Wayra is pacing when we go and see her. The runner hangs unspeaking and still between the cage and the sentinel tree, as if the clearing still feels it has to hold its breath to keep from choking. I know the feeling. Wayra’s body looks shrunken. She slides through the still-heavy air on tiptoes. She’s surreal, otherworldly. Her eyes are red and the floor of her cage is white, as if it’s been snowing.
“Alright Wayra,” Jane says. “Let’s get you out of here.”
Wayra shoots under her house, making herself as small as she can. Her paw prints stand out starkly among the crumpled pieces of ash. I look at Jane.
“I’ll be bodyguard?” she asks.
I nod. It’s better when Jane is in front. Wayra knows Jane better, trusts her more. I take the rope down from the runner. My heart beats fast. I’ve done this so many times and yet, even after so long, even though it’s amazing every time, I truly haven’t come to terms with “walking a puma.” But when I look back, she’s at the door and she looks so terrified that I forget my own fear. I’ve become so used to fear, so much more these last weeks. She’s hissing, pacing fast and slamming her paw down as if she demands an answer. As if she’s been sitting here knowing the world was collapsing and there wasn’t a single thing she could do about it. She couldn’t even run.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
Then she’s clipped on and sprinting, swinging her head back and forth with violent snarls. Jane runs in front, checking that we’re OK, and the rope tethers me. I hang on, grounding myself with the familiar rough feeling of it. Wayra passes the sentinel tree, turns an immediate sharp left, sprints over the rise, across the fallen log, under the yellow blossom bush, up the bank and straight to the lagoon. The water has a haze over it as if it too has been in stasis. Wayra powers down to the edge. I have the rope in one hand, uncertain, not sure what she wants, and then she’s dragging me forwards.
“Wayra, what . . .” I stumble. Wayra turns once, gives me such a violent snarl that I jump backwards, and then she’s lunging for the water. She’s pulling against the rope, her paws submerged, her belly, her back, batting and snarling at the sticks in her way, and then I’m down the bank too, leaving Jane helplessly behind, and the water is over my boots. I hiss, stumbling, up to my knees in it, a nasty surge of bubbles cascading from the invisible bottom, and then she’s swimming. She’s swimming!
I squeal. The water swallows me up. Boots, jeans, shirt . . . I’m chest high, neck high, billowing like a useless sail. She’s paddling desperately. She tries to keep her head above the water, her legs working, neck craned, air snorting and bubbling through her nose.
“It’s OK, Wayra,” I say more calmly than I feel. “We’re OK.”
At the same time, I turn my head, spinning. I’ve never been in the lagoon. It feels colder than it ought to be. I know there are caimans out here, piranhas perhaps, prehistoric fish. Ours is the only beach, all the way around. The rest is a net of greenery, creepers, brutally knotted trees, sharp dark edges darned with root systems, their legs and arms submerged in the reflective brown like golden spiders. The haze floats above the ripples, so thick that I can almost move my hand through it. I can feel the heavy push of the sun. It’s like we’re in a bowl, Wayra and I. The water warms. Wisps of white, like feathers, streak the sky. I remember how to breathe. The ripples spread in ever-greater circles and Wayra pulls me on. I let her. My limbs are so sore and scorched, I almost moan.
“Don’t let her get to the other bank!” Jane shouts, panicking. “And they swim with their claws out! Don’t let her attack you!”
Oh, I think. Right. Then Wayra turns her face towards me.
“I think it’s OK,” I whisper.
All I see is her head and the line of her back. She belongs here, just as much as the caimans do. Wayra is not soundless like they are, she has to snort as she breathes, but she folds through the water, grey and sinuous. She comes so close that her fur brushes mud across my arm. I stay very still. If we’re in a bowl, then we’re all made of glass and this whole dream could shatter. She swims forever, her pupils so swollen I can barely see the green behind. On land, she spends a lot of time not looking at me. I don’t know if it’s because she wants to forget that I am there or that I simply don’t factor into her thoughts. But now she is looking at me as if she cannot believe what has happened, as if she can’t look away. What we have done. I cannot believe it either.
The water holds pockets of heat and the mud is clammy, catching in my clothes and holding me. I can still smell the cloying scent of smoke far away on the breeze, but mostly I just smell water and earth and the faint tang of lavender. A troop of squirrel monkeys, yellow, small as pointy-eared rats, watches us from the top of a mapajo tree, one of the tallest trees in the Amazon. Its hoary branches spread like wings.
Perhaps it was the weeks in the cage alone. Perhaps it was the lack of control. Perhaps it was the heat and the fire and the fear. Her instincts would have told her to go to water perhaps. I don’t know. All I know is that she’s done this thing that she’s been too scared to do for all the years she’s been here, sitting for endless hours at her beach. I am so proud of her, it swells in my throat and I find it difficult to swallow. All I can see is the back of her head, brown in the sun, splattered with water droplets and lagoon sludge, the slick pale tips of her ears and the dark tuft of her tail swishing through the water. Everything that I feel for her swells up too, unexpected and completely flooring. I’m absolutely wrecked, my body broken, my mind shattered. Is this love? I don’t know. All I know is that I’ve never felt anything like this before in my life.
The sky is a light-blue blanket of soft cotton. The clouds float around our chests in distorted patterns of an upside-down sky. Wayra gives a tired puff, shoots a last glance at the far bank, swims one more contented, proud and happy loop, then circles in, coming so close that I reach out and touch her. It’s what she wants. She presses against me, so tightly I feel the weight of her skinny, fragile body. We exchange a long look, her eyes just above the level of the water, before she turns and paddles wearily back towards her beach.
Back at the cage, I clip her onto the runner. She turns away with a humph, with a wet flick of her tail, and drops into a patch of sunlight to dry herself.
“She swam!” Jane exclaims, her cheeks flushed.
I laugh, shaking all over and struggling to get my boots off. When I pull one, the seal breaks and a flood of mud, sticks and sludge cascades onto the dirt. Wayra shoots me an irritated look. I can’t stop laughing now, nodding too. I wouldn’t have expected any less from her. After the expanse of the lagoon, the peace, floating under a sky that we haven’t been able to see for days because of the smoke, it’s hard to come back under the heavy heat of the trees. Disorientating almost. I am wet, grey cloying clay clumped into every line of my skin. Wayra is too, curled up small under the tree that smells of pepper, shivering, a sour look on her face, fur stuck ungracefully to her bones. But when I look around, I feel reassured. I remember the other lagoons that I saw, so long ago now, from up on the rocks with Paddy. I think they must still be there, silver in the sun, maybe with cats just like Wayra swimming in them too. We are part of that green plateau. Stretching into forever. Trees don’t end. Trees that burn grow back, bodies press. Here there is always someone listening, breathing. There is always someone becoming part of us, making us part of them. This is a belly that holds on, that keeps us alive.
I turn to Jane to tell her all this, to tell her how we’ve done it, we’ve survived! When I see that she’s crying.
“Jane!” I throw my arms around her shoulders, brown water squelching down her back. She laughs but also pulls away, sits and presses her face against her knees. All I see are her shoulders shaking. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Wayra watching Jane carefully, tail half in, half out of her mouth, a look of concern on her face.
Finally, Jane raises her head. “I think I want to leave.”
I stare at her, as if I haven’t heard correctly.
She starts again. “I think—”
“You’re not serious.” I cut her off, going back to my boots. I don’t believe her. But when she doesn’t say anything else, just stays like that, her head back on her knees, turned towards me with tears running down her cheeks, I start to feel sick. “You’re serious.”
She nods.
“Why?”
“Lau . . .” She shakes her head wearily. “I’m so tired. I thought I might have it in me to stay till Christmas but you know what, I don’t. The fires . . .” She looks over at Wayra and wipes her eyes again angrily.
I stare at her, shocked. I don’t know when but the jungle seems to have got its voice back, or perhaps my ears are just able to hear again. The high purr of the crickets and the hum of the bugs settle back into my stomach. Behind Jane, the sentinel tree stands tall and watchful. Wayra gets to her feet with a low growl, sensing something is going on. She turns. When she sits back down, the dark line down her back is all we can see.
“But what about—”
“She’ll be fine. There’ll always be volunteers.”
I blink. She’s serious.
“What about Sama and his cage? Don’t you want—”
She takes my hand. “I’ve got three months left on my ticket. I thought I might go up to Colombia, then Ecuador. Paddy and I were talking. Maybe we could meet him and Bry on the beach for Christmas.”
“We?”
“We think you should come with us.”
I stare at her. “Me? I can’t . . .” I drop her hand. The elation I felt minutes ago plummets, leaving me cold. Months ago this was all I wanted. A friend to travel with, laugh with when I puked my guts out, hitch with so I didn’t have to sit on the side of the road by myself. Now I don’t know what I want. I want this to be my life. I don’t want this to be temporary, something I can leave behind like just another memory. I want to be here. But maybe that’s stupid. Maybe I should grow up. How could I be here without Jane? Just me and Wayra? Or would Mila give us a new volunteer? Would I have to train them? How would I even begin?
Jane looks away, back at Wayra. “Just think about it, OK?”
We stay until after dark. Once Wayra has cleaned herself off to her liking, she settles on the patch of ground between us, her scrappy, still-matted rabbit-like back legs on me, her head in Jane’s lap. Just before she closes her eyes and drifts into whatever dreams she has, she looks at us both and purrs. Neither of us have ever heard her purr before.
Jane can’t stop crying. Neither can I. The fires, the fight with Harry that we still haven’t spoken about, Jane leaving and now this. When I get back to camp, tired and wrung out, I do look for Harry. I’ve been spiralling, but I think if we can talk about it, it’ll be OK. We’ll be OK. But when I look, I can’t find him. I go to bed that night alone, not even with monkeys for company. I should sleep like the dead but I don’t. I toss and turn and in the morning, when I look across at Harry’s bed and see that it’s still empty, I feel something horrible drop in my stomach. When Sammie takes me aside and tells me that he spent the night with Hannah, I have a moment when I think I’ll be sick. I can’t breathe it hurts so much and when Sammie awkwardly asks if I’m OK, I just nod, swallowing until it’s pressed down deep. I swallow again. The shock, the shameful recollection that it’s not safe to trust anyone, the embarrassment of my naivety.
This isn’t paradise. We’re all broken, just as Mila said. My stupidity and shame settle inside me. Then I go and find Jane and tell her yes, I’ll go with you. Of course I will. We’ll train someone else to take over with Wayra. A new girl has just arrived. Funny, calm, patient. And there are people who know Wayra. Mila and Agustino love her. Sammie could do it, she’s staying. Tom . . . Jane’s right, Wayra’ll be fine. She’ll understand. And I’m just fooling myself, thinking that something like this could last forever. This isn’t my life. I could never belong in a place like this and nothing that I do matters to anyone here, least of all to Wayra.
Our goodbye is short, and painful. Wayra stares at us through the cage on our final day. We’ve stayed two weeks to train our replacements. Wayra is happy. She is swimming every day. She is affectionate, calm, and she seems to look at me with absolution as she gazes down from her throne, her eyes a wide, fathomless green. Why, then, do I feel sick inside? There is no reason for me to stay. I repeat this to myself as I stumble back up the trail, my legs shaking, Jane’s choked tears meeting the purr of the jungle sounds. I raise my face to the cool green shadows. And I feel numb. Empty. That night, we get on the bus and by five o’clock the next morning, we are in the city. And the jungle is gone.
PART TWO
I press my forehead into the hard plastic of the partition, it is cold and it makes me shiver. I pull my fleece around me, huddling down on the wobbly plastic seat.
“Mum?” I murmur. I am in booth six, halfway along the line of stalls, each containing a phone, each loud with Argentinean voices.
“Laura,” she says.
I open my mouth, but I don’t know what to say. It is cold here, in Buenos Aires. Chilly. But every time I wake, sweat seems to stick to me like a membrane, soaking me, leaving me clammy. It’s been over a year since I left England for what was meant to be a three-month trip. I told my parents I’d be home in time for Christmas. Then it was my birthday, the end of January. It is April now, 2008. It’s been almost seven months since I left the parque. I’ve been staring all morning at flights, prices flickering on the whirring computer screens. What have I been doing since I left the parque? Moving restlessly around a continent, through Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Argentina. I travelled with Jane, then Paddy and Bryan, then on my own. Worked in hostels, had one-night stands, was seduced by Argentinean guitar players, coasted on a force field of cigarette smoke, fried cheese and smiles. I’ve had a good time. I’m different than I was. I’ve made friends, I’ve studied Spanish. I’ve proven that I’m tough enough to travel on my own. I’m not going to collapse into a heap.
It’s time for me to go back to England.
But . . . but . . .
I’ve been circling Bolivia, like a crazy ant on the patio. And every night the parque comes back to me. Every night, I lie in bed, grooming Coco when he’s lonely. I chat with Hagrid in the baño and help Panchita hide her stolen underwear, I walk through the sunlit shadows with Wayra and think those times the most precious. And then I bury her, again and again. Ashamed. Ashamed to feel this much, to miss these animals, quite so much. It’s not what is supposed to happen. The parque was just something I did when I was travelling, a cool thing, an adventure, and now it’s over.
Christmas Day after leaving. Ecuador, in a sunny beach town. I woke early. I wanted some time before Paddy, dressed as Santa, started the militaristic prep for our turkey barbecue dinner, complete with all the trimmings and tequila slammers. I wandered down to the hostel computer, thinking I’d send some Christmas messages, and logged on to Facebook. Paddy, Bryan and Jane found me there later, minutes, hours, I couldn’t say. I was still staring at the screen, at the pixelated picture of his face. From far away, I heard Jane’s sob. Paddy’s long, horrified silence. Bryan’s gasp.
Coco, our friend. It’s with regret that we have to let you know that Coco has been hit by a car and killed outside of our home. Always a part of our family. Coco, we hope now that you are finally free.
The grief tore through us. By day I seemed to watch the world through a film, trying to laugh, drinking mojitos with Paddy and Bry, reading the final Harry Potter on the beach with Jane. But at night, Jane and I pulled out Coco’s picture. It’s one of the ones where he’s lying backwards on the motorbike, his tail curled possessively over the red gas tank. His hands hang over the end of the seat and his toes cling onto the sides. His long dark face is resting on Agustino’s favourite leather cushion. He’s got porridge in his whiskers and his eyes are downturned, focused on the ground beneath him, as if he can’t bear to see his own reflection in someone else’s face.
After Jane left, on a plane to Australia in January, it was just me staring at his picture.
My lower spine feels tight with grief. A few months ago, it jarred under the pressure and it hurts all the time. I lie in hostel bunks, gritting my teeth in pain. I’ve been in Buenos Aires for over a month now, working at a hostel, high on painkillers, trying to figure out what to do. I don’t have any friends here, and no reason to stay. There is a flight home tomorrow, $450 to London Gatwick. I’ve just enough left in my bank account, eked out from my savings and the pittance I’ve made working. Tears squeeze out through my eyelids and I brush them angrily away with my sleeve.
“Lau?” Mum’s voice is low, far away, lost in a bad connection. Last month, she came to visit. We travelled around Argentina. I miss her. The bluebells will be out in England now, flooding her garden. If I book this flight, I could be back by the weekend. I’ll see my dad, my sister, my brothers. Maybe we’ll all have Sunday lunch together, out in Mum’s garden if it’s warm enough. Then I’ll see a chiropractor and when I get better, I’ll find a job. I’ll put Coco’s photo up on the wall and with time, maybe it won’t hurt so much.
His face hovers in front of me, porridge stuck in his clammy whiskers. Wayra, her face. Slightly cross-eyed, looking up into the blinding blue patches of sky. I can stare at photos of her face for the rest of my life. But I’ll never hear the warning call of the birds that she’s turning her ears towards. I won’t smell the musty damp of her fur. Or feel the touch of papery leaves over my skin. My thighs stick to the horrid plastic of this chair. I don’t want to spend any more time staring at photos. I don’t want to waste any more time, feeling sad that I’ve missed out on something. Afraid to write a line in a diary for fear of making a mistake. Reading other people’s stories rather than being brave enough to make my own.
The Puma Years: A Memoir Page 14
