Past Secrets (39 page)

Amber was sick at the thought of Karl being attached to any part of Venetia.

She finished her wine with a flourish. She’d had enough of this. She was going back to the hotel and Karl was coming with her. They had been nice, charming, they had partied, you name it, but now they were going home to bed together and bloody Venetia had better get her hand off Karl’s knee damn quick.

Amber got to her feet unsteadily. Her handbag was under the table, so she had to bend to pick it up and she banged her forehead on the table. ‘Ouch.’

‘You OK?’ said Syd.

‘Fine, fine,’ said Amber with the unconcern of the very drunk. She swayed a little where she stood. ‘I am perfectly fine, just think I’ll go. Me and Karl, we’re tired.’

‘I’ll take you home,’ said Syd, pushing his chair back.

‘No,’ insisted Amber. ‘There’s no need. Karl will bring me home. I came with Karl, I’m going to go with Karl. He is my boyfriend, I am his muse,’ she said loudly, so loudly that nobody at the table could have missed it. But Venetia, Karl and the producer didn’t appear to have heard because they were all talking and laughing happily together.

Amber shoved her chair back and made it rather erratically around the table to Karl’s side. She laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘I want to go home, darling,’ she said. ‘Are you ready?’

Karl looked up at her. ‘No, no, you go,’ he said. ‘I’m fine, baby. Don’t wait up, whatever.’

Michael raised a hand and suddenly one of his team was escorting Amber outside.

‘But I’m waiting for my boyfriend, for Karl,’

she said. She could see Karl, but he wasn’t watching

her, although Venetia was looking at her with those exquisite cat-like eyes, her expression one of pity - not malice or jealousy or triumph, but plain, old-fashioned pity. It was the last thing Amber remembered as she was put in the back of the beautiful limo and whisked away to her exquisite, empty, hotel suite.

The next thing she knew there was so much daylight she could hardly open her eyes. She lay there, wondering where she was and then everything that had happened the night before flooded back. Karl. He hadn’t come home with her. How dare he do that to her? She was going to give him a piece of her mind. She sat up in the bed, ignoring the murderous throbbing of her head, and turned to where he should have been, but she was alone.

The bed was so big she’d only taken up a quarter of it. The other three quarters were pristine, unslept in. She threw back the covers and ran through the suite, but there was no sign of Karl.

Next, she phoned Syd and Lew in their respective suites.

‘Gee, Amber, why are you ringing me at this hour?’ groaned Lew.

‘It’s half eleven,’ she snapped, ‘hardly dawn.’ ‘We were out late, must have been six when we got in. Those people know how to party, one club after another.’

‘You went clubbing?’ she asked.

‘Well, yeah, eventually. What a blast. You shouldn’t have gone home so early, Amber. What was up with you anyway? Karl hates that sort of jealous stuff, you know.’

‘I wasn’t jealous,’ said Amber, feeling wildly embarrassed that even Lew, who wasn’t intuitive, had noticed.

‘You were nearly spitting when you were going.

I thought there might be a cat fight between you and Venetia. She’s some babe. I’d pay to see that.’

‘Thank you, Lew, you’ve been a great help,’

hissed Amber and hung up.

Syd was more on the ball, but sounded just as hungover.

‘No, I do not know where Karl is,’ he said and, to Amber’s ears, his words sounded like a statement he’d been practising just in case she should call.

‘Well, did he go off or did he come back with the rest of you? I mean he could have got another room here so he wouldn’t wake me,’ she said dubiously, knowing this was highly unlikely.

‘Look, Amber, this is between you and Karl,’

said Syd. ‘OK? Just leave me out of it. You know what I feel.’

Amber didn’t know what he felt, but she said thanks and bye and hung up anyway. Was Syd telling her that Karl had a thing going with Venetia, or that Karl was the sort of man that always had a thing going with some woman? Or was it something else? Syd was deep.

She went into her lovely bathroom and blasted herself under the shower, anything to get rid of this horrible old groggy dead feeling.

Next, she ordered breakfast. Not because she was hungry, more that she thought strong coffee and maybe fruit would jerk her out of her hangover.

Afterwards, she sat outside on the balcony, which overlooked the pool and watched beautiful people having business meetings around the glistening water. There were also plenty of people sunbathing, women with beautiful bodies, tanned and oiled, in white bikinis or exotic designer ones in Pucci prints. There was so much money here.

In their trip across the States they had seen the richest and the poorest. They had certainly stayed in the poorest places, and now they were in one of the wealthiest towns on the planet but Amber didn’t feel happy or thrilled, the way she thought she’d feel.

Her dreams of it had been about her and Karl being happy together. The problem was, there was no togetherness. Here, Amber was even more alone than she had been before she met Karl, when she’d only been dreaming about what love might be.

And now she had the guilt to carry for hurting her mother too.

Finally, she went out to the pool herself and lay there with a book, peeping over the corners of it, watching what was going on.

Eventually, the heat of the sun got to her and she fell into a dreamless sleep.

‘So this is where you are,’ said a voice. ‘I’ve been looking everywhere for you.’

It was Karl, except he didn’t look as if he’d had a wild night out in clubs. He looked like he’d had a very good night’s sleep. There was that faint hint of stubble on his jaw, his hair was tousled. The look in his eyes gave it away though. It was a look Amber had come to recognise when he walked offstage: a look of triumph, of sheer, almost sexual, pleasure. The look said: I’ve just stood in front of all these people and they all wanted me.

‘You can’t have been looking too hard for me,’

she said sarcastically. ‘I’ve been here all day and all last night,’ she added pointedly. ‘Where were you?’

‘Out,’ he said, his gaze raking over her, as if he didn’t like what he saw.

‘Out?’ demanded Amber, feeling her temper rise. ‘Out with whom?’ she added for effect.

‘With Michael, doing what we came to LA to do, Amber, remember? Hook up with a big producer, make our names, you know. We’re here to do more than just lie around the pool all day and work on our tans.’

‘I’m only working on my tan because I have no money and I can’t go anywhere and because I was waiting for you to come home,’ she snapped back, stung. ‘And I was worried, anything could have happened to you, anything.’

She could see his face soften at the thought that she’d been worried about him, and he smiled at her, became the old Karl again.

‘Oh, baby, you shouldn’t worry about me. Last night was so amazing, such a blast, talking about music all night long with someone like Michael.’

He sat down on the sun lounger beside her, leaned forward, his face boyishly excited.

‘You wouldn’t believe the people he’s worked with, the bands, the names, people whose albums I have and he knows them, he’s worked with them.

Jesus, it’s incredible. I can’t believe we’re here.’

‘So that was it?’ Amber asked hesitantly. ‘That was it. Sorry, you’re right, I should have called. I stayed over with Michael, he’s got the most amazing house in the hills, you should see it, all glass and beautiful. Rebuilt after the mud slides, totally incredible. He said it was an amazing house before but now it’s doubly amazing.’

‘Somebody said he had lots of art as well, didn’t they?’ Amber asked. ‘He’s a collector.’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ said Karl. ‘There were paintings and stuff, you know me, I’m not into that, I didn’t really notice, but yeah, sure, lots of fantastic stuff. You’ll see it. Listen, why don’t you and me go out to dinner, just on our own, not the gang, somewhere nice?’ ‘How can we afford it?’

‘It’s OK, Michael’s given us an advance against the advance, if you know what I mean.’ Karl grinned. ‘Money, we’ve got money, baby.’

‘Somewhere casual,’ said Amber hopefully, ‘because I still don’t really have anything to wear, except what I was wearing last night.’

‘What was that you were wearing?’ Karl said, furrowing his brow.

‘The green dress?’ Amber said. ‘Remember, you took it off because you thought it looked so nice.’

‘Oh, yeah, yeah. Wear that, it’ll be cool.’

The concierge recommended a little crab restaurant out in Venice, and they got a cab, sitting in the back, holding hands like teenagers, pointing out the sights and looking at people, admiring this place that was so different from home. The cute little restaurant looked like a shack but with nonshack prices, Amber realised. That was the problem with staying in really cool hotels. When you told the concierge you wanted to go somewhere cheap and nice, he sent you to the cheapest place rich people went.

‘This is so expensive, we better not have starters,’

Amber whispered, scanning the menu.

‘Hey, no problem, baby,’ said Karl. ‘I’ve got money, remember?’

It was lovely, Amber thought, to have some cash finally. At last she could buy some more clothes because her stuff from home wasn’t suitable. Her flowery chain-store bikini, which looked really nice at home, looked sort of ordinary among all the little designer pieces the girls wore here.

‘You’ll have to give me some cash too,’ she said, thinking of what she’d buy. ‘For clothes and things.’ ‘Sure, should have thought of it before. Sorry.’

He took out his wallet, a new wallet, Amber realised, made of very soft suede leather. When had he been shopping? There was a nice fat wad of green notes in it, and Karl pulled out a few and handed them across to her at the precise moment that their waiter reappeared to take their order.

Amber grabbed the money and stuffed it into her purse, feeling hideously embarrassed. It was like she was a hooker and being paid in a restaurant.

But neither Karl, nor the charming waiter, appeared to have thought so. The only person dying with embarrassment was Amber. Despite her happiness that things were working out for the band and that running away from home hadn’t been in vain, and despite her joy that her relationship with Karl seemed to be back on track - even though he was a little different, and LA was working some magic on him - despite all the things she should have been grateful for, Amber was suddenly aware that something was wrong. She, Amber Reid, raised by her mother to believe in personal power and a woman’s right to independence, had no job, no qualifications and was being handed ‘pin money’ by her boyfriend. That’s what was wrong.

Maggie always laughed when people imagined there was any faint glamour to the world of academia.

Nobody in academia ever had any money and the only glamour resided in the feverish dreams of brilliant students who longed to star on University Challenge.

However, she got caught in precisely the same trap when it came to politics, assuming that politicians worked in a corporate world of money and style. It took just one visit to a city councillor to realise that politics was as much a glamour-free zone as college.

The knowledge hit her as she and her mother waited in the office of Liz Glebe, their local councillor, who was having her afternoon surgery. The only person there before them, an elderly man who kept anxiously scanning a well-thumbed piece of paper, had gone in to see Ms Glebe, so they were alone. The waiting room and the office reminded Maggie of an old shop where someone had ripped

out the shelf units, painted the walls a sickly yellow and stuffed political pamphlets and posters everywhere, claiming better futures, better Irelands, better everything.

‘Pity they don’t have better chairs,’ muttered Una, as she shifted to get comfortable on the plastic chair. ‘

Liz Glebe was the first politician Maggie had contacted and when they finally got in to see her, she looked nothing like the glamorous, heavily made-up woman in the election posters that hung in her waiting room.

She still had short blonde hair and a wide smile but there were dark bags under her eyes, and her very conservative jacket and shirt looked as if they’d been to the dry-cleaner’s too many times.

‘Now, what’s the problem?’ she said, barely looking up at them while she shifted through sheets of paper on her desk. ‘Summer Street pavilion, right? I know the background, shouldn’t have happened, I voted against it. I have young kids myself and I hate to see the community being ripped apart, but I was in the minority, I’m afraid. It’s pretty straightforward - the pavilion was never a part of the park proper. It’s officially council property.

I’m not sure what you can do at this point.’

‘Don’t the people who actually use the park get any choice in the matter?’ demanded Una irritably. ‘Well, the concept of politics is that you elect us in, and we make the decisions,’ Liz said, the mask of politeness slipping.

‘Ridiculous idea,’ Una snapped.

Maggie shot her mother a warning look. ‘I’m on your side about the park,’ Liz said. ‘That’s what everybody says come election time,’

Una said, eyes narrowed.

‘If you’re on our side,’ Maggie interrupted gently, ‘perhaps you’d give us some advice on what we should do.’

Liz Glebe looked from mother to daughter and sighed.

‘Go to see Harrison Mitchell. He’s the Green Party councillor for the area and he’s made his name preserving old buildings. If there’s any history at all to your pavilion, he’s your man. And he likes hopeless cases - he loves appearing in the papers as the champion of the underdog.’

‘Meaning he loves appearing in the papers or meaning he likes being the champion of the underdog?’ Maggie inquired sharply.

‘Think media whore and you won’t go far wrong,’ Liz said. ‘Good luck.’

Harrison Mitchell wasn’t keen on meeting the members of the Save Our Pavilion campaign because he was busy fighting for a medieval castle that the government were trying to build a motorway over. In terms of column inches, fighting the government and the motorway was a much more interesting story than fighting over the fate of a little park on Summer Street.