Past Secrets (21 page)

They’d had rows before, but never like that.

Never with such words of bitterness and anger.

Amber could hardly bear to think of what she’d said, but she couldn’t back down and say sorry, because there was so much more to be said.

Mum, I’m leaving with Karl and I won’t be sitting my exams, won’t be going to college. She’d done her best to avoid her mother all weekend, muttering about having to study and not meeting Faye’s eyes. She couldn’t face it. The tension was killing her.

She hadn’t told Karl about the row, either. He had been worrying so much about tonight he hadn’t noticed how upset she was. And now he’d let Stevie throw her out of the dressing room, hadn’t fought for her, hadn’t sneaked out to see whether she was all right.

She hugged her knees up close to her chest, and laid her cheek on one knee. Hidden away here, safe and unseen, she’d be fine.

There were three bands before Karl’s, and Amber listened, her eyes half closed in concentration, jealous of any sign of anyone better than him. And then they were on stage and her nerves returned in force.

Please let them be brilliant. Please let there be no bum notes. Don’t let Karl fall apart from stage fright.

There were four of them in the band, Ceres: three other guys who were good-looking and good musicians, too, but Karl had been right when he’d told her that first night that he was the band. It was the simple truth. The magnetism he had offstage was magnified tenfold on it. Brooding and Byronic, he held the mike to his mouth with two hands, like a man might hold his lover’s face cupped close to his own before kissing her lips.

Now I’ve found you, I can’t let you go You’re in my blood

In my dreams

Like a sleepwalker, I’ll come back to you My love

It was the song he’d written for her.

‘You inspired me,’ he said softly after he’d played it to her one afternoon in the quiet of her bedroom when she should have been at double history.

Amber had listened with her heart singing along, because this was pure, true love: to be immortalised in song as the beloved of a man as gifted as Karl.

And it was all worth it, even putting up with nasty Stevie, who looked at her with appraising eyes as if she was a piece of meat he was bidding for at a market. He’d only known Karl for a week.

Wait till he realised that Amber wasn’t some bit of fluff, that she was part of Karl, then Stevie would change his attitude.

The last note of their three-song set finished, and Karl raised his hands in triumph at the crowd, who cheered wild approval.

They’d loved him and his band.

A huge grin split Amber’s face as her lover turned to where she sat hidden and smiled that private, sexy smile he kept for her alone. He’d seen her! But just as quickly, he turned to his audience, still with her smile on his face, a smile of such languorous heat that people screamed.

Then, applause ringing in his ears, he dragged himself away from the drug of the crowd’s approval and stalked offstage, longlimbed, panther-like, utterably fuckable. He passed feet away from Amber’s hiding place and never glanced her way. He hadn’t seen her at all, she realised with a jolt. That private smile had not been for her, but for the thousand-strong crowd he’d held in the palm of his hand. It wasn’t her smile any more: it was everybody’s.

Amber snatched at her tiger’s-eye pendant for comfort but there was none there.

An hour later in a small, latenight restaurant, Amber went to slide into the curved banquette seat beside Karl, but Stevie - stocky, slicked-back hair Stevie in his heavy leather jacket and chunky Tag Heuer watch - muscled in past her so subtly that only Amber felt the nastiness of the gesture.

‘How’s my best lead singer?’ he said, grabbing Karl’s shoulders in a matey manner.

‘Walking on air,’ replied Karl. ‘That was some buzz in the SnakePit, wasn’t it?’

‘In two words, incredible,’ said Lew, the drummer, moving in to sit the other side of Karl, pulling his girlfriend, a shy girl called Katie, in after him.

‘Amazing,’ Kenny T, the keyboards man, pronounced, squashing up beside Katie.

‘Total blast,’ sighed Sydney, bass guitar. Sydney’s girlfriend was away, so had missed their night of triumph. Syd had spent ages on the phone trying to describe how wonderful it had all been, and was now drinking himself into oblivion to make up for her absence. Syd settled in beside Stevie and then looked up at Amber, still standing beside the table, waiting for Karl to notice her and make space for her beside him.

But Karl didn’t notice. He was wrapped up in Stevie and the flannel that spewed effortlessly from the manager’s mouth.

Everyone wanted to sign the band.

They were the hottest ticket there. Stevie was so shallow, so fake, Amber thought.

Could nobody see it except for her? They were all in thrall to Stevie, laughing at his hopeless jokes.

What do you call a drummer with no girlfriend?

Homeless.

Lew, the drummer, laughed himself sick at that one, seeming not to realise that it was totally true in his case because Katie’s teacher’s salary supported him.

It was a horrible evening and Amber had never been so glad as when it ended and she and Karl were alone in the taxi.

‘Will you stay the night? Please, this was so special. I want you here beside me when I wake up so I know it hasn’t all been a dream.’

Karl’s head was resting on her shoulder in the taxi, his breath still sweet with the orangey tang of the final glass of Cointreau. There had been endless drinks, champagne even. ‘You better get used to it because it’ll be premier cru all the way from now on,’ Stevie had said, summoning waiters with a rude click of his fingers.

At least the waiters could see what he was like, filling his glass more slowly than anyone else’s, glaring at him. She hoped they’d spat in his coffee. ‘Stay,’ repeated Karl sleepily.

Amber never stayed. Staying might mean her mother finding out that her bed wasn’t slept in, that she hadn’t been burning the midnight oil in her bedroom, studying diligently like the sensible schoolgirl she was supposed to be.

And then Karl’s hands unbuttoned her jacket and reached into the cavern of her cleavage, expertly finding the exact place where the lacy strap of her bra gave a finger’s-width access to the bare skin beneath.

She felt the liquid rush of desire hit her groin and moaned softly, moving closer. ‘I want to be

with you tonight, Amber. Please.’ Suddenly, the words of the song he’d written for her came into her mind.

To hell with not wanting her mother to know.

She’d have to know sometime. Karl was a part of Amber’s life now, for ever.

‘I’ll stay,’ she murmured back. ‘Just try and stop Faye woke early the next morning. It was Monday and she hoped that a new week would bring peace between her and Amber. Her daughter was definitely avoiding her and, yesterday evening, had gone upstairs to study at six, saying she’d see her mother in the morning.

Faye had stood at the door before she went to bed, but she could still hear the low sound of the radio Amber always listened to when she worked, and she decided that interrupting the study might result in another argument.

Faye normally liked waking early and would get a cup of coffee and sit up in bed reading and thinking. But today, she was too restless to sit. She brewed coffee and decided to take a cup in to Amber both to wake her up and as a peace offering.

Not that Faye felt she was the one who had to say sorry because Amber had been the one to fight.

But being a parent had taught her that getting over an argument was what mattered: not how you did it or who felt they’d won. You could be victorious or be happy was the child/parent mantra.

She knocked on Amber’s door and then walked in, expecting to see the gloom of shut curtains and Amber, a sleepy lump, huddled in her bed.

But the curtains were open, so was the sash window and Amber’s bed was patently unslept in.

The radio hummed low in the background, set to Amber’s favourite station. The room was cool from the window being open a long time and Faye realised that her daughter hadn’t slept at home the night before.

Faye dropped the cup of coffee, didn’t care that it spilled all over the floor.

‘Oh Lord, what’s happened?’ she cried. ‘Amber, where are you?’

She ran for her phone and dialled Amber’s mobile but got nothing but the automated message asking her to leave a message.

‘Amber, wherever you are, please phone me back, love, please. It was only an argument, that’s all. I understand how stressed you are, just call.

It’s all OK.’

Faye had no idea what she should do next. She certainly couldn’t go into work as normal with Amber missing. Panic had robbed her of her senses.

Finally, she sank to her knees on the landing floor and prayed. Dear God, I know I haven’t been around much lately after all I prayed to you when she was a baby, but find her for me, please, please, I beg you.

Ella’s phone was off too. They could be together.

That might be something, at least together they’d

have each other. But if Amber was alone and unhappy, out there somewhere thinking her mother was furious with her …

Faye scrolled through her mobile directory, found the number for Ella’s house and phoned.

The fact that it was six forty-five in the morning was immaterial.

A male voice answered.

‘Marco, it’s Faye Reid. Is your mother or Ella there?’

‘Hang on,’ Marco said, catching the urgency in her clipped tone.

She heard muffled conversation and then Trina, Ella’s mother, came on the line.

‘Faye, it’s Trina. What’s wrong?’

‘It’s Amber, she’s not here and her bed’s not been slept in,’ Faye said shakily. ‘I can’t get her on her phone. We had a row on Thursday, it was over nothing, you know how it is. But she’s been avoiding me since then, barely said two words to me, and now, when I went in to wake her, she’s gone. I’m sure she hasn’t been home all night.

Trina, is Ella there? Amber might have stayed with you, or Ella might know where Amber is.’

‘Ella’s here but I know that Amber isn’t,’ Trina said, doing her best to hide the instinctive relief that at least she knew where her daughter was. “I had to wake Ella for school and Amber’s not there.

Hold on, I’ll get Ella now.’

‘Ask her,’ Faye begged, ‘ask her if she knows where Amber is, if they talked about the argument.’

It was several long minutes before a reluctant sounding Ella said ‘hello’ into the phone.

‘Ella, I know she’d talk to you if she was upset,’

began Faye, her voice shaky. ‘Just tell me where she’s gone.’

‘I can’t, Mrs Reid,’ Ella said slowly. ‘I think I know who she’s with but I don’t know where exactly. I’m sorry - I shouldn’t be telling you this, Amber should.’

‘Tell her what?’ demanded Trina’s voice in the background. ‘If you know anything about where Amber is, you better spill the beans now. Her poor mother is sick with worry.’

‘She’ll kill me if I do,’ Ella hissed at her mother. ‘I’ll kill you if you don’t,’ Trina hissed back. ‘Where is she?’ demanded an anguished Faye.

Ella sighed. ‘His name is Karl and he’s in a band called Ceres. We met him in a club in town and they’ve been going out for a few weeks. She’s probably at his flat. I don’t know where it is, though, sorry.’

Two mothers made involuntary gasps of shock.

The phone rattled as it changed hands and Trina came back on the line.

‘Faye, I’m so sorry. I had no idea,’ she said. ‘Is there anything I can do?’

‘No, thanks,’ said Faye, sure that Ella had already fled the scene to text the grisly news to Amber. Your mother knows and you’re up to your neck in it. ‘I’ll leave a message on her phone and then, I’ll have to wait until she decides to come home.’

Faye rang in sick. She couldn’t cope with work with this huge issue unresolved. She was tidying the kitchen when Amber finally made it home at half eleven that morning, still in her going-out clothes, her eyes wary, her pale skin evidence of lack of sleep. And sex, Faye thought, horrified.

Her baby had been out with some man having sex when she’d thought Amber was tucked up in bed.

‘Tell me about this Karl,’ said Faye grimly.

‘I love him. I’m going to New York with him.’

Amber snapped the words out in a voice that brooked no opposition. On the journey home, with both Ella’s text and a phone message from her mother telling her that she knew about Karl, she’d been caught between fear and fury. Her mother would not stop her seeing Karl. No way.

‘You’re what?’ said Faye, disbelieving. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. You don’t even know him, how can you love him and leave the country with him?’

‘I know enough to know he’s the man I love.’

Amber spat it out.

‘When did this happen?’ This had to be a sick joke, a game that Ella and Amber had dreamed up.

‘Last month. He’s a musician, he’s in a band.

He’s a songwriter, he’s brilliant,’ Amber said fiercely. ‘I love him.’

‘You love him? You can hardly know him. And what do you mean about going to New York with him?’

‘I do love him and I do know him. Where do you think I’ve been every night for the past month?’

hissed Amber. ‘Not in my room, that’s for sure.’

The kitchen suddenly seemed cold to Faye, even though it was sunny outside, as the enormity of what Amber had kept from her struck home.

Nothing or no one in her past had ever made her feel so betrayed before, simply because she’d never loved anyone the way she loved her daughter.

‘I can’t believe you lied to me,’ she said, then tried a different tack. ‘Amber, you know this is crazy. You can’t head off with a strange guy. You’ve got exams. You can’t have been studying and you’ll never pass …’

‘I’m not doing the exams, didn’t you hear me?’

shouted her daughter. ‘Don’t you ever listen? I’m not going to college, I’m going away with Karl.

You can’t stop me, you know.’ Amber realised her mother looked as if she’d been struck in the face.

Well, it was her mother’s fault - she never listened.