Love At Christmas, Actually. Jenny Oliver
the feeling that Estelle was going to have all sorts of gossip that she really didn’t want to know.
***
December 2004
‘Megan! What’s wrong?’ Estelle pulled out a pack of tissues from her Lulu Guinness bag, sliding them across the desk.
‘I’m…I’m…’ Megan was starting to hyperventilate, and Estelle flipped up the break in the desk to let her through, ushering her into the back room. She placed a ‘librarian on break’ sign on the desk, and followed her.
Megan sat in the swivel chair, head between her legs, alternating between gasping and crying. Her hair, dyed red, was starting to turn back to its natural brown, and she seemed to keep tugging at it in frustration. Estelle grabbed her hands.
‘Come on Megan, you’re scaring me a little. What’s up? I know you’re still waiting for the Cambridge letters, but….’
‘Everything’s changed,’ she breathed, somehow attaining calm composure. She looked Estelle straight in the eye. ‘I’m pregnant.’ It was the first time she’d said it out loud. First time she’d let herself think about it since throwing away the tests in the toilets in Euston station. And of course, she decides to break down at college, in the library.
Estelle’s eyebrows raised only for a second, before she vocalised exactly how Megan felt about it all, ‘Well, shit.’
They sat in silence for a moment, Megan swinging her legs against the scratchy blue material.
‘Is it Lucas’?’
‘No.’
‘Oh…double shit,’ Estelle sighed. ‘Times like this one really wants a cigarette.’
‘Or tequila,’ Megan agreed.
‘So…have you considered your options?’
‘I know I should get rid of…it,’ Megan started. ‘I spent all that time campaigning for the sexual health clinic as part of the GP, and I did that debate where I argued Pro-choice…God, when people find out that I’m a hypocrite…’
‘Woah, not a hypocrite!’ Estelle grabbed her hand. ‘Fighting for rights doesn’t mean you have to make that decision. You believe in choice, remember?’
‘Yeah,’ Megan said hopelessly, ‘I don’t even know why. I know it’s going to screw up my life. Uni will be gone. Lucas and leaving this place…all of it up in smoke with one wiggle of my cervix.’
‘Try long periods of excruciating pain,’ Estelle corrected.
‘And that was just the conception.’
Estelle smiled. ‘See, making jokes. Already we’re getting somewhere.’
‘Everything’s going to change,’ Megan said, feeling the tears well up again.
‘Babe, it already has,’ Estelle told her, and handed her another pack of tissues.
***
Megan had made an effort that night, styled her hair so it sat softly on her shoulders, curling at the ends. She’d put on her black velvet dress, the one she’d bought to wear on Christmas Day, it being tradition in the McAllister household to get dressed up for the big event. But she could always wash it. She was wearing her boots with the chunky heel, had flicked her eyeliner a little more distinctly, somehow still eager to impress Estelle all these years later.
‘Wow.’ Skye looked at her in the mirror as Megan finished applying her make-up.
‘Good?’
‘Really good. You could sing with Jeremy on stage!’ Skye patted her shoulder and ran off to return to the chess board.
With the fear that her daughter thought she looked like a drag queen, Megan pulled on her coat, and walked down the hill to the Nag’s Head, the oldest pub in town. It was pretty much the same inside, warm and comforting, with the fire burning away in the corner, Pluto the black labrador still dozing in front of it at all times. He’d been an excitable puppy the last time she’d been here, chewing on her mic cord and eventually falling asleep on the speaker.
‘Megan!’ Estelle waved from one of the sofas at the back, two drinks sitting in front of her. The stage area was clear, so Megan walked across it, trying not to think about how wonderful it had been to sing there, to feel like a real rock and roll star, playing to a bunch of uninterested retirees and drunk teenagers.
‘I got the drinks in – felt a Pina Colada is fairly inoffensive,’ Estelle gestured, ‘although it tastes less like a Pina Colada and more like someone threw a bunch of rum into some pineapple juice, but I’m not complaining. How are you?’
Megan shrugged. ‘I’m good, I guess. We live in Highgate with my aunt Anna, me and Skye that is, my daughter…’ Megan shook her head, ‘which you knew, obviously.’
‘You ever go off to do that English degree?’
‘Actually, I did a degree part time.’ Megan sipped her drink and shuddered at the sweetness, feeling the alcohol seep into her system. ‘I’m a speech and language therapist now. I work with deaf kids, and children with speech impediments, that kind of stuff.’
Estelle grinned. ‘That seems…so perfect for you. Is this the first time you’ve been back? I’ve been away the last couple of Christmases, so we could have just missed each other…’
‘First time back.’ Megan widened her eyes. ‘And it’s awkward and weird, and I will probably need a good few more of these disgusting cocktails whilst I’m here.’
Estelle snorted into her drink, then raised her glass. ‘To Megan, the returning warrior. Missed you, darlin’.’
They clinked glasses, and Megan felt the familiarity settle around her. Estelle had been a strange one. She’d always looked up to her in school, and then off she went to university, and Megan was sure she’d be famous. Snapped up by a modelling agency, become an actress, or a famous painter or something. Despite the fact that she never actually seemed to do anything artistic. And then she returned a couple of years later to be the school librarian, no questions asked.
‘You still the librarian?’ Megan asked suddenly, then thought it sounded rude, as if she was diminishing Estelle’s life in this small town.
‘Archivist, thank you. I am, but I’m also an English teacher now, if you can believe it.’ Estelle rolled her eyes. ‘I go off to study biomedical science, and end up an English teacher. Go figure.’
‘You like it?’
‘I…I like the students. Most of the time. And I like books, and analysis and when one of the kids comes out with something fantastic,’ Estelle nodded, ‘but then there’s the ones who have been studying Of Mice and Men all year and are still calling it a play, or made it all the way through The Tempest thinking Ariel is the girl mermaid from Disney. It’s…painful.’
‘So why stay?’
Estelle shrugged, delicately adjusting an eyelash. ‘The staff are nice to work with, and I moved back to look after my mum, so it made sense to have something local.’
Megan nodded, the sudden reappearance making sense now. No one could understand why a girl like Estelle would stay in a town like that. She could be anywhere, doing anything.
‘But she passed away a couple of years ago, so I don’t really need to be here any more. Just habit, I guess,’ Estelle said casually, slurping up the last of her drink. ‘Another?’
‘I’ll get them.’