Holly’s hand gripped Tara’s arm tightly as she came and joined her in the terminal building. Tara was standing stiffly in front of the large window, blindly watching the pilot run through checks for the plane that was going to take them away from here. It was eight on the nose and, as feared, Holly had come straight from the hospital, albeit scrubs off and back in the clothes she had rolled out of bed and picked up off the floor this morning. Her trainers thankfully no longer had specks of someone’s regurgitated carrots on them.
‘I heard about the girl.’
Tara felt the lump in her throat swell again as she stared out over the runway with studied intensity, her muscles rigid. She had called in sick for the first time in her career. She knew the disruption it would bring, her colleagues forced to cover for her, another consultant drafted in on call, her patients waking to find themselves with a new doctor – but to work after a night of no sleep at all would have been as bad as operating drunk or high. She was used to broken sleep, but seven hours of staring at the ceiling was another level altogether and she had spent the day on the sofa, exhausted and unable to rest. Sleep fluttered around her head like an angry crow, diving at her but never quite making contact. Every time she closed her eyes . . . And now her glands were up and her head felt clamped in a vice that was being ratcheted ever tighter. A holiday had never been more needed.
‘It’s always worse when it’s a kid,’ Holly murmured, getting it.
Tara nodded again, her reply needing a few more seconds of focus before the word could be formed. ‘Yes.’ If she could only erase the sight of that small, punished body on her operating table, if she could only forget that stinging sharpness against her blood-soaked fingertips.
‘I remember my first. Mohammad Parveneh; seven and a half. Hit and run.’ Holly’s voice cracked on ‘run’. ‘They caught up with the bastard within the hour. He got three years for careless driving, was out in half that.’ She swallowed. ‘It really made me question whether I was cut out for it; I didn’t think I could hack it. Sometimes this job makes you feel like you only see the worst of people—’
‘Mum!’
They both turned as the drumbeat of trainered feet rolled down the tile floor.
‘Most excellent boy!’ Holly grinned, instantly sinking to her heels, her arms outstretched just in time for a skinny, long-legged, dark-haired, ultra-fast torpedo to spin into them. Her nightmare cast off by a dream.
Tara smiled as she watched Holly kiss Jimmy’s head, tousling his silky hair as if to rough it up.
Dev brought up the rear, towing two large suitcases and Jimmy’s enormous Liverpool holdall strapped across his body. He hadn’t put on a pound in ten years and looked like he might crumple in half from the weight of his load, his glasses slipping down his nose but with no free hand left to push them up.
Holly stood again and did it for him, greeting him with a casually affectionate kiss. ‘Did you turn off the immersion?’
‘Yes. And changed the cat litter,’ he said, before she could ask. ‘And watered the basil and put it by the window.’
‘With the little gap open at the top?’
‘Yes, and the safety locks tightened.’
Holly visibly relaxed. ‘Good.’ Her signature enormous smile spread across her face, and it really was like a dawn. ‘Well, then in that case I’m defo ready to go on holiday.’ She leaned into Tara and squeezed her arm again, dropping her head on her shoulder, both sympathetic and encouraging at once.
Dev shot Tara his usual bemused look. ‘Hi Twig.’
‘Hey Dev,’ she smiled.
Jimmy looked up at her. He was a beautiful boy, seemingly having inherited the best of both his parents – caramel-coloured skin, his father’s fine bone structure, his mother’s light eyes. ‘Aunty Twig, is it true we’re going on a private plane?’
She looked down at him and wrinkled her nose. ‘I’m afraid so.’
‘Do they have Dr Pepper?’
‘Absolutely not,’ Holly said firmly, turning away to double-check for the passports in Dev’s bumbag. She was outrageously hypocritical and was firmly of the ‘do as I say, not as I do’ school of parenting.
Tara winked at him and pressed a finger to her lips. ‘Lots of fresh juices.’
‘And still water, I hope?’ Holly asked over her shoulder. ‘Carbonated is shit for their teeth.’
‘Mummy potty-mouth!’ Jimmy cried, as Dev had taught him to every time his mother swore.
‘Ugh,’ she groaned, reaching into her jacket pocket and giving her son a pound.
Jimmy looked at it, pleased. Tara suspected he was probably quite well-off if Holly paid up every time she was supposed to.
The stairs were being lowered to the tarmac; it was time to go.
‘Where’s Rory? I thought he was coming?’ Dev asked, looking worried. He relied on Rory’s calm presence as an antidote to the two women together.
‘Don’t worry, he is. He got stuck in traffic on the A40. More worrying is, where are Miles and Zac?’
‘Oh God,’ Holly groaned. ‘Please don’t tell me I’m going to be the only person with hairy legs on this holiday?’
In spite of her misery, Tara chuckled. Dev shook his head and huddled his wife in close, kissing her on the temple. ‘Well, we may as well wait for them on board. At least we can sit down and have something to drink.’
‘Ooh,’ Holly said, her tired eyes brightening.
‘I’m starving!’ Jimmy almost shouted.
Tara picked up her small, neatly packed bag and led them through the automatic doors, from the air-conditioned cool of the terminal to the sizzling heat of the runway. London was baking in the hottest July on record – and it was still only the seventeenth of the month. The tropical rains of Costa Rica were going to be a welcome respite.
Two steps behind her, the Motha family bickered over bags, until Jimmy sprinted ahead and straight up the steps into the plane.
‘Jimmy, no! Come back here!’ Holly yelled. ‘Fuck.’
‘Hols, it’s fine,’ she said reassuringly. ‘He’s not doing any harm.’
‘Now, technically we don’t know that. He could be up to anything.’ She looked at Dev. ‘Did you search him for Sharpies?’
‘Hi Sandy, how are you?’ Tara said with a tired nod to the flight attendant as they climbed the steps.
‘It’s a pleasure to welcome you on board again, Doctor Tremain,’ the attendant said, taking her travel bag.
Jimmy was already standing by the bar, his hand plunged up to the wrist in a bowl of chocolate eclairs. Holly just burst out laughing at the sight of all the cream quilted leather and burred wood tables. Everything was so plush and manicured, it had the effect of making them look untidy. ‘Oh God,’ she gasped. ‘It actually is just like you see it on the Kardashians!’
Dev was dumbstruck.
‘Now, just explain to me again, why we’ve been friends for over a decade and I’ve not been on this before?’ Holly asked slowly, turning a full 360.
‘Because I hardly ever use it myself . . . Sit wherever you like, Dev,’ Tara said, patting his shoulder comfortingly. ‘There are no set places. It’s very relaxed.’
‘Yeah?’
Tara dropped into the nearest seat and checked her phone for messages. Rory was three minutes away. She closed her eyes as Holly, giddy with choice, immediately began fussing about which seats they should have. She dropped her head back, trying to summon her fantasy about the feel of the sand between her toes, tropical waters lapping by her ankles. She reminded herself she could be barefoot all week; flip-flops would be her only concession to shoes, and that was only on account of the ants. Everything was going to be fine. In spite of the feelings to the contrary, she would one day sleep again and her head was not going to explode. She just needed to get away from here, a little time and space away from her everyday life—
‘Sorry, sorry! Bastard traffic through Bayswater.’
Her eyes opened to the sight of her brother coming down the aisle, looking Monaco-ready in pale buff narrow chinos rolled at the ankles, tobacco suede car shoes and a pale blue shirt, accessorized with a vintage Colombian stitched polo belt that had been their father’s – back when he wore a thirty-two-inch waist – and a pair of sleek gunmetal Porsche sunglasses.
Zac, right behind him, was no less impressive in his Brooks Brothers suit. ‘Hey Twig.’
Both of them kissed her and greeted the others; no one seemed to notice that she was fundamentally altered, the black spot on her soul seemingly leaving no trace.
‘Please tell me we’re not the last for once?’ Miles asked, looking delighted by her lack of Plus One.
‘You’re not the last,’ she replied obediently. ‘Rory got stuck in traffic too. He’s a minute away.’
‘See? What did I tell you?’ Zac said, slapping Miles once, hard, on the backside. ‘Plenty of time.’
Miles cracked a grin that was all his own – it somehow occupied only the right side of his mouth, tipping it up boyishly. He smiled a lot these days. After several years in the dating wilderness, when he’d been chased and seduced for all the wrong reasons, life had changed for the better when he’d met Zac, a corporate lawyer. Miles loved to recount how their eyes had met over the conference table . . . Tara just loved to see her little brother happy. Zac was seven years older and comfortingly protective of him, and they kept their social circle small and intimate these days. ‘Well fuck me, that’s a first.’
‘Pottymouth!’ Jimmy cried, racing back down the aisle with the hand that had been only moments before up to the wrist in chocolate eclairs outstretched in front of Miles, awaiting a fine.
‘Say what now?’ her brother asked, bewildered.
‘No swearing in front of my nine-year-old godson, please. Kindly cough up a pound.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Every time,’ Tara nodded, as the attendant came round with a tray of flutes of champagne. She flinched as she took hers. Celebrating was the last thing she felt like doing. Drinking to the point of oblivion on the other hand . . . ‘Hols has had to take out an overdraft.’
‘He’s saving up for an electric scooter,’ Dev said proudly. ‘He’s almost there, too.’
‘Well, he certainly will be by the end of this week,’ Zac laughed, loosening his tie and reaching for his glass of champagne.
‘Cheers!’ Holly said, taking one for herself and holding her glass aloft until the others clinked it too. She drank deeply, with the zeal of someone released from a fifteen-hour shift; someone who had started her day pulling a Coke bottle from a man’s rectum and was ending it seated on a stitched-diamond cream leather plane seat, heading for a tropical paradise with her best friend and family.
Tara’s own day hadn’t followed that upward trajectory and, try as she might, she couldn’t click out of this sense of isolation; she felt set apart from everyone, locked behind a glass wall and unable to reach even the people she loved most in this world. A little girl had died because of her negligence and oversight. Why couldn’t she cry or talk about it? Why couldn’t she feel anything?
She looked out of the window and saw Rory stepping out of the terminal building, half-running, half-walking across the tarmac, a copy of The Times clutched in one hand and his bag rolling behind him. His suit jacket was flying open in the wind, his tie flapping over his shoulder. He didn’t look dressed for the tropics (unlike Dev, who was already in a tropical print shirt and Jesus sandals) and she felt a rush of relief at the mere dependable sight of him. He would make her feel better. As soon as she told him, he would know what she should do.
She waited expectantly for him to come up the steps, for his face to appear in the doorway. She smiled as everyone cheered at his arrival and watched as he threw his arms in the air jubilantly in response, playing the part. Zac put a glass in his hand before he’d even taken off his jacket. There was a party feeling on board, and the engines weren’t even on yet.
‘Hey, you,’ he said, sliding into the seat beside her and kissing her lightly on the mouth. ‘Sorry I’m late. Good day?’
‘I called in sick, actually. Wasn’t feeling so great.’
He looked surprised, then frowned. ‘Another headache?’
She gave her shrug. ‘Can’t shake it off. Can’t sleep through it.’
He squeezed her knee sympathetically in reply. ‘I’ve got some heavy-duty ibuprofen if you want?’
‘Sure. Why not?’
Rory opened his bag and rifled for the little silver packet as Miles brought up his Ibiza playlist and Holly began dancing in her seat. Tara gave a wan smile. She was going to be stuck on this plane for the next twelve hours with her best friend and her brother calling the shots, neither of whom believed that less was more, or that good things come to those who wait. ‘I might be better off with a tranquillizer than headache pills,’ she said, as he handed her a couple.
The stairs were pulled up, the engines fired and she looked out of the window, watching as the tarmac began to roll by, seeing how the horizon leaned to a tilt and the houses became small, until eventually the clouds wound around the plane in tatty rags and they emerged soaring into the blue.
She felt like a ball shot from a catapult as she stared from the windows at the world below. Everything looked peaceful at this distance. She had a feeling of having escaped from something terrible down there and that she would be safe if she could just stay up here, suspended in time, as well as space—
‘Oh bugger!’ Rory startled beside her, so violently he almost sloshed his champagne over his lap.
‘What?’ she cried, alarmed.
He looked back at her with wide eyes. ‘I forgot the electric toothbrush charger adaptor plug.’
‘The—’ She stared at him, her heart beating at triple time.
Jimmy came and stood in front of him with a hand outstretched. ‘Pottymouth. One pound, please.’
A helicopter was waiting on the tarmac a short distance from the plane, its headlights shining into the darkness and ready to whisk them straight off to Talamanca. Tara stood at the top of the steps and stared out, but not even the San José Highlands were visible on this inky night, and the stars remained obscured from sight by the intense blaze of city lights. She took a lungful of the warm air instead, as if the foreignness of her new environs could be tasted, even if not seen. It seemed woody compared to the granular minerality of London, somehow heavier and more dense, and she felt her blood gently warm.
‘Chop-chop,’ Rory said, patting her on the bottom to nudge her forwards. ‘Wide load coming through.’
She glanced back and saw Dev struggling to carry a very long, sleeping Jimmy. He was as limp as a noodle. She jogged down the stairs and stepped out of the way on the tarmac to let him and Holly pass. Holly was looking fairly wild, as anyone might after a fifteen-hour shift and a magnum of champagne on a transatlantic flight. They’d all drunk far too much.
‘Wow, it’s actually not raining!’ Miles exclaimed, sticking his head out of the plane after them. ‘I thought they only had two settings here: rain, and more rain.’
‘Ror, it’s best to check messages here while you still can,’ she said, sounding as hungover as she felt. ‘The signal at Talamanca’s shocking.’
He frowned. ‘Really?’
‘By which I mean . . . non-existent.’ She watched the look of panic bloom across his face. ‘On the plus side, we’ll get to properly switch off and relax.’ She gave an approximation of an optimistic smile as he began to look anxious.
‘Hmm.’ He pulled his phone from his pocket and began scrolling quickly through his emails. At some point in the journey, she saw now, he had changed out of his suit and was now in chino shorts and a polo shirt. She didn’t remember exactly when. She had succeeded in drinking herself to distraction and had slept fitfully for a few hours. But at least she had slept.
Tara flicked through her emails too – the usual mix of marketing rubbish she never opened but couldn’t be bothered to unsubscribe to, and medical news. She saw she had a missed call, which was something of a novelty. Did people still use phones to actually . . . make calls?
She dialled her voicemail and listened in, watching blankly as Holly clambered inelegantly into the helicopter and reached back down to take her sleeping child from her husband’s arms. Tara turned away.
‘Tara?’ The voice was clipped, efficient. Instantly recognizable. ‘It’s Helen McPherson calling. Ring me back, would you? I understand you’re on annual leave for a week but I want to go over a few things with you with regard to the Miller case. Just a quick chat. Okay thanks.’
The Miller case. That little girl was a ‘case’ now?
Tara disconnected, feeling light-headed and like she wanted to throw up. Helen McPherson was the hospital’s clinical director, and a ruthless bureaucrat. She didn’t suffer fools or egos, and she was a slave to AI, especially when it promised to save money or lives, or both. The mortality rates under her stewardship had dropped seven per cent in eighteen months and Tara had heard whispers she was being lined up for a place on the Trust’s Board. This was no mere quick chat she wanted – the hospital’s youngest (and most newsworthy) consultant had left a blade inside the body of a four-year-old girl and that made her look bad. No, that message was the verbal equivalent of throwing a grenade across the floor – leaving Tara waiting for the bang.