It looked very classy and was probably expensive. The reception desk was across the room facing the door. I could see Gareth. He had his back to me and was talking to the receptionist. Fortunately for me the leaded windows, the oak panelling, the deep red plush carpet and the brass side lights made it dark inside. There were quite a few visitors milling around, so without being noticed I could hide behind one of the oak pillars.
Keeping my eyes on Gareth I walked in and looked around for the toilet. If I was stopped and asked what I was doing, I’d say I wanted the toilet and if it was Gareth who saw me, I’d express surprise at seeing him, smile sweetly, say I wasn’t well and was on the way to the loo. There were lots of nooks and crannies but straightaway I saw the sign saying ‘ladies powder room’ and having located that, I sat at the furthest part behind a pillar. I was well away from the reception area but I could still see Gareth.
I picked up one of the fancy magazines scattered around and began flicking through the pages as I watched him. He was leaning over the desk and the receptionist was looking up at him and talking. She stood up and gave him a key. He signed the visitor’s book, walked over and sat in a chair where he could see the entrance.
I just knew he was there for Chloe. I wondered how long he’d have to wait. It wasn’t long. I looked at the time. She came within ten minutes. He stood up. She walked right past him, sat in one of the armchairs, cursorily greeted him. They behaved as if they barely knew one another. Gareth nodded, then left, making his way up the wide staircase. To the bedrooms I supposed. Chloe remained where she was but she was looking round.
I kept my head down, shrank back into the chair and put the magazine close to my eyes as if I was short-sighted. I started giggling. I was thinking to cut some holes through the magazine so I could hold it up to my face, but still see what was going on. Instead I put my sun glasses on.
If she did see me, she didn’t let on. She’d left her flowery dress at home. Maybe that was for special occasions, like when she and Gareth planned to have it away in the forest, whereas in a hotel bedroom she could be in ‘full nakedness’, as John Donne would have said. I studied her clothes. Today she wore a knee-length, sea-blue shift dress, outsize round white earrings and carried a cane basket with a tan leather trim. As usual she looked stunning. For some reason I wondered if she wore perfume when they made love. I decided she probably would. She was the glamorous type after all. I didn’t imagine either she or Gareth carried their jim-jams around with them for these occasions, but that thought amused me too. There was nothing ordinary about either of them.
After a short time Chloe stood up and without looking round her, made her way upstairs. I looked at my watch again. They wouldn’t have much time, but presumably it would be long enough. A really passionate affair, I thought, and again a wave of jealousy passed over me but it was mixed with disapproval. These feelings always came together for me. I wondered how much Philomena knew and how hurt or angry she felt. There was also this Huw person. Did he know about Chloe’s lover?
As I sat thinking, a man entered the reception area. He stood looking round, his eyes scanning the reception area. There was something intense about him. He was in his mid-thirties, with short, curly, black hair, a sallow complexion and he was wearing a dark suit. He looked like a professional of some sort, maybe a solicitor or a manager because of his confident manner. He had a muscular neck and athletic build, like a rugby player but as I looked at him, he noticed me. I looked away. It had to be Huw looking for Chloe. Perhaps he’d called the art gallery and had been told, like me, she’d taken the day off.
He was staring at me almost as if he knew me but when he began to walk towards me, it was time to scarper. I sprang up, walked briskly to the loo and stayed there for ten minutes. By the time I came out, he’d gone. I left the hotel. I didn’t want to be there when Gareth and Chloe returned downstairs. I walked back to the coffee house and ordered a carrot and ginger juice. I had ten minutes before I was due to meet Gareth.
I wondered if Gareth and Chloe would ever leave their partners and I came to the conclusion that Gareth would probably stay, no matter how much he fancied Chloe. He’d been with Philomena so long and the farmhouse was important to them. The farmhouse was their baby, they’d created it together, but it was strange to me that couples stay together just for security and material reasons. I thought about the man who’d stared at me in the hotel. I was sure it was Huw and he knew who I was. If I’d stayed any longer he might have asked me if I’d seen them, and I wouldn’t have known whether to tell him the truth or not.
I began thinking about my own father. Had he left my mother because he’d been involved with someone else? If so, unlike Gareth, he’d dumped her and I was dumped along with her. Why he’d do that was a big mystery to me. Maybe he thought he wasn’t my father, but whatever the reason, without knowing anything about him, I felt weird. I felt I had no roots and I didn’t know who I took after and I wanted to know.
I decided to break the vow of silence my mother had placed on me. ‘Never speak of your father.’ She hadn’t actually said that but if I asked questions or showed any interest in knowing about him, I felt as if I’d burn in hell. Maybe Kieran would help, the archaeologist I’d met at the slate quarry. He was a researcher, so he’d know what to do and how to find out so, after I was back in London, I’d ask him. It was time I knew.
Part Three
After spending our summers in Wales, I was always pleased to get back into London, but even more so that year. I’d missed the buzz, the noise, the crowds, the red buses, and even the crowded, filthy tube. I straight away met up with my friends and gave them an edited version of the summer’s events, but I didn’t tell them about Ifan because I got upset if I spoke about him. I’d wanted us to be like those ancient wrinkled couples I’d seen in the paper, holding hands and celebrating seventy happy years together. I couldn’t accept he’d disappeared and what had happened lay hidden at the back of my mind. I couldn’t talk about it either, still it was all there.
Life was no longer predictable and people were not always as they appeared. I’d glimpsed how the adult world operated and the fragility of life and relationships. The river incident, the loss of Ifan, and the realisation that Gareth was infatuated with someone else and didn’t love Philomena, or not in the way I’d thought or expected, had affected me greatly.
Back at school I told my favourite teacher, Mr Harris, about the Surrealists’ exhibition my mother and her arty friends were putting on, and I asked the English teacher, Ms Spencer if we could study John Donne. She asked why the sudden interest and laughed when I told her, but she agreed to it.
I liked them both and being with my mates cheered me up and things improved for a while. The world seemed a safer place, but the feeling was temporary. Now we were back in London, me and my mum started sparring with each other. I don’t know why we got under each other’s skin. I’d try my best not to wind her up but we’d only have to be in each other’s company for a few hours and we’d start sniping. She watched me like a hawk and always found something to criticise. Usually it was about how I looked and what I was wearing but it could be anything, like how I spoke or what mood I might be in, or why I was so bad tempered.
One Saturday morning she kicked off big time, but this time I gave as good as I got and said things I’d never have dared say before. I was eating my breakfast when she started on at me.
‘You’re not going out like that, are you? You look ridiculous.’
I glanced at her and retorted, ‘Give me a break, what I wear is my own business.’
‘That’s what you think. Look at you. A total mess.’ I took no notice but when she said, ‘Why do I have to put up with your bad manners?’ that really got under my skin.
I shouted, ‘Bad manners…what do you think it’s like living with you? Under surveillance. Like I’m in an effing boot camp. That’s why I’m out all the time and why I’m wi
th my mates.’
She walked over to me and, folding her arms, bent her face so close it was an inch away from mine and hissed, ‘I’m your mother and I have a right to know what you’re up to.’
I raised my eyebrows and said, ‘Really, when we were at Ffridd, you didn’t give a shit what I was up to. I was left alone.’
‘Isn’t that what you want?’ She sneered as she said this.
‘Yeah, so get out of my face.’ We were eyeballing each other and she was looking daggers at me. I stood up.
‘Where are you going?’
‘To the sink. To wash my stuff up. It’s allowed, isn’t it?’
‘Give it to me.’ She tried to snatch it out of my hand. ‘I’ll do it.’
I gave her a look and passed my bowl across. She grabbed it but as she did, it slipped out of her hand and smashed on the floor. I laughed. I knew it would wind her up even more but I couldn’t stop myself. ‘See,’ I said. ‘See what happens; you should be more careful. That comes with being so uptight.’ I walked to the door and said over my shoulder, ‘I’m going out.’
‘Where to?’
‘Maddy’s.’
‘No, you’re not. I want you here. I want you to do some shopping for me.’
‘Sorry, otherwise engaged.’
She glowered. ‘You have no sense of responsibility.’
I fell on my knees, put my hands together as if praying, ‘Please God, help me to be a better person, so I can shop, cook, clean, for my dear mother. And make me a better daughter, make my mother a better mother and please, please bring a little sunshine into our darkness.’
She almost ran at me. She was about to slap me but I was up and away before she had time. I shouted, ‘I’m going now, but you know what…I’m sick of you telling me what to do, you’re a control freak. I’m not you and I don’t want to be like you. I’m different and the sooner you get that, the better for both of us.’ I didn’t stop there, ‘And why did you call me Echo, it’s stupid…and I’ll be at Maddy’s if you need me.’
She looked shocked. ‘Yes, go to Maddy’s. Much good she’ll do you.’
‘Fuck off.’
She made another lunge towards me but I ran into the hall, raced for the front door, and shouted, ‘I’ll be back, when you’ve calmed down.’ I slammed the door behind me. I knew she’d try and stop me but she wasn’t dressed, so by the time she’d have flung on her clothes, I’d have disappeared down the street. She just wasn’t quick enough.
Madeleine had been my best friend for as long as I could remember. I called her Maddy for short. She was great. She was wise, clever, funny and observant. She was in my class at school and liked the same things and the same teachers as me, but she was good at maths and I wasn’t. She and I used to talk about what we’d do when we left school. She knew already what she wanted to be, an architect. I really wanted that for her, because life for her and her family had been tough. Maddy told me that when she was an architect she planned to design a house for her family and close friends. She’d build it in the Scottish mountains overlooking a loch. It would have massive windows looking east and west so wherever you were, you could watch the sunrise and the sunset. She’d told me she felt cramped where she lived. It was too close to the neighbours. I knew what she meant.
Her dad came from Brazil and he was a talented musician. Every time I went to her place, there was music playing. He was a freelance percussionist and he was always laughing. I think it was the music that made him happy. He said it was good for you and better than any medicine. His name was Roberto, but he answered to Berto and he’d met Madeleine’s mum when she worked in one of the jazz clubs in the West End.
Madeleine’s mum was called Grace and she was a real Londoner. She’d been brought up in Hoxton near the flower market along the Columbia Road and she was the polar opposite to my mum. Whereas my mum was uptight and rarely smiled, Grace was smiley, easy going and liked to sing. She could make me laugh too. Nothing seemed to get to her. Two years after the birth of Madeleine, they had a baby boy. Berto wanted him to be called Antonius after a famous Brazilian musician, but every one called him Tony.
It looked like he was going to take after his dad as well as his namesake. He was always playing his guitar, not rock music but the bossa nova music of Brazil and he played it beautifully. Sometimes he’d play and sing ‘The Waters of March’ in Portuguese. I loved it when he did that and it reminded me of happier times when my mum sang it to me.
Grace and Berto got on really well even though they didn’t have much money. At one time or another all of them had been racially attacked, even Madeleine’s mum, just for marrying a Brazilian, but they seemed able to ride life’s problems; not like me, or my mum.
They lived in a flat off Green Lanes and I lived in a garden flat in Stroud Green so I’d cut across Finsbury Park when I went to see her. I wasn’t allowed to ride a bike in London. My mum said I’d get knocked off so I had to walk, bus, or go by tube everywhere. That makes it sound like she cared but I didn’t think so. The way I looked at it, she did everything to annoy me but after that row with her, I got in a strange mood, and I’m going to write about it the way it happened so you know how I felt.
So I’m walking across the park to get to Maddy’s. There’d been a music festival the previous night and some council workers were clearing away rubbish and litter, another lot were dismantling a stage. I stopped to watch them. There’s always a big clear-up after a music festival in the park. My mind went over the row. I knew I’d been lippy with my mother but when she started, it was like there were no holds barred for either of us. Then I think about the farmhouse in Ffridd and how when I was fed up I’d get on my bike and cycle to the estuary.
I missed it and I missed Philomena and Gareth and I’m wondering what’s going on between him and Chloe and whether he’s still involved with her. It’s like I’m obsessed and I keep thinking about them dancing in the forest at night, and how incredible it had been. But most of all I think of Ifan and how much I miss him.
I’m beginning to feel weird. I’m feeling as if I’m spaced out. I’m thinking I’ve imagined it, that nothing happened, there hadn’t been an Ifan, he didn’t disappear because he’d never existed and I’m feeling more and more strange, and kind of floaty, as if I was on some kind of acid trip. I was on that spit of sand again, in the middle of the river. I’m about to die. I no longer know what’s real and what isn’t. I look around me.
Focus. Stare. The workmen. The noise. The shouts. The metal bars banging. I hear the roar, the rush of the river, Ifan, the cool air on my naked body, he’s smiling, I touch him, he comes.
A workman. He shouts. I stare at him. ‘Cheer up love, it may never ’appen.’ He’s in my head. What if it has? It has happened. He’s already dead.
I’m walking now towards Green Lanes. I hadn’t said anything to anybody. I have to talk Maddy because she’s a good person and she’ll listen.
I cross the park and reach the top of Green Lanes. I look around. Start walking. It’s familiar. I’m feeling in the world again. Not totally, but a little. It’s early and it’s buzzy. Just the same as I remembered it. Life as normal. North London. I’m back. I’m here. In Green Lanes, among the Greek and Turkish Cypriots.
I walk down Green Lanes. They’ve brought their culture with them. On the dreariest of days they get up early. Some of them have a siesta in the afternoon as if they still live on an island in the Aegean. It’s a moment in time. I love it here. I’m beginning to feel normal again. I love the vibrancy and colour. The greengrocers with their boxes of fruit and veg spilling out of the shops on to the pavement. The contents piled high, geometrically straight, or carelessly disorganised. A kaleidoscope of clashing colours, the vivid oranges, the purple shiny aubergines, the yellow melons, the crimson tomatoes, the crisp green lettuces. The colours of the Aegean brought to the greyness of London’s streets. And jammed between the travel
agents selling cheap flights to Cyprus, the hardware shops, the dazzling lighting shops with ornate displays of curling gilt and shining glass, the bread and pastry shops and the neon lit coffee shops. Inside, the men, complexions darkened and lined by lives in the sun, spend their days and nights playing board games, gossiping, talking, smoking.
I cut down a side street parked up with cars packed together so tight you couldn’t get a playing card between them, reach Maddy’s block of flats and climb the stone steps up to the first floor. There’s no lifts but unlike some London blocks this is an okay place. It feels safe. I can tell that because the stairs don’t stink of urine and they’re free of needles and contraceptives, and there’s pots of geraniums and other plants outside some of the flats, and no one’s nicked them or smashed them.
I ring the front door bell. I can hear the chime from outside. Berto had downloaded ‘One Note Samba’ on to the front door bell and hearing it again makes me feel happy. I look at the door viewer, wave and blow a kiss because I know Maddy will check to see who’s there. She opens the door straight away. I can tell she’s pleased to see me.
She smiles broadly, says hello and asks whether I want a coffee or tea. I say a coffee. I sit down in the same chair in the lounge I always do. Maddy disappears into the kitchen.
Maddy rarely called me Echo because she knows I hate the name, so she’d christened me with her own choice – Annie. Her grandmother on her mother’s side loved old films, especially the music of Annie Get Your Gun and they’d often watched it together. Her Gran told Maddy that I reminded her of Annie in that film and that me and my mum were like the song ‘Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better’. After that, I got hold of a copy. I laughed when I saw it. I didn’t mind being called Annie and I liked the main character in the film. She was feisty.
My Name Is Echo Page 10