The Secret Path by Karen Swan (summer beach reads TXT) 📕

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?

‘Twig? My Twiggle?’ He had never called her Twiggle before. It irritated her.

‘Go to bed, Alex.’ Her voice was flat and weary. She felt exhausted by all these balls she had to keep up in the air; today with her friends had been a case in point of why keeping secrets only led to confusion and pain.

‘Twiggy.’ His voice was plaintive, so unlike his usual commanding, self-possessed tones. She didn’t like him this drunk. It diminished him somehow, robbed him of all the strength and purpose she found so attractive. ‘Tomorrow, I promise. I absolutely promise.’

‘Night, Alex.’ She hung up on him, unconvinced. She’d heard that before.

Chapter Seven

‘Bugger, we’ve got no bread.’ Charlie stared disconsolately into the larder. ‘I swear we brought a loaf?’

‘We did,’ Liv said, from her spot sprawled on the worn armchair beside the royal-blue Aga. ‘But then we had munchies when we got in last night, remember?’

Charlie had to concentrate very hard to remember. ‘Oh yeah.’ She looked back at the almost empty larder again. ‘Bugger.’ They had a tub of Philadelphia cheese, a jar of jam, some butter, a pack of sliced honey-roast ham and an aubergine. No one quite knew what meal had been planned around the aubergine – they were all hopeless cooks – but apparently nothing at all could be eaten without bread.

They were significantly the worse for wear after last night; much to Tara’s dismay, the celebrations had continued long after the pub had thrown them out and, despite the fact she’d been secretly sober as a judge, she looked as convincingly battered and hungover as everyone else on only four hours’ sleep.

‘I’ll nip out and get some,’ she said, reaching for her jacket and grateful for the excuse to escape for a bit and have some fresh air. ‘We need more milk anyway.’

‘No, we’ve got milk. We’ve got four pints, in fact,’ Sophie said proudly, showing her the carton in the fridge door compartment.

‘Yes, but Hols likes full-fat,’ Tara shrugged, aware of Holly’s gaze coming to rest upon her. She was sitting slumped at the pine kitchen table, stretched out on one elbow, her head in her hand as she listlessly read the local businesses directory. It had a picture of a red squirrel on the front and an ad for oven cleaning on the back page.

‘And she couldn’t, this one time, have semi-skimmed?’ Charlie asked. She had a rabid dislike of anyone being ‘precious’.

Holly pinned Charlie with a look. ‘Hey! In Yorkshire, tea is a serious business. Don’t mess with my tea.’

Everyone was scratchy, irritable and exhausted, and the teasing tone was only half an octave away from being war.

‘Do you want the bread or not?’ Tara asked, checking that the car keys were still in her pocket. Her phone was – sixteen per cent battery left. She had left it downstairs accidentally last night and by the time she’d realized, the house was in darkness and Annie was already beginning to fall asleep (or rather, pass out) beside her.

She could charge it in the car on the journey back later. Listlessly, without much hope, she checked for messages or missed calls, but there was nothing. Naturally. They would be on the second hole by now anyway. Her father always teed off at nine sharp.

‘Sure. And Nutella, if they’ve got any,’ Charlie said, too hungover to argue for once.

‘And the Sunday papers, please,’ Liv said, clasping her hands in a weak prayer position. ‘I need to see my horoscopes for the week.’

Everyone simultaneously tutted. ‘And you call yourself a scientist!’ Charlie scoffed.

‘Annie calls herself a vegan but she eats halloumi!’

‘Only because I like the way it squeaks,’ Annie protested, as though that was a logical defence.

Tara had to smile. Her friends might be a fractious, useless motley crew, but she supposed she loved them. ‘I’ll be back in ten, then – don’t murder each other before I get back. Bread, milk, Nutella, papers.’

‘And some chocolate Hobnobs!’ Liv called after her. ‘If they’ve got them.’

‘Chocolate Hobnobs,’ Tara nodded, slipping through the kitchen stable door into the garden.

There was still a chill in the air, but the skies were clear and a tendril of mist draped over the shoulders of the hills like a scarf. The valley was a palette of hesitant greens, gentle greys and browns, sheep dotting the fields like cotton flowers. A distant river tumbled over rocks, bringing a chattering babble to the otherwise pervasive silence.

She unlocked the car and was clicking on her seatbelt when the passenger door opened and Holly slid into the seat beside her. She was still wearing her striped flannel PJs – her ‘old man pyjamas’, as Dev called them – with socks, Birkenstocks and a borrowed wax jacket thrown on top. It smelled like wet sheep, which was not helpful to either of them. Tara had felt her nausea increasing over the last few days, and Holly had been throwing up all morning.

‘. . . Hi!’ Tara said in surprise. She had