In the Trees

by Pauline Fisk

  But even so, Kid was full of hope, and he remained that way all morning. It was only after lunch, when his water bottle had emptied and he’d eaten all his fruit, that his hopes began to fade. The girl had said two hours, but he’d been on his feet all day. Not only that but, if he didn’t turn about soon, he wouldn’t get back before darkness fell.

  ‘Another hour,’ Kid told himself. ‘I’ve come too far to turn back yet. I’ll press on a bit longer.’

  In an hour’s time, however, Kid had still not found his father’s place. He’d somehow managed to lose the river, however, and the forest had become so dark and overgrown that he could scarcely see where he was going. Plainly no one but him had been here for years, not even to indulge in a little light gold-mining.

  Kid finally gave in and started picking his way back. He didn’t want to, but the day was drawing to a close and he knew he had no choice. By now the forest floor was so overgrown that Kid couldn’t even see where he was putting his feet. In the trees somewhere a noise started up which he’d heard last night in his cabana, and the girl had said was made by howler monkeys.

  It sounded more like roaring jaguars to Kid. Hungry jaguars on the prowl. He turned away in a panic, forcing a path between the trees, certain that the sound was coming after him. And suddenly, right in front of him, he found a house.

  Kid stood and gawped. The house was covered with vines and creepers, and it was plainly in ruins. Its roof had half fallen in, its stairs were broken and its balcony in tatters. Was it his father’s house – the one that he’d been looking for? If not, whose was it? And why was it in ruins? What had happened here? And, if it was his father’s house, then where was he? What had happened to him?

  For a moment Kid couldn’t bring himself to move, then cautiously he started picking his way up the broken stairs and across the balcony. Common sense said that the owner of this property, whoever he might be, couldn’t possibly be inside. But a crazy hope rose inside of Kid.

  ‘Hello,’ he called. ‘Is anybody there? Marcus Aurelius Cato … Father … Dad …?’

  There was no reply. Scorpions scuttled across the balcony and bees hummed in the remains of the thatch. Kid stooped beneath a broken door-frame and entered a single room with bare boards, a table and the remains of an old stove, including a broken chimney pipe. Saplings grew up through the floor-boards. The room had plainly been uninhabited for a long time, except for the scuttling presence of the biggest beetles Kid had ever seen.

  He picked his way across the floor, hoping that he wouldn’t fall through. On the beam above the table, he found a jar of salt, a couple of dust-encrusted spoons and a stack of plastic plates. On the table he found the remains of what he guessed were rotted teabags in a jar, and a stack of rusted tins of food. On the stove he found the clean white remains of what appeared to be animal bones.

  But Kid found nothing personal in that room. Whoever had once lived here had left behind nothing of themselves. There were no pictures. No personal belongings. And, most definitely, there was no father.

  Kid stood in the middle of the floor, surrounded by life that had no regard for whoever had lived here, but carried on its own sweet way. Never had he felt so small and insignificant. Here the forest had taken over and the minor human drama of himself and his father simply didn’t count.

  Kid scouted round one last time, but all he found was the remains of heavy drinking. Out on the balcony, he walked across a carpet of broken bottles, and back inside again, dust-laden on a beam, he discovered a half-drunk bottle of whisky. Not rum. Not Belikin beer. But Scotch whisky.

  Kid had never liked Scotch. It had been his mother’s favourite drink. But now he unscrewed the bottle and downed the lot, not caring what it did to him.

  After that, a wild, crazy rage got hold of him. That girl at Night Falls Lodge had known what she was doing, hadn’t she? His coming to this place had been no mistake. She’d tempted him, goaded him, pricked at his pride and done everything she could to get him out of Night Falls Lodge. That was why she’d turned up, knocking on his door. She’d been sent by Dave and Marky to sit on his bed, smelling of flowers, calling herself his friend, wheedling secrets out of him and getting rid of him by telling lies about a man she’d no doubt never met.

  Well, if she wanted to get rid of me, she certainly succeeded, Kid thought. They all have. Look how well they’ve done!

  Kid wept at what he’d come so close to finding, only to fail. He wept for whoever’s place this was, his father’s or some stranger’s – it made no difference, because what a way to end up. And, after that, there was no hope for him. He found a stash of rum and drank that too – or at least as much as he could before it knocked him out. Later he awoke to find himself in pitch darkness, something crawling over him. He lay and let it happen, not caring what it was. Jaguar, fer-de-lance, even those brujos the little old man had told him about – he didn’t care.

  Kid closed his eyes. He didn’t feel cold. Didn’t feel hungry or thirsty. Most of all, he didn’t feel afraid.

  ‘I’m not scared, so don’t you think I am,’ he whispered – though he didn’t know who to. ‘Whatever happens next is fine. It’s all fine. Everything. See if I care.’

  11

  AT THE BRIDGE

  Kid slept deeply after that. The alcohol did that for him at least. He awoke next morning, still alive though feeling like death. Somehow, he knew, he had to find his way back to Night Falls Lodge, retrieve his rucksack and get out of there before his anger at what Marky, Dave and that wretched, lying girl had done to him finally spilled over and he did something he’d regret.

  It took a while before Kid could move but finally, day-bag over his shoulders, he stumbled out of the house and down to the river. It was absurdly easy to find. How he’d lost it yesterday he didn’t know. He set off along it and walked until time meant nothing any more, and all that mattered was the next step. His head throbbed, his stomach gnawed with hunger and his body ran with sweat. Occasionally the way was shady but increasingly the forest opened out, exposing the river to the sun.

  By now, Kid’s feet had formed blisters thanks to Kyle’s new boots, and his legs were aching so much that even standing still was painful. He tried to create a pattern to his walking – to build a sense of rhythm. But the heat was getting to him and he simply couldn’t think. He should have stopped to drink, filling his empty water bottle from the river, but he couldn’t even organise himself to do that.

  Things weren’t making sense any more, not like yesterday when, however tired he’d been, Kid had managed to think straight. Sometimes his brain was so fuddled that it seemed to him that he was walking backwards. Once he swore that he could see himself ahead on the track. Another time he imagined that he could see Kyle on the track.

  Something really weird was happening inside Kid’s head. Another time he saw his mother looking hot and weary. She wiped the hair out of her eyes and whispered that she was looking for his father too. Kid whispered back, asking her how she’d managed to return to life. But, before she could answer, a crowd of people suddenly appeared.

  Something was definitely wrong here. Kid’s mother disappeared, like Kyle had done before her, and Kid was left with the people, who were walking up and down a low stone bridge with the river running beneath it. All of them were white-skinned, older than him by a couple of years, he guessed, and calling out to each other in unmistakably English accents. Some were wearing nothing but underwear. Others were jumping off the bridge into the river, where they splashed and swam about. The bridge and river were swarming with them. Some even sunbathed right there in the middle of the bridge, oiling their bodies, and the girls shaving their legs.

  Kid felt as if he’d walked straight out of the jungle into the Costa del Sol. If he’d ever doubted that he was losing his mind, he now knew it for sure. Nervously he moved towards the bridge, terrified of what these weird, unreal people might do to him, but unable to stop. Things started swaying. All around him, the sun was bleaching everyt
hing white.

  Kid reached the bridge, hauled himself up on to it and stood waiting to see what would happen next. Nobody took much notice of him. It was as if he was the person who wasn’t real, not everybody else. A blonde-haired girl called for him to hand over her towel, and he was relieved that at least somebody could see him. At least he hadn’t imagined himself.

  ‘Are you all right there?’ the girl said. ‘You look really hot. You should take a dip as well. And you could do with a drink, by the looks of things. Though I’d hurry up if I was you. We haven’t got much longer. Looks like Jez is waiting.’

  She nodded down the bridge. Kid followed her glance. To add to everything else that couldn’t possibly be real, he saw a convoy of Land Rovers stretching off into the jungle, their roof racks piled with equipment. Having dried her hair, the girl started heading towards them. Kid staggered after her, shaking his head in disbelief. She didn’t question his presence, which was really weird, but then neither did anybody else. Even when Kid followed the girl into the back of the nearest Land Rover, she didn’t question him. Other people piled in too and he waited to be thrown out. But, apart from complaining about how crushed they were, nobody said a thing.

  The Land Rovers set off, everybody cheering to be on their way. Kid sat rigid with fear, reckoning that the jungle had finally done for him and he’d gone mad. On one side of him sat a thin, pale-skinned Goth with two straight sheets of dyed black hair. On the other sat the blonde girl, who answered to the name Snow. Snow in Belize! It was just about as crazy as everything else.

  Kid closed his eyes, expecting everyone to be gone when he opened them again. A conversation started up. The Goth boy was called Jack. A curly-haired joker next to him answered to the name of Fritz. A voice on the other side of Kid came from someone called Hal. But even if they had names, these people couldn’t be real, Kid told himself. This simply wasn’t happening. They were going on now about some jungle training they’d been doing at a place called Gallon Jug, which was where they’d all first met. Whoever heard of a place named that?

  Kid fell asleep, weary, hot and confused. When he awoke again, the convoy was pulling into a forest clearing. Land Rover doors banged open and people piled out. Kid followed them. The first thing he noticed was that the trees pressing in around the clearing were completely different from those around Night Falls Lodge – taller and somehow more majestic. But there was nothing majestic about the clearing itself. It was littered with great hulking pieces of what looked like earth-moving machinery, and the ground was bare and muddy where vehicles had passed through.

  ‘Welcome to Millionaros,’ said one of the group’s leaders, a wiry, taut man called Jez. ‘The old man says we can brew up on his fire, so who’s got the tea?’

  The old man in question was the owner of the only dwelling in the clearing – a corrugated-tin shack held together by sheets of tarpaulin. He lived here all alone with nothing but his fire for company. Once he’d had dogs, but the jaguars had eaten them. His job, apparently, was to guard the machinery which belonged to a mining company.

  Kid’s ears pricked up when he heard that. What sort of mining, he wondered, just as the other leader of the group – a tiny, plaited woman whose name was Candy – told them it was gold.

  ‘In fact, that’s where we’re heading,’ she said. ‘Up to a place called Gold Mine. We won’t get there tonight, but we should tomorrow, unless anything goes wrong. On foot, of course – by then we’ll have long since left the Land Rovers behind.’

  Kid didn’t care about the Land Rovers. Candy was going on about the trek ahead and how hard it was going to be, but all he could think about was the gold mine. What if it was his father’s one, and that girl back at Night Falls Lodge hadn’t lied after all, except in minimising the distances involved? The hope that had died in Kid sprang back to life. He determined to stay with the group for as long as he could get away with it.

  Kid was the first back into the Land Rover when Jez said it was time to move on. Everybody packed in behind him and still no questions were asked. By now the last semblances of a track had been left behind and the Land Rovers pitched an increasingly difficult path through one muddy bog after another. People wondered out loud about what lay ahead. The word xateros was mentioned, referring to armed bandits. They could be anywhere, apparently, moving through the forest like shadows, so many of them that beyond Gold Mine, deeper in the jungle, the group would have to be guarded by soldiers.

  Finally the Land Rovers reached a point where they could pitch and roll no further. Everybody piled out into the mud, and all the expedition equipment had to be transferred on to their backs. Kid was given a heavy rucksack full of foodstuff, which made him stagger just standing still. He could sense how nervous people were all around him. This was it, they were thinking. This isn’t jungle training – it’s the real thing.

  A line formed on the muddy track, and Kid positioned himself at the rear, keeping his head down. Maybe the group had made the mistake of thinking he was one of them, but the leaders wouldn’t and he didn’t want them noticing him. The others started off, marching along a boggy track gouged out of the forest by gold-mine machinery. Kid followed them, the sun beating down on his head. Right from the word go, he found it difficult keeping up. In the last couple of days, he’d done enough jungle trekking to last a lifetime. Even before starting to trek again, he was hot, weary, tired, and suffering from dehydration.

  But every time he faltered, Kid thought about his father up ahead. His rich father with the white house and the swimming pool. His father who was waiting to welcome him with open arms. At least, he hoped he was.

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked the girl in front of Kid, a fiery-looking red-head whose name was Joanne.

  Kid said that he was fine, and forced himself on. But sweat was pouring down him and he’d long-since lost all sense of time. How long had he been walking? He didn’t know. How many breaks had he taken? He didn’t know. How far had he come? He didn’t know anything except that somewhere ahead of him, drawing closer all the time, was his father, his father, his father …

  The track became muddier, but Kid didn’t care. He was beyond all that. Sometimes it was possible to get round the mud, but sometimes he had to wade through it, sticking like glue, sucking at his boots. Increasingly he found it difficult to lift his legs. Finally, he keeled over. His whole world upended, he felt himself go and he didn’t even care. None of this was real anyway. Only Gold Mine was real. Everything else was a pale, fading dream.

  Kid came to himself face down in the mud, unable to figure out how he’d got there or how to get up. He realised he must have blacked out, because people were around him who hadn’t been there before. Arms tried lifting him, and shrill voices said things he couldn’t grasp until Jez’s voice cut through them all.

  ‘These things happen. Get the lad some water. Give him space. Who is he? Whose Land Rover was he in? Candy, is he one of yours? Can someone tell me this lad’s name?’

  Silence greeted this request and, in that silence, Kid knew he’d been found out. He felt himself being lifted out of the mud and his face being swabbed with water. A bottle was pressed to his mouth. He took a couple of gulps, then a couple more, then the bottle was empty somehow and a new one was being pressed to his mouth. Then everything started going again in a tangle of faces and trees. Kid saw bright lights. Then he saw nothing.

  When Kid came round again – came round properly, that is, instead of existing in some half-dreaming state where he felt himself being carried but wasn’t really sure that he was there – the track had gone, and so had all the mud, and he was lying on a stony beach with a river flowing over him. Nothing in his life had ever felt so good. Slowly he lifted his head. The beach was made up of small, honey-coloured pebbles. Kid wasn’t imagining it. It was completely real. Completely there in front of him, and Jez was real as well. No one else was there except for the two of them and the birds in the trees and the river flowing past.

  ‘Better?
’ Jez said when Kid dragged himself up into sitting position.

  ‘Much better,’ Kid said. ‘How did I get here?’

  ‘Good question, that,’ Jez said.

  Kid felt himself flush. Jez looked like a man not to be messed with. He stared at Kid and Kid stared back, then Jez asked him, quietly but very firmly, how he’d managed to attach himself to the group, where he’d done it and, for God’s sake, why.

  Jez wanted the whole story. ‘Where do you come from?’ he said. ‘A young kid like you, all on your own. And what are you doing here? You do know you’re in the Chiquibul Forest where no one’s allowed without a government pass. This isn’t just any ordinary forest, you know. It’s a protected forest full of jaguars and endangered trees. You may not know it, but you’ve walked straight into one of the last great forests of the Americas.’

  Kid told him his whole story. There was something about Jez that demanded nothing less. He started with his mother’s cardboard box and ended with trying to find his father up at Night Falls Lodge. Normally Kid never gave much about himself away but, for reasons he couldn’t explain, his story felt safe with Jez. Maybe it was the place that made him feel like that. The sense of absolute peace. Kid even told Jez about his mother’s hat.

  ‘You mean you came into the jungle without anything useful for your survival, but you brought that?’ Jez said when Kid pulled it out to show him.

  Kid felt a fool. ‘Not only that,’ Jez said, ‘but you’ve been drinking. Don’t tell me that you haven’t because you’ve been sweating alcohol. I can smell it.’

  Kid hung his head. ‘I don’t know what to say,’ he said.

  ‘Well, come back into camp when you’re ready, and we’ll decide what to do about you,’ Jez said.

  He left Kid on his own, watching the river flowing past. Trees tumbled down to it, its steep banks bright with exotic flowers. Upstream, an enormous arch of honey-coloured limestone hung over the water, its reflection in its glassy surface creating a perfect circle. Stalactites hung under the arch and, his curiosity aroused, Kid waded into the river to take a closer look at them.