bit by bit, my sense of loneliness and abandonment began to fade. Though there would still be nights when I’d be overcome by what I’d lost and weep for hours, these instances of grief were getting fewer. Curled up in my little ball, in my hollowed-out piece of tree trunk, with the comforting, familiar sound of the monkeys up above me, I was gradually turning into one of them.
7
The incident of my being poisoned and ‘saved’ by Grandpa monkey proved to be a turning point in how the monkeys responded to me. Taking their lead from their elder, more and more of them seemed happier to approach me and groom me. No longer was I just a tolerated outsider; it felt as if I was becoming a real part of the troop, which made the ache lodged in my heart that tiny bit more bearable.
Though I had by now become aware that my new family sometimes changed – some animals disappearing and returning with tiny babies, others disappearing and never being seen again – I began to get to know some of the monkeys quite well. There was Grandpa, of course, who was a constant during my time there. But also energetic Spot, gentle, loving Brownie and timid White-Tip, one of the little ones, who seemed to really love me and who would often jump onto my back, throw her arms around my neck and enjoy being carried wherever I went.
Of course, I hadn’t actually given any of the monkeys names at the time. By now I had no use for human speech at all – only my crude version of monkey language. I don’t think I even thought in human language any more. So I’d no longer consciously ‘think up’ something as abstract as a name. I had simply begun identifying each animal by some distinguishing attribute or physical characteristic. My life had become all about sounds and emotions. And ‘missions’. All of life was now broken into missions. Missions to find food. Missions to find company. Missions to find a safe place to hide if there was danger. I had only two concerns: to satisfy my basic needs and to satisfy my curiosity – the same simple life that the monkeys had.
*
Now I felt more accepted, I became even more determined to learn how to climb to the top of the canopy. I was beginning to hate that I had to spend such long solitary periods on the ground, from where I could hear the joyous whoops and shrieks of the games going on high above me but was not able to get up there and join in. Getting up there, from then on, became my new mission.
I had not stopped practising my climbing since my first failed attempt. It would be so wonderful to be able to escape the dampness of the forest floor and to feel the sun on my back – the whole might of the sun – instead of having to make do with the long shafts that angled down from between the branches, where I could only linger in the patchy spotlights they created. Despite the colours of the jungle, it sometimes seemed to me that I was living in a black and white world. Some parts of the undergrowth, even at the brightest part of the day, were so dark as to seem shrouded in perpetual night, pierced by arrows of light so white and blinding it hurt my eyes.
I was also desperate to have some respite from the heavy, stagnant air and the endless irritation of all the creepy crawlies. I was used to bugs, but never had I seen so many different kinds in one place. The jungle teemed with them: flying things, scuttling things, jumping things and biting things. There were flying beetles that looked like tiny machines – today I’d liken them to helicopters – which had whirring wings that made a special sound as they landed. There were blue bugs and green bugs, bugs that looked like sparkly treasure, and bugs that thrilled me because they would light up at night. There were big black beetles that seemed to have pairs of scissors on their noses, and any number of different squirmy, wormy, wibbly, wobbly grubs. It sometimes felt as if I saw something new every day.
There were also lots of different kinds of brightly coloured frogs, toads and lizards. They also made their homes in the shelter of the undergrowth, so the air would hum with all manner of buzzes, croaks and hisses. And it was a home that suited all of them. So rich with food, so hot and humid, it was a glorious earthly paradise for them all. But not so much for me! How I craved the chance to leave them to their baser insect pleasures – being stirred by stinking breezes, heavy with the stench of rotten plant life, and massing in excited clouds on any dead or dying thing.
Day after day, for what might well have been several months, I would try to climb the shorter, slimmer trees. I fell often – sometimes many times a day, and often far and painfully – but I didn’t let my failures deter me. I had already learned by now that the one thing I could be sure of in this spongy, tangled world, was that I’d be guaranteed a reasonably soft landing, even if I did amass lots of bruises, cuts and scratches along the way.
I didn’t just climb randomly, either. I didn’t have the advantages the monkeys had – their incredibly long, springy limbs, their sense of balance, their usefully curling tails – but I laboured hard to find the best technique. With so little in the way of hand- and footholds on the masters of the canopy – the majestic Brazil nut trees – they were still beyond me. The only way I could make upward progress from the forest floor was if I happened to be locked in the embrace of strangling vines. But with the slimmer trees, the most efficient way turned out to be one in which I employed my whole body, using my knees and elbows to grip the trunks. Then, while using my outwardly turned feet to push, I could employ my upper body strength and hands to pull me upwards.
After a time, my body seemed to adapt to this new form of daily exercise. I grew stronger, the muscles in my arms and legs developing and becoming sinewy, while the skin on my hands and feet, elbows, knees and ankles grew progressively more dry and leathery and so was better able to grip the bark.
There was also another plus. Dry skin was always flaking, and picking at the flakes was one of my favourite things to do. I would sit and worry away at it for hours.
And I needed my rest, too, because strength, of course, was vital. With the first boughs of the Brazil nut trees being so high up, I needed to be strong enough to cling on vertically for some considerable time, with only meagre hand- and footholds, which was extremely tiring. Some trees were a little easier to manage than others, because they’d acquired a thick covering of the stringy, strangling vines. But these trees were always dying, so their usefulness would be temporary. Not long after, they’d be nothing but hollow dead shells and would sink back down into the soil from which they’d sprung.
Coming down was much quicker and a great deal more straightforward. Once my palms and the soles of my feet had become sufficiently hard and leathery, it was simply a question of letting them do the work, allowing me to slide back down to a soft landing on the composty floor. After which, of course, I’d often climb straight back up again. For up was where I wanted to be.
*
The day I reached the canopy will be another of those days that I will remember for the rest of my life. You might find it simple to imagine what sort of sight greeted me, but then, as a very young child, I had never seen anything quite like it. I had no store of television images to prepare me, no past experience to compare. I was seeing what I was seeing for the very first time, and I couldn’t quite believe the evidence of my eyes.
The view was breathtaking – literally. The rush of cool air up there was such a shock to me that it made me gasp. And in my disbelief and awe, I think I probably did forget to breathe. There was just so much sky above the green giants that had formed the ceiling of my world for so long that I found it difficult to adjust to the fierce light. And when I did manage to open my eyes fully, I still couldn’t take it in. It seemed there were only trees and clear sky for as far as I could see. And I could see for what looked like many miles.
I had no idea how high up I was. A hundred feet? Two hundred? I have no idea. Just so high up in the sky that I felt dizzy looking down, particularly when the trees began swaying. So high that it was as if I was in a strange and different world now; one where nothing existed but the colours and shapes I was squinting at – the dazzling
