Every time we say goodnight I die a little

WHENEVER I prepare for a journey, I prepare as though for death. Should I never return, all is in order. Every morning when I wake up, I heave a sigh of relief and thank whoever's responsible that I made it through the night. I've always found the thought of surrendering up myself to all those hours of unconsciousness profoundly disturbing. It's like a sliver of death, a dress rehearsal for the final curtain. That's how ingrained my fear is. So the news that scientists will shortly be able to isolate the exact moment of my demise is scarcely riveting, even though it would allow a celebration that has until now been impossible: the anniversary of my death. But then a lot of the news coming out of the scientific community over the last weeks plugs into primal concerns. Michael Jackson must be kicking himself. If he'd waited a few months, he could have skipped the messy pregnancy and birth thing and simply cloned himself a Michael Jnr.

HOW many times do you hear people say, "If I'd known then what I know now...". The subliminal appeal of an idea like cloning is that it seems to hold out the promise of the best of both worlds - the passion of the younger you informed by the wisdom of the older. When cloning was still a sci-fi fantasy, I imagined my daughter Sam as my clone. I used to view her as someone who was more radical, more adventurous than I was at her age and yet could have all the knowledge I could pass on to her. Her reaction? "Up yer bum!" And she still terrorises me now just as much as she did then. She is living in Vancouver, where she tells me she is studying homoeopathy. But she appears to be spending more time on writing pamphlets. Last month it was "500 Ways to Kill Barbie". This month it's "Shell's Practices in Nigeria with the Ogoni". She won't ever come home to visit because she says she hates the way excessive travelling depletes the ozone. So I have to go and see her, or at least try to connect with her when I'm in the same time zone.

SAM has a way of irritating the hell out of me so that the most ordinary day gets turned upside-down. If she ends up blistered and bruised, or I end up covered with leeches in the process, so much the better. I can think of one shining instance from a few years ago. Early one morning, she disturbs my sliver of death with an angry phone call. "What the hell are you doing about the Penan in Borneo?" I have to confess I am doing nothing. Which is why, a week later, Sam and I are landing in Miri, a small town on the coastline of Sarawak. Officially, we have come to spend five days trekking in the jungle. Unofficially, we are seeing for ourselves the effects of logging on Sarawak's tropical rainforests, contacting the forest dwellers, the Penan, filming them, hearing about their future plans and handing them over some money so they can continue their human blockade. The Penan live in the midst of the logging. They stand almost alone as indigenous activists. Their blockades over the years have been a lesson in passive resistance but they have not been effective in changing the minds of government officials. The Malaysian government has imposed its own blockade on information. So, though the travel group we're booked with is completely bona fide, it is also acting as a highly illegal conduit for information to human rights groups and environmental activists in the West. We have all assumed neat identities to appear as tourists for the trip. I am Doris Night. Only after the trip has finished do I fully realise how important this B-movie cloak-and-dagger stuff is.

TO CONNECT with the Penan, we must fly inland over rainforest that stretches from horizon to horizon until you spot red earth roads flanked by rivers running red. Welcome to the land of timber concessions and selective logging. Then we have to trek for 14 hours. To say I'm unprepared is an understatement. Plimsolls are for boat decks, tennis courts, city streets, anywhere but primary jungle. But I doubt that anything could have prepared me for the leeches that balance on the edge of every leaf ready to jump on to feet, legs and arms. Or the cobwebby roots that trip me up every few seconds. Or the immense sense of claustrophobia, shut in by jungle, hardly able to see the sky. Or crossing ravines and rivers on logs. I feel I've spent 14 hours on a tightrope, screaming "Get it off me" as yet another leech climbs on. Hours go by without a word from anyone else except Sam. Oh I do love her. She chatters on to the others about The Jungle Book, sings songs from the movie, talks about Gandhi, the ozone layer, vigilante consumerism. By the time we reach the Penan, she has a blister as big as her foot. I can't sit, stand, raise a leg or hop. I pop a sleeping pill and fall asleep to a thunderous rain, dreaming, not altogether happily, of crossing ravines on logs. The next day we sit in as Penan leaders discuss the possibility of another blockade. Their biggest problem is food because during a blockade they have to leave their farms. I give them some money so the village can repay its debts and for a long moment, an image freezes in my mind: three of us from the West, extending a hand of friendship and concern. That sense of communalism is so rare in our own lives. In bed that night, I am racked by pain. Again, I dream of logs over ravines. This time, I plummet to my death. Sam's blister is horrific. Still, we're up early for our 14-hour trek back to the airstrip. I quickly realise I'm the Penan's house entertainment, slipping, sliding leech bait that I am. Still, we make good time, shaving two and a half hours off our outward journey, Sam limping but indefatigable. I'm proud of the way she has connected with our group. But I know she will always find good friends wherever she goes, because she only measures people by their gentleness and concern. At journey's end, our Penan companions show Sam and me how to use their blowpipes, a mother-daughter bonding moment with a genuine twist. I can't imagine it would be nearly as meaningful with a plain old clone.