Journey to the River Sea

‘Where’s my purse? Maia, you find it; it was on my bed.’

‘We must have some scent, Mama. Proper scent – not lavender water, that’s for babies.’

As Maia helped them she felt completely unreal; she was so certain that at the last minute Mrs Carter would relent and let her at least come to Manaus with them.

‘I know I can’t come to the play, but I could wait and see Clovis afterwards,’ she had begged.

‘Now, Maia, don’t be foolish; as though I would allow you to hang about the theatre like a common beggar.’

But at last the girls’ hair was safely netted against the breeze, and the maids, looking as sullen as Maia had ever seen them, fetched their shoe bags and their cloaks.

As the boat drew away, Tapi standing beside Maia said clearly, ‘As Pestinhas.’

Maia looked at her, startled. She must have heard wrong, but when she looked the words up in the dictionary they meant what she had thought they meant.

‘Pigs’, Tapi had called the twins. ‘Nasty little pigs.’

It was very quiet when the noise of the boat had died away, and Maia no longer tried to hide her misery.

‘It’s not the end of the world,’ Miss Minton had said the night before. ‘We’ll have a good day exploring. They can’t lock us in the house.’

But when Maia went to find her, she found the governess still in her room sitting in her one upright chair. She was very pale and her eyes were closed.

‘I’m just coming. I’ve got a little headache, but it will be gone in a minute.’

‘No, you haven’t,’ said Maia. ‘You’ve got a proper migraine. My mother had them and they’re awful. You just have to lie down till they’re over. Have you got aspirin?’

‘Yes, but there’s no need to make a fuss.’

But when Miss Minton tried to get up there was a blind look in her eyes, and she gave up and let Maia turn down the bed.

‘I’ll be fine,’ said Maia. ‘I’ll go and read on the veranda.’

But though the book was David Copperfield and she’d got to the part where Betsy Trotwood was chasing the donkeys out of her garden, she couldn’t concentrate. She kept seeing Clovis’ face and hearing him say, ‘You will come, Maia, won’t you? You will be there?’

After a while she went along to Minty’s room and very quietly opened the door. Miss Minton was fast asleep in the darkened room, and Maia knew she would not wake for a long time.

She went into her own room. On her work table was the map she had got from Mr Carter. She picked it up and studied it. She had managed to push back the heavy bolt on the door to the compound at the back several days ago. According to the map there was a path running from the back of the house along the water channels which eventually came out behind the docks in Manaus. The channels themselves were as tangled as boa constrictors, but if she kept the sun on her right ... Today there really was some sun, not only the dark rain that fell so often.

It was only ten o’clock. The play didn’t begin till two o’clock. Even if it took her a long time, she should still get there – and at least she would have tried.

She changed into walking shoes and buttoned her purse into the pocket of her dress.

Then slowly, carefully, she pulled back the bolt.

She had looked at the Indian huts so often from her window that it was strange to be walking past them. The little rootling pig was there, tethered, and a few chickens, but the Indians were all away, working in the forest or the house.

The beginning of the path was exactly where it should have been, with a narrow plank over the stream it followed. Maia plunged into the forest.

Away from the compound, the great trees grew more thickly; dappled creepers wound round the trunks searching for the light; a scarlet orchid, hanging from a branch, glowed like a jewel in a shaft of sun.

‘Oh, but it is beautiful!’ she said aloud, and drew the damp, earthy, slightly rotten smell into her lungs.

But it was a mistake to be so rapt about the beauty of nature because the path was not quite as simple as it had appeared on the map. She knew she had to keep the sun on her right; but the sun could not be relied upon: sometimes the canopy of leaves was so dense that she seemed to be walking in twilight. And the streams kept branching ... She stayed beside the widest of them, but the path made by the rubber-gatherers was overgrown; she stumbled over roots of trees, trod on strange fungi, orange and mauve ... Sometimes a smaller stream cut across her path and she had to jump it or paddle. Once something ran through the trees ahead of her, a grey snuffling creature ...

She couldn’t have told the exact moment at which she knew she was lost. First there was just doubt, as she took one path rather than another. Then doubt became fear and fear became panic, and she had to take deep breaths to stop herself from crying out. At the same time the clouds began to cover the sun. Even those rays of light she had had to steer by had gone.

They’re right, the beastly Carters; the jungle is our enemy, she thought. Why didn’t I listen?