Journey to the River Sea

‘His eyes were as blue as the blossom of the jacaranda tree, and his hair glistened like the belly of the golden toad that squats on the lily leaves of the Mamari river,’ said the old woman, who was having a good time. ‘His skin was as white as the moon in the season of—’

‘Yes, but when? When?’ interrupted the crows rudely. ‘When was he here?’

The old woman sat down on a tree stump and began to count. She used her fingers and her toes and then some pebbles on the ground, and the chief and his friends helped her.

Then she winked at the interpreter and said it had been fifty years ago.

‘What!’ shouted Mr Trapwood. ‘Fifty years!’

She nodded and said, yes she was sure because it was when she was a very small girl and still had all her milk teeth in her head, and the Indians nodded also and said yes, she had often told them of the lost boy who came when she was no higher than the tail of a swamp deer – and they led her back into the hut, patting her on the back while she giggled with glee.

So the crows had to give up, but they could not leave because the boat back to Manaus was not due for another two days and they had a very uncomfortable time staying with the Ombuda, who drummed a lot and seemed to live mostly on nuts. That the tribe were sharing their food and shelter very generously did not of course occur to the crows, who had been brought up to think of the Indians as savages.

By the time they returned to Manaus, the Englishmen were not in very good shape.

‘I’ve had enough of this,’ said Mr Trapwood as they sat in their room in the Pension Maria overlooking the docks.

‘So have I,’ croaked Mr Low. ‘This business has got to be settled. The Bishop goes back in ten days’ time and the Taverner boy is going to be on it.’

‘If he exists,’ said Mr Trapwood gloomily.

‘Of course he exists. You saw the letter.’

‘Well why doesn’t he come forward, or anyone else?’

‘Do you think we ought to put up the reward? The old chap said we were to use our judgement.’

‘I suppose we might as well. After all, it’s not us that’s paying it. What we need now is a thorough house-to-house search of the buildings outside the city. If Taverner was a naturalist, he probably wouldn’t live in the middle of town. And they may not have seen the notices out there.’

‘I’m sure that chap at the museum knows something,’ said Mr Low moodily. ‘The one who said that Taverner didn’t have a son.’

Then the little Brazilian maid brought in their supper which was the same as lunch and the same as breakfast – brown beans stewed with pigs’ trotters. Mr Low dug about in it gloomily looking for bits of gristle and Mr Trapwood found a dead ant on his plate. It seemed to be a perfectly clean ant, but he gagged and pushed his plate away.

‘This place is closer to hell on earth than anywhere I’ve been,’ he said.

On the morning after Clovis had been turned away from the house, the hairdresser came out from Manaus to do Mrs Carter’s hair. At first he was silent and surly, but when he found that Mrs Carter meant to pay him at last, he cheered up and gave them all the news. The actors had all been thrown out of the Paradiso and had got hold of a lorry and were trying to get out of Brazil through Venezuela where the British Consul was supposed to be good-natured and inclined to turn a blind eye.

‘But everyone thinks they’ll be stopped at the border,’ said Monsieur Claude.

‘Poor Clovis,’ said Maia when she heard this.

The twins shrugged. ‘He’s only an actor,’ said Beatrice. ‘A vagabond. They’re used to wandering about.’

‘Clovis isn’t,’ said Maia, but she said no more about him. Since Clovis had been taken away by Miss Minton she had been quiet and subdued, scarcely speaking to anyone.

But the piece of news that interested the Carters most was that the reward for the discovery of Taverner’s son had been doubled.

‘It’s forty thousand milreis now,’ said the hairdresser, crimping Mrs Carter’s curls. ‘They’ve put up notices everywhere.’

‘Imagine the dresses one could buy with that,’ said Beatrice.

‘And the hats,’ said Gwendolyn.

‘And the shoes.’

‘And the chocolates. Boxes and boxes of chocolates.’

‘You could buy something a great deal more useful than that,’ said Mr Carter. The full set of glass eyes from Queen Victoria’s piano tuner for example; he had seen it in the catalogue. Or he could pay off that shark Gonzales from whom he’d borrowed money and who was always pestering him.

‘There’s a new kind of wallpaper which stops insects from landing on it for twenty years,’ said Mrs Carter wistfully. ‘I read about it at the dentist.’

For a moment all the Carters stood with narrowed eyes, thinking of what they would do with so much money.

And on the following day, the crows arrived at the bungalow.

They had chartered a boat belonging to a wealthy merchant, and landed at the Carter’s jetty while the children were doing their lessons.