Desayuno chapin.

Desayuno Chapin.

We’d travelled Central America for eleven or twelve weeks, (mostly by rattling, lumbering chicken buses, fast winding downhills and slow open roads), and having crossed into Guatemala from the cloud forests of Honduras we had arrived early morning at the Puerto Barrios ferry terminal. A few others were chatting at the food stall. Perhaps now the house is empty, for at least a few days, their life can get back to normal (I have told Willie – the grass mowing man – to leave the yard uncut).It was first light as we stood on the dock looking out over the ocean. A warm breeze off the Caribbean was lifting Dulce’s hair as we ate our tostados (almost certainly they would have been toasted tortillas with guacamole, mild tomato sauce, runny melted cheese and parsley – our usual street food order).

The first hint of sunrise was a gradual brightening, then very quickly the horizon’s length was changing to orange, dazzling at the middle, white starburst épée-like rays, the orange band racing higher to meet the first streamers of cloud. Lower, the horizon now luminous red, toffee apple red, pinking slightly to salmon. As the black dot far at sea became our boat the sun began its long westward journey across the sky to a different ocean. A few days and we’d follow. Dulce was as stunned as I. ‘Caribbean Sunrise - of course!’ Orange juice, rum, slowly poured grenadine - the famous layered cocktail.       

After Livingston on the mouth of the Rio Dulce, (serendipitous I thought), we slowly crossed the entire breadth of Guatemala ending at a small town on the Pacific coast. Monterrico. Surrounded by fields of trellised loofah vines and racks of loofahs drying in the sun: they seemed to be the town’s main income. I had always thought of loofahs as spongy things coming from the sea: but no, those long green fruits hung like plump cucumbers from vines dotted with pretty flowers, wrinkly nasturtiums or pansies. Daffodil yellow, bright, cheerful. They are everywhere. Flowers that turned up in Harry’s salads and decorated our breakfasts. When young, the loofah fruits have the feel of smooth skin similar to banana but as they ripen, they roughen and ridge.   

Talking of food, in my memory, I can still see and taste the Tapado, the glorious fish soup of Livingston’s Garifuna people. Made with everything and anything from the sea and from their river, plus tomato, coconut milk, fried plantains, sliced zucchini, oregano, finely chopped basil. It’s aroma, fishy and tangy, herby and peppery; heavenly.    

A big room on the beach: two and a half storeys up a rickety staircase winding around a skinny pole to a door so narrow I had to turn sideways and so low that merely ducking wasn’t enough for me - I needed to bend from my waist. Hand-made, bright patterned, mosaic tiles covered the floor, quaint double doors led out onto an old wooden lean-to balcony overlooking the black volcanic sand dotted with fishing boats and ‘ranchos’ - palm thatch umbrellas in need of new fronds. Cold water only in the basin and shower: but that was perfectly fine: the weather was warm and overcast as it so often is along the Pacific coast of the Americas. Everywhere the smell of dust and diesel, the calls of hawkers and small, noisy, high-revving motor bikes.  

From our balcony, below and a little to the right, was the restaurant and beach bar: Harry’s Place. Furnished with ancient, sagging, low couches covered with Aztec blankets and low rough tables nailed from shipping crates washed ashore over many years. Those blankets are handwoven by local women, some from cotton, others from Alpaca yarn (the shorn fleeces skirted, spun, plied and dyed by hand) all with vibrant stripes of solid colour, orange, mint green, slate blue, electric blue, crimson. Simple knee-high walls enclosed the restaurant. Open above to the winds and the rain, protected from local thievery by two tough bull terriers, brother and sister, Sherman and Panzer. Some nights Harry slept in a room simply bead curtained from the bar. On the side wall, above the till, hung two baseball bats crossed like swords.  

The beach bar’s breakfasts, desayuno chapin, were special. Prepared by Harry himself. Puréed black beans, fried plantain, omelette, crema, tortillas, salsa verde, chorizo. Set off by the yellow loofah flower - a true work of art. Mine came with a soup bowl of scalding milky coffee, hot chocolate for Dulce. Served by whoever was his current girlfriend.

The kitchen was simply an open corner of the bar with Harry, broad back to the tables, whistling (usually a cheerful Beatles tune). Sizzling hotplates, occasional flare-ups, the clatter of crockery. Cooking smells and a gentle wind, salty and fishy: it was all pure theatre of course and it packed in the people – that and his then girlfriend’s Egyptian -blue eyes, long thick hair, black and glossy: she was too young to show any wear on her face.

Harry loved to talk and not only was he a great cook he was also a terrific teller of stories; full of empathy and humility. He’d played baseball at school in Liverpool and even though it had been a minor sport in his home town he’d joined a semi-pro club based across the Mersey in Birkenhead, run as a hobby by a wealthy industrialist. After two seasons he’d been scouted by the Yankees. When he left, his team-mates presented him with an ebony bat engraved with their names. That bat, far too heavy to play with, now hung above the bar counter. At the Yankees, as a power hitter with an outstanding percentage and bat control that allowed him to send the ball out to opposite field, the big young guy with a funny accent quickly became a threat to long established players. There is huge money in pro baseball and one wet and dark evening an unseen bat demolished his left knee and ended both his threat and the New York life he’d gotten to love.

We both had enough of travelling and were content in our room. Dulce wanted to spend time learning to speak better Spanish and I needed to get back to my writing. We’d spend time in Monterrico. Over the next weeks we become friendly with Harry - I supposed that we brought memories of home to him and he felt comfortable with us, but I also suspected that it was my beautiful Dulce who was the main attraction. His Spanish was perfect, with a hint of Liverpool and its bands. Here, locally, he was known and well liked for his looks, his charm, his humour, his generosity and, despite his size, he was  a gentle man. Perhaps not liked by everyone: the fathers of unmarried pretty girls needed to try hard to keep them well away.

One late evening the three of us walked the beach at the Turtle Conservancy helping the volunteers peg the sands where Leatherbacks and Olive Ridley turtles were laying eggs in shallow holes dug with enormous effort using only their back flippers. Those vols knew Harry and told how at the hatching time his big hands carefully cradled hatchlings down to the sea. And how he insisted on putting the vols’ bar bills on a tab which he never presented. But then I’m a suspicious guy and I felt, as most of the vols were wholesome American girls, in their late teens and early twenties, that may have played some part in his generosity. 

Another time he took us on the shallow open wooden ferry along the dark waters of the Chiquimilla Canal through the mangroves. We got off at an ancient leaning, creaking wooden jetty and set off walking along a narrow muddy path where crabs scuttled ahead of us and climbed the trees for safety. After ten minutes or so we came to a freshly painted clapboard cabin standing in a clearing. Perhaps two acres of land. A fenced section housed animals that I’d never seen before, a group of fifty or so. The largest, the size of a big dog, but round as a very stocky staffie (though far heavier), short legs, enormous head, sharp tusks and the snout of a pig. Peccaries, white lipped peccaries.

Harry took us into the enclosure. These animals are very sociable and, in the wild, in forests, live in groups of up to 300 animals. Though fierce to look at they are not at all aggressive – that’s one of the reasons they have become endangered, plus habitat loss and hunting. They make good eating apparently. Omnivorous, and whilst they don’t prey on other creatures, given the chance they will happily “pig-out” on carrion, but they mostly feed on roots – mangrove roots being a favourite. Harry had established a breeding programme in the swamp and had identified a group of 40 to release over the coming months.

Inside, the cabin was bright, cheerful, and smelled of both fresh cotton and coffee. A local elderly Aztec man would open and ready the cabin for the nights he was staying there. He told us something of the problems he had with a few local gangsters, loosely associated with the Barrio 18 gang of the big cities. But Monterrico gangs are not a big problem: in this town there are too few opportunities for extortion. All the same Harry had been threatened when he first opened his bar, threatened by four guys, young and slight: brave only in groups. Thankfully he’d only needed to stand tall and stare them out. After his New York experience he’d sworn that he’d do whatever was needed to ensure that never again would others endanger the life he’d made for himself. But recently he’d been told of dark corner whisperings about the swamps: peccary chorizo.  

Some days later, whilst Dulce was having another Spanish lesson with Harry, I had a call from Justine, my publisher back home in Manchester. It wasn’t her first call: truthfully it was at least the fourth. I’d had a big advance against my third novel - it was how I’d paid my share of the months of travelling (though we’d roughed it – some of the time). Justine is a tough lady and was insisting that I get home soon, ‘ideally tomorrow’. It was already 10pm by the time I’d finished the call (there is a nine hour time difference between Manchester and the Pacific coast) and I was a little tense. Well, a lot tense. I rolled a joint and took it out on the balcony. Even though the moon had yet to rise I still could see that the beach bar was empty of customers. There was light only from the bar and a glow from the sleeping alcove.

After a couple of tokes I wanted a drink – weed does that to me – so I went inside and poured a scotch and water. It was then I heard Sherman growling, low deep throaty rumbles. Back on the balcony I saw that three men had arrived and were talking to Harry. I couldn’t hear what was being said, (I wouldn’t have understood the Spanish anyway), but the body language was very unfriendly. I did hear Harry quieten his dogs. Two of the men moved close together and slightly to the left of the biggest guy - he was doing all the talking. Harry appeared relaxed with an elbow on the bar counter. After a few minutes of listening he straightened, shrugged and slightly nodded his head a couple of times from side to side in that universal gesture of reluctant acceptance: ‘okay - I guess you’ve got me’. He moved slowly to his till and the night was now so silent that I faintly heard the opening ding. It was rare that none of those damned motor bikes disturbed the stillness. From the till he removed the coin drawer and set it aside. He  took notes from below. As he counted he said something loudly in English which I couldn’t properly hear and Dulce stepped through the bead curtain.

She is a major distraction for any man, particularly with a halo of blonde waves wildly mussed from sleeping. Those three men were not different. Distracted for just long enough for Harry to take the ebony baseball bat and swing it fast at the head of the biggest guy, then, in one smooth motion, pivot as though slugging a ball to opposite field. But it was the second guy’s head he connected with, not white leather and red stitching. Surely no more than three seconds had passed since Dulce appeared. Never had I seen anyone move as quickly as Harry did that night. The third guy had by now reached behind, taken a pistol from his belt and was lifting it towards Harry but still too slowly to avoid the brutal swing of ebony, the sweet spot meeting his face – a crunch that I shall always remember. Lifted up and off his feet he joined the other two dead men on the bar floor, lying in a spreading circle of blackness.

Harry stepped over the low outer wall and slowly, carefully, looked around to make sure there’d been no witness. It was then I took a final toke, the sudden glow causing him to look up at me. He hesitated, then grinned and raised his arm, still holding the bat, in a small wave. I raised my whisky glass to him. ‘Salud’.

I needed to think. I needed to walk. At the end of Calle Principal, at the Embarcadero, the Chiquimilla broadens into a lagoon. The moon now was rising above the tall palms. Not quite full, but bright and clear enough to see its mountains, its craters. A broad silver streak reached across the lagoon’s flat black glassiness to my feet. The message clear. It was pointing east. Homewards. I suppose I’d known for some time that Dulce and I wouldn’t be long term. It was over. The chemistry missing now. We’d had fun and the best from each other. I would be okay and so would she.

For the first time in months, I slept alone that night and in the morning, after I’d packed away my laptop, notes and printouts, my few clothes and passport, I went down to Harry’s bar for a last farewell. Sherman rubbed against one leg for attention, Panzer the other. Harry, as usual, was at the kitchen and even though the server had changed, the new one was a stunner too. Blonde. She smiled a welcome at me as she brought my desayuno chapin and coffee. Harry came across and joined Dulce, a possessive arm around her waist. Sheepishly, he shrugged, the same gesture as last night - before the killings. I took a long deliberate look around the tidied room, the floor polished clean of blood. The unspoken question in my raised eyebrows was clear to them both: ‘how ever did you two handle the rubbish removal?’ Harry nodded in understanding. ‘Chorizo, peccary chorizo’.