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

She gave a wan smile. ‘Oh that, yes. Very pleased.’

‘I’ll bet. Did I hear right that you’re the youngest consultant at Tommy’s?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t know about that.’

He gave a lopsided smile. ‘You always were too modest.’ A blonde woman in ivory draped silk viscose came and stood beside him. ‘Ah, there you are, darling. I was just on my way back to the table,’ he said. ‘You remember Tara Tremain? We were SHOs together at St Mary’s.’

‘Of course,’ Caroline smiled blankly, her bump as neat as her hair. ‘How are you?’

‘Tremain’s made consultant in ICU at Thomas’s,’ Charles offered, before Tara could even open her mouth.

‘Oh. Congratulations.’ Caroline, Tara seemed to recall hearing somewhere, was head of a Montessori nursery that had a waiting list as long as the Rheumatology department’s.

‘And to you. Your second, I hear?’ It was one of those circular conversations, the same material being passed around with faux cheer and insincere wishes. No one actually saying anything meaningful. No one actually connecting.

Caroline’s hand instinctively went to her stomach. ‘A little girl. Rollo’s so excited he’s going to be a big brother.’

Tara nodded. ‘So lovely. Well, you look wonderful, pregnancy suits you.’ She began stepping away. ‘Great to see you both. I’d better get back to my table.’

‘Absolutely. Let’s grab a coffee sometime. I want to hear how you did it,’ Charles called after her. ‘Give me some tips for the top.’

‘Haha!’ she replied, as though he was joking. ‘You never did need my help, Charles,’ she said with a wave, turning away.

She slid into her seat, casting a vague smile at their table. Rory, listening in on a conversation with Mark Wu, sat back and squeezed her knee. He draped an arm over the back of her chair, watching as she fiddled with the skirt of her dress.

‘I thought you’d left me,’ he murmured in her ear.

‘You should be so lucky. No, I got caught by Charles Miller, know him?’

Rory thought for a moment, his face falling into that familiar look of concentration. ‘Over at Guy’s?’

‘Yeah. I did my SHO training with him.’

Rory smiled, an eyebrow lifting, knowing how tangled medics’ relationship histories tended to be. ‘And . . .?’

‘And his wife is expecting a little sister for Darling Rollo.’

He chuckled and leaned over, kissing her on the cheek.

‘How much longer before we can get out of here?’ she whispered.

His blue eyes twinkled. ‘Well, bit rude before coffee, don’t you think?’

‘Mmm,’ she concurred reluctantly, looking around them and wishing he wasn’t always so polite. As Holly had said on more than one occasion, she had managed to find her perfect match. ‘You, but with a willy,’ had been Holly’s exact words.

She sighed restlessly as she watched people beginning to mingle. Now the awards and speeches were done, now the wine had been drunk, the evening was going to slip its stays. People would begin to dance and flirt with people who weren’t their spouses . . . It all suddenly felt endless, airless, the small talk stupefying. She had a fear she might lose control of herself and suddenly do something – scream, laugh, cry, rip her clothes off; that worst of things, make a scene.

‘Everything okay?’ His hand was on her knee. ‘You went pretty hard on the cab sauv, I noticed. Has something happened?’ Rory was watching her keenly.

She gave a careless shrug, looking away as a lump gathered in her throat. ‘Everything’s fine. I’m just tired.’

‘Yeah,’ he sighed in weary agreement, running a hand through his hair and holding it there for a moment. ‘Okay, fine. How about we make a French exit in five minutes? I’ll just extricate myself from this conversation.’ His head angled slightly towards Mark Wu, holding court. ‘Can you last that long?’

Could she? She felt an agitation that was down to far more than just wine. It felt like her soul was turning over from a long sleep.

‘Five minutes?’ She narrowed her eyes as she caught sight of someone familiar. ‘I think I can manage that. I’ve just seen a face from the past.’

‘Who?’

‘An old uni friend. I’ve not seen her in ages.’ She kissed him on the lips and got up again. ‘Rescue me in five. You’ll find me by the ice penis.’

‘It’s clearly modelled on a syringe.’

‘Yeah-yeah-yeah. You say tomato . . .’ she said, tossing the words over her shoulder like a scarf.

She crossed the ballroom, although that was too grand a word for what it actually was. No balls had ever been held here, at least, not of the crinoline and wigs sort. They were in an executive hotel off the Edgware Road, whose conference room had been draped in white chiffon swags. Giant cardboard hoardings of their sponsors – a medical equipment company – showed saccharine-sweet images of people hugging and children running on grass, strangely at odds with the bow-tied stiffness of the awards ceremony.

The object of her attention was leaning against a mock-marble pillar, texting with one hand, holding a glass of red wine in the other. The droplets from the revolving glitter ball were falling upon her like crystal rain.

‘Don’t tell me. Man trouble,’ Tara said, coming to stand by her and taking the glass from her hand. She took a sip as Liv looked back at her in surprise.

‘Fuck! Twig!’

They hugged, before Liv stepped back and gave her the full once-over. ‘Look at you! My God, when did you become such a grown-up?’

Tara groaned. ‘I hardly think so. I feel I’m the only woman in the room not either wearing a ring or carrying a bump.’

‘You and me both,’ Liv drawled, resuming her slumped position against the pillar again. She looked at Tara through narrowed eyes. ‘Congrats on your award, by the way.’

‘Thanks.’

‘A teaching hospital in Senegal, huh?’

Tara shrugged. Her family’s standing was no longer a secret from anyone thanks to the media fanfare that had greeted her father’s ‘Costa Rica project’ (as her mother called it) and which, of course, had proved correct her friends’ fears for her. The girls had rallied around her in the wake