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‘And if it’s not?’ she breathed against his lips.
‘Well, if it’s not, I’ll still love you.’ Lucas grinned at her, watching as her mouth dropped into an ‘o’ of surprise. ‘Yep, I love you. It’s a full-time job, but someone’s got to do it.’
He patted her bum. ‘Now warm up those vocals, rock star!’
They wowed the crowd that night, there were cheers and demands for encores. Tom had given them ten percent of the money made on the bar, and as they danced around on stage to their last encore, the crowd singing along to ‘Come on Eileen’, of all songs, she reached for Lucas’ hand and shouted across the stage: ‘I love you too.’
***
They were good. Really good. Too good to be teachers who did this for fun on Friday nights, Megan thought, heart thumping desperately. She’d downed most of the bottle of wine, and her hands were shaking throughout the set. Twangly guitar and his voice, still so recognisable, and yet with an extra edge it had never had at seventeen. Something that sounded like whisky and cigarettes and too many nights staring at the ceiling. But that couldn’t be true, if Lucas was a teacher, living in the same tiny village that she’d always wanted to escape. So had he failed, or had he settled?
‘You couldn’t have told me!’ she hissed at Estelle, eyes still watching Lucas on stage, though he was purposefully ignoring her.
‘That’s what I was going to do tonight! He wasn’t meant to be playing! I was going to tell you here!’ Estelle explained.
‘And what is there to tell?’
‘Lucas is a music teacher at the school. He came back about six or seven years ago. Went off to pursue the big time, and we heard it was going well, then suddenly he turns up with a teaching degree and a burning desire to destroy talented young people by over-analysing Pachelbel’s Canon and playing on xylophones. He’s a colleague, and a friend.’
Megan felt like her stomach was sitting in her chest. ‘You can’t tell me any more?’
‘I don’t know much more. He teaches, he plays in his band. He’s not married, doesn’t have kids. Lives in a little cottage at the edge of town. Kind of a recluse. Friendly and funny enough, but he keeps to himself.’
Megan took the time to truly look at him. It was impossible not to compare him to the old Lucas, the one with the painted fingernails and kohl-lined eyes. This Lucas looked like an upright young man. His hair was back to his natural dark brown, his blue eyes standing out against his pale skin. He still had a piercing in his ear, and where his shirt was rolled up there was a large tattoo on his forearm, though she couldn’t make out what it was. His clothes were simple now, a pale shirt and dark jeans, a couple of beaded bracelets around his wrist. He didn’t look like a rock star any more. He looked like someone’s dad. Which didn’t seem to be stopping the teenage girls at the front of the stage wiggling their hips and staring up at him in awe.
‘As always, you guys have been…a passable audience.’ He looked seriously into the crowd, surveying them over the mic, and then laughed. ‘I’m joking, we love that you support our little band. But those of you from my Year Ten class here tonight, this is not an excuse for not giving in your compositions. But feel free to write “Mr Bright’s band is awesome” five hundred times if you want extra credit.’
The crowd chuckled, the girls cooed, and the mood seemed lighter. Megan smiled softly; that was Lucas, there on stage. Making jokes and soaking up the spotlight, because he was Lucas Bright, and even his name knew he was meant to be something special.
‘This next song we’re going to play is a bit of an oldie, and we haven’t played it for quite a while, but somehow, tonight, it seems fitting. It’s called “The Girl Who Ran Away”.’
The guitar started, and Megan’s head began to spin. The song had been everywhere, years ago. She remembered hearing it on the radio in Anna’s house, a year or so after they’d moved in with her. Skye hadn’t stopped crying, she hadn’t eaten, slept or washed in days, and all she wanted to do was fall apart. The small red radio Anna kept in the kitchen was on in the background, and that song came on. ‘The Girl Who Ran Away.’ And Megan thought in that instant, ‘this song is about me. It’s for me.’ The girl who lies, the girl who pushes, the girl who runs away. It was her, and she took so much comfort in it, playing it each night before she went to sleep, playing it when she was upset her parents hadn’t called. Playing it those first few Christmases when she had missed her family fiercely. For Lucas to be playing that song…
‘Well, thanks,’ Lucas smiled at the audience, ‘that little ditty was something I wrote a few years ago, although I’m sure you’ll have heard a more tuneful squeaky-clean pop version on the radio.’ Here he paused, staring up at the back of the room, where Megan froze. ‘It seemed appropriate as the inspiration for that song is here tonight. So here’s to our muses, however much they cut out our hearts.’ He grinned painfully, light eyes flashing, his audience not really sure how to take it, just one lone teenage girl at the front who ‘woo’ed loudly.
‘Speaking of, let’s kick up the tempo into some good old-fashioned rock n roll!’ Lucas laughed, and launched into a rendition of ‘Crocodile Rock’, not noticing that Megan had stormed out in tears.
***
24th December 2004
She’d turned up at his door late in the evening, frozen and shaking.
‘Am outside – you home?’ she texted him, waiting to see if the light in his room would go off, pushing her away even more. Instead, the front door opened, and she just stood there, arms wrapped feebly around her, missing him. Lucas was surprised to see her, his eyes sleepy, his dark hair standing up on end.
‘What the hell are you doing out here? It’s freezing – get inside!’ he said in an exaggerated whisper, grabbing her arm.
‘I’m sorry – I didn’t –’
‘Not here.’ He put a finger to his lips and grabbed her hand, pulling her up to his room. She relished the brief contact, thought about how their hands had always fitted so well together. Holding Luke’s hand had always felt right.
She sat down on his bed, and he closed the door behind him, standing with arms folded, waiting for an explanation.
‘I’m guessing you’re not just here to wish me a Merry Christmas, Meg, huh?’
‘I had nowhere else to go,’ she said, and promptly burst into tears. Lucas hovered awkwardly, not sure where this new space between them put him. Tentatively, he sat on the bed next to her, an arm around her shoulder.
‘Come on Meg, it can’t be that bad,’ he whispered, trying to ignore how her brown hair tickled his nose, and how she was still so clearly his Megan. The one he had loved and fought for and made music with for the last year. The one he’d grown up with for many more years than that.
‘They…they kicked me out,’ she hiccuped, burying her head in her hands, ‘and I’m sorry, but I didn’t know where to go.’
Luke rubbed her back, mind racing. Heather and John McAllister could not be prouder of their daughter, rock band songstress or not. She was smart, and kind, and off to Cambridge to read lots of books and change the world. Whereas he was going to stay here, go to the music college, start teaching guitar and playing gigs. Which had been the whole reason they’d broken up in the first place. They were never going to work. She was destined for great big, important things. And he…well, he wanted to chase a dream while he was young enough to have it.
‘Why’d they kick you out, Angel?’ he asked, his endearment somehow too close, too familiar for what they now were. Two friends who played in a band.
‘I’m…urgh…I hate saying it.’ Megan squared her shoulders, sitting straight and looked him in the eyes. ‘I’m pregnant, and I didn’t want to get rid of it. So they got rid of me.’
Her bottom lip wobbled but her eyes stayed dry, staring into the distance.
Luke felt her stomach twitch and contract. A baby. A baby with his Megan. Well, it wasn’t ideal by any means, and selfishly he thought that maybe now she couldn’t go to Cambridge, she’d stay with him. A little family with Meg. They could get a place, a little flat in the village. He had enough savings with teaching guitar, could get an extra job during the day, call centre work or something. Meg was really smart, no doubt she could tutor in English, or do something in an office for a bit, until she was due. She could try uni again later, maybe something more local. Or they could move once they had a little bit of money behind them…
‘It’s…’ Megan registered the look on his face, the incredulous almost-smile as he drifted off, lost in thought. ‘It’s not yours, Luke.’
‘Oh.’ He shook his head. ‘Right. Whose is it?’
‘Someone that doesn’t matter and doesn’t need to know.’
‘Didn’t take you long,’ Luke grumbled, trying not to feel like his chest was crumbling, trying not to make lists of every guy who had ever been around her, who was now responsible for this.
‘Well, you found Belinda easily enough,’ Megan bit back, and then scrunched up her eyes. ‘I don’t even know why I’m here! I just have no one and nowhere to go, and I needed my best friend. It was stupid, I’m sorry.’
She stood up to leave, and Luke grabbed her hand.
‘I’m sorry, Angel. Just, stings a bit, you know?’ he sighed, pulling her back down to sit next to him. ‘You look sleepy,’ he said, ‘why don’t you have a good rest, and see how you feel in the morning?’
Megan nodded wearily, kicking off her shoes and scooting back along the blue duvet, pulling it over her legs and snuggling down, as she had countless times before.
‘Where are you?’ she called over her shoulder, eyes closed.
‘I’ll kip on the floor,’ he said, and she heard him pull his T-shirt over his head and throw it on the floor. ‘Besides, Clare will be in first thing, wanting to show me her presents.’
‘I’ll be gone before she gets up,’ Megan promised, ‘but come lie next to me. I’m not exactly in a situation to take advantage of you, am I?’
Luke didn’t say anything but slid into the bed next to her, arms around her, his face buried in her neck as he always had. She thought she might cry from how wonderful it felt. How right it was. She should never have tried to set him free, she realised. If she hadn’t, none of this would have happened. They would just have carried on, singing and making music and laughing and curling up together, because close was never close enough. And now it was done. At least he hadn’t looked at her with disgust. Hadn’t called her names or thrown her out. At least he was still Lucas.
She must have fallen asleep, because a few hours later she awoke, feeling Luke tapping his chest, muttering to himself.
‘You okay?’ she yawned, rolling over to look at him. His blue eyes stared back in the darkness, the barest trace of hair on his chin as he gently kissed her cheek.
‘We could make this work, Meg,’ he whispered in the darkness, holding her close, so that his mouth was against her ear, gently telling her things that were too good to be true.
‘We could get a little place – I’ve got some money – you could put off uni for a year. We could work, save, raise this kid…together. I’ll do that. I’ll raise it as mine. We can keep our lives here. Your family would come around eventually. We could do it, we could!’
Some days she felt Luke was so much younger than she was, still believing in the goodness and kindness of people. Thinking her parents would change their mind. The way they had looked at her that evening, like there was nothing more disgusting on earth. They looked at her like she was a murderer- she had murdered their Megan, the one that they had loved and adored, and she should be punished. And she couldn’t punish Luke too. She couldn’t stay. If she stayed, she’d always be that Megan, that failure. God, all those years of being their little princess, with her lessons and her extra classes and being exhausted all the time. All for nothing. She wasn’t sure who she pitied more, her or them. Or Lucas. Beautiful Lucas, who loved her and wanted to look after her, because he knew, just like the rest of them, that she couldn’t do it alone.
‘That sounds wonderful.’ She cried into his shoulder in relief, soaking up those moments with his arms around her, surrounded by the smell and feel of him. His lips resting against her neck, his fingers stroking patterns on her back. She just lay there for hours, as the seconds ticked into Christmas day, memorising the sound of his sleep and the feel of his skin, until she knew exactly what she had to do.
The next morning he awoke to an empty bed and a note on his pillow:
Merry Christmas. I love you. Goodbye.
***
‘And that was “Matter to Me”, one of my personal favourites of our back catalogue.’ His voice filtered out through the open door. Lucas was showing off now, and as Megan huffed outside, pacing back and forth, unable to either leave nor stay, she had to admit he was doing it with style.
Her life was in his lyrics. Every movement, every in-joke, every heartbreak had been used to create something beautiful. And she couldn’t blame him at all.
She stood shivering outside the pub, wishing she had a cigarette, just so she looked like she was there for a reason. She should walk up the hill. She should go back to her parents’ and read Skye a story, and avoid Lucas Bright until she could leave. A chill ran down Megan’s spine, and she pulled her scarf closer around her neck, looking out into the village. It was beautiful, she had to give it that. The little fountain in the centre, the cathedral in the distance. The cobblestones outside the Nag’s Head, that she had drunkenly tripped over so many times as a teenager. She felt a soft coldness on her cheeks and looked up. Of course, it was snowing. Trying to get up the bloody hill now was going to be dangerous, if not impossible.. Unless she left right away. She looked back through the door with longing, but the band had long since stopped playing, and a barrage of top twenty hits was blaring from the speakers, breaking the magic. She pulled her coat closer around her, and nodded to herself. She was going to leave. She was going to walk up the hill before she got stuck. And she was going to hide from Lucas. That was the only way.
‘Hey stranger,’ a voice said casually from behind her.
Oh shit.
She turned, and there he was, leaning on a doorframe and lighting up a cigarette like he was seventeen again. Except the smart coat and the reindeer scarf sang more of parental responsibility than life on the road. You knew this would happen, her brain taunted, you wanted him to find you.
‘Hey…you,’ Megan’s voice seemed to have disappeared into the cold, and she wrinkled her nose to dislodge a snowflake that had settled.
‘Going to have to check which one of us in the village won the bet about which year you’d come home. I put my money on 2010, so I’ve lost either way. But Frank in the butcher’s and Marco at Vittorio might still be in with a chance.’
Lucas had always been good at cool. When Fliss the Blockbuster girl had dumped him after two weeks of snogging and not much else, he’d written “A girl with tattoos got my heart like a needle”, and performed it in the video store. It got a lot of hits on Myspace and he left with a newly-made groupie on each arm.
‘Well, I’m sorry you lost out,’ Megan shrugged, stamping to keep warm. What was there to say? I’m sorry I left you? I’m sorry I lied? I’m sorry I hurt you but it was the best decision of my life?
‘In more ways than one,’ Lucas said simply, his brow furrowed, eyes dark in the dim lighting of the pub garden. Megan reached into her pockets for her gloves, pulled them onto her shaking, numb hands with effort.
‘Well, I’d better be going. I liked your set.’
‘Any of it sound familiar?’
‘You always stole from real life.’ She smiled softly, looking for a chink in the armour. His face was impassive, eyes darker than they used to be. ‘I’m sorry, inspired by real life to create illusion,’ she corrected.
‘If the feeling is real, then the story is too,’ Lucas nodded, remembering some ancient mantra he must have said once to her, a lifetime ago. It sounded like him.
‘It was good to see you, I’ve got to go–’ she started off the path, trying to get away before he could ask her.
‘Megan,’ he said. ‘Why did you go?’
She turned, shivering, the cold and the snow, and those last mystical chords of each song that reverberated through her history with this man seemed to cut her to the core.
‘Because there was no point dragging you down with me,’ Megan said simply, arms wide, waiting for him to argue or shout or shrug and leave her standing there. Why had he offered? Why had he wanted to save her? Why did she have to be the bad one?
‘Do you regret anything?’
Yes, she was wanted to scream. Yes, I should have stayed with you, and my parents would have softened and I wouldn’t have this chronic twinge in my chest when I think of you, or this ache now that you’re really here, staring at me like I let you down. And then Megan thought of Anna, of Jeremy. Of singing in the kitchen on Sunday mornings, of Pulp Fiction dance-offs, of Christmas decorations and Special Sangria, and the old biddies who showered her baby with presents and cookies and kindness. She couldn’t regret anything.
‘She’s the best thing that ever happened to me,’ Megan shrugged, and trudged up the hill, leaving him to watch her go. Which was more than she’d offered him before.
Chapter Five
‘Okay, so give me a list of suspects.’ Skye sat on the kitchen counter, taking out her notebook, whilst Heather searched for a missing pack of biscuits.
‘Suspects?’
‘Yes,’ Skye said seriously, ‘so I can start my investigation.’
Megan entered the room and ruffled Skye’s hair. ‘Skye McAllister and the case of the missing bourbons? Doesn’t really do you justice, hun.’
Skye rolled her eyes, and jumped down from the side. ‘So what are we doing today?’
Megan got herself a mug from the cupboard and poured herself a coffee, taking a moment to savour the good stuff her dad always insisted on buying from the farmers’ market. It was imported from South America, and it made him feel good thinking the money was going straight to Mr and Mrs Hernandez, or whoever owned the land, which probably wasn’t true at all. It tasted excellent though. She shook her head and focused on her daughter.
‘You were never this demanding, why can’t you just read a book?’ Megan shrugged.
‘Because there’s important work to be done,’ Skye said sternly, ‘and also, I’ve finished all my books.’
‘I’ve got an entire room of them upstairs.’
‘Babbling stories about teenage witches? Sorry Mum, not really my thing.’ Skye shared a glance with her grandmother.
‘Well all right, Snooty, if you feel that way I won’t take you out to the bookshop to buy you something.’
‘It’s five days til Christmas, you can’t buy her presents!’ Heather said in surprise, waving the lost packet of biscuits in triumph. ‘I found them!’
‘I will buy my daughter a present whenever I damn well please,’ Megan said, trying for jokey, but failing. Her mother looked at her and nodded. ‘Right, of course.’
Crap. Why was everything so bloody difficult?
‘Anyway, we don’t need more things for you to read, because you’re meeting your cousin today. I’m sure he’ll keep you busy.’
Skye tugged at her dark plait. ‘Mum, he’s five.’
‘Yeah, that’s why you’re going to be busy.’ Megan wriggled her eyebrows.
Her head still hurt, but she wasn’t sure if it was the bad cocktails, dehydration, or Lucas. He was here, he was really here. And now the memory of him was sitting in her gut like a marble. Every time she moved, she was reminded of him. Holding her hand as they walked down the street, performing, singing and laughing. She wouldn’t let her mind wander to the bad times. To saying goodbye, or Belinda, or Joey or any of that stuff that happened when she tried to do the right thing. She shook the history away and focused on Skye.
‘Skye McAllister…what are you wearing?’ Megan tilted her head to the side to assess her daughter’s Christmas jumper.
‘Don’t you like it? Me and Grandma worked on it last night,’ Skye said innocently.
The red woolly jumper, a Heather McAllister original that probably used to be hers, Megan thought, had been sewn into with gold thread. Except the reindeer outline was so skewed that his head seemed to be bent at a strange angle.
Heather nudged her. ‘It’s unique isn’t it? Just like Skye.’
She smiled at her grandchild, then made a face at Megan to say ‘don’t make the kid feel bad at how awful it looks.’
Megan shook her head as Heather left the room.
‘You did that on purpose, I’ve seen you sew your own school uniform. You’re probably better than my mother,’ Megan said knowingly.
Skye grinned. ‘But don’t you think it’s unique? I was actually thinking it would be a good band symbol – Dead Rudolph. What do you think?’
Megan looked around to an invisible audience. ‘I swear I didn’t drink when I was pregnant. Where are you getting this stuff from?’
‘Um, maybe because there have been Christmas carols playing on this radio non-stop and I’m going crazy?’ Skye shrugged, and moved a little closer. ‘Plus I miss Anna. She hasn’t called and she said she would.’
Megan stroked her daughter’s hair. ‘We’ll give her another day, then we’ll call her and complain about how much fun she’s having without us.’
Later that day, Matty, Claudia and Jasper arrived. Claudia was exactly how Megan remembered her from that one visit ten years ago. Cold and expensive. Plus she looked exactly the same. Megan had aged, got plumper and more worn, but Claudia looked like she’d been kept in bubble wrap, like a beautiful angel you only got out to put on the tree, then hid away the rest of the year. Her white blonde hair was pulled back tightly in a bun, and she kissed Megan on both cheeks, smirking a little at Megan’s surprise.
‘It’s so lovely to see you after all this time,’ she said graciously, her ice-blue eyes wide and unblinking. Then she transferred her attention to Skye. ‘Well aren’t you darling?’
‘I really wouldn’t know,’ Skye said, lips pursed, hands on hips.
‘Babe, now is not the time to be precocious,’ Megan whispered, ‘be nice.’
‘I am being nice, I’m not a darling. I’m a pain in the bum sometimes!’ Skye said loudly, and Megan shrugged, focusing on her brother, who laughed loudly.
Matty looked older, his face widened and slightly more ruddy, like he’d started playing rugby, or went hiking at the weekends. His dark hair still stood up at all angles, and his eyes were a mirror of her own.
‘All right, big brother?’ she grinned, fully, for the first time since she’d found out they had to come back here.
‘Hey kid,’ he smiled, ‘I’d hug you, but I’ve got my hands full of someone.’
His son was small and pale, with Matty’s messy mop of dark hair, and his mother’s pale skin. He blinked at Megan, his eyes a darker blue than Claudia’s.
‘Jazz, say hi to your auntie and your cousin,’ Matty prodded.
The boy just stared at them, eyes wide, expression completely blank.