A. L. Michael - Driving Home For Christmas

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?’

‘I’ve always hated your bloody analogies,’ Heather grumbled at her sister.

‘You just hate when I’m right,’ Anna laughed. But that wasn’t really it. She hated Anna for getting to see them grow up and change, for getting to look after that tiny grandchild of hers, for being part of their life when she’d never been able. But like everyone had told her, that was no one’s fault but her own.

‘Tell them to stay for longer,’ Heather said suddenly, ‘stay for a week.’

‘Going for the storming and forming approach?’ Anna said, thinking back to their days as summer school counsellors when they were girls. Always had to have a storm for friendships to form , the camp guide had shouted each time they worried about a brawl or argument.

‘Something like that,’ Heather McAllister said, thinking that she was not going to lose her family again.

***

‘Please tell me you’re not working tonight?’ Megan begged Jeremy as he walked into the kitchen.

‘If I were I’d look a whole lot more sparkly by now. Takes a lot of preparation, being fabulous!’ Jeremy winked salaciously, then shrugged. ‘What’s up?’

‘I need chocolate and wine, and ice cream, and you to be here for a massive bitching session,’ Megan whined. She was really only whiney with Jeremy, she’d noticed. Somehow, it was allowed with him, but no one else. Everyone else had to see strong, capable Megan, who was handling everything.

‘And what has caused this necessary meltdown?’ he asked, filling up the kettle.

‘I’m going to my mother’s for Christmas.’

Jeremy stopped, turned the tap off and abandoned the kettle.

‘Why the fuck are you doing that?’ Occasionally, Jeremy’s Essex roots escaped, his eyes wide in incredulity.

Megan shrugged. ‘Reasons and stuff?’

‘Like the end of the world?’ Jeremy nudged her with his hip so she’d move out of the way of the cupboard, reaching for the wine glasses.

‘Life’s too short,’ Megan shrugged again, watching Jeremy nose through the wine rack for the perfect red. On his days off, Jeremy was your average guy, with his tousled blond hair and smiling eyes, padding around barefoot at Anna’s, reading intently, writing his play furiously, in all the hidden nooks and corners of the house. One day Skye found him in a cupboard, trying to write a monologue in the dark. Well, so not so average. But when you saw him on stage, he was this glittering dame, all sparkle and song, innuendo and sass.

‘It’s too short to be fucking miserable, that’s true,’ he nodded, pouring the wine and holding out a hand to stop Megan grabbing a glass, knowing she rarely waited for it to breathe before downing it in a few gulps. After a few moments, he handed the glass to her, watching with narrowed eyes as she sipped it delicately.

‘Lovely,’ she nodded, and he nodded back.

‘So…you’re freaking out,’ Jeremy stated, ‘understandably. But surely it’ll be great for Skye?’

‘She’s excited, and I’m glad she can meet my brother and his kid…but something about that village just feels toxic. Like I’m going to walk down to the cornershop for milk and someone will look at me and know that I’m that McAllister girl who got knocked up and ran away.’

Megan circled the rim of her glass.

‘I thought they chucked you out?’

‘Same difference, really, isn’t it? They wanted me gone, so I went.’ Megan felt like her primary form of communication seemed to be shrugging. She was regressing before she even got to Hertfordshire.

‘Just…’ Jeremy rested a hand on hers, ‘make an escape plan just in case, and you can always come back here and join me and the Elderly Poets Society on Christmas Day. I’m sure one of them is going to try to do a solo seated on the piano, fall off and break a hip. It’ll be an entertaining night.’

‘You’re awful.’

‘Well, why can’t they get old gracefully and let the rest of us claim some of the spotlight?’ Jeremy grinned. ‘Besides, it’ll be me flapping about fetching their drinks and hearing all about theatre back in the day.’

‘And you love every second of it,’ Megan pointed out.

‘I do indeed,’ Jeremy grinned, giving her arm a squeeze. ‘You’re not that McAllister girl who got knocked up and ran away. You’re that McAllister girl who made an amazing life for herself and her kid. Even if you are a bit of a moany cow.’

***

December 24th 2004

‘You’re lying,’ her mother spat, ‘you’re annoyed because you’re not the centre of attention and you’re lying to us. It’s pathetic.’

Megan closed her eyes, drawing on some reserve of calm that she didn’t even know she had. She’d said it once, the worst was over. She could say it again.

‘I’m not lying. I’m pregnant.’

Her mother’s face, for once, had become ugly. Twisted with every emotion that she never let herself express, for fear of the ageing lines that might mar her complexion if she laughed.

Her father stood there anxiously, twisting his hands but saying nothing. Like a dog waiting for his owner’s command. His face was pitying, but as Megan had always expected, he was more concerned about Heather’s response than anything to do with Megan. What would her mother do next, she wondered, narrating it in her head like a gameshow. Ladies and gentlemen, which way will Heather McAllister go next? Will it be fury, a fainting spell, or a stream of cursewords? Find out next week on ‘Our Daughter is a Failure.’