Quito women’s prison is both much better and far worse than I’d expected. If you’d asked me what I had expected, I wouldn’t have been able to answer you, but all I know is that it was not this. From the moment we arrive, the feelings that swamp me are of deep disgust and intense amazement both at the same time.
I spend the journey from Liza and Roberto’s house to the prison, on the outskirts of downtown Quito, with my stomach in knots and my nails digging into the palms of my hands, nerves causing my heart to pound at the thought of entering the prison.
As Marion’s car slows to a stop at the end of a grotty and almost derelict street, and she reminds me yet again to watch my handbag as we get out of the car, I wonder, not for the first time today, what on earth I am doing here. It had seemed like such a good idea from the comfort of Liza and Roberto’s kitchen last week…
I stick close behind Marion as we walk hastily up to the prison entrance, not making eye contact with anyone in the small cluster of people, mainly men, loitering at its edges. We have to practically step over an older woman sitting on the very pavement, selling bottles of water and fizzy drinks straight out of an old plastic cooler bag at her feet. She waves a bottle of water at me as we pass, but I follow Marion’s example and ignore her.
Even the prison door itself is terrifying. Vast and black and heavy-looking, topped with rusting coils of barbed wire and spikes pointing up into the cloudless blue sky. I stare at it and tilt my neck back to see right to the top, trying not to imagine what horrors lie on the other side. My nerves become genuine fear and cause my legs to tremble as I stand behind Marion, who knocks once on the door then stands back with her arms folded, waiting. For one crazy, delirious moment I’m reminded of various fantasy adventure films from my childhood, and half expect a booming voice to call from the other side ‘Password?’
Instead, the metal bolt on the door slides back with a painful scraping sound and a short, middle-aged man in sun-faded prison-guard uniform silently gestures at us to enter.
As I step off the street and through the metal doorway I can’t help but imagine the hundreds, maybe thousands, of feet that have stepped over this threshold in the past, experiencing all the sights and sounds just as I am, but combined with the knowledge they won’t be stepping back over it again for a very long time. I can almost feel the ghostly eyes of all the prison’s occupants, past and present, observing me as I follow Marion inside.
The guard flicks through our documents – passports, and an authorisation letter Marion had already obtained on behalf of the Alma Libre charity – then nods at Marion and waves us through.
Keep it together, I tell myself, when what I really want to do is turn on my heel and run as fast and as far as I can away from here. Down to the end of this neglected old street with its stray dogs and boarded-up shops and loitering men. I would not stop running until I got back to the part of the city I knew; where the streets were lined with palm trees, not rusting cars, and where Quito still felt like a holiday destination.
Too late now, I realise, as we hear the heavy metal door clang shut behind us. I wonder again what each woman inside must have felt when she heard that sound.
The first thing that hits me is the smell. A combination of frying food, sewage, cleaning products, and the simple, horrible smell of lots and lots of people crammed into a small space.
Seconds later I notice the beautiful, magical singing coming from somewhere within the dirty, yellow-painted walls in front of us. Haunting, echoing, the sound of one hundred or more women’s voices rises and falls in and out of earshot over the background noise – banging pots, people calling to each other, cars hooting on the road outside. I realise they’re singing in Spanish. I can’t make out any words but the emotion and energy of the voices sends a shiver down my spine.
I stop and hesitate, just inside the doorway. Marion turns to look at me kindly. ‘You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, dear,’ she says, taking my arm.
‘No! No, it’s not that. I do want to,’ I lie. ‘It just… isn’t what I expected.’
Marion smiles. ‘Trust me, I remember that feeling. But you’re here at a good time. They’re just finishing worship. Come on, let’s go in.’
Worship? Thoroughly confused, I follow Marion across a small concrete courtyard. It’s surprisingly pleasant-looking – several potted plants dot the corners of the narrow area, some with bright red-and-pink flowers, and two benches line the side walls. It could be the back yard of any London apartment, in fact – until I look above me and see the wall going up and up, twenty feet above my head, crowned with angry coils of rusting barbed wire.
The courtyard is empty except for a female guard at the far end, leaning against the wall and looking down at what I take to be a mobile phone in her hands, an expression of crushing boredom on her face. Despite the relentless sun beating down on us, she’s dressed in a thick, dark-blue uniform and heavy boots, hair scraped back in a severe bun. Next to her is a black metal door festooned with several thick chains and padlocks, which I presume she is supposed to be guarding. I follow Marion towards her, and as we get closer, with a gulp of fear I notice what looks like a real gun stashed in her belt.
She and Marion exchange a few words in Spanish, then the guard lazily digs in her pocket, produces a tangle of keys and begins to unlock the padlocks one by one.
Eventually she finishes the last padlock and pushes the door open, gesturing for us to step forward. As soon as we’re over the threshold the door bangs shut behind us and I hear the metallic scraping of the bolt sliding back into place. I imagine the guard resuming her position against the wall and going back to her text message or game of Candy Crush or whatever she was doing.
‘Is that – it?’ I ask Marion incredulously, realising we are now inside the very bowels of the prison. I don’t know what I expected – some sort of check, a pat-down, an X-ray machine, a search of our pockets – something. In reality, all we have on us is a plastic bag containing an assortment of chocolate bars, some tatty Stephen King paperbacks and a notepad and pen. The first guard at the outer door had peered in it briefly, rummaged around a bit, taken one of the chocolate bars for himself, then waved us in. It feels almost like a wasted opportunity.
Marion nods. ‘Yep. That’s it. They all know me here. Christian missionaries pose no threat.’
At the sound of the door closing, I feel fifty pairs of eyes turn to stare at us. We’re in a wide outdoor corridor between two high buildings. Women of all shapes, sizes and ages line the corridor – some sat on benches, some leaning against the walls, some milling about in groups. A hushed silence falls as we enter, conversations ending abruptly as the women turn as one to stare at the two intruders.
‘Stay close to me, Kirsty, and keep your eyes forward,’ Marion commands, as we start to cross the corridor. We dodge smelly puddles of water on the bare concrete ground as I follow in her wake, practically trotting to keep up with her determined pace. She seems to have morphed into a totally different person with our step across the prison threshold. Gone is the twinkly-eyed, bubbly old lady from Liza’s kitchen, and in her place is a fierce, fearless warrior-woman. I resist the urge to cling to her arm as we pass just feet away from the inmates.
Fascinated despite my fear, I flick nervous glances left and right. On the bench nearest us, three young women are huddled together, engrossed in a game of cards. They are dressed in jeans and T-shirts or strappy tops, and look like they could easily have just walked in off the street ten minutes ago, as I did. Beside them on the bench an elderly woman in a tatty duffel coat is slumped against the wall, knees pulled tightly up to her chest, staring into the middle distance and muttering to herself. I look away quickly and see a group of girls, no older than twenty, standing smoking and chatting, but also watching us carefully with sidelong glances as we walk past. Behind them, cross-legged on the floor and observing everything around her peacefully, is a young woman with the unmistakable almond eyes and childlike innocence of Down’s syndrome.
The noise of chatter and laughter gradually resumes as we walk past and they forget we are there. Meanwhile, in the background, the singing is always present, rising and falling with the gentle rhythm of a hymn. It is growing louder and closer as we near the end of the corridor.
Within minutes, I realise I am having to re-assimilate my ideas of what a prison should look like. No standing in lines, no uniforms…
‘That’s where the sewing and art workshops are.’ Marion indicates a window to our right, not slowing her pace to allow me to look inside. ‘Where most of the handicrafts come from.’
I glimpse women bustling in and out of the doorway to the workshop, and hear the clamour of voices and activity from inside. I look up past its smeared windows to the two buildings on either side of us, painted the same dirty yellow colour as the outer walls. They each rise at least three storeys high, and are dotted with rows of little metal-barred windows. I stare up in amazement; from each window hangs a colourful assortment of drying laundry – dresses, jeans, bras, T-shirts – dangling from wooden poles and metal wires.
‘They’re the two main wings – where the women live,’ says Marion. ‘They’re allowed outside here most of the day, but then have to go in for lockdown at night. You’ll see inside later, I’m sure.’
I feel a tremor of fear, but also an exhilarating stab of defiance at the thought of going right inside the prison, to its very heart. Harry had been trying to persuade me against coming here right up until I left this morning. ‘But you’re here on holiday,’ he kept saying. ‘Yes, and so are you!’ I had finally answered back sharply as I ran down the steps to meet Marion outside. ‘But the first thing you did when we arrived was get a job.’ I can’t help but smile to myself, remembering the sight of Harry standing at the top of the stairs, still in his pyjamas, hair tousled and brow furrowed in confusion as it finally dawned on him I was going ahead with this. All he managed to reply was, ‘Right… be careful then. I hope you know what you’re doing.’ Well, as a matter of fact, I do know what I’m doing. What was it my boss, Angela, said when I asked her for the sabbatical to go travelling? I’m so pleased to see you actually making a decision. Okay, maybe that’s not exactly what she said, but I’m sure it’s what she meant. And now I have. Decided to do something that is entirely driven by my own interest, not even slightly related to what Harry wants.
I realise with a shock that – despite my still-trembling legs, and considerable fear at being inside what is probably one of the most dangerous prisons of the modern world – it feels great.
We’ve reached the end of the corridor now and there is another black metal door identical to the one with the bored guard. Except this one is partly open and unmanned. The singing is really loud now, and I can tell it is coming from just the other side of the door. Marion indicates for me to go through first, and the sight I see the other side is something that will stay with me for the rest of my life.
We’re in a concrete courtyard, about the size and shape of a school playground, surrounded on all sides by high, corrugated-metal walls. At each end there is a tatty basketball net on a metal post, and under our feet I notice broken and faded football-pitch lines. But the thing that takes my breath away and causes me to stop dead in the doorway, forcing Marion to crash into my back, is the sight of row upon row of women standing and singing with all their energy. Old, young, black, white, tall and slim, short and hunched, blonde hair and red hair and afro hair and – in one instance – bright-blue Mohican spikes, everyone lined up in orderly rows, at least a hundred of them. At the far end of the courtyard and facing the throng are three women, smartly dressed and raising their arms in encouragement, wide smiles on their faces as they sing, too.
‘They’re just finishing,’ mutters Marion in my ear. ‘They usually do this one last. We can just stand here and wait.’
Some of the women nearest us turn their heads and smile at us in recognition. Well, presumably at Marion. A blonde girl near the back stops singing completely and turns to wave enthusiastically at us.
I can make out the words now – all in Spanish – You gave me a name. You did not forget me. I am your daughter. Because you loved me…
It is impossible not to be moved by the raw passion behind the words. I realise it is a hymn and they are singing to God. I haven’t sung a hymn since primary school assemblies, nor felt the slightest need to, but something about the song sends a chill down my spine and makes unexpected tears prick my eyes. It isn’t just a hymn. It’s a hundred women standing up and insisting they still have voices, that they count, that they will not be forgotten.
Looking at some of the women nearest us I notice their faces are contorted with emotion. Some have tears rolling down their cheeks, others are raising their arms in the air as they sing with complete abandon. It reminds me of a weird evangelical church I went to once with a girl from my commercial law class at uni. Everyone went a bit crazy and started wailing and waving their arms around, while I stood awkwardly at the back wishing I was at home with a cup of hot chocolate and a book. Except, now, the emotion feels wholly real, and instead of feeling awkward, I find myself somehow humbled.
The singing gradually fades out on the last line, ‘Because you loved me… Because you loved me…’, but before it’s even fully finished, the blonde woman who waved at us is breaking from the crowd and bounding over.
As the last words echo around the courtyard she grabs Marion and the two women embrace in a heartfelt hug.
‘I didn’t realise you were coming today!’ she beams, still holding tightly to Marion’s hands, ‘How are you, and how’s Gabi? She must be nearly ready to – wait! Who’s this?’ Her whole demeanour changes as she releases Marion and eyes me suspiciously, taking a step back.
‘Naomi, don’t worry. This is Kirsty. She’s from England, too – she’s travelling in Ecuador with her boyfriend and wanted to come along today. They’re staying with Liza and Roberto… you know, the ones who… erm, do you remember them?’
As soon as Liza and Roberto’s names are mentioned, Naomi’s face changes again, but this time she sags in relief and turns to smile at me. ‘So, you’re English, too? Fuck me.’ She leans forward to give me a kiss on the cheek.
I blink, trying to arrange my features into an expression that says this is all totally normal for me, I visit prisons all the time and am not scared AT ALL, then kiss her back.
‘Sorry. I thought you were some kind of lawyer or something,’ she continues. ‘Speaking of which, is there any news from that bloody woman? Has she got my papers translated yet?’ Naomi turns back to Marion, and the hope etched on her face is heartbreaking, even though I don’t have a clue what she’s talking about. I realise how young she looks. I know from Marion she’s several years older than me, so well past thirty, but something about her swinging blonde ponytail and open face with its big, brown eyes makes her appear much younger. She’s wearing jeans and an ugly pink T-shirt that looks as though it once belonged to someone much wider than her. The only concession to my idea of a stereotypical female prisoner is the little swirling tattoo behind her ear.
Marion’s face is all the answer Naomi needs. ‘I’m so sorry, love, no news yet. But hey, why don’t we go inside and talk about this? In private…’
As we’ve been talking, the throng of women has dispersed, some staying in the courtyard to stand around and talk or bounce a ball, and many of them pushing straight past us through the door into the corridor. The enchanting peace of the singing has well and truly disappeared, replaced with the more predictable clamour of talking, shouting and laughing from a hundred women crammed into a small space.
‘Yeah, good idea, come up to my cell,’ Naomi says, in the casual way a person in the real world, back home, a thousand light years away, might say ‘Come over for a cuppa’. She’s already started walking away from us, swaggering in a manly style that totally belies her slight, feminine frame.
My… CELL? My mind is instantly flooded with images of a dingy, windowless room dripping sewage from a crack in the ceiling, knife scratches on the bare wall counting down endless lost days, a hundred pairs of eyes staring at us hungrily from behind rusting metal bars as we walk past them down a long corridor… the sound of tormented wailing as the electric current takes hold of a man’s body, convulsing in agony until even his head bursts into flames…
Oh no, wait… that’s The Green Mile.
Even so, I suddenly want nothing more than to leg it out of here, all thoughts of being independent and showing Harry how fearless I am totally forgotten.
‘Um, Marion, I’m not sure I want to…’ I realise I’m tugging at her sleeve in the pathetic way I’ve tried to resist doing all morning. ‘Surely we can’t just walk into the…’
Marion isn’t listening to me, as the two women who were leading the singing are waving at her and shouting something incoherent from the other end of the courtyard.
‘SEE YOU AT CHURCH!’ She yells back at them, waving manically. ‘DON’T FORGET TO BRING MY CAKE STAND!’
She turns back to me, smiling broadly. ‘What were you saying, dear? Oh, look, hurry up and follow Naomi, we don’t want to get left behind out here.’
Before I can protest any further, Marion is leading me by the arm across the corridor and through a narrow doorway, into one of the two main prison buildings. As soon as we’re out of the sunshine, we’re hit by a suffocating smell of cooking, body odour, and something else that is harder to place and even less pleasant.
Trying to breathe through my mouth, I follow Marion along narrow corridors, up two flights of spiralling stairs, past open doors to little offices where women in guard uniform are talking loudly on the phone and clacking away on typewriters – yes, typewriters – up more stairs, then along another corridor where we finally catch up with Naomi.
‘There you are – I thought you two had got kidnapped for a minute!’ she laughs loudly, clapping me on the back.
As my eyes become accustomed to the dim light, I realise we’re in a long corridor with doors branching off to either side, strangely reminiscent of my old dorms at university. The doors and corridor walls are all painted a horrible sludgy cream colour, probably called Magnolia Glow or something gross like that. Dirty fingerprints, muddy stains and illegible graffiti messages in biro dot the walls. A string of purple fairy lights is hung above our heads, taped to the wall with masking tape along the whole length of the corridor.
‘Let me just check it’s free, and we’ll go in.’ Naomi thumps her fist on a door to her left. ‘ANYONE HERE?’ she yells.
‘Sí! Yo! Vicky!’ A voice calls back from the other side of the door, and I recognise her Ecuadorian accent. ‘I’m naked! Hold on a minute!’
Naomi bawls back in perfect Spanish, ‘Put a towel on then! My missionary people are here!’
Before the other woman has a chance to reply, Naomi is swinging the door open and we’re met with the sight of a young woman scrambling to cover her naked body and bulging stomach with a towel, her dripping wet hair flying in all directions.
‘Naomi, you’re a nightmare!’ she shouts, still in Spanish, thumping Naomi affectionately on the arm as she clasps the towel behind her with her other hand. ‘I jumped in the shower while everyone was singing. It’s the only time you can get any peace – oh, hi, Marion! Good to see you.’ She leans forward to give Marion a kiss on the cheek. ‘I’ll go get changed in the bathroom before everyone comes flooding back.’ Without even a glance at me, she squeezes past us and heads slowly off down the corridor, with the unmistakable awkward waddle of a woman just weeks away from giving birth.
I stare after her in amazement, my mind flooded with questions I don’t have the courage to ask.
‘Welcome… to my humble abode,’ Naomi says drily, motioning for us to enter the room behind her. ‘Don’t mind Victoria, my “roommate”.’ She chuckles ironically.
I realise why Victoria had to leave the room before we could enter. There would have barely been enough space for the three of us, even without Victoria’s bump. Marion and I can just about stand side by side in the tiny square of bare wooden floor in the centre of the room. Flashes of hot-pink painted walls are visible between the rickety metal bunk beds taking up most of the room, and other odd bits of furniture, photos, pictures and a calendar. I notice one of the photos is of Naomi, looking younger and happier, her arms around a small older couple, presumably her parents.
Naomi has slumped on the bottom bunk, all her previous swagger and cockiness evaporated as she buries her head in her hands, looking suddenly smaller.
‘The money from your mum arrived,’ Marion says, rummaging in her blouse, producing a small envelope from inside her bra and handing it to Naomi.
Naomi takes it wordlessly, then counts out eighty dollars and nods. ‘Thanks. Thank God, now I can pay back that sodding woman from room six,’ she mutters. ‘I need to get another data plan on my mobile. It works out even more expensive to keep borrowing other people’s internet – they know we’re desperate, us foreigners. They know it’s the only way we can speak to family back home. So they charge whatever the fuck they want. With interest.’
I’m staring back and forth between Marion and Naomi in silent astonishment. At this harmless old lady who can smuggle hard cash into a prison inside her bra without batting an eyelid. And even more so at Naomi’s talk of mobile phones, internet, and Skype. Again, my mind churns with questions that I feel unable to ask.
‘Your Spanish is really excellent,’ I say awkwardly to Naomi.
‘Huh, that’s the upside of prison here,’ she mutters from behind her hands. ‘Free Spanish lessons. All day, every day. To eat, to wash, to see the doctor. If you don’t speak Spanish, you die.’
Marion sits down on the side of the bed next to Naomi, having to duck her head under the top bunk, the whole mattress sagging beneath her weight.
I look around for somewhere else to sit, realise there isn’t anywhere, then curl up cross-legged on the floor opposite the bunks.
‘Not everyone learns Spanish like you, dear,’ Marion says, and something tells me this is a speech she’s given many times before. ‘Some foreign men and women get put in jail here, and sink into a despair of drink and drugs, leaving worse than when they arrived. Some never leave, at least not alive. You’ve used your time productively, achieved so much.’
‘Well, learning fluent Spanish isn’t much use if they won’t let me translate those fucking documents myself, is it?’ Naomi scowls, her voice full of bitterness. ‘We all know I’d probably do a better job than any of those stuck-up lawyers anyway. They just take your money then never come back.’
‘Naomi has not only learnt Spanish, but taken part in every workshop the prison has offered over the last eight years,’ Marion explains to me, ignoring Naomi’s negativity. ‘Sewing, IT skills, aerobics, dance, woodwork, painting. There’s actually a lot on offer from the prison authorities, if people want to take advantage of it. Most don’t. It’s far easier to fall into drugs and depression. But Naomi has kept incredibly busy.’
‘It’s the only way not to go completely insane,’ Naomi grumbles under her breath. ‘The problem is that having all these certificates of achievement, good conduct, blah blah blah…. is USELESS if they’re not recognised by the UK, too. It’s like being at bloody school again. Except you can never leave. And this time, I’m thirty-three and just want to get home and see my kids.’ Her voice wobbles and she turns away from us, scowling.
‘As I explained before, Naomi is one of the many prisoners applying for a sentence reduction under the new law,’ Marion continues explaining patiently to me. ‘She was caught at Quito airport with two kilograms of cocaine. If she were caught today, that would be a sentence of three to five years. But she’s already served six.’
‘With three to go… if everything goes smoothly.’ Naomi sighs.
‘The system is a lot fairer now,’ Marion explains. ‘So obviously everyone sentenced under the old law is applying for a reduction. As I told you, it’s chaos. The government is doing what they can to process them all, but it’s turning out that foreign prisoners are falling to the back of the line. Any participation in workshops and good conduct certificates stand in your favour. But foreign prisoners must have everything translated into their native language, and approved by their home government as well, before Ecuador can grant them the reduction.’
At this, Naomi makes a kind of huffing, growling noise.
‘And it’s not as easy as it looks,’ Marion continues. ‘The embassies help to get the papers approved, but the actual translations have to be done by a professional lawyer, or at least a qualified translator with legal knowledge.’
As we all lapse into silence, the seed of an idea starts to take root in my mind.
‘Naomi, I really think we should give up on that last lady,’ Marion says gently. ‘I know it’s terribly disappointing, but I don’t think she’s coming back. We always knew there were con artists out there. I’ll call the embassy and ask for their help with finding someone else.’
The seed sprouts further into life, blossoming into genuine excitement.
Could I?
My heart starts beating faster, filling me with a real sense of purpose for the first time in as long as I can remember.
‘How are the kids?’ Marion is asking Naomi, clearly trying to change the subject. ‘Have you called home lately?’
Without answering Marion’s question, Naomi jerks her head up to look me straight in the eye. ‘Do you have children, Kirsty?’
Caught off guard, I’m hit full force with the old, familiar longing to be able to say ‘yes’ when someone asks me that question. To be able to light up and talk about my little ones, maybe get out a photo, tell a few funny stories about what they’ve been doing or their latest new words. I haven’t really thought about it since we arrived in Ecuador as there have been so many new things to see and experience. But I suppose it’s been lying dormant inside me all along, waiting for a moment like this to flood my heart and close up my throat with longing.
‘No,’ I say quietly. ‘No children. Hopefully one day.’
Something softens in Naomi’s face and she loses the intense, almost angry expression she’s been directing at me. ‘Hopefully one day you will,’ she says, sounding like she really means it. ‘Let me show you mine.’
She reaches down under the bottom bunk and pulls out what looks like an old pillowcase. Inside the case is a small metal box. Naomi stands up and rummages around on a shelf opposite the bed, knocking over perfume bottles and picture frames. From somewhere on the shelf she produces a tiny set of keys and crouches down in the cramped space on the floor next to me, opening the box. She pulls out an old, fake-leather diary with ‘KEEP CALM AND DRINK COFFEE’ emblazoned across the front in shiny brown letters.
Slowly, reverently, as if pulling the first golden relic from Tutankhamun’s tomb, Naomi slides a tatty little photo from the back of the diary, and holds it up to me.
It’s a picture of three grinning, blonde-haired kids, two boys and a girl, all slumped across a sofa, looking as if they’ve just disentangled themselves from a play-fight for long enough to be snapped in the photo. The eldest looks about twelve, his lanky arms and legs sprawled around his siblings. The next one is a couple of years younger, his face still chubby with puppy fat and lit up with a cheeky smile, his fingers making a ‘V’ sign behind his older brother’s head.
The little girl, no more than four, has one arm wrapped around her oldest brother’s leg, the other raised to her mouth, sucking her thumb, a bewildered expression in her bright-blue eyes at being taken by surprise by the camera.
‘They don’t look like that anymore,’ Naomi says quietly. ‘This was taken a couple of years after I… left. But it’s my favourite picture of them.’ Her thumb strokes the photo in a barely noticeable, instinctive caress.
‘The oldest is Dario. He’s just passed his driving test. Seventeen – the age I was when I had him – how is that even possible, for God’s sake?’ She chuckles, looking down at the photo, sharing a private joke with her eldest son, who can’t hear her. ‘The last time I saw him his voice hadn’t even broken.’
‘The next one is Leo. He got caught smoking in the playground last month. I thought my mother was going to kill him. She had to go into the school and everything… it should have been me. But he’s a good child, deep down, I know that.’
I notice silent tears are rolling down Naomi’s cheeks, which she bats away impatiently as she speaks, as if they were no more than an inconvenience.
‘And the baby… Maya… she’s not a baby any more, of course. She’s eight now. She nearly died last year. Rushed to hospital with appendicitis. It turned into blood poisoning, they only just caught it in time. The embassy came here and told me, all suits and briefcases and hushed voices. It was the worst moment of my life.’ The tears start rolling freely down Naomi’s cheeks now, and she no longer attempts to wipe them away.
‘She was only two when I came here. I still have no idea what I was thinking. Kirsty, believe me, you can regret something every minute of every day with every breath, until you want to eat yourself alive just to make the guilt and regret go away.’
I have no idea what to say.
‘They’re very beautiful children,’ I eventually manage, in a whisper.
‘My ex’s mother got custody of them, temporarily. But at least she lets them go to my mum’s house regularly, and I can see them when I Skype call my parents.’
Naomi takes a deep breath and slides the photo back into the diary, then lays the diary back in the box with immense care.
We all sit in silence for a few minutes, and I can’t help feeling as emotionally drained as if I’d just survived a shipwreck or plane crash.
‘And what about your father?’ Naomi suddenly breaks the silence, jerking her head to look at me, the intense expression back as her brown eyes bore into mine.
‘Honey, I don’t think you should—’ Marion tries to be diplomatic, but Naomi isn’t listening.
‘Your father – is he alive?’ she presses on.
I nod, unable to find the words.
‘Well, good for you,’ Naomi says dully, ‘mine’ll be dead soon. Stomach cancer.’
There’s a horrified silence as I swallow back my shock.
‘They’re supposed to be considering my case on a compassionate basis,’ she spits, looking at the floor. ‘They promised to carry out the review of my sentence promptly based on my father’s condition. But of course they need proof – medical documents, letters, statements from my poor dad himself. And, guess what? All that needs translating into Spanish before the authorities here will even look at it.’ She hangs her head and fiddles with the edge of the patchwork bed cover.
‘Is there… any more news?’ Marion asks tentatively.
‘Yeah.’ Naomi still doesn’t look up. ‘Spoke to Mum yesterday. Apparently he’s only got weeks left. The doctors have made it “official” now, and told him to “start getting his affairs in order”, whatever that means. So, unless some kind of miracle happens with my sentence appeal, I’ll never see him again.’
I want to say ‘I’m so sorry, that must be really hard, I can’t imagine what you’re going through’, or any number of other platitudes I’ve learnt over the years from the solicitors at work when faced with people in the midst of their own worst nightmares. I look at Naomi, a woman barely older than me yet with such a harrowing past behind her already – far away from the children she adores, and facing the loss of her beloved father at any moment. I think of the children I have always yearned for, the comfortable naivety with which I took for granted they would come along one day and never be separated from me. Then I think of my own father, and the distance between us that we ourselves have imposed, with no thought for the fragility of life or the briefness of the time available to us. Looking at Naomi’s face now and seeing the desperation in her eyes, a wave of shame and regret washes over me for the way I have deliberately distanced myself from my own father for so long.
I want to tell Naomi all this, explain to her how, after just this brief meeting, she has already changed me. I want to say many things, but something goes wrong in the connection between my brain and my voice, and what I find myself saying is:
‘I’ll do your translations.’