Driving Home for Christmas (3 page)

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.

***

December 2005

The first Christmas at Anna’s was not something Megan had been expecting. When she awoke that morning, Skye cuddled in beside her, cooing and gurgling in delight, she’d thought they’d tiptoe down, make some tea and toast, and wait for Anna to wake up. Most days she was a late riser. Megan was embarrassed about the present she’d bought for Anna, but she had so little spare cash, even working that bar job right up to Christmas Eve, that it was all she could afford. A small vintage-style compact mirror, which hopefully looked more expensive than it was. Nothing was going to be good enough, when Anna had taken them in, supported them, looked after Skye whilst Megan went to work. Encouraged Megan to start thinking about part-time university courses. She’d saved them.

‘Merry Christmas, little girl!’ She tickled the baby’s stomach. ‘This is your first Christmas!’

The sadness tightened her stomach as she thought of her family, sitting around Piney in the living room, all in their Christmas pyjamas that they would have opened the night before, and put on especially. Matty would be snarling, roused from his bed with kicking and desperate pleas. Except he wouldn’t, because she was the one who always woke him up. Even as they’d grown older, she still insisted on waking him up and opening their Christmas stockings together in the early morning.

She looked to the small fireplace in her beautiful bright room in Anna’s house, where she’d hung two stockings – one of her old socks that she’d sewn a red trim on, and a phantom red baby sock that had no partner, that she’d sewn the number ‘1’ onto. Next year, she would afford a real stocking, and great presents. For now it was lucky that Skye didn’t really understand the concept of gifts, or the concept of Christmas at all.

‘We are going to have a great day, little miss!’ she said, buoying herself up. That had been her biggest lesson of motherhood so far. Learn to seem happy. She hitched the baby up on her hip, and trundled down the large wide staircase to the kitchen. Anna’s huge fake tree was in the hallway, looking like something out of a movie, which was, of course, what she had been going for. They stood briefly together, looking at the lights twinkling, and Megan felt her heart fill as Skye’s chubby little face broke into a grin, the lights reflected in her eyes. They were lucky, they were so lucky.

‘Merry Christmas, darlings!’ Anna appeared in a long red kimono, perfectly made up. ‘Come on, come on!’ She pulled on Megan’s hand, giving Skye a brief kiss on the cheek.

She brought them through to the kitchen, where there were two fluted glasses of champagne and orange juice, and Skye’s bottle with orange in it.

‘There’s no champers in hers, is there?’ Megan asked with a grin. But sometimes with Anna you had to check these things.

‘Of course not, darling, I just wanted her to feel involved.’ She handed Megan a glass and they clinked in a cheers.

‘Merry Christmas, Anna,’ Megan smiled, ‘this is wonderful.’

‘You have no idea, darling!’ Anna grinned.

***

After a couple of days dwelling on it, and trying to figure out what one bought for one’s parents at Christmas when you’d been estranged for ten years, Megan gave up and called Matty.

‘Hello?’ He sounded exhausted.

‘Matty, it’s me…Megan.’ She paused here, unsure of the last time she spoke to her brother.

‘Meg!’ His voice was slightly more invigorated. ‘I hear you’re joining us for Christmas this year.’

‘Apparently so.’

‘I’m glad,’ he said warmly. ‘They are too, you know. Mum won’t say anything, but…’

Megan shook that thought away, the same knot of dread building up in her stomach again.

‘Well, they’re actually why I’m calling – I’m trying to find Christmas presents. Also wanted to know what Jasper was into, and Claudia, obviously,’ she added, thinking of the ice-cold blond that Matty had introduced her to only a few weeks before she’d had to leave home, and the weird fact that somehow that woman was now her sister-in-law.

‘Maybe if you ever replied to any of my invitations, you’d know both of them well enough,’ he said pointedly.

‘Matty –’

‘And maybe I could buy my niece something she’d actually like, instead of sending her an array of impersonal gender-specific pink gifts that Claudia picks out every year, because she’s upset we never had a girl.’

‘She’s a smarty pants,’ Megan said, because talking about Skye was easier than trying to explain to her brother why she’d cut him out with her parents, when he’d never done anything wrong. ‘Anything that lets her learn something new – books, art stuff, science set. She also wants to be a detective when she grows up.’

‘Private investigator!’ Skye shouted from the other room.

‘Sorry,’ she said to Matty, ‘private investigator. Apparently I’m smart enough to know the difference by now.’

‘Jas is a little more difficult. He’s one of those kids that saves up his pocket money for months and months for the one thing he wants. And rarely wants anything else.’

‘So what’s he saving for?’ she asked.

‘A time machine.’ Her brother laughed. ‘He’s good with books. He’s a little quiet, always has been, but he’s a good kid. I’m glad you’ll get to meet him.’

‘Me too,’ she said, ‘I’m really sorry, Matty –’

‘Hey,’ she could hear him shrugging, that same docile look he always had, like nothing could upset him, ‘shit happens. You made good, kid. Come back home and show off about it.’

She grinned, and was about to say goodbye when she suddenly had a thought.

‘Matty, are Mum and Dad… Well, has there been any health scares or anything?’

‘Well.’ He considered it. ‘The fact that they’ve made a move to get things going with you again would suggest it, wouldn’t it? I’ve not heard anything, but there has been some hush-hush, whisper-whisper stuff going on. I thought all was revealed when I found out you were coming to dinner.’

‘Huh.’

‘Don’t worry kid, you know if it was serious, Mum would be running around playing drama queen for all she could get. No point letting something run its course when you could have a big to-do about it all, is there?’

‘Good point!’ She really did feel much better, and spared a guilty thought for how much better she might have felt over the years if she’d reached out sooner. Still, no time for that now.

‘I’ll see you next week then,’ she said, wondering why after all these years, when she’d been striving to be a real adult for so long, being called ‘kid’ was so very comforting.

Chapter Two

September 2001

‘Megan, you’re acting like a child.’ Her mother’s voice was cold.

‘But I’m tired!’ She sighed, resting her head on the table. She’d finished school, had been handed a cereal bar in the car as she went on to her French lesson, her ballet and jazz class, and then advanced art. She was aching, exhausted and her mum just didn’t seem to get it.

‘Tired!’ Heather snorted, clanging things around the kitchen. ‘Do you know how lucky you are that we can provide these classes for you? Your father works hard so we can give you everything, and I arrange all these things, and drive you all over the place to secure you a better future…’

‘I know,’ Megan said softly, not lifting her head up. There was no point arguing. They’d been here before, many times. Megan McAllister was on her way to Cambridge University, whether she wanted to or not. That had been decided long before she’d been able to speak her mind. And now it didn’t matter what she said.

‘I would have loved to have done these things as a child!’ her mother continued, and Megan felt herself zone out, hovering on the edge of sleep, mentally protecting herself. It was nine pm and she still had homework to do. And it was only Tuesday. Tomorrow was gymnastics and physics and piano lessons. There was something planned every day, every hour, for the rest of her life. Until she left to go to Cambridge, where she would study every hour, until she got a job and worked all the time. Megan did a mental calculation…so she’d have no free time until she was twenty-five? That didn’t really seem fair.

‘I just can’t believe how selfish you’re being,’ her mother’s voice was grating, running up a high scale until it echoed its disapproval.

Megan lifted her head up to look at Heather, who was glaring at her, pausing to check her appearance in the reflection of the glass windows. Her mother was wearing her usual array of designer clothes, though she hadn’t been anywhere that day, as far as Megan could tell.

‘I’m sorry,’ Megan said.

‘Well, that’s not good enough.’ Her mother inspected her perfectly manicured nails. ‘Your ballet teacher said you were in another world today, and you can’t just blame lack of dedication on tiredness. Don’t you think every other person applying to Cambridge gets tired? They just decide to be better than that, and you can too.’

‘I know,’ Megan replied, in that moment realising that she did actually, truly, hate her mother, and that’s what the acid in the pit of her stomach was. She shook the thought away before it took hold.

‘In fact,’ Heather clapped her hands, ‘this is a good learning opportunity, I think. If you’re so tired, you probably don’t need to have dinner, do you? You should probably just go up to your room now and sleep.’

Megan didn’t have the energy to argue, just stared at the pot of mashed potato sitting on top of the stove, her stomach growling. There was no point even begging once Heather had decided that Megan was being difficult.

‘You’re right, Mum, it won’t happen again.’

‘I should hope not,’ Heather replied, the glow of a parent who knows they’re right emanating from her. Megan knew she’d relay the whole account to her dad when he came in, and he’d congratulate Heather on such excellent judgement. ‘Now off you go.’

Megan trudged upstairs, thinking that she wished people had to pass a test before they could become parents. Half the time it felt like her mum was just repeating things she’d heard parents say on TV.

She glared at the cabinet on the landing, heaving with trophies and medals and certificates. Never enough. It was never, ever enough for them. She walked into her room and flopped onto her bed face first, hand rooting about under the bed for her secret stash. Inside her box of trainers, and actually inside the shoe, was a sandwich bag, containing the remains of the posh chocolates her Auntie Anna sent from London. They’d at least get her through the English assignment she had to write for tomorrow.

She lay back and thought about leaving home, about packing her bags, and living somewhere quiet and calm, where she could just breathe. Where it was okay to do nothing once in a while, to sit with your thoughts, and just be. Freedom. One day.

***

‘Anna, I think this is the worst idea ever,’ Heather McAllister pleaded with her sister, ‘she’s never wanted to come back. She hates us!’

‘Now darling, you know that’s not true,’ Anna said, sucking on her thin cigarette, ‘Christmas is a time for family, and it’s been long enough now, don’t you think?’

Heather sighed. Of course she wanted her daughter back, she wanted to meet the little genius whose pictures she’d seen hundreds of times, wanted to hear her voice, see how she laughed. But there was a dark little part of her that shivered every time she thought about Megan, and the night she ran away, and she thought it might have been shame. Shame at Megan, shame at what the neighbours might think. And then later, shame because she couldn’t do the one thing a parent was meant to do: support your child no matter what. Shame that the neighbours might find out that Heather McAllister was the sort of woman who wouldn’t talk to her daughter for ten years.

‘I just…I don’t want everyone upset,’ Heather said staunchly.

‘Between you and me, darling, one of Megan’s colleagues’ parents died recently, shook them all up a bit. Made her realise how short life is, you know? We’ve found a crack in the wall, let’s let the light in now, shall we?’