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?