We reached his patio. ‘Wow,’ I said. I stood admiring it. It was made out of old bricks and paving and it had an enclosed area with a table and chairs and was surrounded with flowering climbing plants growing up a wooden framework.
‘You like my loggia?’
‘Is that what’s it’s called? Do I like it? You bet I like it. What about sitting outside later and eating there. Would that be possible?’
‘We can, if the weather’s good.’ Then he asked what I wanted to do the next day and whether there was anywhere in particular in Liverpool I wanted to visit.
‘I dunno. Why don’t you choose?’
In the end he took me on a tour. We went to Chinatown, visited John Lennon’s house, walked round the refurbished docks, popped into Tate Liverpool and finished the day’s sightseeing with a walk by the River Mersey. We parked near the shops. I told him I liked clothes and was working to save up for more. I was surprised when he said he’d buy me a new pair of skinnies and a t-shirt from H&M, but there was a condition. I had to wear them that night.
At the time I thought nothing of it because compared with my mother, he was easy to be with. He didn’t snipe at me and I even made him laugh once or twice, and because he was so nice and generous I was on my best behaviour, but all the time I was thinking how I was going to ask him about my father.
He said I could choose what kind of food we’d eat so I decided on a Chinese takeaway and I put on my new jeans and the t-shirt, as he’d asked. Everything was black because I wanted to look cool like Tarquin and Chloe. They were tight, especially the top but not as tight as the Camden one.
He said ‘They fit perfectly. Turn round. What’s it like from the back?’ I turned round. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘very nice indeed.’
I’d never had this kind of attention before and his interest made me feel good. We sat down for the meal. He was drinking a beer. He’d given me one too, but I didn’t like it, so he changed it to a spritzer made with lemonade. We’d already eaten when I began with my questions. It seemed the right time, now or never.
‘Harry, I expect you’re wondering why I rang you.’ He looked up but didn’t say anything but I’d got his attention, ‘You know my mum. She doesn’t talk to me. It pisses me off, but there’s some things I want to know, things you might know.’ He was looking at me but didn’t say anything. ‘Some things I think I should know, like everybody else, I have a right to know, so I wondered, whether you’d tell me?’
I was gabbling but he didn’t seem to mind.
‘What do you want to know?’
‘About my father, I don’t know anything about him. Do you, or did you know anything about him?’
‘You don’t know about him?’ He sounded surprised.
‘No, I don’t, I don’t, that’s why I’m asking you.’
He didn’t speak for a long time or that’s what it seemed, and then he said, ‘I’m sorry Phoebe hasn’t told you what happened. I’d have thought she’d have got over it.’
‘Got over it? Got over what?’
‘Your father. What happened.’
He stopped then. I could see him weighing me up and wondering whether to continue but by this time I was busting to know so I said, ‘Please, Harry, tell me.’
‘I’m wondering whether I should, if she hasn’t told you.’
‘I can cope with most things, living with my mother gives me a good start.’
He didn’t laugh, looked at me directly, blurted out, ‘Your father was married to someone else.’
That was an angle I hadn’t thought of. I was shocked into silence. The thought of my mother having sex with a married man was beyond anything I’d have imagined of her. It put her in the category of a femme fatale and like Chloe and Gareth. I couldn’t get my head round it. She was always so uptight and judgemental and behaved as if I’d been the virgin conception. He continued. I was glued to every word.
‘Of course, she didn’t know he was married. She’d been deceived and it was terrible for her when she found out. She’d been crazy about him. She never stopped talking about him, what he’d said, where they’d been, where he was going to take her.’
I managed to ask a question, although I was still reeling.
‘How long did she go out with him?’
‘Over four months. She said they were soul mates, that’s what he told her… Do you want to know more?’
‘Yes. As much as you know.’
‘He’d left his wife but he hadn’t told Phoebe he was still married. They’d met at a concert and they got talking in the bar and started going out. They shared a passion for opera and when she got pregnant, she’d thought they’d marry because he’d said he was in love with her.’ He paused and looked away from me before continuing the story. ‘When she said she was expecting, he told her he was married already and that he and his wife were having a trial separation. Phoebe was devastated. She never saw him again. All she had was his name and an address, but when she went to look for him, he’d left and there was no forwarding address.’
‘What about his work? Couldn’t she find him that way?’
‘He’d told her he worked for the BBC, but no one knew of him.’
‘What was his name?’
‘Tomos Morgan.’
‘So that’s the Welsh connection. Morgan. She’s given me his name. I’d always wondered why I had a different name.’
‘She said he was the father and you should have his name. I think she hoped he’d come back one day.’
I was stunned into silence. For once, I felt sorry for my mother. No wonder she never spoke of him. He’d well and truly shafted her. Maybe that’s why she disliked me. Maybe she even blamed me for him leaving her because if it hadn’t been for me, he might have hung around. But what a two-timing wimp. An arsehole of the first order.
I said, ‘Do you know where he might be? I’m thinking of shooting him.’
‘I wouldn’t do that. No. I don’t. Sorry.’
‘Don’t worry. I’m joking. I don’t care.’ I was beginning to feel upset. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got any photos of him?’
‘No.’
‘Do you think that was his real name, Tomos Morgan?’
‘Who knows? It could be but it doesn’t necessarily mean anything. It’s possible he made it up. Along with the story he spun her.’
‘Wanker.’ I paused, he was giving me such a look, I added, ‘Not you, him.’
Neither of us spoke for a long time.
‘I want to be on my own.’ I stood up and walked away to the end of the garden where I couldn’t be seen. It was dark. I was tearful. I didn’t want to say any more to him because I might cry and he’d be embarrassed.
I’d hoped by meeting him I’d get to know more about my father. Then I could track him down, and I’d feel less alone, but the opposite had happened. I did know more, but now I wished I didn’t. To have a father like that, a man capable of deceiving and betraying a pregnant woman carrying his baby, who happened to be me; the more I thought about it, the worse I felt. I was damaged goods. I felt like shit and so bad I didn’t know what to do with myself.
I looked up. Harry was coming along the path towards me. He put his arm round me and said, ‘It’s late, come back, you haven’t finished your meal.’
I did what he asked but sat staring into space. I didn’t want to eat. I was trying to keep myself together.
‘Echo, stop. Please. Stop. Your foot’s banging my chair.’
I felt a flash of anger. ‘So what?’ I looked daggers at him as if it was his fault, but it wasn’t. ‘Sorry, I didn’t know I was doing that, swinging my leg. But don’t call me Echo. I hate it.’ I glanced at him. He looked sympathetic, but intense. He caught my glance and gazed directly into my eyes. That brought me up sharp. There was something about his expression that reminded me of Ifan. He would have totally understood, after all he�
�d had a similar experience.
‘I had a boyfriend once.’ I looked at Harry. ‘Did you ever had a girlfriend?’ He didn’t answer but he looked uncomfortable so I backed off. ‘His name was Ifan and I met him in Wales. I miss him now. You know, times like this. We told each other everything.’
I stared at the garden. The lights from the house next door lit up the roses and they were smelling strong and sweet. ‘But something happened. Do you want to know what that was?’
Harry shot up out of his chair, ‘It’s dark. I’m going inside.’ He walked into the house. I followed him.
‘Listen, don’t walk off. I want to tell you about Ifan because it upsets me. He’s gone. That’s what I was going to tell you. We were crossing the river and I nearly drowned. That’s when he vanished. They said I was imagining him. But it’s not true, he was real, he was the best friend I’d ever had… I’m not mad. You don’t think so, do you? You don’t, do you?’ My eyes were filling with tears.
He sat down. He was silent. He was looking past me as if I wasn’t there but then he switched his gaze to look directly at me. He wasn’t smiling. There was something about him I didn’t like. He was watching me. I knew where I’d seen that look before. A man in the park. I was eight and on my own and I’d had to run.
I watched his every move, every gesture, every flicker of his eyelid. He was tall and sitting in one of those old fashioned, long, low armchairs. He yawned, lifted up his arms, sprawled back, his legs wide. He patted his thigh.
‘Come here, sweetheart. You’re upset, you need a cuddle.’
I saw what was going on. It was obvious. It was obscene.
‘I’m going.’ I almost ran towards the door, but before I could leave, he’d leapt up, strode across the room and put his arms round me. He pulled me towards him. He had a strong body odour which disgusted me.
‘Don’t go. I was going to make some tea.’
I pulled away from him but he wouldn’t let me go, so I had to struggle. I felt his hands on my breasts as I pushed him away. I tried to pretend everything was normal and said in a gasping voice, ‘No. Water’s fine, there’s some in my room. I’m tired.’ I backed away from him, left the room, pulled the door shut behind me and galloped up the stairs.
I got to my bedroom. I locked the door. I thought he’d been kind because he liked me. How stupid can you get? I looked at myself in the mirror. I hated myself. I must look like a tart, because that’s how he made me feel. Did he think I’d let him touch me up? Couldn’t he see how upset I was when he’d told me about my father?
I began to cry, hot tears flowing down my face. I pulled off the new jeans and the top he’d bought and stuffed them into the rubbish bin. I put my own clothes back on. I looked out of the window; I had to go, leave without him knowing.
The door knob rattled. He was standing outside my room.
‘Echo, let me in. I’m sorry you’re upset. I won’t hurt you.’
I didn’t answer. I was so frightened and I wondered what I’d do if he forced the door open. I looked around for something to hit him with but there was only the vase with the roses in, but that was better than nothing. He went away eventually. I packed my case. Hours later, after he’d gone to bed, I crept downstairs, silently opened the front door, walked to the main road and caught a cab to the station.
The night train was about to leave for London. I arrived back in the early hours. I never told my mother that he’d come on to me. What would be the point? She’d only say she told me so. It made it easier. I vowed I’d never see Harry again and the next day I texted Kieran with his name and address. I said it was better that he follow up The Caban himself. Months later he got in touch thanking me. He asked to meet up again but I didn’t want to, so I never saw him again either. It was like he was associated with finding about my father and the kind of bloke Harry was. Irrational, I know, but that’s how I felt. I knew the truth now about my father and that was bad enough but how Harry had been, was something I wanted to forget.
After the visit to Liverpool, I felt really low about everything and everybody and it got so bad, I didn’t want to leave my bedroom. I’d get up, get dressed, go to school, come back, do my homework, watch television, read, go to bed. I lived in my own bubble and looked out at the world from inside that bubble.
My mother noticed. She said, ‘Since you saw my brother, you’ve changed. What’s got into you?’
‘Do you really want to know?’
‘That’s why I’m asking you,’ she said.
I paused, then I said, ‘If I tell you, promise you won’t go on about it.’ She didn’t answer, so I took the risk and told her, not about Harry but my father.
We were standing in the kitchen and she was leaning against the kitchen units. ‘I wanted to find out about my father, but because you won’t talk about him, I asked Harry.’ There was an ominous silence. I ploughed right on.
‘I know about him now… He let you down, didn’t he, and you were left with me, and you never saw him again after you told him you were pregnant.’ She looked shocked and stared at me. I said, ‘Aren’t you going to say anything?’
Eventually she said, ‘What is there to say?’
She turned away and started putting clothes into the washing machine. I felt sorry for her. I saw her as human now, rather than an evil mother.
‘Well, I wanted to know the truth and now I do.’
She still didn’t say anything so in desperation, because I wanted some kind of reaction from her, I said, ‘Look, it’s not just about you. You had a lover who betrayed you but I have a father who abandoned me. We share the same man. He doesn’t give a shit about either of us.’
‘That’s enough. I prefer you don’t speak of him again.’ She walked out of the kitchen and within a minute she was speaking to Maureen on the phone, making an arrangement to see her. That was it. I was left to deal with the emotional backwash on my own. I felt no better.
As for Harry, I’d thought, hoped, he was a regular guy, reliable and trustworthy. I wanted him as an uncle just as I wanted my father. I’d thought he could be a friend, but he had other ideas and he’d made it plain what he wanted. He’d conned me with his niceness, while all the time he had dirty little fantasies about me. What did he expect me to do? Give him a hand job? I wasn’t up for sex, not with him, I wasn’t. He was family. My uncle, my mother’s brother, amongst other considerations. I didn’t like it, and I didn’t like seeing him with a hard-on. He knew I was upset about Ifan and my father, but he’d ignored that and tried it on. I didn’t exist for him. Not as a real person. I hated him. He was repulsive, gross and repellent.
I felt so angry with him, with her, with Gareth, with Chloe, the whole fucking lot of them, that I decided to tell Maddy. She’d already noticed I was withdrawn because I’d stopped going out, but unlike my mother she reached out to me. She came round to my flat one evening when my mum wasn’t there and insisted I tell her what was going on. I cried when I told her. She put her arms round me and hugged me.
She said, ‘All men lead with their trousers,’ and ‘Sex is never far from their thoughts.’ That’s what her mum had told her, and she’d said we should feel sorry for them because they were victims of their testosterone. Maddy had a badge at home which when she found, she gave to me. It had a bright red apple on it and it said, ‘Eve was framed’. It had belonged to her mum because when she was young, she’d been part of the women’s movement. Maddy made me promise never to throw it away.
She made me laugh that night and I began feeling better. She wanted me to go out with her over the weekend, but I wouldn’t say if I would or not. Just as she was about to leave, she turned round and said, ‘And, Annie, keep away from older men, and that includes Gareth.’
‘Gareth?’ I was surprised she’d remembered.
‘Gareth. Yes. You know who I mean. What’s going on? I know you, Annie. Your silence means something.
’ She sat down again. ‘I want to know.’ She was staring at me and I knew she wouldn’t go until I told her.
I said, ‘He’s coming to London for his book launch. I haven’t a date yet but it’ll be at the South Bank. He agreed to meet me.’ I was bullshitting because I didn’t know for sure, but that’s what I hoped.
‘Nice one, I’ll come too.’
‘You don’t like poetry.’
‘A small detail.’
We sat staring at each other. She said, ‘You told me he was exciting, that he read John Donne, that he made love to beautiful women in the forest, and you were going to seduce him. It’s so vivid it’s burnt a hole in my brain.’
‘Maddy, I told you before. Not women. Woman. One woman. Chloe.’
‘All the rest I’ve said is right. Right? So?’
‘What’s that mean? So?’
‘Is that still what you’re going to do? If so, where and when? Let me think, I’m you. I’ve got a plan. A plan of seduction and my target is a male by the name of Gareth and he’s about to hit town. We arrange to meet in a hotel room. I’m interested in him, in poetry, his in particular. But I get pissed. I’m scared. It’s my first time. I dress in a way designed to attract him. Nothing obvious. Nothing crude. Poets go for subtlety. He doesn’t want your breasts falling out. I leave the balcony bra at home. “Au naturel” is what turns him on. He’s a man of feeling, of imagination, of romance, love, passion and sincerity – that’s what he wants. You plan to give it to him. Right, Annie?’
I look at her. I burst out laughing. I couldn’t stop.
‘Shut up. What’s so funny?’
‘You are. You’re funny, Maddy.’
‘You think that’s funny. I don’t think so. It’s the truth. But, what if it goes wrong?’
‘How can it go wrong?’
‘You’re not stupid. Loads of ways. Then you’ll be upset. Like you are with your uncle.’
‘No comparison. Gareth’s good. He’s not a relation.’
‘But you want to seduce a married man. More than double your age. What if you succeed? Not too good, is it? Screwing a young girl.’
My Name Is Echo Page 13