But right then, it wasn’t the bath I wanted, but the shower. I hung my towel on the hook and stepped underneath the enormous metal disc suspended from the ceiling. I turned it on. A powerful force of water gushed out. It was cold, so cold, I lost my breath for a moment, but it warmed up quickly, the water surging from the round shower head like gigantic rain drops, saturating my hair, running down my face, cascading down my body.
I held my hands and face up to the water and laughed with delight. I experimented with the flow, the force, the temperature. I danced, I twirled, I sang, I ran in and out the water. I made the water hot, cold, strong and weak. I was as happy as a carefree child, and in my imagination I was running naked
in and out of a mountain waterfall.
‘Anya. Anya.’ I turned round, water streaming down my face. Ifan was standing just inside the door. ‘You’ve been here almost an hour. Your coffee’s cold and your food’s ready.’
Immediately I was self-conscious. I spoke primly, attempted to hide myself and switched the water off. ‘I’m taking a shower, you shouldn’t have come in, pass me my towel, please.’
‘You didn’t lock the door and there’s no towel. I can’t see a towel.’ He was smiling and walked further into the room.
I glanced around. The towel had disappeared. I glared at him. ‘What’s so funny? There’s no towel because you’ve taken it, haven’t you?’
‘Maybe I have. Maybe I haven’t. Actually I can see it. It’s there, on the chair, where you left it. You know what, you’re going to have to come and get it.’ He sat on the side of the bath, smiled, folded his arms. ‘No good looking at me like that, Anya, because I’m here and it’s impossible to intimidate me. I’m staying. Besides, I like looking at you. You’re beautiful… especially without clothes on.’
‘I’m soaking wet and I don’t want you staring at me.’ I scowled, turned to put the shower back on, wrestled with it unsuccessfully and said, ‘It’s broken and it’s your fault it isn’t working and you’re making me nervous standing there. You’ll have to fix it.’
He walked across to the shower, which gave me time to retrieve my towel and wrapping it around me, I returned to stand next to him.
‘I can’t see anything wrong with it,’ he said.
‘Really?’ I said. ‘You’ll have to try harder. Let me try.’
I turned the shower on. A jet of warm water streamed over his hair and clothes. He was momentarily shocked, then he laughed, but he stayed where he was, looking intently at me as the water cascaded over him. I turned the knob to increase the force of the water. He didn’t move, but looked straight into my eyes, oblivious to the water cascading over him.
I laughed. ‘Look what’s happened. You’re saturated. Now you’ll have to take your clothes off. Go on. All of them.’ He gave me one of his looks, pulled off his t-shirt, unbuttoned his jeans, removed his boxers, and threw them one by one across the room towards the bath. He changed the water flow to its gentlest and warmest. He stood close and slowly unwound the towel from round my body.
We faced each other. The water poured over us. I took a step back. I wanted to see him. Seeing him naked took me back to when I’d had the disastrous panic attack. It was different now. I’d changed. Now he looked good and I wanted him like crazy.
He was tall with an athletic build, powerful muscles in his legs – must have been his cycling. His skin was fair. He had a scar which ran from his knee up his thigh. I traced its line with my finger. I looked up at him. He was watching me.
‘A bike accident,’ he said, ‘don’t stop.’ I didn’t. His grey eyes shifted away from my face, followed the flow of water across the curves of my breasts, down my body, through my dark pubic hair and down my legs. We were silent, the warm water cascading over us. He was aroused. He touched me all over. I took a step nearer.
He spoke then, ‘Anya…what do you want?’
I knew exactly what I wanted. ‘You. I want you.’
He was so close, I was aware of his breath. He switched the water off, pushed the wet strands of my hair away, kissed my mouth, my neck, my belly, and slowly drew and held my wet body against his. In a soft voice said, ‘Here? Now?’
I looked directly at him. ‘Yes.’
That was all either of us said. We went to bed but we never made it back down to the kitchen.
Someone was knocking on the bedroom door. ‘Anya, Anya, are you asleep?’
I had been. I struggled to sit up, and smiled. Ifan was lying on his stomach next to me, one arm stretched across the
bed, the other round me. Sunlight streamed round the edges of the closed curtains.
‘Who is it?’ I was sleepy.
‘It’s me, Philomena. I’ve got coffee for you.’
I covered Ifan with the duvet and pulled one corner up to my shoulders. ‘Come in.’
She walked in, her usual chatty self. ‘I saw the car outside. I guessed you were with someone. Ah, the clothes on the bathroom floor, they’re his. Who is this?’
Ifan was pretending to be asleep but I knew he wasn’t. I wriggled away. He was making it difficult to concentrate.
‘Ifan, you know, my childhood friend and the one you asked me about. What time is it?’
‘Late. But you didn’t say you were going to see him.’ She seemed at a loss for words. ‘Well, good. That’s good. I’m pleased. I’ll get another coffee. I wasn’t sure what was going on and who was here. I didn’t recognise the car.’ She got to the door and then said, ‘Your perfume. What is it?’
‘Coco Mademoiselle. I wear it for special occasions.’
‘It’s a lovely fragrance.’
‘Yes, it has a definite presence.’ I smiled to myself and looked down at Ifan. He sat up, offered his hand to Philomena, ‘Hello,’ he said, ‘I’m Ivan Baranov. I’ve heard so much about you.’
‘Have you now, good things, I hope.’ She hesitated, ‘Well, if you two want to stay longer, and I think you do, you can come down later. There’s plenty of coffee and croissants. Tim’s here, and Gareth rang to say he’d be over later for lunch with Ceri and Chloe. But take your time.’
She pulled the door behind her, then opened it immediately. ‘I put the clothes I found in the bathroom into the dryer, they should be dry soon.’ She walked out and I heard her run down the stairs.
We looked at each other. He lay back on his stomach and began lightly caressing me. ‘So, Ms Morgan, why’s it taken so long?’
‘To do what?’
‘You know what I’m talking about.’
I pulled away from him, sat up, got out of bed and stood up. ‘I dunno. Maybe self-protection. I really don’t know. Maybe fear. That you’d leave me and if we’d, well, had sex or whatever, and I’d got fond of you, that would be even worse.’
‘Fond. That’s a stupid word.’
‘Well, what word would you use?’
‘How about love?’ I didn’t reply. I pulled my night shirt back on and walked towards the door. ‘Where are you going, Echo? Stay here.’
‘Ifan, don’t sound so indignant. I’ve an idea; you know the bath, it’s really big, what about trying that out?’ I leaned seductively against the chest of drawers like Cherie Dear did.
‘I see you’ve got over your shyness, but I want you here, not there. So remove that shirt you’ve just put on.’ He jumped out of bed, took hold of my hand and pulled me back. But I wasn’t to be put off, ‘Just a minute,’ I said, ‘I want to ask you something.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Do you remember the time, we were by the river, it was when we were very young and you asked me to take off my clothes?’
‘As if I’d forget.’
‘What was it you nearly said, but never said? Do you remember?’
‘I’m not telling you because I want to know something.’
‘Say what it is and I’ll tell you.’
>
‘It’s about me and you… I want to know if…?’
He was looking into my eyes. I knew what he wanted me to say. I took a deep breath and I told him the truth. It was a big, big moment for me. I said, ‘Ifan, I’m crazy about you and I’ve been crazy about you since we first met. I love you – more than I can say.’
‘You mean it?’
‘I do. But you won’t leave me?’
‘No. There’s no one like you. You’re wonderful. You’re funny. You make me laugh and above all… I love making love to you.’
‘Ifan… You may say that but I still don’t know…you know, if I can trust you?’
‘Give me a chance. He smiled ‘Come here. You’ve forgotten what I told you. Listen. ‘Ti yw fy nghariad ers erioed ac mi fyddi’ngariad i mi am byth.’
‘No, I hadn’t. But I can’t pronounce it, and you never told me what it meant.’
‘You want to know?’
‘I do. I really want to know.’
He patted the bed. ‘Then come here. Come lie with me and be my love. Like the poet said.’
I leant over and kissed him. I whispered ‘You’re irresistible, Ifan Baranov.’
He pulled me to him. ‘Anya Morgan, aka Echo Morgan, I want you to lie with me. Closer than that.’
He pushed my hair away from my face then whispered into my ear, ‘Ti yw fy nghariad ers erioed ac mi fyddi’n gariad i mi am byth. It means, you are my love and always have been and always will be. Can you say that? Ti yw fy nghariad ers erioed ac mi fyddli’n gariad i mi am byth. Say it after me.’
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Also by Marguerite Valentine
‘Between the Shadow and the Soul’
Flori is a successful, attractive young woman living and working in London when in the early hours of the morning, in a moment of madness, she steals a tiny baby. With the reluctant assistance of her best friend, Rose, and Matt, an erstwhile lover, she flees with the baby to Jura, a remote Scottish island.
Living in extreme isolation and without the support of Rose or Matt, traumatic memories from her childhood return to haunt her and her life begins to unravel. Calling again on her friend for help, Rose insists she tells her the truth about her past. Confronted by Rose’s determination, Flori is forced to reveal a secret, a secret she has kept since childhood but which leaves Rose with a terrible dilemma.
Between the Shadow and the Soul is about the conflicts of love, trust and betrayal and how friendship can be tested to its limits.
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Acknowledgments
My thanks to Andy Aiers, Kate Dee and Jenny Collingridge for reading an early version of the manuscript, to Tony Collingridge for advising on the Severn Bore, to Richard Grove for his computer know-how, and to Kris Moen for his last minute, masterful proofreading.
To Susan Steinberg, film maker extraordinaire, for her inspirational creativity and whose (real) Welsh farmhouse was the basis of the (imagined) farmhouse in Ffridd.
Special thanks also to Sally Berry and Tom Ryan of the Arbours Association whose outstanding commitment to working with and understanding the emotionally troubled stood me in good stead as a psychotherapist and now as a writer.
About Echo
“I waited for ten minutes and then I closed in on him. I could see JF sitting at his desk under the window. His hand was on the touch pad of his computer and he was looking intently at the screen. I had to be fast. I stood on the pavement in the shadows, pulled on my mask, then keeping to the wall, slithered down the steps. I reached basement level. I stood watching him. He was oblivious to my presence and to the security light which snapped on. I tapped lightly on the window. He glanced up. I pressed my contorted rubber face against his window, dragging my hands down as if I was clawing my way in.”
Urban, angry and quirky, Echo is a young woman who won’t take no for an answer. Written in her own words, she tells the story of her journey from childhood to adulthood. With more than her fair share of joys, fears, and disappointments, it’s men that cause her the most grief.
From the unaccountable disappearance of her first love, her failure to seduce Gareth, a Welsh poet, to a traumatic betrayal of trust, Echo finally concludes enough is enough. She plans revenge but in her own sweet idiosyncratic way. Told with dark humour, this is a tale of sexual politics for the twenty-first century.
About Marguerite Valentine
Working in the Midlands, I with others set up one of the first Women’s Refuges in the UK before successfully researching for a Ph.D at the University of Warwick. From there I began working in Child Care in various London Boroughs with a special interest in Child Protection. I was becoming increasingly fascinated by what makes people tick, so training as a psychotherapist was my next step and during that time I wrote and had published non-fiction papers. I found my clients inspirational but felt constrained by academia and eventually switched to fiction. All my characters have in common with us all, a struggle to survive, to overcome, and to make sense of what life throws at them. Between the Shadow and the Soul is my debut novel. I was interested in why a woman might steal a baby and created the character of Flori, whose traumatic childhood history drove her to steal a baby as an attempt to overcome her tragic past. My writing is dark, driven by the question ‘why’ as I seek to understand why people might behave in the way they do.
My Name Is Echo Page 28