Driving Home for Christmas (12 page)

Megan suspected there was more to it than that, but she wasn’t in any position to start digging for information. She picked up her mug and moved over to the sofa, relaxing into it. She felt the give as he sat down next to her, close enough to feel his warmth, but not close enough to touch. Her heart started rattling a little in her chest, and she tapped her fingertips together in a steady rhythm.

‘Am I making you nervous, Meg?’ Lucas asked with a smile in his voice.

‘No, why?’

‘Because you’re doing that fingertip thing you always used to do.’

She looked down at her hands, and balled them into fists.

‘Remember you did that before we had sex for the first time? It made me laugh.’

‘Well, you couldn’t stop your hands from shaking, so I wasn’t the only one who was scared,’ Megan huffed.

‘Very true.’ Lucas leaned back, surveyed his room, trying to see it through her eyes. Did he look successful, interesting? Lonely? Or did he look like a sad old git with his papers to mark, his guitars sitting in the corner as if screaming out to the world that he never really played in that same way any more?

‘So….you’re a music teacher,’ Megan stated, pointing at the papers on the coffee table.

‘I know, right? I spend years trying to get out of that place and now I’m walking the halls again.’

‘Do you like it?’ Megan pulled her legs up underneath her, curling into the sofa. She liked to watch him, soaking in every detail of this new, grown up Lucas. Did he still pre-roll all his cigarettes and have them sitting in a little case? Did he still wake up at six am no matter what, before mumbling and falling asleep again? His eyes seemed bluer, and his face seemed hardened, that stubble that he never managed to fully remove still smudging around his jawline. He looked as dangerous as he had back then. He was the sinner, he said; she was the angel. And look how that turned out.

‘It’s fine. I can do it. It’s better than working in a factory,’ he shrugged.

‘But not as good as being a rock star.’

He grinned lazily, and she noticed that one dimple he always got on his left cheek, and felt a painful nostalgia. She felt like she was missing him, even though he was sitting there with her, looking at her, his arm reaching along the length of the sofa, his fingertips almost brushing her shoulder.

‘Did you not
see
me the other night? I’m still a rock star.’

‘Just three nights a week. Perfect compromise,’ Megan smiled, looking at his hand as his thumb gently reached her wrist, stroking the material of her jumper. She looked at him, questioning, but he just shrugged and smiled softly.

‘What about you? What did the great Megan McAllister go off and do to change the world? Besides creating a pretty special kid.’

‘I work with deaf kids,’ she smiled at him, ‘and I love it. I loved learning about it, I love working with these kids, creating programmes for them. Helping them through the implant process.’

‘That’s why Skye knows how to sign. You taught her?’ he asked, blinking.

‘Yeah. When I was pregnant I spent so much time trying to figure out what it was I wanted to do, and I didn’t have any time to waste. And then I remembered that time that Clare taught me how to say “horse”,’ Megan looped her fingers from her forehead down, as if making the shape of a horse’s head, ‘and how much she loved it, that I got it, that I
got
her…’ Megan shook her head, ‘and I guess I thought one day I would come back here and talk to her properly, and really
know
her. Like you did.’

Lucas breathed out, eyebrows raised. ‘Jesus, Meg. You come back after ten years without a word, and…all that?’

‘All what? She inspired me, that’s all.’

‘So you’d always planned to come back one day. Because you wanted to see my
sister
. Because you missed
her.
’

‘It’s not like that, I’ve missed you too, but we’re…
complicated.
’

‘Only because you made it that way, babe.’

She was looking at the floor when he said it, and it was as if she was seventeen again. As if he was just Lucas, asking why she was being difficult again. Why she hadn’t told her parents about the gig in Camden, and now his Mum was phoning him. Why she insisted on going down into the crowds during gigs when she knew the mic lead wouldn’t stretch that far. Why she had to go away to change the world, and she couldn’t do it from their shitty little village.

‘Do you think maybe I did this for you? To stop your life being ruined and your dreams being smashed?’ She put her cup down on the table, back straight, ready to fight.

‘Oh, how
selfless
of you to run off on Christmas morning after I’d asked you to spend your life with me. How
kind
of you to wait for me to tell you I loved you before you disappeared for ten years!’ Lucas made a face. ‘Grow up, would you? You weren’t protecting me.’

‘Well I
thought
you were going to leave this place and make something of yourself! If I’d have known you were going to throw it all away anyway, I might have stayed!’ she heard herself shout.

‘Megan…’ Lucas’s jaw was locked, and she knew he was holding back his anger. He’d never shouted at her, ever. But, she sort of wanted him to. ‘I’m here because I have a life here. I have family, friends. A steady career. I get to play music when I want. Do what I want. What part of that is failing to you? Should I have just run off and started a new life because I didn’t give a fuck about the people I left behind?’

‘I cared. I cared too much to see us both stuck here. You think I would have trained in what I trained in if I’d stayed here? You think I would have been able to raise my daughter how I wanted? You wouldn’t have been able to train as a teacher. We wouldn’t be here now.’

‘No, we wouldn’t,’ he conceded, the light coming back into his eyes a little. He twitched his mouth.

She took a deep breath, expelling the words she knew she needed to say. At least to start with.

‘It
is
good to see you, you know. As angry and sad as I’ve been, it’s good to see you.’

‘It’s good to see you too.’

They sat briefly in silence, staring at the wall.

‘You really think we could have raised a kid together?’ Megan asked suddenly.

‘No doubt whatsoever,’ Lucas said seriously, but she watched as the corners of his mouth turned up. ‘I mean, you’d have
killed
me, and it would have been stressful and your mother would have been around all the time, and we would have had the local oldies making snarky comments and we would have
hated
each other, but…seventeen-year-old me was a genius.’

‘Adult you isn’t bad either,’ Megan grinned to herself, shaking her head.

She looked across at him, his hair no longer flopping over those bright eyes, his smile warm, and he looked so stable. So safe, and loving and wonderful. And she knew it was time to go.

‘Well, I’ve avoided the family game of Monopoly too long. Skye’s probably bought up all their real estate and is making them work it off as indentured slaves.’ She stood up. ‘But it’s been good to see you, really good.’

He walked her to the door, hand resting briefly on her lower back.

‘I’ll see you again, whilst you’re here, right? Coffee, or something?’ Lucas rested his head on the door frame as a cold draft made her shiver.

‘You want to?’ she said in surprise.

‘Of course. One evening of almost arguing doesn’t really make for a decent catch-up,’ Lucas shrugged. ‘If that’s okay?’

It was more than okay. It was too okay. She could feel him sucking her back in with that smile and those eyes. And he should be more angry, more curious. But that’s how he’d always been. Relaxed, laid back. Everything happening at its own pace, regardless of humans. ‘Things happen when they want to, Meg,’ he used to tell her when she couldn’t play a certain riff, or wanted exam results back sooner. He was always fine with that, when she always had to control fate as much as she could.

‘It’s very okay,’ she nodded, her breath catching a little as he moved in to kiss her cheek, and he was there, scratching her skin a little as his stubbled cheek brushed hers, smelling of spice and CK One and cinnamon.

Something in her chest ached as she trudged back out into the cold grey night towards her car, but she couldn’t figure out what it was.

***

February 2004

They lay intertwined, her head resting on his shoulder as they stared at the ceiling.

‘It’s a good plan.’

‘It’s a terrible plan.’

‘We’ve got something here, Angel, we really do!’ His enthusiasm was usually infectious, but Megan was tired and stressed. All her parents talked about were university choices, and degree options. Which Cambridge college she’d go to. Future plans and careers and weddings. And when she opened up to Lucas he just wanted to shag and talk about the band.

‘Yes,’ she nodded, interlocking their fingers and holding up their joined hands, ‘we have something, but the band… I’m not just going to go running off into the sunset on a tour bus. This isn’t
Almost Famous
. It’s a hard slog, and I don’t want to be a musician.’

‘But you are one.’ Lucas squeezed her hand and turned on his side to face her. ‘Look, why does everything have to be so set? Finish college, play some gigs, do some teaching, see what happens?’

‘Because that’s how you lose years. That’s how you end up being Estelle, back in this stupid town and stuck here, because you haven’t planned for anything better,’ Megan snapped. ‘I don’t want to waste my life.’

‘How’s it wasted if we’re together?’ Lucas asked, watching her hand as he stroked it with his thumb, delicate circles.

‘I want to do something, I want to help people, or make a difference.’

‘How are you going to do that with an English Lit degree?’ Lucas raised an eyebrow.

Megan sighed. ‘I don’t know, but I know that I want to matter.’

‘You matter to me.’ That little sorry smile that said he knew he was being childish, and he accepted her no matter what. He knew she was destined for an academic world with boundaries and rules and order, because that was Megan. She did the Right Thing, all the time. But he just wasn’t like that.

‘You matter to me,’ she replied, kissing his chest and settling back down, counting down not only the hours before she had to be back home, but the hours until things changed for good.

Chapter Six

Megan had phoned Jeremy that morning, eager for a catch up before Skye started demanding that she speak to Anna.

‘So what’s going on in Casa Anna?’ She curled up on her old bed, and it could have been any weeknight when she’d been on the phone to Lucas, or any of them. She rubbed the corner of her old blanket against her cheek.

‘The biddie army arrived yesterday, with food orders and demands about decorations. They’ve decided they want a Gatsby-themed Christmas. I’m sure most of them can remember the 1920s firsthand,’ he bitched. She could imagine him there, filing his nails, or putting on his make-up. Or maybe he was scratching away in his notebook, sitting with a glass of Sangria in the Ideas Cupboard.

‘How’s Anna finding all that?’

‘Loves it, as always. She’s been a bit more worn out though, sleeping in a lot more. I told her I’d take over things.’ She heard the grin in his voice.

‘Oh sweet Jesus, please don’t tell me you’ve replaced their Gatsby with drag chic?’

‘Just a few changes for my own amusement,’ he laughed, ‘like they’re even going to notice that the silver confetti is penis-shaped instead of diamonds. Really. Half of them can’t see themselves in a mirror. Which explains the eyeliner.’

‘Don’t be mean!’

‘I’m not! I’m thinking of starting a biddie make-up service. When your hands start to shake and the liquid eyeliner goes everywhere – who ya gonna call? You know how many rich, proud old ladies are out there? I’d be rich!’

‘Yeah, but rich, proud ladies don’t tend to want a little bitch judging them about their make-up capabilities.’

‘They adore me, they don’t know I’m bitchy,’ Jeremy said pointedly, ‘plus most of them can’t hear much.’

‘Incorrigible.’

‘Exactly. So tell me more about being home?’

Megan paused, unsure of what to say, how to sum up this weird feeling of familiarity, with the sadness of loss. She loved being back, but it wasn’t home any more.

‘I bumped into Lucas.’

‘
The
Lucas?’

Megan sighed, ‘Uhuh.’

‘How’d it go?’

‘It was fine, after my brother punched him, and my father tried to do the same. Apparently he’s been letting them think he’s the father all these years. They’ve been randomly punching him for ages.’

‘That’s…insane. But also kind of sweet,’ Jeremy said. ‘Are the sparks still there?’

Megan swallowed, thinking of his fingers stroking the sleeve of her jumper, the way his eyes lit up when he tilted his head to the side and laughed. The way her chest seemed to throb just thinking about it. Shit.

‘Still there on my side. I doubt he’s interested in the girl who’s made him a target all these years. But he did invite me for coffee,’ she said with hope in her voice.

‘That sounds promising,’ Jeremy said.

‘Well, we were friends for a long time, he probably just wants to catch up. It’s natural to be curious about people’s lives.’

‘It’s natural to stay the heck away from everyone and not get involved,’ Jeremy corrected.

‘You’re a Londoner, you don’t understand.’

‘You’re a Londoner too now, love, you have been for years. Don’t be going back to the country and start saying hello to strangers on the street now, I may have to disown you.’

‘And a merry bloody Christmas to you too, Scrooge!’ she laughed, watching as her bedroom door squeaked open, and Skye poked her head in.

She pointed at the phone. ‘Is that Anna?’

Jeremy,
Megan mouthed.
Wanna say hi?

She handed the phone over, and said she’d be downstairs getting breakfast, whilst her daughter occupied the space she vacated. She watched for a moment. Her daughter would be a teenager before too long. She’d grow up, and go off to uni and get a career, start her own family. And where would Megan be? Back at Anna’s with Jeremy, getting wasted on G and Ts each night and wondering why she’d never made a relationship work. She smiled at her daughter and padded down the stairs.