It was sudden. Unexpected. Violent. An uncontrollable force of water, coming upstream from the Bristol Channel travelling at speed towards us. It hit us. A tidal wave so high and so powerful my paddle was wrenched out of my hands. Powerless, caught in its fury, we could do nothing. Out of control, we were left clinging for our lives on to the raft. We raced past river banks. Its force, its speed and the noise was terrifying.
I shouted, ‘How can we stop?’
‘We can’t. Hold on tight. It’ll be calmer soon.’ I shouted again, ‘When, how far will that be?’
‘Don’t know, we’re heading towards Gloucester.’
I was too frightened to ask any more. I closed my eyes. I gripped the plank I was sitting on until my knuckles were white. If we were going to drown, I wanted to be with Ifan. We’d drown together. My mind went haywire. I wondered what it felt like to drown. I imagined my mouth and lungs filling with filthy brown water, not being able to breathe. An image of a baby swimming underwater came to me. She was smiling at the camera and as happy as if she was in her mother’s womb. I wanted to be that baby. That made me feel better, but it didn’t last because then I imagined the divers underwater, looking for us, and Ifan and me were trapped in dark wrecks with ugly fish swimming around, lurking giant octopuses with long waving arms, and we’d been pulled down, half-eaten and our floating, dead, bloated bodies were caught underwater in the skeleton of a ship and the fish were feeding off us.
I don’t know how long that lasted but I still had my eyes closed when the raft shuddered and jerked violently. It stopped, violently tipping me off on to my side. Not in the water, but on wet gravel. I opened my eyes. First one then the other. I sat up. Looked around. The raft had disintegrated. I’d been dumped on a small spit of mud and gravel and I was alone. There was no Ifan. It took me a while to orientate myself. I was alive. Ifan had gone.
I couldn’t believe he’d vanished. I stood up. The water was racing past but there was no sign of him. It was unbelievable. I couldn’t believe it. He’d gone. Had he drowned? I began wondering how long I’d had my eyes closed. Had he been swept off then? Why hadn’t he shouted for me? I sat down and cried. I couldn’t stop crying. I asked myself why was I there and he wasn’t? But there was no answer. Perhaps he’d been washed ashore. Thinking that perked me up for a while.
But then I realised somehow I had to get off this horrible place and back on to firm land. It was stupid, I know, but I began feeling angry with him. It had been his idea, crossing the river on the pontoon.
I forced myself to look around. The river was wide but I wasn’t that far from the shore. I’d been dumped on a long sand bank with shingle disappearing into the water. In the distance I could see one of the drums from the raft had detached. It was bobbing and spinning away, carried along on the current. I watched until it disappeared from view. I never wanted to see that drum again.
I was stranded. The tide was coming in, and the sandbank would soon disappear under water with me on it. It was obvious I’d have to be rescued or I’d drown. I stood up and gazed towards the shoreline hoping for inspiration.
Should I swim for it? But the tidal current was still running fast and even though it was August and warm, I didn’t fancy submerging myself in that filthy water. For one thing, I wasn’t such a good swimmer and there was no one to see if I was swept away. Just as I thought this I saw a man walking along the track by the river. He was a way off, walking with long strides but coming in my direction. I stared. He was wearing a shabby brown cord jacket.
It was Gareth. As he got level, I began jumping up and down, waving, screaming and shouting like a mad woman to catch his attention. He heard me because he stopped and looked towards me. He cupped his hands round his mouth, shouted and waved back. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but he put his hand to his ear, as if holding a phone, and pointed at it, as if he was making a call. He held up one hand with five fingers, closed it again, and did that twice more. He waved again. Then he left and ran fast down the track.
I was abandoned. By now I was really scared. I stared again at the muddy torrent racing past. It was full of debris and rising inexorably round me. I was separated from the shoreline by a wide channel. I was alone and about to drown.
I sat down on my haunches like a beggar. I hated that water. I could do nothing to save myself. Second by second I was becoming more resigned to the idea I was going to die. I’d always wondered what it would feel like and I was about to find out. I glanced at a piece of driftwood as it went spinning past at speed. Maybe, I thought, I should have grabbed it so when they found my drowned body at Gloucester it could be prised out of my hand and given to my mother ‘as a found object’. She could call it ‘In Memoriam’ or something like that. This bizarre thought made me giggle, even though it wasn’t funny.
The water continued rising insidiously. I wanted Gareth to come back. Just seeing him on land had made me feel better. He had to come quickly. The channel of water between me and the shoreline was growing wider every minute. I walked towards the end of the sand and shingle bank. It wasn’t far. I came back. The water was rising so fast, soon I’d be marooned on an even tinier spit of sand and I wouldn’t have long on this planet. I was getting colder by the second and I began shivering even though the summer sky was a brilliant blue and it was warm. The reality of what was happening hit me.
I began thinking about the women at the farm. What would they be doing? Would they be laughing at the same time as I was drowning? I thought about my father. I’d never meet him now. Perhaps he’d read about my death and would never know I was his daughter. And Ifan, where was he? Was he already drowned? And Maddy in London. I’d never see her again. Would anyone know that moment I died as I struggled to breathe, my lungs filled with the filthy sedimentary water of the Severn? I began to feel faint and distant from my surroundings. I felt as if I were seeing the river, the trees, the sky through the wrong end of a telescope and colours and sound were fading away until I experienced myself as totally alone in the world. Nothing mattered any more. I didn’t care. I was giving up. How long was I there? I had no idea. Time means nothing when you’re about to die. I lay down on the muddy, wet sand, my mind empty and waited.
Noise. Lights. Blue lights flashing, deafening sirens, men in uniform shouting at each other, boats, fire engines, an ambulance. One minute alone, about to drown, the next, surrounded by rescue vehicles. I struggled to sit up. An orange powerboat was bouncing towards me. Skimming the waves, it came closer and closer, circled round me, stopped. Three men were inside. They all wore bright yellow buoyancy jackets.
One of them stood up. He shouted above the roar of the engine and the rush of the water, ‘Echo, can you swim?’
I shouted back, ‘Yes.’
‘I’m going to throw you a bag. There’s a rope attached. You’ve got to grab it. When you grab it, don’t let it go. D’you understand? Don’t let it go.’
‘No, I won’t.’
The boat veered away, arced in a circle, and with its engine roaring, was manoeuvred so its prow faced the downward flow of current. The man shouted again, ‘Are you ready, Echo? I’m going to throw you the rope now. Are you ready?’
‘Yes.’
Using overhand and with all his strength he threw across a kind of bag with a rope attached. The three men started shouting, ‘Rope, rope, rope, grab it, grab it. Go on, Echo. Grab it. Now.’
I missed it. They hauled it back through the water. He threw it again. I missed it again. By now I was paralysed with fear.
One of them said, ‘No worries, Echo. You can do it. We’re not leaving you. Just watch the rope.’ He gave me the thumbs up. ‘Now… Go for it.’ It winged across to me. That time I caught it. They cheered.
I watched as one of the men attached himself to the boat by a line. Then as the boat came near to me and into the shallow water, he jumped in and waded towards me. The water wasn’t deep but its power
and volume was such that he could hardly keep to his feet. When he reached me, he put a belt round my waist so I wouldn’t get swept away. There was hardly any shingle left to stand on. He told me to hang on and I was half-dragged, half-carried through the water to the rescue boat. He pushed me into the boat. I was saturated, almost passing out with the cold, barely aware of being wrapped in some kind of foil blanket.
They took off at speed, heading for a place close to the river bank. When I saw Gareth standing by the ambulance I knew I was saved. I stared at him as if I were stupid. My rescuer somehow got me out of the boat and leaning on him, I staggered towards the ambulance. Gareth was smiling and I heard him say, ‘How’s it going, Echo?’ I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t move my mouth. I was incapable of saying anything to anybody, except thank you to my rescuers. Even now I remember how they answered. It was the man who threw the rope who spoke. He said, ‘That’s what we do. But we don’t want to see you on this river again. You’ve behaved stupidly. Right? The Severn is dangerous. You could have drowned. You know that now. Get it? You were lucky this time.’
They were scary, unsmiling and like teachers on a bad hair day, except as they went, one of them winked at me.
Two ambulance men helped me into the ambulance and on to the stretcher. It was horrible. It was all white, smelt of disinfectant and full of medical stuff. They said I had to go to hospital to have a check-up. I asked, ‘Where’s Ifan?’ They didn’t answer; they took my blood pressure. The last thing I remember was saying, ‘Go away. Leave me. I’m fine but I want Ifan,’ then I passed out.
Part Two
I woke up in hospital. My mum and Gareth were sitting round my bed staring at me. I sat up. ‘How long have I been here?’
My mum answered, ‘Not long, you’ve been asleep since yesterday. It’s only Thursday.’
I must have looked blank because she said, ‘The day after yesterday.’
I looked around. I’d been put in a side ward of a children’s ward. I glanced down. I was no longer wearing my bathing costume but had on some cotton thing with teddy bears printed on it.
‘What’s this stupid thing I’m wearing? It’s open down the back.’
‘It’s a hospital gown they put on you while they examined you.’
‘I don’t remember that.’ I paused, then I said, ‘Where’s Ifan?’ Neither of them heard because my mum said, ‘Well, how are you feeling now?’ It took a while to answer. I felt weird and disconnected from everything. ‘Okay. I suppose.’ I was staring at her as if I didn’t know who she was. She looked as if she was a creature from outer space; perhaps she was.
She said, ‘Why are you staring at me like that?’
‘You look strange.’
That irritated her, she tutted, ‘Well, I’m not. I’m pleased you survived your ordeal but you put a lot of people at risk, as well as yourself. I hope you realise that.’
She didn’t look pleased. I didn’t want to annoy her further so I said, ‘Sorry, it’s not like I meant it.’ She passed across a plastic box. ‘Here’s some Florentines you might like.’ I was hungry and began eating one straightaway.
I offered one to both of them, but they said they’d not long had breakfast. I looked at Gareth. He hadn’t said a word and was sitting on the opposite side of the bed to her.
I said, ‘Gareth, you saved my life, but how did you know I was there? It’s amazing. You came along at the exact right time.’
‘It wasn’t me that rescued you, but SARA.’
‘SARA. What’s that?’
‘The Severn Area Rescue Association, they specialise in fast water rescue.’
‘Oh. But, they didn’t know me…and…they must, well, it was dangerous… I thought I was going to drown. They put their own lives at risk. I want to thank them again.’ I turned to my mother and said, ‘Shall we give them a donation?’
She gave me a dirty look and said, ‘You give them a donation. You got yourself in that mess. They rescued you, not me.’ I thought ‘cow’ but I didn’t say it. My mother was a hard woman, that’s for sure.
I turned to Gareth again. I said, ‘So how come you were there at just the right time?’
‘Pure chance.’
I looked at him in disbelief and said, ‘I don’t believe you, Gareth, tell me the truth.’
He laughed and said, ‘Well, I saw you take the canoe paddles, and bearing in mind you were soaking wet the day before and you’d told me you’d been to the estuary, I put two and two together. I thought I’d check out what you were up to. The river’s dangerous.’
I said, ‘You’re not kidding… What about Philomena, where’s she, why isn’t she here too?’
‘She’s going to cook a special meal for you. She sends her love and so does Gaby.’
I said, ‘Well, that’s nice of her but I’m alright. But what about Ifan? How’s he? Can I see him?’
My mother said, ‘Ifan. Who’s Ifan?’
I said, ‘Ifan’s my friend. He built the pontoon we were on.’ I remembered then he’d gone. I began to cry. I twisted myself round away from them, pulling the covers over me so they couldn’t see my face. Nobody did or said anything for what seemed like ages and then I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I heard Gareth say, ‘What’s wrong, Echo? Don’t cry.’
‘Nothing. Go away.’
‘We’re not going away when you’re crying.’
My mother walked over to my side of the bed and pulled the cover away from my face and looked at me in that way she had. ‘You’d better say, or for sure, we can’t help. Who is he? This Ifan.’
‘My best friend.’
‘You never talked about him before.’
‘My friend at the estuary. I’ve known him for years.’ Then I cried even more. I was struggling for breath and through sobs I said, ‘When that wave came and knocked the oars out of my hand, I was so frightened I closed my eyes, and that’s when he must have drowned. He was swept away in all that water. I’ll never see him again. I loved him.’ My voice sounded contorted.
‘Don’t be silly, what do you know about love? Besides, he was probably picked up further along the river. You survived, didn’t you and so will he.’
I looked hopefully at her and Gareth. I said, ‘When you were walking along the river before you saw me, did you see someone tall with straight blond hair?’
‘No. I’m afraid I didn’t, Echo. Maybe he was admitted to hospital and then he might have discharged himself.’
I thought about that and said, ‘But he wouldn’t be able make that kind of decision for himself, would he? He’s only fifteen, after all.’
My mother spoke then. ‘Maybe you’d better tell us more about this boy, since he clearly means a lot to you.’ I saw her exchange glances with Gareth.
I glared at her and said, ‘He’s not a child. He’s Ifan and he’s my best friend.’
She was looking tetchy and said, ‘Well, you never told me about him before, and why didn’t you bring him to the farm so we could all meet him?’
I didn’t like to tell her the truth – that they embarrassed me with their loud laughter and drinking, their weird paintings, and their strange ideas, so I just said, ‘We never had the time.’
At this she laughed and said sarcastically, imitating me as if I was stupid, ‘You were so busy.’
As she said this I felt I loathed her and would have liked to smack her one, but instead I sat up, swung my legs over to the floor, pulled my gown across my bare bum and stood up.
‘You’re stupid,’ I said, ‘Did you know that? Deeply stupid and you really annoy me.’
She stood up then and said, ‘Where do you think you’re going?’
‘To get my clothes on to go and find Ifan. Since no one knows where he is, or cares, it’s up to me. You two are making me feel as if I’m mad. He must be alive and I’ll find him.’
Gareth s
tepped in then and said in his calm way, ‘Phoebe, I’ll go with Echo. Don’t worry, I’ll look after her. It’s important she finds out about Ifan.’
My mother looked at him suspiciously, as if she thought we were going to get into mischief. She said, ‘Fine. That suits me. I’ll check with the staff nurse that she can go, then I can get back to my painting. I’ll see you both later. But, Gareth, she’s a handful.’
I folded my arms across my chest, pursed my lips, rolled my eyes and said, ‘And you’re so insulting.’
She walked out. It was a typical spat between us. I’d started answering her back, and that had made things worse between us, but her sarcasm wound me up. I suppose she did her best and so did I. It’s just we came from different planets.
Gareth sat down and said, ‘Why don’t you get dressed now and then we’ll get off. We can ask hospital records first. I’ll wait for you outside.’
I said, ‘Okay.’
I picked up the clothes my mother had brought for me. That reminded me of another thing we quarrelled about; what I wore. But this time she’d got it right. She’d brought my favourite jeans, my deep blue, American-style hoodie and pink Adidas trainers. I’d bought the hoodie and trainers in Camden Market and I felt great in them. The blue suited my colouring, dark blonde I’d been told. I pulled the curtains around and got dressed.
I still felt shaky so before we left I checked how I looked in the hospital toilets. That morning I looked alright, but I didn’t always. Sometimes I looked ugly. My eyes are dark brown, like my mother’s, but whereas her hair was black and wavy, mine is naturally straight, which was fortunate because I don’t like cooking my hair in straighteners. Perhaps I looked like my father, but we never talked about him because like I said, he was one of the many taboo subjects, along with sex.
We went to the A&E department. Gareth had told me that was where I first was first brought in, but because I’d fainted they’d kept me in overnight.
My Name Is Echo Page 4