Past Secrets (27 page)

‘Gran, I can’t,’ Amber blurted. She couldn’t face her mother.

‘Please, Amber. She tried so hard to give you everything because you didn’t have a father, you owe her the chance to explain it all to you, why she was so protective …’

‘Bye, Gran,’ said Amber and pressed the end call button. She felt shaken. What was Gran harping on and on about? Get your mother to tell her, tell her what? Tell her how to make the perfect muffin, the perfect flapjack? What could Mum possibly teach her? If it was anything important

she needed to tell Amber, she’d have told herby now, wouldn’t she?

It was all just a ploy to get Amber to stay, but she wasn’t going to stay, she was going on to her new life with Karl. Older people were so obsessed trying to tell you about the mistakes they’d made You had to make all the mistakes yourself, didn’t you? Besides, Mum had probably never made any bloody mistakes apart from being the over.

protective mother from hell. She was always Mrs Perfect, wasn’t she? .

‘Hey, baby, where are you?’ called Karl.

‘In here,’ said Amber, trying to calm herself down.

Karl padded into the kitchen, sleep-fogged and beautiful.

‘I was going to make some breakfast,’ said Amber, trying to recover from the horrible conversation she’d just had.

‘Breakfast, I could kill some breakfast,’ said Karl. ‘What are you going to make?’ He sat down on one of the stools and looked at her patiently.

‘I don’t know,’ said Amber. Cereal or toast was her limit. Her mother was the scrambled eggs expert. Amber gritted her teeth. ‘Scrambled egg?’ she said confidently.

‘Yeah, sure,’ he replied with a sleepy stretch.

Amber opened the fridge where one egg satin glory in the box. She was sure there had been a few more last night.

‘No eggs,’ she informed him.

‘Hey,’ Karl said, ‘maybe we’ll go out.’

He reached and pulled Amber up against him, until she was resting between his legs, his arms around her waist. ‘Or we can go back to bed and go out in another hour?’

Amber leaned into him, loving the feel of his skin against hers, this was so much better than Irish class.

‘That sounds like a fabulous idea,’ she said.

After saying a polite goodbye to Ellen, Faye stuck it out at her desk for another half an hour. Her head throbbed. Her daughter had run away and not bothered to so much as phone to tell Faye where she was. It hurt so much.

She left her desk and went into the women’s room.

The women’s room in Little Island was big, airy and full of light so that you could see to put your makeup on. It also boasted a small bench seat so that people could sit down during important searches of handbags or for tights-changing exercises.

‘I’ve worked in far too many offices with appalling loos,’ Grace had said when they were checking over the premises originally. ‘This is a woman-oriented company, so let’s have a woman oriented loo!’

One of the stall doors was shut when Faye came in. She went over to the sink and splashed water on her face. She had painkillers in her bag, she’d take them too. Although the real ache wouldn’t be lessened with aspirin.

Despite Grace’s beautiful lighting, the face that stared back at Faye was grey and tired, with violet bags under the eyes. Even her skin looked grey.

The stall door banged. ‘Hello again.’

Hell, it was Ellen, the super-duper life coach and life revamper looking appallingly marvellous beside her. Ellen washed her hands, but surprisingly she didn’t have a bag of tricks to apply half a stone of lipstick or glue her hair into place.

In fact, Ellen looked remarkably good without doing any of that. Her hair was dark, shoulder length and glossy. Simple but it suited her. She looked confident, happy, businesslike.

Beside her, Faye felt like a lost soul who kept all her belongings in a shopping trolley. ‘Hello,’ Faye answered automatically, as she searched her handbag for the aspirin.

Ellen didn’t say anything for a minute. She appeared to be watching Faye in the mirror, thinking.

‘How are you?’

‘Fine,’ snapped Faye, finding the elusive painkillers. ‘Just a headache.’

‘You don’t look fine,’ Ellen said candidly.

Faye was stunned by this honesty.

She thought that faking sincerity was top of the list for stylists and life coaches.

‘Listen, I’m fine. I’m going through a bit of a personal crisis at the moment,’ she said, ‘that’s all.’

Her eyes saw in the mirror what Ellen could see - her hair looked as if she’d slept on it badly instead of being smoothly under control as usual.

She pulled the scrunchie from her ponytail, raked her fingers through it like a comb, then corralled it all back into the band again.

I used to be just like you, Faye,’ Ellen said suddenly. ‘Invisible. I dressed down, wore no makeup, hid behind boring clothes and banished any vestige of attractiveness I had. It kept people at bay, you see. I used to think that if nobody saw me, it was safer.’

Faye’s hands stilled on her ponytail.

‘I’m not asking you what’s going on in your life,’ Ellen went on. ‘I’m just saying I can recognise the signs, because that was me. Invisible and in pain. You’re not doing yourself any favours by living like that.’

‘Grace put you up to this, didn’t she?’ Faye said furiously.

‘She didn’t set me up to do anything,’ Ellen said bluntly. ‘I just recognise something in you that used to be in me. The same utter hopelessness.

Someone helped me to move on and I did. I’d like to help you do the same, but you have to come to terms with it yourself.’

‘So what if I don’t care about clothes or having my hair done in a fancy place,’ Faye said sharply.

‘Big bloody deal. Those things don’t matter.’

‘It’s not your clothes or your hair that tell me you think you’re invisible. It’s in your eyes. Most people don’t see it, only a woman who’s been in

that place too. You might as well have a sign around your neck saying keep away.’

Faye stared at her silently, her heart thumping as hard as her head.

‘You know, I think you’ve got the wrong idea about what I do,’ Ellen went on. ‘I’m not here to make a fortune on the back of telling women to change their hair, wear red lipstick and high-heeled shoes and, wow, life will be suddenly better. That’s not what it’s about. It’s about looking at your life, trying to change it and change it for the better Taking back some power. You might be running the company here with Grace, but somewhere along the way you’ve lost some of your power. I did the same thing too, thanks to a bad marriage, and one day, I copped on and took my power back. Anyway,’ she said brusquely, ‘I didn’t mean to insult you, just wanted to say I was like that too and I found out how to change. Right now, despite all the bad things that have happened in my life, and, trust me, there have been a few, I’m happier than I have ever been. And it doesn’t involve a man, by the way, Faye, that’s not what this is about. So if you ever want to talk, you know where to find me.

Otherwise, I’ll see you around. Bye.’

She swept out the door, leaving only a scent of jasmine and vanilla perfume behind. Faye slumped down on to the bench seat, stunned and angry, How dare she?

And yet, her words drifted back..’

Faye had tried very hard to be invisible, for a good reason, and she’d succeeded. People didn’t notice her. They saw a business person, not even a woman.

And who had she done that for? She had believed she was doing it for Amber, but Amber was gone now, and, suddenly, she knew.

Standing in the bathroom, Faye faced one of her uncomfortable truths. Although Ellen had said that a man was not responsible for her becoming strong again, Faye realised that fear of being involved with a man again was the reason she, Faye, had made herself invisible. She’d spent years telling herself that men were not part of her plan for her and Amber’s lives, that men only complicated things, that it wasn’t fair on a child to bring boyfriends into the fold because they would inevitably leave. And how could she face Amber’s hurt little face, wondering where the latest father figure she had come to trust had gone?

But that wasn’t why she’d kept away from men, Faye knew.

She’d simply never wanted to go through the pain of being with a man again.

As Faye sat on the little bench in the women’s room, thinking over the past, a sense of longing suddenly came over her. Amber might not need her mother at the moment, but Faye certainly needed hers.

ran downstairs, shouting over her shoulder to Jane on reception: ‘Jane, I have to go. Family emergency.

Tell Philippa to handle my calls.’

‘Can I do anything to help?’ asked Jane to Faye’s retreating back.

‘No, nothing, but thanks.’

Her mother’s front door opened as soon as Faye rang the bell and before Faye could say anything, her mother put her arms round her.

‘I know,’ Josie said. ‘You do?’

‘She phoned a while ago.’

‘And what’s happening?’ Faye almost wailed.

‘Is she safe, is she coming home … ?’

‘She’s still going away with him,’ said her mother. ‘Come on in, we’ll talk.’

When they’d shared all they knew, mother and daughter sat quietly at the kitchen table.

‘Not hearing from her is the hardest thing,’ Faye said.

‘I think she’s realised what she’s done and she’s scared to get in touch with us right now,’ Josie said. ‘But she’ll change her mind. She’ll miss you, you pair are so close. Don’t worry, it’ll work out.’

‘What if it doesn’t?’ Faye demanded. ‘I’ve got to do something.’ ‘Like what?’

‘I’m going to go after her,’ Faye said simply. ‘Find her, tell her the truth and then, it’s up to her.’

‘You should have told her the truth a long time ago,’ her mother said, although there was no criticism in her voice. It was just a statement of fact.

Josie had always told Faye that she should tell the truth to Amber. She’d never wanted to lie to her granddaughter although she had, for Faye’s sake

‘How did you feel, back then, when I was ruining my life and dropping out of college?’ Faye asked.

They hadn’t had a conversation about this for so many years that she couldn’t precisely remember it all. She knew her mother had tried her best to tell Faye that she was hanging around with people who’d hurt her. But Faye had refused to listen, just like Amber was doing now.

‘I felt as if I’d failed as a mother,’ Josie said.

‘My friends said I couldn’t live your life for you, but I kept thinking that if I’d been a good mother, you’d have been able to see that those people were bad for you and that you’d only get hurt.’

‘You didn’t fail,’ Faye insisted, getting up to sit beside her mother. ‘It wasn’t you. I wanted excitement and thrills and romance, you couldn’t have stopped me.’

‘And couldn’t have stopped Amber,’ Josie added.

The comparison was neatly done.

But in her guilt and self-contempt, Faye still refused to see it that way.

‘It’s different. You had always been truthful with me, had warned me about things. But I knew

things I didn’t tell Amber and I lied to her. If I had been more open with her, then she’d have known that men like this Karl are all smoke and mirrors …’ Ella had not held back in her unflattering portrayal of Karl. He sounded like the worst sort of man - beautiful on the outside, vain and selfish on the inside. Men like him never thought of others.

‘It’s not different at all,’ Josie interrupted. ‘It just seems worse because you’re so close.’

Faye nodded, tears in her eyes now. That was the awful thing, how she and Amber could share so much and that Amber could still leave. Christie had said something similar: that it was because of their very closeness that Amber had made the break this way.

You have huge love and closeness, leaving you was like leaving a lover: to be done quickly, ripping the ties, before she’d have a chance to change her mind. She’s only just eighteen after all. It’s a time of passion, isn’t it?

As Faye sat in her mother’s kitchen, she felt heartfelt gratitude to Christie again. It was comforting to interpret Amber’s leaving that way, though it didn’t make it hurt less.

‘You know it wasn’t your fault, don’t you?’ she asked her mother. ‘About me.’

‘I do now. I blamed myself for a long time.

But blaming doesn’t work. You can’t beat yourself up about everything for evermore. I realised that you can’t lay every problem at someone else’s door, either. Your parents might do their worst, but then you’re on your own and you can shape yourself the way you want and learn from what they did wrong. Stan taught me that,’ she added, smiling. ‘He says learn from the past and move on. I’m not saying your father wasn’t a wonderful man, but he didn’t think the way Stan did. Stan doesn’t say much but when he talks, he makes sense. You can change up until your dying day, he says, so there’s no point blaming the people who only had the moulding of you until you left home.’

‘He’s right,’ Faye said, ‘except he isn’t accounting for parents who try to mould you too much. I didn’t want Amber to have my past as a template.

I wanted to give her a clean slate, not to have to learn from my poor example. I don’t know why I never thought she’d rebel against that. Stupid really. She’s my daughter, after all.’

‘If you’d told her, she might have run off all the same.’ Josie shrugged. ‘You’ll never know. But if you can sleep better at night having told her, then do. I don’t worry about Amber so much as you do, love. I have great faith in her. You’ve brought her up well and she’s a clever girl. She won’t do anything really stupid, you’ll see.’

But Faye, who thought of drink and drugs and what damage they could do to a clever girl’s common sense, and of the people who take pleasure in destroying innocence and girlish dreams, did worry.

‘Look at what happened to me,’ she said.

Her mother laid a hand on Faye’s and her eyes were shining with pride. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘look at you.,

People’s concepts of time were strange, Christie reflected. When you were six, a child of twelve was like a being from another planet. And when you were sixty, those six years meant nothing.