The Brilliant Light of Amber Sunrise (8 page)

“Oh,” I said.

“And what about you, Mum?” Chris asked. Grandma gave him a gentle kick, which Chris ignored. Mum looked like she was going to launch him. “Did the joy of new life carry you through the pain?”

Mum breathed out loudly and glared back at him.

“I wouldn't know. You were adopted,” she said with a smile that wasn't really a smile.

Grandma laughed nervously and shook her head. “He wasn't adopted,” she said to Colette, and laughed again. “You weren't adopted, flower,” she said to Chris, as though he needed reassurance.

“Anyway, I wasn't feeling anything, not from the waist down at least,” Mum said, standing up. “Full epidural . . . ­absolute bliss. 'Course, it was the twenty-odd years afterward I really needed anesthesia for.”

“Julie!” Grandma said, laughing even more nervously. “Oh, she's a joker all right, this one,” she said to Colette.

Grandma always cares what people think. Even if she thinks less than little of them, the thought that they may form any ill judgment of her and hers is enough to give her a heart attack. For three years after Dad left for good she told people he'd got a manager's job at the head office. Dad has his own business. Everyone knows this.

“Well, we'll be getting off then,” Mum said, kissing my forehead half a dozen times. “Bye, darling, you take care. And if you need anything . . .” she said, cupping her hands firmly around my face, “. . . then you just call me, ­understand?”

I nodded and said my good-byes.

“Look forward to seeing you again,” Colette said as they left. Mum nodded but did not respond. They weren't even off the ward before I heard her, Chris, and Grandma ­arguing.

Half an hour or so passed and eventually Colette and Olivia made their exit, too. Paul was asleep and Kelly was being wheeled somewhere or other by her aunty who had come on a rare visit, so it was just Amber and me, on our own.

She still had her headphones on, so I couldn't start talking to her even though I wanted to, if only so that I could play it cool and prove Chris wrong about everything he had implied.

I started to rearrange my books so the spines were pointing her way, hoping to impress her with the range and depth of my reading matter. I pressed the button on the bed—which Jackie had taught me how to use properly—and felt myself bob up and down like I was riding a wave.

I was just taking out my notepad and pen to make some notes when Amber let out a long and lingering sigh.

“God, I'm booooooored,” she said, half turning her head to look at me. “No offense, Francis, but your conversation skills are
fascinating
.”

“Sorry. I thought you were listening to music. I'm normally much more interesting.”

Amber shook her head and held up the plug of her headphones, unattached to her iPod.

“I just put them on to get rid of people. Sort of like your mum's trick with the curtain, only slightly more subtle.”

“Sorry. About Mum, I mean. She's okay really, you just have to get to know her.”

“She's a card.”

I shrugged.

“Thanks for the chocolate. You can have some of the supplies my Grandma left,” I offered.

“I fully intend to,” Amber said. “I like your brother, by the way.”

“He's gay,” I said. Then, for no reason at all, added, “He fancies boys.”

I could tell Amber was trying not to laugh. She did an all right job of it, too. Better than the job I was doing of trying not to blush.

“Oh . . .” she said, sitting up in bed and turning to face me.
“How . . . exotic.”

She picked up a grape from the side of my bed and threw it up into the air, swooping her mouth into position so that the grape landed with a popping sound straight at the back of her throat.

“Bull's-eye,” she said, proudly chewing. “So,” she said finally, standing up and tightening the scrunchie around her short ponytail, “what do we do for fun around here?”

CHAPTER SIX

Christian was brought in once
a week to do a group therapy session, when we were all feeling up to it. He had a naturally soft voice and wore vegan shoes. Amber said his qualifications were probably off the Internet. He called himself a healer of sorts. Amber called him something much worse when she caught sight of him for the first time.

“Do you feel anger toward your situation?” asked ­Christian.

He spoke quietly and somehow managed to make eye contact with us all at once. He always started gently enough. During the first session Amber came to he made each of us draw a picture using only six lines to describe how we felt. My talents never did lie in the visual arts, so my picture wasn't as accurate as I'd have liked. Then he asked us all to pick a color that best described our personality. Kelly said pink because it was her favorite. Paul said black and white for football-related reasons. Amber said
rainbow because she was “all about the love” in a voice that suggested she was anything but. I said white, because it was the color of the gown I was wearing, and I had been sulking since I did so miserably with my mood picture that I couldn't be bothered to participate. Then, after a bumbling lecture on love and positivity, Christian managed slowly to channel the conversation toward our situation, like a bad TV presenter linking two unrelated segments of a show.

“I suppose I do feel angry,” Kelly said. Christian nodded encouragingly. Christian did everything encouragingly. Everything was worthy of reward in his eyes. You'd think this would create a more cheering environment. Really it was just annoying. If even stupid things get praise there's no point in trying to be clever or right. So I just sat quietly and observed. “Hardly seems fair, does it?” Kelly went on. “Loads of old people are healthy. And loads of bad people too.”

“I hear you,” said Christian. “And one point I cannot stress strongly enough is that, no matter how unpleasant, emotions like these should be faced head on—meet them at their level. It can sometimes be too easy to find a culprit and direct all our negativity toward that one object or person, but that isn't dealing with what really matters. There should be no attempt to attribute blame for—”

“Oh, you can
always
blame something,” Amber said, interrupting him. Anyone else would have shot her down
and told her to let them finish. But Christian wasn't that sort of man. He just smiled and nodded as she gained ­momentum.

The attention of the whole group turned toward her. Kelly narrowed her eyes but Amber just carried on ­speaking.

“Yeah, you can blame anyone or anything you like: the government, state education, trans fats. . . .”

“Amber, you're deflecting attention from—”

“Naaaaaaaht!”

“Amber, I understand that at times our emotions can be confusing, and that in an attempt to cope we can reach for an easier, more familiar approach to certain subjects. With you, that seems to be a sort of . . . aggression.”

“No, I'm not being aggressive, I'm being glib.”

“You're being a total cow, Amber. I was speaking,” Kelly broke in.

“Can we have lunch soon?” Paul asked.

“Not long,” Christian said, tapping him on the knee.

“Why do you even want lunch? You only chuck it straight up anyway,” Kelly asked.

“Now
that
was a hostile comment,” Amber commented.

“Oh my God, it was a joke!” Kelly said.

“Christian,”
Amber pointed out,
“I think Kelly's ­deflecting.”

“Shut up, Amber! We're trying to talk seriously here.”

“Let's just remember that this is a friendly environment;
there is to be no negativity here,” Christian said, looking nervous.

“I reckon she's more scared than she lets on,” Kelly said, trying to get a reaction out of Amber. “I reckon she acts this way because deep down she's terrified, like the lot of us.”

Christian nodded and turned to Amber.

“Is Kelly's comment something you'd like to address?”

“A census taker tried to test me once,” Amber said eventually, her voice cold and deadpan.
“Didn't end so well.”

“Fear is nothing to be ashamed of.” Christian was at least persistent. “If anything it should be celebrated. It keeps us alive.”

“Not me. I'm immune.”

“Why don't you just try and think about it?” he asked. “Some things must make you scared. Make you sad.”

“Fear and sadness aren't the same things,” Amber said.

“Indeed . . .”

“Oh, loads of things make me sad,” she went on. “Grown men eating packed lunches, old people sitting alone on park benches, ‘Dancing Queen' by ABBA, the video for ‘Coffee and TV' by Blur. . . .”

“Why do you always have to be the clever one?” Kelly said.

“Same reason you always have to be the thick one.”

“You don't seem to be taking this very seriously,” ­Christian observed, but with concern instead of accusation in his voice.

“Why should I? I didn't ask for it. I can take it however I like. And anyway, I'm just
sharing
.”

The rest of the session consisted mostly of Christian trying to fill in the awkward silences. Afterward on the unit none of us said a word. Kelly and Amber never really talked in the first place, not since Amber had erupted onto the ward like Randle McMurphy in
One Flew Over the ­Cuckoo's Nest
and upset its natural balance. In school Kelly would have had the upper hand. No matter how much she spat and snarled, Amber would have been torn limb from limb by Kelly and her crew, like a wildebeest calf faced with a pack of lions. But in the real world she had Kelly over a barrel. Every time she said something stupid, which was always, Amber was there to set her straight. Kelly didn't stand a chance. So she sat and scowled, occasionally swearing at Amber when the pressure got too much.

Paul carried on his strong and silent routine. When she had arrived he had glanced Amber up and down, and noticing that she didn't straighten her hair or gloss her lips or scrub herself orange with fake tan, had dismissed her as someone he didn't need to know. She might as well have been invisible. And to Paul she mostly was.

This meant the battle lines were drawn. Amber had me, and Kelly and Paul had each other. This was the setup. And it suited me down to the ground.

“Do you want to watch a film?” Amber asked in the chill-out room. We were alone even though Jackie kept popping in to make sure we were okay. All morning I had felt nauseous and weak. My legs and arms would shake when I tried to haul myself out of bed, but Amber had said that the unit was destroying her buzz so we'd moved to the sofas to be alone.

“If you like. They haven't got any DVDs at the minute, though; you've got to use the menu and select one from there.”

“I'm on it,” she said, sitting down next to me.

“Do you think I pushed Kelly too far?” she asked as she scrolled through dozens and dozens of films on the TV, dismissing them one by one.

I shrugged and asked her if she felt bad about it.

“No. Not bad. I just can't stand the crap that seems to be coming out of everyone's mouth. It's not her fault. She's doing the best she can with grim genetics. Christian needs teaching a lesson, though. Same goes for this telly,” she said, although she was flicking so quickly I'm not sure how she could tell. “
Ugh
. . . Titanic . . .
kill me now!
”

I remained silent. You have to pretend to hate
Titanic
for reasons I'm still unsure of as it is probably the greatest romance of our time. Their love was as doomed as that ­voyage.

“Yeah,” I said. “That film's the worst. Maybe we could
get Chris to bring in some DVDs for us to watch. He has some good ones. Better than all this.”

“Yeah, do it. And get him to bring in some conversation while he's at it. You're killing me here, Frankie,” she said.

“Sorry.”

“I'm joking; you're not that bad. You okay today?” she asked. “You keep grimacing.”

“I'm fine.”

“Good. Things are a lot more interesting with you around.”

Sometimes I'd catch myself staring at Amber and only realize I was doing it when she'd throw something at my head—a grape, once, usually an empty pill cup—and tell me to stop being a creep. She didn't look the way most girls did. She was pretty in her own way, with pale skin and big eyes and a mouth that seemed to stretch from ear to ear. Nor did she move the way most girls did. A few years before, when we'd all gone back to school after summer holiday, it was like every girl had been invaded by a body snatcher. They looked the same, but they moved differently. None of them would play anymore; they'd stand at the side of the yard, rolling their eyes at everything that happened around them. In lessons they'd sit upright where they always used to slouch, and press their chests up like they were offering them to the gods.

Amber didn't seem to be aware that she had a body.
She would just slump about in whatever position seemed most comfortable. Also she moved her face. The girls at school never moved their faces. They all seemed to spend their time blowing out through their lips in a stupid pout, like they were posing for a profile picture. The effect was off-putting. You could never tell what they thought, for one thing. There was no mistaking what Amber thought. Usually this was because she'd tell you within seconds of deciding herself. But you could see it on her face too, her easy smile and her easier scowl, and the way she'd narrow her eyes at people whenever they talked, as if she was a camera zooming in—closer and closer—until she could see exactly who they were, and exactly what they meant.

“My dad died, you know?” she said as I was studying her face again in the chill-out room. I snapped out of my daydream too quickly, like when you spring out of bed and realize you've forgotten how to walk. I felt my palms become damp and clammy. I had no idea what to say.

I wished she'd just thrown something at my head instead.

“Don't worry. I'm not going to break down on you or anything. I'm just saying, he died, that's why he's not here. And that's why Mum's . . .
Mum
.”

“Sorry,” I said. “How?”

“Heart attack,” she said, the whole time staring at the TV screen, scrolling quicker and quicker through channels.
“Went to work one day and didn't come home. Mum came to pick us up from school. She got a lift from one of her friends. She can't drive. Well, she won't. Worries about the pollution. But she came in a car that day, and then was silent all the way home.”

“How old were you?” I asked.

“Olivia's age now. Ten. Ol was only in nursery at the time. It was stupid, though. We knew as soon as Mum picked us up that something was wrong. If she hadn't wanted to tell us until we got home, why not just wait for school to finish?”

“Sorry,” I said again.

“You can stop apologizing, Francis. I'm just chatting.”

“I know. But it's what you say, isn't it?”

“Suppose,” she said, then turned to face me. “So I'm just saying, I know what it's like when people die. I know that it's just one less person at the dinner table, and they don't take the whole world with them; it carries on like it always has, only a bit sadder for a bit. So that's why I'm not scared.”

We were quiet again and Amber went back to scrolling through channels. She'd gone so far she was already at the adult ones that you needed a pin number to watch.

“I know what it's like too,” I said eventually. “When someone dies.”

“Your dad died too?” she asked without looking at me.

“No,” I said. “He's just not around.”

“Sorry.”

“You don't have to apologize.”

“Just what people say, isn't it?” she said with a laugh, and put the TV to mute, turning to face me while I told her.