Pieces of My Life

Wasn’t this trip supposed to bring us closer together?

If his behaviour over the last few weeks is anything to go by, he’ll only get all defensive if I ask him what that phone call was about, I realise. I briefly imagine what it would be like if we fell out, now, today. He’s all I have in a strange country. Plus, I still feel like my body clock has been taken out, rewound and shoved back in upside down. It was probably nothing anyway, I almost manage to convince myself. It could have been the airline, or one of the hotels or tour companies we’ve looked at.

‘By the way, it’s because he’s been living here twelve years and Spanish and English have started to mix together in his head,’ Harry calls from the bathroom, patting his face off with a towel.

‘Eh?’

‘Ray. That’s why he speaks like that. He can’t really tell the difference between the two languages anymore, so he uses Spanish word order when speaking English, and vice versa. He came backpacking here after uni, met a girl and never left.’ He comes back into the room, produces a cold beer from somewhere and hands it to me. ‘I’ve been down in the bar all afternoon with him, waiting for you to wake up.’

‘Oh.’ Suddenly I’m hit by a wave of homesickness. But not for our house in Fenbridge… to my surprise, an image of my mum’s living room fills my mind. I’m in the armchair, drinking hot chocolate, with Steve in the corner behind his paper and Mum watching Strictly Come Dancing with the volume turned down. I wouldn’t need to worry, then, about who Harry has been shouting at, or whether he’s keeping some sort of secret from me. I could just slide back into my old routine and pretend none of this had ever happened. For the first time in weeks, I feel something other than excitement and eagerness about our forthcoming adventure. For if we’ve only just arrived and Harry is behaving like this… what do the next three months hold for me?

I don’t know what takes me more by surprise, the feeling of actually wanting to be at my mum’s house or the sudden pounding music that starts to blast out from somewhere below us.

‘That’s Ray getting the bar going – come on, Kirst, our first night in Quito has begun!’ Harry looks so happy and mischievous, I resolve to push my concerns to the back of my mind for now. He obviously doesn’t want to talk about whatever it was, but I’m sure it will all become clear in time, and I will have been worrying for nothing.

‘Drink up that beer and let’s go!’ Harry stops to kiss me on the cheek and cracks open another beer for himself.

After a brief effort to make myself look presentable, I follow him out of our hotel room for a night of wild partying.

‘Oh, wait.’ Harry stops dead in the corridor. ‘There are six missed calls, an email and about a hundred WhatsApp messages from your mother. You should call her first.’

Chapter Four

The hotel bar area is thronged with the same colourful assortment of tourists as it was this morning, except now they’re all knocking back pints of beer and gaudy cocktails instead of coffee and toast. Upbeat, tropical-sounding music is playing from a complicated stereo system in the corner. We spot Ray behind the bar performing several complicated manoeuvres with a cocktail shaker, then pouring a thick, bright-yellow liquid into two tall glasses, all the while chatting energetically to the other two barmen. As soon as he catches sight of us he gestures to one of his colleagues, and within seconds the two glasses of yellow liquid are placed on a table before us along with enormous plates of chicken, rice and what seem to be monster-sized fried bananas.

‘Mum sends her love,’ I tell Harry, sitting down beside him to tuck in hungrily. ‘I also had to assure her there are no volcanic eruptions, landslides or civil protests currently unfolding in Quito.’ Harry rolls his eyes in empathy at my mum’s typical fussing.

Ray pulls up a chair, too, with his own glass of the vivid yellow drink.

‘Sugar cane syrup,’ he explains happily. ‘They call it canelazo. Mixed with fruit from the jungle and canela – what do you call that? Cinnamon.’ He raises his glass. ‘Now Kirsty is finally awake, I can officially say – welcome to Ecuador!’

We stop stuffing our faces with the delicious fried banana long enough to chink glasses with Ray and take a gulp of the liquid. It’s spicy and sweet and throat-burningly strong.

‘So, any recommendations for a night out?’ Harry asks, already draining his glass. ‘I think it’s time for Kirsty and me to get smashed.’ Ray catches my eye with one eyebrow slightly raised.

‘Er, yes, definitely,’ I say, with as much enthusiasm as I can muster. ‘Getting smashed it is.’

Ray’s gaze flicks between Harry and me, and for a brief second I self-consciously wonder what he is thinking.

‘Well, if you like, once the wife gets home shortly we can take you out to sample Quito’s nightlife? I’m sure these guys can hold the fort here.’ He waves vaguely in the direction of the bar staff. ‘Oh, and Barry always keeps an eye on things when we go out. He practically lives here.’ I notice the chubby man sitting in the far corner of the bar, in the shadows, silently watching us. Bizarrely, I’m reminded of Aragorn sitting in the tavern in Lord of the Rings, watching the hobbits cause chaos around him with a disapproving air. ‘She kicked you out again?’ Ray calls cheerfully to him. Barry responds by raising his glass, unsmiling, then taking a long drink from it.

‘Gabi’s eight months pregnant, so we won’t be joining you in getting smashed, but we can certainly show you some sights,’ Ray continues. ‘We were talking about meeting some friends in town tonight anyway, so how about we all go?’

‘Amazing!’ exclaims Harry, wrapping his arm around my shoulders. ‘How about it, Kirst?’

I nod and smile and thank Ray, but once he turns back to the bar I touch Harry’s arm.

‘Since when have we ever gone out and got smashed?’ I ask him under my breath, trying to sound light-hearted. ‘I mean, since uni, which feels like a hundred years ago. I’m up for going to a bar, but…’

‘Oh, come on!’ Harry interrupts me. ‘Uni wasn’t that long ago. We’re still young – well, reasonably young!’ He laughs and grins and gives my waist a squeeze, and it strikes me that there is something a little bit manic about his smile. Something a little… forced. ‘After all the preparation and such a long journey we’re finally here, and I don’t know about you but I think it’s time for a drink!’

I stare at Harry as he goes over to Ray and indicates for his glass to be filled up again. I haven’t really seen this side of him since uni, when he was always the life and soul of any party… the Harry I moved in with soon became more of a glass-of-wine-and-takeaway-on-a-Friday-night kind of guy. It felt like the natural transition from carefree student to sensible adult, to a life with responsibilities and early starts… now it feels a little like Harry is regressing back to our pre-employment days.

But maybe this is no bad thing. Maybe a wild night out is just what we need to get this trip back on track. If it was ever off track. And wasn’t the whole idea for us to have one last adventure before… things change? We won’t get much time for partying once we have a baby, I remind myself. I’m sure that’s just what Harry means – we must make the most of this trip, and our current freedom, right from the first day. Also, I can’t help feeling a little relieved that at least Harry’s irritability of the last few weeks seems to have abandoned him.

My train of thought is interrupted as Ray’s wife, Gabriela, comes home amid a flurry of wavy dark hair, dazzling white smile and enormous pregnancy bump. Ray drops everything he is doing (lazily polishing glasses and eating nachos, I think) to rush round the bar and give her a long smooch, then tell her to put her coat back on as ‘Harry and Kirsty want us to take them out and get smashed’.

Gabriela greets us with warm hugs and cheek-kisses. It’s far more physical contact that I would usually feel comfortable with when first meeting someone, but something about this beautiful, smiling girl makes me want to return her hug with just as much warmth.

I start to understand why twenty-one-year-old Ray arrived here as a backpacker, then within five years found himself the owner of a bar, happily married to Gabriela. Who, it seems, speaks far better English than him.

‘I found him sitting with his backpack and a hangover in some dodgy café in town,’ Gabriela beams at Ray, ‘and decided I didn’t want to let him leave.’

I find myself watching this petite, delicate woman in amazement and wondering whether it can be true that she actually goes inside the prisons in Ecuador. But even as Gabi chats openly to us, I somehow lack the courage to ask.

After a few more canelazos we pile into a taxi and head towards what Ray and Gabriela describe as the ‘Mariscal district’, apparently a must-see part of Quito for any newly arrived traveller.

We pull up amid neon lights, throngs of people and a cacophony of thumping, Spanish-language R&B music. The taxi deposits us in the middle of Plaza Foch, a square surrounded by bars, some small and grungy-looking, others several storeys high with bright flashing signs and palm trees outside. The square is filled with groups of smiling and laughing locals, tourists wearing skimpy clothes and colourful bandanas, embracing couples and cigarette-smoking teenagers who don’t look old enough to be here. Ray half-heartedly argues with the taxi driver over the fare, then we throw ourselves into the crowd.

I take Harry’s hand and follow Ray and Gabriela into the queue forming outside one of the fancier-looking bars, determined to enjoy tonight… even though this isn’t exactly what I’d expected our first night in Quito to pan out like.

What had I expected?

As we wait in line, I allow myself to daydream briefly. Perhaps the two of us would have gone out for a nice meal somewhere, a balcony overlooking the city, and sat tucked away in a corner discussing the places we’re going to visit this week, making a plan over a bottle of wine and some typical Ecuadorian food. I feel my brows start to knit together as I realise I can’t remember the last time we went out for a romantic dinner. There’ll be time for that, we’ve got three months, I tell myself. Just go with the flow tonight. It’s obviously what Harry wants, and there will be time.

A tugging feeling at my sleeve interrupts my train of thought and makes me jump in the air and let go of Harry’s hand with a jolt. A tiny elderly woman is standing below me, coming up no further than my chest, tugging lightly at my sleeve. She’s wearing an apron and has a cardboard box slung around her neck, loaded with cigarettes, chewing gum and chocolate bars.

‘Por favor… Señorita…’ She continues to nudge me and proffer her cardboard box with an imploring expression.

Close up, she looks well over seventy and has no teeth. I immediately start fumbling in my bag for some change, and within a few seconds have bought three chocolate bars and five cigarettes from her. Harry turns around just in time to see her beaming, toothless face looming in on his, obviously excited about the commercial opportunities presented by our group.

‘Kirsty – what are you doing?’ he cries, recoiling in horror from the woman and stumbling unevenly several steps backwards.

Gabriela intervenes and says something quickly to the woman in Spanish, smiling kindly at her but at the same time firmly steering her away by the arm.

Harry is still gaping at me, weaving a little on the spot, his brows furrowed together in almost comic exaggeration. ‘What are you doing giving her your money? You don’t even smoke!’

I look down at the chocolate and cigarettes in my hands, suddenly feeling ridiculous.

‘She could have been dangerous!’ Harry continues, oblivious of the uncomfortable glances from other people in the queue around us.

At this, I can’t help but snort with laughter. ‘Oh, come on, Harry… she was about four feet tall and old enough to be my grandmother! I just felt bad for her, okay? And—’

‘That’s not the point!’ Harry’s voice is getting louder. Out of the corner of my eye I notice Gabriela making panicked throat-cutting gestures to Ray. ‘You know some people here hand out flyers or free gifts in the street, then try to drug you and rob you! Maybe she was trying to catch you unawares, maybe she…’ Harry trails off, puffing, as Ray pats him gently on the shoulder.

‘Pal… relax. Our table’s ready. Time to get out of here.’

To my immense relief, the bouncer is gesturing for us to go inside. It takes us considerable time to get across the bar as Ray and Gabi seem to know everyone there, so our progress across the room is halted by their stopping at every table for an elaborate routine of cheek-kissing, hand-pumping, back-clapping, hugging and fist-bumping.

‘Harry,’ I hiss to him as we follow on behind. ‘What was all that about?’ I jerk my head back in the direction of the bar entrance.

He frowns down at me, swaying slightly. ‘What was what about?’

I roll my eyes at him. ‘You, getting all freaked out by a ninety-year-old grandmother!’

Harry takes an unsteady step towards me, and puts both hands on my shoulders.

‘Babe, look, I’ve been here before… I know what Latin America is like. You can’t trust anyone. Anyone. Okay?’

I can feel my eyebrows rising further towards my hairline with every word.

‘I’m being serious… you have to trust me and take my lead out here, okay?’

‘Harry, we’re hardly in the Wild West, it’s—’

I don’t get the chance to finish, as Ray has turned back to us and is indicating for us to join them at a table next to the dance floor, already half filled with a group of their friends. I glance back at Harry as he follows Ray off to the bar, and decide to let it go for now. He’s had a few drinks, we’ve only just got here and everything is new and unfamiliar. It’s been a decade since he came here, so maybe culture shock is just hitting him harder than he expected it to. Even so, I can’t help feeling a growing sense of unease, a feeling that tentatively began while we were still at home and only increased with every irritable or distracted comment from Harry in the weeks leading up to our trip. And what if his overreaction now is somehow related to that weird phone call earlier? Shouldn’t Harry be feeling relaxed and excited that our great South American adventure has finally begun?

Give him a chance, I tell myself. Maybe the enormity of what we’ve done has only just hit him… maybe older, wiser Harry is finding it harder to be out of his comfort zone than he thought he would… I decide all I can do about it for now is try to enjoy the night, while still watching Harry closely.

As I sit down at the table beside Gabriela, I realise why the ground is so soft underfoot – it is real sand lining the bar from the door to the dance floor. Mini palm trees sprout from the floor in the seating area, giving an illusion of privacy and luxury at each table. A widescreen TV is pumping out J-Lo music videos on the far wall over a small dance floor where some couples are already twirling each other around in extravagant salsa moves. Everything looks new, shiny and luxurious.

Gabi introduces me to the group already at the table – Luke from Birmingham, resident in Ecuador for twenty years, proprietor of an English-language centre and extremely long red dreadlocks. Then a scruffy-looking blonde couple called Emma and Dave (or was it Gemma and Dan?), who barely look old enough to be out on their own and tell us joyfully they are on their gap year before university. To my surprise, despite the variations in age and lifestyle, everyone is British. They all seem to have been drinking for some time already, judging by the collection of empty glasses strewn across the table, ice melting, bright cocktail umbrellas wilting.

Looking around, most of the bar’s clientele seem to be either obvious foreigners – blonde, sunburnt and inebriated – or very well-dressed, elegant locals. At the table next to ours an impossibly beautiful young woman with waist-length hair is sitting opposite a man of at least twice her age, feeding him mini empanadas from her fork. I only realise I’m staring when I feel someone tap me on the shoulder, and turn round with a jump as Ray hands me the cocktail menu.

I feel a bit sick looking through the elaborately named concoctions, such as the vivid green ‘Drowning Mermaid’ or layered purple and pink ‘Miami Vice’. The prices could rival any London bar, and I can’t help but think of the toothless lady’s sheer joy at the handful of change I gave her outside.

In the end I opt for a glass of wine.

Harry’s back from the bar and is already engaged in an animated conversation with Luke, and I notice with relief he has accepted the bottle of water Ray slid across the table to him, while throwing a wink at me. For a moment, I had started to worry he was taking the idea of getting ‘smashed’ way too literally and that we would end up having to carry him back to Casa Hamaca. But now, talking to Luke, he looks completely animated and engaged with whatever Luke is saying. As I watch, he leans forward in his seat, nodding avidly, his face lighting up in a smile. He’s so engrossed in the conversation, he wouldn’t even notice if…

As if with a mind of their own, my eyes come to rest on Harry’s phone, alone and abandoned in the middle of the table among the empty glasses. My itchy curiosity about his earlier phone call immediately floods back.

Could I?

I look around at our group. Gabriela is just drinking orange juice but seems to be having the best time of us all, laughing at Ray’s every word and snuggling into his shoulder as he whispers something in her ear, his arm draped across the back of her chair. The young couple are engaged in a complicated drink-downing move, arms interlaced as they hold their glasses to each other’s lips. Harry is totally absorbed in his conversation with Luke. No one is paying any attention to me.

I casually rest my arm on the table then slowly slide the phone towards me and up my sleeve, feeling ridiculously like a petty criminal.

‘Just going to the bathroom,’ I mutter to the table in general, and I’m gone.

In the ladies, I lock myself in a cubicle and pull out the phone, hating myself for the excited adrenaline flooding my veins.

I open the call log and scroll guiltily through all the missed calls from my mum, until I find it. The only number in the list that isn’t a recognised contact in Harry’s phone.

[phone]. I recognise the Ecuador country code, and I know that the ‘2’ preceding the number means it is a landline within Quito. One outgoing call, made at five-forty-eight p.m. It had to be the one.

I press the green ‘dial’ icon next to the number, and hold the phone to my ear, heart pounding.

It’s answered on the second ring, and a muffled, sleepy-sounding man’s voice says in Spanish, ‘Hello, Fernandez family?’

I take the phone away from my ear and stare at it in horror, imagining a strange man somewhere else in the city scrambling to answer the phone by the bed. It’s nearly midnight, what was I thinking?

‘Hello?’ I hear the tinny voice ask again, and quickly press the hang-up button.

‘Are you alive in there?’ an angry American accent is calling as someone bangs on my cubicle door. Muttering an apology I fumble my way out of the bathroom in a daze of confusion. Who the hell are the Fernandez family? We don’t know anyone in Quito, except the people we are in this bar with. Harry said all the people he met travelling the first time had long ago dispersed back to their countries, and lost touch. Why would he be calling someone on a landline in Quito and shouting at them?

‘Kirsty! There you are.’ Ray is smiling at me and grabs my arm to pull me down into the seat next to him, then immediately turns back to his energetic conversation with the others. I quickly deposit Harry’s phone back out of my sleeve and on to the table.

The male half of the young couple – Dan or Dave – seems to be telling a long and complicated story about the process of exchanging his British driving licence for an Ecuadorian one. I notice Gabi’s eyes start to glaze over, then her gaze drift away across the bar. I realise now would be a perfect time to ask her about her volunteer work in the prisons. As if reading my mind, she catches my eye and smiles at me.

Do it, I tell myself firmly. What are you waiting for?

‘So then they told me the office was closed, and I had to go back on a Wednesday, but only in the afternoon, and I needed a copy of my birth certificate, but that was in the UK so I had to call Gemma’s mum and ask her to fax it…’ The story continues unrelentingly, and Gabi flashes me an almost imperceptible eye-roll.

Do it now. Just ask her.

‘…and then they insisted I got a special signature from a lawyer, can you believe it? So I phoned round about ten people, and there weren’t any appointments for two weeks…’

But what if she thinks I’m weird for being interested in something like this?

Gabi leans forward and starts playing with the straw in her drink, barely concealing the boredom on her face. I take a deep breath and lean forward.

‘Hey, so… Gabi? Ray mentioned you’re involved in some volunteer work here. With the, um… prisoners.’

Gabi’s face lights up immediately. ‘Yes! Oh, don’t get me started on this, I’ll bore your ears off about it. Worse than…’ She grins and flicks a glance at Dan (or Dave), still holding forth about his driving licence. We both giggle. ‘But,’ she suddenly frowns, ‘I hope Ray hasn’t been going on about these things to you… he sometimes gets a bit overenthusiastic about what I do.’ She stops to nudge her husband. ‘Hey, amor, I hope you haven’t been boring our new guests with talk about prisons… they are here on holiday, and probably don’t want to hear about—’

‘Actually, I’m really interested,’ I interrupt to reassure her, and try to quickly pull her attention back to me before Harry overhears. Glancing over at him I see he is still deep in conversation with Luke, but I lower my voice anyway. ‘You see, I once did some work in a solicitor’s office and there was this guy… actually, never mind that. But let’s just say it’s kind of an area of personal interest for me. And… actually, I was already looking at doing some volunteer work while we’re out here in South America. So…’ I trail off, feeling suddenly very exposed.

Gabi, to my great relief, is smiling broadly.

‘Well, I volunteer for a charity that offers support to prisoners here in Ecuador. Mainly women, the more vulnerable ones, and foreigners. We visit them and try to help where we can – little things like posting letters for them to their families, bringing them snacks, or simply listening to them when they have no one to talk to.’

My eyes must be open like saucers. ‘There are foreign prisoners here in Ecuador?’

‘Oh yes, lots,’ Gabi says, and something about her kind smile makes me feel like the most naïve person in the world. ‘Almost all for drug trafficking,’ she answers my unspoken question. ‘Some friends of mine started a small charity, years ago, to help them. I’ve been involved since…’ She trails off and frowns. ‘Since even before I met Ray.’

‘Gabi is an amazing woman,’ Ray interrupts, slurring and squeezing his arm around her shoulders.

‘If you’re interested, I could introduce you to them – they’re a lovely older couple, and they basically run this charity from their home. I know they’re always keen for another pair of hands, especially with everything that’s going on at the moment.’

I’m already nodding enthusiastically.

‘I can’t help out that much at the moment,’ Gabi continues, smiling down at her bump. ‘I’m not going to be actually visiting the prisons myself for a while. But I’m sure they’d be happy to talk to you about their work, or even let you go on a visit yourself, if you were interested…’