sky – an almost smooth vertical corridor. If I looked up, it made me dizzy to see how impossibly high they grew, disappearing up through the steamy air before seeming to almost come to a point, and only then graced with any branches I could climb on.
But there were smaller trees too, striving upwards between these colossal kings of the jungle; the friendly trees that provided the delicious little bananas, and others, jewelled with the hanging waxy flowers I would later learn were orchids. These would also be draped with graceful looping vines and fronds of dark, spongy mosses, and, between them, the curls and arches of delicate green ferns.
Perhaps, I wondered one day, when the monkeys had again deserted me, I could find a way to join them by making my way up the smaller trees, in the hope of somehow gaining access to the upper reaches of the Brazil trees. My plan was doomed to failure – it would be many months before I mastered that particular monkey talent – but it was to provide me with an unexpected discovery.
It had just rained, I remember – perhaps not the best time to try being an acrobat, because as ever the whole jungle ran with water and dripped. The boughs and vines were slippery, but, perhaps invigorated and energised by the cooling, cleansing downpour, I decided I would give it a try; if I didn’t try, as my mother used to say to me, how did I know what I could or couldn’t do?
At first, it wasn’t too difficult. I made my way upwards about six or seven feet, using a tangle of roots and vines and low boughs, and finding plentiful foot- and handholds. But no sooner had I ascended to the top of a small tree than I was faced with a difficult horizontal clamber across a bough, to have any hope of getting higher.
I tried anyway (now I was this far, I could hardly bear to look down, much less climb down), but the slippery, slimy branch was my undoing. As soon as I put all my weight on it, I immediately lost purchase and crashed down, screaming loudly and frantically, terrified and sure I was about to die.
But the undergrowth was kind to me. While buffeting me and winding me, the tangle of massed foliage and latticework of stems, stalks and branches also broke my fall. And as I lay there getting my breath back, feeling tears of self-pity spring to my eyes, I realised I was looking straight at something I’d never seen before. It was a tunnel – the entrance to which was just about big enough to crawl through, and which disappeared into blackness around a bend.
I looked more closely. It seemed to be fashioned out of the same tangle of tree roots and undergrowth that had just been obliging enough to break my fall. It looked like it had been hollowed out some time ago as well, as its inner edges – the same latticework of branches and roots, mainly – were quite smooth of snags and spikes.
I pulled myself up and crawled across to it. It was a bit of a tight fit, but I could just about wriggle into it and venture in. I still remember that I didn’t feel too frightened. Sufficient light filtered through so that, although gloomy, it wasn’t pitch-black, and as I crawled along it opened out – it was a whole network of tunnels! – with branches heading off in several directions.
I began to wonder what kind of animal would have made such a tunnel, but curiosity triumphed over anxiety and I decided to crawl a little bit further. It was then, rounding a bend, that I made my next big discovery. There was a monkey up ahead of me – one of my monkeys – and it was scampering towards me with a nut in its hand. No sooner did it see me than it veered off down a side tunnel, with another monkey (they were both young and playing chase, it was obvious) scrambling along and screeching playfully in hot pursuit.
Seeing this made everything fall into place. They had created this network of tunnels on the floor of their territory to enable them to get around on the ground just as easily as they traversed the tops of the trees. And I realised that I would also be able to use it to get about the jungle floor speedily and safely. My disappointment about my lack of climbing skills now all but forgotten, I crawled after the monkeys and finally emerged in a small, familiar clearing, feeling as uplifted as at any point since I’d been abandoned in the jungle. Making this new discovery felt – and I remember the feeling to this day – almost as if Christmas had arrived. It really was as thrilling to me as that. A mark, perhaps, of just how feral I’d become.
I was certainly beginning to feel I’d learned all the skills I would need to keep me safe in this wild and remote place. But it was an assumption that turned out to be very wrong.
6
I was going to die soon, I was sure of it.
I had no idea why, only that the sense that I was dying was one that was diffusing through the whole of my body, causing me to clutch my stomach and whimper in pain.
I tried to think back, through the fog of pain, to what I’d eaten that might have done this thing to me.
Tamarind! It suddenly came to me. The day before, I’d eaten tamarind. It was one of my favourite things to feed on. Similar in shape to the bean pods that used to grow on our allotment, the tamarind pod was dark brown and furry, and, when spilt open, the insides were sweet and sticky, with the texture of figs.
But even as I’d tasted it, I’d known it wasn’t like the usual tamarind. This variety – doubtless one of many others to be found – had lots of small fruits inside, similar in size to peas, and, if anything, tasted even sweeter, like dates.
I couldn’t stand. I couldn’t sit. Trying to work my muscles defeated me. But through my dizziness I felt a grim certainty form inside me. I had eaten delicious tamarind’s deadly twin. If there was one thing I’d learned from my time with the monkeys, I thought wretchedly, it was that things can look almost identical in every detail, but just a couple of tiny differences could have a seriously large impact – the difference, perhaps, between life and death.
But as I writhed, I saw that sympathy, if nothing else, might be at hand. Though my vision swam, I could just about see Grandpa monkey. I’d called him that simply because that’s what he looked like. He was older than the others, moved differently from the young ones and had the same sprinklings of white fur that triggered a clear if distant memory of the few old people I’d encountered in my former life. I recalled one clearly – not someone related, so perhaps a neighbour or friend. A white-haired woman who had no front teeth. Grandpa monkey had lots of teeth, but he was similarly white-haired in places and grey in others, especially on his face. He also walked slowly, just as the old woman in my mind’s eye had done, and had an old injury to his arm or shoulder, I thought, because he didn’t range around the treetops like the others.
Grandpa monkey had kept a very close eye on me from a very early stage. But I didn’t think it was because he was concerned about my welfare. There had never been any warmth in the way he behaved when he was around me, so I decided it must be because he was very protective of his family. Perhaps he hadn’t quite decided if he liked me or not.
I watched him jump down from the tree he most liked to sit in and then approach me. What was he about to do? I had no idea but couldn’t care less, in any case. I was much too busy crying from the horrible gripping pain.
Grandpa monkey drew level, squeezed my arm firmly, then began shaking me slightly, shoving me, as if determined to herd me somewhere else.
He was purposeful and determined, and I wasn’t about to resist him. Scrabbling to get a purchase, I half-crawled, half-stumbled into the foliage, in the direction his repeated shovings seemed to suggest he wanted me to go.
It was out of the question to disobey, but I was still very fearful as I edged my way deeper into a patch of thorny bushes. And once in them, at least I had the pain of repeated stings and scratches to divert my mind from the pain inside me. Where we were going, however, I didn’t have a clue.
It was mere seconds before I found out. One minute I’d been scrabbling through a tangle of branches, now I was falling – tumbling over and over down a mossy, rocky bank, which was running with cool water and which eventually deposited me into a little basin below.
I looked around, panting as I tried to catch my breath. The basin was around eight feet wide, surrounded by rock and earth and tree roots, and looked almost like an open-topped cave.
A