistake – the passion that had surged between them from their first ever meeting was there still, impossible to deny; like an underground shoot reaching for the light, she understood now that it hadn’t withered but had simply been buried. ‘Tara, you have to forgive me.’

  She swallowed. ‘No.’ The word was unequivocal.

  ‘I know what I did, the way I hurt you.’

  She looked straight back at him, forcing back down all the feelings that wanted to surge and be seen, acknowledged, felt. ‘. . . You don’t know anything.’

  ‘You have to forgive me,’ he repeated. ‘It’s been ten years!’

  ‘I know,’ she said simply. ‘Our child would have been nine.’

  Her words, softly spoken, were like thunderclaps and she watched as the confusion ran over his face. His hand dropped from hers and he stumbled back, away from her, as though she’d hit him.

  ‘. . . What?’ His voice was a whisper.

  ‘I was pregnant. I’d planned on telling you after the engagement.’

  She spoke quietly but with power. How many years had she waited to say these words? She saw the pain travel through him, an electric current she had been able to shoot across from her heart to his, leaving him trembling. But there was no joy or satisfaction to be had from it. It didn’t mitigate her loss. She felt only dismay that the secret she had so excitedly wanted to tell him in bed one night, all those years ago, was instead being revealed like this, here, a world away. She could still see her and Holly’s ghosts standing on the bridge in Hyde Park, both thinking they knew their own futures. They had each been so utterly wrong.

  She looked straight back at him, determined to answer the next question before he even asked it. ‘I miscarried nine days later.’ The intimation was clear.

  ‘Tara—’

  ‘It’s why I can’t forgive you, no matter how much time passes,’ she said simply. He looked broken, but she was resolute. The heart vibration is weak. You lost a child. She had spent ten years living with this and the pain was still the same. She didn’t feel any less empty, and unburdening herself of the secret didn’t make her feel any less haunted. He knew now too, that was all. He understood, at last, that they had lost so much more than the last decade, that there was no way back, whatever chemistry told them otherwise. ‘What you took from me, you can never give back. And no matter how kind or generous you may be – now that you’ve achieved what you wanted – we’re not friends. I just need you to help me help Paco and then we’re done.’

  He stared at her in an anguished silence. She could see the words and arguments climb into his eyes and onto his lips, only to be discarded again. They would have had a child, nine by now? There was nothing to counter that.

  She watched as he swallowed and looked away, his body turning as if in slow motion. He put one foot in front of the other and they resumed the trek in silence.

  There were no more jokes or stories now, the miles ticking along as the sun charted its descent. The jungle was growing blacker in the fast-fading light, birds like bats against the dusk, an eerie grey mist beginning to wind through the trees.

  ‘That’s it over there, in the cloud forest,’ he said finally, stopping at the edge of a dramatic, narrow gorge, a pass between two mountains. The land dropped away steeply between the cliffs, down to a river fifty metres below. A single-path rope bridge connected one side to the other, looking as intricate and fragile as a spider’s web; the treads were simply split logs. Tara looked down again, not sure she trusted putting her weight onto it, but Alex stepped out and walked across without hesitation, so she followed. In this, at least, she trusted him.

  She felt the change in habitat on the other side immediately. Three steps into the trees and the sky became a notional thing, completely blocked from sight by interlocking canopies that soared thirty, forty metres high. Low-sailing clouds bumped around the trunks, the ground cover reduced, making it easier to walk. Within minutes they were panting again from the steep gradient.

  ‘What’s that?’ she asked, as a sound came to her ear unlike anything she had heard since her first step into the jungle. In contrast to the cacophonous sharp shrieks and calls, cries and shouts of the animals that lived here, this was soaring and melodic: a clean, mellow whistle that seemed to wind around the trees, beckoning her.

  ‘Pan pipes.’

  It was haunting, especially in the gloaming, and it stopped abruptly as they reached a grassy clearing and stood by the edge of the trees.

  ‘This is it,’ he said simply.

  She looked at him. They were here? Just like that? After a trip in which Jed had been attacked and seriously injured, in which she had been ambushed by her past, where she had cheated death . . . they had made it? Somehow, it felt anticlimactic.

  She looked on at the conical huts fully thatched to the ground with rushes, similar in style to those in Jed and Sarita’s village, but more dispersed. A man was standing by one of them, staring back, as if he’d been waiting for them. He was wearing Western trousers but with a fringed rush tabard over his chest, and in his hand was a small set of bamboo pipes.

  Alex stepped forward, speaking in a language she didn’t recognize. He gesticulated back in her direction, the man’s gaze coming to her and off again. He smiled, revealing gappy teeth, then gave a laugh that sounded surprisingly matey.

  Alex gestured for her to come over. ‘Tara, this is William, the Awa.’

  ‘William?’ she repeated in surprise. They’d just trekked two days to get here. They were by anyone’s definition in the middle of nowhere, and the Awa sounded like a public school boy from the Home Counties?

  William regarded her with a look of open scrutiny, as though he was somehow reading her. Could he see what she’d been through to get here? Would he even believe it? Her face was sunburned on one side from where she’d slept on the rock, she had cuts and bruises, she was covered in mosquito bites, her leg itched like mad where the leech had stuck on. Did that tell him enough, or was she wearing her terror – and exhaustion – like a dress too?

  ‘He’s reading your energy,’ Alex said in a low voice, as the Awa – as in Jed’s village – took her hand and held it, his eyes closed for a moment. ‘Standard greeting here.’

  William opened his eyes after a few moments and stared back at her, nodding as though she had confirmed something for him. He reached forward with his other hand and placed it on her forearm, right above her wound. She immediately winced. The scratch that had been showing signs of infection felt significantly worse again.

  William took a closer look at it, peeling back her sleeve, and she wondered how he had known it was even there. The infection was setting in fast, the pustules growing larger and whiter. She stared at it, trying not to panic. The jungle was no place to accrue an infection, clearly, but she reminded herself she would be back to civilization in less than two days. That would be enough time, surely?

  William walked off into the trees a few metres away, without a word, returning several moments later with a clutch of leaves.

  Of course, more leaves, she thought to herself, obeying politely as William beckoned for her to follow him. She trailed him into the largest hut, her eyes widening in amazement at the sight that greeted her. It dwarfed the scale and grandeur of Jed’s Awa’s hut. Carved wooden masks hung from the walls, bows dangled by their strings; decorated gourds and carvings of animals s
he almost recognized, but not quite, were placed on tables and makeshift ledges propped against the walls. Hides of snakes and deer hung drying from lines, and some loosely woven twine hammocks were suspended between the giant wooden struts.

  He put the leaves down on a table and, with a small knife, chopped them roughly, releasing the sap and grinding them into a paste. He worked quickly and efficiently. No one spoke. Tara just watched, too tired to protest; there was something hypnotic about his sense of purpose. Within a few minutes, he had created a bright lime green unguent and began applying it to her arm. It smelled foul but didn’t sting at least, Tara watching on sceptically as he took one large, waxy leaf, different from the others, and stuck it over the mixture like some sort of plaster. He pressed it down with the palm of his hand, holding it there for a count of ten and then stepping away. It didn’t budge when she moved her arm. He murmured something.

  ‘It’ll feel better tomorrow,’ Alex translated.

  ‘Gracias,’ was all she said. She could feel the ointment already sinking into the festering wound and a distant part of her could hardly believe that she – a doctor – had allowed a complete stranger, without any proven medical credentials, to treat an established infection; he could easily make it worse; he hadn’t taken a patient history, he didn’t know whether she had any allergies, contra-indicated conditions . . . But the day had stripped her of any mental rigour. She had never been so tired, her accident and then the sad showdown with Alex leaving her fully drained.

  The villagers had begun to come into the hut now, gathering at the threshold and staring at them with curious eyes. A babble of chatter quickly grew as the crowd expanded, almost everyone’s eyes on her, for they seemed to recognize Alex. Then, as if on an agreed cue, the children ran forwards, excitedly surrounding him and pulling at his trousers, asking to be picked up, their eyes wary upon her all the while. Tara watched the way he gave them high-fives, greeting them with smiles that for once didn’t reach his eyes.

  ‘Beauty,’ one of the women said, coming closer. She was dressed in a dark red skirt and blue cotton top, a young child swaddled to her chest, its legs poking out the bottom of the sling. Slowly she traced a finger around one half of Tara’s face, but looking back at Alex. ‘Very beauty.’

  Some of the children were edging closer to Tara now, seeing that she didn’t bite. Their hands were reaching for her legs, as if to touch her was to see she was real. One little girl in particular was staring up at her with almond-shaped eyes and Tara instinctively stretched out her arms to her. She lifted her up and the two of them looked at one another with a mutual curiosity.

  ‘Hi,’ Tara smiled. ‘Hola.’

  ‘Hola,’ the girl whispered back, shyly.

  ‘You doctor lady?’ one of the women said, coming closer too.

  Tara was surprised, and not just because she could speak some English. How could she have known what Tara did for a living? ‘. . . Yes.’

  ‘From England?’

  ‘Yes.’ She looked over quizzically at Alex, now standing there with a three-year-old on each hip, an inscrutable expression on his face as he saw the questions buzz through her brain: how did they know she was a doctor? How did they know she was English?

  The laugh that she’d heard earlier, outside, cackled behind her again. ‘Alex spent many months here,’ William said, as if that explained it.

  She was dumbfounded. ‘You speak English too?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘But why didn’t you say so when I arrived?’

  ‘You would have been disappointed, I think?’ He smiled, his eyes twinkling mischievously as he brushed a hand over the tabard. Had that been for her benefit, then? ‘When our friend here first became the . . . big boss man . . .’ William rolled his eyes. ‘He wanted to learn the ways of the jungle from the Indigenous peoples.’ He gave a shrug. ‘So we bartered. He taught us English and in return, he could live with us and learn our ways.’

  ‘Oh.’ It was another insight into the life he had found After Her. So different to the one she had built After Him. She wondered how long he had lived here with them, and when? Was it a month after he arrived? A year? Six? It was another clue as to the adventures he had had without her, the life he had lived without her by his side, and she felt a fresh pang of loss, another mourning for the life she hadn’t had. He had asked her to marry him, to share her life with him . . . they might have had their child. But instead they had diverged – an ocean between them and not a word in ten years.

  Tara watched Alex put the wriggling children back down again and they ran off, laughing and shrieking, as he ran a hand through his hair. He looked older. Tired.

  ‘Well, talking of the “big boss man”, Tara’s father is my boss,’ Alex said pointedly. William appeared to absorb his meaning as Tara saw his expression change before her eyes.

  ‘Then what are you doing over here?’ William asked him. ‘The ceremony is soon.’

  ‘Yes, three days from now, I’m aware,’ Alex sighed. ‘Tara has come to help a friend. They need the black star leaves for a medical treatment.’

  William’s brow furrowed deeply. ‘. . . It is the spider disease?’

  ‘Apparently,’ Tara nodded, still holding the curious little girl on her hip.

  Alex went on, ‘William, we’ve had a hard journey to get here and Tara’s exhausted. She and her guide were attacked yesterday, down by the rangers’ station, and clearly time is of the essence. We’ll need to leave again at first light tomorrow.’ He lapsed into the Awa’s language again and as he finished speaking, William met the gaze of an older woman standing by the door and nodded to her. She came over and William spoke to her in a low voice.

  ‘She’s going to get the black star leaves before the sun sets,’ Alex translated.

  ‘Oh. But shouldn’t I . . .?’ she began, before stopping herself with a wry smile. Did she honestly believe it made a difference who picked it and when? But she thought back to how her headache had cleared . . . ‘Wait, I’ve got something from Don Carlos.’ She got up and hurried over to the rucksack, retrieving the wrapped parcel he had given her on her departure. ‘Apparently this has to be opened only when the leaves are being picked,’ she said to him. ‘I don’t know what it is.’

  ‘It’s a talisman, believed to optimize the healing qualities of the plant.’ Alex took it and handed it to the woman, who accepted it with a look of understanding, as though she had been expecting such a thing. Without a word, the woman slipped from the hut. If only out of curiosity, Tara would have liked to have gone with her and watch the obscure ritual, but the woman would need to be quick. They had only minutes of daylight left.

  ‘Come. You are in need of food and rest,’ William said, and with a sweep of his arm, he led them over to the communal area where wooden stools – old tree stumps – were arranged in a circle around a low-flickering fire.

  Tara put the little girl back down, sending her off with a wink, and sat where she was put in front of the fire, watching as the villagers began to busy themselves with hospitality. She was too tired to object to anything and she gratefully accepted the drink which was placed in her hands; it was a deep amber colour and smelled as potent as brandy.

  ‘What is this?’ she asked Alex.

  ‘Aguardiente. Or “burning water”,’ he replied, watching as she began sipping eagerly. ‘Careful, it’s strong stuff.’

  She shrugged, feeling grateful for anything that took the edges off her day. It had been one to remember, for all the wrong reasons. The sensation of falling still kept jolting through her as though her mind was stuck on a trauma loop, and her heart ached from disturbing long-held secrets. She noticed Alex wouldn’t quite meet her gaze now either. Their past, which he had tried so hard to pretend could stay in the past, pulsed bloody and raw between them now.

  William sat down opposite them, but the teasing quality she had briefly discerned in his eyes on arrival had gone – the revelation that she was a Tremain and no mere eco-tourist appeared t
o have changed things – and he looked once more like the Village Elder of her stereotypes. ‘Who was it who attacked you?’

  She was surprised by his return to the topic. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t see them. It was my friend Jed who was hurt, not me.’

  She saw William’s gaze lock with Alex’s. ‘. . . What?’ she asked them both.

  ‘There’s been a lot of trouble lately, that’s all,’ Alex said with a dismissive tone, still with his eyes down. ‘Certain ranchers and plantation owners don’t want the handover to go ahead, so we’ve been seeing an escalation in . . . problems.’

  She remembered the ranch worker’s hostile stare by the truck, the way Jed’s car had been hemmed in, the slashed tyre, almost being run off the road . . . ‘What sort of problems?’

  He hesitated. ‘There’s been some thefts, fires, intimidation tactics . . . Petty stuff. But it’s all in hand.’

  ‘Petty stuff?’ she echoed. ‘Beating a man of Jed’s size into unconsciousness isn’t petty stuff. It’s serious assault, if not attempted murder!’

  He lifted his gaze to hers at last. ‘Like I said, we’re dealing with it. They’re just scare tactics. Nothing is going to stop the handover going ahead on Friday.’

  But Tara saw a bleakness in his eyes she’d never discerned before and for several moments they stared at one another in a silence that was louder than their words.

  William, she noticed, seemed troubled too. She wondered how much he knew and if there was anything he wasn’t saying either. She had a strong suspicion Alex was downplaying the issue.

  ‘Alex, is there something going on that you’re not telling me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Has a threat been made?’

  ‘It’s fine. They’re all talk.’

  Wasn’t that exactly what Jed had said? And look at him now! She didn’t blink as she stared back at him. ‘Are they going to do something on Friday?’

  ‘No!’