I was simply not built to be swinging through the trees.
I didn’t. I was much too busy clinging on for dear life. But I would learn, as it turned out. And very soon.
8
With my existence now contained within the all-encircling vastness of the jungle, it was perhaps natural that at some point I stopped thinking about the life I’d lived before and began feeling part of my new monkey family. Now that I had access to what I realised was their main home, up in the canopy, I could be with them all of the time, which made my life all the fuller and richer.
The monkeys were incredibly intelligent. They were so inventive, so sensitive to their surroundings and so inquisitive, and, most of all, they were very quick learners. As well as being my friends, the monkeys were now my school class and my tutors, though the knowledge I was acquiring bore no relation to what I might have been taught in school. I was a child, and like all children I wanted to play. And though the young monkeys would always beat me at tree climbing, there was no longer much else they could do that I couldn’t.
But they had incredible energy. They would often tire me out with their games of rough and tumble, and I soon learned that sometimes it was best if I just sat still on the ground as a way to signal that I had no strength left to play any more. Similarly, when they became too rough, I learned how to make the right kinds of noises to show my irritation and send them on their way.
But they seemed to have as much emotional intelligence as they had energy, and if I got cross with them they’d sometimes lie down on the ground beside me, tongue lolling, and make a soft, melancholic sound. It was almost as if they felt guilty for upsetting me, or perhaps it was their way of apologising.
Such nuances of emotion felt every bit as real to me as human feelings, for my monkey family were sensitive and complex. All shades of emotion seemed to exist here: humility and pride, surrender and protection, jealousy and celebration, anger and happiness. I was now finely attuned to their relationships; I could readily see if one of them felt lonely or isolated, or if another craved affection and was hoping for a cuddle, or if another felt aggressive or possessive.
I also became continuously more aware of the diversity of their language, from their strident warning shrieks and howls to expressions of annoyance or joy, to the gentle fluting sounds of their everyday conversations. They were social beings, who lived within a hierarchy of relationships. There were few moments, day or night, that they didn’t spend together, whether grooming or playing or communicating in some other way, and I was just happy to be one of them – to feel included. I felt that I belonged where I was now.
*
For all that I loved to be with the monkeys, one thing I never did was sleep up in the canopy. Not after the first time I tried it, anyway. Reassuring though the idea had seemed in the daytime – I would no longer have to sleep alone – being so high up in the dark was a very different matter. For one thing, the treetops would sway, which was frightening and made it very difficult to fall asleep. If I did, I’d then begin to toss and turn, which was equally unnerving, because I could so easily tip off the edge of my perch. And, of course, eventually, I did.
I wasn’t at the very top of the canopy the night I fell to what could so easily have been my death, but, even so, the fall was terrifying. It was also a great shock, as I had been fast asleep and I hit my head and hurt myself badly. Badly enough that it was something I knew with some certainty that I had absolutely no intention of repeating.
Instead, I returned to sleeping in my hollow tree trunk, though, following the monkeys’ example perhaps, I began to make it cosier. I collected moss to line the base to make my bed. I also hung some on the walls, along with flowers that I thought particularly pretty. I have a strong memory that I would also talk to the moss, after a fashion, using my new simian language. I have no idea why; I only know that it made me feel better, perhaps in the same way a child would cuddle and converse with a teddy bear.
I did have company in my tree trunk, though it took the form of bugs rather than teddies, and in time I grew not to mind their various scuttlings and whirrings. I always took care, though, to cover my ears with my hair before sleeping, in case they found them too inviting to resist. And though I would have dreams in which I was being chased by hungry animals, I also grew less afraid of the real predators that I would hear passing by my tree from time to time at night. Perhaps it was because I knew I was well hidden, or perhaps just because I knew I had no choice in the matter. It was certainly preferable to feel a little anxious than to plunge from the boughs of a very tall tree.
But as dawn broke each day and the sun showed its face, my confidence rose along with it. During daylight hours, I would now spend the majority of my time in the canopy. And like the monkeys, I would often have a siesta up there, away from the cloying humidity down below, enjoying the caress of the cooling breeze instead.
It was afternoon – the sun was burning low in the sky – and I had just woken up from one such dreamless slumber when, looking down, I saw something glinting up at me. The forest floor was way, way below me, the air full of dewy mist, as ever, but whatever it was, it was brilliant enough to cut through this and catch my eye. The jungle had just been through a period of heavy rain that morning, so my first thought was that whatever it was down below me was simply glistening as a consequence of its drenching, but as I continued to look I could see that this wasn’t the case – it shone far brighter than anything else I could see.
I was still drowsy, but whatever it was had sufficiently caught my interest to prompt me to make my way back down to the undergrowth to investigate. I climbed down carefully, keeping my eyes fixed on the spot where I’d seen the diamond shimmer of brightness, and, once back on the ground, I set off to investigate. What I found when I reached it was unfamiliar. It was a wedge-shaped piece of some hard, shiny material, the like of which I didn’t think I’d ever seen before. It was sharp at its apex and curved at the other end, and was tiny enough to fit easily into the palm of my hand.
I played with it for a moment, inspecting it carefully, intrigued by the way it seemed to flash and glimmer in the sunshine, how its edges felt rough but its surface was so smooth. One side was dark, while the other, though scratched, seemed (at least to me) almost to be made of light itself.
I drew it closer, to better see how this light effect worked, and it was then that I got the shock of my young life. Two eyes were staring back at me – the eyes of some wild animal? I dropped the thing in terror and stared ahead of me again. The eyes had vanished. What was there? What had been looking at me? And where was it now?
But there was nothing, and, eventually, though I still felt quite frightened, I crawled across to where I’d thrown my treasure, rummaged around till I found it, and, heart racing with anticipation, picked it up again. This time I drew it more slowly to my eye line, and once again I saw two eyes staring back at me. It was then that some long-buried memory must have surfaced, because I realised what I was staring at wasn’t a vision of a wild animal. I was looking into a mirror that was reflecting a face.
I was transfixed. In all this time I had never once seen my reflection. Perhaps I might have, had my fear of water not been so profound. Perhaps, had it occurred to me to seek out my reflection, I might have made a point of investigating it every time my little pond re-filled with rain. But I had never done so.
It was barely bigger than a thumbprint, but my little mirror enthralled me. I could see so little, but enough that I could tell it was me. Though I didn’t know my face, I could immediately see the relationship between what I made it do and what happened in the mirror. I blinked my eyes, I moved my mouth – the shard of mirror obligingly did likewise. I changed my expression and the face in the mirror changed hers too.
Shocked and thrilled, I remember I let out a hoot of great excitement and bounced around, looking for someone who could share in my discovery. I can’t really describe just how it felt to have made it. My best attempt would be to say that it was both scary and exciting. To discover you have a face – it felt amazing! But at the same time I was frightened to see myself in it, because I had begun to believe that I looked just like the monkeys. I knew my body was a little different, but for some complicated reason – perhaps