by Cathy Kelly
Lew wandered up to Amber and put an arm round her.
‘How’s it going, babe?’ he said, then, when she didn’t reply, he followed her gaze and saw Karl sitting with Venetia.
‘She is one amazing-looking woman,’ he said with the sigh of someone who knew Venetia was way out of his league. ‘No offence, Amber, I mean you look pretty good too.’
Amber smiled wryly. ‘None taken, Lew.’
At first the evening was fun, seeing people who looked vaguely familiar, people from the music industry, people whose albums Amber had bought. But it wasn’t always easy to join the groups of people who already knew each other and eventually, she and the band, minus Karl, ended up relaxing in a split level part of the house in front of a huge stone fireplace where vast expensive candles burned in the grate.
Syd was holding forth on the parties they’d been to, insisting that the people with the entourages and bodyguards were faking it, despite the bling.
‘The quiet ones in jeans with those discreet watches you’ve never seen in any normal jewellery store, they’re the multi-billionaires,’ he pointed out shrewdly. ‘The bling, blings aren’t that bling at all. Take away the diamonds and the bulked-up bodyguards and there’s nothing left.’
Amber laughed. She liked hanging around with Syd. He had a sense of humour similar to Ella’s.
She’d thought about calling Ella earlier, having had one of those moments when she’d longed to hear her friend’s voice, to hear someone say ‘How nice to hear from you’ and really mean it.
Nobody here needed her like the people back home did. Kenny T and Lew were sweet guys, while Syd was a genuinely kind, good man, terribly in love with his Lola. They liked Amber, were fond of her, probably in the same way you’d be fond of a puppy or a kitten that clambered on to your lap and wanted to be petted. Nothing more. And Karl? Karl had moved on.
She’d chickened out of ringing Ella. So much time had gone by. In their whole friendship it had never ever been weeks since they’d talked. Even when Ella’s family had gone to Italy to visit relatives, they’d kept in touch, Ella facing the wrath of her mother for making so many international calls.
But it had been worth it because they were best friends, weren’t they? And now, weeks had gone by without hearing Ella’s laugh or hearing her joke or moan about her grandmother. It was funny the things you missed.
She sighed and tried to stop thinking about back home in case she cried. She forced herself to observe the party and the Hollywood hierarchy. In some subliminal way people from lower down the celebrity power chain ignored each other as they tried to attach themselves to upper groups.
Amber wasn’t part of any of the groups, but she didn’t care. It would all make a wonderful painting, she thought suddenly, her artist’s eye trying to imagine how she would sketch it out. She could see it in her head and itched to record what she’d seen. Paper and a pencil, that’s what she needed.
In the kitchen, in clear contrast to the cool calm of the rest of the house, the catering staff ran around frantically. They didn’t notice her in the bustle when she appropriated a pad and a pen lying on a table. She went back to the lounge, leaned against the fireplace and began to sketch. It felt great to be drawing again. Energy burned within her with each deft stroke of her pen. As she drew the room and outlines of the people in it, quickly, speedily, because they were moving all the time, she felt that buzz she’d always felt when she had a pen in her hand. That was how she saw the world: through her eyes directly into her hands and on to the page. Maybe that’s why she screwed up so much with Karl. She’d seen him only with her eyes, she’d never made the connection and put him down on paper. If she had, then she might have seen that he was insubstantial, not what she’d first thought.
A tall man, dressed in a simple white shirt and khaki combats, walked over to her with a glass of wine in his hand.
‘I’ve been watching you,’ he said. ‘Are you drawing us?’
He stood beside her and looked down at the picture.
‘That’s really good,’ he said, in both shock and astonishment, ‘really good.’
He looked at her again, this time with renewed respect. ‘You’re an artist?’
Amber turned her amazing grey eyes with their copper flecks upon him.
‘Yes,’ she said, feeling a surge of self. ‘I’m an artist. I’m not really sure what I’m doing here, hanging out with a band and a man.’
‘Which band is that?’ asked the man. He was probably in his forties, way old, sort of a bit like Ella’s dad actually.
‘Ceres,’ she said, pointing over to where Karl was sitting on a low couch with Michael and Venetia. She hadn’t sketched them in her picture yet, she’d been working on the people around them.
‘He’s the band? Or is he your boyfriend?’ asked the man.
‘Both,’ said Amber grimly.
The man said nothing, just assimilated the information.
‘Who are you?’ she asked.
‘I’m Saul, this is my house, my party.’
‘Pleased to meet you,’ Amber said. ‘Where I come from, you generally know the people whose party you’re going to and, if you don’t, as soon as you get there you’re introduced and you say thank you so much for inviting us. It’s different here.’
‘You’re Irish, right? Land of saints and scholars and maidens dancing at the crossroads.’
‘Exactly,’ said Amber, with mock sincerity, ‘in the same way that Los Angeles is a glorious city where dreams come true and there are beautiful women on every corner.’ She gave him a hard look.
‘Touché,’ he said.
‘Do I look like a maiden who dances at the crossroads to you?’ she asked.
‘Not in that dress.’
‘Good,’ said Amber. ‘I wouldn’t want to be, any more than I’d want to be the LA version. This city does seem to suck the individuality out of people and make them different, but all in the same way.’
He laughed this time, showing beautiful dental work.
‘And you have lovely teeth,’ she added. ‘Everyone here has lovely teeth. When people smile, it’s like being in a toothpaste advert.’
‘You have pretty nice teeth yourself,’ he countered. ‘You ought to be a writer instead of an artist. You’ve certainly got the bite.’
‘I prefer painting,’ Amber said. ‘That’s my first love.’
‘I thought the guy from the band was your first love?’ Saul motioned to where Venetia and Karl sat together.
‘Touché to you,’ she replied. ‘The truth is I’m a total moron, following a group of guys around, watching them fulfil their dream, having dumped my own dream by the wayside.’
‘A common movie theme.’ Saul nodded. ‘Boy meets girl, boy tells girl he loves her, boy drags girl on long trek and pretty much ignores her, boy loses girl. Boy realises what he’s lost and runs after her. Cue credits. Are you at the boy loses girl part yet?’
Amber looked over to where Karl and Venetia were locked in their own world. Karl had that look on his face, the look he had all the time these days, the look of blazing triumph and excitement. The power of his talent made him sexier than ever. He was like a supernova.
‘Yeah,’ Amber said to Saul. ‘I think we’re at that stage.’
She didn’t think they’d ever get to the part of the movie where Karl realised what he’d lost and ran after her. Movies and real life ran on different paths.
‘And you’re not going to race over to throw your drink over them?’ Saul asked.
Amber smiled.
‘What would be the point of that?’ Amber asked. ‘Apart from creating a nice little scene for everyone to laugh at. I’m with the band, you know. Girlfriends are supposed to understand that musicians don’t have the faithful gene. Playing lead guitar removes it.’
Saul grinned. ‘As long as you know your place,’ he dead-panned. ‘That’s very important in this town. Everyone is trying to get up to a higher place, but you need to know where you are
to start with.’
‘Oh, I know,’ Amber said. ‘I know. That is to say, I didn’t know when I got here, but I’ve worked it out.’
‘You’re pretty smart,’ Saul reflected.
‘My mother wanted me to know stuff,’ Amber revealed. ‘She wanted me to understand the world, my place in it, what I could do and what I couldn’t do and never to follow the crowd and…’
‘That’s why you’re here, with the band?’ Saul said.
‘Precisely. I had to do exactly the opposite of what my mother taught me.’
‘I work on the belief that you’ve got to learn by other people’s mistakes, because you never live long enough to make them all yourself,’ Saul remarked.
‘I’m the opposite,’ said Amber. ‘I have to make all the mistakes myself.’
‘Will you stay in LA? It’s a nice place to be an artist, the light is pretty fabulous in the hills.’
‘I don’t know,’ Amber said, shrugging. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do.’
‘I guess you’re not going to stay with the band, are you?’
Amber glanced over to Venetia and Karl. Venetia was so close to Karl that she was almost sitting on his knee, a position Amber remembered being in the first time she’d met Karl back home. It seemed a million years ago. Which of them had been shallow and stupid, she or Karl, she wasn’t sure.
‘I don’t know,’ she said to Saul now. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do.’ But she knew she couldn’t just go home alone, could she?
Amber didn’t bother telling Karl she was leaving the party. She hitched a ride in somebody’s Humvee back to the hotel and she wasn’t surprised when she woke the next morning to find herself alone. It seemed he and Venetia were now an item, except he hadn’t had the courage to tell her. Never mind, Amber thought, she had enough courage for both of them. She was going to move out, she wasn’t going to hang around where she wasn’t wanted.
When reception rang to say there was a delivery of flowers for her downstairs, Amber wondered what it could be. Flowers with a goodbye note from Karl? She almost laughed at the thought. That’s probably how he’d do it, with roses and a card that said, ‘Bye and won’t be seeing you soon, Karl.’
She pulled on her jeans, a T-shirt and some flip-flops and made her way down to the lobby. She was just about to approach the concierge desk when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a movement that was instantly familiar. She turned, and there, halfway out of her seat, was her mother. Comforting, familiar and utterly welcome.
‘Amber,’ said Faye, and there was no escaping the pure joy on her face. ‘Amber, it’s so good to see you.’
Amber’s first instinct was to run and hug her mother, so that was exactly what she did. It was wonderful to touch her mother, to feel loved, safe and secure again.
‘Mum,’ she said, burying her head in her mother’s shoulder.
‘Darling, it’s so wonderful to see you,’ said Faye shakily.
‘You too, Mum. I’m sorry, I’m really sorry, how it all happened,’ Amber muttered, holding tight.
‘Hush,’ said her mother. ‘Hush. It’s OK now. I’ve missed you so much.’
‘I’ve missed you too, Mum,’ Amber said. ‘Come on, come back to the room. We’ll talk and we can have breakfast,’ she added eagerly. ‘I just have to pick up a delivery.’
Faye grinned.
‘The delivery was from me,’ she said. ‘I said they had to be given to you personally, which is why they rang up to your room.’
She gestured behind her to the table beside the armchair where she’d been sitting. A small posy of wildflowers sat in a basket on the table.
‘They’re beautiful.’ Amber felt teary again. She loved wildflowers.
‘I wasn’t sure if you’d want to see me,’ Faye went on and Amber felt the weight of guilt. How awful that her mother had had to adopt such a ruse.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. She ran over and picked up the flowers, then ran back, linked her arm through her mother’s and said: ‘Come on, we’ll have breakfast and we’ll talk.’
They might as well have one last big blowout on Karl, she thought, leading her mum back up to the room.
They sat on the small balcony with coffee, pancakes and fresh fruit salad in front of them and barely touched anything in their eagerness to talk. Faye wanted to hear everything that had happened and Amber was amazed to find her tongue rushing away with her, as she described the hotels they’d stayed in, the misery when the band’s deal had fallen through and how everything had turned up trumps in Los Angeles. She didn’t mention a word about her and Karl though. Not one sentence about how they’d moved so far apart that you could drive a car between them. She was too proud for that.
‘This is a beautiful hotel,’ Faye said, when she’d recounted her fear at seeing the awful Arizona Fish Hotel and realising that Amber had had to stay there. ‘I’ve been so worried about you. You couldn’t imagine all the scenarios that came up in my head. I just kept thinking of all the…’ she paused, ‘all the trouble I’d got into when I was your age and in love.’
Amber looked at her curiously. What trouble had her mother got into?
Faye could see the question forming in her daughter’s eyes. Amber looked so well, she thought, with that faint tan. Her daughter really was beautiful. Beautiful, clever, intelligent and a grown-up. She should have told her the truth a long time ago.
Ever since Grace had phoned with news of where the band were staying in LA, thanks to locating their manager, Faye had been practising what she was going to say to her daughter. She’d had a month to think about it but it was only when she knew for sure where Amber was that she allowed herself to have that mental conversation.
In her mind, she’d thought maybe they would drive to the beach, walk on the sand and talk there. Amber had always loved the sea and maybe if they walked side by side and let the wind ripple through their hair and the waves crash in beside them, she could tell her story and Amber would understand.
But now, sitting on a small, sheltered balcony overlooking a beautiful pool, unable to do anything except drink cup after cup of coffee, Faye knew that it didn’t matter where she told Amber the truth.
‘I want to apologise,’ she said first. ‘That’s what I came here to do, not to drag you home, which is what you probably think I am here to do.’
‘You’re not here for that?’ Amber said, startled.
‘No,’ Faye said. ‘You’re an adult, you’re right, I’m sorry. I’ve treated you like a child for so long I didn’t know how to treat you any other way. I can understand that when you wanted to leave you thought you had to do it brutally, because I wouldn’t understand it any other way. That’s only part of what I’m apologising over. Remember one of the things I said before you went?’
That last row was engrained in her memory, but she wasn’t sure if Amber would remember.
‘I said I knew because I’d been there and you didn’t believe me.’
Her daughter nodded. At the time, she’d thought it was a stupid statement, just another ploy to get her to stay because how could her mother have any clue what real life was like?
Faye took a very deep breath.
‘I lied to you about your dad. We weren’t desperately in love and he didn’t die in a car crash,’ she said bluntly. ‘He was just some guy in a bar from a horrible life I lived and I didn’t want you to ever know about it.’
Amber stared at her mother.
‘I know it’s awful to hear this after eighteen years of hearing a different story about your father. I just didn’t know how to tell you without you hating me.’
‘I’d never hate you,’ Amber said weakly, trying to process this new information.
‘You could hate me because I lied to you about your birth, your father and my life before you were born.’ Faye stopped.
That was the hardest thing to say: that she’d lied to Amber about everything.
‘I tried to bring you up to be truthful and honest
, yet I spent your whole life lying to you. I hate myself for that.’
‘What really happened, then?’
Faye poured more coffee she didn’t want and began to talk.
Amber sat opposite her and didn’t flinch as her mother’s story unfolded. It was incredible to hear all this for the first time. It was as if her mother was another woman, a woman she’d never known.
‘I didn’t value myself or respect myself,’ Faye said finally. ‘I ran with the pack, I did things because other people did them, I didn’t stand up for myself. I tried to fit in. You see, all the things I spent years telling you not to do, I did every single one of them. Are you shocked?’
‘No.’ It was a lie. Amber had never been so shocked in her life. Her mother didn’t look like her mother any more. She was still the same: the neatly tied back hair, the plain loosely cut T-shirt, the slick of lip balm the only sign of make-up. But her eyes, they were different. Her expression was different.
‘I…I can’t imagine you like that, you’re so strong now,’ Amber said. ‘I can’t imagine you letting anyone walk on you.’
‘Walk on me! They walked all over me,’ Faye said sadly, ‘and I let them, because I didn’t know who I was or what I was and that’s what I was ashamed of.’
Amber tried to keep her expression neutral. All these years her mother had convinced her she was the epitome of the conservative, working mum. And now, here she was, telling Amber that she was just the opposite.
‘I never told you the truth because I didn’t want you to grow up being ashamed of me and I didn’t want you growing up being the same sort of person I was. So I thought that if I invented this new me who didn’t let anybody near, then you would grow up like that. I’m really sorry, Amber,’ Faye said, and she began to cry. ‘I’ve let you down, I’m so sorry about your dad, so sorry. All these years lying to you, telling you we were in love and…’
It was all too much to take in.