Amber by Heather Burnside (fb2 epub reader .txt) 📕

couldn’t really concentrate on what was happening on screen. Her mind was too occupied with other things. She focused on her mother and her ever-changing love life.

Since Loretta had split up with Sean several months previously, she had gone through a series of different men. But none of them had lasted long. In fact, as time went on, they seemed to stay around even less. Some of them Amy didn’t even get to meet but she knew they’d stayed the night as she would hear them leave early the following morning amidst hushed conversations with her mother.

Amy had grown used to her mother’s mood swings: up one minute at the prospect of a new date but then down when the phone didn’t ring. She had become programmed to it, recognising that her mother’s future happiness and prosperity was dependant on finding the right man. So, as she sat there going over everything in her young mind, Amy desperately hoped that this one would be nice to them and that he would be the one who would make her mother happy forever.

15

October 1997

It was a few nights later and Loretta was out again. Amy didn’t know if she was out with the same man as last time or with a different one, but she had learnt not to ask too many questions. Her mother only told her what she wanted Amy to know and if she didn’t want her to know then she would tell Amy that she shouldn’t be asking such questions at her age.

Amy had been curious for some time about her mother’s bedroom. It seemed strange to her that she wasn’t allowed in there. She had told her friends about it at school and they agreed that it wasn’t right. Apparently, they were allowed in their parents’ bedrooms any time provided they knocked on the door if it was shut while their parents were in there.

While Nathan was occupied watching one of his favourite shows on the downstairs TV, Amy thought she would take the opportunity to explore. Apart from being curious, she had often admired her mother’s makeup and clothing and wanted to have a good look at them.

She started at the dressing table where the makeup products were scattered haphazardly with smudges of mascara and a faint dusting of blusher littering the tabletop. She took a lipstick and opened the container. Then she wound the bottom up like she had seen her mother do until the lipstick was poking out. It was a lovely bright red colour and Amy was drawn to it.

Giving in to temptation, she put some on her lips and glanced in the mirror, hoping for the transformation she had seen on her mother’s face. But she had missed her lips’ natural outline and the lipstick looked silly. Unperturbed, she opened the blusher next and used the brush to dab some on her cheeks. Again, it didn’t look the same as is it did on her mother and as Amy stared in the mirror she decided she looked more like one of her dolls than a woman made up to go on a night out. Perhaps that was why makeup was really for grown-ups – because it only looked right on them.

Ignoring the failed attempt at making up her face, she went over to the wardrobe and riffled through her mother’s outfits. She loved admiring the fashionable styles and bright colours, especially the glittery ones that her mother wore over Christmas. Her favourite was a short red dress that was all sparkly and made from swishy material with sequins sewn onto it. She remembered her mother wearing it last New Year.

She took the dress out of the wardrobe and held it up to herself, spinning around in a circle and taking delight in the way the material floated on the air. It must feel wonderful to dance in a dress like that, she thought, before placing it carefully back in the wardrobe and hoping her mother wouldn’t notice that her clothes had been disturbed.

Next Amy went through the shoes that were lined up on a rack at the bottom of the wardrobe. She selected a black pair with a peep toe and high heels, and she put them on. Wondering what it was like to walk in shoes like that she took a few tentative steps across the bedroom floor.

She was disturbed by the sound of someone on the stairs and for a few nervous seconds she held her breath, desperately hoping that her mother hadn’t come home early. As she heard the footsteps pass near to her mother’s bedroom she felt as though her heart would explode in her chest. Expecting the door to open any moment she stood tense and rigid. But then the footsteps faded, and she figured it was her brother going into his bedroom. A few seconds later she heard him go back downstairs and, relieved, she carried on trying out her mother’s shoes.

Once she had grown tired of that, Amy went over to the chest of drawers and had a rummage through them. She pulled one of her mother’s bras out of the top drawer and put her arms through the straps, giggling when she looked at her reflection in the mirror.

There was nothing else of interest in the drawers – just pullovers, T-shirts and other everyday clothing – until she got to the bottom drawer. Surprised to see some sort of toys in her mother’s bedroom along with other items, Amy knelt on the carpet and peered at them.

One was a black ring with little lumps on one side of it. She wasn’t sure what it could be, so she pulled it out of the drawer to take a closer look. But she was confused so she put it on the bed and then pulled out the next item. This one was long and pink with a switch at one end of it. She pressed the switch and it juddered in her hand, making