Amber chipped in, ‘Nathan, that’s well out of order.’
‘You can butt out as well. You’re as bad as her, nowt but a pair of fuckin’ slappers! When are you going to get a real job like the rest of humanity?’
The familiar feeling of inadequacy struck Amber and she didn’t know what to say for a moment. But then she thought about the injustice of it all and found her words.
‘It’s alright for you,’ she shrieked. ‘Just because you’ve been to university, you think you’re too fuckin’ good for us. Well you’re not.’
‘Amber, watch your language!’ yelled Loretta, deflecting from the real issue concerning Amber’s lack of opportunity.
Amber was just about to walk out of the room and leave them to it. She was sick of the endless rows and couldn’t be bothered wasting her time and energy on them. But before she could make a move, Nathan spoke again. ‘Y’know what? I don’t even know why I’m putting up with you two. The house will be through any day now so I might as well stay with Chloe while we’re waiting to complete.’
‘House? What do you mean, house?’ asked Loretta with a look of confusion on her face.
‘Yes, you heard right, Mother. Me and Chloe are buying a house. We’ve been saving up for months. It’s what working people do in the real world, rather than living in a dump and defaulting on the rent. I might as well stay with her and her parents while we’re waiting for it to come through. They won’t mind. They’ve already asked me a couple of days ago. In fact, the only reason I turned them down was because I didn’t want to move all my stuff twice. But, thinking about it, it’ll be worth the trouble just to get away from you two.’
Then he marched out of the room, leaving Loretta staring after him, dumbstruck.
She turned to Amber. ‘Did you know about this?’
‘No, I had no idea.’
‘Oh my God! What are we going to do?’
‘Not a lot we can do,’ said Amber, shrugging. ‘Anyway, he wasn’t giving you so much money lately, was he? Now we know why, it was because he was saving for a house.’
‘Well I hope you’re not going to bloody leave me too.’
‘No, Mum, I’ve promised you I won’t, haven’t I?’
‘He can’t just leave things like this,’ said Loretta who then went out of the room in search of Nathan to remonstrate with him once more.
Amber left them to it. If Nathan wanted to leave, who was she to argue? He hadn’t been very nice to be around lately anyway. And if he was buying a house then there was no way her mother would be able to talk him out of leaving.
*
January 2016
It was the night after Sapphire had unsuccessfully searched for Amber, and she was inside the Rose and Crown once again waiting for her friend to show up. Sapphire knew there were no guarantees that Amber would come into the pub, but she decided to wait for her anyway as she was so desperate to tell her about Kev and Cora.
The place was dead and the only one of the girls who was in was Angie who was sat drinking alone. Sapphire was occupying herself by standing at the bar and engaging in conversation with Moira and a couple of the regulars who came and went.
‘What the bloody hell’s wrong with you?’ asked Moira. ‘You’re like a cat on hot bricks.’
‘Oh, nothing much,’ said Sapphire. ‘I just need to speak to Amber about something, that’s all.’
‘Didn’t you find her last night?’
‘No.’
‘Oh dear. Aren’t you normally in work by now, anyway?’ asked Moira.
Sapphire checked the time on her phone. ‘Well yeah, but… I could really do with seeing Amber, that’s all.’
‘Well, if you want to get yourself off, love, I’ll tell Amber you were here looking for her if she comes in.’
Sapphire knew she really ought to get to work so she said to Moira, ‘Okay, would you please?’ She toyed with the idea of leaving her phone number with Moira but decided against it. She preferred to speak to Amber directly rather than on the phone.
‘Course I will, love,’ said Moira. ‘Do you want me to give her a message?’
‘No, it’s okay. Just let her know I was looking for her. I’ll try to catch her again.’
Before she went, Sapphire decided to see if old Angie had seen anything of Amber. Hopefully, at this time of night she would still be sober and wouldn’t therefore start making a nuisance of herself. She stopped by her table and said, ‘Hi, Angie. You don’t know if Amber’s been in, do you?’
‘What? In here? No, I’ve not seen her for a while.’
Just then Angie started coughing hard. Sapphire could hear the rattling in her lungs, and she became concerned. ‘Bloody hell, Angie! Your COPD’s bad tonight, isn’t it? I’ve not seen it that bad for ages.’
Angie took a moment to regain her breath before replying. ‘Yeah, the doctor says I’ve got a chest infection on top of it.’
‘Well, it doesn’t sound too good to me. You take care and keep warm.’
‘Oh, I intend to,’ said Angie, raising a glass of some kind of spirit and smiling. ‘This’ll help to warm my insides.’
Sapphire smiled and left the pub. She started making her way to work but she couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that Amber might be in danger so she took a slight detour and headed instead for the area where she might find Amber. It wasn’t long before she arrived, but she was perturbed to find there was no sign of her friend. Again, she decided to wait for her, hoping it wouldn’t be too long this time before Amber showed up.
48
January 2016
Amber arrived at the Rose and Crown determined to
