The Last Kiss Goodbye (23 page)

‘What Amazon trip?’ asked her mother in disbelief.

‘I’m going to Peru,’ replied Rosamund sheepishly. ‘With Dominic. I’m the logistics manager for his next expedition.’

‘I thought you’d settled on journalism, love,’ said her father with concern.

‘There are cannibals in Peru,’ said Valerie, her mouth wide open. ‘Is this Dominic’s idea?’ she frowned.

‘All mine.’

‘And is he happy about it? He’s your fiancé. It’s his duty to protect you.’

‘I’ve made my mind up, Mother. I’m going.’

Valerie pulled her hat off in anger.

‘Where’s Dominic? This is outrageous. I must speak with him this instant.’

She put down her champagne and ploughed into the crowd. Ros followed her.

‘Mum, please,’ she said as Valerie stopped at the entrance to the kitchen, where Dominic was talking to Jonathon Soames.

‘Young man, I need a word with you,’ said Valerie briskly.

Dominic turned to her, his expression serious.

‘What’s the matter, Mrs Bailey?’

‘What’s the matter? You’re taking my only child into the jungle. Endanger your own life with your flights of folly, but don’t risk the safety of my little girl. I thought you would know better than this.’

There was a long, awkward silence.

‘You’re right,’ said Dominic finally.

Ros glared at him in horror. ‘What are you talking about?’ she snapped. ‘It’s all arranged. I thought you were excited that I was coming with you.’

‘That was before I realised how upset your parents would be.’

‘It’s my mother. She’s had too much drink.’

‘No I have not,’ blustered Valerie.

‘Let’s talk about this later,’ said Dom.

‘No,’ said Ros with passion. ‘Let’s talk about it now. Jonathon, help me out here.’

‘Mrs Bailey, perhaps we should leave these two alone for a few minutes,’ said Jonathon diplomatically.

Valerie looked as if she was about to object, but Jonathon guided her out of the room and closed the door behind them.

‘I can’t not go,’ Ros said with panic. ‘I’ve spent the last few weeks looking at maps and charts and atlases – I even went along to the Royal Cartography Institute to read up on anything and everything they’ve got on the Amazon. I’m going to be the best expedition team member you’ve ever had.’

‘You know how dangerous the trip is going to be?’

‘I’ve always known that. It’s why I’m coming with you. Right until the bit where it starts getting muddy and jungly and full of flies.’

She thought he would laugh, but his expression remained sombre.

‘Are you sure you’re up for that? Waving me off when there’s every chance I might not come back?’

‘You are coming back. You promised me. I trust you. I believe in you.’

Dominic nodded but didn’t quite meet her eye.

‘I’m not going to change your mind, am I?’ he said quietly.

‘And neither is my mother,’ she said, taking his hand and holding it as if she would never let go. ‘We’re a team, Dominic Blake. That’s what we’re here to celebrate. You and me. And I’m not going to let anyone or anything change that.’

Chapter Twenty-Five

God, it was hot. Rosamund didn’t think she’d ever been this hot. She pulled at her collar and untied her damp scarf, dabbing at the beads of perspiration on her forehead. Not that she had much experience of heat beyond a sweltering family holiday on the Isle of Wight when she was fourteen. This was something else; the heat seemed to get inside your skin, and the air felt thick and soupy, like you couldn’t draw enough into your lungs. Ros had long ago given up worrying about her clothes: they stuck to her from morning to night, as though she’d just run through a shower. She looked up at the corrugated-iron roof and willed the fans to turn faster.

‘I’m guessing they don’t have ice,’ she said, pressing her tin cup against her cheek.

‘I don’t think there’s been a refrigeration unit since Lima,’ said Dominic. He was sharpening one of his knives with a flint.

‘But at least we’re off the boat,’ quipped Willem, the half-Peruvian, half-German translator, who had met them at the airport and who was apparently making some additional cash by taking a series of photographs for the Royal Cartography Institute back in London.

Ros and Dominic nodded in agreement, thinking of the
Santa Ana
, the rusting steamer that had been their transportation from the regional capital of Tarapoto, upriver to Kutuba, the furthest outpost of civilisation, little more than a tiny shanty town, before the jungle closed in around you.

It had been an awful journey but the only practical option. There was no railway in Peru, at least not in this remote part of the country, where the lumber and the various cash crops could be moved much more easily by river. The geography and meteorology of the country made roads impractical for the most part, with the fast-growing vegetation able to close in on a highway in a matter of days, and flash floods and mudslides washing them from the map in hours. And while seaplanes occasionally made the journey into the interior, the only reliable way to reach Kutuba was on the painfully slow steamer, which had taken ten days to limp the 150 miles.

Ros could still envisage each hellish moment. During the day, the humidity and the thumping diesel engines would force them up on deck, then the pitiless sun, the clouds of insects or the sudden Biblical downpours would force them back inside. At night, they had no option but to swelter in their quarters, reading or talking in low voices in the orange light of the hurricane lanterns as moths the size of crab apples swooped around.

Rosamund had been travel sick almost every day, and had been glad to get to dry land. Kutuba, with its single dusty street haunted by skinny dogs and seemingly abandoned Indian children, now seemed an oasis of civilisation compared to the boat.

Miguel, Dominic’s guide, who had met the team in Tarapoto, had taken them to his home on the edge of the village. It wasn’t exactly the Ritz: more like a large timber-frame shack with palm matting underfoot. But at least it had electricity, when the generator was working, and clean sheets in the lean-to rooms out the back, courtesy of Miguel’s feisty Indian wife Quana.

Rosamund, Dominic and Willem went out to the patch of dry, parched grass behind the hut. Two of their Peruvian porters came to join them, both of them puffing on cigarettes, followed by Miguel, who sat cross-legged on the floor for the briefing.

‘When are the other guides arriving?’ asked Dominic, taking a long swig of water from a bottle. He was pacing around anxiously, like a caged animal.

‘I spoke to Padre this morning and I am assured today. We shall see,’ said Miguel with a shrug.

Ros shot a glance at Dominic, but he didn’t look unduly concerned; in fact she knew he had been expecting this. The guides for the final leg of the journey, the leg before he was to be left completely alone, were two Indian tribesmen from a settlement close to Kutuba. They had more specialist knowledge of the jungle than Miguel, who looked and acted like the locals she had seen in Lima. Dominic had had extensive dealings with the tribe before, living with them for six weeks of jungle training, learning how to survive and live off the land, before he had launched out on a previous expedition in the Amazon. And he knew them well enough to know that they moved at their own pace. That ‘today’ could mean tomorrow, or even next week.

‘Can I come with you to their settlement?’ asked Ros, looking out to the thick line of trees beyond the village.

‘She is brave,’ laughed Miguel, and Ros was not sure if his expression was one of respect or concern.

‘You’ve come this far. What’s a few more miles?’ Dominic winked at her, and she felt her heart do a little flip.

Dominic and Miguel walked away to talk more. Willem relaxed with the porters, smoking and tugging on a bottle of beer, as Ros stood up to stretch her legs.

She didn’t like to eavesdrop on their conversation, but Miguel’s voice was loud, as if the volume might make up for the comprehensibility of his heavily Spanish accented words.

One line of conversation was quite clear: there were ‘bad men’ in the forest.

She also caught the word ‘drugs’, and she knew full well what they were talking about. She had submitted a feature idea to the
Sunday Chronicle
a few weeks earlier about global drug trafficking. She felt sure that the issue was set to explode, and that it needed talking about immediately, but the piece had been turned down by a sceptical features editor who argued that illegal drugs had no place in Western society beyond its most bohemian fringes.

Ros thought otherwise. Her research had revealed that cocaine manufacture was a huge growth industry in the coca-farming areas of South America, despite, or perhaps because of, the recent criminalisation of the drug. Illicit trade in the substance was widespread, peasant farmers supplying their coca to a new and ruthless brand of smugglers, who were carving trade routes through the jungle.

‘Are you sure you’ve had enough jungle training?’ asked Ros when Miguel had gone. She walked into their room and perched on the end of the makeshift bed.

‘It’s a bit late to be asking that,’ replied Dominic, rubbing the sweat from his face with a towel.

Silence fell between them.

‘I’m prepared,’ he said softly. ‘As prepared as I’ll ever be.’

She nodded. ‘Well if you’ve forgetten anything, it’s a bit bloody late to turn back and get it.’

It was meant to be a joke, but Dominic looked thoughtful.

‘I hope I’ve brought enough gifts.’

‘Gifts?’

‘For the tribes. If I anger them, gifts might placate them. Plus it’s good etiquette to arrive with something.’

‘Well at least you’ve got a gun,’ she smiled, looking at his shotgun propped up next to a long machete. Ros considered herself a pacifist, but the sight of the two weapons gave her some reassurance.

He reached into his bag and pulled out a buff-coloured envelope.

‘What’s this?’ she asked.

‘My will.’

Her face fell. ‘Your will?’

‘I said I was prepared.’

‘Of course. You have to be practical about these things. Should I read it?’

He shook his head. ‘Just put it somewhere safe. But you should know that Jonathon Soames and Robert Webb are the executors of my estate should anything happen. As we’re not married yet, I’ve changed a few things around to accommodate my wishes.’

‘Dom, don’t talk like this.’

‘If anything happens to me, I want you to have my shareholding in
Capital
magazine,’ he continued. ‘The Tavistock Square flat too. There’s a small mortgage on it, but nothing the hottest journalist in London shouldn’t be able to handle.’ He smiled at her softly, the corners of his eyes creasing into fine lines she hadn’t even noticed before.

‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ she said, putting her hands dramatically over her ears. ‘You’re here now. You are going into that jungle, coming out again, and in the week before Christmas we are getting married. Me and you. I’ve even found a cream velvet cape, so you can’t let me down.’

Dom’s eyes were shining. She thought she saw a glint of emotion, but when she looked closer, his tears had gone.

‘A cape?’ he said finally.

‘Trimmed with silk. You’ll like it, but I’m not saying anything else. It’s bad luck for the groom to know too much about his beautiful bride’s gown.’

‘Miguel’s wife is cooking,’ said Dominic, deliberately changing the subject. ‘Do you want to eat with the others, or just us?’

‘Just us.’

He grinned and instructed her to wait in the room, returning a few minutes later with a cast-iron pot, which he held by its handles with some sacking cloth.

While he’d been gone, Ros had lit three storm lanterns and placed them around the room. The light was low, soft and glorious, but the air was still humid, and for a second she felt like a fly trapped in amber.

Dominic put the pot on the table, which she had set with plates and two tin cups. She smiled to herself, deciding that she had some potential as a homemaker, while Dominic poured red wine into the cups.

She didn’t have to ask how he had sourced a decent claret in the jungle. It was one of the many things she loved about him: his competence and cleverness, the easy way he just got things done. That confidence in his ability to do absolutely anything was the one thing that had kept her sane over the past few weeks. If anyone could do a solo adventure into the Amazon and make it safely back, it was him. He had made similar journeys before and come back with stories for his dinner parties, rather than broken bones and tropical diseases. He was blessed. It was as if God was smiling on him.

‘Do you know what? I think the world would be a better place if it was lit only by candlelight,’ she said, dipping her spoon into her stew.

Dominic started to laugh.

‘Whatever do you mean?’

‘Look around,’ she said, her eyes shining. ‘Look how intimate it is. It’s a light made for sharing secrets, for complicity, for honesty.’

‘Maybe we should recommend it to Kennedy and Khrushchev the next time they meet.’

‘Perhaps the Cold War would be a little less chilly,’ she agreed.

‘Tell me a secret,’ she said after a moment.

‘I can play the ukulele.’

‘I didn’t know that.’

‘You wanted a secret.’

‘All right, all right,’ she said, sensing that he did not want to play. She couldn’t help but think he was being a little distant; then again, it was probably just nerves, the excitement and the prospect of what was to come. ‘We have a lifetime to get to know one another. I want to be still talking, still finding things out about you when I’m seventy-five. The last thing I want to be is one of those couples who run out of things to say to one another after two years of marriage.’

‘I’d like that,’ he said softly.

Ros wanted to know more about his survival training, about his last time in the jungle with the Lampista tribe, and Dominic seemed to relax as he showed her how to make a bow and arrow out of twigs, twine and stone. He told her how the tribe leader had given him a shot of venom from a poisonous Amazonian tree frog, and how he was hoping the procedure didn’t have to be revisited once they reached the camp.

At some point Miguel knocked on their door, and Dominic disappeared for half an hour to meet the Indian guides, who had just arrived. In his absence, Ros changed into her last clean nightdress, enjoying the feeling of fresh cotton on her skin, although when Dominic returned, it was not long before it was removed.

Their lovemaking was tender but intense, and when it was done, she did not want him to pull out from inside her. She wanted to stay absolutely connected to him for as long as she could, as if it would help her to lock in his scent, his touch, the sensation of him, until he got back.

The sound of the bullfrogs woke her.

Dominic was already awake and standing on the far side of the room getting dressed. She could see his muscular tanned back, and wished she was close enough to touch it.

Yawning, she wondered how tired he was. She herself had woken at various points in the night and she could tell he had been awake. The first time she had rolled towards him and put her arm across his chest, at which he had given a barely audible sigh of satisfaction. The other times she had left him with his thoughts.

Miguel’s wife made them some breakfast – a version of what they had eaten the night before – and at nine o’clock they set off, Dominic, Rosamund and the guide in one small boat, Willem, Miguel and their two porters in the other. Ros’s water bottle was strapped across her body – Dominic had given it to her that morning, reminding her that more people died from dehydration in the jungle than from poisoned darts.

The engines of the boats were not powerful, and progress was slow. She dipped her hand into the brown water to cool down, but Dominic pulled her back immediately, warning her of carnivorous fish.

Watching the turtles scramble across the riverbanks, Ros could understand why this sort of adventure was so seductive. It was like another world. Ignore the heat and the humidity and it was as if they had been dropped in Paradise.

A bird circled overheard. It was large, black, with a broad wingspan and a thick, vicious squawk. She knew from her research at the RCI and the Royal Geographical Society that the Amazon rainforest was home to some of the most brightly coloured birds on earth: macaws in shades of hyacinth and scarlet, toucans, and turquoise-hued cotingas. But this wasn’t one of them. She remembered a story she had read about the evil bird that lived in the jungle and sang on the rooftop of someone who was going to die, and as she watched it fly wide, low circles above them, it made her shudder.

The tribal settlement was only a few miles from the edge of Kutuba, but it was slow going reaching it. This was still officially the edge of the jungle, but the vegetation was dense, and thick vines and branches dangled over the boat, scratching their arms and faces.

They steered the boats towards the riverbank and clambered on to shore, pulling the equipment and medical supplies away from the water.

Padre, the tribal chief, was waiting for them in a clearing, smoking a cigarette.