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November 2004
‘You’re looking fat, M,’ Belinda said, stuffing chips down her throat, barely chewing.
Megan looked down; her jeans were a little tight, creating a red crease along her middle.
‘I thought breakups were meant to make you lose weight. Or are you already over Lucas?’
‘B, how about you don’t speak with your mouth full, so that I don’t feel like I’m a victim of a terrible potato storm.’ Megan pursed her lips. ‘And when you do speak, you can stop talking such utter shite.’
‘So you weren’t getting off with Joey Monroe at the party a few weeks ago?’ Belinda grinned like the vindictive bitch she was, so pleased to finally tear Megan down. ‘You weren’t upstairs in his room for hours?’
‘You think Joey could last for hours? Get a life, B.’ Megan rolled her eyes.
‘What, not much in comparison to Lukey?’
Megan rounded on her. ‘What the fuck is wrong with you? Why are you picking on me?’
‘Because you’re always the good girl who gets everything she wants, and Lucas doesn’t want you any more. There’s some justice in that.’
Megan knew Belinda wanted Lucas, she always had. She remembered all the times Belinda had invited herself along on dates, wanted to talk through their relationship in detail, wanted to be as involved as possible. She was overjoyed when Megan and Lucas called it off, chasing him down the second she heard. She’d spent the last few weeks curled around him in corridors. It was hard to tell if Lucas liked Belinda too; Megan was having a hard time making eye contact with him these days.
‘You fancy Lucas,’ she stated.
‘And he’s not with you any more,’ Belinda said triumphantly.
‘He’s still my best friend, B. We’re still in the band together, we’re still in each other’s lives. If you think you’re going to get anywhere with him, you’re wrong.’
Belinda grinned. ‘Who says I haven’t already? You weren’t the only one up in a bedroom at Joey’s party.’ She flounced off, her stupidly bouncy hair moving dramatically as she departed.
Megan felt sick. Sure, things with Lucas had become a little…weird. But he was her best friend. They’d been in each other’s lives since they were kids. There was no way…but if there was, then maybe it was time to see Joey again, to try and make it clear to Lucas that she didn’t care at all.
Her heart sank, and she knew she was a liar. She cared. She definitely cared.
***
‘So I have some news,’ Megan had told Skye that morning on the walk to school. ‘We’re going to do something different for Christmas this year.’
Skye tilted her head at her mother. ‘Disneyland?’
‘Sadly not,’ Megan said, thinking she’d much rather do that. ‘We’re going to spend it with your grandparents.’
Once she’d said it, nothing really changed. A weight wasn’t lifted, all her anger wasn’t dissipated. She hadn’t reached the acceptance stage of grief. Anna had said that her mum wanted to see her, that Heather McAllister had finally realised life was short. Well, it was short, too short to spend with people you didn’t love at Christmas. Too short to sit around hearing endlessly about how she’d wasted her life. And how were they going to be with Skye?
A small part of her longed for home. For the big worn-down dining room table they’d all squished around. The real fire her dad would make in the living room, where everyone bundled onto sofas and cushions on the floor, marvelling at the tree, drinking tea and eating Christmas cake, exhausted and elated.
‘But what about Anna? Is she coming too?’ Skye asked.
Megan smiled gently, stroked her long brown hair, looked at her serious face. That was Skye, always worrying about who was left out and how people might feel. Maybe she’d get home and her parents would say how good a job she’d done of raising a smart, wonderful girl. And if they didn’t, they could go to hell, because they were wrong.
‘She wants to have a Christmas party with her theatre friends this year, doll.’ Megan squeezed Skye’s hand to let her know the next part was secret information, it was their code. ‘Between you and me, I think a lot of Anna’s friends are getting a little old and weary, and she wants to spend some quality time with them.’
Skye nodded slowly, then paused. ‘But you don’t want to go to grandma’s.’
‘I guess you could say I’m a little nervous.’
‘And angry,’ Skye added.
‘And angry,’ Megan confirmed, ‘but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have grandparents. It’s lovely to have them. And uncle Matty will be there, and he has a kid now. So you’d get to know your cousin too.’
She was hard-selling, she knew. She might as well promise her a pony. Skye had never particularly wanted for a family, as far as she knew. They had Anna, and Jeremy, the reams of elderly debutantes who arrived with sparkling gifts for ‘the little darling’.
‘What’s my cousin called?’
‘Jasper, I think. I’m pretty sure they went with Jasper over Reginald.’
‘Are they rich or something?’ Skye asked.
‘I have no idea,’ Megan lied, thinking of the embossed wedding invitation that came in a silk-lined box, with Swarovski diamonds around the edges. ‘Why do you ask that?’
‘Because names can be signs of socio-economic status,’ Skye said proudly.
‘So…sometimes rich people have posh names?’ Megan raised an eyebrow. ‘You just wanted to use the words socio-economic in a sentence.’
‘Yup,’ Skye grinned, swinging her hands back and forth.
‘What on earth are they teaching you in that school?’
‘Boring stuff. I learned that from Jeremy. He was talking about the boys he went to school with, and they all had strange names. So I asked.’
‘It’s good to be curious,’ Megan said, thinking perhaps Megan better not get all of her information on society from an embittered drag queen. ‘So, we’re on board for Grandma and Granddad’s?’
Skye shrugged, trying not to seem pleased. ‘If it doesn’t work out, next year we could go to Disneyland?’
Megan stopped and held out her hand to Skye. ‘Deal.’ They shook on it.
As Megan waved goodbye to Skye’s retreating back at the school gates, and watched as the other mothers eyed her, as if she’d suddenly sprout horns and do a sexy tribal dance around their husbands, she wondered whether this was the right idea. There was going to be shouting this Christmas. No doubt. Maybe they’d fight their way through it, come out the other end. But probably not. Megan had images of her mother’s mouth turning down in derision, in that way that it did, and her father shrugging sadly, never a word to defend her. She’d flounce out, drag Skye along, and then it was all done.
Was she going to have to call her mother to confirm she was coming? No, if she wanted them there, she could call. Or even better, Anna could call. Or send an invitation in the mail. Or an email. Or a carrier pigeon. Whatever, as long as she didn’t have to talk to her before Christmas day.
Anna walked up the road from St Joseph’s school, and around the corner to a little annexe building, technically still a part of the school.
She buzzed herself in, striding down the hall to her office. Well, the office she shared with Dezi, Molly and Simon. And ‘office’ was a bit of a stretch. A large dingy room with a few desks and computers, papers and files piled high in every direction, toys and charts and all manner of props chucked in the corners. Systematically, every term, they reorganised everything, but it always seemed to end up in this state of chaos around November time.
‘Morning!’ Megan announced herself, pausing to tap Molly on the shoulder, and sign out her greeting, mouthing the words. Molly was an excellent lip reader, and didn’t really need Megan’s average signing skills, but she wanted to keep practising.
‘Morning,’ Molly replied with a smile. ‘Want to do some training over lunch?’
Her hands moved so quickly that Megan always needed a second to catch up, and felt she must be making that face she made when trying to do complicated maths questions.
Megan nodded. ‘Meet you at one.’
She walked over to Dezi, who was slumped face down on her desk. ‘Heavy night?’
‘I’m going to die alone,’ a voice mumbled.
‘Because you’re too busy getting painfully drunk to actually interact with people?’ Megan offered, putting her lunch in the flickering mini fridge they had in the poor excuse for a kitchen corner, and clicking the kettle on.
‘As opposed to using your child as an emotional shield so no- one can ever get close?’ Dezi glared.
‘I’m too old to date. It probably involves some new-fangled technology and I don’t need anyone. I’m happy on my own.’ Megan had said this to Dezi so many times it was starting to sound fake. But it wasn’t her fault if her colleague couldn’t comprehend the idea.
‘Well, someone’s getting a vibrator for Christmas,’ Dezi said seriously, and even wrote it down on a post-it note.
‘Megan! Good morning!’ Simon strode over, files in hand, his blond hair flopping over as he walked. He grinned at her, handing her some papers. ‘You’re working with Amrita this morning, right? I just had a few notes.’ He gestured to a table.
‘I bet he does,’ Dezi mumbled, lifting her head up briefly enough to roll her eyes at Megan.
Simon always had notes. Great, long notes written out in his chicken-scratch handwriting, that he would make them wait around for him to decipher. It also didn’t help that he’d decided being an academic meant dressing like a granddad. His elbow patches were not ironic. Megan was pretty sure he’d painstakingly searched for an original tweed jacket, as he wore it with such pride, unaware that the youth of today could find the same thing in Primark.
‘Some notes would be great, Simon,’ Megan smiled, then gestured towards the kettle. ‘Shall I make us both a cuppa and we can have a chat about them?’
Simon seemed to light up at the prospect, becoming all awkward and rattling, the same way he was anytime Megan showed him some kindness. It was accepted in the office by this point that Simon had a little ‘thing’ for her. Dezi insisted it was all-out love, Molly thought it was a crush. She thought…well, she just kind of wished he’d find someone else to focus on and let her get on with her work. It was uncharitable of her, she realised, and promised herself she’d get Simon a really nice gift for Christmas. Nothing too nice, obviously, just in case he took it as a sign.
Megan was a speech and language therapist for the kids at St Joseph’s, and a couple of the other neighbouring schools. She found it hilarious that those mothers who judged her at the school gates had no idea that she was qualified and actually helping their children. They’d seen her walk into the centre, but probably thought she was there to seduce one of the male teachers and make him her Baby Daddy. Not that she cared what they thought.
Megan loved her job. She loved the look of surprise when the kids could suddenly make a sound or say a word they’d never been able to say before. Even the smallest success, a ‘bl’ sound for ‘blue’, or being able to blow through a whistle, all these were massive achievements for the kids, and she loved seeing the change in them.
Half the time she worked on helping the partially deaf kids sound out words, hear themselves. The rest of it she was working with Molly, prepping the kids who were going to have cochlear implants so they could hear for the first time, and helping them after as they learned how to use their vocal cords as well as signing.
The day passed quickly enough, and Megan couldn’t help but wonder what her parents would think of her job. She couldn’t even remember what she wanted to be back then. The plan had always been to go to Cambridge, do English, but mostly that was just because she loved reading, and her parents had decided they wanted an Oxbridge graduate. In many ways, that extra couple of years to consider what she wanted to spend her life doing, how she wanted to provide for her daughter, helped her make the right decision. Every decision she’d made since getting pregnant had been the right one. Except, maybe, deciding to go to her parents’ for Christmas.
***
November 2004
London looked beautiful in the run-up to Christmas. She’d been tempted to make a day of it, go to see the lights on Oxford Street, wander around Selfridges. Maybe even go down to Somerset House and see the ice-skating rink. She and Lucas had done that last year. Every year, now she thought about it. He loved stupid stuff like that. Had absolutely no qualms about throwing away his rock ’n’ roll persona and being silly with her. But it was too painful to think about Lucas right now, probably off somewhere with Belinda. Maybe he was doing all that stuff with her. Maybe he’d lent her his leather jacket and held her hand as they slid across the ice, laughing and smiling. The thought was just too much, and for the hundredth time that week, she wanted to vomit. She knew she’d caused all of this.
All she wanted was to do the normal Christmas stuff in town, find little trinkets for her mum, go to Forbidden Planet and pick up something Matty would get overly excited about. But instead she was squatting above a grotty toilet in Euston station with a third pregnancy test.
Three tests. Three positives.
Merry fucking Christmas, Megan McAllister thought.
***
That night, Anna was having one of her soirées. Around this time of year, Megan always got a bit withdrawn, throwing herself into work and present-buying, and ensuring that her daughter had the best Christmas ever. Anna was insistent that it was time for Christmas cheer.
‘It’s not even December until next week,’ Megan moaned, sitting at the kitchen counter, throwing an apple from the fruit bowl over to Skye. ‘And aren’t you having all your old biddies over on Christmas day? Isn’t that why we’re being banished?’
Anna was an imposing figure at the best of times. She’d always been slim and tall, but was starting to verge on spindly these days. Megan kept trying to sneak her extra portions of food, but Anna had the same rules about food now as she’d always had. Little, but luxurious. ‘The French know how to eat, darling,’ she always said. Although that usually meant that she wanted an excuse to open a bottle of champagne with dinner, just because it was a Tuesday.
She raised a perfectly arched, and drawn on, eyebrow, her sharp cut dark bob fitting her face tightly. ‘Biddies? If you mean some of the most prominent and talented people ever to grace the stage, then yes, darling, they are experienced.’
Anna moved to the bar in the far corner of the kitchen, the only part she seemed to use frequently, and started making two gin and tonics. ‘And don’t think of it as banishment. Your mother wants you there, wants you both there.’
Skye jumped up on the stool next to her mother. ‘I’m excited about Christmas.’
‘You are?’ Megan raised an eyebrow.
Skye shrugged. ‘Well yeah, if it’s good then we have a great time. If it sucks, we go to Disneyland. It’s win-win.’
Anna pointed at her in triumph. ‘Smart cookie.’
Megan turned to her daughter. ‘You wanna –’
‘– go do my homework so that you’re not drinking in front of your one and only child and feel guilty about it?’ Skye finished, picking up her school bag, saluting and skipping up the stairs. Megan’s jaw dropped. One more thing to panic about. Her daughter thought she was an alcoholic.
‘I don’t know whether to be amazed that I’ve raised a genius, or terrified that she is so aware of everything.’ Megan slumped. ‘Anna, are you sure this is the right choice?’
‘Well, I decided foie gras was a bit much, so I settled for a mainly seafood selection, but the caterers are very good –’ Anna started.
‘I wasn’t talking about the party,’ Megan whined, running a hand through her hair.
Anna brought over two thin glasses with a slice of lime in each. ‘I know, darling, I just didn’t know what answer to give you.’
Anna perched on the chair next to Megan, and softly ran a hand over her niece’s hair. ‘I’ve loved having you here these years, you know. You’ve brought me back to life, given me back my purpose, my vivacity.’
‘It didn’t seem like you ever lost it,’ Megan said, ‘in fact I was more worried about us getting in the way of your parties and your exciting life.’
‘Nothing is more exciting than seeing two wonderful people grow and change and become who they are,’ Anna smiled, her dark lip liner rippling. ‘Now, as for your parents, they’ve finally been motivated. You didn’t hear it from me, but there’s been some illness in the family.’ She watched as Megan’s face fell, saw as her mind started racing from terrible to worse. ‘Everything’s fine, everything’s okay now. But scares like that, well, they put things into perspective, don’t they?’
Megan nodded, and took a sip of her drink, perfectly cool, the gin just a little too strong. She felt the muscles in her legs relax as the alcohol kicked in.
‘So they really want us there,’ Megan mused.
‘They really do.’
‘I still want you to phone and check the times and all that.’
Anna raised an eyebrow, and picked up a piece of paper with everything Megan needed to know. ‘What do you take me for?’
Megan looked at her aunt’s looping, elegant and unnecessarily swirly handwriting, and felt her stomach drop.
‘They want us to go for a week?’ She felt her throat go dry. ‘We’ll never make it to Christmas Day! I thought it would just be popping in, saying hello, eating some dry turkey and disappearing again!’
Anna patted her hand. ‘Well, I think now they’ve finally got you to visit after ten years, they probably want some time to get to know you both. Plus, some of my guests are visiting from overseas, so having the spare room will be helpful. That’s all right, isn’t it, darling?’
Megan had the overwhelming desire to stomp up to her room like a teenager and not speak to Anna until she changed her mind. Instead she just downed the rest of her drink, and went for a much needed nap.
