Past Secrets

by Cathy Kelly

  A minute later, she was at the bus stop on Jasmine Row, just in time to catch the 10.05 bus into the city, and Karl.

  Karl. She whispered his name to herself as she gazed dreamily out of the windows on the top deck. Karl and Amber. Amber and Karl.

  It sounded just right, like they were destined to be together.

  Destiny had never been a concept Amber had held much faith in up to now. Just a few weeks away from her eighteenth birthday, and a month from the hated exams, she felt that she was in charge of her own life.

  So she’d only been half paying attention when Ella read their horoscopes that fateful Friday at lunch. Horoscopes were fun but hardly to be relied on. Mum always insisted that Amber was responsible for herself and that life should not be lived on the word of what some astrologer had dreamed up for that day.

  Mum was firm that Amber should never follow the crowd or do anything just because of someone else’s opinion or because ‘everyone else is doing it’. It was a lesson Amber had followed very well up to now.

  ‘Crap for Aries, as usual,’ muttered Ella, reading hers quickly. ‘“Rethink your options but don’t let your enthusiasm wane.” What does that mean? Why doesn’t it ever give us hints on what’s coming up in the maths paper? Now that would really be seeing the future.’

  They were eating lunch on the gym roof – strictly forbidden but the current cool spot for sixth years – plotting their weekend and how to fit exam study in around at least one trip to the shopping centre to flip through rails of clothes they couldn’t afford. All study and no play made you go mad, Ella insisted.

  ‘Yours is better. “Single Taureans are going to find love and passion. Expect sparks to fly this weekend.”’

  ‘Sparks at the football club disco?’ Amber roared with laughter at the very ridiculousness of this idea. It was the same big gang of people she’d known all her life and you couldn’t get excited about a bunch of guys you’d watched grow up. Where was the mystique or the romance of that?

  ‘Patrick?’

  ‘Too nice. He’d want to walk along with his hand in your jeans pocket and yours in his and discuss the engagement party. Gross.’

  ‘Greg’s cute.’

  ‘He called me Chubby Face once. No way.’ Growing three inches taller in the past year meant Amber had gone from being childishly plump to womanly and voluptuous. The addition of honeyed streaks in her rich brown hair meant that all the boys who’d previously talked to her like a clever younger sister suddenly sat up and took notice.

  This new power over guys was heady and Amber was still testing it, gently. But she wanted to go somewhere more exciting than the football club disco to do so. Somewhere, beyond the confines of Summer Street, the football club disco and St Ursula’s was Life with a capital L: pulsing, exciting, waiting for her.

  ‘You’re getting so choosy,’ said Ella. ‘You fancied Greg last year.’

  ‘That was last year.’

  ‘Should I get more highlights?’ asked Ella, pulling forward a bit of the long, streaky blonde hair that was almost mandatory in sixth year and examining it critically. ‘Your highlights look great but mine have gone all dull and yellowy.’

  ‘Use the special shampoo for blondes,’ said Amber.

  ‘It costs a fortune. I bet your mum buys it for you. Mine wouldn’t.’ Ella was indignant. Because there were only the two of them, Amber’s mum bought her everything she wanted, while Ella’s, with three older sons as well, could hardly do the same thing.

  ‘I’ll give you some of my shampoo,’ offered Amber. She knew how lucky she was and always shared any goodies with Ella. That’s what best friends were for. ‘Now, tomorrow night.’ The pewter eyes gleamed. ‘Not the football club disco, please.’

  ‘Well…’ Ella began. ‘We could try something different.’

  ‘…Something bad…’ Amber shivered deliciously. ‘Let’s try to get into a grown-up club. Come on, in a few months, we’ll have left school and we’ll be the only people in our class to have never done anything interesting, Ella. Everyone else has gone to clubs they’re not supposed to be able to get into, except us because we’re the sensible ones. I’m fed up being sensible.’

  Sensible was nice when you were thirteen and adored by all the teachers, but less so when you were nearly eighteen. The girls who never had their homework done and never got top marks in exams seemed to be having all the fun now, which seemed like an unequal division of spoils.

  ‘Me too,’ Ella breathed. ‘And I’ve just thought how we can do it.’

  Amber’s eyes glittered. ‘How?’

  This feeling of dissatisfaction had in fact been incubating for weeks. Fed up with studying for exams and stifled by the pressure-cooker atmosphere at school, they felt the need to do something wild and rebellious for the first time ever, but their options were limited.

  Most of their pocket money went on clothes or their mobile phone top-up cards, so they had little cash left over for wild behaviour.

  Smoking was considered cool by some of the older girls, who insisted that it kept them thin, but cigarettes were too expensive to be more than a rare treat. Alcohol was easily available, like hash and ecstasy, but Amber’s mother had a nose like an airport sniffer dog and could smell badness anywhere, so coming home drunk or stoned was hardly an option. Faye would have had a fit and grounded her for a month, not to mention being hurt by her daughter’s behaviour, which would, in turn, make Amber feel bad for failing her beloved mother.

  And that was the crux of the matter: their family unit was just two. Two people who adored each other, two people who’d gone through it all together, who protected each other from the world. But sometimes, that could be a burden too.

  At least Ella had three brothers who could share living up to their parents’ expectations: Amber had the weight of her mother’s hopes and dreams resting squarely on her shoulders alone. And unlike Ella’s parents, who seemed to understand that their kids eventually tested their wings and flew the nest, Faye Reid still seemed to think that she and Amber would be together for ever.

  ‘What’s the plan?’ Amber asked now. ‘Where are we going? Nowhere round here, surely? There’s nothing but boring pubs.’

  ‘Exactly. So forget about round here.’ Ella grinned excitedly. ‘Marco’s going into town to a club tomorrow night, and if we went with him, we could get in without being carded.’

  Marco was Ella’s middle brother and they both realised he was their best bet for an illegal excursion. Her eldest brother wouldn’t dream of taking two schoolgirls into a city nightclub, while her youngest brother was too square to go at all. But twenty-three-year-old Marco, who had his own late-night show on a small radio station and went to all the coolest places, just might be persuaded to take them with him.

  ‘Where?’ asked Amber.

  ‘Highway Seven.’

  ‘That’s twenty-ones and over.’ It was hopeless. Doormen were up to speed on the best fake IDs. Amber and Ella didn’t even have fake IDs. All the best clubs were over twenty-ones only. They’d be busted before they got in the door.

  ‘Yeah, but there’s a gig on there tomorrow night, some new band Marco’s going to check out for his show,’ Ella explained. ‘He’ll be on the guest list and he’ll be going in the back door of the club, so the bouncer will let him in no hassle, and if we’re with him…’

  ‘…We’ll waltz right in,’ laughed Amber gleefully. ‘You are one clever chick, Ella O’Brien. But how do we get Marco to take us in the first place?’

  ‘Bribery and corruption.’ Ella had thought it all out. ‘We’ll twist his arm this evening after school.’

  Marco looked a lot like Ella: dark eyes, pale skin and the same dark hair as she’d had before she discovered peroxide. Easy-going to a fault, he wasn’t keen on taking his little sister and her friend out with him.

  ‘In your dreams,’ he said.

  ‘Mum would go mental if she knew you’d had that huge party in the house when the rest of us were in Kerry at Chris
tmas,’ Ella said, all wide-eyed innocence. ‘The one where the neighbours called the police. You’d be chopped liver if she ever found out. You know what she’s like about not upsetting the neighbours…’

  ‘How did you hear about that?’ demanded Marco and then slapped his forehead and groaned. ‘You didn’t know, did you? You were just guessing.’

  ‘Oh, Marco, we knew about the party,’ Amber said, exasperated. ‘We were only guessing about the police, but we found some guy’s coat under Ella’s bed, along with a lot of empty Heineken cans and a condom.’

  Marco blanched.

  ‘It’s not as if Ella put the beer cans there. We never drink beer. We prefer wine or vodka,’ she added, hoping to sound worldly-wise.

  ‘Can’t you go out with your own friends?’ Marco begged, not even commenting on the wine or vodka remark. It seemed like only last week his sister and her friend had been sobbing their hearts out over guinea pig funerals in the back garden and winning badges for Guides.

  ‘Think of it as community service for deeds previously unpunished,’ Amber pointed out. ‘We won’t be any trouble. Once we’re in the club, you can forget about us. We can look after ourselves.’

  ‘OK, you’re nearly eighteen and you know everything, right?’ he said sarcastically.

  ‘I’ve a yellow belt in karate,’ Amber said, assuming what she hoped was a karate stance, though it was years since she’d set foot on a dojo. Her mother’s insistence on self-defence lessons had been fun when she’d been ten, less so when she hit puberty.

  Marco sighed. ‘Close combat is not the answer to all situations in life. The most dangerous guys in the club probably won’t ask you to arm wrestle, Amber. Understand?’ He looked at both girls as sternly as he could. ‘I don’t want to have to come home at two in the morning and tell Mum and Dad that I’ve lost you two. Or worse, tell your mother, Amber. She’d rip me limb from limb.’

  Amber’s mother had always made Marco a bit nervous. There was something steely in Mrs Reid’s gaze, as if she was warning him that she had his measure.

  ‘We’re not kids,’ growled Amber. ‘We’re coming. It’s no skin off your nose. You only have to get us in.’

  ‘Well, you’ll have to watch your drinks,’ sighed Marco, knowing when he was beaten. ‘There are guys out there who’ll slip a date rape drug in your glass and, well…you don’t have any experience. You don’t know the half of it.’

  ‘You’re a wonderful brother.’ Ella gave him a hug.

  ‘This is a one-off deal,’ Marco insisted. ‘OK? And you’ve got to behave yourselves.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Amber, who had absolutely no intention of behaving herself. She could do that in the football club.

  The truly difficult part of the plan was lying to her mother about where she and Ella were going that night. They decided that, because of Faye’s ultra-vigilance, they’d stay at Ella’s that night after their alleged trip to the disco. Having gone through it all before, Ella’s parents were definitely more relaxed about their daughter’s behaviour.

  ‘Mum will check we’re home, but if I put pillows in the beds, she’ll think we’re there,’ Ella said.

  Amber thought of how her mum never slept until Amber was back after an evening out. How many nights had they sat up on Amber’s bed on her return, Mum listening as Amber recounted her triumphs and disasters?

  Then, she brushed the feeling of guilt away. It was only because Mum was so protective that she had to lie. She wasn’t a kid any more. She didn’t want to hurt Mum’s feelings but she had to move on and Mum must be made to understand that.

  Getting into Highway Seven worked precisely as Ella had predicted, although Amber only felt her breathing come right when they were deep inside the club, far from the stern eye of the doorman. In spite of her outward nonchalance, she was nervous. She and Ella might have sunbathed on the forbidden gym roof and smoked a few illicit cigarettes, but they were strictly homework-on-time girls in other respects. This was breaking into new territory, both exciting and scary at the same time.

  Dark, moody and almost vibrating with bass-deep music, the club was crowded with bodies, perfume and a sweet smell that Amber knew was marijuana because even the football club wasn’t trouble-free.

  ‘Er…what do you want to do now?’ asked Marco, wondering how he’d got lumbered with this situation. Thankfully, the two girls looked old enough to fit in, but hey, they were still his little sister and her friend. He had a bad vibe about the whole thing.

  ‘We’re fine,’ Amber said airily.

  ‘Yeah, you go off with your mates. We’re cool,’ Ella added, matching her friend’s unconcerned look.

  Marco shrugged, but he looked relieved. ‘If you’re sure…’

  ‘We’re sure.’ Both girls nodded.

  Amber scanned her surroundings idly, her body moving gently to the music. Ella adopted the same laid-back hauteur.

  Marco was no match for them. He was fooled.

  ‘Text me if you need me,’ he said, then turned and was swallowed up by the crowd.

  On their own, Amber and Ella clutched each other and shrieked, all pretence at being cool gone. Nobody heard them over the pumping beat. ‘We’re here,’ they screeched and did their own little war dance.

  ‘Loos,’ gasped Amber, taking Ella by the hand.

  In the toilets, they re-adopted adult cool while Amber applied a line of smoky kohl around the rims of her eyes like she’d seen in a magazine. The effect was startling: her beautiful eyes seemed larger and more hypnotic than ever.

  ‘You really do look twenty-one,’ sighed Ella, pausing in the act of applying another coat of sticky lip gloss.

  A woman rinsing her hands at the next basin glanced at them.

  ‘Thanks!’ said Amber. ‘I’m actually thirty-two but my plastic surgeon is a miracle worker.’

  The woman left in a hurry and they creased over laughing again, high on their own daring.

  They had enough money to order one drink each, which they’d have to make last all night, and they stood at the bar, nursing their vodkas, trying to look as if they’d been here a million times before and were bored with it all.

  Behind her calm façade, Amber was enthralled, watching everyone, envying them the way they all seemed to fit in.

  In a corner cordoned off by velvet rope sat a dozen people drinking champagne. All beautiful, having the time of their lives, utterly at home. One slender brunette in faded, sequin-decorated jeans was holding court, talking and laughing, while everyone else watched her with evident fascination. In that one second, Amber longed to be just like her: part of the scene instead of watching enviously from the sidelines.

  Then, one of the guys saw her watching them, a guy with dark cropped hair and stubble that was probably five o’clock shadow at ten in the morning. His gaze was so intense Amber looked away in embarrassment. Shit, how gauche to be caught staring hungrily like a schoolgirl.

  She did her best to stare anywhere else, but she really wanted to look back at the guy and drink him in. She’d never felt that connection before, that instant buzz from another human being, the feeling that she knew him.

  But who was she kidding? He was probably only staring at her because it was obvious she and Ella were out of place. She’d thought they looked old enough but perhaps they didn’t and the guy was wondering what a kid was doing there.

  ‘Nobody’s bothering to chat us up,’ moaned Ella beside her.

  ‘It’s early yet,’ said Amber with more enthusiasm than she felt. Perhaps Marco had been right and they should have gone out with their own friends, but the football club would seem so tame after this. After him.

  ‘Are you lost?’ said a low voice.

  Amber swivelled round. The dark, crop-haired man stood beside her, staring at her with intense blue eyes. Every nerve in her body quivered into alertness, though she tried to stay calm.

  ‘Lost? No.’ She shrugged, hopelessly trying to adopt the laid-back aura of the brunette in the VIP section.<
br />
  ‘You weren’t looking for someone?’ he asked. His voice was soft and deep, a man’s voice, not a boy’s.

  Amber shook her head.

  ‘I thought you were looking for me,’ he added, ‘and you’ve found me.’

  Amber just stared at him, concentrating on breathing.

  Chat-up lines for her usually consisted of the guy asking what class she was in at school. This approach was wildly different. Amber felt her spine lengthen, some new instinct making her stand up straighter, yet slightly closer to him.

  ‘I wasn’t looking for you,’ she said, nonchalant. How was she doing this? She’d never spoken this way before, like a heroine from a film. ‘I was watching people. I’m an artist: I like watching people.’

  ‘You draw them, then?’

  Amazingly, he didn’t spot that she was making this up as she went along. Buoyed up, Amber lowered her eyelids and gave him a sultry gaze she’d rehearsed in her bedroom in front of the faded line of her childhood teddy bears.

  ‘If I like the shape of them and the look of them, I might draw them,’ she replied coolly.

  ‘And me? Do you like the look of me?’ he asked.

  It was noisy, so he’d moved till he was very close to her and, despite the gloom of the club, she could see that his face was moulded like a beautiful Renaissance statue: a straight, proud nose, flaring cheekbones, a finely planed forehead and a mouth so sensitive it would take a sculptor months to get right. Tightly cropped brown hair and a filament-thin cotton shirt flattened against his lean body took him into the modern era, but otherwise, he was like the historical princes of art that Amber had grown up admiring.

  ‘I like the look of you very much,’ she breathed, not bothering to be cool any more.

  And he smiled at her, revealing an endearing dimple on one side of his mouth and perfect white teeth. Amber forgot about everything else in the world except this fabulous man. She wanted to touch him, kiss him, feel him wrap his arms around her and press his body against hers for ever. This, she thought, was love at first sight.

  Karl was in a band, he told her. She introduced him to Ella and he led them over to the VIP area.