Pieces of My Life

by Rachel Dann

  ‘Come over, then!’ she calls, grinning and making an impatient flapping gesture with the hand not holding the cigarette. I resist the urge to run flat out towards her and fall gratefully into her arms. Play it cool, I tell myself, walking as calmly as possible across the courtyard towards her and her group, feeling the eyes of the other women following my every step. I can’t help feeling as nervous as if I were in the school playground and the cool girls had just called me over to hang out with them. Not that I would even know what that felt like.

  Naomi teeters forward in her stiletto heels to meet me halfway and wrap me in an enormous hug.

  ‘You look… amazing!’ I exclaim, unable to hide my surprise. I had been dreading seeing what state she’d be in after the news of her dad, and certainly hadn’t expected this. ‘How are you… how do you feel?’

  ‘Oh, I’m great,’ Naomi says with a dismissive wave, sending her cigarette flying disdainfully across the courtyard. ‘No point moping about, is there?’ She grabs my hand. ‘Come on, let me introduce you to the girls.’ Then she stops, turns and looks at me again, frowns, and says ‘Wait, Kirsty, are you okay?’ She is peering closely into my face now, so close that I can see the electric blue mascara painstakingly deployed on every lash. ‘You look a bit… rough. No, I’m just going to come out and say it – you look awful.’

  Taken completely aback, I look down at my mud-soaked jeans and baggy hoodie, and raise my hands to touch my make-upless face and tied-back hair.

  ‘Well, it was raining all morning, and I had to travel halfway across Quito…’ I begin defensively. Naomi is holding on to both my hands now.

  ‘I didn’t mean that,’ she says, more gently. ‘I meant you just look… so… stressed. Different to last time. Has something happened?’

  Already feeling myself relax in Naomi’s company I am almost overwhelmed with the desire to open up, to tell her how confused and worried I feel about my discovery on the computer this morning. Not only that… but also the underlying sense of loneliness that, if I’m honest with myself, has lingered with me ever since we got here… living side by side with Harry yet feeling further away from him than ever. I really had thought getting out of our daily routine and exploring a new culture together was exactly what our relationship needed. But ever since we arrived in Ecuador the differences between Harry and me have only become more pronounced. More… painful.

  To my utter horror and mortification, I realise tears are dribbling unbidden down my cheeks.

  ‘Right, you’re coming with me,’ Naomi says, sounding appallingly like my mother and tugging on my arm for me to follow her.

  Instead of taking me to her room, Naomi continues dragging me by the arm further down her corridor to a small kitchen area at the end. The tiny space is almost entirely taken up with a folding metal table, at which is sat a middle-aged woman in a dressing gown, staring morosely at an unopened Pot Noodle in front of her. A saucepan of water has just started to boil on the little gas stove, the only other item of furniture in the draughty, cramped room.

  ‘Buenos días, Paula,’ Naomi says briskly, pushing past. ‘We’re just going up to the…’ She flicks her gaze upwards. ‘You know what to do if anyone asks.’

  Paula doesn’t look up, even when my bum grazes the back of her head as I squeeze through the gap between her and the wall. ‘Um, sorry, perdóname,’ I mutter as she makes no effort to slide her chair in and let me past.

  ‘Paula’s a crackhead,’ Naomi tells me matter-of-factly as she indicates for me to follow her. ‘But she won’t say anything about where we’re going.’ She opens a door at the back of the kitchen and we step out on to a flimsy metal fire escape.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I peer nervously down at the prison courtyard several floors below us, especially the two guards standing directly beneath our feet.

  ‘The roof.’ Naomi grins wickedly. ‘So you can’t have a full-on crying meltdown yet. You’ve got to pull yourself up.’

  Without waiting for a response she whips round, steps up on to a wooden crate I suspect has been left here for this very purpose, reaches above her head and grabs hold of a ledge just above us. She makes a grunting sound and for a moment her stiletto-clad feet flail in the air, level with my face, then her voice is above me, laughing, and she’s lying on her stomach, extending a hand over the edge to me.

  ‘Come on then!’

  I take her hands and do my best to launch myself off from the crate. For a few dizzying seconds I feel nothing below me and only Naomi’s skinny hands gripping my wrists. Then I’m landing on my stomach next to her and rolling over to see the cloudy, grey sky above us, and hear my own laughter joining Naomi’s.

  ‘Oh, wow, this is actually the prison roof,’ I say stupidly as we haul ourselves to our feet.

  ‘Yep. Well, the roof of wing B, anyway.’ Naomi releases my hands and brushes the dust off her front. ‘And it’s only accessible from the kitchen on our corridor. I don’t think it’s possible in the other wing – I’ve never seen anyone else up here.’

  I follow Naomi’s gaze to the identical roof of wing A running parallel to ours. Our vantage point is just a small rectangle of asphalt with a scattering of gravel, cigarette butts and the odd crisp packet, but it allows a perfect panoramic view of the prison grounds, Quito, and beyond. Lifting my gaze higher than the grey prison courtyard and its smell of cooking wafting up from below us, I drink in the view of the city stretching out beyond it, sunlight just peeking through the clouds after the rain to glint off car windscreens and shop fronts, and the expanse of dark-green mountains rising up behind it all.

  ‘It’s amazing, isn’t it?’ Naomi says quietly, coming to stand beside me. ‘From up here, I feel like I’m actually in Ecuador… experiencing it properly. Seeing the country’s beautiful side.’ She turns and spins on the spot, taking in the whole view – the tall spires of the cathedral outlined on the horizon in the south, the flashing billboards of cinemas and shopping centres in the north, and all around us the mountains. ‘Up here is the closest I ever feel to being free.’

  Naomi stops spinning and laughs. ‘God, that was cheesy, wasn’t it?’ She nods at my bulging hoodie pocket. ‘Are you going to get that chocolate out then?’

  I dig out a chocolate bar and throw it to her.

  ‘Ohhhhh…. Twix,’ Naomi murmurs, flopping down on the floor and ripping open the packet. ‘How I’ve missed Twixes.’

  I can’t help but laugh. She looks totally ridiculous, taking great ravenous bites out of the chocolate bar, her mouth chewing exaggeratedly half-open like a cow’s and her face radiating bliss.

  ‘I’m sorry about just now, downstairs,’ I mutter, sitting down beside her. ‘I certainly didn’t mean to come here and pour out my problems to you.’

  Naomi smiles. ‘Don’t worry. You’re far away from home, your family, friends… I know how hard that is, trust me. You don’t have to be in prison to feel lonely, and need someone to confide in.’ She pauses to take another big bite of chocolate. ‘I’ve bawled my eyes out to Marion and Gabi so many times over the years. Even that poor bloke from the embassy has had me snivel and sob all over him before.’

  ‘Sebastian?’

  Even through my anguish, I feel a strange jolt of something when saying his name out loud.

  ‘That’s the one – poor bastard. It was awful.’ She puts her hands over her face in exaggerated shame. ‘The day he came to tell me about Maya being in hospital, with her appendix, I just couldn’t get a grip on myself. Got big black mascara tears and snot all down his shirt – he just sat and hugged me. And I don’t think they’re supposed to do that.’

  For a moment I leave aside my own pain to imagine Sebastian crouched alongside Naomi in the tiny floor space of her cell, holding her as she cried for her daughter.

  Naomi fumbles in a back pocket for something.

  ‘Do you mind if I smoke?’

  ‘Um, no, course not. It’s your… roof.’

 
She lights the cigarette and closes her eyes in bliss, exhaling a plume of smoke. Then her eyes flick open again and she puts her hand over her mouth. ‘Sorry! How rude of me. D’ya want one?’

  I haven’t smoked a cigarette since I was fifteen and my friend Chantal and I used to hide in the public toilets by the beach after school, huddled over our illicit purchases, trying to light them against the evening sea breeze that came in through the broken window. It had lasted about two weeks, then someone walked in on us and I jumped so quickly into one of the cubicles that I dropped the cigarette and burnt a hole in the sleeve of my school jumper. Later that evening my mum saw it, and that was the end of that.

  Oh, to hell with it.

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘Right, I’m going to light this for you and then you can tell me what’s happened… if you want.’

  I lean forward and let Naomi light it for me, then take a clumsy drag. It tastes just as disgusting as I expect it to, but the dizzy feeling spreads pleasantly from behind my eyes down into my toes. I watch the smoke float away on the breeze. I think of Harry’s strange behaviour since we arrived in Ecuador, the phone calls, the secrecy, and decide to spare Naomi the details. After all, I’m supposed to be here to comfort her, not the other way around. Nevertheless, the desire to open up to her is almost overwhelming. I realise how much I’ve missed having someone to talk to – my friends, Chloe, even my mum. I look over at Naomi, sitting cross-legged on the prison roof, waiting patiently for me to talk. I suppose it wouldn’t do any harm to talk to her a bit….

  ‘I just thought it would be different,’ I say eventually, choosing my words carefully. ‘You know, coming here with Harry. I thought it would do our relationship good, but actually it’s like he’s become a different person out here.’ I take another drag of the cigarette to hide the wobble in my voice. ‘And now, today, I’ve become sure he’s hiding something from me.’ Saying the words out loud makes them more real, cementing the terrible fact in my mind. I swipe my sleeve across my face to hide the tears that are now spilling over. ‘I don’t know what yet, and I’m going to have to confront him…’

  ‘He’s not into drugs, is he?’ Naomi chuckles, leaning over to punch me playfully on the leg.

  I know she’s only kidding. I know she’s just trying to cheer me up. But even so, I can’t quite bring myself to laugh back. Three weeks ago, I would have laughed out loud at the very idea. But then, three weeks ago, Harry and I were still safely coexisting in Fenbridge. Since arriving in Ecuador, I’ve begun to realise anything can happen.

  ‘Anyway, sorry, Naomi.’ I straighten up, deciding it’s definitely time to change the subject. ‘I came here to cheer you up. Not pour out my woes.’

  ‘But you have cheered me up!’ Naomi’s face lights up. ‘You brought me Twix bars, for fuck’s sake! And… it’s been really nice to just, like… hang out.’ She shrugs at the space around us. ‘With someone who’s not, you know, from here. It’s like a bubble in this place, the same faces every bloody day. And there are only so many conversations you can have about who has to wash the dishes, who blocked the toilet, whose turn it is to send out for cigarettes… without going totally mad.’

  I feel disproportionately happy to hear this. We smile at each other, and suddenly I am filled with something more than just the pity and admiration I felt towards Naomi on my first visit here. I look at her with a new trust, and the face smiling back at me is suddenly no longer that of a prisoner, a person from a different world… it is the face of a friend, a contemporary, someone I could be having a drink with at the pub. Someone also here in Ecuador, far away from home, facing a situation so far out of her own control and understanding.

  ‘So… how is your dad doing?’ I finally brave the question. ‘Is there any… news?’

  Naomi’s smile fades and something about her face visibly hardens. Looking down and realising the chocolate wrapper in her hands is now empty, she drops it and fumbles for another cigarette.

  She takes a long drag, staring fixedly at mountains on the horizon, her hazel-brown eyes suddenly cold.

  ‘They’ve said he’ll probably only last another week or so,’ she says finally, still staring into the distance. ‘It’s reached what they call the “end stage” faster than expected.’

  ‘God… I’m so sorry,’ I whisper uselessly.

  ‘His organs are starting to fail,’ she continues matter-of-factly. ‘So it’s just a case of “keeping him comfortable” now, that’s what Mum says.’

  Abruptly she yanks something else from her back pocket and shoves it into my hands.

  ‘Look, this is us in Great Yarmouth, years ago. I was still living with them then, just before I met my ex and got pregnant with Dario. My sister took the picture. That’s the last holiday we went on as a family.’

  I look down at the photo, remembering it from my visit last week, when it had been stuck up on the wall beside the bunk beds. In it, Naomi is wearing a bright-purple hoodie and beaming back at the camera, with none of the hardness in her face that I now see. Standing between her parents she has one arm around each of their shoulders. Both shorter than her, and smiling awkwardly at the camera in that way only older people can, they look like anyone’s parents – normal, kind, safe.

  I hand the photo back to her. ‘You know, you can talk to me whenever you want. I can come and visit again.’ Said out loud the words sound empty, but I mean them from the depths of my heart.

  ‘Thanks.’ She stares down at the photo for a few more seconds, then slides it back into her pocket. ‘I know it’s silly to carry it around with me all the time, especially in a place like this. But it helps me feel closer to them somehow.’ We sit in silence for several more minutes, watching the traffic lights change colour in the town centre below us and the line of cars snake its way out of town towards the mountainside in the distance.

  ‘Hey, I’m sorry about that phone call last night.’ Naomi finally breaks the silence. ‘I was just having a low moment.’ She pulls herself into a crouching position and starts gathering up the chocolate wrappers from the floor. ‘I really love my dad. He was always the one I was closest to, more than my mum, you know?’

  I really don’t, I think wistfully.

  ‘But you can’t let yourself mope. If I’d carried on today the way I was yesterday… fuck. That’s why I tarted myself up this morning.’ She stands up and makes an exaggerated pirouette, laughing. ‘In this place, once you sink into a depression you just don’t get out of it again. I’ve seen it happen.’

  Fleetingly I think of Paula, probably still in the kitchen below us with her Pot Noodle. ‘You’re incredibly strong.’

  She chuckles again. ‘You want to see strong? Come on, let’s go and introduce you to some of the girls. You haven’t got much longer, it’s nearly lunchtime and they’ll come round kicking out the visitors soon.’

  We scramble back down on to the fire escape, past Paula, and back into the maze of corridors towards the main prison courtyard. As we head along the outdoor corridor containing the handicraft workshops I notice heads turn to stare at us, probably wondering whether I’m the latest arrival and what I’m in for. I stick close behind Naomi, although the feeling of nerves and vulnerability I experienced on the first visit with Marion has receded; already I feel more at ease here. Naomi seems to know everyone, waving and stopping to greet people with cheek-kisses and fist bumps.

  We stop outside one of the workshop doors and Naomi leans around it, yelling ‘Arianaaaaaaa!’

  After a few moments a young woman comes out, scowling and dusting off her hands, which I notice in horror are covered in a thick white powder.

  Surely it can’t be… cocaine?

  ‘Jesus, do you want to shout any louder, woman?’ she says to Naomi in thickly accented English, then the two women are hugging and clapping each other on the back.

  ‘Eeeeeek! You’re covering me in flour!’ Naomi shrieks, pulling away and frantically dusting herself off. On
ly then do I notice that the other woman is wearing a dark-blue apron and a hairnet over her long, dyed-red ponytail.

  Flour. Of course. It’s only flour.

  ‘Kirsty, this is Ariana, she’s from Italy.’ We exchange a soggy, floury handshake. ‘She’s here for the same thing as me.’ Naomi answers my unspoken question.

  ‘Er, I do not think so!’ Ariana laughs. ‘I was carrying half the amount you were. And it was not inside my stomach.’

  Naomi punches her playfully on the arm. ‘What, and strapping it to your bra is a much cleverer idea?’ She turns to me.

  ‘Ariana was a “newbie” like me,’ she explains, laughing cynically. ‘One offer from the wrong person, one very tempting offer, the chance to fix your financial problems and start again… that’s all it took for us stupid suckers. Sneaked around for months… lied to our families… got caught on the first run.’

  Something about Naomi’s words sends a shiver through me. Lying, sneaking around… who has been doing that lately?

  ‘I did not just lie to my family,’ Ariana chips in and shakes her head, presumably at her own foolishness. ‘I created a whole pretend life for myself. Because it took so long to organise – the collection, the flight, the dates. I took the bus to Roma every weekend and told my parents I had started art school.’

  There it is again, a cold slither of something down my spine. Suspicion, fear… Harry’s face swims before my eyes, my memory filled with the desperation in his voice as he begged me to agree to come on this trip. It would certainly explain the weird phone calls, his determination to come on this journey, his erratic behaviour before we left and secretive ways since… Even as my more rational side tells me to stop being silly, to get back into the real world, my fears only grow as I listen to the very real women before me telling me their indisputably true stories.