A Christmas Story

There are some things that become an intimate part of you, things that resist changes; for me Christmas is one of these. It must be family, it must be England, and it must be that sort of Santa Claus.

Christmas must be cold, to bring back the memory of how I experienced for the first time the appearance of the Christ, long ago, in that little flint church with costumed classmates acting out the Nativity. It must remind me of trips on steam trains to see coloured lights. It must remind me of icy ferns on frozen window panes and feet on cold linoleum, running to find pillowcases filled to overflowing.

It must be in a country that fervently believes that the Son of God was born in the bleak mid winter, amid ox, ass, holly and ivy and that its 'green and pleasant land' is the home of the New Jerusalem. Above all it must be family, if family is there, I can tolerate some differences.

That year I was miserable. No matter how I tried I couldn't work it so my leave fell in December. I had to face up to it, Christmas was cancelled. There wasn't the build up to it in the same way. I don't mean the commercial one that starts now almost in mid October in Europe, but the one that starts in the pit of my stomach about mid November, just before Advent.

I couldn't plan surprises, I wouldn't see the happy faces, especially that of my daughter who I missed most in the entire World. In fact, since I didn't go to church I could see no evidence of Christmas in any form until about a week before, but even then it was a bit of a mixture. Cyrano the French baker was making traditional fare, from all over; Stollen, special biscuits and other things that meant nothing to me. He seemed to forget the Brits all together, are mince pies and Christmas pudding so eclectic? Some of the behatted Indios in the markets had tinsel on their Trilbies and firecrackers were on sale. Silently was not how the wondrous gift be given that year in Quito.

I left the jeep in the charge of one of the innumerable street kids and said I would pay him when I came out, and, not to piss on the wheels. I trudged into 'El Pub'. That much of British culture seems to have caught on all over the World, due mainly to evangelistic British entrepreneurs and a universal taste for alcohol. El Pub attracted all-comers and turned them into all of the bar-propping stereotypes found in Britain. Many of them were British. British Council, British Embassy, British company reps and, like myself, British employees of foreign companies. All displaced souls, and many wishing they were not here, at least at this time of year. Others, such as Charito the barmaid, had become an honorary brassy Brit, at her best at 'el chucking-out time'. El Pub was also nicely situated opposite the Intercontinental Hotel so attracted a great deal of passing trade.

I first encountered El Pub within days of arriving. Not being a regular pub-goer back home, I wasn't too worried by the surroundings, which purists would have considered a travesty. But still, the consumer is king and his perceptions of what a pub is are most important. Strangely enough the Pub was started by an irascible Austrian, Gerhardt, who spoke perfect American English. He had arrived in Ecuador via the oil wells of Oklahoma and the eastern jungles at Lago Agrio. I got to know him a little; he'd even invited me (me?) to play Squash.

Beneath that veneer there was a very worthy, highly intelligent person who was just testing you to see if you really did want to get to know him. I didn't take him up on his invitation for squash, mainly because of the size of his arms. I regretted it because shortly after that he died of pancreatic cancer, back home in Austria. Viv and 'Machete' bought the pub off Gerhardt's brother, and, after toasting his immortal soul, everything had continued as usual, apart from a bit of redecoration.

It was Viv I was talking to that day over fish and chips and a Cuba Libre. 'Off home for Christmas, no? Good that's another volunteer for the party!' I must have looked puzzled. 'You mean you don't know? We have a party every year for the orphans from San Vicente de Paul and the street kids. We get some toys donated and buy others with a collection from the customers, and Scotty's going to be Father Christmas, he'll arrive on a fire engine!' She held out the tin and I put in some notes. 'Ok, I'll come along, it sounds like fun.' It was starting to feel seasonal, I brightened up. Scotty was an inspired choice, I smiled to myself.

I had first met Scotty Rogers, as I had met many unique and eccentric people, at the bar in El Pub. As the name suggested he was from beyond Hadrian's Wall, Dumfries in fact. I was listening and watching him talking to fat Chuck, an obese sweating American, something to do with oilfield catering; they shared an apartment in town during their weeks off.

Later, I got to know Scotty a little better. In his sixties, he had a shock of long white hair, nicotine stained at the front, brushed back to reveal a face ruddy and weather-beaten from over exposure to both strong drink and the stronger equatorial sun. Hands like two hams clutched a full glass, one of several in a short space of time. The palms were bright red, an outward cry from his protesting liver.

He had been everywhere under the sun, his flight had started when a child was born in his village and matrimony was politely suggested. He emitted a bellow of disbelieving laughter at the mere thought of the word, and, 'kids!' He couldn't stand them! He was a diesel engineer, a very saleable commodity in the oil business. He had just got back from Miami where he had been to get some treatment for the cobblestone-like cancer on the skin of his arm. I enjoyed just listening to his stories and got titbits of gossip from time to time. He knew our mad German engineer Hammer, told me he'd been slung out of the Oriente for causing a strike among the workers. I would store that one up for an appropriate moment!



Christmas Eve; the kids were having a whale of a time. There were far more than the pub could fit in comfortably and I was perched on a stool pressed up in the corner watching the heaving throng of laughing, crying, jello-stuffing ragamuffins, while trying to serve them trays of food without falling off.

There were garlands, balloons, tinsel, funny hats and 'Silent Night' playing on the stereo. There was a Christmas tree, a sparse Andean pine with very few branches but lots of lights and baubles. They mostly ignored the gringos, concentrating on enjoying themselves, but occasionally curiously eyeing us up and down. Considering the daily state of most of them, some were surprisingly discriminating. 'I don't like the green ones, give me a red one!'. I'd had this before with a beggar in Banos. Rather than give him money, I went into a shop and bought him some bread. He told me to take it back because he preferred the bread from the other shop around the corner!

It was time! Santa was due at three o'clock sharp. Everyone piled out on to the street and lined up, looking into the distance with expectation. Sure enough, they could hear them in the distance, not sleigh bells, but the whine of the fire sirens. Anyway, what on earth could Reindeer and sleigh bells mean to anyone here at the equator? Fire engines are much more exciting!

Up went a grand cheer as it appeared roaring up the avenida. There was the great red engine, bedecked with straining sacks of toys, and there was a bewhiskered Scotty, much redder than usual, hanging on one-handed to the ladder on the back, singing and swinging precariously with every turn and bump. His other hand triumphantly brandished a half-full bottle of rum, his own celebration of El Nino.

The kids went wild. Scotty was certainly in the spirit in more ways than one as he stumbled from the engine. 'Ho! Ho! Ho effing Ho!' he yelled as he scooped up one of the kids on to his shoulder and carried her off into the pub with the others tumbling in behind crying 'me too'. I fought my way back into the bar.

Sat on a chair, there he was, Santa Scotty, smiling beatifically amid the ragged crowd of urchins huddled at his feet. He was holding the enraptured little girl on his knee, tenderly stroking her hair, holding her hand and promising her all her Christmas dreams come true. The toys were being dished out. Plastic and tinplate cars, of a sort that I used to get when I was three or four, were received wide-eyed and open-mouthed; they must still make them in Taiwan or somewhere. Dolls, games, soft toys, sweets; everything they saw in their dreams whilst curled up in the lee of the church walls, warm hotel ventilators or with their noses pressed against shop windows filled with unreachable delights. Fights started; hair-pulling, crying and screaming, as those who couldn't wait stole from those who had already received; a reflex reaction of kids whose instinct of self preservation has been honed since they left the cradle.

The party ended eventually in a crescendo of tears and laughter pouring out on to the avenida Gonzalez-Suarez and scattering into the twinkling night. We were left, sitting somewhat bewildered and knocked-out among the paper chains, broken baubles, pools of vomit and other debris of happiness. Someone said, "You were great Scotty". A Celtic bellow came from the bar along with a stream of expletives; ".....Kids, can't stand the little bastards!"




Poor Jo, I couldn't blame her for pushing off that evening, I just was not liveable. I saw her off, arranging to pick her up on Christmas morning in time for lunch at the consular residence. The afternoon had left me drained and the prospect of an empty Christmas Eve, with no preparations, no presents to wrap and no turkey to stuff was frankly depressing me. So I found myself alone, with a bottle, listening morosely to the lessons and carols from King's College, courtesy of the World Service. I must have dropped off.

The alarm went at six am. On the third try I got through to the operator and within half an hour I was talking to home. My daughter was thanking me for all the presents I didn't know I had given her, so was my mum. "It's six in the morning here, it's cold over there?" and so on, the conversation eventually tapering out. I left them to their turkey and a Merry Christmas.



At the consular residence I was sat with a drink, all dressed up.

Henry was leaning on me, hard, having given up any hope of shagging my leg due to positional restrictions. Henry was inherited, an unofficial part of the Embassy patrimony. Henry, the 'bloody brindled bastard' was the price to be paid by some unsuspecting British Embassy employees for what was otherwise a very cushy posting.

Henry was big, Henry had character, and, Henry had the knack of staring you straight in the eye soulfully. Henry wasn't stupid. He just looked stupid, big and very soulful. This was a useful universal canine ploy he had found got him fed and watered in very pleasant, sometimes extremely opulent surroundings by very kind, genteel, temporary custodians, courtesy of Her Majesty's Government.

Although very happy to demolish the remains of good diplomatic cuisine, his origins on the street showed by his intimate familiarity with every bin and rubbish pile in the neighbourhood. He was particularly partial to 'well hung' left overs and was often to be found on the doorstep gnawing on some disinterred, gamey morsel of oozing refuse.

Henry was docile, a real gringophile, leaning on you was just his way of showing that he wasn't just a canine onanist; he had a soul too, he could be next to you without touching you, well...not like that anyway.

Henry kept away unwanted visitors too, partly by his size and partly by the surprise of their suddenly finding him in front of them, having jumped out from the perfect brindled camouflage of his sentry post behind the iron railings. He recognised shocked friends immediately with a benign falsetto 'wuff', then he would lean....hard. If you were one of his chosen favorites, he would attempt to show his undying love for your leg. Regular visitors had to master the art of dashing to the front door before he heaved their legs from under them with his canine passion.

Indians were a different story. He saw it as his sole responsibility to protect his stewards from these itinerant hawkers and rogues by carrying out his own canine Pogrom. The mere sight of a scarlet poncho, however distant, would send him into paroxysms of slavering fury. Then he would charge, baying like a hound from hell. He usually came back looking very pleased with himself, with strands of red wool hanging from the side of his mouth. He was fearless. Oncoming cars would chicken out at the sight of him standing his ground in the middle of the street, four legs slightly splayed out, head down and staring.....daring.

I only learned of one thing that ever put the wind up him. A rabbit! It belonged to the daughter of a previous Military Attaché. It went completely mad, chased Henry around the garden and went for everything and everyone in sight. They finally barricaded it into a corner with a garden fork and a mattress. I understand it was eventually dispatched with military aplomb.

Lunch commenced after Henry had been tempted into the garden with a suitably putrid titbit and a promise of Indians. The food was good, but not my idea of Christmas fare. Jo was very happy with it, Monique the Consul's wife was French too, and the food was all that Jo considered to be festive, but to me it was somebody else's Christmas.

The conversation was jolly, toasts were proposed and coffee was followed by Port. Brian the Consul got up but begged us not to move, 'just carry on', he said. He, however, had some consular business. That morning he had been informed by the Police that a British subject had been found dead. Rogers he was called, did anybody know him, could anybody identify him? I said, shocked, that I did, and I foolishly volunteered to accompany him to the morgue in the Old Town.

On the way Brian told me that Scotty had been found that morning by someone delivering a present. The circumstances were not that clear but there was some story about a debt of eight thousand dollars he was owed by fat Chuck. There might have been a scuffle, it wasn't clear, but Chuck was nowhere to be found. We wouldn't know much more until the post mortem, if there was one. Anyway, it was unlikely that the police would overcome their usual inertia and actually carry out an investigation, particularly since he was a Gringo.

We left the car and picked our way through the narrow streets where life was going on as usual. I looked up to the Panecillo, the hill that dominates the old colonial quarter, and to the towering winged Virgin. I remembered that Scotty had told me once that it had been a well known fact since the Conquest that the only way to remain a virgin in Quito was to sprout wings and piss off sharpish!

In the Plaza de San Francisco we picked our way among the market traders, their multi-coloured blankets spread on the cobbles, selling plastic Christmas knick-knacks and burning Palo Santo. The bluish aromatic smoke, redolent of High Mass, pervaded the atmosphere, blotting out the usual smells of rotting fruit and urine. As we made our way along the crowded street the incense faded and we were guided by our noses and the funerary smell to the morgue.

In the courtyard the policemen were playing volleyball in sweat-stained shirts. They steadfastly ignored us until there was a break in the game. One of them peeled away, went to a corner, donned his belt and helmet and came over to be of service. Brian showed his identification and we were shown by a pointing finger towards a door. We hesitated but then went in. We'd have to do the search ourselves the officer had said.

Inside the indignity of sudden death was all around. It was hot and rank. Flies blackened the windows and crawled up the crumbling plaster. They scattered, buzzing, surprised by the sudden animation. There were four open refrigerated cabinets against a wall, all unused, their plugless bare wires coiled towards the floor. Three bodies were sprawled, bloody and bloating on a steel table in the centre of the room. Others lay in open caskets around the walls. A wizened old crone, no more than skin and bone, lost in a voluminous black robe. A construction worker, his hard hat upturned and blood streaked by the side of the box, his cement-caked hand hanging limp and broken over the side. Their souls had left, there were the indications of suffering on some lined faces, but no sign of the pain and terror of their final moments, and no clues to whether they ever foud any Peace on Earth.

We found him in another room, no shroud, no swan's down. He had been placed unceremoniously in a steel-grey casket in a corner. Inanimate, he apparently lay in the same position as he had been found, having seemingly choked on his own vomit. No scarlet robes or white whiskers, just a plain, creased and stain-streaked shirt, immodest, undignified and undeserved. The once florid face and hands were now pallid and grey, but I could still recognise just the traces of that beatific smile of yesterday.

As we left I looked back. Huddled at the foot of his coffin were several small plain child-sized pine boxes with fastened lids, each containing a little one who would forever believe in Father Christmas.