LITMIR.BIZ

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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.

      +593 2 279331. 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.

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