Driving Home for Christmas Read online

  Megan couldn’t help but feel everything had an equal and opposite reaction. The more grateful she was to Anna, the more angry she was at her parents. But now was not the time, she thought as she turned in her seatbelt, checking Skye’s was adjusted properly. It was time to let Skye meet her family, and she could decide if they were worth sticking around for.

  The little old tin can car trundled off the drive and out into Highgate village. Megan signalled carefully, checking her mirrors, irritated by the way the presents were piled up at the back.

  ‘Mum…when was the last time you drove?’

  ‘It’s been a while,’ Megan admitted, ‘but it’s fine. It’s just driving this old clunker that’s the problem. I’m going to have a leg injury from the power needed to break!’

  ‘That’s very good to know.’ Skye rolled her eyes and started fiddling with the radio, its tinny hiss over Christmas songs setting her teeth on edge. ‘Do you think it’ll snow?’

  ‘I bloody well hope not!’ Megan said, focusing on the traffic, her hands clamped around the steering wheel.

  ‘Not now, I mean, at Christmas. I don’t think I’ve ever had a Christmas Day where it properly snowed.’

  Megan thought back. ‘There was, when you were five. We tried making a snowman and when it melted later in the day you thought one of us had done it.’ Megan made a face. ‘You’ve always loved a good conspiracy.’

  Skye smiled, shuffled in her seat. ‘I think this will be good practice, going to Grandma’s.’

  ‘Practice for what?’

  ‘For my detective skills, of course! Detectives have to be able to read people, to understand the difference between what they say and what they mean. And I never get to meet new people, really, so this is good practice.’

  Megan sighed. ‘Believe me, darling, with my parents, they always say what they mean.’

  ‘Everyone’s got secrets, Mum,’ Skye said, with such mystery and satisfaction that Megan started to laugh.

  ‘Well, I look forward to seeing your case notes, Detective McAllister.’ She frowned. ‘That radio’s driving me nuts – look in the glove compartment for a tape to play, would you? I think Jeremy used the car last, might be something fun in here.’

  Skye grabbed a tape that simply said, The Mix - 2003 and popped it in. Megan recognised it immediately. Lucas had made it. They’d made it together, back when he used to drive that rubbish little Micra that always veered to the left. He’d spent so much time and money making it safe to drive that he couldn’t afford a CD player, so Megan had spent hours with her parents’ old stereo, taping individual songs from their CD collection. Later, it had become their little ritual, each month, taping new songs, updating the collection. Dark, heavy things for Lucas to brood along in the car to, and rock anthems for them to belt out together. This was softer though, more relaxed. The Smiths, Belle and Sebastian. She’d been educating him, she remembered with a smile, she’d been trying to say that the lyrics could still be angry if the music wasn’t. He’d never quite believed her, but he used to smile when she sang along anyway, tapping away on the steering wheel as they drove around town, not doing much but being together.

  Skye bopped along, recognising a few of them, The Beatles, Elvis, a little bit of everything. Then the track changed and Megan felt her stomach drop. It was a lot of twinkly guitar, heavily reverbed, and an echoing voice sang those words: We keep making those same mistakes, over and over and over again. It’s always the same it’ll never end…

  ‘Mum…is that you?’Skye looked delighted, turning up the stereo, nodding her head. ‘This is brilliant! It sounds like you, when you sing in the shower! Or that time at New Year’s when Jeremy got you to do karaoke!’

  Megan nodded, but felt strangely tearful. It wasn’t her, it wasn’t her any more.

  ***

  December 2004

  The posters were up for their gig on Boxing Day. Nothing special, the local pub had let them have the space because Danny, the drummer, was working the Christmas rush. Pulling pints didn’t make much, and gig space was limited in their little town.

  The posters were up around school, Megan standing proudly at the front with a smirk on her face, her typical Camden rock girl outfit – leather jacket, black top and skirt, stripy tights. Her newly dyed fire-engine-red hair. Lucas was to her side, pouting. Danny was further back, and next to him, Keith, who was about thirty and had a beard that none of the boys were even close to growing. But man, could that guy play bass guitar.

  Megan and the Boys, the poster proclaimed, Boxing Day, The Old Nag’s Head.

  ‘Not going to be Megan and the Boys much longer, is it?’ Belinda came up behind her, staring at the poster.

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Well,’ Belinda faux whispered, staring at Megan’s stomach, ‘it’ll be Megan and the Toys soon, right? Or Megan and the Bump? Which do you prefer?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she replied stonily.

  ‘Yes you do, it’s obvious.’ Belinda was enjoying herself, too much. ‘And the thing is, once Lucas knows, do you really think he’s going to want to have anything to do with you? You think he’s not going to look at you with a sigh of relief once the whole school knows?’

  ‘I think that if he’s stupid enough to fall for your shit, then I hope he gets whatever STD you have and his dick falls off,’ Megan said pointedly, turning towards Belinda and backing her up against the wall. ‘You don’t frighten me, bitch. You don’t know my life, you don’t know my deal. So how about we ignore each other until I go off to uni, and you go off to become a failed model with a rich husband, okay?’

  Megan walked away, jaw locked in place, unsure of whether she wanted to cry or scream. She was going to have to give up the band, she realised. She hadn’t considered just how much that was going to hurt.

  Belinda couldn’t know, not really. Maybe Megan had put on weight, her mother had certainly mentioned it enough. Stress eating doesn’t solve a problem, Megan, only weak people eat their feelings. Megan realised that was because to her mother, strong people didn’t have feelings at all. Just goals.

  She didn’t know which secret her mother would find more horrific: that Megan was pregnant, or that she hadn’t got into Cambridge. She got the rejection letter weeks ago. Didn’t even make it to interview. All those years of classes, those missed Sunday mornings in bed, the netball in the rain, the tennis, the French lessons, the Cambridge hoody they’d bought her for her eleventh birthday – it was all for nothing. And it was nothing Megan had done. It was just that what her parents had created hadn’t been good enough.

  She almost felt sorry for them. At least now they’d never have to know. They could blame it on her getting pregnant, and they’d always know they’d done the best they could. She could give them that, at least.

  ***

  It didn’t take long to get to Whittleby Cottage. She’d always hated that her parents had to name the house. Before, it had just been Number 43. But no, they had to have the grandeur of a named building. It had made getting any post ridiculous, and visiting friends could never find the right place. She drove the little 2CV onto the muddy path up to the house, stopping just before they reached the driveway.

  ‘That’s it,’ she said to Skye, who was making her detective face (pouting and squinting) and ‘hmm’ing significantly.

  It didn’t look any different. In fact, it looked exactly the same as the day she left. It was cold and grey. The willow tree to the side of the house was still hanging on for dear life, managing to remain upright through sheer force of will. The house looked Tudor, with those black beams across the front, the roof designed to look like it had been thatched. Everything about the house was meant to be warm and inviting and twee. Megan could see the light flickering in the living-room window, where the tree was up, twinkling. It looked like they had a log fire going, and she had to admit, the smoky smell of wood would be a welcome nostalgia. Plus her feet were freezing from the dodgy heating in the car
.

  ‘Mum?’ Skye prodded her. ‘Are we going in?’

  Megan sighed deeply and looked at her daughter. She took in Skye’s dark hair, shiny and long, arranged neatly over her shoulder. Skye’s eyes, the same as hers, and her mother’s, and Matty’s, so light a brown that they might have been tiger’s eye stones, with flecks of gold and green. How could they not love her? It was impossible, right? It was impossible for her to bring them this smart, beautiful, kind-hearted, curious child, and for them to disregard her, wasn’t it? Megan shook her head, shuffled in her seat.

  She started the car again, trundling up to the paved driveway, and delicately steered the car under the willow tree, somehow thinking it might lend the poor tree some strength, or at least stop it from falling too far to the ground.

  Skye unbuckled and jumped out immediately, stretching, looking around the front garden with interest.

  ‘Mum,’ she stage-whispered as Megan tiredly opened the boot of the car, ‘are they really rich?’

  Megan had no idea how to answer that. For all her daughter’s talk of socio-economic status, Megan was very careful with money, and didn’t spend it easily. That said, they lived in a beautiful house in Highgate with a rich Dame who drank Laurent Perrier like it was water. What was rich or poor really?

  ‘They…they work very hard to have nice things, bub. But maybe no questions like that to start with. Secret detective, not the kind at a murder scene, right?’

  ‘No interrogating,’ Sky nodded, thinking she’d save that for after they inevitably upset her mum and they had to drive back to Auntie Anna’s. Which was fine with her. As long as Disneyland was still on the table.

  There was a soft mumbling sound behind her, and Skye turned to find a sad old collie, her head tilted as she watched her. The dog seemed to want to bark, but wasn’t really sure whether to be upset or not. So she whined a little, and sat in front of Skye, waiting.

  ‘Um…Mum?’ Skye pointed at the dog.

  ‘Minnie!’ Megan grinned, bending down towards the dog, who used what little energy she had to jump up, her suspicions confirmed. She barked loudly and joyfully as Megan rubbed behind her white and black ears, hands lost in her fur.

  ‘Skye, this is Minnie, you don’t have to be scared.’

  ‘I’m not scared,’ Skye frowned, but stayed back all the same.

  ‘You sure?’

  Suddenly a door opened, and a small lady was shouting, ‘Minnie, come on now!’ before she realised she had guests. ‘Oh. Oh!’

  Somehow, the lady wasn’t what Skye had been expecting. She’d thought her grandmother would be more like Anna. In this posh house that called itself a cottage, wearing jewels and drinking champagne. This woman had on stretchy dark green trousers and a big knitted jumper with a reindeer on the front. She looked…well, she looked older, but in a different way to Anna. This woman looked warm and healthy, with her dark hair pinned up in a bun, with straggly bits around her face, and her glasses perched low on her nose.

  ‘Jonathan!’ the woman called, her voice wobbling, ‘they’re here!’ She walked out to greet them, her fluffy boot slippers surely getting wet on the ground. She seemed to stare at Skye a little too intensely, and Skye moved behind her mother, just a little. Detectives had to be safe, after all. She was just assessing the situation.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ the woman said, ‘we were trying to cook a turkey, as practice for the big day, and we forgot about it, and the stuffing went funny, and the fire alarm went off…’ She exhaled, blowing a piece of hair out of her face. She shook her head. ‘Not that any of that matters.’

  The woman looked so anxious, her wide brown eyes just like her mum’s, that Skye felt sorry for her. She looked at Megan, who nodded, and walked over to the woman. She smiled her big white smile, the one she’d been perfecting in the mirror all week.

  ‘Hi!’ She stuck out her hand. ‘I’m Skye, you must be my grandmother.’

  The woman half-laughed, and looked to Megan with a raised eyebrow. Megan looked back seriously, and nodded at her daughter, as if to say, ‘Well answer the girl then.’

  ‘I am! I am your grandmother, and I’m so pleased to finally meet you!’ Heather McAllister held Skye’s hands with both of her own, tears in her eyes. She shook her head. ‘Come on, come on. Leave the bags in the car, let’s have some cake. If I haven’t burnt that as well.’

  Megan stayed put, her hand in Minnie’s fur, listening to the quiet, comfortable panting of her dear pet. It was sad to see her so old, hard of hearing and slow to move. But she was something to hold onto, something safe and steady going back into that house. Her mother looked different. Shockingly so. Her hair pinned up haphazardly, wearing comfy clothing, looking like a normal person instead of an ideal on a pedestal, so much better than ordinary people. Her mother had once told her that ‘comfort was for the weak’ and that making an impression was always the most important thing. Where was that woman now? Maybe things had really changed in ten years. Megan took a deep breath, held her head high, and crossed the threshold.

  Chapter Three

  May 2001

  ‘Happy birthday, darling!’ Her mother actually sounded cheery, Megan noted, as she sat down to a birthday breakfast, balloons attached to her chair. Matty threw a barely wrapped package at her, grabbed a coffee and shuffled back up to his bed, like the surly teenager he was. She peeled off the remainder of the newspaper that he’d screwed it up in and found his old remote control car that she’d always loved. She always loved Matty’s presents the best. He seemed to know her, even if he didn’t do much but grunt at her.

  ‘Open your presents!’

  Heather was too excited, but Megan didn’t mind. It was a Saturday, she only had to go to tennis lessons and then she didn’t have to do anything else for the day, and her parents had even said she could have some friends from school round to the house. They’d even, miraculously, said her friend Lucas could come, even though Heather didn’t approve of ‘that mutton dressed as lamb mother of his’. It was her special day, and she was allowed to have her friends. She’d ignored her mother’s comment that it might show those kids what a real upbringing looked like.

  Megan delicately peeled back the Sellotape and uncurled the corners of her first present. A soft, square package. A T-shirt, she guessed. Yep. She pulled out the yellow top with ‘Cambridge University’ emblazoned on the front. She looked up to her mother’s eager face and tilted her head.

  ‘Do you like it? Isn’t it wonderful? A symbol of the bright path our little Megan is on!’ Heather squeezed her cheeks. ‘Open the others!’

  Apart from Matty’s and her mysterious Auntie Anna’s present (a huge box of posh chocolates as always, and a pair of sparkling silver hoop earrings that seemed too grown up for her to own), every other present was Cambridge-themed. A mug, a calendar, a satchel bag. Apparently the theme was ‘happy birthday, we gave you life, now we’ve decided what you’re going to do with it.’

  But everyone seemed so happy, so Megan just smiled and as the birthday cake with the university logo was brought in, she closed her eyes and wished for something that was hers.

  ***

  The first meet and greet was a terrifying mix of awkwardness and nostalgia. Megan sat in the kitchen, instinctively choosing the same seat she’d always sat at for dinner, and wondered if her mother noticed these things too. Luckily Skye was so excited she was talking ten to the dozen, and taking up most of the awkward silence with her enthusiasm. Which would have seemed natural if she hadn’t kept turning to Megan and giving her significant looks, which seemed to say ‘I’ve got this covered, Mum.’ Which just made Megan love her more, the little nutter.

  ‘I really love cake!’ Skye said, seated next to Megan at the kitchen table.

  Heather McAllister sat opposite gingerly, then leaned in, head on her hand, as if it was the most important question in the world. ‘What’s your favourite?’

  ‘Chocolate fudge! Or maybe Oreo Cookie Cheesecake that Mum makes.’

 
Skye looked up at her and smiled, then dove into the lemon drizzle cake that Heather was so worried about.

  ‘Well, maybe we can try and make that while you’re here?’ Heather smiled, looking tentatively at Megan.

  Megan shrugged, half-smiled and nodded, realising she hadn’t really said anything since she’d set foot in the house. It was like she was shell-shocked.

  ‘Whe……’ She cleared her throat. ‘When’s Matty down?’

  Heather briefly looked disappointed, but threw herself into it. ‘Tomorrow, I think he’s going to bring Jasper round to meet Skye. I think there was talk of going to see the carols in the town square, have some hot chocolate, play some hook a duck?’

  Megan wasn’t sure how to feel about any of this, sitting there sipping her tea, back straight as a rod as her mother tried her hardest to make things easier. But to play along with it was to forget, and to start an argument was to throw all this away, this chance they’d been given. Limbo.

  She smiled. ‘Sounds great, doesn’t it, kid?’

  Skye nodded, face full of cake.

  ‘Dad joining us at all?’ Megan asked, sure that her father was hiding somewhere in the house, unsure of how to deal with emotional situations.

  ‘I think he’s in the den. Doing some work on…something.’ Heather shrugged helplessly. She’d never been good at lying. That was the problem that night, her horror and disgust so clear on her face before she could wipe the slate clean. She’d been unable to hide it, and Megan was unable to unsee it.

  ‘How about if I go?’ Megan suggested tentatively, certain of how to deal with her father, rather than the mother she had disappointed so very badly.

  Heather nodded. ‘You know where it is. Me and Skye can talk about all the fun things we can do this week, can’t we?’

  Skye nodded and made a shooing motion at her mother, patting her grandmother’s hand. That child was an emotional manipulator of the highest degree. Or she was just enjoying herself. It was pretty hard to tell.