to the man again, sounding irritated now: ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, it doesn’t matter, just open the—’
Suddenly the door swings open. Standing before us is a tall, stern-looking man dressed in a smart grey suit, which matches the last tufts of hair clinging on behind his ears. Beside him is the owner of the female voice, as short and dumpy as her husband is tall and stately. She’s wearing heels, smart trousers and a bright-red poncho swathing her upper body, her jet-black (presumably dyed) hair in short, neat curls, and bright-red lipstick to match the poncho. They both look about sixty-something and very formal. I cast a glance at Harry’s saggy jeans, ancient SuperDry T-shirt and scruffy hair, and even my own cut-off trousers and plain top, and feel a sharp twinge of embarrassment. Not to mention nerves at the imminent requirement to speak Spanish properly for the first time since we arrived.
No one else seems to have noticed any of this, as the woman has already propelled herself forward to envelop Gabi in tight hug, crying ‘Gabriela, sweetheart!’ and planting an enthusiastic lipstick stain on her cheek.
‘Auntie Liza, Uncle Roberto…’ Gabi smiles as she extricates herself from Liza and leans up to kiss Roberto on the cheek in greeting.
‘This is the couple I told you about, from England—’
She doesn’t get the chance to finish as the woman, Liza, has already thrown her arms around me and given me a huge kiss on the cheek, for which she has to stand on tiptoes even with the high heels.
‘It is an honour to meet any of Ray’s countrymen,’ she beams. I feel a flash of relief that her accent is surprisingly clear and easy to understand. It would be awful if I had to ask her to repeat the first ever thing she said to me…
‘Lovely to meet you, too,’ I say politely, making a real effort with my accent. ‘I’m Kirsty, and this is my partner, Ha—’
Liza abruptly lets go of me and steps back, surveying me from head to foot, her expression suddenly dubious.
‘Krusty?’
‘Um, no, Kirsty,’ I explain patiently, realising my name probably seems quite unusual for the average Spanish speaker. Gabi can only just get it right, and she speaks almost perfect English.
‘Sí – Krusty!’ exclaims Liza, suddenly gleeful, clapping her hands together. ‘Like the clown! Or am I not saying it right?’
It would seem I have been given a name that is not only unusual, but completely unpronounceable in the Spanish-speaking world. Excellent.
Gabi is trying very hard to not to laugh. ‘How about Kristie?’ she ventures diplomatically, shooting me an imploring glance. ‘Like Christina?’
‘Ahhh – Kristie, of course,’ says Liza, nodding in approval at me. ‘Like Christina. Why didn’t you say so?’
I smile and resign myself to being Kristie for the foreseeable future.
‘I’m Harry.’ Harry bends down almost double to kiss Liza on the cheek.
Oh-ho, I wonder, how are they going to pronounce THAT? He’ll probably get stuck with ‘Enrique’ for the rest of our trip.
‘Harry? Like the young English prince?’ Liza squeals rapturously, throwing her arms around Harry’s neck. ‘Oh, you ARE just like the prince, every bit as handsome!’
Oh. Right. Typical.
Don Roberto, who has been watching the whole exchange with a twinkle of amusement in his eyes, shakes both of our hands kindly and gestures for us to follow him inside. ‘So, evidently, you both speak Spanish?’ he enquires.
‘Well, sort of…’ I start to say, at the same time Harry replies, ‘Yes, we’re both fluent!’ Don Roberto looks back at us both and winks, then says directly to me, ‘from first impressions your Spanish certainly seems excellent, Kristie.’ I’m not quite sure what he means by the emphasis on my name… Harry has certainly been showing off his finest latino accent from the moment we got here. If anything, I expected them to comment on his Spanish before mine. Nevertheless, I smile back at Don Roberto, not wanting to seem impolite. Maybe Gabi is right and they are a little eccentric, I decide.
‘Now, I must apologise,’ Liza blusters, indicating for us to follow her past their parked car and up some concrete steps. ‘The apartment isn’t quite ready yet, I’ve still got some tidying to do – Roberto! Please could you go and check that the packing is almost finished! – and I don’t want you to feel obligated, you know, just have a look, and see if you like it—’
I think I notice Don Roberto and Gabi exchange eye-rolls as we follow Liza up the stairs. We climb up and around the house to reach a front door, set right in the side of the building. Don Roberto nods to excuse himself and disappears behind it, while to my surprise we continue on up the steps.
‘That’s our part of the house,’ Liza explains, ‘which I’ll show you later, once Roberto has… tidied.’ She puffs a little as she reaches the top step and another, almost identical, front door. ‘This is the apartment.’ She fusses with a set of keys, gives the door a good rattle, and swings it open.
A spacious, light-filled room is spread out before us. There’s a small kitchenette at one end, and a comfy-looking sofa and coffee table combination at the other. It’s not very big, but what it lacks in size it makes up for by being immaculately clean, and one of its walls consisting entirely of a giant floor-to-ceiling window looking out over the valley. Shiny wooden boards cover the floor, and hanging above the sofa is a single, modest painting of the Quito skyline. No homicidal wall hangings. No pounding music coming from a bar right below our feet.
‘It doesn’t matter if you’re only going to stay a short time,’ Liza says, as if reading my mind. ‘It’s been empty since… for a long time. So… we have finally decided to use it for something.’
Harry is pacing about, lifting things up, peering around doors, examining the place as if he’s about to buy it, not just rent it for a month. At most. I feel embarrassed.
Liza seems not to notice and bustles about, showing us the bedroom, bathroom and en-suite, all as immaculate as the main room. It really only takes a few moments as the place is so small, then she ushers us out again and back on to the stairs, to see the roof terrace.
Puffing, we all follow her right out on to the roof of the house. It’s been levelled off into a concrete terrace with a washing line, small shed and garden furniture set.
‘I only come up here to hang out the washing,’ Liza says, ‘so it would be your space to use for as long as you’re here.’
I go over to the edge of the terrace. More uneven rows of little square houses spread out below us, stretching down towards the bottom of the valley. They look like concrete and pastel-painted Tetris blocks which have fallen down and landed randomly on top of each other. A motorway is just about visible right at the bottom, snaking in and out of the mountainside, cars twinkling in the sunlight like tiny insects. On most of the roofs spanning out below us are little concrete terraces like this one, some with dogs running from corner to corner and yapping, or kids playing, or chubby, dark-haired ladies washing clothes – as far as the eye can see, a patchwork of colourful activity. On the other side of the valley, directly across from us, is pure woodland, almost untouched by civilisation except for a few clusters of concrete, unpainted, box-shaped houses, and beyond it all, on the horizon, rises up the striking, snow-capped Cotopaxi volcano.
‘Gabriela mentioned you two are only here for a short time. But we’d be very happy to have you, however long you choose to stay for, just paying by the week.’ Liza shyly mentions a figure that, spread out across a month, would still be less than our Council Tax bill back home. Gabriela hadn’t mentioned the price to me, but she had said they weren’t really doing it for the money, they just didn’t want to leave the apartment empty any more. I turn my head slightly to look at Harry. He’s grinning back at me. We don’t need to say a word to know we’re in agreement.
‘We’d