Along the Endless River
Cover
Title Page
Epigraph
Prologue Brazil, 1876
Part I 1890 – 1899
Chapter One The Amazon, 1890
Chapter Two Manaus, 1890
Chapter Three
Chapter Four The Amazon, 1890
Chapter Five Lagona, 1890
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven The Amazon, 1890
Chapter Twelve Norwood, 1890
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen Norwood, 1893
Chapter Fifteen Lagona, 1893–4
Chapter Sixteen Norwood, 1894
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen Norwood, 1899
Part II 1900 – 1909
Chapter Twenty New York, 1900
Chapter Twenty-One Norwood, 1900
Chapter Twenty-Two London, 1900
Chapter Twenty-Three Norwood, 1900
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five London, 1900
Chapter Twenty-Six Norwood, 1900
Chapter Twenty-Seven London, 1900
Chapter Twenty-Eight Norwood, 1901
Chapter Twenty-Nine London, 1901
Chapter Thirty Norwood, 1901
Chapter Thirty-One Manaus, 1901
Chapter Thirty-Two London, 1901
Chapter Thirty-Three Norwood, 1901
Chapter Thirty-Four London, 1901
Chapter Thirty-Five Lagona, 1901
Chapter Thirty-Six The Atlantic, 1901
Chapter Thirty-Seven London, 1901
Chapter Thirty-Eight London, 1901
Chapter Thirty-Nine London, 1902
Chapter Forty Norwood, 1906
Chapter Forty-One London, 1906
Chapter Forty-Two London, 1906
Chapter Forty-Three Manaus, 1907
Chapter Forty-Four England and Scotland, 1907
Chapter Forty-Five London, 1907
Chapter Forty-Six The Amazon, 1908
Chapter Forty-Seven London, 1908
Chapter Forty-Eight Norwood, 1909
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Part III 1910
Chapter Fifty-One Norwood, March 1910
Chapter Fifty-Two The Amazon, April 1910
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Copyright
Cover
Table of Contents
Start of Content
Going up that river was like travelling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings.
An empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest.
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
Prologue
Brazil, 1876
The rainforest is never silent.
Even in the dead of night, it is alive. The spine-tingling cries of howler monkeys, the guttural call of an owl and the cacophonous croaking of a million frogs fill the damp-laden air.
But tonight, the activity is not just of the animal kind. A quickening swash of water disturbs the shallows, giving rise to the tell-tale groan of wood rubbing on wood as the launches, canoes and rafts moored along the river’s edge rise and fall against each other. Usually, the darkness is left to the lurking caimans, the prowling jaguars and the softly swooping vampire bats but tonight, humans are around.
For this is no ordinary night.
A silent column of men leads down to the water’s edge, forming a line along which they stealthily pass hand-woven baskets interlaced with banana leaves. Basket after basket passes down the file, swinging from hand to hand, one after another. The man looking on, the overseer of this bizarre nocturnal ritual, appears nervous. He strokes his beard and smooths his impressive whiskers, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, gazing first at the swaying receptacles and then into the navy sky, where clouds shroud the stars and the moon is a sliver of silver.
‘Watch out!’ he hisses under his breath, as one of the baskets lurches precariously almost out of the receiver’s grasp.
Inwardly, he curses the carelessness of the man. Does he not realise how precious the contents of each and every one of these meticulously packed panniers is? But no, of course he doesn’t. The workers are ignorant as to what they are handling. The only person who knows is him, the mastermind, the architect of what will be – if he brings it off – the greatest feat of international smuggling the world has ever seen.
In a series of small boats, the baskets are painstakingly paddled out against the current to the waiting ocean-going steamer. Eventually, all the cargo is loaded. The hold is full, baskets swinging from ceiling hooks to allow for adequate ventilation. The clink of the anchor chain as it begins to wind makes the man catch his breath in fear. When the splash as it exits the water is partially masked by the haunting cry of a night bird, he breathes a sigh of relief. He manages to flash a nervous smile of reassurance to his wife and the small bronze-skinned boy, both his adopted son and his servant, who is sitting next to her. They have waited silently on deck throughout.
The Amazonas shudders as the engine starts, and almost immediately she’s under way. The water before the bow swirls and seethes as the steamer glides purposefully downriver. The man stands against the gunwale, transfixed by the moiling eddies as if within them he sees all the trials and tribulations of the preceding years, the years of hardship and loss and disease and disaster that have seen the deaths of almost his entire family – but which have ultimately led to this heroic achievement.
As the vessel picks up speed, he descends to the hold and surveys the cargo, the most precious ever shipped from the Amazon to Europe. He fingers the shiny green banana leaves that protect the seeds, 70,000 of them, encased within their silken folds. Seeds of the rubber tree. They must be kept secret and intact at all costs. On them, reputations rest and, more than that, the future of the British Empire depends. But although the man is full of hubristic pride, neither he, nor his wife, nor his son, nor the captain of the ship knows the full enormity of what he has achieved.
Under the noses of officials, a Brazilian gunboat patrolling nearby, Henry Wickham, who first came to the Amazon to collect colourful feathers for the millinery trade, has committed the crime of the century. The contraband he is shipping will change the world forever.
And it will take little more than thirty years to do it.
Part I
1890 – 1899
Chapter One
The Amazon, 1890
An expanse of water surrounded them, so vast that it was impossible to tell where the sea became the river or the river the sea. The sky above hung heavy with lowering clouds and the air and the water seemed to fill the whole world so that there was nothing else at all. Along the widest horizon Katharine had ever seen, sheet lightning played in a frenetic, never-ending ballet without rhythm or choreography, competing in its performance with the last valiant glimmers of light from the day’s end.
So, this was the Amazon, Katharine thought, as the steamer’s engines changed tune to cope with the strong current in the estuary. The greatest river on earth. She could hardly believe she was here. Sweeping her unruly red hair into her hand to stop the vigorous breeze blowing it across her face, she looked back towards the Atlantic, from where they had come. Her grey eyes narrowed against the ocean wind, she uttered a silent goodbye to Europe, to London and to home.
She had no idea when, or if, she would ever return.
Everything had happened so quickly
. At first, her husband Anselmo’s grand plan had been no more than a crazy idea, a pipedream, a fantasy. As it had taken shape, it had still seemed unlikely, fun to talk about but nevertheless distant and implausible.
And then, suddenly and somehow inexplicably, it had become a firm decision, an actual arrangement, tickets booked, final farewells exchanged.
Of course, now she thought about it, Katharine realised it had not begun with the late-night discussions, their wild imaginings of another life conjured up in the cosy safety of their marital bed. Really, it had all started with their marriage itself, undertaken with an almost unseemly haste, though it was not a wedding of necessity. There had hardly even been time for the little embarrassment of a pre-nuptial pregnancy. No, it had been the lure of the Amazon that had compelled Anselmo to wed his bride in the shortest time possible, so soon after that first fateful meeting in a back corridor of Fortnum & Mason’s department store in London.
* * *
It had been a long day.
Katharine’s back was aching, her feet were killing her in shoes that pinched, and her head throbbed. As she passed through the doors that led off the shop floor, she ran her hand across her forehead and paused to lean against a stack of shelving. She longed for the warmth and comfort of her mother’s snug kitchen and the hugs and kisses of her many siblings that always greeted her on her return. Particularly those of Mabel, the only other girl and so her only sister who, with her caramel brown eyes and silky blonde locks, was so pretty and cute and undisputedly Katharine’s favourite, even though she knew she shouldn’t really have such a thing and should love all her kith and kin equally. And she did love them all. It was just that Mabel melted her heart in a way that none of the others quite equalled.
Their mother Mary had been very ill after Mabel was born and so Katharine had more or less raised her for the first few months, stopping attending school for a while, only handing the baby to Mary to feed. It was as if those early days of closeness, inseparability in fact, had forged a bond between them that was even greater than that which normally exists between siblings, even in a tight-knit family.
She would be home soon, Katharine reassured herself, choosing to ignore the long omnibus journey to Clerkenwell that she would have to endure to get there. Closing her eyes, she imagined snapping her fingers and summoning a magic carpet that would fly her, in a matter of minutes, high above the grey and sooty city streets all the way to Hawthorn Road, to their front door with its proudly polished step. She would make her vision into a story for Mabel and the other little ones, she thought, smiling as she pictured their eager faces begging her for more. They always loved the tales she told.
Since her elder brother Mayhew had left the country to make his fame and fortune in America, Katharine had shouldered the bulk of the burden of helping her parents cope with their large brood. Though her mother was no longer unwell, she was tired out from relentless work and childbearing, and her hardworking father, enervated by a lifetime of toil on the docks, frequently came home too exhausted to do anything other than eat, then sleep.
Katharine bore no resentment about what was required of her. She was young – only eighteen – and healthy, and she had energy and stamina to spare. But the monotony of it all got to her sometimes. The feeling that nothing could, or would, ever change.
‘Slacking again?’
At the sound of the voice behind her, Katharine jumped up from her unseemly position slouching against the shelves, a flush of red-hot embarrassment running through her. She wasn’t doing anything wrong – she had clocked off now, her contracted hours of service completed. But still – she shouldn’t be lolling around like a girl who had not had a proper upbringing. She was about to apologise but, as she opened her mouth to speak, realised that she didn’t recognise the voice and had no idea who had spoken to her.
Slowly, she turned around.
A handsome, olive-skinned face greeted her, a smile slowly spreading across it.
Inexplicably, Katharine felt herself blush. Hurriedly, she attempted to compose herself. She knew the man by sight; he did some business in the food hall, something to do with cured meats from Spain. But she’d never spoken to him and did not know his name.
‘Miss Bird, isn’t it? Or Senorita Pájaro, as we would say in my language.’
The infuriating blush, the enemy of the fair-skinned who cannot possibly hide it, threatened anew. Katharine swallowed hard, lifted her chin and returned the man’s steady, unsettling gaze.
‘Pleased to meet you, I’m sure.’ She held out her hand. ‘And with whom do I have the pleasure of conversing?’
‘Anselmo. Anselmo Ferrandis,’ he replied, taking her hand in his and holding it for an infinitesimal second before shaking it. ‘And, may I say – the pleasure is all mine.’
There was a silence, not awkward, more expectant, as if something new was occurring, something fresh and exciting and wondrous. Katharine was not beautiful. In some lights, on some days, she could be striking, with her high forehead, pale skin and Titian red hair. But most of the time she believed herself too raw-boned, too tall, too unfeminine to be pretty. She was plain Katharine Jane, nothing special, nothing to write home about. So, Mr Ferrandis’ attention was unexpected and also delightful. A frisson of excitement curled in her belly as he spoke again.
‘You look thirsty – and tired, if I may be so bold as to say so.’ The man hesitated, as if testing out the words he wanted to say in his head before uttering them. ‘Would you care to join me for a cup of tea and a sandwich, or perhaps a slice of cake? I’ve not had lunch myself and I’m parched.’
She should be getting home. She should be heading for the bus stop and waiting for the bus. She should be back in time to help her mother with the numerous infants, to rub her father’s back with the linctus that aided his troublesome lungs.
Katharine looked at Anselmo Ferrandis, for a brief second meeting his eye. He was smiling, a smile that contained encouragement and cheekiness in equal measure. A beguiling, enticing smile. Perhaps what she ‘should’ do could be put to one side for a while.
‘That sounds lovely,’ she answered, keeping her voice light and casual. She was a modern, independent, working woman and entitled to some time to herself, she reassured herself. And, after all, no harm could come of tea and cake.
They stayed at the cafe for far longer than Katharine intended and she found out more about Spanish cured meats than she had ever wished to know. And when she finally left and was making her way to the bus stop, she walked on air, a dizzy, lightheaded sensation thrilling in her veins and a strange warmth suffusing her usually cold and aching limbs.
A week later, Anselmo Ferrandis, thirty, formerly of Madrid, Spain, now of Kentish Town, London, proposed to Katharine Bird, eighteen, of Clerkenwell, and three weeks after that, they were wed.
Chapter Two
Manaus, 1890
On deck as the steamer approached Manaus, just three months married but with her entire life changed already, Katharine stood beside her husband and watched the fabled Meeting of the Waters. The black Rio Negro and the café-au-lait Solimões ran beside each other for a considerable distance, two stupendous bodies of water flowing concurrently but separately towards the sea. The sight, like so much she had seen since they’d reached Brazil and the mighty Amazon, was as fascinating and improbable as she had been led to believe.
As they’d ploughed their way inland on the long haul up from the Atlantic port city of Pará, the river had been constantly changing. Sometimes it was wide, a sea rather than a river, a vastness of water too big to comprehend. At other times it would narrow, lush vegetation sweeping the ship’s sides, depositing leaves, branches and insects that littered the upper deck like misplaced, oversized confetti at a giant’s wedding party.
One thing that never changed was the scenery. Land covered with trees as far as the eye could see, stretching thousands of miles to the foothills of the Andes: a living wall of one-hundred-foot trunks whose crowns, in thei
r endless quest to reach the heavens, blocked out the light beneath. Katharine watched Anselmo’s face, upon which was etched if not greed, then something very like it. His lips fluttered up and down as if involved in some silent calculation, counting. Counting the trees themselves, perhaps, though they were innumerable. Counting the cash that was to be made from them more likely, sizing up their potential. Because that was what they were there for, what had compelled them to travel so far.
Money.
‘We’ve done it.’
Katharine started as Anselmo’s voice roused her from her daydream. ‘We’re on our way – to our future and our fortunes.’
All around them, on all three of the steamer’s decks, Katharine could hear the voices of others, so many others, speaking in all the languages of Babel, all with the same thought in mind. She nodded in mute agreement with her husband. She was too overwhelmed to speak, her brain too feverish with a befuddling mixture of newness and apprehension and trepidation to form a cogent opinion on anything. All she was certain of was that excitement and fear were fighting a battle to the death inside her. And at that moment, she couldn’t tell which would win.
Along the Endless River Page 1