Samuel stops in mid-sentence as I appear in the doorway, and steps aside to let me past. Tamia jiggles on the spot in excitement, grinning at me, before running over to pet Lewis. My father looks from Sebastian to me and back again, then raises his eyebrows.
Desperately trying to slow my racing heartbeat, I approach Sebastian, trying to keep a polite smile on my face. I hear my father engage Samuel in awkward conversation in broken Spanish behind us.
‘I promise I’m not a stalker,’ he says quietly, meeting the silent question in my eyes. ‘But I just felt so awful leaving you to get home on your own after the hearing this morning.’
I blink, momentarily unable to process the fact the Naomi’s hearing had taken place only today, suddenly feeling very tired.
‘I tried phoning to check you got back okay, but your mobile was off,’ Sebastian continues, looking anguished. ‘I called Liza and Roberto’s home phone but no one was there… eventually I got through to Liza on her mobile and it turns out they’re away for the whole weekend visiting family; she told me what happened, that you’d headed off to Mindo on your own… so I left straight away. Liza gave me the name of the clinic… it took me a while to convince them I was here to help you, but I eventually managed to get this address from that barmy old doctor… what was her name…’
‘Okay, okay, you’re really not convincing me of your non-stalker status right now!’ I hold up my hands to make him stop, but can’t help laughing. ‘Seriously, you really didn’t have to… I mean…’
‘It’s cool, Quito gets crazy during public holidays, and it’s nice to get away for a weekend. You know, give Lewis a change of scene.’ He nods at the dog, still spread out in the corner of the room, his head being adoringly stroked by Tamia. ‘And I thought you might appreciate a lift back to Quito.’
‘He came to rescue you,’ Maya whispers in delight from the corner.
‘Well, it’s very kind of you to come all this way. But you know I didn’t actually need rescuing, right?’ An edge I don’t recognise has crept into my voice.
‘Of course, I didn’t actually…’
Suddenly I realise my father is standing behind us. He leans over and pumps Sebastian’s hand heartily. ‘A lift would be fantastic, thank you.’ He claps Sebastian on the back with his other hand. ‘Poor Kirsty has chased around after me quite enough for one weekend, I’m sure she’s keen to get back. It’s very kind of you to come all this way and help us.’
‘No problem, all part of the service,’ Sebastian says gruffly, shaking my father’s hand back but still looking at me. ‘We wouldn’t want any of our citizens to get in trouble over the bank holiday weekend.’ I think I see a fleeting blush pass across his face, but I can’t be sure. ‘Also, I’ve got your passports.’ He indicates his backpack. ‘I was going to call you to arrange to give them to you in Quito, but after I heard what happened today…’ He takes a brown envelope out of the backpack and holds it out to my father, at the same time as a question springs into my mind.
‘But – Dorice!’ I turn to Sebastian. ‘Her passport was also stolen that day by the cathedral… how did she…’
Sebastian is looking a little sheepish, avoiding my father’s gaze. ‘I was wondering how to bring this up. She came by my office this afternoon – I’d just got back from visiting that man in the hospital.’ I remember him dashing off after Naomi’s hearing this morning. ‘She was all flustered and in a hurry with a taxi waiting outside to take her straight to the airport. She asked for the passport and didn’t tell me anything more. But after I spoke to Liza and Roberto, I pieced together what had happened.’ Now he does look up at my father. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Ah, that’s okay, mate,’ says my father in an exaggeratedly cheerful tone, reaching out to punch Sebastian on the arm a little awkwardly. ‘Probably not the first time someone’s been dumped and left in the middle of the jungle in a foreign country, eh?’
‘Actually, it isn’t,’ Sebastian chuckles. ‘You see it all in my job…’ His gaze slides towards Lewis, now snoring gently in the corner of the room. ‘If it’s any consolation, when my ex-wife left, I only realised when I got home from work and found a three-month supply of dog food lined up by the kitchen door. No note, and almost all her belongings still in the house…’ He laughs quietly. ‘People can be strange.’
I feel a strange chill pass over me hearing Sebastian mention his wife for the first time, and suddenly don’t know where to look. I stare purposefully at Lewis and Tamia in the corner, feeling my cheeks burn, until I realise the conversation between Sebastian and my father has finally moved on to safer territory.
‘I’m afraid we’re travelling by taxi,’ Sebastian tells my father. ‘My car is back in Quito getting new brake pads.’ He nods towards a man standing just outside the house, who I notice for the first time.
There is something familiar about him. As he turns to hand a plate to Samuel, a jolt of recognition runs through me.
‘Rodrigo?’ I reach back into my memory and dredge up the name of the taxi driver who collected Harry and me from the airport, what feels like a hundred years ago. As I take in his little hunched frame and basset-hound droopy eyes, I remember him subjecting us to his Best of the Eighties cassette tape all the way from the airport to Casa Hamaca and feel a pang of nostalgia for that moment. When there were no secrets, no big decisions to be made… Harry and I had been nothing more than another couple of tourists, standing on the brink of a new adventure.
The blank expression on Rodrigo’s face confirms as much. He has absolutely no idea who I am.
‘You picked me up from the airport a few weeks ago, with my boyfriend… never mind. How do you…’ I glance from him to Sebastian, wondering at the sheer coincidence.
‘Rodrigo is one of our trusted drivers, he’s been helping out the embassy for many years.’ Sebastian claps the old man on the shoulder, then turns to mutter to me, ‘Once you get past his proclivity for eighties love songs, he’s one of the best people I know.’
‘At your service, señorita,’ Rodrigo nods at me.
We don’t leave for another hour. Samuel insists we all sit down to chocolate cake and steaming mugs of strong, sugary black coffee before beginning the journey back to Quito. I keep sneaking glances at Sebastian, wondering at how incongruous he looks in the rustic, jungle setting, even in casual jeans and a T-shirt, his tall, athletic frame folded into the narrow wooden bench on the balcony where my father and I were sitting only minutes previously. I drink in his striking profile as he smiles and makes easy conversation with Samuel and my father, switching effortlessly between languages. On one occasion I don’t glance away quickly enough and he catches my eye, flashing me a sudden warm smile back. Tamia giggles.
Finally, Rodrigo starts clearing his throat and muttering things about traffic. We apologise profusely to Samuel for cancelling our reservation, and my father gives him with a generous tip.
By the time my father, Sebastian, Lewis and I have piled into Rodrigo’s old Hyundai, Mindo is in complete darkness and the sound of nature all around us has intensified. The hum and chatter of a thousand different insects and birds surrounds us as we wind down the windows and call out our goodbyes. Then another sound, loud and rhythmic, rises over the rest – the sound of a drum beat closely followed by a large number of human voices. As we reach the end of the main street to leave the town, a stream of people rounds the corner towards us, all walking slowly in unison and singing in low, cadenced voices.
The Day of the Dead march! My father and I twist round in our seats to watch in fascination, as Rodrigo slows the car to walking pace as we pass. The procession is made up of over a hundred people of all ages – fathers and sons, grandmothers and granddaughters, teenagers, middle-agers and even some people leading dogs on leads. They’re not dressed in fearsome skeleton masks and elaborate costumes as I’d imagined when Samuel told us about this, but just in normal clothes, jeans and jumpers and some woolly hats to protect them from the newly arrived evening chill. The first ten or so people are carrying candles, illuminating the movement of their faces as they all sing along to a song or hymn I do not recognise. At the very front, held up on the shoulders of two men, is an ornate, gilt-framed painting of the Virgin Mary.
‘Today is actually a very religious festival,’ Sebastian explains, as we leave the procession behind and gradually pick up speed again. ‘A time to remember our loved ones who have gone, and pray for them on their next path. Even though it actually began long before Christianity reached this part of the world.’
I turn to watch the last bobbing lights of the procession fade from view, knowing I will never forget the sight of so many families and neighbours walking together to spend one evening in the company of their departed loved ones. I look at my father and see my own enthralment mirrored in his face, feeling a sudden pique of conscience at the fact that I haven’t even been able to get along with one of my closest living relatives until a few hours ago. Without saying a word I reach forward to the front seat and squeeze his hand.
Nobody speaks for the next half an hour or so of our journey, but we sit in tired, companionable silence as the car judders and bobs along the uneven roads leading out of Mindo. I leave my window half down and enjoy the cool breeze on my face, looking up at the impressive starscape twinkling to life above the thick forest of palm and banana trees. Then, once we’ve navigated the narrow roads leading out of the town and joined the motorway, Rodrigo solemnly leans forward and presses a button, inundating the car with the opening notes of ‘Eye of the Tiger’.
‘Nobody mind music, no?’ He diverts his eyes from the road for several heart-stopping seconds to twist in his seat and address Sebastian and me in the back, then my father in the passenger seat. It is clear the question only has one acceptable answer.
***
I wake up feeling the car slow to a halt and something hard and plastic digging into the side of my head. A wet nose nuzzles against my cheek, and I open my eyes to see Lewis’s face inches from mine and his tail thumping frantically against the seats in front. Rodrigo’s car radio is thankfully silent now, and soft snores emanate from my father’s seat. Sitting up and pulling the seatbelt holder out of the way I realise shamefully I’ve been asleep with my head on the seat, inches from Sebastian’s lap.
‘We’re just coming in to Quito,’ he says from somewhere to my right. I can just make out his silhouette looking out of the car window, and feel thankful he can’t see my blushes or the dribble I hastily wipe from my mouth as I sit up.
‘Next stop, Royal Colonial Suites hotel?’ Rodrigo asks over his shoulder.
‘Yes, that’s right – Dad, wake up!’ I nudge him gently on the shoulder, feeling a jolt of some unidentifiable emotion as I realise what this means. We have to leave Dad in the hotel, and his flight is tomorrow. I don’t feel ready to say goodbye yet… but even so, I think of all the hopeful plans I had been making for his return to Quito, and can’t help but laugh to myself. Instead of an elaborate dinner at a fancy restaurant, or a museum tour of the city centre, we had spent his last day in Ecuador sitting on a wooden bench by a river, talking. And, I realise now, actually I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Sebastian gets out to help my father with his bags, and has to ring the hotel reception buzzer three times before they open the gate. Inside the courtyard is buzzing with life, a quartet of Mariachi singers wearing skeleton ‘Day of the Dead’ masks are playing lively guitar music in the corner, with wreaths of coloured paper lanterns, strung up among the fairy lights, twinkling from the palm trees. The tables are filled with hotel guests having late dinners or early cocktails, laughing and applauding the Mariachis.
‘I’ll phone you tomorrow? Before I leave for the airport?’ There’s a sort of imploring tone to Dad’s voice.
I reach up and hug him.
‘Of course. Now go inside – and no wild partying with the other guests, please.’
Dad laughs and squeezes me tightly back. ‘I’m going straight to sleep.’ He steps back and looks down at me seriously. ‘Honestly, thank you for everything. For going all the way to Mindo, for understanding about Dorice, for…’
‘Yeah, yeah…’ I punch him lightly on the arm. ‘We’ve already established that you owe me twenty-eight years’ worth of decent Christmas presents and lunches out. So, let’s start tomorrow.’
Dad squeezes my arm, then lifts his backpack on to his shoulder and turns towards the hotel. ‘We will, I promise.’
I can feel Sebastian looking at me as I climb wearily back into the car beside him.
‘All okay?’
‘Yeah, fine,’ I say lightly, resting my hand on Lewis’s head where he has now climbed up on to the seat and is curled up meekly in between us. I can’t begin to explain to Sebastian what my father and I have been through in the past day, or my feeling of quiet hope that our relationship has taken on a new trajectory. Nor can I even begin to dissect the mixture of emotions running through me, knowing I will see Harry again very shortly, after how we left things. But smiling weakly back at Sebastian, something in his expression tells me he understands all this.
We drive on in silence, and I watch the lights of Quito flash past as we head south to Liza and Roberto’s house. Then Rodrigo flicks his trusty tape-deck to life again, and the crooning overtures of Elton John fill the car.
Can you feel… the looooove tonight? He beseeches us. As would any other person in the world of a certain generation, I think of The Lion King. Rodrigo turns around briefly with a wicked grin and smutty laugh. There’s a soft thud as Sebastian rests his head against the car window, muttering what I think is ‘Oh, Christ’.
By the time we arrive at Liza and Roberto’s house we have been serenaded with ‘Is This Love?’, ‘The Greatest Love of All’ and, Rodrigo’s grand finale, for which he turns up the volume several notches, Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s ‘Power of Love’. Rodrigo pulls up outside the house, and we have to sit awkwardly waiting for the very last notes to die away before it’s possible to speak.
‘Thank you so much,’ I say, feeling suddenly guilty at all Sebastian has done to help my father and me in the short time we’ve known each other.
Through the dull light of the street lamps outside I see him smile widely. ‘It was a pleasure, honest. Nice to get out of Quito for a bit.’
Sitting in the back of the taxi next to Sebastian in my mud-stained clothes, I can’t help feeling like I have been on a very bizarre date. And right about now would be when we kiss, I think irrationally.
Seeing that I show no signs of getting out of the car, Rodrigo wordlessly turns the ignition off.
Summoning up courage I lean over Lewis to peck Sebastian on the cheek. But before my lips can make contact with their target, something makes me freeze. The light is on in our apartment, clearly visible up ahead above the rest of the house in darkness. This in itself would be nothing strange, but through the half-open slats in the blinds I can see a figure that is unmistakably Harry’s, and just in front of him there is someone else. Shorter, slimmer, the silhouette of a woman.
In the split second it takes me to register all this I reach out to stop myself on my trajectory towards Sebastian’s cheek, and grab hold of Lewis’s fur. The dog yelps and jumps on to the floor, my hand continues forward and lands on Sebastian’s thigh.
‘Oh my God!’ I cry and jump back, simultaneously cracking my elbow on the car door. Lewis starts going crazy and trying to jump up and lick my face, Sebastian pulling him back on to the floor by his collar, laughing.
‘Oh dear… down boy! Are you okay?’
‘Yes… God, I’m sorry… I just thought…’ I turn to look back up at the apartment. The light is still on but both figures have gone from the window.
‘Okay… good. Because actually I wanted to tell you something.’
I’m aware Sebastian is talking to me, but my brain is too busy noticing other things about the house, a series of little alarms pinging in my head at each one. The strange car parked outside just ahead of us – who would Liza and Roberto know that drives a purple VW Golf convertible?
‘The thing is, I’m leaving on Monday for a training course, in Colombia.’
The garage door – it’s wide open. They never leave it open. Roberto always goes down and checks it right before going to sleep, sometimes several times.
‘It’s for three weeks. And I might stay on afterwards to do some sightseeing. I mean, it depends. Will you still… be around here, then?’
I turn to look at Sebastian, aware he has asked me something but unable to think of anything other than that unmistakably female figure, standing upstairs in my living room, and the realisation that this could, finally, be the answer to all my suspicions about Harry.
‘I’m sorry… got to go. There’s a… something has…’ Already fumbling for the door handle, I turn and give Sebastian what I hope is my best apologetic smile. ‘Look, I’ll call you tomorrow. Thank you for everything – thank you, too, Rodrigo – bye!’ I grab my backpack and throw myself out of the car.
I run the short distance to the house, dimly aware of Sebastian calling my name, then the car ignition starting up. I don’t slow down, and take the steps to the upstairs apartment two at a time, adrenaline racing through me. The door is closed but not locked and I hesitate for just a second, sensing on some deep, instinctive level that what I find on the other side will blast my whole world to pieces. Then I fling it open.
Standing before me, looking up to meet my eyes in startled surprise, is the mirror-image, identical, eight-year-old version of Harry.
***
His eyes are different, a light hazelnut brown instead of Harry’s clear blue. And his skin has a warmer tone to it, a soft caramel, the colour Harry would turn if he spent enough time in the sun. But the thick shock of dark golden hair is unmistakably, hauntingly the same. The parting that never quite lies flat. The long, straight nose and high forehead and good cheekbones. I stand frozen to the spot and just stare and stare and stare.
Even the angle of his shoulders sends a chill down my spine as he steps hesitantly forward to shake my hand, stepping back again quickly like someone scalded. The feeling of his hand, small and cool and soft, stays seared on to mine as if he had not let go.
‘This is Nicholas,’ A woman’s voice says quietly somewhere to my left, cutting into the silence.
For the first time I become aware of the other people in the room. The owner of the voice – the woman from the window – small and slender with long black hair pulled back in a plait, standing to my left by the breakfast bar. And Harry, at the opposite side of the room, staring at the floor and looking as if he is about to throw up.
‘And I’m Lorena,’ the woman perseveres, her voice tight. She steps forward and offers her hand to me, looking as if she would rather be anywhere else in the world but here. ‘We were just leaving, it’s far too late for Nicholas to be up…’
I take her hand but can’t tear my gaze away from Harry and the boy. Nicholas. I look from one to the other, mesmerised. It’s like stepping into some sort of twisted This Is Your Life episode that shows you what your children would have looked like.
Bile rises up my throat, and I feel my legs backing away and carrying me from the room before my brain fully registers that I’m going. I fumble for the door and trip down the steps. I hear voices calling somewhere behind and above me, and scrabble frantically for the lock to the door, the cold air of the street hitting my face and a strange rushing sensation filling ears.
Then I faint.
‘Kristie…’ A woman’s voice is murmuring in my ear. I become dimly aware of a hand lightly resting on my shoulder, and the warmth of another body pressed against mine.
‘No, don’t get up, just keep your head there…’ The hand moves to the back of my head and gently pushes it back down between my knees. I open my eyes and see a pair of pink flip-flops next to my muddy trainers, illuminated by the streetlight beside us. The woman’s toenails are painted a silvery colour.
‘How old is he?’ My voice sounds strangled and unfamiliar.
‘Listen, Kristie, I—’
‘How bloody old is he?’ I raise my head and meet the eyes of the woman sitting beside me, noticing with vague surprise that they are brimming over with tears.
‘Nine.’
The mental arithmetic takes me less than a second. I slump my head back against the concrete wall behind us. ‘I’m such an idiot.’
‘Listen…’ Lorena begins cautiously. ‘Harry didn’t know. Not for years.’
She speaks English very well, I find myself thinking distractedly, irrelevantly. Just a light accent.
Lorena takes a deep breath, perhaps psyching herself up to continue. ‘We met when he was a traveller, just passing through, and I was at college. He signed up for a city tour with my family’s company, and I met him sitting in reception. I couldn’t help it, it was one of those instant chemistry things…’
I wave my hand, trying not to gag, not wanting to hear details but at the same time needing to know everything.
‘What do you mean, your family’s company?’
Lorena blinks at me, perhaps wondering why I have chosen to hone in on the one piece of irrelevant information from everything she’s told me.
Except, to me, it’s not irrelevant.
‘Your family owned a travel agency?’ I persist.
‘Yes… my parents did, now I’ve taken it over… why does that…?’
I’m already shaking my head, feeling even more sick, remembering the night Harry tried to convince me I was imagining things, that his secret phone call had been to a travel agent, arranging a surprise trip away… the guilt I’d felt for ever suspecting Harry. The young voice answering the phone when I called back. My mum handles all that.
Nicholas.
‘Anyway, we started going out,’ Lorena continues, oblivious to the concentrated effort I am making to stop myself from vomiting on the pavement in front of us. ‘He had dinner at my house a few times, I showed him around the city. But I always knew he was leaving – he had a flight to Argentina, then after that he was starting university in England. I was sad when he left, of course. But we were so young. We both always knew what it was.’ She fiddles with the end of her long plait, pulling the hairband out, twisting it around and around her fingers in an endless nervous gesture. ‘But then I did a positive pregnancy test.’
My mind whizzes back through time and space to when I first saw Harry, stepping into our Spanish classroom with his inappropriate clothes and scraggly hair, confident smile, carefree attitude to everything. How long after his travels in South America was that? Six months? A year? I can’t remember the exact order of Harry’s life events before we were together. But I knew he went to Australia for a while before finally starting university. So, most likely at that very moment, unbeknownst to anyone, the course of events that has led us to this evening was already set in motion. It had already happened… Harry was already a father.
Lorena stares blankly out at the road before us, also transported back to another place and time long ago.
‘Luckily my parents supported me completely. They let me stay at home, stay in college. I had been a good student up until then… there were only a few months to go before graduation. I wore a long robe, but it was still obvious to everyone.’
I turn to stare at her, feeling a confusing mixture of emotions towards this woman. Jealousy, sympathy, resentment…
‘I made the decision right away not to tell Harry. What would have been the point? I knew he wasn’t coming back. He had told me all about his family, his father’s business, his university plans. And I didn’t want him to think I was asking for anything.’ She juts out her chin defiantly. ‘It was only much, much later, when Niko started asking about his father, that I finally realised Harry should at least be told. I owed my son that much. Of course it was up to Harry what he wanted to do with the information… and I didn’t promise Niko anything. But for his sake I felt I had to at least try. He was old enough by then to express his wishes… and he was determined he wanted to know more about his dad.’ She stops, twisting her hair around her fingers again, frowning out into the dark street. ‘I didn’t even know whether the message got through. I just had one email address. I had no idea what had happened to Harry or what he’d done with his life since he left here.’
‘How long ago was this?’ My voice is barely more than a whisper. ‘When did you tell him?’
‘Last year. Easter Sunday. I’ll never forget it. I’d had the email drafted up for ages, but… it took me until then to press send.’
My mind goes spinning back again, frantically trying to remember where we were, what Harry had been doing then, when it was that things started to turn strange between us. Was there a correlation?
‘He didn’t reply,’ Lorena whispers, answering my unvoiced question. ‘I spent a few weeks nervously checking my email every five minutes, then gradually went back to normal. I told Niko I simply hadn’t been able to trace his dad and we had to leave it there. He’s generally a happy kid… I think he was just getting to an age where they start to ask questions, you know? Especially looking like he does… so blond, different to all his friends here.’
Lorena barely seems aware of my presence any more as she loses herself in the recounting of her story. ‘I kept telling myself I was doing the right thing… not trying harder to find Harry. I knew there were ways to trace people if you really put your mind to it. But I met someone and got married three years ago. He treats Nicholas like a son. I was terrified of upsetting the delicate balance of that… our little family…’
She turns to me now, as if remembering I am here. ‘I never expected Harry just to book a flight and come out here. Or for how he behaved when he arrived – to be honest, he got a bit crazy. Phoning and emailing all the time. He even turned up at the house. And I was so angry to begin with… how could he ignore my email for over a year, then just decide to drop by, at his own convenience? I wasn’t sure I even wanted my son to meet someone like that.’
‘And then… you finally agreed to let them meet? This weekend?’ I don’t need Lorena’s answer. As she’s been speaking, all the missing pieces have been falling into place, piling on top of each other faster and faster like the end of a Tetris game. Harry, shouting down the phone in Spanish on our first day here. Harry, getting a job here and becoming increasingly vague about how long he wanted to stay, about our supposed travel plans. Harry, sitting outside a house in downtown Quito, his head in his hands. The repeated Skype calls. The lies.
Then, most painfully of all, his reluctance to leave Quito to go with me and help find my dad.
Fury bubbles up inside me, forcing me to my feet.
‘Kirsty, wait!’ Lorena scrambles to her feet, too. ‘I was angry at first, and didn’t want him to see Nicholas – but then I realised. The reason Harry didn’t reply for ages, the reason for all his strangeness, was you. He finally decided he should see his son, because he was on the brink of getting married and starting a family – with you. It’s so obvious.’
I’m already backing away from her, back through the garage towards the house.
‘He was so desperate for you not to find out about Nicholas, because he was desperate not to lose you. He loves you, Kirsty.’
My foot is on the first step to go up to the apartment, but I whirl round and turn on her angrily. ‘If that’s true, then why is it YOU sitting here now, finally telling me the truth? Instead of Harry?’ And why did he never tell me the truth, any time over the last year?
I charge back up the stairs and crash straight into Harry on his way down.
‘Kirsty! I was just coming to look for you. Please, can we…’
I push past him without even replying and march straight into the living room, grabbing my backpack from the floor where it had slid from my shoulder, forgotten about, just moments earlier. Nicholas is sitting on the edge of the sofa playing with some sort of handheld device, seemingly oblivious to the chaos unfolding around him. I gape at him again for a few seconds, unable to help myself, then go into the bedroom and, with a grim determination, start gathering armfuls of clothes and shoving them into the bag.
‘Kirsty, come on, for God’s sake – please!’ Harry is hovering in the doorway, and I can see Lorena marching up the stairs behind him, calling for Nicholas to put the tablet away and get his coat on.
Not caring that the backpack won’t zip shut and half my belongings are still in the wardrobe, I turn to run back down the stairs again. Lorena and I pass at the top and our eyes meet for a fleeting moment.
‘I’m sorry,’ she mutters, then I run past her back down the stairs and out into the street, flagging down the first taxi that passes.