The Family Secret Read online

  ‘He always moaned about having to put up with two crazy redheads,’ her mother would say. ‘Then you come along, another redhead, screaming your lungs off every hour of the night.’ Some might take that as rejection. But from what Amber had heard from her mother, aunt and half the people in town about her hard-drinking, verbally abusive dad, she took it as a compliment. For years, it had just been her and her mother in their little terraced house in town, her aunt Viv a few doors down with her husband. But then they’d divorced and now it was just the three women – or ‘The Three Reds’ as the locals called them.

  ‘Getting really cold,’ Rita says, unfolding a thick fleece blanket and placing it over hers and Viv’s legs as they sit on a bench. ‘They’re saying on the news we might get snow.’

  Amber twists at the wool of her jumper. ‘Hope not.’ She looks down at her left hand and the centimetre-long stubs that are an excuse for her fingers. Cold days like this always make her loss even more pronounced. She grabs a glove and pulls it on as her aunt and mother exchange a look. She worries that the sight of her fingerless hand puts customers off. Though her mum and aunt tell her she’s imagining it, she sees the way some customers’ eyes sweep over her right hand, a fleeting look of confusion. Better just to wear gloves when she can.

  She sighs and grabs her paintbrush as her aunt and mother sit in contented silence.

  ‘Oh! Here we go, first customer of the day,’ her aunt says, voice puncturing the silence.

  Amber follows her aunt’s gaze to see a woman walking down the beach. No, not a woman. More a slip of a girl with shoulder-length hair the colour of white birch, streaks of blue through it. Amber shades her eyes from the hard winter sun, taking in the girl’s woollen dress and snagged tights. ‘She’s not wearing a coat.’

  ‘No shoes either,’ Viv adds in surprise. ‘My God, she’ll catch her death.’

  The girl stumbles slightly then pauses, looking down at herself in confusion.

  ‘Looks like she’s drunk,’ Rita says.

  ‘No, something’s not right with her.’ Amber grabs the blanket off her mother and aunt’s knees, steps off the veranda and rushes towards the girl.

  Chapter Two

  Amber crouches down beside the girl and wraps the blanket around her slim shoulders. The girl is freezing to the touch and is shaking uncontrollably, her long colourless eyelashes glistening with frost. Amber instinctively pulls her close, willing her own warmth to seep into the girl’s fragile body.

  ‘What on earth are you doing here with no coat?’ she asks as Viv and Rita jog over.

  The girl doesn’t say anything, just looks up at Amber with big, bewildered eyes.

  ‘Look at her, she’s freezing,’ Viv comments as they get to her.

  Amber’s mum looks down at the girl, brow furrowed. ‘Are you local, love?’

  The girl blinks, her eyelashes sticking together from the ice. ‘I – I don’t know,’ she replies. The three redheads exchange looks.

  ‘She looks familiar,’ Viv murmurs. ‘What’s your name, sweetheart?’

  ‘How long have you been out here?’ Rita asks.

  ‘Where are your shoes?’ Viv adds.

  ‘Too many questions!’ Amber says. She helps the girl up. ‘Come on, let’s get you into the warmth, you need defrosting.’

  They all help the girl limp towards the beach hut and Amber takes the chance to examine her pretty face. Her eyes are set wide apart beneath her feathery blonde fringe, her nose a button. There’s a ring in her nose, a gem in her eyebrow. Both pretty and blue, like the streaks in her hair. She looks to be in her late teens. There’s a chance Amber’s aunt is right – maybe the girl had got drunk the night before and ended up in one of the beach huts? It happened sometimes. But looking at this girl, Amber thought she didn’t seem the type to do that. Not like Amber was at that age, wild-haired and even more wild-minded.

  They walk into the middle hut and Amber helps the girl sit down on a stool. She turns up the electric heater. As she does so, Rita gasps. Amber follows her gaze to see the hair behind the girl’s right ear is matted with blood.

  ‘Call an ambulance,’ Amber says quickly, pulling her glove off, grabbing a sanitary towel from her bag and pressing it against the girl’s wound. The girl flinches then tries to brush the towel away.

  ‘No, love,’ Amber says, gently lowering her hand. ‘You’ve hurt yourself.’

  Amber’s mother looks at the blood-soaked towel then turns away, hand to her mouth, as Viv pulls her mobile phone out and calls for an ambulance. When she explains the girl’s injury to the person on the other end, the girl’s eyes widen with fear. Amber puts her hand on her arm to comfort her and the girl looks down at Amber’s hand, taking in the missing fingers and the gnarled stumps at the end. She traces a cold finger over the stumps and Amber quickly pulls her hand away.

  ‘Let’s get something warm in you while we wait for the experts, hey?’ Rita says, pulling herself together. ‘Tea? Hot chocolate?’

  ‘Coffee?’ Viv adds as she puts the phone down.

  ‘I don’t think it’s like that, Viv,’ Amber says. ‘Anyway, best we don’t give her anything to eat or drink before she’s checked out properly.’

  ‘Really? Remember when you fell over and hit your head after that party, drunk as a skunk?’

  Amber ignores her aunt, clearing some Christmas bunting from a small table and sitting down on it. ‘What’s your name then, love?’

  The girl is silent for a few moments. Then she shakes her head, tears filling her eyes. ‘I don’t know it. Why don’t I know my own name?’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Amber says in a soothing voice. ‘It’ll be the shock of falling over. I remember being a bit confused when I did one time.’

  Her aunt and mum suppress smiles.

  ‘My mum and aunt were too busy laughing to notice I’d actually hurt myself,’ Amber adds, scowling at them both. ‘Do you remember anything, like how you got here?’

  The girl looks out towards the sea, flinching slightly. Then she quickly shakes her head.

  ‘Steady!’ Amber says as the towel shifts from the movement, the girl’s blood seeping onto her fingers.

  ‘Sorry,’ the girl says, stilling herself. ‘I – I don’t remember anything, really.’ Panic flutters in her eyes. ‘Why can’t I remember anything, why can’t I—’

  ‘Don’t worry, love,’ Amber’s mum says, putting an arm around the girl’s shoulders. ‘It’ll come back to you eventually.’

  The sound of sirens pierce the air.

  ‘They said they’d be quick,’ Viv says. She marches outside and waves up at the ambulance driving down the main road. A couple walking their dog stop and stare. It wasn’t often people heard sirens around those parts. Bar some recent muggings, the town was usually devoid of much crime.

  A few moments later, two paramedics appeared at the entrance of the hut, a man and a woman.

  ‘Looks like you’re getting yourself nice and warm,’ the woman says as she gently lifts the sanitary towel from the girl’s wound and examines it. ‘Yep, that’ll need stitches.’ The paramedic looks at Amber. ‘It’ll explain the confusion too. Quite common with head injuries. You don’t know her then?’

  Amber shakes her head along with her mother and aunt.

  ‘The poor thing doesn’t remember anything,’ Rita adds.

  The male paramedic pulls a large silver sheet from his bag and wraps it around the girl’s shoulders. ‘What brought you walking along the beach with no shoes and coat on then?’ he asks as he does so.

  ‘I don’t know,’ the girl whispers. ‘I really don’t.’

  The female paramedic pulls some latex gloves on then blows on her hands. ‘I’m just going to briefly touch your belly, all right? Just to check your temperature. Probably best we get your wet dress off anyway.’

  The girl looks alarmed.

  ‘Here, hold that blanket up,’ Amber says to her mother and aunt, gesturing to a blanket that is for sale. They do as she asks, holding
the blanket up to create a screen. Amber quickly helps the girl pull her dress off then wraps the first blanket tight around her and places the other layers on top.

  ‘Thank you,’ the girl says to her, peering up at her in the darkness created by the screen.

  Amber feels her heart clench. ‘No worries.’

  The paramedic places her fingers against the girl’s tummy then her neck, checking her watch as she does so. ‘I think you might have a mild touch of hypothermia too. Combined with the head injury, best we get you to hospital sharpish.’

  The girl looks alarmed again.

  ‘It’ll be all right,’ Amber says, grasping her hand.

  ‘Will you come with me?’ the girl asks in a small voice.

  ‘Of course,’ Amber says as the paramedics help the girl up.

  ‘Don’t worry, we’ll look after the hut,’ her mother calls after Amber as they walk out.

  ‘God help me,’ Amber mumbles under her breath. ‘I don’t want to come back to find all my stock listed on eBay and the red paint stripped off,’ she calls over her shoulder.

  The girl smiles to herself as the paramedics laugh.

  As Amber walks out of the hut with the girl, she feels the girl’s small cold hand creep into hers. Amber is surprised to feel tears flood her eyes.

  Man up, Red.

  The hospital isn’t how Amber remembers it. She’d done well to avoid it the past few years, even dealing with a fractured toe at home. She looks around, hoping she won’t see one of the reasons she’s been avoiding it.

  ‘We’ll get you right as rain,’ the paramedic says as she wheels the girl into a cubicle on a stretcher. A doctor walks over and Amber is relieved to see it’s a female doctor, not the person she’s trying to avoid.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mum, we’ll look after your daughter,’ the smiling doctor says to Amber as she pulls some gloves on.

  Amber feels her face flush. ‘She’s not mine. I just found her on the beach.’

  The doctor nods. ‘Ah, sorry, my mistake.’

  Amber looks down at the girl and for a moment, she imagines she was her daughter, still here, still alive. She even imagines the phone call.

  ‘Your Katy’s been found wandering around the beach, Amber,’ one of the regular dog walkers would say in an early morning phone call. ‘Sorry, love, we think she might have had a few too many drinks.’

  She’d be angry at her daughter but understanding too. Hadn’t she done the same as a kid, wandering drunk along the shoreline in the early hours? She’d ground her, maybe for a week or so. Get her home and tuck her up in bed, give her space for a bit. Then they’d have ‘the talk’. Amber would exaggerate her own drunken stories, tell her about her old friend Louise who got so drunk, she nearly drowned during a late-night skinny dip, another who got pregnant at fourteen. Her daughter would roll her eyes. ‘God, Mum, it was just once.’ And they’d laugh then order some pizza, maybe watch a film.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Amber hears a small voice ask. ‘You’re crying.’

  She looks down at the girl. The girl who isn’t her daughter. Amber quickly wipes her tears away. ‘I’m fine,’ she says, slightly sharper than she’d intended. She starts backing away. ‘You take care, okay? You’re in good hands now.’

  ‘You’re not going to stay?’ the girls asks, struggling to sit up. ‘Please stay.’

  Amber shakes her head, clenching her good hand into a fist to make herself strong. ‘I can’t. I have the shop, remember? Plus I need to get it painted before the Christmas market rush,’ she adds, looking at the doctor and shrugging. ‘Anyway, you don’t need me, look at all these people here for you!’ Her voice breaks as she says that. Then she strides from the cubicle, trying not to think of the lost look on the girl’s face.

  As she is leaving the ward, a familiar voice rings out. ‘Amber?’

  ‘Great,’ Amber mumbles under her breath. She takes a deep breath then turns around to see the man she’d been hoping to avoid: her ex-husband, Jasper. He looks as dishevelled as ever, the white doctor’s coat and dark trousers that cover his tall slim build creased. His blond hair sticks out in all directions and there are circles under his blue eyes.

  ‘Hello,’ she says, forcing a smile.

  He pauses for a moment, trying to find the words. Hurt flickers in his eyes and Amber has to stifle the guilt she feels. ‘You look good,’ he manages.

  ‘You look knackered.’

  He laughs, rubbing at the slightly stubbled skin on his cheek. ‘That’s what working fourteen-hour shifts a day does to a man. What brings you here?’

  ‘I found a girl on the beach. Head injury.’

  He gets that serious ‘doctor’ face she was once so used to. ‘I see. Drunken fall?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Amber says, peering towards the cubicle where the girl is. ‘I don’t know though, something’s telling me it isn’t. I don’t recognise her from around here. She doesn’t remember anything.’

  ‘That can happen with head injuries … and hangovers.’ He looks at the small shop by the entrance to the hospital. ‘Are you getting her something then?’

  Amber shakes her head. ‘No, leaving, I’m on my way out. I’ll leave the experts to it.’

  ‘But if she doesn’t know anyone …’ he begins in an uncertain tone, his voice trailing off.

  ‘I can’t just leave the gift shop, Jasper. I have just over a week to get it sorted before the Christmas market.’ Amber’s voice sounds harsher than she intended. ‘She’ll be fine, her parents will probably come running in any moment.’

  Jasper keeps his eyes on her and, just from his look, Amber knows what he’s thinking. She knows him so well, can read every little quirk and facial expression. She’s sure it’s still the same for him too. They had been together for seven years, after all.

  That changed ten years ago though. So much has changed.

  He sighs. ‘Fine, I’ll check in on her then. I’m actually doing some training in neurology, even thinking of specialising in it.’

  ‘You’re moving from ER?’

  ‘We’ll see. I can report back when her parents arrive? If they arrive,’ he adds. ‘Still the same number?’ His voice is all businesslike now.

  Amber nods. ‘You know me, I’ll never change it.’

  He smiles slightly. ‘Yes, I do.’ That pained look again. He examines her face. ‘You keeping okay?’

  ‘Yep, same old same.’

  ‘And Rita and Viv?’

  ‘Same old insane.’

  He laughs. ‘Yes, I miss seeing them around town.’ He’d moved out of Winterton Chine five years ago to the next village. When he’d messaged Amber to tell her, she’d felt a mixture of relief and regret. No more awkward encounters in town. But equally, no more chance of seeing him again, unless it involved a visit to the hospital, and nobody really savoured that.

  ‘Right, better go,’ Amber says. ‘Don’t want to leave Mum and Aunt Viv in charge of the shop for too long.’ She lifts her hand, gives a feeble wave, then walks off, aware of his eyes on her back.

  When Amber arrives back at the beach huts, her mother and aunt are doing the foxtrot together on the icy beach as a man walking his dog looks on, bemused. They stop when Amber approaches.

  ‘You’re back already?’ her mother asks her, slightly out of breath.

  ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ Amber replies, walking into the shop and throwing her dark green coat to one side. ‘Did you sell anything?’

  ‘A blanket!’ Viv replies, smiling with pride.

  ‘What about the girl? She’ll be alone,’ Rita asks, ignoring her daughter’s question.

  ‘No she won’t,’ Amber says, checking the copy of the receipt her aunt had scrawled out for the blanket. ‘You knocked ten quid off?’ she exclaims in disbelief, waving the receipt about.

  ‘Fifty pounds is extortionate!’ Viv replies. ‘You can get them for thirty on Etsy.’

  ‘It’s the going rate, Viv,’ Amber says, folding her arms across her chest. ‘Jesus, I’m trying to
keep my head above water here.’

  ‘Enough about the bloody blanket!’ Rita shouts at them both. ‘What about the girl? She’ll be all alone in that hospital!’

  Amber fluffs up the remaining blankets then grabs her paintbrush and walks outside, the two women following. ‘Exactly, she’s in hospital, surrounded by doctors and nurses.’

  ‘You should have stayed,’ Rita says, and Viv nods in support.

  Amber turns to them. ‘Why? I don’t even know her!’

  ‘The man who helped you that night didn’t know you,’ her mum replies. ‘And he still sends us Christmas cards every year checking in on you, a whole thirty years later!’

  Amber awkwardly holds the tin of paint against her hip with her bad hand so she can open the lid with her working hand. Then sets the tin down and dips the paintbrush in.

  ‘I don’t need your help any more today,’ she says without looking at the two women. ‘You can go have your tea and cake at Earl’s if you want,’ she adds dismissively, referring to the teashop in town. ‘They’ll be wondering where you are. Who’s going to pass on the town gossip otherwise?’

  In the reflection of a small mirror Amber sees the two women register hurt on their faces. Amber bites her tongue. She’s taken it too far.

  ‘Is this your way of telling us to clear off?’ Viv says.

  ‘I have to focus on painting. I’m already behind,’ Amber says in a lighter voice, sweeping the paintbrush over the wood. ‘Needs some concentration, which is impossible with you two around,’ she adds, turning to give them a quick smile to try to ease the tension.

  Her mother examines her face then nods quietly to herself. ‘Of course, love.’ She gives Amber a quick peck on the cheek. ‘As long as you’re okay?’ she asks, looking her daughter in the eye as Viv wrinkles her brow.

  God, they knew her so well.

  ‘Fine! I’m perfectly fine,’ Amber lies as she aggressively sweeps the red paint up and down the wooden wall.