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

was hours ago. And if she had tried to top herself again then her chances of survival would be slim.

But there was no wine bottle, no pill packet and no empty glass. Still, there was something not right.

‘Mum!’ she shouted, grabbing her shoulder and shaking her.

Small slits appeared between the heavy eyelids as her mother struggled to open them, and her mouth formed the shape of Amber’s name, but no sound came out. At least she was alive. Thank God!

Amber could tell she was in a bad way and another recollection flooded her brain. It was from a long time ago when she had only been working the beat for a couple of years. This memory jabbed at her guilty conscience. She tried to push it aside while she grabbed her mother’s wrist to examine her pulse. But it wouldn’t go away, and Amber knew that if anything happened to her mother, she would never forgive herself.

55

March 2004

Amy had been on the beat for over two years, working under the name of Amber, and she was currently having a good time inside the Rose and Crown with her friends: Crystal and Ruby. While listening to ‘Where is the Love?’ by The Black Eyed Peas, she was also enjoying a bit of banter with the other girls before she set off for work.

Working the streets had now become a way of life. It was tough and wasn’t what Amber would have chosen for herself, but she had been pushed into it by her mother when she had been too young to fight back. And now, she was stuck with it. She’d been sucked into the whole meaningless existence: the drugs, the cravings and that endless need to earn money.

In her more lucid moments, she felt a deep resentment that she had come to this. But the camaraderie with the other girls helped, and it usually enabled her to tackle work in a better frame of mind than the one she’d set off from home with.

Amber happened to look up at the door when she noticed her mother stumbling inside the pub. It was the first time she’d seen her inside the Rose and Crown, as Amber had taken great care to keep her away, and she was alarmed. The way Loretta was staggering told Amber she was already drunk. Oh no! she thought. How the hell did she find me in here?

Loretta had followed Amber to Manchester’s red-light districts years previously when she realised that she could earn more money that way. It had also stopped the neighbours complaining as she kept her trade away from the home. But she worked a different beat than Amber, and they didn’t usually socialise together.

From the age of twelve Amber had felt ashamed and her mother was a representation of that shame. She was the one who had condoned the men visiting Amber’s room late at night and carrying out their vulgar acts. In fact, she had encouraged it for the money and to help finance her descent into alcoholism.

Amber shot up out of her seat and raced across to where Loretta was making her way across the pub. Without allowing her to get as far as the bar, she grabbed her by the arm and dragged her towards the ladies’.

‘In here,’ she hissed. ‘I want a word with you.’

Amber was relieved to find there was nobody else inside. ‘What’s all the fuss?’ asked her mother.

‘What the hell are you doing in here?’ she raged.

‘I’ve been looking for you.’ Loretta hiccupped. ‘Can’t a mother spend some time with her only daughter?’

‘No! You can’t. I don’t want you here. But now they’ve already bloody seen you, so they’ll know that I know you.’

‘I just want to keep you company, love.’

Amber thought about her predicament. Even if she managed to persuade her mother to leave the pub, she knew she would return every time she was drunk. There would also be the inevitable questions from the other girls who had seen Amber race over to Loretta and pull her to one side.

‘Right, you can stay,’ she said. ‘But on one condition… Don’t you dare tell anyone who you really are!’

Loretta looked hurt and Amber immediately felt guilty. Why did her mother always have this ability to make her feel sorry for her? For a moment she wavered over her decision. Maybe she should acknowledge Loretta as her mother.

But she knew she couldn’t face the other girls knowing. She was an embarrassment! And, as if her drunkenness weren’t enough, she had also sunk to new depths in the services she was now prepared to offer to the seediest clients for a pittance. Time and alcohol abuse had taken their toll on Loretta’s looks and she couldn’t attract the men as easily as the younger girls so she settled for whatever she could get. In the eyes of other street girls, she was the lowest of the low.

So, Amber held fast. ‘As far as they’re concerned, you’re just Angie the prostitute,’ she added, referring to her mother by her street name.

‘I know, I know,’ slurred Loretta who was already drunk. ‘Loretta’s too posh for a street girl.’

Amber knew her mother’s last point was irrelevant, but she had reached that stage of intoxication when her thoughts and words became random and disjointed.

‘Don’t even fuckin’ mention that you’re called Loretta!’ she hissed. ‘Or that you’re my mother. Because, if you do, I’ll leave you and you won’t see me or any of the money I earn ever again.’

‘But, Amy!’ Loretta said, trying to stare at her daughter but unable to focus. ‘I’m proud to be your mother.’

Her last word was punctuated by a hiccup.

‘Well I’m not proud to have an alcoholic for a mother and I don’t want the other girls to know. You’ve no right to come in here drunk and showing me up. Don’t you think you’ve done enough harm to me in my life? And my name’s Amber by the way. Don’t you ever call