‘Look,’ the guide whispered. ‘Down there . . . by the rocks . . .’
Twenty tourists held their breath.
The river was shallow and rocky, flowing over a gravel bed as wide as two roads. It was a soothing sound that blended in with the jungle noise of innumerable birds and animals and insects. On either side the rainforest formed ten-metre walls of trees and bush beneath an impenetrable canopy of leaves and branches. Tangles of vines and trunks were like vertical cables. It was difficult to say what was holding the tree canopy up and what was hanging down from it.
But on the far bank, something moved. A small figure wrapped in orange-brown fur crawled out from behind the rocks at the water’s edge. It looked mostly human with a bit of spider thrown in. A body the size of a small child and absurdly long arms and legs. The orang-utan had been washing itself in the shallows at the edge of the water.
The tourists let out their breaths again with a collective ‘Aaah . . .’
There was a whirring by Beck’s ear as Peter zoomed in with his camera.
‘She’s got a baby!’ Peter said in delight. ‘Look!’
He passed the camera to Beck so that his friend could see it in close-up. He had already noticed the much smaller orange lump clinging to its mother’s back. She loped on all fours up the bank, away from the river and the watching humans.
‘Hey! Monkey! Over here!’ one of the tourists called. The reverent atmosphere burst like a balloon. The orang-utan paused and looked back at them. Her face was long and grave, as if wondering how anyone could be such an idiot. Then she turned away again and disappeared into the trees.
‘Hah!’ The man clapped his hands, very pleased with himself. Then: ‘What?’ as he noticed the expressions on some of the faces around him. ‘I made her look, didn’t I? We travel for three hours in a hot bus, you want to see something at the other end!’
Beck gave Peter a nudge. ‘Yeah, but do they want to see you?’
Peter grinned.
Their guide was a middle-aged Malay man called Nakula. His keeper’s uniform made him look a bit like an overgrown schoolboy. His face was lined and inscrutable, but as he had met the tourists getting off the bus, Beck reckoned he saw a flash of utter dislike. Beck could understand that. If you worked as a keeper in an orang-utan sanctuary, presumably you would want to spend your time keeping orang-utans, not looking after rich western tourists. Unfortunately, though, that was how the sanctuary actually made the money to care for orang-utans in the first place . . .
This particular tourist really wasn’t doing anything to improve the reputation of westerners.
‘The orang-utans are fed twice a day, sir,’ Nakula said with icy politeness. ‘That will be your best chance of seeing them up close. Now, if you would like to come along . . .’
‘It’s like we’re guests in their home, isn’t it?’ Peter said to his dad as they followed after Nakula. ‘We’re the ones who should be living up to expectations, not them.’
At the back of the group the loud tourist was explaining to anyone who would listen why he thought the whole trip was a rip-off. Peter shook his head angrily. Nakula noticed Peter and Beck’s annoyance, and for a moment it looked like he might be prepared to dislike these two tourists a little less than everyone else.
‘They are very solitary, private creatures,’ he explained, for the benefit of the group. ‘And why should they not be? This is their home’ – he half nodded to Peter in acknowledgement, and Peter flushed a little, as if he had been praised – ‘and humans spoil it.’
‘Pollution?’ someone asked.
‘Loggers,’ Nakula answered. The loathing in his voice made it sound like a swear word, something you wouldn’t use to describe your worst enemy. ‘The wood of our rainforest is in demand in your west. The orang-utans live in trees. The trees are cut down – where can they go? They die. How easy would it be for us all to survive if the orang-utans started to knock down our houses?’
‘But they’re protected here,’ a woman pointed out.
‘They are protected here, but those in the wild are not. Fewer and fewer survive each year.’
They walked on through the jungle. Beck was pleased to see that the sanctuary made a minimal impact on the environment. The paths were artificial, packed with gravel and woodchip, but otherwise it was just pure jungle around them: hot, humid and heaving with life. It was a couple of years since he’d last visited a jungle properly. He enjoyed renewing the acquaintance.
Every now and then the shadowy form of an orang-utan swung through the trees around them, but they were surprisingly hard to see. You assumed that their colour would stand out a mile, but they easily blended into the shades and shadows of the treetops. You heard them more than anything else. Branches crackled and leaves rustled, and you got the briefest glimpse of a vaguely human shape gliding effortlessly through the canopy. Peter tried to take a couple of pictures but they moved too fast.
He tugged on Beck’s elbow. ‘Do you think it’s safe to leave the path?’
Beck shook his head, smiling. ‘Leaving the path is a bad idea, Peter.’ His friend looked crestfallen and Beck pounced. This was too good a chance to miss to wind Peter up. ‘There’s tigers lurking behind every tree just waiting to bite your head off the moment you stray off it,’ he said dramatically. ‘That’s if the poisonous snakes and insects don’t get you first. Oh, and that’s not to mention the man-eating plants . . .’
By now Peter had guessed it was a wind-up. He tilted his head and looked sceptically at Beck.
‘Of course you can leave the path,’ Beck told him. ‘Why?’
‘I just want to take a picture.’
There was a cluster of bright red flowers a couple of metres away. They were enormous, the size of plates, and gave off a sickly smell that had already lured several insects to their death. Peter stepped off the path and zoomed in close with the lens.
‘I suppose there really are tigers and things in the jungle, though?’ he asked, not looking up from his camera.
‘Well, yeah. But they won’t come near the inhabited areas unless they’re desperate.’
Beck used the opportunity to take a swig of water from the bottle in his backpack. He had politely turned down the offer of a soft drink for the trip from Peter’s mum. Beck knew that if you wanted to stay hydrated you couldn’t beat plain water. That was the real thing. Especially in a climate as humid as the jungle.
Peter had finished taking pictures. He straightened up, turned and almost fell over. ‘What the—?’
He had managed to get his foot caught in a loop of vine. He instinctively gave it a tug to free it and nearly fell over again. Another, slightly harder tug had even less success. If anything the vine grew tighter.
‘Don’t fight it, Peter,’ Beck told him. ‘You have to ease yourself free.’ He took the camera so that his friend could bend down and free his foot with his hands. ‘Remember, in the jungle every single plant wants to climb, so they’re strong and tough and most of them have thorns or hooks or suckers . . .’
‘I get the message,’ Peter muttered as he straightened up for the second time, this time with two free feet. ‘Don’t wrestle with jungle plants because they will win.’ He took his camera back.
‘Yup!’ Beck agreed. ‘I got taught that in Borneo, when Mum and Dad were there with Green Force—’
‘Green Force?’ Nakula had been waiting to see there were no stragglers in the group. He hadn’t been listening in, but those two words had obviously stood out in the conversation. For the first time his cool politeness was punctured by active interest. ‘You were with Green Force?’
‘Mum and Dad were,’ Beck answered, a little taken aback by the sudden enthusiasm. In fact, their trip to Borneo had been their last trip together as a family, before the plane crash . . .
Nakula explained, ‘Poachers worked near my village when I was younger. We all knew who they were, but a corrupt police chief refused to charge them. Green Force gave us funds so that we could bring our own private prosecution in the courts.’
Beck felt uncomfortable under the burning approval in the man’s eyes. ‘Glad they helped,’ he said awkwardly.
‘Your parents must have been good people,’ Nakula commented.
‘Well . . . yeah. I always thought so. They kind of grew on me, I guess.’ Beck smiled.
Nakula laughed, and it transformed his face, making him look suddenly warm and friendly. But then the other tourists gathered round to see what was keeping them, and the professional reserve came back.
‘It is almost feeding time,’ he announced. ‘This way . . .’