‘You’re going the wrong way.’
Cate, in the passenger seat, looked up from the map. Outside, a dull landscape of scrub and dust passed by the window. It hadn’t changed in the last two hours.
‘This map’s no good.’
The map was the freebie that came with the car, a glossy piece of promotion designed on the principle that all tourists are short-sighted. I should have taken the GPS option, but that had cost forty dollars extra, and I’d already felt ripped off by the car hire price. Never book through a hotel.
‘You should have taken the GPS.’
‘I don’t believe in GPS. Anyway, we’re having an adventure.’ I tried to make a joke of it, but the time for jokes had passed about fifty kilometres back.
‘Can we go home?’ Peggy asked from the back seat. She’d been fractious since the iPad battery died. Apparently, that was my fault too.
‘Daddy’s going to turn around in a minute,’ Cate promised her.
‘What’s that?’ I jammed on the brakes. A cloud of dust billowed through the open windows and got in my mouth. I craned my head back to see the building we’d just passed. A mint-green breezeblock shack, with two hens and a Coca-Cola sign out the front. The sign on the wall said Montezuma Bar Café.
‘Montezuma Bar. That’s the one.’ A dirt track split off the main road behind the bar, heading up towards a clutch of trees on a low hill. I turned on to it.
‘How much longer?’ said the little voice from the back.
‘Five minutes,’ Cate said grimly.
We’d been in Mexico six days. Long enough for the jetlag to wear off, long enough to get properly fed up. Cate hated the heat. Peggy hated the food. I hated the crowds, the feeling I’d been dropped on a conveyor belt whose sole purpose was to extract cash, while speeding me past the sights in a superficial blur. Tourism on rails. That was why I’d hired the car that afternoon – to get off the tourist trail, to experience something rather than just be shown it. No air-conditioned busses and itineraries and cultural programmes and vendors swarming like ants the moment you stopped to draw breath. I was thirty-eight, with a wife (adored), a mortgage (hefty) and a six-year-old daughter (cross, because her Octonauts had been cut off). But I wasn’t ready to give up on adventures just yet.
I should have taken the extra damage insurance on the car. Potholes bounced us around; loose stones rattled off the paintwork. The catch on the glove compartment shook loose, spilling paperwork all over Cate’s legs.
‘One minute ,’ said Cate, in the voice she uses when Peggy won’t put her shoes on for school.
I drove as fast as I dared, flinching each time a rock pinged the car. ‘I feel sick,’ came the inevitable complaint from the back.
‘Look straight ahead.’
We crested the ridge and reached the trees. Greener than anything else in that parched landscape, a genuine oasis.
‘This must be it.’ I stopped the car and checked the webpage I’d bookmarked on my phone. ‘“Cenote de los Muertos . The Well of the Dead.”’
‘Sounds fab.’
‘“A hidden gem deep in the Yucatán countryside, claimed to be the origin of the Fountain of Youth myth …”’
‘Funny name for the Fountain of Youth.’
‘“If you go, chances are you’ll have it to yourself.”’
‘Chances are we won’t.’ Cate pointed through the dust settling around us. Another car was parked there, half hidden by the trees.
I started to swear, but Cate caught me with a look.
The moment I stepped out, a hundred mosquitoes descended on me. Monsters, B-52s compared to the ones we have at home. I slapped at them ineffectually. Peggy squealed. Cate got some Deet out of her handbag and sprayed it on Peggy’s arms.
I looked at the other car. Even for Mexico, it was a strange one. A Volkswagen Beetle (a real one, not the modern estate-agent version), whose paint had been stripped back to the metal, then reapplied by a consortium of tie-dyers and graffiti artists. A riot of colours.
I couldn’t resist peering in the window. Some kind of extravagant folk-art charm dangled from the mirror; paper cups and food wrappers littered the floor. A polka-dotted bra lay draped across the back seat.
‘This way,’ I said, leading them away from the car before Cate saw. We went along a narrow path – well trodden, for a hidden gem – until we arrived in a clearing.
‘Here we are.’
Three holes yawned from a bulge in the ground, two small and one about five metres across. You could definitely imagine it as a pair of eye sockets and a mouth – even without the skull drawn on a wooden sign lying on the ground. Cenote de los Muertos , it said; underneath, Entrada $ 20 . A tattered folding chair sat next to the sign, though I saw no sign of the attendant. No sign of the owner of the polka-dot bra, either. A knotted rope hung down into the hole.
‘Do real explorers pay an entry fee?’ Cate asked.
I ignored her. I could see sapphire-blue water sparkling underground, and I wanted to be in it. I peeled off my sweat-soaked clothes and got my swimming trunks out of the bag.
Cate frowned. ‘Modesty?’
‘There’s no one to see. Aren’t you coming?’
I knew she was wearing her swimming costume under her skirt. I’d seen her put it on at the hotel. But she stayed back, holding Peggy against her legs.
‘C’mon.’
‘Someone has to stay with Peggy.’ She peered into the cenote. ‘You’re not just going to jump in, are you? You could break your leg.’
‘The website says it’s fine.’
‘And what about getting out?’
I kicked the rope. ‘This.’
‘And if it breaks?’
‘It won’t.’
I could feel myself getting hot, and I didn’t want to start a fight. It was supposed to be my adventure. I turned, held my breath and jumped in feet first.
It was further down than I thought. I had time to wonder, in mid-air, Is this a good idea? Then I smacked the water. It rushed up my nose; I felt myself sinking. Too deep, too fast. You’ll break your leg . I flailed and kicked.
My head broke the surface. I gasped down a breath and took half a gallon of water with it. I expected to gag, but the water was fresh: sweet and clear and so cold it made my heart freeze.
It was the best, purest moment of the holiday. Sunlight shone through the hole and made a perfect halo. Treading water, looking down, I could see tiny fish scurrying about my toes; the dappled limestone walls sinking into darkness. The black mouth of a tunnel in the side wall yawned open. A flaking metal sign bolted to the rock above said, in English and Spanish, ‘Experienced Divers Only’. From Wikipedia, I knew the system ran for miles, an underground labyrinth of fresh water caverns riddling the peninsula.
Cate’s face appeared at the edge of the hole. A long way up.
‘Are you OK?’
‘You should come down here,’ I shouted. The moment I spoke, the cave filled with an echo like giant laughter.
‘Is there anyone else there?’
I shook my head. ‘It’s perfect. Come on in.’
She looked as if she was considering it. Ten years ago, she’d have been in there like a shot, even without a swimsuit. But now—
‘I’d better stay with Peggy.’ At least she sounded as if she regretted it. Small victory.
I lay on my back and kicked around for a few minutes, basking in the sunlight coming through the roof. When that got too hot, I duck-dived underwater, chasing the fish and skimming along the rock walls like an eel. All around the cave, my own private paradise.
But there was one place I kept coming back to. The tunnel mouth, dark and tempting. I felt around it with my hands; I braced myself against the walls and peered in, trying to make anything out. I thought I could see light at the far end.
I knew what the website said. Most spectacularly, a ten-metre swim down a side tunnel brings you to a Mayan ritual site, where the bones of sacrificial victims still lie in a hidden cave.
Of course, Cate would point out, that wasn’t all. This should only be attempted by properly certified cave divers with the correct equipment and precautions. But that was just to cover themselves. You can’t buy a coffee these days without a health and safety briefing. And I’m a decent swimmer. Ten metres underwater shouldn’t have been a problem.
This is my adventure.
I resurfaced, and saw Cate looking down again.
‘Are you coming out soon?’
‘In a minute.’
‘The mosquitoes are eating Peggy alive. I’m taking her back to the car.’
I waited until she disappeared. Then I took a deep breath.
I swam for what felt like a long way, kicking myself forward while my hands traced the tunnel wall. I couldn’t shake the phrase underwater labyrinth from my head – but this was only ten metres. I must have gone far enough. I gave another couple of kicks, just to be sure, then let myself float towards the surface. My lungs were beginning to feel the strain.
My head bumped rock. But I was still underwater: I must have come up too soon. Holding my breath was getting more painful. I lunged forward, feeling ahead for an opening.
Did the website say the Mayan cave had air in it? Suddenly, I wasn’t at all sure. Had I imagined that? Did you need scuba gear to go down there?
The bones of sacrificial victims still lie in a hidden cave. All I could see was skeletons, my own bones sinking to the sandy floor of the cave. And the look on Cate’s face.
I had to go back. I opened my eyes. Dim light illuminated the water, but I couldn’t tell which way it was coming from. I twisted around, turning somersaults this way and that, looking for the source. It seemed to be coming from everywhere. And now I’d lost any sense of direction – didn’t know which way was up.
I couldn’t hold my breath any more. I let go, but of course there was nothing to breathe but water. My lungs felt as if they’d pop; my head was spinning. I knew it was crazy. I couldn’t have come far. I ought to be able to get back. I fought it. But my movements were slow and limp, as if the water was fighting back. Lava-lamp spots danced in front of my eyes. My mind turned in on itself.
Underwater labyrinth underwater labyrinth underwater labyrinth.
I’ve sent so many people under in my life, I knew exactly what was happening. Phase one: a mild state of euphoria, similar to drunkenness, according to the textbook (I’ve experienced both: drunkenness is much better). Phase two, where you no longer respond to commands until finally you wouldn’t even feel a knife sliding into your guts. Phase three.
The black blurs were coalescing into a shape, a human figure swimming out of the void. That’s when I started to believe I was dying. Was this how it ended? Was this what those patients had seen, the ones who didn’t come out? I’d always wondered. He’d come so close he filled the crystal water with his darkness. He reached out and took my arm. For an angel, he had a surprisingly strong grip. Long fair hair fanned around him; I could see the wings bulging out behind his shoulder, but something hid his face.
He forced something into my mouth. I would have resisted, but I was well towards phase three. With some primal infant instinct, I bit down on the regulator (which is what it was) and sucked in. Old, rubbery air that probably tasted like a bicycle tyre, but to me it was like sucking on pure ether.
The angel tapped my shoulder and made a ‘slow down’ gesture. I nodded, and tried to control my breathing. My vision was clearing. He wasn’t an angel – he was a diver. The wings on his back were an oxygen cylinder. Wide blue eyes watched me from behind his mask.
He borrowed back the regulator for a quick breath, then took my wrist and pulled me down the tunnel. Not far – maybe four or five metres. I remember thinking at the time, That’s the difference between life and death . Later, of course, I learned they’re a whole lot closer.
We surfaced in a small, domed cave. Air – real air – and light from a diver’s torch placed on a ledge. I breathed in, grinning like an idiot and not caring. A stone idol with enormous square ears screamed warnings at me from a niche in the wall.
That was how I met Anton.
Anton (the diver) pulled off his face mask. He had a wild mane of dirty blond hair, a sun-beaten face, and pale blue eyes like portals to another dimension. He wore his oxygen tank without a wetsuit; between the straps, I could see a fat scar slashed across his ribcage, and a black shark’s tooth on a leather cord around his neck. I wondered if the two were related.
We weren’t alone. There was a girl, treading water. Maybe it was lack of oxygen, or the hormone rush that came from my escape, but I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She was in her mid-twenties, lithe skin immaculately tanned, dark hair slicked back down her neck as if she’d just stepped out of the shower. She wore a white bikini, too thin for the icy water. I wondered if she owned a polka-dotted bra. She looked about the right size.
She lifted a hand out of the water and waved. ‘These tunnels can be pretty dangerous, huh?’
Our legs brushed as we all trod water in that tight space. A shiver went through me. I started to say something formulaic about saving my life, but Anton wasn’t interested. He took the torch from the ledge and shone it straight down.
‘I guess this is what you came for.’
I almost jumped out of the water. On the sandy bottom, right under my feet, the torchlight picked out a pile of bones. Arms and legs and ribs; femurs, tibias, thoraces, the works. Worst were the skulls, staring up at me with empty eyes, angry at being disturbed from their rest. Several had been broken open like eggs, jagged holes where no holes should be.
‘The Mayans clubbed them to death,’ Anton said. ‘And have you seen Momma?’
He’d turned the torch towards an alcove in the wall, to the left of the screaming idol. Another nasty surprise: more bones, a whole skeleton laid out on the rock shelf, with a fracture in the skull just behind the ear. Water seeping down over the centuries had covered the bones in a glossy calcium case, so you couldn’t tell if the figure was being born out of the rock, or sucked into it. Straight out of King Solomon’s Mines .
‘Momma,’ said Anton.
I shuddered. ‘Why do you call her that?’
‘It was the conquistadors,’ said the girl. ‘They told the Mayans it was the bones of the Virgin Mary, so they’d treat it like a holy place.’
‘Usual crock of Catholic shit,’ said Anton.
If I were a religious man, I’d have crossed myself. But I was superstitious enough to avert my eyes – straight at the girl. She wasn’t wearing an air tank, or a mask. Had she swum through the passage unassisted?
She caught me looking, and gave me a warm smile. I returned it with interest.
‘You come alone?’ Anton asked.
I blinked. Since he’d rescued me, I hadn’t had time to think of Cate. She didn’t know where I’d gone, only that I’d disappeared from the cenote. She must be frantic. Had she called the police?
‘My wife’s outside. And my daughter. They didn’t want to come.’
‘You should tell them you’re OK,’ said the girl earnestly.
‘Right.’
I didn’t want to go. Now that I’d caught my breath, and got over the shock, I could feel the dark magic in that place. Reflected light rippled over the ceiling, while the yellow torch-beam turned the sand at the bottom gold. Even the bones didn’t frighten me any more.
‘Did anyone ever find any treasure in here?’
Anton laughed. ‘If they did, they didn’t leave any behind.’
I took a last look around. Three months later, in another cave with another family of bones, I remembered that moment. Sacrificial victims.
With a light and a guide and an air supply, taking turns with Anton’s cylinder, the journey back took no time. We came out in the main chamber and swam for the dangling rope. We must have been longer than I’d realised. The sun had moved on. The golden cave had gone grey.
‘Where the hell have you been?’
Cate had stripped down to her swimming costume and was halfway down the rope.
‘Are you coming in?’
She glared down at me – like an avenging god descending in some Greek play. ‘I was coming to rescue you.’
‘It’s OK,’ Anton called. ‘We already rescued him for you.’
The echoes in the cave made conversation almost impossible. The overlapping sounds throbbed uncomfortably in my ears. Cate wanted to say something but it was futile. She turned her back, pulled herself up the rope and disappeared out over the edge. Pretty quick. She’d kept herself in reasonable shape, even after Peggy was born.
I glanced at my rescuer. If he was embarrassed by us, he didn’t show it. Later, when I’d worked him out a bit more, I understood he was immune to embarrassment – and a few other things too. Doubt; hesitation; danger. Totally bulletproof.
‘I’m Kel, by the way,’ I introduced myself.
‘Anton. And she’s Drew.’ He nodded to the girl. Girlfriend? The way he said her name, there was definitely something possessive in it: a sense of intimacy, or ownership.
It’s amazing how easy it is to feel jealous of the man who saved your life.
‘I owe you,’ I said with a big smile.
‘Next time, bring an air tank. Nothing’s dangerous with the right preparation.’
‘Seriously.’ I lowered my voice so Cate wouldn’t hear, though the echoes made it gibberish anyway. ‘I could have died in there.’
He shrugged it off. But I was grateful, maybe profoundly, and I wanted to make him understand it. Perhaps I had other reasons, too.
‘Let me buy you dinner.’
I heard them arrive before I saw them. Anton’s psychedelic VW made a noise like a jackhammer ripping up the hotel car park. Two minutes later, he came through the door of the restaurant, scanning the room like a predator. He’d changed into jeans and a white linen shirt, sleeves rolled up and buttons undone to the sternum. His dirty-blond hair sprang out in every direction like a lion’s mane. Cowboy boots would have completed the outfit. Instead, he was wearing flip-flops.
I stood up and waved my margarita glass. Drew wasn’t with him.
‘I didn’t recognise you with your clothes on,’ he said as the maître d’ led him over.
‘Likewise,’ I joked, though it wasn’t true. He had a presence you’d know anywhere, like a piece of iron knows a magnet. And those eyes. If they were all you could see, you’d still recognise him at once.
‘Is Drew coming?’ I asked, offhand.
‘Freshening up. She likes the running water here.’ He took the seat opposite me. ‘How about your wife?’
‘Just putting our daughter to bed.’
He looked around. Not a casual glance, but a deep searching gaze, as if he’d never seen a restaurant before.
‘You like this place?’
His tone put me on the defensive. I felt I had to justify myself.
‘Well, there’s a lot of space for Peggy to run around. And you can’t beat the location.’
I pointed through the trees that lined the hotel compound. Spotlit behind them, the steps of Chichen Itza, the Observatory pyramid, climbed towards the night sky.
‘You don’t get a ruined Mayan city next door at the Hilton. We wanted to beat the tourists.’
‘Mayaland.’ He chewed the word over like a piece of bubblegum. ‘Don’t you think it sounds like Disneyland?’
‘Maybe that’s the point. I mean, you know what Chichen Itza’s like …’
He shook his head. ‘Never been.’
I stared at him. ‘Never?’
‘Too touristy.’
I couldn’t argue with that. The hotel had a private entrance to the site, but even that was limited value. The moment you crossed the threshold, you were fair game for the vendors. Hundreds of them, some not much older than Peggy; a cacophony of ‘one dollar, one dollar’ and ‘special price for you’ that almost drowned out the guide. And once the tour buses arrived …
‘It’s enough to make you believe in human sacrifice,’ I said. ‘That’s why I went to the cenote. I wanted …’
Anton had stopped listening to me. He’d turned around, and was beckoning Drew, who was threading her way between the tables.
I stood, slightly awkwardly, and tried not to stare – though I wouldn’t have been the only one. She’d looked good in a bikini; she looked stunning now, in a simple white jersey dress that clung so tight there couldn’t have been room for much underneath.
She flashed me a smile. I leaned in and gave her a gallant kiss on the cheek. Her perfume smelled of some sweet flower I couldn’t name.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said.
‘Not at all.’
She sat down next to Anton. He put his hand on her arm. He wore a lot of rings, I noticed: fat steel and silver. Drew had none.
‘This hotel is the best,’ she enthused. She nestled against Anton’s shoulder. ‘Why can’t we stay someplace like this?’
‘Where are you staying?’ I asked. I had to look her firmly in the eye, to avoid any hint of my gaze drifting down the V of her dress.
‘Anton’s got us camping out in the sticks. In hammocks, not even a tent, would you believe? Only a campfire to cook on, and no running water.’
‘There’s a stream,’ said Anton.
‘There’s a stream bed .’
‘It sounds great,’ I said, and I meant it. The hotel’s decor – ‘hacienda style’, the website called it – was starting to embarrass me.
‘Where are you from?’ Anton asked.
‘Scotland. But I live in London now. You?’
‘Kind of all over.’
‘You make it sound so romantic ,’ said Drew. Her eyes met mine and she said in a stage whisper, ‘He’s really from Tampico, Illinois.’
‘Birthplace of Ronald Reagan,’ said Anton.
He scraped back his chair. Cate had arrived. She looked nice, in a Boden catalogue sort of way: a pretty flower print T-shirt with ruched sleeves, a denim skirt several inches longer than the ones she used to wear when we met.
‘Sorry,’ she apologised. ‘Peggy wouldn’t stay down.’
Anton kissed her on both cheeks, Continental-style. I made the introductions. With Anton and Drew having to sort out their dive equipment, and Cate desperate to get Peggy back for her tea, there hadn’t been an opportunity at the cenote. I caught her giving Drew a shrewd look. Perhaps it was a sex thing, two females of the species sizing up the competition.
‘So you’re the man I have to blame for saving my husband,’ she said, as we took our seats.
I hadn’t meant to tell her what happened in the tunnel. I didn’t want to worry her. But she’d worked it out of me, over an excruciating hour on the drive back.
‘It’s an amazing place,’ Drew volunteered. ‘Next time, we’ll bring enough equipment for everyone. Your daughter, too.’
The waiter arrived and took our drinks order before Cate could say what she thought of that idea.
‘Anything you want,’ I said. ‘My treat.’
Drew took a daiquiri. Anton ordered tequila – ‘blue agave, neat’ – and I asked for another margarita.
‘Maybe a pitcher?’ the waiter suggested.
‘Sure.’
‘And I’ll have a glass of wine,’ said Cate.
The waiter left. No one moved to pick up the conversation. Cate’s arrival seemed to have broken the flow.
‘So I guess you’re here on vacation?’ said Drew. If all else fails, talk about your holidays.
‘Just a week for half-term,’ said Cate. ‘Kel’s always fancied himself as Indiana Jones. You too?’
‘Some downtime.’ Anton stretched back his arms, looping one over the back of Drew’s chair. ‘We’ve got a big project coming up, so it’s good to chill out. And I need to get Drew used to roughing it.’
‘What do you do?’ Cate asked.
‘I’m a treasure hunter.’
I didn’t know what to say, so I laughed. Cate thought he was making fun of her.
‘Come on.’
‘Seriously.’
‘Is that an actual job?’
It came out sounding harsher than she probably meant. Anton didn’t take offence.
‘Better than working some office job to get a gold watch after forty years.’
‘I don’t think they give out gold watches any more,’ I said.
‘There you go.’
The waiter had brought the drinks. I took a big gulp of my margarita, and topped it up from the pitcher. Cate shot me a warning look. I added a bit more.
‘It sounds great,’ I said. ‘Out in the sun all day, digging and diving. Real adventure. Not like what I do.’
Anton shook his head. ‘Everyone gets the wrong idea. Treasure hunting’s like gambling. Anyone can try it out, and maybe they’ll get lucky. Maybe very lucky. But that’s one in ten million. To make a career, you have to know your shit. Put in the hours, connect the dots. I probably sit a hundred hours in the library for every hour I’m in the field.’
It was hard to imagine Anton in a library.
‘Are you connected to a university?’ said Cate.
The question irritated me more than it should have. Here was this amazing person, and she was trying to place him in a bourgeois box, as if she was a matriarch in a Jane Austen novel and he was her prospective son-in-law.
I tried to make a joke of it. ‘I don’t think they offer degrees in treasure hunting.’
‘College is a waste of time,’ said Anton, confirming every one of Cate’s suspicions. ‘Look at those people in England, the ones who found the king. The hunchback guy.’
‘Richard III,’ said Drew.
‘Right. I saw them on the History Channel. You know who they were? One was a screenwriter, and one was an author. The proof had been sitting there for five hundred years, but all the college types were too “educated” to see it. There was this story that the body had got thrown in a river, lost for ever, and because it was written in a book everyone believed it. So you know what the screenwriter did? She went back to the sources and found there was another story, an earlier story, that said Richard was buried in this church and that they knew where it was. And she said, “Hey, what if the guys who wrote the first story were telling the truth?” First day of digging, she found the skeleton.’
He drained his tequila and bit hard on the lime.
‘First day,’ he repeated. ‘Same thing with Machu Picchu. Bingham wasn’t trained. He read his sources and he backed his judgement. Or Troy. Everyone knew where it was, but no one believed it except Schliemann. All you have to do is respect history, take it seriously. Truth is, no academic ever found anything worth a damn, because their whole careers depend on not taking risks. It’s the explorers and adventurers and treasure hunters who make the big-time discoveries. If you work in the university, what’s the biggest prize you dream of? A piece of paper, right? But what I do …’
He pulled out a faded brown wallet and flipped it open. Something round bulged inside the leather. He slid it out.
It was a coin – about the size of a ten-pence piece, but thicker. Quartered by a cross, with lions and castles nestled between the arms.
‘You know what this is?’
He spun it on the table. The silver glittered like a flame.
‘A peso de ocho . A piece of eight.’
I wasn’t sure if I should believe him.
‘It’s for real.’ He tossed it to me across the table. ‘You see the writing?’
It was heavier than I’d expected, the weight of age and vanished worlds. Time had tanned the silver deep grey. I couldn’t believe he kept it in his wallet like a condom.
‘Where—?’
‘I got it in Panama,’ he said. As casual as if he’d found it down the back of the sofa. ‘Spaniards used to bring their treasure over the isthmus on mule trains. Road was bad, mules slipped, some treasure ended up in a ravine a thousand feet deep. I took a team up there a couple of years ago and found some.’
He held out his hand for the coin. I didn’t want to let it go. Who knew what this coin had witnessed? Desperate conquistadors stumbling out of the jungle; galleons in full sail; blood-soaked pirates. And now I had it in my grasp. I could feel the history prickling my skin like an electric charge.
He was still waiting. Reluctantly, I dropped it in his hand. He slid it back into his wallet.
The waiter arrived for our food order.
‘I’m afraid it might be a bit bland,’ I warned them when he’d gone. ‘They worry about setting the tourists on fire.’
Anton nodded. ‘If you want to eat Mexican food, you got to get it where the locals eat.’
‘There’s an amazing shack near where we’re camping,’ Drew added. ‘Salsa like you never taste back home, and burritos to die for.’
‘Blows off your head like a shotgun.’ Anton snapped a tortilla in two and scooped up some of the dipping salsa on the table. ‘This shit’s like ketchup.’
‘So where’s next?’ I asked. ‘Spanish galleons? Treasure islands?’ I couldn’t shake the image of that silver coin. ‘Or is it a big secret?’
Anton crunched his tortilla and stared into the darkness. Over the wall, I could hear the music from the son et lumière show beginning, a low bass rumble from the mists of time (according to the blurb in the guidebook). A dribble of salsa ran down Anton’s chin.
‘You ever hear of a place called Paititi?’ he said suddenly. I shook my head. ‘How about El Dorado?’
‘The lost city of gold.’
‘Right. Well, kind of. Technically, El Dorado was a man, the “golden one”. Indian king who got a rub-down in gold dust every day. But time passed, stories got mixed up, and now most people think it means the city of gold. So, Paititi is El Dorado. And that’s where I’m going.’
‘I thought El Dorado was a myth,’ said Cate.
‘El Dorado ’s a myth. Paititi’s real.’
‘Real as in really real?’
‘It’s in Peru. Five hundred years ago, when the Spanish conquered Peru, the last Incas retreated to the jungle. First they went to the fortress of Vilcabamba, where they held out for like seventy years or something.’
‘Seventy-six,’ said Drew.
‘When the Spaniards conquered that, Incas fled to the rainforest. They took their greatest treasures – everything they managed to hide from the Spaniards since the invasion. The great golden disc from the Temple of the Sun in Cuzco, six feet across. The mummies of the fourteen Inca emperors. The chain of the emperor Huascar, a thousand feet long and every link made of three-inch thick solid gold. They escaped down the Andes and vanished into the rainforest.’
He waved his empty glass at the waiter.
‘Some time after 1600, a Jesuit in Peru, Andrea Lopez, reported to the Vatican that he’d spoken to a group of Christianised Indians. They’d travelled down from the mountains and found a city in the jungle, every wall covered in gold. Lopez went to find it himself …’
‘… And was never heard of again?’ Cate laughed. Anton looked put out. ‘Isn’t that always the way?’
‘It sounds amazing,’ I said. Kicking Cate’s foot under the table. ‘And you’re really going to look for it?’
‘We’re going to find it.’
Something changed. His blue eyes held mine, overpowering me with their certainty. Irresistible images of jungles, stone temples and golden idols danced in front of me. I wanted to go there. I had to go there.
‘I wish I could come with you,’ I said.
‘Everyone says that.’
He looked away. The moment his eyes let me go, I felt myself drop about thirty storeys. For a moment, we’d seemed to share something. Now his voice said that I was nothing special, no different from all the other wannabes and play-actors. Nothing personal.
Cate was pulling her long-suffering wife face, like when we need to leave a party to get back for the babysitter. Only Drew looked as if she believed in me.
‘I mean it,’ I insisted. A couple of notches too loud. The margaritas had made my cheeks flush. ‘You said yourself you don’t have to be an expert.’
‘I said you have to know your shit.’
‘I’ve always been interested in this sort of thing,’
‘He means he’s played a lot of Tomb Raider ,’ said Cate. I couldn’t believe she’d taken Anton’s side. After all, I wasn’t seriously asking to go. I just wanted them to accept that it wasn’t as crazy as they all seemed to think. That I wasn’t as crazy.
‘I’m just saying it sounds amazing.’
‘Yeah,’ said Anton, ‘but I’ve got a full crew and I don’t take passengers. You go in the jungle and you don’t know what you’re doing, you don’t come out.’
Drew gave me a sympathetic smile. ‘And the mosquitoes eat you alive.’
‘Are you going?’
Anton answered for her. ‘Drew’s our lucky charm. Goddam expert. PhD from Yale.’
‘You’re an archaeologist?’
A grain of salt from the margarita glass had got stuck on her lip. She wiped it away. ‘History, actually. But I did some Arch. and Anth. courses for my major.’
‘More than just a pretty face,’ said Anton, rubbing her cheek. ‘When we find Paititi—’
‘If ,’ said Drew.
‘She’ll be the one who got us there.’
I refilled Drew’s drink, and then my own. I raised the glass. ‘Good luck to you both.’
I hoped I didn’t sound too bitter.
We talked and we ate. Anton could have kept a conversation going in an empty room. If he ever flagged, Drew was always ready to smooth the gaps. They were so comfortable in each other’s company, so confident in themselves, I couldn’t help feeling envious. Especially with Cate bristling and prickling beside me. Anton didn’t mention Paititi again – even he had picked up on Cate’s hostility.
I don’t suppose I was great company, either. As I said, I was realistic enough to know that Paititi was out of the question. But I hated the idea that the adventures were over, that I’d crossed some threshold into middle age and even thinking it was out of bounds. Cate would say I was overgeneralising.
As soon as we’d finished the puddings, Cate started wrapping things up.
‘I’m just going to the loo,’ she said, in the voice that means, ‘… and then we’re going.’
‘You have a great wife,’ said Anton, when she’d gone.
Across the room, I saw the concierge heading for our table. I knew what that meant.
‘Perdone , Dr MacDonald,’ he said to me, ‘the listening service has asked me to say that your daughter is awake.’
‘I’ll be right there.’
I picked up my drink to finish it. Over the salt-smeared rim, I saw Anton staring at me as if I’d suddenly become very interesting.
‘What?’
‘You’re a doctor?’
It sounds silly, but we’d never talked about what Cate and I did back home. I’d actually been embarrassed to bring it up – it sounded pathetic, in front of a treasure hunter. And Anton had done most of the talking.
I glanced at the door. No sign of Cate yet. We couldn’t leave Peggy long.
Anton leaned his elbows on the table, as if he was about to launch himself off. ‘I need a doctor for the expedition. The guy who was supposed to come with me, he dropped out.’ He jabbed his fork at me. ‘This is perfect.’
Perhaps it was the margaritas, but I couldn’t quite process what had happened. Half an hour ago, I’d been begging Anton to let me go along (even if it was only in principle). Now he was putting the squeeze on me.
It was a crazy, misguided idea, and I should have stopped it right there. But Cate came back then. She didn’t sit down.
‘Peggy’s awake,’ I told her.
‘Then why didn’t you go?’
‘I was waiting for you.’
Cate bit back whatever she wanted to say and turned to the others. ‘It’s been really lovely meeting you. But it’s been a big day – and if Peggy’s not settled it’ll be a long night.’
She looked at me expectantly. She nodded, not so subtly, to the door.
‘I’ll just stay for one more drink.’ The margarita jug was empty. ‘Unless Anton …’
He stretched his arms. ‘Whatever.’
‘Another drink sounds great,’ said Drew.
‘You’ll pay for it in the morning,’ said Cate. Lightly, with a smile, but I knew she wasn’t talking about hangovers.
I kissed her goodnight and watched her leave.
‘You think she’ll let you go?’ said Anton.
Drew made a face at him. ‘Don’t let Anton bounce you into going.’ To Anton: ‘You don’t even know what kind of doctor he is.’
They both looked at me expectantly.
‘An anaesthetist.’ I’d drunk so much, I could hardly pronounce the word. ‘But I did A&E as part of my training.’
‘The jungle’s no place for people who don’t know what they’re doing,’ Drew reminded Anton.
‘It’s not as dangerous as you think.’ Anton had a politician’s ability to forget anything he’d said more than thirty seconds ago. Even now, I can’t decide if it was calculated, or just the way he went at life. Headlong, never looking back. ‘It’s stories, mostly, that guys tell to make themselves look big.’
‘He has a kid,’ said Drew protectively.
‘Yeah. But this is the adventure of a lifetime.’ Anton turned to me. ‘If we make it, you’ll be the guy who found El Dorado .’
After that, things get hazy. The margaritas short-circuited my memory. I seem to remember we ended up crowded round a small table in the bar, jostling elbows and rubbing knees. Anton did most of the talking, while Drew and I listened – stories about shipwrecks and maps and buried treasure, like Robert Louis Stevenson editing National Geographic . I think at some point I started giving what Cate calls my modern-life-is-rubbish lament – any thought we think, any sight we see, someone’s already posted it on Facebook and got fifteen Likes – and I remember Anton and Drew nodding as if it was the wisest thing they’d ever heard. And all that time, I know, the thought was growing inside me like a ball of shining light, radiating possibility through my veins. Real treasure. Real adventure. A real city of gold.
I knew I shouldn’t go. The same way I knew that however often my leg brushed Drew’s or our eyes met, however often I found my gaze drooping to the V of her dress (alcohol makes you terribly uninhibited), nothing would happen. It was a warm night with new friends, at the end of a holiday, and I was drunk. A time to crack open the door of your life and peer at the sunshine outside – just looking – before reality slams it shut again.
I don’t remember going back to the room. But I must have done, because the next thing I knew I was waking up from a dream with my heart racing a hundred miles a minute, and the telephone on the bedside table ringing to wake the dead.
‘Are you coming?’
Drew’s voice cut through my hangover like icy water. I couldn’t see a thing in the darkness. I reached across the bed.
Cate was next to me. I felt her bare shoulder where she’d thrown off the sheet in her sleep. From the bed in the corner, I heard Peggy’s snuffly snores. The phone hadn’t woken her.
‘Um, what?’
‘We’re in the lobby.’ She sounded impossibly bright given how much she’d drunk last night. This night? It was still dark outside.
‘Right.’
‘Ek’ Balam?’
I wondered if I was still drunk (in retrospect, the answer was ‘yes’). But it registered somewhere in the alcoholic haze of my brain. Tequila shots, and toasts, and Anton telling me that no one should leave the Yucatán without seeing the sun rise over the pyramids.
There was something else he’d told me, but I couldn’t remember what it was.
Drew was getting tired of waiting for me to catch up.
‘We have to leave now if we’re going to make it.’
‘I’ll be right there.’
I leaned over and battered the bedside table until I found the phone cradle. When I turned back, Cate was sitting up in bed.
‘Who was that?’
‘Anton.’
‘It’s half past four.’
Christ. I was pretty sure I remembered being awake at two.
‘He wants me to see the sunrise. Some Mayan temple you can climb up. He said it was amazing.’ I saw the look on her face. ‘You’re invited too.’
I took Peggy to the car park while Cate finished getting dressed. Anton was there, leaning on his car and smoking a cigarette.
‘Why’s he here?’ Peggy demanded.
‘He’s going to the Amazon.’
Peggy looked him up and down. ‘Will you see a capybara?’
I laughed, embarrassed. ‘I don’t know what she’s talking about.’
‘No, she’s right.’ Anton knelt down so he could look Peggy in the eye. If Cate had been there, she’d have freaked out at Peggy being so close to a cigarette. ‘You want to come with me, kid?’
Peggy nodded solemnly. ‘Will you find treasure?’
‘Definitely.’
‘How did you know about the capybara?’ I asked. Embarrassed at being shown up by my six-year-old daughter.
‘I saw them on the Octonauts .’
I saw Cate coming down the path. I murmured in Anton’s ear, ‘This whole Amazon thing – I haven’t had a chance to mention it to Cate yet. Please don’t bring it up.’
‘Right.’
Cate took one look at Anton’s VW (from an age before seat belts), then one look at me, and announced that she would drive. We still had the hire car from the day before. Anton sat up front; I went in the back, squashed between Drew and Peggy. Drew stared out of the window, and Peggy dozed in her car seat; I needed to sleep, but every time I started to slump towards Drew, Cate’s eyes in the rear-view mirror had me bolt upright again.
We drove for almost an hour. The sky got lighter. A ghost landscape of grey trees and silver leaves appeared beyond the window. The houses we passed were shuttered and dark. Peggy leaned out of her car seat and snuggled against me. It felt as if we were the only five people in the world.
Anton directed Cate through a small village and down an unpaved road. We stopped by a low chain-link fence among trees and got out. The damp air cooled my face and cleared my head. I drank in deep breaths, the smell of sagebrush and passion flowers.
‘Where’s the entrance?’
The fence was only chest high. Anton leaned on the top and vaulted over.
Cate stood her ground. ‘What about the guards?’
‘In bed. If they come, we give them ten dollars and it’s no problem.’
I could see she didn’t like it. I hesitated.
Anton pointed through the trees. ‘You wanted to see what the other guys don’t get to see? This is it.’
I didn’t think she’d do it. But suddenly Cate was at the fence saying ‘Give me a lift’, and I was making a stirrup with my hands, and passing her Peggy, and then we were all inside and running in the deep shadows under the ceiba trees. I found Cate’s hand and squeezed it.
The guidebook will tell you that Ek’ Balam isn’t as big as Chichen Itza. But darkness made it vast. We came out on to a baked-earth plaza; massive structures towered against the bluing sky. Anton jogged ahead. He led us to the highest pyramid and started scrambling up the steps.
At Chichen Itza, all the temples are roped off and guarded by men with guns. Here, there was nothing to stop you. I slipped on steps worn smooth by millions of feet – tourists, perhaps, but Mayans before that. I could feel the history under me, living in the stones the Maya had cut and dragged through the jungle.
The top of the pyramid was a platform, with a square stone block in its centre. Light brimmed over the horizon. We sat on the eastern edge of the pyramid and waited for the dawn. Cate and I cuddled Peggy between us; I stretched out and put my arm around both of them. It was the best moment of the holiday.
And that was before the sun came up. Picture perfect, a ball of fire rising behind the forest, as if time was rewinding and the comet that hit here sixty-five million years ago had been thrown back into the sky. It shone through the mist that shrouded the forest, so that the treetops and the pyramid became islands in a sea of blazing fog. A chorus of birds erupted into song.
‘Realms of gold,’ I murmured, a fragment of that old poem we learned at school. Perhaps it was the margaritas still buzzing in my bloodstream, but I felt more alive than I had since Peggy was born. I leaned across and kissed Cate’s hair. She smiled, and kissed me back.
I’d left my camera at the hotel. Part of me couldn’t believe I was missing these pictures; part of me was glad. Nothing to break the moment, to distract me from the experience of now . Nothing to become Facebook fodder for the eternal online bragging war. It could be that rarest of rare twenty-first-century treasures: something private.
Peggy had squirmed away to investigate on her own. Cate jumped up to grab her before she fell off the edge. Something about children: they always head for the most dangerous places.
Anton leaned over. ‘This is amazing, right?’
‘It’s amazing.’
‘Now imagine this isn’t some Mexican tourist site where we jumped the fence, and your hire car’s parked on the street. Imagine we’re in Peru, deep in the Amazon, and this is Paititi, and you’re the first human being to see it for five hundred years.’
I could imagine it. Forest sweeping down from the mountains, white mist hanging in the trees, the wild cries of unknown birds and animals echoing across the landscape. And the mist parting, a stone temple, carved with ancient symbols that signposted a lost city.
‘You sure you won’t come on my adventure?’