Driving Home for Christmas

by A. L. Michael

  ‘They’re still playing music here?’ she asked as she put the wine down, pouring the rosè into the two oversized glasses.

  ‘Always,’ Estelle grinned, ‘it ranges from the awful to the awesome. A couple of the Year Tens have started a band called The Illusionists. They keep trying to pull scarves out of their guitars whilst they play. It’s awful. They might play tonight and we can boo them!’ She paused. ‘Nothing quite lives up to Megan and the Boys though.’

  ‘You knew about that?’

  ‘I was a fan. Came to every gig you guys played here. Your little one got the musical talent?’ Estelle looked at something over Megan’s shoulder, briefly alarmed, and then returned her gaze to Megan.

  ‘No idea. She’s more interested in becoming a secret detective. Which I worry about because it means she’s terribly good at lying when she wants to. Luckily she’s too moral to use it on me. Seems to be working well at getting extra slices of cake from her grandparents though,’ she shrugged.

  They talked about Skye for a little more, and about the school, the changes in the town over the last few years, until the microphone buzzed, and Tom was there, addressing the crowd, looking up at them in the back of the room.

  ‘Well, unfortunately, our Friday regulars Cludbucket couldn’t perform tonight, probably due to some sort of rock and roll reason, like hangovers, or the clap’ – here the audience hooted and laughed – ‘but they’re rubbish anyway. I’m pleased to present the Nag’s Head’s favourite band…No Education!’

  The crowd cheered, teenage girls scooted to the front, but Estelle grabbed her hand. ‘Megan, I’m sorry, they weren’t supposed to be on tonight.’

  Megan turned to her, laughing. ‘Don’t worry about it, if they’re better than Cludbucket, and how couldn’t they be with a name like that…’

  Megan’s voice faded as she turned to the stage and saw that same boy she’d stood on stage with all those years ago, adjusting his mic and tuning his guitar.

  ‘I’m Lucas,’ the dark-haired man said, ‘and we’re No Education.’

  His eyes scanned the crowd, smiling, and his gaze found hers. His eyes widened for the longest moment, standing in silence, looking as if someone had just taken a frying pan to his face. Then he launched into his set, and didn’t make eye contact again.

  Chapter Four

  October 2003

  ‘I think I’m going to throw up.’ Megan sat on the stage at the Nag’s Head, breathing deeply. Lucas came up behind her, putting his arms around her.

  ‘You’re going to be fine. Better than fine, amazing.’ He gave her a squeeze. ‘Come on Angel, pretend it’s just you and me playing in my bedroom.’

  She turned her head to look at him. ‘So I should play in my underwear.’

  Lucas grinned. ‘If that’ll make you feel more comfortable, I have no complaints.’

  She leaned back into his arms and closed her eyes. Life was perfect. She had the perfect guy, a great band, good grades, and was on track to get out of this stifling little village. Except she hadn’t realised she’d be this nervous.

  ‘Come on, up we get.’ Lucas grabbed her hand and pulled her up. ‘Me and the guys can deal with the set up, why don’t you see if Linda will make you a cuppa, and do some deep breathing in the corner?’

  She swept his hair across his head, to stop it from constantly falling into his eyes. She knew it would end up in his face again the minute he started playing, throwing his head about and fixing the audience with a solid gaze from beneath dark lashes. She liked his hair better before he’d dyed it. Then again, he said the same thing about her. The sacrifices they made for rock and roll. She smudged the eyeliner he’d applied earlier, making him look more tired and mysterious, and less like an irritated panda with a musical agenda.

  ‘This is gonna be great, Meg, really.’ He pulled her in for a kiss, as always his arms warm around her, his kisses gentle but longing, a promise of what would happen after the show. She was so glad it had been with him, and not just some boy who would kiss her for five minutes before groping down her top. Lucas was…well, she hesitated to use the term soul mate because it made her want to vomit even more, but he was her something. Her magnet, her anchor. Something that kept her steady and made her fly all at once.

  ‘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 litt
le 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.