Amber by Heather Burnside (great novels of all time .TXT) 📗

back down again. She didn’t notice the change in volume or, if she did, she chose to ignore it. But her chatter became louder as she battled to make herself heard over the sound of the TV. This time her focus wasn’t on what was happening on screen but on her own life. She went quiet momentarily, seemingly pensive before she came out with her next statement.

‘I could never understand it, y’know, when Dale said he wanted to go back to his family. Said he missed his sons too much. I don’t know why. From what he told me the pair of them were all for their mother. Anyway, he told me he’d always wanted a daughter. So, you would have thought, y’know, that he’d have been happy here. A ready-made family for him, wasn’t it?’

Amy spun around and stared into her mother’s bloodshot, droopy eyes.

‘What? What you lookin’ at?’ Loretta drawled. ‘I thought you knew you were his favourite. Treated you like the daughter he never had, didn’t he? Still didn’t stop him from bloody leaving me, did it?’

Amy turned back towards the TV, trying to ignore her mother’s ramblings. But her words had hit home. She had always wondered why Dale seemed to favour her over Nathan, and now she knew why. It was nothing to do with her being a good kid. In fact, it wasn’t anything to do with her at all; it was purely because Dale didn’t have a daughter of his own.

*

April 1999

It was the following day and Amy was on her way home from school. She had just turned into her road, passing neighbouring houses with a mix of neatly compact front gardens and run-down, litter-strewn ones full of weeds, when her brother caught up with her. He had just said goodbye to one of his friends and now he seemed eager to chat, which wasn’t like him.

He drew up alongside her and asked, ‘Amy, what’s a prostitute?’

Amy was shocked at his use of the word as she knew it was offensive. ‘What do you want to know that for?’

He seemed to go coy, his eyes looking down at the ground briefly before he said, ‘There’s this lad in my class who’s always being nasty to me and today he said our mum was a prostitute. Is she?’

Amy wasn’t entirely sure what the word meant but she knew it was something to do with things women did with men, and she knew it had negative connotations. She was quick to defend her mother. ‘Is she ’eck! She just has lots of boyfriends, that’s all.’

‘Well, what does it mean, anyway?’

‘It’s a bad woman who does things with men.’

‘What sort of things?’

‘I dunno. Like kissing and other stuff. Anyway, I know our mum isn’t one because she’s not a bad woman.’

‘She does get drunk a lot though.’

‘I know, but that doesn’t mean she’s bad. It’s just that, well, she’s missing Dale. So, next time he says that horrible word, you tell him she isn’t one at all. And if he keeps doing it you need to tell the teacher about him. But don’t tell Mum. I don’t think she’d like it.’

Amy didn’t know why she was defending her. She wasn’t happy about her drinking either. But she couldn’t have people saying bad things about her. She was her mother after all. And perhaps, in a way, she empathised with her. She remembered how devastated they had all been when Dale had left them, and she supposed that her mother was just taking a bit longer to get over it than they were.

Once Nathan seemed satisfied with her answer, he started dragging his feet and lagging behind. But Amy wasn’t bothered by that; they never walked to and from school together anyway and the only reason he’d caught up with her was because he was bothered by the nasty comments from someone at school.

By the time she arrived home she was well in front of Nathan who seemed to be occupied with something he had picked up off the pavement. Amy unlocked the door and walked inside the hallway. She could hear the TV blaring, which wasn’t unusual. Her mother often watched TV in the afternoons and had shunned housework in favour of drinking.

Amy walked through to the living room and wasn’t surprised to find her mother sprawled out on the sofa. Drunk again, obviously.

She went through to the kitchen to grab something to eat, and heard the door being shut as she left the hall. That would be Nathan. He’d probably switch the TV over to something he wanted to watch while their mother was asleep and Amy was out of the room. She’d have to get back quick and kick up a fuss so she could get her own way for once.

She’d just buttered some bread and was quickly spreading jam on another slice when her brother ran into the kitchen, a look of terror on his face.

‘Amy, Amy, there’s something wrong with Mum. You need to come and have a look.’

He took hold of her arm and started dragging her towards the hall. ‘Get off, I’m coming!’ she yelled.

She wondered what the fuss was about. Their mother was just drunk, that was all. It wasn’t the first time they’d seen her like that so she couldn’t understand why he was carrying on so much. But something about his manner unsettled her and, even though she had already seen her mother when she came in from school, she dashed through to the living room after him.

Loretta was still sprawled along the sofa with a cushion under her head. Amy walked over and, on closer examination, saw that her mother’s arm was draped over the side of the sofa, her hand empty but an upturned wine glass on the floor beside it with its contents pooled on the carpet. She shook her mother’s shoulder. ‘Mum, wake up.’

But Loretta didn’t wake up. Instead her head lolled to the side then dropped back against the cushion.