Love At Christmas, Actually. Jenny Oliver
a biddie make-up service. When your hands start to shake and the liquid eyeliner goes everywhere – who ya gonna call? You know how many rich, proud old ladies are out there? I’d be rich!’
‘Yeah, but rich, proud ladies don’t tend to want a little bitch judging them about their make-up capabilities.’
‘They adore me, they don’t know I’m bitchy,’ Jeremy said pointedly, ‘plus most of them can’t hear much.’
‘Incorrigible.’
‘Exactly. So tell me more about being home?’
Megan paused, unsure of what to say, how to sum up this weird feeling of familiarity, with the sadness of loss. She loved being back, but it wasn’t home any more.
‘I bumped into Lucas.’
‘The Lucas?’
Megan sighed, ‘Uhuh.’
‘How’d it go?’
‘It was fine, after my brother punched him, and my father tried to do the same. Apparently he’s been letting them think he’s the father all these years. They’ve been randomly punching him for ages.’
‘That’s…insane. But also kind of sweet,’ Jeremy said. ‘Are the sparks still there?’
Megan swallowed, thinking of his fingers stroking the sleeve of her jumper, the way his eyes lit up when he tilted his head to the side and laughed. The way her chest seemed to throb just thinking about it. Shit.
‘Still there on my side. I doubt he’s interested in the girl who’s made him a target all these years. But he did invite me for coffee,’ she said with hope in her voice.
‘That sounds promising,’ Jeremy said.
‘Well, we were friends for a long time, he probably just wants to catch up. It’s natural to be curious about people’s lives.’
‘It’s natural to stay the heck away from everyone and not get involved,’ Jeremy corrected.
‘You’re a Londoner, you don’t understand.’
‘You’re a Londoner too now, love, you have been for years. Don’t be going back to the country and start saying hello to strangers on the street now, I may have to disown you.’
‘And a merry bloody Christmas to you too, Scrooge!’ she laughed, watching as her bedroom door squeaked open, and Skye poked her head in.
She pointed at the phone. ‘Is that Anna?’
Jeremy, Megan mouthed. Wanna say hi?
She handed the phone over, and said she’d be downstairs getting breakfast, whilst her daughter occupied the space she vacated. She watched for a moment. Her daughter would be a teenager before too long. She’d grow up, and go off to uni and get a career, start her own family. And where would Megan be? Back at Anna’s with Jeremy, getting wasted on G and Ts each night and wondering why she’d never made a relationship work. She smiled at her daughter and padded down the stairs.
Heather was dishing up pancakes. ‘That girl of yours can eat. Reminds me of Matty.’
‘It’s that big brain, needs a lot of feeding,’ Megan replied, sitting down and helping herself.
‘So…not so much like Matty,’ Heather quipped and they grinned at each other, the gaze fading into a sort of sadness as they realised how long it had been since they’d been relaxed.
‘I…I was wondering,’ Heather started, ‘if you and Skye would like to come shopping with me today. Nothing stressful, just maybe a nice outfit for Christmas Day, pick up a few last-minute things if you see them? Damien’s done up the book shop beautifully, I’m sure Skye would love it, and there’s some more live music in the square today…’
‘We’d love to, Mum.’ She smiled, and Heather took a deep, steadying breath, looking relieved.
‘Good,’ she nodded, smiling to herself as she continued scrubbing the frying pan.
***
September 2004
They were sitting practising in the school music room. No one else tended to use it, and they could dance around, play loudly, sing to each other. That day, Lucas stood on the table in the empty room, reverb turned up on the amp, sunglasses on as he serenaded her with ‘Wild Thing’. ‘I think I love ya,’ he slurred, wiggling his hips and pointing at her.
At first she’d laughed, so crazy in love with him as he strutted and played and sang. But slowly, as the song carried on, she realised that being a wild thing meant leaving, meant being free, meant not being trapped. And as much as she loved Lucas, she wanted that escape. He’d told her not to make him that person, right? He’d told her to make him let her go. She was a wild thing.
By the end of the song there were tears in her eyes, and as he jumped off the table, his pleased-with-himself look faded to one of concern. He pulled the guitar strap over his head and stroked a tear from her cheek with his thumb.
‘What’s up, Angel?’
‘I’m a wild thing,’ she said simply, tears streaming now.
He frowned, and then understood, nodding. ‘Wild things need to be free.’
‘At some point we’re going to have to end it.’
‘I was hoping we’d have a little longer, love, to be perfectly honest.’ He put his arms around her waist, and she clung to him, breathing him in, her face pressed into his neck.
‘It’s better to end it, and be friends before I go.’ Megan was amazed at how firm she sounded, how in control of it all she was. But her heart hurt, and she thought she was going to be sick, and there was Lucas, nodding sadly, tears in his own eyes.
‘Not yet though, not quite yet. I know you think it has to happen, that somehow we can’t last a couple of train journeys…’
‘It’s…it’s about fresh starts, and needing you. Needing you as my friend, in my life. Always.’ She launched herself at him, awkwardly sticking her face into his neck.
‘But we’ve still got some time, love. Not yet, okay?’ He stroked her hair, somehow, always so understanding that this was the right thing, the accepted thing, for his Angel, the Megan who was going to go off and Do Things, like no one had ever achieved anything whilst being in love.
She nodded. ‘Not yet.’
‘Bloody song,’ he tried to joke, ‘you might not have realised if I’d played bloody Elvis or someone.’
Megan flashed him a quick smile through the tears, trying to imagine a life without him.
***
Her mum was right – the bookshop looked beautiful. Skye was enamoured immediately, winding through the shelves, using the little ladders to reach different levels, swinging like a trapeze artist. Damien’s bookshop, simply called Read, always looked magical at Christmas. Hell, it looked magical all year round. The light gently flickered, with fake candles lining the shelves, fairy lights zig-zagging across the top of them, creating a glowing canopy. Damien’s wife Ginny had made spiced hot apple on the stove, and gingerbread cookies from the oven. The whole place smelled heavenly.
‘We’re not going to get her out of here anytime soon,’ Megan whispered to her mum, watching as her daughter’s face lit up. ‘In fact, she may never come home.’
‘That was how you used to be,’ Heather said, smiling at the memory. ‘I used to panic, thinking I’d lost you, and you’d always be here. One time I would have sworn we were on the other side of town, and