My Name Is Echo

by Marguerite Valentine

  A woman brought in a tray of coffee and biscuits. No one spoke to her except me. I thanked her. I felt intimidated and not part of it. I began moodily looking out of the window at the river. When they’d finished commenting on the display and drinking their coffee we sat down again.

  Tarquin spoke into an intercom and said, ‘Chloe, do you mind coming in now and talk us through “themes”.’ She walked in. I did a double take. She was instantly recognisable. It was the woman in the forest. The one who’d lifted her skirt for Gareth. The one he’d called Amy in his poem ‘Girl in the Flowered Dress’ except this time she didn’t wear a flowery dress because like Tarquin, she was dressed in black. Black must be some kind of uniform for their type of work.

  I was transfixed. She wore black wide-leg trousers, a matching short cropped tight jacket, pearl earrings and just about the reddest lipstick I’d ever seen. It drew attention to the paleness of her complexion, her mouth and its shape. Even in day light she was mega attractive. She looked round the room and flashed a smile. She seemed totally unfazed.

  My mother had a look on her face of extreme disapproval. Sometimes she described women as looking like they’d been round the block a few times and probably she was thinking that now. When I heard it the first time, I’d laughed. My mother had meant it negatively, but I’d taken it positively. For me it meant urban, sophisticated, worldly wise and attractive to men. All the qualities I wanted.

  But, now I knew now why Gareth wasn’t here. Chloe aka Amy, was involved with this project and it would have been excruciating for him to be in the same room as her and his wife. I couldn’t take my eyes off her, my mind kept drifting away to the forest when she’d been with Gareth.

  But it was him I’d become obsessed with. He’d saved my life, but his wildness, his way with words, his affairs, his craziness, like dancing at midnight in the forest before making love; all this was deeply romantic. There was no other man like him. Tarquin interrupted my thoughts. He was introducing Chloe. If she recognised any of our names, she kept it hidden. She was cool and professional in her manner and it was difficult to reconcile what I now saw, with what I’d seen the other night, her naked desire for Gareth. I dragged myself into the present.

  She was setting up PowerPoint and explaining how she’d organised the exhibition into various themes. She spoke about how the Surrealist Movement had begun, the influence of psychoanalysis, the disillusionment with the establishment after the First World War, and how the surrealists challenged the accepted ethos. She spoke of women’s contribution and how their work was a radical protest and a refusal to be categorised by the male hegemony. I nearly fell off my chair when she said hegemony. It was a word I’d heard only once before and that was by a boy in my class who saw himself as a swot and planned to go to Oxford. He should be so lucky. They don’t take kids from Housing Associations, but I didn’t say that to him.

  I took out my notebook and wrote down everything she said, including ‘hegemony’ intending to look it up later. I felt hypnotised just listening to her. It was like being back at school with Mr Harris, my favourite teacher. He taught media studies and just before the summer break we’d been looking at theories of culture and it was the kind of word he’d use.

  I decided to ask Chloe if she could tell me more about why they didn’t like ‘male hegemony’ and how their art was different. She looked directly at me and said I’d asked a very important question. I caught my mother’s eye. She was glowering at me but for once I didn’t care. Chloe said she’d be brief but they objected to being seen as passive, dependent and defined through their relationship with men, whether in the kitchen or the bedroom. Their art was a critique of that and they saw themselves as agents of their own lives. However, she said, like the male surrealists they drew on the developing knowledge and interest in the concept of the unconscious.

  Then she stopped and said, ‘Echo, if you like I can recommend some books you might be interested in, but it’ll have to be later as I’m concerned with the passage of time and how much we have to get through. Would that be alright with you?’ She smiled at me and I noticed her voice was soft with a very slight South Wales accent and a rhythmic lilt.

  I was so pleased she’d remembered my name and was interested in me that I answered her politely. In fact, I was so polite, I surprised myself. I was becoming more mannered by the minute and I felt as if I was turning into a version of Chloe and Tarquin. I said, ‘Thank you so much, Chloe and yes, I’d very much welcome your recommendations,’ and then I smiled sweetly at my mother to annoy her. She didn’t like me feeling pleased with myself. I felt sure Chloe knew who I was, because of the way she spoke to me and it could only be Gareth who’d told her. I hoped he hadn’t told her about our row.

  Chloe now was explaining how she’d organise their art work. I heard certain phrases she used, phrases like ‘narrative fantasy’, ‘female earth’, ‘women’s muse’, ‘the depiction of the female form’ and as I listened these ideas entered my mind and took on a life of their own. I was becoming more and more fascinated with these women. Their ideas of freedom, their rejection of convention, the support they gave each other, their lifestyle, and their weird art. It was no wonder Philomena was so interested.

  For a mad moment I contemplated whether, when Chloe gave me the book references, I’d tell her that I’d seen her and Gareth making love in the forest. I wanted to shock her, shake her out of her self-assurance and make an impression on her so she wouldn’t forget me. The reality was, I didn’t do that. For everyone’s sake, everything had to be kept a secret.

  After her talk, Chloe left the room. I thought she’d give me the references before she left but she didn’t. I was devastated. She was just a bull-shitter, I thought but I was wrong. Just as we were about to leave she returned and gave me a list of books and a book about surrealism and women artists.

  ‘Echo,’ she said, ‘I thought you might like this book. I can only lend it to you, but you might find it of interest and when you’ve finished will you bring it back? I’ll need it soon, but you know where I am.’ Then smiling, she looking me straight in the eye and said, ‘And we can go out for coffee.’ I was pleased. I could hardly believe how nice she was. I took it out of her hands and carefully turned over the pages. The book was called Women Artists and the Surrealist Movement and it had photographs of their art and photography and, even more interesting, of themselves. She’d underlined some chapters and told me these were ones she especially recommended. There was even a section on Dorothea Tanning, the one who’d painted that weird picture my mother liked. When I came to a picture of Frida Kahlo, I almost burst into tears. She’d painted a picture of herself trussed up in bandages. She looked in terrible pain. It was awful.

  I looked at Chloe, my eyes full of tears. She could see I was upset and she said, ‘I’ll tell you about her sometime. She was injured in a terrible street accident when she was a child. But don’t let things get to you, Echo. She turned her pain into art. Life’s full of good and beautiful things as well as the bad. That’s just how it is.’

  It was a beautiful book and she was beautiful too. She made such an impression on me that I was almost ready to forgive her for her relationship with Gareth. I understood now why they were in love with one another. They were good people. I closed the book and told her I’d take good care of it. She gave me her card with her contact details on it and I put it in my blue-and-purple Welsh canvas bag with ‘Celf’ written on it.

  When we got back I showed the book to my mum. Even she was interested, particularly in Dorothea Tanning, but she wanted to read it before me. She said I could have it back in the morning.

  The next morning, before I got up, I lay in bed and thought about the past five weeks. There were only a few days left before we returned to London, which didn’t leave much time to read Chloe’s book or to put my plan into action, but I must have had bad dreams because when I woke up I felt moody and pissed off. Everythin
g that summer had been difficult; almost drowning in the river, losing Ifan, being told I’d imagined him, seeing Gareth and Chloe dance and have sex in the forest, being abandoned in the Welsh Mountains.

  I concluded the adult world was full of lies and rightly or wrongly I couldn’t trust anyone. I would have liked to talk to someone about everything but there was no one I could think of and even if I waited until I got back to London, my friends wouldn’t understand.

  As I lay there I heard my mother laughing loudly outside in the gardens. I got up and looked out of my bedroom window to see what was going on. She was with Gareth and they were taking a shortcut across the grass to where he’d parked his car. She was looking up at him and laughing at something he’d said. She was such a flirt. I suddenly hated her. I knew she wouldn’t be interested in helping me make sense of how upset I was by Ifan’s disappearance and how I felt about Gareth.

  The more I thought about her, the angrier I felt. Her top priority was always herself and what she wanted. She didn’t really care about me beyond feeding and clothing me and doing what seemed right. I felt lonely. I wanted to be close and special to someone like I’d felt with Ifan. We’d understood and looked out for each other. It was still hard to accept he’d gone. Surely people didn’t just disappear in this country? It wasn’t exactly a police state. I couldn’t even talk with Gareth because he’d say I’d imagined it, and then I’d begin to feel crazy. It seemed like I was destined forever to be left with feelings of loss.

  My mother was standing by Gareth’s car as he searched for his keys. He must have forgotten them because he started walking back to the house while she stood and waited. I watched her. She bent down and looked at herself in the car’s wing mirror. She smiled at herself and fluffed up her hair, then seeing her reflection in the car window she stood sideways, pulled in her stomach and observed herself with simpering satisfaction.

  ‘Putting on a show.’ That was something my mother did. For her, life was one big performance. Maybe it was because she was a teacher. I’d read that some of the best teachers were great actors, that’s how they got the attention of their pupils. But who was the real Phoebe? I didn’t know. She never talked about herself or why she’d become a teacher of classics. She could be a stranger I passed in the street. As for her choice of classics. It was the type of subject people were taught at posh schools before they went on to Oxbridge, yet she worked in a North London comprehensive. It was a good one, admittedly. She wanted me to teach too, but I didn’t want that. I wanted to do something in my life that she couldn’t or wouldn’t want to do, so she couldn’t compete with me or take it from me.

  I wasn’t sure what, but I’d find something. I wanted to be different. I felt and looked different from her. Maybe I was like my father. Whoever or wherever he was.

  I couldn’t stop myself. I suddenly flung open the window and shouted out ‘Oy. You. Yeah. You, you look great, doncha think.’

  My mother looked up towards the house and when she saw me, she started to wave. I joined in the act and waved back just as if we both got on. I moved away from the window, went to her bedroom and retrieved the book Chloe had given me. If she asked for it back, I’d refuse. I planned to spend the day reading and tomorrow I’d go to Chepstow and return it to Chloe.

  The next day I got up early and went down to the kitchen. No one was around as I ate my breakfast. I was glad, because I wasn’t up to being sociable but I’d decided that before I returned the book, I’d phone Chloe to make sure she’d be there.

  She wasn’t there. Apparently she didn’t arrive at the office until about midday. I asked the woman who answered if I could see her tomorrow afternoon. She said she’d speak to her and get back to me later. That meant I could look at Chloe’s book at the estuary. It would be my last visit before we left for London. I put the book in my ‘Celf’ bag and cycled slowly through the back lanes. The tracks through the trees leading down to the water’s edge were alive with memories of Ifan. ‘Gone but not forgotten,’ I’d read once on a grave stone, but I didn’t even know if he was dead.

  I made my way towards the river and in case anyone was walking around and interrupted me, I searched for a place to hide. Eventually I found one in the base of a tree, formed by the hollow of its root. I opened the book. On the inside front cover, written in a large sprawling hand were the words, ‘To my darling Chloe. Love you always. Huw.’ It was dated three months ago.

  I took a deep breath. Held the book tight in my hands. Stared at the page. So…she was with someone else, as well as

  Gareth. I was shocked. I said to myself, it wasn’t my business. After all why should I care but it was more of the same. Every time I thought highly of a person they turned out to be two-timing. I’d assumed Chloe was a free agent. She behaved like one. It’s true it had vaguely crossed my mind she might be married but I hadn’t known for sure. Now I did. Someone who wrote ‘for always’ must be married. Chloe’s passion for Gareth, his love for her, his indifference to Philomena’s feelings was bad enough, but now there was someone else. Someone by the name of Huw. This put me even more in a bad mood.

  To distract myself, I began turning the pages of the book. It was beautifully illustrated. Surrealist art is stunning, mysterious and enigmatic whether photography or paintings, but it needs decoding, like dreams.

  I was more interested in the women’s lives. They were free agents and some might say they were mad, but they were no madder than the men they hung around with and no one called them mad. To me they were wild by nature and the idea of being so rebellious and fighting convention through art and lifestyle appealed to me mightily. It didn’t occur to me that perhaps Chloe might also be influenced by the surrealists hence her refusal to be trapped in marriage.

  I wanted to know more about her so whatever happened tomorrow, and whether she was available or not, I planned to go to Chepstow to return the book and hopefully have a coffee with her. But I’d still have to organise a lift.

  I cycled back to the farmhouse and walked into the kitchen. Philomena was sitting at the table, reading. I asked if she knew if anyone was going to Chepstow the next day. She said Gareth was, but he was out. I wondered if she’d noticed how much he went to Chepstow, but if she had, she said nothing and neither did I. I was learning to keep my mouth shut so I left a note asking for a lift, in case I wasn’t around when he got back. All that afternoon I waited for a call from Chloe’s secretary but none came. There must have been a good reason why she didn’t ring, but I’d promised to return the book and I’d keep that promise.

  I got my lift to Chepstow from Gareth. Throughout the journey neither of us said much. He seemed preoccupied with his thoughts and didn’t react even when I told him I was returning a book to Chloe. I wondered what he was thinking but sensed we were on dangerous territory and I had to be careful with what I said. I was beginning to recognise I had considerable power knowing about their affair.

  He dropped me off near Chloe’s office and said he’d pick me up at 4pm He didn’t say where he was going and I didn’t ask. As soon as he’d gone I went to the art gallery to see if Chloe was there. She wasn’t. Her secretary said she had the day off unexpectedly, but she’d asked her to give me her apologies that she was unable to see me. She promised to take me for a coffee when next we met. That cheered me up. She hadn’t forgotten me.

  I had three hours to kill so not having anything very exciting to do, I began exploring the centre of Chepstow. It’s old, medieval in fact, with a castle and has a history because it stands between Wales and England, but I was more interested in the charity shops. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, just browsing for bargains. But nothing appealed and as I hadn’t brought a book with me I decided to visit a coffee shop down a back street. It was old fashioned with tiny square windows and inside were bare wooden tables and benches. The floor was tiled. The walls plain white.

  It was a good choice. I sat at a table in the
window drinking my coffee, eating a delicious homemade chocolate brownie. I picked up some local leaflets left scattered around. There were loads of them and after I’d read a few I came to the conclusion the people who lived in Chepstow spent their time going to folk concerts, singing lessons, aromatherapists, yoga classes, massage therapists, poetry readings, and generally having fun. A leaflet advertising ‘The Two Rivers Festival’ caught my eye. It was out of date.

  Just as I finished my coffee, I looked up. Gareth was passing the window. He still looked preoccupied, but I noticed at that point how well dressed he was. Something I’d missed when he drove me here. He was wearing his tight black jeans, the ones he’d worn when he met Chloe in the forest. This time with a white shirt. He looked extremely attractive. I knew he wouldn’t welcome me rushing out to greet him, but I also was curious about what he was doing and where he was going. But then it came to me, and it was obvious – he was about to meet Chloe and that’s why she’d cancelled and taken the day off. I was filled with anger. I’d been discarded. I wasn’t important.

  I stood up from the table, left the coffee shop and began following him. It was easy to conceal myself, as there were lots of tourists and it was a market day. I began trailing him. I kept as close as possible and always kept him in sight. He didn’t stop or look over his shoulder, which made it easier, but walked quickly, every now and again looking at his watch. Eventually he reached a hotel. It was old, covered in ivy, with hanging baskets of geraniums around the entrance, the kind you rarely see in central London. He walked straight in through the entrance. This left me with a dilemma. I wasn’t sure how to follow him without being noticed, so I hung around outside for a moment and then peeped inside.