After a few months of working at Wimpy, I had another go at college, but the result was similar to the first time. During the spring term, shortly after my eighteenth birthday, I left college again and moved away from home. I was sick of my parents telling me what to do, and like so many teenagers before me, worked out that I knew everything and needed no one. I rented a flat, with my friend Gareth, in a sleepy little place on the edge of Horsham, which was where most of the friends I’d made at college lived. I had some inheritance money in the bank and a large group of close friends who were always up for a good time. A few of the girls I knew from college were working in a ‘massage parlour’ nearby, so between us there was always a steady flow of fun and the cash to fund it all. It was everything I’d hoped for when I’d made all my proclamations to my parents and I fully expected them to come round and eat humble pie at any moment.
The next step for me was to get some sort of job that would continue to bring in a bit of cash but not be something I’d do for the rest of my life – I wanted something better and more fulfilling than a dead-end office job, but I was happy enough to do it for a little while as a means to an end. I got a position in a dental lab. I had done all my word-processing qualifications at school, so that type of work was a logical move, as I wasn’t qualified to do much else. The money was terrible, but after a few months I managed to get a better-paid position in the accounts department of a huge hotel booking agency. It was deadly boring and I never really committed to it. It wasn’t working out quite as I’d hoped. I’d gone from bored and living at home, to bored at college, and now bored in a series of humdrum jobs. Part of me started to wonder if Mum and Dad were right – maybe I was wasting my life. I couldn’t dwell on that depressing proposition for too long, though – I had the world to conquer.
When I turned nineteen I moved into a caravan, which initially was on my parents’ farm. This was a decision driven, yet again, by money. Despite working full time I was hopeless at managing my finances, and so a life with no rent or bills to pay seemed like a fantastic idea; I was completely oblivious to responsibility and a bit of a brat really. Living in the caravan was meant to be a short-term option, but I soon got used to the cold winters and having to go outside to the loo, and it didn’t make sense to move. I left my accounts job and became a van driver, delivering garage parts, which was much more my cup of tea as I was out and about unsupervised, flirting with guys at garages and driving, which were all enjoyable activities as far as I was concerned.
Looking back, I can’t believe how many opportunities I threw away. I could have had the world at my feet by that stage just as I’d expected, especially given the environment I’d been raised in, but I was too short-sighted to see it. We all think about what would happen if we could turn back the clock – maybe I wonder more than most.
Just after I’d turned twenty-one, a friend called Tattoo Sue moved in with me after splitting up with her boyfriend. She was great fun to be around, and no trouble as a lodger. I was a sucker for a sad story or a bit of crying, and gave in to far too many people, but Sue was a really fantastic addition to my life and I loved her being there. She – obviously – lived up to her nickname, with tattoos over most of her body, and constant plans for more. She was funny and loud, and seemed to know everyone, but she was also a good influence on me. Hardly a day went past without her saying that there was someone I ‘had’ to meet, and the social side of my life became even more hectic. She was usually right about these people, and everyone she introduced me to was lovely – but, one day, Sue really hit the jackpot.
With the words ‘Megan – meet Lucas’ my world was changed for ever.
Lucas had been living on the road for more than twenty years, and the open-air lifestyle had done him good. He wasn’t the backpacking type, more of a free spirit who wandered around wherever the fancy took him. He was two decades older than me, with handsome looks, wisdom and an engaging maturity. I thought he was absolutely perfect and couldn’t believe it when he seemed to feel the same way about me. For that perfect moment I was just what he wanted, and I couldn’t believe my luck.
Almost immediately, we were a couple. He was like no boyfriend I’d had before. I was completely captivated. Although the relationship seemed idyllic to me, looking back, it was probably incredibly clichéd. We would spend every night tangled up in each other, madly in love, obsessed, and afterwards I’d listen intently as Lucas delivered personal sermons on the ways of the world, the dangers of consumerism, and all of his other political beliefs. He was an ex-punk, anarchist biker turned New Age traveller – just the kind of boyfriend to give nightmares to parents.
Ironically, I settled down a bit when I was with him. Despite his constant lectures on the evils of capitalism, I went back to work – temping in various offices suited me as I could move on whenever I felt restless or annoyed, but I still had some money coming in. This way of life was a perfect way to combine my flighty nature with being able to pay the bills. However, there was a part of me that realised I was going to have to grow up at some point and achieve something in life. I signed up for a homeopathy degree and I immediately felt as if it was the right thing to do.
From the very first day, everyone was friendly. As we sat around the lake at lunchtime, eating sandwiches and getting to know each other, I made a random comment out of nowhere. ‘I wonder how many people will have babies over the next four years before we graduate?’
Everyone laughed and joked about it, pointing out the ones who already had kids, or the ones who said they were keen to start a family.
I didn’t think it would be me.
A couple of weeks later I was frozen in shock, staring at a positive pregnancy test. It was completely unplanned and not something Lucas and I had ever discussed, but terminating the pregnancy wasn’t something I could contemplate. I felt that, unprepared emotionally and financially as I was, I couldn’t deny this child a chance of life. It was meant to be.
Lucas felt differently. He already had two children with two different women and contributed nothing to their lives. From the moment I told him I was having a baby, he changed.
‘If you really loved me, you’d get rid of it,’ he told me one night after days of unrelenting pressure to think of the ‘options’. ‘We can’t be tied down like this – we’re soul mates, Megan; we can’t be shackled. A baby means that you’d just be thinking about all the stuff that society tells you it needs. You’d have to work in jobs you hate – what would that do to you? There would be no more partying, you’d be a mum – that would be it, that would be your identity.’
I could see what he was saying, but I’d always wanted to be a great mum. If that meant making some compromises, I’d do it. I couldn’t abort a child just because I fancied a night out every now and then. The baby would grow up with a love of music too, it would learn to be free and happy, and it would have a mother who would know how to make sure it never felt lonely. I would do well at this, I told myself, I would make sure my little one was the happiest, most loved child in the world.
The comments Lucas made changed everything, though. From that point, I assumed I would be a single parent, even if he did hang around for a bit longer. Nothing would make me kill my baby, no one would emotionally blackmail me into giving up this child. Throughout the pregnancy I kept thinking of all the promises I had made to myself about what sort of mother I would be one day, and I realised that ‘one day’ had arrived.
‘This baby is happening,’ I told Lucas. ‘I don’t really care