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

in the mirror. An old hand, bony and weathered. Yellowing teeth inside a mouth with thin lips, criss-crossed with tiny lines. Wrinkles beneath sunken eyes. Thick makeup clogging the creases and emphasising them. Dull hair. Pale skin. Grey and lifeless. Past it!

‘No, I’m not bloody passst it,’ she shouted into the mirror. ‘And you can fuck off. You lying bastard!’

She attempted to top up her lipstick, which seeped into the fine cracks along her lips. Angie failed to notice that she had smudged it at the corners. ‘There, that’s better. Ssstill got it,’ she muttered as she pushed up her breasts till the crinkles gathered in her cleavage.

Unperturbed, she did a half-turn and pushed out her right hip towards the mirror. ‘Still got a tight arse,’ she announced to the mirror, smacking her own backside. ‘Not fuckin’ lying now, are you?’

Angie staggered back to the table intending to finish the last dregs of wine that she thought were inside her glass. But it was empty. She picked up the bottle and, in a repeat of her earlier action, held it over the glass. ‘Gone!’ she complained.

After plonking the glass back down onto the table she fished her purse out of her handbag and searched around for some money. But all she found was a fifty-pence piece and some coppers. ‘Shit!’

Angie noticed the two young men on the neighbouring table again. ‘Bloody youngsters… Don’t want to know old Angie… Sssuppose they think I cramp their style.’ Then her mutterings became louder. ‘Just you wait, love!’ she shouted. ‘You’ll be old one day.’ She lowered her voice again and mumbled into her now empty wine glass, ‘Fuck ’em! All the sssame.’

She stood up and almost tumbled back down again. ‘Let’s see who can turn a trick or two.’ Then she passed the young men once more; this time she remembered her earlier comments and she left them with a parting remark, ‘Old Angie’s still got it, love. You ssstick with your fat girls. There’s plenty where you came from.’

Then she went from the pub, leaving a cacophony of laughter ringing out from the other customers.

39

April 2000

Amy was in the kitchen washing up while her brother sat at the table doing his homework. He was preparing for a spelling test the following day and Loretta was helping to test him.

‘Brilliant,’ she said. ‘You’re doing really well, Nathan. You know most of them already so if we can just get those other couple of words right, you’ll get full marks again.’

Amy turned around, envious, as Loretta fawned over him, patting him on the back and smiling. She never did that with her and as Amy was in secondary school now, she got more homework than Nathan. Often, she struggled with it and could have done with a bit of help, but her mother never offered.

Five minutes later her mother and Nathan had gone over the remaining difficult words several times while Amy was still standing at the sink trying to get the stubborn marks off one of the pans.

‘Wonderful!’ said Loretta. ‘I think you’ve nailed it, Nathan, but we’ll have a little refresh later just to make sure.’

She was patting him on the back again. ‘The way you’re going on you’ll end up going to university and getting a good job. Then you can look after me when you’re older just like your father did.’

As Amy finished what she was doing and wiped her hands on the towel she could see that her mother was becoming all dreamy-eyed. ‘Y’know, you take after your father a lot, Nathan. He was clever as well and he always made sure we didn’t want for anything.’

Nathan just grunted and left the table with his slip of paper containing the words he had learnt. Amy didn’t blame him for not wanting to listen. They’d heard these reminiscences many times before.

She walked over to where her mother was sitting. ‘Can I go to university, Mum?’ she asked.

Loretta stifled a snigger. ‘You? Why do you want to go to university?’

‘So I can get a good job too.’

‘University’s not for everyone, love. I don’t think you’re gifted like your brother.’

Amy felt suddenly upset, her mother’s insensitive words getting to her. It didn’t seem fair that her mother should be so encouraging with Nathan when she wasn’t with her.

‘Oh, but don’t worry,’ Loretta quickly added on seeing she was upset. ‘You’re clever in your own way. But, if you really want to go to university then you’ll have to improve on your school marks, love. I don’t know what’s got into you lately. You didn’t seem to be doing too badly but recently your marks haven’t been so good.’

Amy didn’t reply but a kaleidoscope of troubled thoughts was whizzing around inside her head. She just felt so tired lately that she couldn’t put her mind to her schoolwork, often drifting off in the classroom when she should have been concentrating. Her teachers had told her off about it several times, but she couldn’t help herself.

It was ever since Cliff had started visiting her bedroom late at night, usually two or three times a week as he had taken to calling round more often nowadays. Not only did he wake her up when he came into her room, but she also lay awake for some time afterwards crying into her pillow while she clung to Barney. On a couple of occasions, she’d even had to take time off school as she had woken up with pains in her stomach.

Amy didn’t know if her mother was aware of what was happening, but she remembered the first time he’d ever touched her and the likelihood that her mother had condoned it. She was tempted to confide in her until she also recalled Cliff’s warning that he’d have to stop coming round and her mother would be furious. The words she was about to say got stuck in her throat as worry and shame overwhelmed her, and she knew she couldn’t do it.

Everything had changed