Meg nodded. ‘Happy Christmas, Guy, and don’t worry, I’m sure things will run like clockwork. With the holiday in the middle, we are only open a day or so without you.’ She patted the counter as though it were a good dog.
Guy nodded and turned his attention to the order book. Meg swallowed the sudden desire to cry, hating even this slightest whiff of discord between them.
Lorna was outside, leaning on the display window. ‘There you are! Did you sort him out?’
Meg shook her head. ‘There was nothing to sort. Guy is my friend.’
‘Yeah, you said that. I don’t rate him much. Anyway,’ she sniffed, ‘I’m not going to let anything or anyone ruin our Christmas!’
‘Where’s our tree?’ Meg looked behind her mum to check it wasn’t propped inside the doorway.
‘They’re delivering it tomorrow. You didn’t expect me to lug it home on my back, did you?’
‘No, I suppose not, but I thought we might decorate it this afternoon.’
‘We’ve got all the time in the world, love.’ Lorna stepped forward and hugged her daughter.
Meg closed her eyes and inhaled the scent of her mum, remembering how this one small act could make everything feel better.
‘Did you see the cake behind you?’ Meg pulled away and turned her mum to face the display window where Dimitri and Anna elegantly swooped and swirled.
‘What do you think?’ She asked, eagerly.
‘How much would a cake like that cost?’
‘Oh, if it was for sale, hundreds and hundreds of pounds.’
Lorna tutted. ‘What a waste of bloody money.’ She shook her head and made her way to the front door.
Meg blinked, opened her eyes and reluctantly unfolded her limbs from the warmth of her duvet. She had overslept for the first time in as long as she could remember. It felt wonderfully decadent. She thought about the previous day’s catch-up with Barbados. She had not only made out to Milly and Pru that she was still in New York, but she’d also failed to mention that she had a lodger for the Christmas period. It wasn’t that she was keeping it secret exactly, more that she felt it would be easier to explain face to face, knowing that, like Guy, they too might judge Lorna a little harshly.
Meg smiled as she stretched and put on a pair of thick socks, excited about the day ahead. After cleaning her teeth, she crept along the corridor. It had been a second night of too much wine and while her hangover wasn’t quite as bad as yesterday’s, a headache certainly lingered. She didn’t know how her mum did it – perhaps it simply required practice. Meg decided there and then that she and Lorna would only drink tea tonight; they would sit and admire the tree that was arriving today. With her fingers splayed, she clapped her hands in little taps, suddenly animated and as energised as a puppy.
She tiptoed into the kitchen and then the sitting room, not wanting to disturb Lorna. The tang of cigarette smoke clung to the curtains and cushions. Opening the French doors, she let the cold December air fill the room. Pulling the long sleeves of her pyjama top over her hands, she looked down at Curzon Street, where people scurried to and fro on the pavements. It was December the twenty-first, the stage in the month when Christmas shopping was either last minute and random or targeted and brisk.
The breeze from the French doors caused the door of the spare bedroom to slam shut. Meg winced and laughed, knowing that was no way to be woken after a night on the plonk.
Making her way down the hall, she stopped outside Lorna’s bedroom and listened at the door. It was very quiet. Meg was sure the door slam would have jolted her mum into action. Slowly turning the handle, she eased the door open an inch and peered inside. The bed was crumpled and empty, the curtains drawn, allowing the mid-morning light to flood the room. Popping her head inside, she looked towards the bathroom door, which was open.
‘Mum?’
There was no reply.
Venturing into the room, Meg looked at the drawers that had been pulled open and the pillows, haphazardly flung in a pile on the mattress. It was only as she was leaving the room that she noticed that Lorna’s belongings were also missing. There were no bags on the floor, no pyjamas on the door hook and no toiletries strewn across the top of the chest of drawers.
‘Mum?’ she called again. ‘How strange,’ she muttered aloud. She rubbed her chin before pulling her hair into a loose bun.
Opening the front door, she trod cautiously down the stairs and peered through the door into the bakery. There was no sign of Lorna there, nor in the café. Still in her pyjamas, Meg was wary of being seen by customers, or by the Plum Patisserie team.
‘Where the bloody hell has she got to?’ Her question floated into the ether as she plodded back up the stairs. Meg’s thoughts ran wild; maybe her mum had moved into a hotel and would reappear soon, ready to decorate the tree that would arrive any minute. Or maybe she had gone shopping and had stored her bags and belongings somewhere. As she ran through these scenarios in her mind, she knew that they were at best unlikely and at worst pure fantasy.
Meg’s heart rate increased. She placed her hand on her chest.
Surely not?
But as she opened the front door of her flat she noticed the space on the console table where the silver-framed picture of Lucas usually sat. Walking over to it, she ran her palm over the flat wooden surface and scanned the area, as if she might make the frame reappear just by concentrating really hard. Crouching down, she felt along the wainscoting with outstretched fingers to see if it had fallen down the back and was nestling on the floor. It wasn’t.
Meg sat back on her haunches; she knew at that point what had happened. Her mother had run away, creeping from the flat in the dead of night, treading softly to avoid a goodbye. Lorna had disappeared and by the look of things, she hadn’t left empty-handed. Meg realised with a jolt that her mum had her credit card and pin number. Phoning her automated banking service, she punched in her security codes and passwords and listened eagerly for her balance. It was just as she feared: over a thousand pounds had been withdrawn in cash over two days and hundreds of pounds had been spent on purchases.
Meg stumbled back down the stairs, desperate to tell someone, only to remember that Milly and Pru were away and Guy had left that morning for France. Sweet Guy, who Lorna had been rude to.
Oh God.
As the strength left her legs, she sank down onto the cold, hard marble floor. She didn’t care that the chill seeped through her pyjama bottoms, numbing her bottom in an instant. She didn’t care about much. With her elbows on her knees and her head in her palms, she closed her eyes and thought about the day she had arrived there, four years ago. She could recall exactly how she’d felt: scared, sick, lost and vulnerable, and above all, fearful of what the future held. It was easy to remember because it was precisely how she felt right then. She might have the keys to a swanky flat, but when it came down to it, she was still scared little Meg, limping from day to day and hoping for the best.
The doorbell rang, making her jump. Meg leapt up.
Mum?
Her face fell as she looked into the face of a deliveryman in a tracksuit who in his outstretched arm was holding what looked like the rejected top of a raggedy Christmas tree.
‘Meg Hope?’ he asked gruffly.
She nodded.
‘Happy Christmas!’ He gave a lopsided grin and pushed the tiny tree with its bare branches and withered trunk towards her.
‘What
is
it?’
‘It’s your Christmas tree.’
‘But… but it’s tiny and dead!’ She felt her throat constrict with disappointment.
‘What did you expect for a fiver at the last minute? A lovely Norway spruce?’ He smirked. ‘And I only delivered it out of the goodness of my heart.’ He winked.
Meg considered the image she had carried in her head for the last day or so: a full, green tree, artfully hung with baubles and strings of lights, the glow from which would grace their evenings as they drank tea and sat on the sofa, mother and daughter, together for Christmas.
‘I don’t know what I expected, but not this.’
The man shrugged his indifference. ‘Either way, it’s yours. Where do you want it?’
Meg reached out and took the spiky brown offering into the hall before shutting the front door. She set the brown plastic pot on the floor and laughed at the absurdity of the thing that barely reached her knee.
Her phone rang in her hand. It was Guy. Finally the tears fell.
‘I thought you’d gone to France,’ she managed through her distress.
‘I’m at the airport, but I had a sneaky suspicion that my girl might need me.’
‘I do need you,’ she whispered.
‘What’s happened?’ His voice was gentle, as if he was addressing a child.
Meg stared straight ahead, not sure where to begin. Embarrassed. ‘Lorna’s gone.’
‘Merde.’ He sighed. ‘Did you row?’
Meg shook her head. ‘No. I didn’t know she was going. She’s just done a runner, disappeared.’
‘Oh, Meg! I’m sorry. Truly sorry.’ Guy’s tone was warm.
‘I don’t know why I’m upset or surprised. Not really. I just wanted to believe that things were going to be different this time.’ She found it easy to confess this down a phone line.
‘That’s because you are sweet and hope for the best, always. That’s one of the reasons we love you.’
Meg considered this. ‘I don’t know about sweet – I think I must be bloody stupid. First Edd and now her!’ She sighed. ‘I wish I didn’t always believe what people tell me, but I do. It’s because I want it to be true; I wanted Christmas with my mum.’
And I wanted a life with Edd, a family life full of love and laughter.
‘So you must come to France with me. Go pack a bag, jump in a cab and meet me at the airport. Come on, chop, chop!’
Meg smiled. Usually when he said this he clapped his hands above his head, flamenco-style.
She thought for a second or two. ‘I’d rather not, Guy. Thank you for asking me, but I don’t want to go anywhere and I don’t want to see anyone. I really appreciate you calling me – more than you know.’
Meg returned to her spot on the floor, sinking like a little rag doll, broken and lifeless. She held the phone in the crook of her neck and placed her face in her hands as she cried.
Guy uttered, ‘Ssssshhh, don’t cry, chérie,’ between her sobs.
Meg sniffed and tried to collect herself. ‘Every night that I was in care I used to convince myself that tomorrow would be the day she’d come and take me home, just like she promised. But she never did. I used to come up with reasons why – she’d had to go to the doctor’s, or she’d missed the bus. I never gave up on her.’ Meg dabbed at her tears with her sleeve. ‘And it doesn’t matter that I’m grown up now. I was so thrilled to see her here the other day, in Plum’s. It meant she’d made the effort to find me after all this time. It meant she did love me after all.’
‘I’m sorry, Meg.’ Guy was genuine. No matter how much he had disliked Lorna, he still didn’t want to see his friend hurting.
‘No need for you to be sorry. It’s not your fault, is it? It’s hers. She lied to me. It was all about her on the make, seeing what she could get. It always was and it always will be. I fell for it because I wanted to believe her.’ Meg sniffed again and paused before giving him the next piece of information. ‘I gave her my credit card and pin so she could buy the Christmas tree. It’s just arrived and it’s pathetic, a cheap afterthought. It’s shit.’
Guy sighed. ‘Oh, Meg…’ He clicked his tongue against his teeth and twisted his mouth. ‘Does she still have your card and pin number?’
‘Yep.’ Meg nodded. ‘I’ll cancel it in a minute.’ She didn’t confess to purposefully having delayed calling the bank, but she knew what Guy was thinking. Illogical though it was, she didn’t want her mum to get into trouble, didn’t want Lorna to think badly of her for having involved the police. She also wanted her mum to have everything she needed for whatever twists and turns her sorry life took next. And, even more illogically, she still hoped beyond hope that it had all been a bit of a mix-up and that Lorna would bluster through the door at any second, with a bag full of Christmas decorations and a reasonable explanation about her absence. Even she had to admit that, with every minute that passed, that was becoming ever more unlikely.
‘You need to do that, Meg. You don’t know what she might do and it will only make things worse in the long run.’ She knew he was right. ‘I have to go, Meg. Call me whenever you want, day or night. I mean it.’
Standing, Meg ran her palm over the backs of her thighs and sniffed as she wiped away her tears. As she walked towards the staircase, she held the mouthpiece close to her lips, trying to get closer to her friend. ‘Guy?’
‘Oui?’
‘She took the silver-framed photo of Lucas from the hallway. I keep hoping that it’s because she wanted a photo of him to keep. Do you think that might be why she took it, so she can look at him, remember him?’
She heard his sigh.
‘I think so, yes,’ he lied.
It was Christmas Day. Meg was woken from a dream about Edd by the buzzing of her phone, heralding the arrival of a text message. With bleary eyes and the creases of the pillow still visible on her cheek, she lifted her head, raised one arm from the duvet and scrolled through the screen until the message opened. The breath caught in her throat as she read the lines:
I can’t stop thinking about you. Miss you beyond words. Happy Christmas
.
Her heart leapt at the words she had wanted to read more than anything. Edd’s texts and attempted calls had stopped after a couple of days of her not replying. It saddened her how easily and quickly he had given up. More proof of the insincerity of his words and actions, if any were needed. This single text, however, made her heart sing. It was Christmas and he was thinking of her! It wouldn’t make a difference in the long run – a liar was a liar – but his words were a salve to her broken heart on this special day.
Sitting up, she rubbed her temples and pushed her hair behind her ears. As her eyes focused, her heart sank. The words were exactly as she had read them, but the text wasn’t from Edd; it had been sent by Piers. Meg sank back into the pillows and fought the wave of melancholy that washed over her. It couldn’t have been further from the Christmas morning she had envisaged.