Read the book: «The Family Secret»

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.

‘See you later, sweetheart,’ Viv says, stroking her face. Then the two sisters walk up the path and away from the beach arm-in-arm.

When they’re out of sight, Amber stops painting and slumps down onto her stool, looking out towards the vast empty beach. Ice laces the pebbles and in the distance the sea lies calm beneath the grey skies. More snow, her mum said. It’s not here yet but Amber suddenly feels stifled, buried under memories and the feel of frost on her fingers.

She glances back up towards her mother and aunt. Their heads are bent close together, lips moving. She imagines the conversation:

‘If little Katy’d lived, she’d be a teenager like the girl on the beach,’ her mother would be saying.

‘Yes, I thought the same,’ her aunt would reply.

‘Ten years. Can you believe it’s been ten years since we lost the wee girl?’

Amber puts her head in her hands and closes her eyes, allowing herself to remember the feel of Katy’s warmth in her arms and the sound of her giggle bursting out of her little body in a fit of happiness. When it was cold like this, she yearned for those stiflingly warm summer nights The Chine had experienced the month Katy was born. Amber would feed Katy in her nursery, looking out of the vast windows towards the sea. Jasper would sometimes pass in the hallway to go to the toilet, smiling with love in his eyes.

A violent wave suddenly crashes to shore, splashing onto the iced beach. Summer disappears in Amber’s mind, replaced by the sound of urgent rain on the window pane she’d heard that awful evening. She could still feel the scorching heat of her daughter’s skin beneath her fingers as she sat beside her small bed, watching as her breath grew more laboured.

‘It’s just a little virus, Em,’ Jasper had said, walking in and putting his hand on Amber’s shoulder. ‘We’re getting loads of cases at the moment in A&E and every single one has recovered within a day or two. She just needs to get over the worst of it. Go get some sleep, I’ll stay up with her.’

‘No,’ Amber had said, shaking her head. ‘I can’t sleep. Her breathing doesn’t sound right. Listen!’

‘Because she’s blocked up! We can’t do this every time she’s ill, babe. And God knows there will be plenty of times like this, especially when she goes to school.’

But there were no other times, no school either. An hour later, a rash appeared and Jasper went from relaxed to stricken, running with his daughter’s small body in his arms through the rain to get her into hospital. Amber knew then. She knew how serious it was, like she’d have known from the start if she’d been there when Katy had been sent home from pre-school, ill. But instead she’d been at some private doctor Jasper had recommended to look into prosthetic fingers. He’d had enough of her complaining how long it took her to renovate pieces to sell in the shop. But if she hadn’t been at that bloody appointment, if she’d seen the way Katy was from the start, maybe her maternal instincts would have sent her to the hospital sooner.

The next morning little Katy, the light of their lives, was gone for ever and with her Amber and Jasper’s marriage.

Amber crunches her good hand into a fist, feeling the tears starting to trail down her cheeks. Katy would have been light-haired like the girl, maybe a hint of the red hair Amber shared with her mother and sister. Strawberry blonde was what her mother called it the first time she’d seen Katy after Amber had given birth to her. ‘My little strawberry,’ she’d whispered, kissing her granddaughter’s soft cheek. It had been particularly hard for Rita. Amber could hear it in her voice when she’d called her from the hospital in the middle of the night. Just a few weeks away from her fourth birthday, the same age Amber had lost her fingers to frostbite. The memories must have come flooding back for Rita. All Amber could think was she wished she’d died that day, then she wouldn’t have to endure the pain of losing the light of her life all those years later. Selfish, really. But true. It was unbearable.

Still is.

Amber looks down the beach. She hates being alone with herself when she has these thoughts.

‘Come on,’ she whispers to herself as she forces herself out. ‘This hut won’t paint itself.’

As she paints over the next few hours, she tries to keep her mind on the job in hand but can’t help but notice there aren’t any customers. She’d not sold a jot the past week apart from the blanket, and her aunt and mother had done that. What was she doing wrong? She’d focused on the bestsellers, mainly the items she renovated: the small stools she’d picked up from charity shops, turned into side tables. The antique framed mirrors cleaned and spruced up. It was all on-trend: distressed look with pastels. So why were sales down this winter?

Deep down she knows why: she simply can’t produce stuff quick enough. If she had two good hands, it might be a different story. She did this a lot, thought about the what-ifs. A guaranteed way to distract herself. She’d had a talent for renovating items, even at a young age. She lost her fingers a few months after starting school and her mother talked about how her teachers marvelled at how skilled Amber was before her accident; she’d had a knack of turning cardboard boxes and plastic bottles into something pretty, even at just four. She’d overheard Viv once saying to a friend: ‘Amber could’ve done great things if she’d not lost those fingers of hers.’

Amber looks down at the stumps on her hand in frustration. One stupid moment going out in the snow when she wasn’t supposed to, and the course of her life had been altered.

Well, there’s nothing she can do about it now, is there?

Maybe she needs to think about reducing her opening hours, finding a job in town? She takes in a sharp breath. Does she really want to do that? Her mortgage is small, the apartment she lives in tiny. She has minimal outgoings. It isn’t necessary. And anyway, what the hell can she do with her useless hand? It takes her what feels like treble the amount of time to do everyday things – including painting.

‘Argh!’ she shouts in frustration. She throws her paintbrush down, red paint splattering on the pebbles. She makes herself a hot chocolate with the small kettle she has in the hut and walks out onto the sand, blowing on her drink to cool it down. As she does that, she tries to blow her worries away too.

She looks towards the hospital again and imagines her little Katy there, alone, scared, confused. Amber and Jasper had been with her to the end, holding her hands and whispering in her ear, trying not to look at all the wires coming out of her tiny body. Amber had that, at least. The knowledge her daughter hadn’t had to endure it alone.

But this poor girl, in hospital with no idea of who she was and where she came from.

‘For God’s sake. Now I’m going to have to go to her, aren’t I?’ She quickly places her paints inside before closing the hut and rushing towards town.