‘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.’
‘Whose is it?’ Heather croaked, eyebrow raised. She was looking for a reason to bring Lucas into this, Megan could tell.
‘Doesn’t matter.’
‘No point protecting him. It’s Lucas, isn’t it? Of course it is. So you can end up just like his mother, with two kids out of wedlock, an alcoholic father who spends his days God knows where –’
‘Mum, that’s not fair –’ Megan started.
‘Fair? You think any of this is fair?’ Heather started getting hysterical. ‘We sacrificed everything for you. You think Cambridge takes knocked-up sluts? You’ve ruined everything we worked for!’
‘We? We worked for?’ Megan felt her voice rising, her hands trembling, and tried to stay calm, tried to scramble back to that place of calm, of certainty. ‘You worked me like a fucking show pony my entire life! But you’ve never given a shit about me! And I always knew the minute I stopped winning ribbons you’d put me out to pasture!’
Heather’s eyes looked like they were about to bulge out of their sockets. ‘You ungrateful little bitch. You think you can do a better job parenting? You think you’ll do a better job with this bastard child of yours?’
Megan looked to her dad, beseeching, holding his gaze in the hopes that he would give her something, a word, a hug, a movement. Instead, he stood rooted to the spot, his only response a small shrug, his eyes wide and panicked.
Heather paced back and forth for a few minutes, then took a deep breath. Megan was almost amused, watching her mother move onto the next stage of grief. Bargaining.
‘Okay,’ Heather said, arms out, ‘here’s what we do. We take Megan to get rid of it. She never sees Lucas again. She keeps her head down and Cambridge will never know.’
She nodded certainly, her brown bob swaying as she folded her arms. Deal done. That was the answer.
‘I’m keeping it.’
The silence that followed seemed to suck all the air out of the room.
‘You’re not.’
‘I really am.’
Megan’s father cleared his throat, moving towards her, arm outstretched. His hand didn’t quite touch her arm, but hovered there, centimetres from her skin, as if he could go through the motions and it would have the same effect.
‘Now, Megan, I think what we’re saying here is that we don’t want this to ruin your life,’ Jonathan started delicately, a lot of throat-clearing and hmm-ing.
‘And it will,’ Heather added vehemently.
‘You have a whole life ahead of you, and this, well, this will change things,’ Jonathan said seriously. Then he nodded and stepped back, as if he felt he’d said everything he needed to say.
Megan rolled her eyes. Perhaps it would have been better if he’d stayed silent instead of stating the fucking obvious. She could do a better job at raising a child than these two. At least her child would be loved unconditionally. Her kid would be loved even if she was crap at ballet and rubbish at physics and just wanted to climb trees all the time. That had to be a better start than these two.
‘Look, Megan, no one needs to know. We’ll go get it taken care of, and you come back and you stay quiet, and life will go on as normal,’ Heather said reasonably.
She took a deep breath, her eyes meeting her mother’s fully for the first time in what felt like forever. Like she finally was truly being seen. ‘Has it ever occurred to you that I hate our normal life?’
Heather blinked. ‘So you thought acting like a little slut would change things up a bit? Well, congratulations! Megan got the drama she wanted!’
Minnie the dog whined gently in the corner, watching her owners carefully, trying to discern where the danger was. Megan put a hand on her head to calm her, and the black and white fluffy mass stood beside her like a protector. Her only friend.