Past Secrets (52 page)

‘She should be,’ Amber whispered, ‘but she’s not. Lucky you. I’m bloody furious with you but that’s a discussion for another time, you bastard.’

She turned around, smiling.

‘Mum, meet Karl.’

He was every bit as good-looking as Faye had imagined: handsome, sexy, charismatic. She could imagine Amber falling in love with this gorgeous man, wrapped up in his talent, watching him on stage.

‘Hello, Karl,’ said Faye, trying to be civil although it was incredibly difficult not to yell at this man who’d stolen her daughter and put her through hell for the past month. She’d do it for Amber’s sake and she just hoped that Karl Evans would treat her daughter with love and respect, because if he didn’t, he would have Faye to answer to. ‘Nice to meet you, at last.’

When Karl had showered and gone off again at high speed, Amber took her mother down to sit in one of the cabanas by the pool.

In her white T-shirt and a pair of cream chinos that did nothing for her figure, Faye was aware that she probably stood out like a sore thumb amid all this LA glamour, but she didn’t really care. She was with Amber, that was all that mattered.

They talked about Summer Street and home.

How Faye had spoken to Ella, who was delirious that the exams were over.

‘She sends her love,’ Faye said, ‘and wants you to phone her soon, or email her.’

‘I will,’ said Amber, guiltily. ‘I just felt so bad when such a long time had gone by and I hadn’t talked to her. Do you think she’ll forgive me?’

‘Of course she will,’ her mother said. Faye went on to explain how she’d made friends with Christie Devlin and Maggie Maguire and the plans to demolish the pavilion and put up an apartment block.

‘They can’t do that!’ Amber said, outraged. She didn’t want bits of home being ripped up while she was away. But she changed the subject quickly, because she didn’t want to talk about her going back to Summer Street, repeating her exams or going to college.

Her mother never mentioned these things either.

It was as if they’d tacitly agreed that their rapprochement depended on avoiding the question of Amber’s future.

It was only when evening arrived, and they walked down the street to a little trattoria, that Faye had the courage to bring up Amber’s return.

‘Are you going to stay here long?’ she asked. ‘Or are the band coming home soon?’

Amber had been holding it together all day. She felt like a boat on stormy seas, rocked by both Karl’s defection and the story that her mother had hidden for so long. She’d tried to be calm and non-judgemental, but her composure finally shattered under the weight of the two blows.

Karl had cared for her, but not enough. She’d been the one to make all the sacrifices for him.

He wasn’t what she’d thought he was and neither, it seemed, was her mother.

She wanted to lash out at someone in hurt. ‘Mum, I’m doing my own thing now, OK!’ she shrieked. ‘I don’t know when I’ll be home. I’ll stay in touch but there’s no point hanging around here waiting for me. I don’t need that. I can make my own decisions!’

It was said as much for Karl as for her mother, except that Karl wasn’t there and Faye took the brunt of Amber’s anger and shock.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, chastened. She should have known that she couldn’t tell Amber her history and expect her daughter not to be hurt. ‘I’m not going to hang around. I’ll fly home but I’ve got some money for you.’ She dug out the envelope filled with dollars and handed it to Amber. ‘I know you don’t want hand-outs but I worry about you.

Please stay in touch.’

Amber nodded, clutching the envelope. ‘Mum, dinner’s a bad idea. You should go. The band have an event to go to and I have to go too.’

She hadn’t planned on going but it made a good excuse. Right now, she needed to be alone to think.

They stopped on the street and stood awkwardly, at arm’s length.

‘I love you, Amber,’ Faye said, reaching out to touch her daughter tentatively. Amber looked as if she was about to break down and Faye wanted to hug her, but didn’t know if this new Amber would allow that. Things were different now: the time apart and all that had happened had changed them both. ‘Don’t forget that. I’m sorry I lied. Our home is always there for you, please remember that. It’ll always be our house, not mine. Never be afraid to come home or to call me if you need me.,

‘Thanks,’ said Amber. She kissed her mother quickly on the cheek because if they hugged, she might break down and tell Mum everything. And she couldn’t. There were too many lies around, too many people not telling her the truth. She felt so hurt, raw.

‘I have to go, Mum. I’m sorry. I need to think,’

she added shakily before turning and running back down the street to the hotel.

She was more like her mother than Faye knew, but Amber couldn’t say that now.

Behind her, Faye watched until her daughter was out of sight. She felt as if her heart was being ripped out of her chest and jumped on. This was almost worse than the time Amber had run off

because then, she hadn’t known all the facts. Now she did.

This was Faye’s punishment for all the years of lying: Amber couldn’t forgive her. She had to give Amber space, even though she wanted to forcibly drag her on to a plane and fly her home to Summer Street. Walking away was the hardest thing she’d ever done, but she had to do it.

Shona threw open the door to her Galway apartment and dragged Maggie in with a giant hug.

‘Maggie, I’ve missed you!’ she yelled happily.

Maggie hugged her back. The too,’ she said.

She dumped her small holdall on the floor and looked around Shona’s apartment where she’d once spent so many happy hours. ‘New curtains?’

she asked, instantly spotting the thick creamy ones that had replaced the old beige paisley drapes. ‘And new cushions, too.’ She picked up a fluffy fake-angora cushion. ‘I love these cushions,’ she sighed.

‘Shows how long since you’ve been here,’ Shona said, excitedly. ‘Wait till you see the kitchen. Paul painted the units and Ross and I picked the cutest china handles for the doors.’

Shona hadn’t changed in the weeks Maggie had been away, she thought fondly. Her friend was still as effervescent as ever and had squealed down the phone when Maggie had rung to say she was

coming to Galway to take the rest of her stuff from the apartment.

‘You’ll stay with us,’ she insisted.

‘Thanks,’ Maggie had said. She couldn’t bear to stay in her old apartment with Grey, not even for one night. It represented the past and the person she used to be. And she was still close enough to that person to want to distance herself.

When Maggie had admired the new-look kitchen, they sat at the tiny breakfast bar having tea and Maggie filled Shona in on Ivan, her job in the children’s library, and how she’d talked to a lawyer about selling her share of the Galway apartment to Grey.

‘I want to do it now,’ Maggie said. ‘The apartment’s the last bit of that life and I want it removed, surgically.’

‘I’ll miss you, though,’ Shona reminded her. ‘It’s not the same in work without you and it’ll always be different now with you living in Dublin and us here.’

‘I know,’ Maggie said apologetically. ‘I’ll miss you too, but it’s not as if I’m emigrating to the moon or anything. We have email, the phone and cheap flights to Dublin.’

Shona nodded, looking as if she was about to say something else, but had thought better of it. ‘Come on, let’s go out and liven up this town,’

Shona said. ‘I fancy a French pastry in Delaney’s, or maybe a slice of double chocolate cake.’

They took the stairs. pausing briefly by Ross’s door on the floor below. Loud music could be heard through the door.

‘Is that “I Will Survive”?’ Maggie asked. Ross had had so many break-ups, it was his anthem.

“Fraid so,’ said Shona. ‘He’s very cut up about it, says he’s going to emigrate to somewhere where men are allowed to wear pink velvet and kiss on the streets.’

‘You mean San Francisco?’ grinned Maggie. ‘He’s got his heart set on Edinburgh. I know, I’ve told him Edinburgh isn’t known for men wearing pink velvet or kissing each other wildly on Princes Street, but he says he looks so much better in winter clothes that Edinburgh’s got to be the place.’

They both pondered the workings of Ross’s mind.

‘The end of a love affair does strange things to a person,’ Shona went on. ‘I said I couldn’t bear to lose him too. What will I do if both you and Ross are gone?’

‘He’d never leave Nureyev,’ Maggie pointed out. ‘Can rabbits get a pet passport?’

‘That’s the only sticking point, but if Nureyev can’t go, Paul and I are going to adopt him.’

‘We will be hearing the patter of tiny feet around your apartment!’ teased Maggie.

Shona didn’t respond to the joke. ‘Tiny feet, get it?’ said Maggie. ‘Mmm, funny,’ muttered Shona.

‘Have I put my foot in it?’ Maggie asked quickly,

alarm bells ringing. The day Shona didn’t laugh like a drain at even the feeblest joke, you knew there was something wrong.

The phone and emails were great for keeping in touch but there were some things that you had to be present to feel - what if Shona had received bad news about the possibility of her having children?

‘I

didn’t mean to upset you,’ Maggie said earnestly.

‘You didn’t, you big nelly,’ said Shona. ‘I was waiting to get you sitting down in Delaney’s to tell you. I’m pregnant. Paul and I are going to be parents! A baby and possibly a rabbit too! We’re thrilled.’

‘That’s wonderful,’ Maggie said, giving her friend another hug, then pulling away anxiously in case she squashed Shona’s belly.

They both looked down there.

‘It’s still flat,’ Shona said, patting her waistband. ‘I’ve been into a maternity clothes shop where they have a cushion you stick up your jumper to envisage being five months pregnant so you can buy your clothes in advance. Actually, I keep going in. I can’t afford to buy the clothes but the cushion is so realistically baby-like, I genuinely look pregnant with it and I love looking at it under my jumper. They’re sick of the sight of me there.’

‘Let’s go there!’ insisted Maggie. ‘I want to see what you look like five months pregnant too.’

She held Shona’s hand as they went down the last flight of stairs and out on to the street.

‘I didn’t know how to tell you though,’ Shona admitted. ‘You know, it’s like we’re so happy and Paul is nearly doing a dance of joy, while Grey is up for bastard of the year award and I feel so bad for you.’

‘Bastard of the year award? I love the sound of that,’ Maggie said. ‘Really, I don’t know if anyone will approve, but I think it adds something to college life.’

‘You’re not upset, though?’ Shona asked as they crossed the street and arrived at Delaney’s cafe. ‘Shona, I am thrilled for you both. This is the most incredible bit of news ever. Why would it upset me?’

‘Well …’ Shona paused, while they waved hi to the waitress and squashed on to a little table to one side of the door. ‘You were going through so much. I felt so sorry for you and I didn’t want to land my joy on top of you. You know, when you’re feeling bad, it can be hard to take other people getting everything they ever wanted.’

Maggie digested this bit of information. In all the years she’d known Shona, Shona had never implied that she wanted kids or even thought about it; in fact, Shona and Paul seemed like two kids themselves, happy to lurch along in their lovable way, having fun, throwing parties, buying rollerblades, going to Euro Disney on their own.

‘I’m thrilled,’ she repeated. ‘Absolutely thrilled.

How could you ever think I’d be otherwise? Just don’t feng shui me out of your life when junior comes along. I’m your friend and I want to keep on being your friend. I’ve done plenty of babysitting in my time. I can be a good auntie.’

‘Thank you,’ said Shona tearfully. ‘I am so happy. Paul is so happy. It was a surprise, I can tell you. We weren’t trying, we don’t know how it happened.’ Maggie opened her mouth to explain but Shona got there first. ‘No, well, we know how it happened but, you know, really happened.

‘Then I felt guilty because Paul said he’d love us to have a baby and I kept thinking of you and Grey, how you never seemed to think about kids either and I thought my being pregnant would remind you of that.’

Maggie shook her head.

‘Stop feeling guilty,’ she said. The issue of children was one of those great unmentioned subjects between her and Grey and surely if you loved someone and they were the one, you’d have the conversation, wouldn’t you? But there had been times as she’d neared thirty that she’d begun to think about children.

‘Grey and I never talked about it,’ she said, bluntly.

‘I didn’t think so,’ Shona said sadly, ‘so I never talked to you about kids or even the thought of having them because it might …’

She stopped.

Maggie filled in the rest of the sentence.

‘… Because it might make me realise the difference between you and Paul and me and Grey. You thought he was wrong for me when we were going out, didn’t you?’ she said, not wanting to hear that Shona, whom she felt so close to, had thought he was the wrong person for Maggie.

‘Hey, I loved Grey,’ Shona insisted. ‘Honestly.

He’s sexy, funny and charming, what’s not to like?

Paul, well, he was never really into him. I just told him to shut up. You were our friend and we couldn’t hurt you.’

Maggie thought of all the nights they had spent together as a foursome and cringed.

‘It’s not that he’s wise after the event and realised that Grey was a two-timer under all the gloss,’

Shona went on quickly. ‘They just didn’t gel. Paul thought that Grey was a bit, you know, pompous, intellectual, trying to prove how smart he was and you know Paul hates that sort of stuff. He thinks Simone de Beauvoir was a French singer and Nietzsche was an astronaut.’

Maggie burst out laughing. ‘It’s good to be back,’

she said. ‘Let’s cut to the chase, Shona, and order something full of cream.’

The next morning, Maggie left Shona and Paul’s apartment a little after nine and walked a couple of blocks to the bookshop-cum-coffee shop where Grey liked to sit reading the paper and enjoying his breakfast of double espresso. During term time, it was a favoured hang-out of the political students