Martin stopped the rented Mazda in the visitors’ parking lot at Khao Yai national park. He and Frank got out of the car, stretched after their drive from Bangkok and began to prepare for the afternoon hike. As Martin packed water bottles, camera and a map into his back-pack, Frank hurried over to a group of food stalls and returned with a large bunch of bananas. Tucking their trousers into their socks to discourage jungle leeches, the pair set off up the gently sloping road. A number of paths into the jungle began along this route, each with a sign pointing into the mass of trees.
‘I always feel very primal when I set out on a walk like this,’ confessed Frank.
‘Primal? You always were the imaginative one.’
‘Yes, don’t mock. We’re going back into the jungle, back to where we started from.’
‘I thought we started on the plains of Africa.’
‘Don’t be pedantic. Anyway, the African plains may well have been covered with jungle in those days; I don’t see how we could have survived long on a bit of grassy veldt. These pathways into the deep forest, they’re taking us back. They’re doorways into nature itself.’
‘Perhaps into our nature.’
‘That’s better. Now you’re getting the hang of it.’
Before starting on their hike proper, Frank wanted to feed the bananas he’d bought to a troupe of monkeys he’d seen from the car. They pressed on along the surfaced road for half a kilometre or so until, on rounding a bend, they spotted the monkeys ahead.
The troupe was made up of about 20 animals of various ages. The monkeys’ backs were covered in olive brown fur while their undersides were white. A dark brown furry skull-cap made the top of their heads look flat. They held their short tails up as they walked. They were being led along the road by an adult, though their progression was by no means orderly. The other adults, some of them bigger than the leader, followed each other more or less in single file, while the younger animals skipped and jumped about, tumbling and wrestling with each other and dashing to and fro among the adults. Two or three of the smallest babies, black in colour, clung underneath their mothers and watched the antics of their elder cousins closely, their dark, inquisitive eyes as shiny as buttons.
Frank stopped to take the bananas out of his back-pack and tore one from the bunch. He was the shorter of the two friends, with sandy curls and a classically handsome face that some called poetic. Quickly, the monkeys gathered near him, though they remained nervous. The adults bared their teeth and chattered at the two hikers. They were clearly accustomed to encounters with humans though they couldn’t be described as tame, maintaining a safe distance and, while appearing nonchalant, keeping their eyes fixed on the pair. Frank threw the first banana carefully into the midst of the troupe and a number of monkeys dived for it. After a lot of noise and baring of teeth, the leader established ownership of the fruit and sat down to eat it.
‘Hey, come and have a look at the tackle on this one,’ Martin called to Frank, indicating one of the largest animals sitting at the edge of the group. Martin was the older of the pair and more down to earth than his friend. With rather severe straight black hair, he often took the role of parent to Frank’s irrepressible child.
‘Oh yes, he is a big boy, isn’t he?’ Frank observed. ‘I suppose he’s the troupe leader. Are you?’ Frank teased as he distributed the rest of the fruit to the other monkeys. ‘Are you the leader of this troupe of monkeys, big boy?’
‘Seriously, though, he has got colossal balls,’ said Martin.
‘Not as big as yours,’ noted Frank, who then turned to address the large male monkey: ‘You may have enormous balls, old fellow, but they’re not as big as Martin’s, are they, eh?’
‘I don’t see how I could possibly know,’ replied the monkey, clearly tired with this line of conversation.
‘What? Did you hear that?’ exclaimed Frank, laughing in response to the shock. ‘That sounded like speaking. “I don’t see how I could possibly know,”’ he mimicked. ‘I didn’t know monkeys could copy human language, did you?’
‘No, I had no idea.’
‘Here, pretty Polly, pretty Polly,’ Frank continued to taunt the old male. ‘Let’s hear what else you can say.’
Another adult, the one that had been leading the troupe along the road and had claimed the first banana, ambled over to the big male and sat down in front of him. She was clearly a female. As the old male casually picked at the fur on her shoulder, she said to Frank: ‘Just listen to yourself, human: “Pretty Polly, pretty Polly.” You sound like some daft parrot. Show some respect, please. And, since you asked, I am the leader of this troupe, not him.’
‘My god, Martin, this one’s really speaking. I mean it; she’s actually talking; it’s not mimicry, it’s language.’
‘It’s really not that surprising,’ responded the female haughtily. Her voice was high and soft but easily understood in the quiet of the jungle fringe. ‘Nine-tenths of our genes are the same as yours, and I have to listen to your incessant babblings every day along this road. I’ve done it for years. It would be odd if I hadn’t picked up a smattering of your language in that time, don’t you think?’
‘You learnt English from the tourists?’
‘Of course, if that’s what they are. We call them hikers or walkers; sometimes they’re carrying books to identify the jungle species. “Pig-tailed macaque,” they’ll say, “Look, over there, those monkeys are pig-tailed macaques.” Is that the best you humans can do, compare us with pigs just because we have short tails? Which are, I hardly need point out, nothing like pigs’ tails anyway. I mean, I don’t really care; it’s only a name after all, but I’d like a bit of respect for the sake of the young ones.’
‘Sorry, I didn’t actually know you were pig-tailed macaques. I agree it’s not a very dignified name,’ said Martin weakly. ‘What do you call yourselves?’
‘We’re the noble monkeys,’ said the leader. ‘It’s because of this brown patch on our heads. It makes us look noble.’
‘I think you’re right,’ agreed Martin.
‘We don’t even know what macaques are, do we, mate?’ observed the old male. Another male had shuffled over to sit with him and join in the conversation.
‘No idea, mate,’ replied the other male. ‘Sounds Scottish.’
‘You call yourselves human beings,’ the female continued. ‘Beings? What’s that supposed to mean? You’re so up yourselves you can’t even bear to describe yourselves with an ordinary noun. “Beings” means no more than “things” or “entities”; it’s nothing. You’re apes, is what you are, apes with a noticeable shortage of fur. You should be called the thread-bare apes.’
‘Or pig-eyed apes,’ the old male suggested with a throaty chuckle.
‘Right, mate. Pig-eyed apes,’ agreed the other male. ‘The blonde ones, especially.’
‘It sounds as if you’re not that fond of us—of humans, I mean,’ said Martin.
‘Us old guys, the grandpas, we’re for reconciliation, aren’t we, mate?’ said the old male.
‘We’re for what?’ asked the other male.
‘Reconciliation. Letting bygones be bygones, forget the past, peace and harmony, all that.’
‘Peace. Yeah, mate.’
‘You pig-eyed apes have done some bad things to us, you know, that’s what we’re trying to forget.’
‘I’m sure we have,’ began Frank. ‘I’m sorry about whatever...’
‘Ha! No point in being sorry. We’re safe here in the national park, but over that hill there the humans still steal our young ones and take them away.’
‘Why do they do that?’ asked Martin.
‘For pets,’ replied the old male, ‘and for medical experimentation. Nasty, that.’
‘Coconuts,’ chipped in the other male.
‘I was getting to coconuts,’ the old male snapped testily. ‘Also for getting coconuts down out of the trees. They train our young ones to distinguish between a ripe coconut and an unripe one. That’s a laugh.’
‘Ha ha,’ said the other male.
‘That’s easy, knowing a ripe coconut,’ explained the old male. ‘We can all do that. The young ones that get caught pretend they need to be trained. It’s to put off the day when they have to start work.’
‘Hard work, climbing trees, mate,’ agreed the other male.
The female leader continued: ‘Here in the park humans mostly just want to throw bananas at us. Why is it always bananas?’ She looked behind at the old male who shook his head sadly. She went on: ‘We may be monkeys but we’d prefer some variety. It’s not good for our young ones to eat so many bananas. All that potassium. I like bananas, don’t get me wrong, but at every meal? I don’t think so. We prefer a balanced diet. Can’t you humans understand that? Sorry if I sound ungrateful.’
‘Not at all,’ said Frank. ‘What should we bring next time we come?’
‘I’m quite partial to kiwi fruit,’ said the old male lugubriously.
‘Some of the ladies like watermelon,’ said the female. ‘It’s sweet and very refreshing, but we very rarely get it. Mango’s good too. Durian’s OK if you peel it first; otherwise it’s hardly worth the bother.’
‘My wife likes papaya,’ said the other male. ‘She says there’s nothing like a nice ripe papaya.’
‘Your wife’s got no chance,’ said the older male dismissively. ‘They never bring papaya.’
‘Where is your wife?’ the female asked Martin suddenly. ‘You humans generally go around in mating pairs.’
Martin laughed at the observation. ‘I’m not married. Neither of us is,’ he explained, indicating Frank and himself.
‘Girl friends?’ asked the female.
‘No.’
‘Gay, are you?’ asked the old male.
Frank’s eyebrows shot up in astonishment as he turned and smiled at his friend and blurted out: ‘Yes, actually, we’re gay.’
‘Thought so,’ said the old monkey matter-of-factly. ‘Of course, I was gay for a time, when I was young. We’ve all been there, haven’t we?’ The other male scratched his head and nodded thoughtfully, as if recalling some enjoyable experience from his youth.
‘When I first joined this troupe, from another one over that hill, I had absolutely no luck with the girls here, not a glimmer. I’d check they were on heat; it wasn’t that. I’d try to mount them but they weren’t having any of it. I thought, what is this? Have I got bad breath or something? But we’ve all got bad breath so it wasn’t that. Anyway, I was horny as a rabbit on Viagra, as you’d expect with balls the size of mine, so being celibate wasn’t going to be an option.’
The humans laughed at this reference to their earlier indiscreet teasing.
‘So I spent the best part of a season with the boys—we have a few superfluous males in the troupe, as you can see. We were a sex-starved bunch, full of beans and, you know how it is, one thing led to another. I don’t need to tell you two. I didn’t turn completely queer, don’t get me wrong, but you humans would certainly describe our rough-and-tumble games as homoerotic. For us, being gay is definitely second best, not something you’d do if you had the choice. You wouldn’t go with a boy if one of the girls would have you but for some reason they wouldn’t, not that first season, so what’s a boy to do? I expect it’s the same for you two, is it? Neither of you manage to get a girlfriend?’
‘Ah!’ said the female sympathetically. ‘Sorry about that.’
‘No it’s not like that,’ said Frank. ‘I didn’t want a girlfriend. I never have. I only like men.’
‘Oh, it’s a lifestyle choice then, is it?’ asked the female knowingly.
‘No, it’s not a choice at all, it’s in my nature.’
‘Oh, it’s in your nature, is it?’ she repeated. ‘What about your friend here?’
‘I was married before,’ Martin confessed, trying not to look sheepish.
‘Married, eh? To a female? So what happened?’ asked the old male. ‘Did she die or get stolen?’
‘No, she didn’t die. We discovered we had different interests and decided it wasn’t going to work out.’
‘Different interests, eh?’
‘Yes, I was more interested in boys than I was in her.’
‘Oh, dear,’ said the female, with an intake of breath.
‘Oh, she wouldn’t have liked that,’ agreed the old male.
‘No, she didn’t.’
‘Probably in your nature, like your friend here,’ mused the female.
‘Probably,’ Martin agreed.
‘So anyway,’ continued the old male, ‘after a season of monkey business with the boys, I decided to give a couple of the girls another try and was accepted straight away by quite a high-caste female.’
‘She was,’ confirmed the female. ‘He was quite a catch that second season.’
‘And she banged like the clappers. That was a few years ago now, more years than I care to mention if I’m honest. Now I’m one of the oldest in the troupe. We do security, we big males, to keep the troupe safe and sound. It’s mostly snakes and eagles but we deal with all sorts, don’t we, mate?’ He looked around at the other male who nodded in confirmation. ‘External security and a bit of internal discipline, when it’s needed. We prefer to use a light touch with the little ones, though, don’t we, mate? Nothing too violent. Sorry to go on about it but I have to say, if I’m honest, keeping order in the troupe would be a lot easier if you humans didn’t insist on always bringing bananas. Our respected leader here gets it in the neck from the kids when she brings us along this road and all we get are bananas. Then the old grandpas like us have to wade in and sort out the ruckus. Still, can’t complain. It’s a good life, isn’t it, mate?’
‘Yeah, mate,’ said the other male as he pouted, nodded his head and scratched his testicles thoughtfully.
A smaller female approached the leader with a young baby clinging to the fur of her belly. ‘Shouldn’t we be making a move?’ she said softly. ‘Some of the little ones are getting tired.’
‘Yes, quite right,’ agreed the troupe leader. ‘We got caught up in conversation. Anyway, it’s been good talking.’
With that curt farewell to the humans, the female got to her feet and began to walk slowly up the road, keeping safely to the verge. One by one, the adult members of the troupe fell into line behind her, followed by the young monkeys, still more interested in play than in the journey ahead.
Frank and Martin watched the troupe as it slowly disappeared around the bend in the road.
They found themselves alone again.
‘I thought the bananas went down well,’ observed Martin. ‘That was a good idea of yours. Aren’t monkeys fascinating?’
Frank looked at his partner skeptically: ‘That’s funny. I had the impression they weren’t that keen on bananas.’
‘They ate the whole bunch though.’
‘It was just that I thought they were trying to tell me something, something in their eyes perhaps. They’re very expressive, don’t you think? Almost like humans.’ Frank paused and then said plaintively: ‘You are happy with me, aren’t you, Martin? You don’t regret leaving her?’
‘Of course not. I love you and it feels right, so what could be more natural? Now, don’t forget we’re supposed to be on a hike,’ said Martin as he led the way off the road onto a narrow path between the jungle trees.
This short story is taken from my third collection Sweet Song of the Siren.
‘I always feel very primal when I set out on a walk like this,’ confessed Frank.
‘Primal? You always were the imaginative one.’
‘Yes, don’t mock. We’re going back into the jungle, back to where we started from.’
‘I thought we started on the plains of Africa.’
‘Don’t be pedantic. Anyway, the African plains may well have been covered with jungle in those days; I don’t see how we could have survived long on a bit of grassy veldt. These pathways into the deep forest, they’re taking us back. They’re doorways into nature itself.’
‘Perhaps into our nature.’
‘That’s better. Now you’re getting the hang of it.’
Before starting on their hike proper, Frank wanted to feed the bananas he’d bought to a troupe of monkeys he’d seen from the car. They pressed on along the surfaced road for half a kilometre or so until, on rounding a bend, they spotted the monkeys ahead.
The troupe was made up of about 20 animals of various ages. The monkeys’ backs were covered in olive brown fur while their undersides were white. A dark brown furry skull-cap made the top of their heads look flat. They held their short tails up as they walked. They were being led along the road by an adult, though their progression was by no means orderly. The other adults, some of them bigger than the leader, followed each other more or less in single file, while the younger animals skipped and jumped about, tumbling and wrestling with each other and dashing to and fro among the adults. Two or three of the smallest babies, black in colour, clung underneath their mothers and watched the antics of their elder cousins closely, their dark, inquisitive eyes as shiny as buttons.
Frank stopped to take the bananas out of his back-pack and tore one from the bunch. He was the shorter of the two friends, with sandy curls and a classically handsome face that some called poetic. Quickly, the monkeys gathered near him, though they remained nervous. The adults bared their teeth and chattered at the two hikers. They were clearly accustomed to encounters with humans though they couldn’t be described as tame, maintaining a safe distance and, while appearing nonchalant, keeping their eyes fixed on the pair. Frank threw the first banana carefully into the midst of the troupe and a number of monkeys dived for it. After a lot of noise and baring of teeth, the leader established ownership of the fruit and sat down to eat it.
‘Hey, come and have a look at the tackle on this one,’ Martin called to Frank, indicating one of the largest animals sitting at the edge of the group. Martin was the older of the pair and more down to earth than his friend. With rather severe straight black hair, he often took the role of parent to Frank’s irrepressible child.
‘Oh yes, he is a big boy, isn’t he?’ Frank observed. ‘I suppose he’s the troupe leader. Are you?’ Frank teased as he distributed the rest of the fruit to the other monkeys. ‘Are you the leader of this troupe of monkeys, big boy?’
‘Seriously, though, he has got colossal balls,’ said Martin.
‘Not as big as yours,’ noted Frank, who then turned to address the large male monkey: ‘You may have enormous balls, old fellow, but they’re not as big as Martin’s, are they, eh?’
‘I don’t see how I could possibly know,’ replied the monkey, clearly tired with this line of conversation.
‘What? Did you hear that?’ exclaimed Frank, laughing in response to the shock. ‘That sounded like speaking. “I don’t see how I could possibly know,”’ he mimicked. ‘I didn’t know monkeys could copy human language, did you?’
‘No, I had no idea.’
‘Here, pretty Polly, pretty Polly,’ Frank continued to taunt the old male. ‘Let’s hear what else you can say.’
Another adult, the one that had been leading the troupe along the road and had claimed the first banana, ambled over to the big male and sat down in front of him. She was clearly a female. As the old male casually picked at the fur on her shoulder, she said to Frank: ‘Just listen to yourself, human: “Pretty Polly, pretty Polly.” You sound like some daft parrot. Show some respect, please. And, since you asked, I am the leader of this troupe, not him.’
‘My god, Martin, this one’s really speaking. I mean it; she’s actually talking; it’s not mimicry, it’s language.’
‘It’s really not that surprising,’ responded the female haughtily. Her voice was high and soft but easily understood in the quiet of the jungle fringe. ‘Nine-tenths of our genes are the same as yours, and I have to listen to your incessant babblings every day along this road. I’ve done it for years. It would be odd if I hadn’t picked up a smattering of your language in that time, don’t you think?’
‘You learnt English from the tourists?’
‘Of course, if that’s what they are. We call them hikers or walkers; sometimes they’re carrying books to identify the jungle species. “Pig-tailed macaque,” they’ll say, “Look, over there, those monkeys are pig-tailed macaques.” Is that the best you humans can do, compare us with pigs just because we have short tails? Which are, I hardly need point out, nothing like pigs’ tails anyway. I mean, I don’t really care; it’s only a name after all, but I’d like a bit of respect for the sake of the young ones.’
‘Sorry, I didn’t actually know you were pig-tailed macaques. I agree it’s not a very dignified name,’ said Martin weakly. ‘What do you call yourselves?’
‘We’re the noble monkeys,’ said the leader. ‘It’s because of this brown patch on our heads. It makes us look noble.’
‘I think you’re right,’ agreed Martin.
‘We don’t even know what macaques are, do we, mate?’ observed the old male. Another male had shuffled over to sit with him and join in the conversation.
‘No idea, mate,’ replied the other male. ‘Sounds Scottish.’
‘You call yourselves human beings,’ the female continued. ‘Beings? What’s that supposed to mean? You’re so up yourselves you can’t even bear to describe yourselves with an ordinary noun. “Beings” means no more than “things” or “entities”; it’s nothing. You’re apes, is what you are, apes with a noticeable shortage of fur. You should be called the thread-bare apes.’
‘Or pig-eyed apes,’ the old male suggested with a throaty chuckle.
‘Right, mate. Pig-eyed apes,’ agreed the other male. ‘The blonde ones, especially.’
‘It sounds as if you’re not that fond of us—of humans, I mean,’ said Martin.
‘Us old guys, the grandpas, we’re for reconciliation, aren’t we, mate?’ said the old male.
‘We’re for what?’ asked the other male.
‘Reconciliation. Letting bygones be bygones, forget the past, peace and harmony, all that.’
‘Peace. Yeah, mate.’
‘You pig-eyed apes have done some bad things to us, you know, that’s what we’re trying to forget.’
‘I’m sure we have,’ began Frank. ‘I’m sorry about whatever...’
‘Ha! No point in being sorry. We’re safe here in the national park, but over that hill there the humans still steal our young ones and take them away.’
‘Why do they do that?’ asked Martin.
‘For pets,’ replied the old male, ‘and for medical experimentation. Nasty, that.’
‘Coconuts,’ chipped in the other male.
‘I was getting to coconuts,’ the old male snapped testily. ‘Also for getting coconuts down out of the trees. They train our young ones to distinguish between a ripe coconut and an unripe one. That’s a laugh.’
‘Ha ha,’ said the other male.
‘That’s easy, knowing a ripe coconut,’ explained the old male. ‘We can all do that. The young ones that get caught pretend they need to be trained. It’s to put off the day when they have to start work.’
‘Hard work, climbing trees, mate,’ agreed the other male.
The female leader continued: ‘Here in the park humans mostly just want to throw bananas at us. Why is it always bananas?’ She looked behind at the old male who shook his head sadly. She went on: ‘We may be monkeys but we’d prefer some variety. It’s not good for our young ones to eat so many bananas. All that potassium. I like bananas, don’t get me wrong, but at every meal? I don’t think so. We prefer a balanced diet. Can’t you humans understand that? Sorry if I sound ungrateful.’
‘Not at all,’ said Frank. ‘What should we bring next time we come?’
‘I’m quite partial to kiwi fruit,’ said the old male lugubriously.
‘Some of the ladies like watermelon,’ said the female. ‘It’s sweet and very refreshing, but we very rarely get it. Mango’s good too. Durian’s OK if you peel it first; otherwise it’s hardly worth the bother.’
‘My wife likes papaya,’ said the other male. ‘She says there’s nothing like a nice ripe papaya.’
‘Your wife’s got no chance,’ said the older male dismissively. ‘They never bring papaya.’
‘Where is your wife?’ the female asked Martin suddenly. ‘You humans generally go around in mating pairs.’
Martin laughed at the observation. ‘I’m not married. Neither of us is,’ he explained, indicating Frank and himself.
‘Girl friends?’ asked the female.
‘No.’
‘Gay, are you?’ asked the old male.
Frank’s eyebrows shot up in astonishment as he turned and smiled at his friend and blurted out: ‘Yes, actually, we’re gay.’
‘Thought so,’ said the old monkey matter-of-factly. ‘Of course, I was gay for a time, when I was young. We’ve all been there, haven’t we?’ The other male scratched his head and nodded thoughtfully, as if recalling some enjoyable experience from his youth.
‘When I first joined this troupe, from another one over that hill, I had absolutely no luck with the girls here, not a glimmer. I’d check they were on heat; it wasn’t that. I’d try to mount them but they weren’t having any of it. I thought, what is this? Have I got bad breath or something? But we’ve all got bad breath so it wasn’t that. Anyway, I was horny as a rabbit on Viagra, as you’d expect with balls the size of mine, so being celibate wasn’t going to be an option.’
The humans laughed at this reference to their earlier indiscreet teasing.
‘So I spent the best part of a season with the boys—we have a few superfluous males in the troupe, as you can see. We were a sex-starved bunch, full of beans and, you know how it is, one thing led to another. I don’t need to tell you two. I didn’t turn completely queer, don’t get me wrong, but you humans would certainly describe our rough-and-tumble games as homoerotic. For us, being gay is definitely second best, not something you’d do if you had the choice. You wouldn’t go with a boy if one of the girls would have you but for some reason they wouldn’t, not that first season, so what’s a boy to do? I expect it’s the same for you two, is it? Neither of you manage to get a girlfriend?’
‘Ah!’ said the female sympathetically. ‘Sorry about that.’
‘No it’s not like that,’ said Frank. ‘I didn’t want a girlfriend. I never have. I only like men.’
‘Oh, it’s a lifestyle choice then, is it?’ asked the female knowingly.
‘No, it’s not a choice at all, it’s in my nature.’
‘Oh, it’s in your nature, is it?’ she repeated. ‘What about your friend here?’
‘I was married before,’ Martin confessed, trying not to look sheepish.
‘Married, eh? To a female? So what happened?’ asked the old male. ‘Did she die or get stolen?’
‘No, she didn’t die. We discovered we had different interests and decided it wasn’t going to work out.’
‘Different interests, eh?’
‘Yes, I was more interested in boys than I was in her.’
‘Oh, dear,’ said the female, with an intake of breath.
‘Oh, she wouldn’t have liked that,’ agreed the old male.
‘No, she didn’t.’
‘Probably in your nature, like your friend here,’ mused the female.
‘Probably,’ Martin agreed.
‘So anyway,’ continued the old male, ‘after a season of monkey business with the boys, I decided to give a couple of the girls another try and was accepted straight away by quite a high-caste female.’
‘She was,’ confirmed the female. ‘He was quite a catch that second season.’
‘And she banged like the clappers. That was a few years ago now, more years than I care to mention if I’m honest. Now I’m one of the oldest in the troupe. We do security, we big males, to keep the troupe safe and sound. It’s mostly snakes and eagles but we deal with all sorts, don’t we, mate?’ He looked around at the other male who nodded in confirmation. ‘External security and a bit of internal discipline, when it’s needed. We prefer to use a light touch with the little ones, though, don’t we, mate? Nothing too violent. Sorry to go on about it but I have to say, if I’m honest, keeping order in the troupe would be a lot easier if you humans didn’t insist on always bringing bananas. Our respected leader here gets it in the neck from the kids when she brings us along this road and all we get are bananas. Then the old grandpas like us have to wade in and sort out the ruckus. Still, can’t complain. It’s a good life, isn’t it, mate?’
‘Yeah, mate,’ said the other male as he pouted, nodded his head and scratched his testicles thoughtfully.
A smaller female approached the leader with a young baby clinging to the fur of her belly. ‘Shouldn’t we be making a move?’ she said softly. ‘Some of the little ones are getting tired.’
‘Yes, quite right,’ agreed the troupe leader. ‘We got caught up in conversation. Anyway, it’s been good talking.’
With that curt farewell to the humans, the female got to her feet and began to walk slowly up the road, keeping safely to the verge. One by one, the adult members of the troupe fell into line behind her, followed by the young monkeys, still more interested in play than in the journey ahead.
Frank and Martin watched the troupe as it slowly disappeared around the bend in the road.
They found themselves alone again.
‘I thought the bananas went down well,’ observed Martin. ‘That was a good idea of yours. Aren’t monkeys fascinating?’
Frank looked at his partner skeptically: ‘That’s funny. I had the impression they weren’t that keen on bananas.’
‘They ate the whole bunch though.’
‘It was just that I thought they were trying to tell me something, something in their eyes perhaps. They’re very expressive, don’t you think? Almost like humans.’ Frank paused and then said plaintively: ‘You are happy with me, aren’t you, Martin? You don’t regret leaving her?’
‘Of course not. I love you and it feels right, so what could be more natural? Now, don’t forget we’re supposed to be on a hike,’ said Martin as he led the way off the road onto a narrow path between the jungle trees.
This short story is taken from my third collection Sweet Song of the Siren.
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