‘All being well, from the coast to the Andes, it’s about ten days. Through the Andes – it isn’t too far as the crow flies but of course it will be longer. I can’t find any record of how high the pass through the mountains is, so I don’t know the real distance. But I’d say give that a few days as well. Then there’s a river called the Tambopata – you’re close when all the place names go into Quechua – and after that . . . no one knows. New Bethlehem isn’t on any maps. It’s too far into the interior. That’s when you’ll need a guide. So say three weeks there, three weeks back? But that’s an absolute guess.’
‘You keep saying you.’
‘I can’t come like this,’ she said quietly. Her eyes went briefly past me to be sure Clem wasn’t here yet. ‘I don’t think I’ll be able to carry it to term anyway but . . . I don’t want to take the chance of falling off a mule or drinking something horrible. I don’t even know what the altitude does. Do you?’
‘Do you think I’ve got a clutch of other female acquaintances in a cupboard somewhere? I haven’t. I don’t know anything about it.’
‘Really? Handsome bachelors tend to know . . . sometimes . . .’
‘No bastard children kicking round China, sorry. I’m not that exciting. What will you tell Clem?’
She looked pained. ‘I’ll make noises about there being no plumbing in Amazonian mission colonies, I suppose.’
‘Say he shouldn’t be worrying about both of us. Worrying about me is enough and I have to be there.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘You haven’t an extensive history of minding about plumbing.’
‘He’s coming,’ she murmured.
Clem dropped down on the bench next to me. ‘This is not all right. I was never seasick in the Navy, was I?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘But those were bigger ships and you were always outside.’
‘Been outside,’ he said. ‘Got wet. Not worth it.’
Minna shifted with a tiny creak of the whalebone in her corset. It was almost exactly like the creak that rigging makes in a breeze and, although it actually represented something wholly unfamiliar, it was homely. ‘Um . . . I’ve worked out your route, more or less.’
He noticed at once. ‘Our route? You’re coming with us.’
‘I’m not. I’d be a distraction if push came to shove.’
‘Oh, what on earth do you mean?’
‘I mean,’ she said, ‘that if you’re arrested, you could fight your way out and take the cuttings. If I’m held hostage, you’ll give up the cuttings in a heartbeat. Honestly, why do you think the East India Company loved unmarried childless men so much?’ She inclined her head at me. ‘What I will do is stay at Arequipa and arrange as fast a passage to Ceylon as our money can buy. I think we might need it.’
‘I swore I’d never leave you behind just because it wasn’t safe. We’d never have done anything together otherwise. You always said—’
‘It’s not about safety, it’s about the integrity of the expedition. If I go, you’re more likely to fail. You’re hostage to the first person who works out that you’ll drop it all if he grabs me, and I’m not big enough to reliably fight anyone off. If I don’t go, you might just bluff it out with your cuttings intact.’ She paused. ‘And if it does all go wrong, you’re going to need someone to come and fetch you out of prison.’
‘Bugger prison. We’ve been everywhere, and you’ve never been kidnapped or thrown off a building or trampled by a llama, or anything—’
‘Markham,’ she laughed. ‘You can’t worry about Merrick and about me at the same time. While you ought not to be worrying about either of us, I know that you will, and this expedition hangs on your mind being on the job, and on someone knowing what it is you need to bring back.’ She tipped her eyelashes at me. ‘The expendable element in this equation is me.’
‘I don’t worry about Merrick! He’s – perfectly capable.’
Although we had agreed for her to say it, it still stung to see what Clem thought. There was only a tiny pause before he rallied properly, but it was still a pause.
‘Honestly, I don’t worry about him. Minna, of course you must come.’
‘I’m frightened,’ she said. ‘I don’t think it’s . . . people have died there, often, and I don’t think it’s any place for a woman.’
‘Nonsense—’
‘No, I mean any human who’s five foot one and doesn’t know how to shoot. I will slow you down, one way or the other. Listen, I did a bit of laundry earlier and I want to get it dried on the pipes while the wretched heating is still on, so I’d better . . . get to it,’ she said, having to hop gently to get out from the bench, which was bolted into place. ‘Can you bring the charts along with you, Markham?’
‘Yes, of course,’ Clem said. He stared after her. I could see the pressure fractures forming in his gold bubble. From the next room, the cook began to sing ‘Stille Nacht’ in an unexpectedly fine tenor. Some of the other men at the far end of the table hummed along.
The ship swayed again and the copper pans pendulumed above us. I leaned into it. Clem looked queasy. I got on with finishing off a drawing I’d started at Kew. Tucked in the back of my journal, the letter my mother had given me tipped a little. I pushed it back in with the end of my pencil.
I’d gone up to Brislington before leaving for London. It was a picturesque place near Bristol, more hotel than asylum. Nobody there was gibbering. It was for subtle shades of madness: ladies who insisted they could control the weather or told marvellous lies for no reason. I’d never been to the men’s side, but there was only a hedge between the two sections and when I arrived that morning, a badminton match was going on over the top of it, so it seemed unlikely that the policy was radically different there. Our mother was always in the same place, with a stack of books and some feed for the pheasants, which barely shuffled out of the way when I went over to her.
‘I hear your brother’s having to sell up,’ she said. I shouldn’t have been surprised that he had confessed to her and kept it from me. They were close. She didn’t like me any more than he did. I couldn’t remember having done anything particular, but having never known her especially it had never mattered much. Dad had died and she had been sent here within the same six months. I’d gone to school in Bristol after that, where the housemasters, ex-quartermasters all, were solid and kind. I called her Caroline.
‘He’s being cagey about it but I think so.’
‘He writes that you’re going to Caravaya.’
‘If there’s anyone you want me to look up, write a letter and I’ll deliver it.’
She looked at me oddly. ‘You can’t afford to go to Peru. What on earth are you doing?’
‘It’s for the India Office. Quinine.’ One of the pheasants pecked hopefully at my shoelaces.
‘Is that really why, or is it some rubbish your father told you?’
‘It – no. I don’t remember anything he told me. I was eight.’
‘Well, that’s wholly for the best. No, I don’t want anything to do with the wretched place.’
‘All right.’ I sprinkled some grain down for the pheasants, who cooed. She had the grain in a wine glass between us.
‘Merrick,’ she said.
I looked across.
‘You don’t mean to go . . . looking for anyone, do you?’
‘What? Looking for someone, no.’
‘Not out in the forest?’ she said, unconvinced. She was watching me carefully.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Nothing, I’m sure I’m only raving,’ she said.