below. There was nothing else to see whatsoever.
The monkey troop, of course, was indifferent. The monkeys seemed to be going about their usual business with no apparent interest in the fact that I was suddenly up here with them. But I couldn’t have been more excited. So here was where they most liked to be, I thought, as I tentatively began to explore this new territory. And I could see why. What a wonderful place it seemed to be. All around me, the pillowy surface of the canopy rose and fell as it faded into the far and hazy distance, the treetops undulating and in some cases rising in steps: cushiony emerald terraces that looked so soft and beguiling compared to the thorny tangled mass of vegetation below.
Sufficiently confident that the vast web of branches below would support me, I began to clamber across the springy boughs, with little White-Tip close behind me, and could see that the canopy in the near distance seemed more yellow-green than green. I wondered if the trees were all covered in flowers, tilting their happy faces to the unbroken sky. It was a bright, intense yellow that seemed to reflect the sunshine and made everything seem even more dazzling.
It was no less hot up here, but drier – the breeze a constant welcome friend, as if it had hurried along specifically to counteract the relentless rays of the sun. And the monkeys clearly loved it, for they had even set up little homes here with what looked like beds, or seating areas – some of the troop were certainly sitting in them – where they could bask and groom each other far from the damp and steamy forest floor. Closer inspection revealed that they seemed to have made these by collecting bits of branches they’d snapped off while playing ‘look who’s the strongest’ (which was something they did often) and had brought up to the canopy to use. These had then been laid crosswise over bigger branches that were still attached to the trees.
For softness, Mother Nature had helped them out, it seemed, because the ‘nests’ would naturally collect any fallen or drifting leaves. They had also added strips of bark – something that was always in plentiful supply, because one of their favourite things to do was to pull off long strips of tree bark in order to get to the tastiest, juiciest bugs.
I sat and watched my monkey family for some time, contentedly taking in the excitement of it all. Compared to what was below, it just felt like such a lovely place to be. And I soon realised that they didn’t just use the structures they’d made for sitting and sleeping on. They also seemed to use them as places to play: jumping up and down on them, whooping and shrieking, making a great deal of noise and giving off bursts of an intense odour, the air becoming even more hazy than it usually did with the sharp, acrid smell of their excrement.
Not that I minded. By now I was immune to such odours. I was just so happy to be up there and joining in. It felt as if I’d at last escaped my prison and properly become one of them, which, physically, was happening, even though I probably wasn’t consciously aware of it. I was growing a new, muscular body, strong in ways a child’s body normally isn’t. I had harder heels and palms, and an appetite for strange jungle foods. I was also beginning to move around like a monkey, and one of the reasons, perhaps, that I wasn’t aware of how I was growing, was that I almost always walked on all fours now. There was just the one skill I lacked and that I’d struggled to master – flying. How I longed now to sail through the treetops as they did, via their expressway, à la Tarzan, on the vines.
As the vines were thick and plentiful, especially high in the treetops, it seemed that it was yet another skill I could master if I tried. So, after the first few days of being able to climb to the canopy, I would spend time trying to do what my monkey family did: get from tree to tree, bough to bough, by means of these stringy curtains, feeling the euphoria and wind-rush, the giddy sensation of being airborne, and then landing – in my case, mostly messily and indecorously – on whichever bed of branches had been my goal.
But again and again, something was telling me I shouldn’t. No sooner would I launch myself than I’d feel a sudden crunch and the unmistakeable sinking feeling that the vine I was holding onto was coming loose from its anchor. I’d then be sure of one thing only. That I was about to get my back, arms and legs thoroughly grated. The first couple of times this happened, my fall was mercifully short, because the vine tangled in another and I jerked to a stop. I also had the consolation, once I’d got over the painful bit, of a fresh crop of scabs to sit and pick.
But one day my run of luck ran out. I had clung on and launched myself on what had seemed a sturdy line, when only a second later I felt the snap of the vine breaking free. This was closely followed, inevitably, by a stomach-churning plunge and the feeling of pure terror that only the sight of the ground rushing up to meet you can provoke. Thankfully, I was spared by the embrace of a spray of branches which slowed my fall sufficiently that I was able to grab them as I hit them and get enough purchase to stop me plunging straight on down to my death.
Hanging there with the forest floor dizzyingly far below me, I perhaps should have felt some sort of powerful instinct. That I wasn’t like my simian family. That I wasn’t a monkey. That 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
