The House We Called Home: The magical, laugh out loud summer holiday read from the bestselling Jenny Oliver
The House We Called Home: The magical, laugh out loud summer holiday read from the bestselling Jenny Oliver
Jenny Oliver
'Love, humour, family and hope – the perfect ingredients for a summer read' Debbie Johnson‘Dramatic and fun!’ My WeeklyIrresistible, feel-good summer fiction, from Top 10 bestseller Jenny OliverThe house where Stella and her sister Amy grew up never changes – the red front door, the breath-taking view over the Cornish coast, her parents in their usual spots on the sofa. Except this summer, things feel a little different…Stella’s father is nowhere to be seen, yet her mother – in suspiciously new Per Una jeans – seems curiously unfazed by his absence, and more eager to talk about her mysterious dog-walking buddy Mitch.Stella’s sister Amy has returned home with a new boyfriend she can barely stand and a secret to hide, and Stella’s husband Jack has something he wants to get off his chest too. Even Frank Sinatra, the dog, has a guilty air about him.This summer, change is in the air for the Whitethorns…Warm, funny and gloriously feel-good, this is the perfect summer read for fans of Veronica Henry and Milly Johnson.What readers are saying about Jenny Oliver:'Summer holidays wouldn't be the same without one of Jenny Oliver's lovely books to read.''This was brilliant. I was really sad when it came to an end.''Another great read from Jenny Oliver…Looking forward to reading her next one''well written and hilarious family situations which we can all relate to.''Feel good factor in this book. Will be reading more of this author.'
JENNY OLIVER wrote her first book on holiday when she was ten years old. Illustrated with cut-out supermodels from her sister’s Vogue, it was an epic, sweeping love story not so loosely based on Dynasty. Since then Jenny has gone on to get an English degree and a job in publishing that’s taught her what it takes to write a novel (without the help of the supermodels).
Also by Jenny Oliver (#ulink_7057d43f-0d0d-563b-884b-4f72c5b6b5f5)
The Parisian Christmas Bake Off
The Vintage Summer Wedding
The Little Christmas Kitchen
The Sunshine and Biscotti Club
The Summerhouse by the Sea
Copyright (#ulink_742e0c70-f5e8-522c-b34c-4773f82fb068)
An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2018
Copyright © Jenny Oliver 2018
Jenny Oliver asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © June 2018 ISBN: 9780008217990
Version: 2018-06-14
Praise for Jenny Oliver (#ulink_12f7c635-21cd-5d46-8847-bcbe0f0ef0ba)
‘Brilliantly written, this is packed full of humour… A perfect holiday read.’
The Sun
‘This book made me want to dance on the beach with a glass of sangria in my hand. The perfect summer read.’
Sarah Morgan
‘This is a real treat. A touching story of love, loss and finding out what really matters in life. I love it!’
Julia Williams
‘Jenny Oliver writes contemporary women’s fiction which leaves you with a warm, fuzzy feeling inside.’
Books with Bunny
‘Intelligent, delightful and charming! The writing is exquisite.’
What’s Better Than Books
‘A perfect summer read.’
This Price Is Usually Right
‘A sprinkling of festivity, a touch of romance and a glorious amount of mouth-watering baking!’
Rea Book Review
‘…it was everything I enjoy…I couldn’t find a single flaw.’
Afternoon Bookery
‘I didn’t want to put the book down until I had reached the very last word on the last page.’
A Spoonful of Happy Endings
To Emily
Contents
Cover (#ua2750280-5f8d-52ae-866f-4705ef72d526)
About the Author (#u9645f8c6-f12a-54f3-ad20-427d4bf9c8d7)
Also by Jenny Oliver (#ulink_e3a1ac2e-b4f5-56ed-8579-ec5282008b20)
Title Page (#u09620bca-c5e8-5507-ba74-16ce3fd6458c)
Copyright (#ulink_234ff2f2-90c1-5972-86e8-dd74ddec60c1)
Praise (#ulink_2326e048-6223-5ee8-8fa6-de3b71a3e25c)
Dedication (#u8690cb22-735a-5377-86d3-3f6c132ce66b)
CHAPTER 1 (#ulink_65d37617-60fb-57ca-aa39-b54da8635e12)
CHAPTER 2 (#ulink_ae0993aa-9cde-52f6-af47-5735d5421cbc)
CHAPTER 3 (#ulink_ceb73cee-fbc4-5449-965b-3009768fd196)
CHAPTER 4 (#ulink_2089ae74-d39b-5931-ade9-3837d84cf3e6)
CHAPTER 5 (#ulink_72ea7e6c-2654-5c73-8f45-aaecc59f18d2)
CHAPTER 6 (#ulink_9f40ee99-8e50-5965-98c2-0808539535e2)
CHAPTER 7 (#ulink_07eae367-8579-5054-bf1e-80d0a50cd78d)
CHAPTER 8 (#ulink_c68fa28f-ebb5-5175-81be-9312fce26d97)
CHAPTER 9 (#ulink_fb0955d7-e160-5745-b663-ad014b72c5df)
CHAPTER 10 (#ulink_8f921bf2-a563-5b24-a0f1-6708f1b7fd22)
CHAPTER 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 26 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 27 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 28 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 29 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 30 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 31 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 32 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 33 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 34 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 35 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 36 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 37 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 38 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 39 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 40 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 41 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 42 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 43 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 44 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 45 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 46 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 47 (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 1 (#ulink_bc4b147a-54ec-5f6a-9240-a9eb94faa149)
She stood at the cliff edge looking out at the rolling summer surf. The house towering behind her, solid grey stone and slate, bursting pink rhododendrons, white garden furniture that needed a paint. The image, like closing your eyes after glancing at the sun, almost indelible on her retina, beams of light dancing in the dark.
Out ahead, mountains of cloud hovered on the horizon, a windsurfer made painful progress in the non-existent breeze while paddleboarders cruised on water that glistened like a million jumping fish.
Moira balled up her fists. Tight so she could feel her nails in her palms. If she could she would have rattled them like a child throwing a tantrum. If she could she would have screwed her eyes shut and stamped her foot and shouted down at the bloody picture-perfect view, ‘Graham Whitethorn, you goddamn pain in the arse.’
But she couldn’t. Because from inside the hoody of the teenage boy standing beside her she could just glimpse big worried eyes, and see the wipe of snot on his frayed baggy cuffs.
So, instead she took a deep invigorating breath of salty sea air, pushed her hair from her face, and said, ‘Come on then, Sonny. Let’s make some breakfast and call your mother. Tell her what silly old Grandpa’s done.’
They turned back towards the house. The beautiful house. The image on her retina fitting the outline exactly.
CHAPTER 2 (#ulink_c12f6485-c50c-513a-99e6-5e3f91057d36)
‘What do you mean he’s gone missing?’ Stella frowned into her phone, then almost without thinking pointed out of the car window and said to her seven-year-old, ‘Look, Rosie – Stonehenge.’
‘Missing…?’ Jack, her husband, mouthed from the driver’s seat.
Stella made a face, unsure.
Behind her, little Rosie had no interest in Stonehenge, deeply imbedded in YouTube on the iPad, happily powering through their 4G data with her gem-studded headphones on. Usually Stella would have clicked her fingers to get Rosie’s attention and pointed out of the window again to make sure she didn’t miss the view, but the phone call from her mother trumped any tourist attraction. ‘I don’t understand, Mum,’ Stella said. ‘How can Dad be missing? Where is he?’
Jack was frowning. Traffic was backing up from the roundabout up ahead.
‘Well darling, that’s what we don’t know,’ said her mother, her voice tinny over the phone.
Stella felt strangely out of control. Thoughts popped into her head that she wouldn’t have expected.
She and her father did not get along well. They barely talked. Hadn’t for years. Past anger had morphed into silence, and silence into habit – the threads tethered firmly in place, calcifying solid with stubbornness and age. Yet as her mother spoke, Stella found herself overcome by unfamiliar emotion. She worried suddenly that she might start to cry. God that would be embarrassing. Jack would probably crash the car in shock.
‘How long has he been missing?’ Stella asked, turning towards the window, eyes wide to dry the possible threat of tears.
‘Since yesterday,’ said her mother. ‘Although I’m not altogether sure what time he left because we were at Sainsbury’s.’
‘Since yesterday?’ Stella said, shocked. ‘Why didn’t you call before?’
‘Well, I knew you had a long drive today and I wanted you to get a good night’s sleep. And I thought it might be a good idea to give him a chance to come back without worrying everyone.’
This seemed very odd behaviour from her mother, who had never been the kind of person to suffer in silence.
‘So you’ve been worrying on your own?’
There was a brief silence at the other end of the phone.
‘Mum, are you OK?’
‘Yes darling, I’m fine,’ her mother said. And she sounded fine. Too fine. Almost drunk. Stella would have anticipated much more drama. A little more sobbing and neediness when actually she wondered if that was the kettle she could hear being flicked on in the background.
Stella frowned. ‘Is it something to do with Sonny? Is that why he’s left? Has Sonny been a pain?’
‘Not at all. Your father and Sonny have got on very well actually. I only told Sonny he’d gone this morning too – teenagers need their sleep, don’t they?’
Stella scrunched her eyes tight. The idea of her son and her father getting on well was too much at this point.
‘And have you rung Dad?’ Stella asked.
‘Yes. Straight to answerphone. He’s left a little note telling us not to worry.’
Stella pressed her hand to her forehead. She was really tired. They had left at five to avoid the weekend holiday traffic down to the Cornish coast but had stopped once already for Rosie to be sick in a Starbucks cup after secretly shovelling all the sweets meant for the five-hour journey into her mouth in the first twenty minutes. ‘Look, Daddy – a whole Haribo bear,’ she’d said, quite gleeful. The traffic report on the radio suggested that this current tailback was because a caravan had jack-knifed further up the A303. ‘What does the note say?’
‘Just that he’s gone away for a bit.’
‘But where?’
‘To be honest darling, I haven’t the foggiest.’
Something really wasn’t right in her mother’s reaction.
‘Mum, is there something you’re not telling me?’ Stella said, glancing across at Jack who was doing all sorts of faces back at her trying to get the gist of what was going on.
‘No darling, nothing.’
Stella nodded, wary. Disliking the feeling of uncertainty that had settled over her. ‘OK, well we’ll be at yours in about three hours I reckon.’
‘Don’t drive too fast,’ said her mother.
‘Unlikely with this traffic,’ Stella said, then added a goodbye.
When she hung up the phone Jack said, ‘Where’s your dad gone?’
Stella shook her head, chucking her phone into her bag. ‘She doesn’t know.’
Jack half-laughed. ‘That’s absurd. He doesn’t go anywhere.’
Stella held her hands wide. ‘Apparently he does.’
Jack looked like he was about to say something else but was cut off by the car behind beeping when Jack didn’t immediately move forward to fill the gap as the traffic rolled forward a car’s length.
‘I knew we should have taken the M4 route,’ he muttered.
Stella shook her head, incredulous. It had been her suggestion that they take the A303 and she couldn’t believe he hadn’t held in that comment in light of the whole missing-dad fiasco.
They drove on in silence for a while, the car warming up as their dodgy air conditioning failed to compete with the rising sun.
She and Jack had already had a row after she’d admitted being a bit nervous about seeing Sonny.
The reason they were currently driving down to Cornwall was to pick up their thirteen-year-old son, who, at the end of her tether, Stella had sent to stay with her parents for a fortnight.
Jack had sighed and replied, quite haughtily in Stella’s opinion, ‘Well, it should never have got this far in the first place! We should have dealt with it at home.’
‘You can keep saying that, Jack, but you weren’t there. You’re never there to see what a pain he is. You waltz in the door at seven thirty when it’s practically bedtime anyway.’
‘I do not waltz in the door.’
Stella had wanted to say that he very much did waltz in the door, but they’d been over this a thousand times already. That was how her and Jack’s relationship had been for the last few weeks. She’d tried countless times to explain to him the unrelenting frustration of every night trying to force their thirteen-year-old to get off his phone and do his homework, Stella’s own deadlines pressing down on her, stress mounting. Until the evening that Sonny had sworn he was doing his physics project but was just hiding his phone behind half a papier-mâché Vesuvius. Furious, Stella had whipped the phone off him, deleted the game he was playing and every other one and changed the password to her iTunes account so he couldn’t download anything else.
‘You stupid bitch!’ Sonny had shouted at her and then he’d looked immediately at the floor, his face rigid.
‘I beg your pardon?’
Silence.
‘Apologise. Now!’ Stella said, hands on her hips, eyes wide.
Still silence.
Time hung paused in the air.
‘Apologise.’ Nothing.
She could feel her heart rate rising. ‘If you don’t apologise, Sonny, by the time I count to three—’ The words came out of her mouth almost on instinct. As if she was so tired and stressed her brain had resorted to a time when she was guaranteed control. To when Sonny was a little kid and more than happy to apologise if it meant he’d get to keep his chocolate buttons.
Right now, Stella had no idea what she would do when she got to three. She should have used the deleting of the apps as bait but such strategy was easy in hindsight, all she could do now was start counting. ‘One.’
Sonny’s eyes stayed fixed on the ground.
Please just say sorry.
‘Two.’
His jaw clenched.
Stella took a breath in through her nose. She contemplated ‘two and a half’ but knew she was putting it off for her own benefit.
‘Three,’ she said.
Sonny looked up, stared her straight in the eye. Then the corner of his lip turned up in the smallest hint of a smirk, his expression saying, ‘What you gonna do now, Mum?’
For the first time ever, Stella had felt the urge to slap him round the face. She hadn’t. But it had crossed her mind that in that moment she didn’t like her son one bit. Nor did she know what to do with him. So she had walked away, hands raised in the air, and said, ‘Do you know what, I don’t need this.’ A flash of her own childhood had popped into her head. She imagined what would have happened if she’d looked at her father the way Sonny had just looked at her. It was unthinkable. The thought made her pause and turn, look at Sonny still grinning smugly down at the carpet, and say, ‘You can go to Cornwall. See what a few weeks with Granny and Grandpa does.’ Her father had certainly never taken any crap from her growing up.
So here they were, driving down to Cornwall a fortnight later to pick up Sonny. The morning sun was shimmering like dust in the air, tension thrumming through the car.
Stella glanced across at Jack’s profile. His eyes were fixed on the crawling traffic ahead. She hated that he’d cut her down when she’d mentioned feeling nervous about seeing their son because Jack was who she talked to. He was the person who made her feel better, who helped her think straight. Her wingman.
They didn’t usually fight over things like this, Jack usually took her lead on parenting. But they seemed so busy at the moment, both of them distracted with work, the kids being particularly kid-like, and with the start of the summer holidays they hadn’t had a proper chance to talk it all through. She had thought maybe they might on this five-hour journey, but now it all seemed rather overshadowed by the sudden and strange disappearance of her father.
Stella stared out of the window, repeating the fact over in her head, ‘Dad’s missing.’ But it wouldn’t really lodge properly in her brain, like a moth on a light bulb fruitlessly knock, knock, knocking to get inside. She didn’t want to acknowledge it – there were too many questions to know where to begin.
The traffic started moving again.
Stella felt completely off-kilter. She got her phone out to try and distract herself but immediately remembered the emails on there about a looming work deadline that she couldn’t bring herself to open. Work felt like another life. If she thought too much about it she could sense her normal balance of organised chaos teetering precariously into overwhelming. She stared at her phone. The screensaver was a picture of Rosie and Sonny posing over giant milkshakes piled high with whipped cream and a load of Cadbury’s flakes and Oreos shoved in the top – an after-school treat on Rosie’s birthday. It had all gone a bit pear-shaped after the photo was snapped because Sonny had accidentally on purpose nudged Rosie’s face into the cream, but it was rare to get a picture of the two of them smiling for the camera. Stella clicked the phone off and put it back in her bag. It scared her that she didn’t know if she wanted to see her own son. She had a vision of him at her parents’ house, would he even come down to greet them? Then she thought of the empty sofa cushion where her dad always sat and felt herself go a bit dizzy. Like her brain couldn’t hold all this stress. She pressed her palms to her temples.
‘You OK?’ Jack asked, glancing Stella’s way.
‘I’m not sure.’ Stella took some deep, calming breaths.
Jack frowned. Stella was always sure.
‘Are you going to be sick?’ he asked, panic in his voice. ‘Do you need a cup?’
She had to laugh. ‘No, I don’t need a cup.’
Then from the back seat Rosie shouted, ‘I need to go to the toilet.’
And Stella was back in the moment. Her momentary lapse shaken off by the sharp immediacy of parenting. ‘OK there’s a service station just up here,’ she said, glancing round to reassure Rosie and then back to Jack. ‘I’m fine,’ she added, to dispel his look of nervous concern. ‘Absolutely fine. Dad can’t have gone far. As you say, he doesn’t go anywhere so it won’t be that hard to find him.’ She got ready to undo her seat belt as Jack pulled into the Little Chef.
‘We find him. We get Sonny. We go. It’ll be fine.’
CHAPTER 3 (#ulink_0616a8f5-9474-5d9e-8cd4-9976b1d1e0ad)
Moira was nervous about her daughter arriving. She always got a little nervous around Stella, wrong-footed, feeling ever more the neurotic mother as she tried to make too many plans for their stay. Did the kids want to go to the new model railway, for example, because tickets were hard to get hold of and the queue without them snaked round the block. Stella’s replies of, ‘Don’t worry, it’ll be fine. We’ll decide when we get there,’ would leave Moira wound up like a spring – should she get tickets or not? When they arrived, Stella’s family would breeze into the house in a cloud of barely controlled pandemonium, eat everything in the fridge, traipse sand on the carpet, and uncork more wine than Moira and Graham drank in a month. Quite often Moira would escape to the kitchen to tidy up because the energy of them all was just too much. How many times she’d cleared up the plates at Christmas to the sound of one of Stella’s stories, loud and confident, secretly wishing she had a fraction of her daughter’s strength.
Now, as Moira stood in the kitchen making herself a cup of tea and glancing up at the driveway every time she heard a noise, convinced it was them, she thought how the memory of the few holidays Stella had with them existed in a short, loud blur. Like a rollercoaster – pause for too long and it would all fall from the sky.
She unhooked one of her Emma Bridgewater mugs from the Welsh dresser. It was a collection she’d amassed over the years – everyone buying her one of the decorative pieces for birthdays and Christmas after she’d once expressed a passing interest while flicking through a Country Living. Now she was almost overrun with the stuff, it was hard to know how to tell them to stop. When she’d had the kitchen done, Moira had considered packing it all away but couldn’t face the questions, imagining their faces, almost accusing about why she didn’t like it any more – if indeed she ever had. She wasn’t sure, it had just become who she was to them: ‘Mum, that’s the china you like.’ There would be too much hurt confusion to deal with if she changed.
The kettle clicked off. She poured the water three-quarters full, squished the teabag just so and added a long splosh of milk – far too much for Stella’s taste, which Moira would have to remember.
The day was warming up. She leant over and opened the kitchen window, filling the room with the heady, teasing scent of the jasmine that climbed up a trellis from a big pot by the front door. She stood, inhaling the perfume, her hip resting against her beautiful new rose marble kitchen worksurface – a recent, very expensive addition that Graham had huffed was change for change’s sake, but Moira adored. The smell of the jasmine was intoxicating. It made her want to pack up all that china immediately and go and buy the snazzy hand-thrown cups she’d seen in the local gallery with gold handles and bright turquoise stripes.
Graham would hate them.
Stella would mock them.
Or maybe she wouldn’t. Moira paused. Maybe Stella would like a gold-handled mug. Moira sipped her tea and thought briefly about whether she actually knew Stella at all nowadays. The telephone conversation asking them to have Sonny to stay for a fortnight had been the first time Stella had asked for anything in years. Moira had felt a momentary flutter of flattery but knew better than to ask Stella what had happened. ‘Of course, darling. I can meet you in Exeter if you like, save you the full trip. I’ve just repapered the spare bedroom – a lovely Zoffany gold, did you know they did wallpaper in TK Maxx now? – so he can sleep up there. Have his own little space.’ Waffling on in a nervous attempt not to pry.
But my God, she had wanted to know what was going on. The desire had tickled her insides like beetles. This type of thing didn’t happen to cool, confident Stella. Or ‘Potty-Mouth’ as anyone who read the Sunday News knew her as, one of the genre originators of the slummy-mummy brigade. The worst example, according to the Daily Mail, of resentful, neglectful motherhood with her gin-soaked, laissez-faire attitude to childrearing.
While Moira had tutted over a few of the expletives in Stella’s columns she’d always been quietly proud of her daughter’s success. Stella had worked her way up with no help from anyone. It had been an old friend of Moira’s who’d posted the copy of the local magazine where Stella’s first ever article had appeared along with a tiny headshot, ‘Is this your Stella?’ she’d scrawled on a Post-It, and Moira had had to lie when she’d telephoned her friend back, saying she knew all about it. Then soon followed by-lines in the national papers – Stella texting to say when and where at the request of her mother – and then full-page editorials in the colour supplements. Then came ‘Potty-Mouth’, as divisive as it was loved. But however controversial some elements, Moira would often allow herself the odd snigger when a straight-talking anecdote about the frustrations of motherhood touched a nerve.
But right now she couldn’t help wondering if all was quite as it once was. She’d noticed a slightly more acerbic tone to a few of the columns recently. Nothing too bad, just a touch less light-hearted. Poor little moody Sonny, who was currently upstairs locked in some battle on his laptop computer, hadn’t fared so well in a couple of them. She’d almost rung Stella to say something but hadn’t quite had the nerve.
She thought again of monosyllabic Sonny, sulkily slamming the door of Stella’s car at Exeter Services, trudging over in the torrential rain, hood down so his hair got soaked in a seeming deliberate defiance of his mother, and barely scowling a goodbye.
Moira went over to the bottom of the stairs and called, ‘Do you want a cup of tea, Sonny?’
‘No,’ he shouted back. Then a second later, ‘Thanks.’ As if remembering that he wasn’t in his own home and couldn’t quite get away with his desired level of moodiness.
Moira was still getting used to the open-plan nature of the entire bottom floor of the house. When she and Graham had first bought the place, full of youthful exuberance, it had been part of their grand renovation plans but they’d never got round to it. Then after Christmas Moira had insisted. Determined to get Graham up and doing something, she’d thought it was the perfect project. But never had she heard someone grumble and gripe quite so much and, in the end, she’d put Graham out of his misery and taken over the project herself mid-way. After it was done Graham had complained of a draught from the front door. At the time Moira couldn’t have given two hoots about a draught, high on the fact she’d overseen the renovation almost single-handed – with a lot of help from Dave the builder. But nowadays, while she still adored the light and space, she missed the fact she could no longer shut herself away in the kitchen, imagining herself alone. And, if pushed, she might concede to a slight draught, on a chilly day.
Walking back across the beautifully sanded wooden floorboards, she remembered the look of terror on Sonny’s face when on Day One of his Cornish banishment Graham had stood in the centre of the living room and barked, ‘No hoods up indoors, no stomping on the stairs, and we say “please” and “thank you” in this house.’ Graham had marched over to the bottom of the stairs, glowering across at Sonny who had, a second before, been head down, hood up, stomping up the stairs ignoring an offer from Moira of a toasted teacake, and said, ‘Got that, young man?’
Moira had been standing in the exact same place she was now and had been as shocked as Sonny to see Graham unfurl himself from the sofa and stride across to the hallway to issue his orders.
The new layout had proved an unexpected bonus from that moment. It gave Moira the perfect vantage point to view the gradual development of the Sonny and Graham show, something she would have missed had the great big wall still been in place separating the kitchen and the lounge. She would stand, chopping, mixing, sometimes just pretending to do either, and watch the pair of them in bemused fascination.
It had started after an almost silent evening meal – not uncommon in their household lately – when Graham was back firmly in front of the TV and Sonny slumped in the armchair opposite. Graham had muttered, ‘Bloody phones. Do you ever look up from that thing?’
Sonny had glanced up, eyes narrowed, looking the spitting image of Stella and said, ‘Do you ever look up from that?’ gesturing towards the TV.
Moira, who was drying up her Limited Edition Emma Bridgewater mugs to commemorate the birth of each of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s children, had held her breath, waiting to see what might happen. Whether Graham still had it in him to rage at insolence. She’d seen it flit across his face, but Sonny didn’t flinch, just sat, eyes locked with his. The stance intentionally designed to provoke, as if Sonny had gone upstairs after that first telling off from Graham and drawn out his battle plans.
To Moira’s surprise, Graham had reached forward for the remote, turned the TV off and said, ‘Come on then, show me.’
And they sat for hours, Graham having gone to get his glasses then watching as Sonny scrolled through miles on his phone. Moira couldn’t believe there was enough in there to look at. At one point they’d watched something that had them both in stitches. Moira had squashed an urge to go and look at what it was that could make Graham laugh like that nowadays. But just as much she didn’t want to know, she’d wasted enough of her time trying to fathom his moods. Instead she had made herself a peppermint tea in her newly washed-up Prince George mug and considered how much cheaper it was getting Sonny to stay as a way of piquing Graham’s interest than knocking down the entire ground floor.
Now, just the thought of Graham made her furious. Made her wipe down the rose marble with frustrated vigour. Made her slam the window shut, annoyed with the bloody jasmine and its sickly overpowering smell. She thought of him sitting on that sofa barely moving except to come and sit silent and grumpy at the dinner table and chew infuriatingly loudly, scoff at the newspaper, or sigh at building costs and plumbers’ estimates. For the last two years they’d lived under a grey cloud – longer than that if she was honest – and then suddenly he ups sticks and disappears.
Furious was an understatement. In Moira’s opinion he’d gone missing in order to be missed. She paused in her wiping and stared out at the giant hydrangea that lined the gravel drive – pink when she’d have preferred blue, someone once advised she plant a rusty nail in the soil to make it change colour, fat lot of good that had done – and wondered if they could just not find him. If he was old enough to leave, he was old enough to find his way home.
Wouldn’t that teach him a lesson, she thought as she went over and started cleaning the hob, for taking something that for the first time in her life was hers, taking it and stealing it for himself.
It was too hot. Moira walked over to the dining room area and threw open the big French windows, welcoming the deafening sounds of the sea and the unfailingly calming view out over the cliff to the beach.
There was a glimmer of a breeze. Moira fanned herself with her hand considering how, before she had discovered Graham’s note the previous afternoon, she had spent most of the week – rehearsing as she lay in Stella’s old bedroom where she now slept – plucking up the courage to tell Stella when she arrived, ‘I’m leaving your father. I’m starting a new life.’
But Graham had beaten her to it. Stolen her thunder. Kept her firmly where she was, unable to leave while he was missing. Hence why the thought of ignoring his little sojourn teased her so, danced around in her head like an excited imp too wily to catch.
As she stood there smiling, behind her came a great yawn from the sofa. She turned to see Frank Sinatra – the dog – stretch and look up, eyes knowingly guilty as he nestled comfortably in Graham’s usually off-limits seat. Moira watched with no intention of turfing him off. Instead she went over and gave him a little scratch behind the ears.
Frank Sinatra was hers. He had absolutely no interest in Graham. Christened by its previous owner, it was a ridiculous name for a dog. In the past she would never have had a dog, let alone one that made her feel like a fool calling him on the beach. But in retrospect it felt like a symbol. As her friend Mitch said, if she could hold her head up high and shout, ‘Frank Sinatra, come here boy, here!’ she could do anything.
She wondered what Mitch would make of all this. Then she shuddered at the idea of Stella meeting Mitch. She would think him a cliché.
But Moira didn’t have time to dwell on the thought because the sound of gravel crunched outside and there they were, a big black Nissan Qashqai cruising in like a stag beetle.
Moira took a deep breath in through her nose and out through her mouth.
She’d started doing a yoga class at the church hall. Her breath was meant to ground her.
She went over to the window and watched Stella get out of the car, lift her sunglasses up a fraction, narrow her eyes out towards the sea, then put the sunglasses back on again.
Moira felt a shiver of nerves coupled with the gentle fizz of adrenaline. She itched to present her new more confident self but was all too aware of how easily one simple glance from Stella could shatter it to the ground.
What would Mitch say, she wondered. Probably something about taking strength from the grounding force of Mother Nature. Moira looked dubiously down at the Ronseal varnished floorboards.
Sonny appeared beside her at the window, his hair swept heavy across his forehead, his eyes narrowed to the same slits as Stella’s.
‘All right?’ Moira asked him, placing her hand on his shoulder, wondering perhaps if she could take strength from him.
But Sonny just shrugged in a gesture as much to get rid of her hand as an answer.
Moira straightened up, smoothing down her new skinny jeans she wished suddenly that she’d stuck to her old slacks then berated herself for such immediate loss of courage. Doing one more yoga breath, she walked solidly round to the front door, clicked the old metal latch and the wood creaked open.
CHAPTER 4 (#ulink_4d193d1a-199b-5b54-90e4-57db211ccc26)
Stella stood in the driveway, tired and hot. The house towered above her, grey and imperious, like an old teacher from school unexpectedly soothing in their authority. Usually she barely gave it a passing glance, distracted by the dread of the stay, too busy unloading the car, chivvying in the kids, listening to her mother wittering on about such and such’s nephew’s horrendous journey down from London the previous day that had taken a million and one hours and weren’t they lucky that wasn’t them. Today, however, she almost drank in the view: the great solid stone slabs, the white jasmine dancing over the windows, the bright red door cheery as a smile, the seagull squawking on the chimney, its mate squawking back from the wide green lawn. The Little Shop of Horrors giant gunnera was just visible between the house and the old garage that looked more dilapidated than ever but was still standing, the black weather vane stuck permanently on south. The neat little almond tree next to the cherry, the two wind-ravaged palms, and the rusty bench a few metres back from the cliff edge with an uninterrupted view out across the blanket of sea.
Somehow the sight made her father going seem less free-floating, tethered the whole debacle to reality, to familiar bricks and mortar. Looking back to the house it was a relief to know that not everything had changed.
But then the front door opened and Stella was momentarily baffled by the sight of her mother standing in the porch. She’d never in her life seen her wear a pair of jeans let alone this skin-tight pair with a trail of embroidered ivy down one leg. She’d had her hair done as well and seemed to have had lessons in exquisitely flawless make-up.
Her mother looked completely different. Why hadn’t Stella noticed a fortnight ago when she’d dropped off Sonny? Because it had been pouring, she realised. Moira had had her cagoule buttoned up tight, and Sonny had refused to go inside for them all to have a coffee, storming away to slump in the passenger seat of her mother’s Volvo.
Looking at Moira now, Stella didn’t quite know what to do, how to greet her. She tried to think about what she usually did but came up short, realising how little notice she usually took of her. How much her mother normally just blended in like the white noise of her chat.
In the end it was Moira who took the lead. Crossing the gravel drive to give Stella a little squeeze on the arm and a kiss on the cheek. She smelt of something expensive and zesty. No more quick spritz of whatever from the Avon catalogue. ‘Hello darling. How was the journey?’
‘OK in the end,’ Stella said. Then, looking her mother up and down, added, ‘You look very well. New jeans?’
Moira’s cheeks flushed pink as she replied. ‘Well, just – you know. They’re a bit of fun.’
‘Any news about Dad?’ Stella asked.
Moira shook her head, flame-red highlights bobbing. ‘Nothing more than I said on the phone.’
Stella was on the verge of asking why her mother didn’t seem more worried when she caught sight of Sonny hovering in the shadow of the doorway, head down. She swallowed. He looked up, pushing his overly long fringe out of the way. Stella took a couple of steps forward and pulled off her sunglasses to get a better look. Sonny’s eyes were all pinched and worried-looking, his skin ashen.
She got up level with him, ‘Are you all right?’
He nodded.
‘Are you sure?’
He nodded again.
She had missed him over the last fortnight but now as they stood in front of one another she wasn’t sure what to do. Whether to apologise for sending him away, whether to demand an apology from him, whether to hug him or to stand as she was, fearing rejection. She knew after all these years that that was the bit a parent was meant to rise above. There could be no external show of fear regarding a shrugging-off from one’s child – they could sense it, like horses. So she forced herself to wade through it, to not care, and putting her arm round his shoulders she pulled his cardboard-rigid frame into her side and kissed his greasy-haired head. ‘Hello, you idiot.’
He grunted.
He didn’t pull away.
He reached his hand up and touched her arm. Gave it a quick pat.
Then he pulled away.
It was enough for Stella, for the moment. ‘Why do you look so pale?’ she asked.
‘I’m worried. About Grandpa,’ he said, like she was a fool not to realise.
‘Oh.’ She was taken aback that he would have such a reaction. Stella was pretty certain the only thing Sonny had been emotionally wrought about in the last year or so was when Rosie trod on his iPhone and the screen cracked.
She looked up to see Jack watching, all the bags he could possibly carry weighing him down like a packhorse. He kept moving as soon as he saw her see him, and said, ‘Give us a hand with these, Sonny.’
Sonny took the biggest bag, then could barely lift it.
Jack and Stella shared a look, as if asking how they had managed to raise such a nincompoop, then kissing Moira on the cheek as he went past, Jack said, ‘You look well, Moira. Sorry to hear about Graham.’
‘Hello, Jack darling. Yes, it is a nuisance. How are you? Work going well?’
‘Same as always. Can’t complain,’ Jack said, straining under the weight of luggage.
‘Let me help you with some of these bags.’
‘No, no.’ Jack waved the fingers of his hand holding the suitcase handle, refusing to let her take one. ‘I can manage.’
‘He likes to feel the weight of burden,’ Stella joked.
Jack didn’t find it as funny as she thought he would and walked away with a simple raise of his brow.
‘I was only joking,’ Stella muttered, and went back to the car with her mum to get Rosie who was still sitting strapped in, glued to the iPad, oblivious to their arrival.
‘They must be a godsend for a long journey,’ her mother said, gesturing towards the iPad.
Stella nodded, thinking how she would have killed for a similar distraction in the car growing up. Stuck in the back of their maroon Vauxhall Cavalier trundling all over Europe, banned from asking, ‘Are we nearly there yet?’
The engine overheated one time just outside Madrid, the bonnet getting stuck, her dad ranting, and Stella unpeeling her skin from the hot plastic seat and going to sit on the grassy verge with the midday heat beating down in an attempt to escape his furious tirade. She’d ended up with sunstroke, making him even madder and them even later for a race he was determined not to miss. Growing up, their holidays always coincided with wherever the World or European Swimming Championships were, depending on which athletes her dad, ex-Olympic swimmer and GB Team coach, was training. Not a weekend or a holiday went by without it having something to do with swimming. ‘If there’s 365 days in the year, that’s 365 training days.’ And so to spend any time with him, they would go with him, even though he was always busy and in a bad mood for most of it. When his athletes would moan about being over-trained and tired he’d glance up with his infamous mocking, hooded gaze and say, ‘Sleeping is cheating.’ Which, as a kid, Stella always secretly wanted to say back to him when he packed her off to bed of an evening. She could still feel the childish rush of adrenaline at the idea of ever saying it, the punishment never worth the risk of such liberating impertinence.
Above them now the afternoon sun disappeared behind a stripe of cloud in the otherwise blue sky. Stella could hear the drone of bees in the lavender and a tractor thundering down the lane as she wondered what it was that had kicked off such reminiscence of her childhood. A time she tried to give very little thought. She could blame it on the heat of the car combined with the scent of sweets for the journey and the faint whiff of stale sick, but she knew it was simply the strangeness that her dad wasn’t there. His absence, the element of wrongness, forcing Stella to pause.
It made her uncomfortable. The last thing she needed was the distraction of unwanted memories. ‘Rosie!’ she said, a little too snappily.
Rosie looked up from the iPad screen, almost surprised to see that they had arrived. ‘Granny!’ she yelped, unclicking her belt and launching herself across the seat into a giant hug with Moira. For a second, Stella envied Rosie’s ability to take everything at face value, to throw herself carefree into people’s arms and assume they would hug her back. She watched them trot together towards the house, Rosie’s hand in Moira’s as she said, ‘My Barbie has jeans like those, Granny.’
Stella stifled a laugh as she watched Moira blush again. The outfit fascinated her. Her mother’s black and white striped blouse was definitely still Marks & Spencer but it looked like she might have ventured out of Per Una and into the Autograph section. There was a ruffle around the collar and the silk hung heavy and expensive. This was no sale-rail purchase. And her hair, still red but now somehow even redder. Sparkling. Stella tried to inspect it as she followed her back into the house. The sun picked out various shades of copper highlight – it was no Nice’n Easy, head over the bath dye-job. It was hard to imagine her mother handing over what she’d deem ludicrous money for a cut and colour. Yes, Stella had seen her mother be lavish but only at times Moira considered appropriate – a swanky new dress for her annual summer party, a sapphire ring for her big birthday. Things that, if she were ever stopped in the street and questioned about, her mother would feel she could justify. Hair, clothes, and make-up would usually fall into the spendthrift category. The price of a lipstick in a department store elicited a disapproving click of Moira’s tongue.
And it wasn’t because she didn’t have the money. In Stella’s opinion her mother notched up things to disapprove of in order to give herself something to do.
It was only when Stella stepped inside the front door that she realised the makeover extended beyond her mother’s wardrobe. Gazing incredulously at the newly knocked-through ground floor, she began to wonder if it was more a case of what hadn’t changed. ‘Wow!’ she said, taking in all the space from where she stood – the point which had previously been the door of the kitchen. ‘I knew you were having this done, but I don’t think I realised it would be quite like this.’ In front of her was the living room with its wooden ceiling beams now exposed and a flash log burner in place of the open fire. The walls which had once been magenta and Harrods green had been given the Farrow & Ball treatment, licked with Elephant’s Breath. Light flooded in from the wall of windows that lined the old dining room, no longer obscured by heavy velvet drapes but a flutter of white muslin and a wraparound sea view.
Moira frowned. ‘But I sent you pictures?’
Stella nodded. ‘Yeah, I know.’ Had she even looked at them? Messages from her mother were so easy to ignore.
Stella looked down at the floor. The cream ‘no red wine in here, please!’ carpets had gone to reveal beautifully varnished floorboards overlaid with a huge sisal rug. And next to her the old pine kitchen cupboards had been given a Shaker-style makeover alongside some slightly garish marble surfaces. It was all achingly on-Country-Living-trend. Certainly the image of her father sitting silently in his seat staring at the snooker on the muted TV felt a touch outmoded.
‘Sonny!’ Rosie squealed, letting go of Granny’s hand to hurl herself at her brother who was standing in the centre of the living room, head down on his phone, the baggy cuffs of his hoody yanked out of shape. He took the hit like one of those wobbly toys that refuses to keel over. As Rosie wrapped her arms tight around him, Sonny managed to pat her on the head with the one hand that wasn’t on his phone.
Stella paused in the hallway. She blew out a breath, wanting to rip the damn phone out of his hands. Hug your sister, she wanted to shout. Sonny caught her eye and Stella raised a brow at him, he made a face. It was like they lived on repeat. Always the same. He looked away from her, put his phone in his pocket, and made a show of giving Rosie a little, not particularly enthusiastic, hug.
She thought about her last Potty-Mouth column, when she’d written,
The problem is with motherhood that sometimes you don’t want to be selfless. Sometimes you want to tell your son that you actually just don’t like him very much. Then immediately after the thought appears it’s countered by an annoying inner voice that says, this is your fault. It is you that created this behaviour. You who has failedhim by not giving him the right tools, you should have nipped it in the bud. At this point sanity must prevail to remind you that he’s a teenager and that, yes, it really is his fault! Sanity can be found in many forms. And that’s why God invented white wine as well as ovulation.
Stella watched little Rosie, undeterred by Sonny’s unwillingness to show affection, drag him by the floppy cuff as she spotted a black and white Border collie’s head poking up over the side of the great grey sofa. ‘Frank Sinatra!’ she cried.
Stella couldn’t help but smile. She wondered if Rosie even knew there was a namesake. The pictures her mum had sent of this new dog Stella had opened and looked at, more out of disbelief, because Stella couldn’t imagine ever being allowed a pet growing up – she remembered having to watch TV sitting on an old throw as a kid so as not to ruin the sofa, the bare cushions saved for guests only. Everything was always for show, even behind closed doors her mother would never just flop on the couch after dinner, seemingly always on guard in case someone popped by. Never off duty for a second.
It always felt to Stella like her mother had invented this all-consuming lady of the manor persona, spinning off from her dad’s sporting notoriety – nine-time Olympic gold medal winner and nominated for Sports Personality of the Year – to make up for his never being home. As if by raising him up on a plinth it was OK to excuse him anything. Her mother was always on edge waiting for when he eventually did come home, constantly polishing and tidying like a manic bee buzzing about the place, forever straightening corners, always so very uptight. And it was all wasted on him anyway because he only had eyes for the day’s swim times – reams and reams of paper that caused even more mess.
Now Stella watched as the dog licked Sonny’s face and Rosie giggled, feeling a tiny twinge of jealousy at such relaxed freedom existing in this living room.
She went over and sat on the arm of the sofa, giving the dog a little pat on the back, all the time watching Sonny, almost reabsorbing him after their time apart, remembering his stubby little nose and how his eyes could twinkle on the rare occasions that he laughed. She didn’t dislike him. She loved him. She would, as one of the annoying NCT dads had once said, ‘take a bullet for him’. She just found herself constantly exhausted by him. Angry when he did something that she knew he knew better than to do. Frustrated by him for wasting his potential on the cliché of his phone and PlayStation. Disappointed when he did exactly the annoying thing she expected him to do. And he always seemed to know how to infuriate her further, like an angry mosquito bite. For half a minute there would be calm and then there it was again: itch, itch, itch.
Like right now. He wasn’t letting the dog lick Rosie’s face – not that Stella could think of anything more disgusting than having a dog lick one’s face – but Rosie was desperate for a share of the licking and Sonny was having it all to himself.
‘Sonny, let Frank Sinatra lick Rosie!’ There it was. One of the first proper sentences she’d said to her son since she’d got there. Not only was it the stupidest sentence she’d ever said, it stuck fast to their usual rules of communication – her having to constantly tell him to do something differently.
Jack came down the stairs, eyebrows raised at Stella as if questioning whether there was seriously going to be conflict already, and took a seat on the other side of the dog. Then he reached forward and squeezing Sonny on the shoulder said softly, ‘All right son?’
Sonny looked up at him and nodded. ‘Yep.’
Jack smiled.
Stella almost rolled her eyes. That was part of the problem; it was so easy for Jack and Sonny because Jack was allowed to take the path of least resistance. He was good cop. He’d effortlessly bagsied that role early on. Which meant Stella was bad cop, and she had been OK with that – when the kids were still young enough to always relent to a hug. But now, with Sonny, it was a whole new role, like graduating from police academy into the real world – the hits were painful and never let up.
Jack joined Sonny and Rosie in the showering of attention on the dog. ‘Aren’t you lovely? Who gives a dog a name like Frank Sinatra?’ he said, giving him a generous rub behind the ears.
‘Mitch’s dad called him it,’ Sonny said, showing them a trick with the dog’s front paws that Rosie thought was hilarious. They looked the picture of a perfect family.
‘Who’s Mitch?’ Jack asked.
‘Granny’s friend,’ said Sonny. ‘He’s a hippy.’
Moira shut the fridge with a clatter.
Jack looked up and caught Stella’s eye. He raised an intrigued brow. Stella made a similar face back.
‘Does everyone want tea?’ Moira called, all matter-of-fact, lining up her dotty mugs as she deflected attention from this Mitch character.
There was a chorus of Yeses punctuated by a breathless request for hot chocolate from Rosie who was squealing delightedly as the dog licked all over her face. ‘Can we have a dog?’ she laughed.
‘Mum won’t let us,’ Sonny said without looking up from where he and Jack were rubbing Frank Sinatra’s tummy.
Stella sighed. Jack stayed silent. He’d always wanted a dog, Stella always said no. She thought they smelt and she couldn’t think of anything worse than picking up its giant poos. The question of why they didn’t have a dog had become, ‘Mum won’t let us.’ As if having the dog was the given and she was the one taking it away. Which she was. But then it had never been a given in the first place. See, bad cop.
Hating herself for feeling like the outsider, Stella pushed herself up to go and help Moira make the tea. ‘So, are you sure you’re OK, Mum?’ she asked.
‘Oh yes, I’m OK,’ Moira said, pressing buttons on the microwave to warm the milk for Rosie’s hot chocolate. Then she paused and sighed. ‘Just pissed off really – what does he think he’s doing, gallivanting off without telling anyone? His note’s on the table,’ she added, nodding towards the dining area as she shovelled some custard creams out on a plate. Stella wondered how great the tragedy would have to be before they could eat them straight from the packet.
Moira led the way to the dining room table carrying a tray of cups and matching milk jug, the plate of biscuits balanced precariously on the top. She gestured for Stella to follow with the teapot, adding, ‘So you like the new layout?’
‘Yeah, it’s very nice, very airy,’ Stella replied, still expecting her mother to be quite a lot more upset about her dad’s disappearance. She hoped she was just putting on a brave face, otherwise it felt too tragic – that he could slip away and the finding of him be secondary to thoughts on the new decor. How the mighty had fallen.
The dining room table was one of the only things that hadn’t changed. But instead the dark varnished wood had been sanded down to give it a scrubbed driftwood look. Stella wondered who’d done it, whether they’d found all the things she’d scrawled when she was meant to be doing her homework. Defiant teenage graffiti where she’d jab at the underside of the table with her biro after a dressing-down from her dad about her split times for her swim that day. Or when he’d wordlessly leave a graph of her heart-rate calculations on the table, dips in effort marked with just a dot from the tip of a sharpened pencil.
Stella put the teapot down and picked up her dad’s note that was pinned to the table by the edge of a tall white jug – unusually not part of her mother’s treasured Emma Bridgewater set – filled with freshly picked cuttings from the garden. Stella wondered if they had been snipped before or after her father had disappeared.
‘Gone away for a while. No cause for alarm. Graham/Dad/Grandpa.’
How odd that he’d signed it all three names. She glanced back at Sonny, remembering his pale look of worry, and wondering at this sudden relationship between the two of them. She felt a touch of suspicion at the thought of it, immediately wanting to protect Sonny from any sights her father might have set on his grandson’s swimming ability, but also a strange niggle of envy at their apparent closeness. She looked away, across at the dog occupying her father’s seat, and tried to remember the last conversation she’d had with her dad. One that wasn’t him nodding his thanks for the jumper she’d bought him for Christmas, the gift receipt in one hand, the plain grey sweatshirt in another. ‘Great, yep, thanks.’ Did that count as conversation?
Her mother started pouring the tea.
Stella walked over to the window to get a bit of space. Out ahead, past the strip of mown lawn and the patio furniture, was a view of the beach, the water as blue as the sky, light flashing like sparklers off waves rolling gently on the sand. She rarely looked out this way when she came to stay. Not for any length of time anyway, maybe a quick glance to check the weather. In the past she had stared at the sea for hours. Especially in winter, mesmerised by the giant breakers, the harsh angry froth of icy white water. As she stared now, the noise of the kids and the yapping dog loud behind her, she could suddenly feel the burning sensation in her lungs of the 6 a.m. swim. It made her put her hand to her chest, the memory was so sharp. She looked down at her fingers almost expecting to see raw pink skin like whipped flesh or the sting of the salt in her eyes. She felt like she was going mad. The sound of her heart in her ears as strong as the beating of the waves. Like the stress was oozing out of her in strange long-forgotten flashbacks.
Jack came and stood next to her, her dad’s note in his hand. ‘So where do you think he’s gone?’ he asked.
Stella swallowed, unable to believe he could saunter over and think her completely normal, that how she was feeling wasn’t radiating from her body like disco lights. She glanced across. He was waiting, casually expectant. She turned her back on the sea view in an attempt to regain her normality. ‘I have no idea,’ she said, ‘but things here are clearly not quite right.’ She nodded towards where her mother was handing hot chocolates to the kids, and added, ‘And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this Mitch character has something to do with it.’
Jack turned as well, taking in the scene. ‘Do you think he might have something to do with those jeans as well?’
Stella laughed. Relieved at the joke.
Jack put his arm around her. ‘We’ll find him,’ he said, all solid and sure.
Stella didn’t reply. She couldn’t. She had the same rising sensation she’d had in the car, that it was all too much, like she might suddenly burst into tears which was not something she could let happen. Especially not in front of her mother. Or Sonny for that matter. And what would she be crying about anyway? Certainly not the disappearance of a man who’d basically cut her out of the family photo album. She was just tired.
A phone beeped in the kitchen. Her mum went over to read the message. ‘Your sister’s train arrives at about six she says.’
‘Oh God,’ Stella looked up, eyes wide, caught completely unawares. ‘I’d forgotten about Amy.’
Jack wrinkled up his brow as if the workings of her mind continually baffled him. ‘How could you forget about Amy?’
CHAPTER 5 (#ulink_1005de77-bd3c-589f-8d38-7b63214118d7)
‘No, I just can’t find it.’ Amy rummaged through her bag for the umpteenth time. ‘It’s not here. I did buy one though. I did, I promise. I just …’ She trailed off, searching through her bag, her hair straighteners, her phone charger, her teddy. She pushed that hastily to the bottom of the bag.
She could feel Gus next to her, watching.
The ticket inspector loomed above her seat. ‘Sorry madam, failure to show a valid ticket for a journey means I’m going to have to charge you a penalty fare.’
‘No, you can’t.’ Amy shook her head. The flicks of blonde catching on her cheeks. She pushed the short hair back behind her ears, she was no closer to getting used to it. Why in films they always showed someone getting a haircut to start a new life was beyond her. It was a bloody pain in the neck – learning how to style it, straighten it, stop it from being a giant fluffball on her head. She hated it.
She leant forward for another rifle. The hair flopped forward. She held it back with one hand. ‘Honestly, you can’t charge me again. My father’s gone missing,’ she said, pushing pairs of pants out of the way.
She thought she heard Gus scoff and looked across to glower at him but his expression was innocently bemused.
‘Are you going to help me?’ she hissed under her breath.
He shook his head. ‘What can I do?’
‘I don’t know? Talk to the man.’
‘You seem to be doing a very good job of talking to the man. He says you have to pay a penalty fare.’
‘But I bought a ticket.’ She sat back in her seat. ‘Seriously, I did. I could get my bank details up on my phone and show you.’
‘Sorry, madam, I’m being generous here. Last month it was zero tolerance – would have had to escort you from the train at the next stop.’
Amy put her hands up to her head.
‘Just pay it,’ said Gus, one hand holding his tiny takeaway espresso cup, the other some obscure-looking comic book.
‘No.’ Amy felt suddenly like she might cry. Gus was looking at her all superior through his big black glasses like he couldn’t understand why anyone wouldn’t just do what the man had said. ‘No.’ She looked up at the ticket inspector. His face possibly kindly. His bald head reflecting the strip lighting. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘Please, I did buy a ticket. This is a nightmare day for me. I’m going home because my dad’s gone missing. I’m not thinking straight. My emotions are all over the place,’ she sighed, pushed her stupid short hair back, ‘because I’m pregnant. And,’ she sighed again, ‘well, you don’t need to know everything about it, but let’s just say it’s not ideal and I did buy a ticket, I promise I did, because the man at the counter I remember thinking looked like Father Christmas and he gave me a toffee.’ She reached into her pocket, eyes welling up. ‘Look, see here,’ she held up the shiny wrapper of the Werther’s Original. ‘See, this is the wrapper.’ She nodded, trying to elicit a response. She could see the people around her shifting in their seats as they uncomfortably tried to listen and not listen at the same time. ‘Do you see?’ she said, brandishing the tiny crinkle of gold. ‘And I nearly threw it away but I didn’t because I liked that he’d given it to me.’ She put her hands up to her eyes to wipe away the first spill of tears. ‘Do you see?’ she said again, voice plaintive, nodding at him and wiping her face while also trying to find a tissue in her jacket pocket.
The ticket man seemed to think for a second, then reaching into his own pocket brought out a brand new Kleenex. ‘That would be Geoff,’ he said. ‘Santa Claus with the toffees.’
Amy blew her nose. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, Geoff.’ She had no idea what his name had been.
‘OK,’ he said, tapping something into the machine that hung round his neck and handing her a replacement ticket. ‘Just this once.’
Amy put her hand on her chest. ‘Oh thank you, thank you so much.’
He nodded. ‘I hope you find your father.’
Amy nodded.
‘And that everything works out with the baby.’
She nodded again, wiping her eyes, clutching the new ticket.
The ticket inspector walked away down the aisle and into the next compartment.
‘Bloody hell,’ said Gus, flopping back in his seat, shaking his head, dumbfounded. ‘That was unbelievable.’
‘What?’ Amy said, blowing her nose.
‘That you just managed to get away with that.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Yes, you do. That— That little-girl-lost routine. That was unbelievable. How old are you?’
Amy looked at him affronted. ‘You don’t ask a woman that question.’
‘But you ask a little girl.’ Gus raised a brow.
‘Why are you so horrible?’
‘Why are you so like that?’ he said, gesturing to the tissue and the ticket and the blotchy face. ‘Normal people just pay the fine when it’s their fault they lost the ticket. Look at what you put that poor guy through.’
‘He was kind to me,’ Amy snapped, feeling like she was under attack.
‘Yeah, and you made him feel really awkward.’
‘I did not.’
‘You think it wasn’t awkward? You crying about your whole life history?’
‘I don’t want to talk about this any more with you.’
‘Oh, that’s right.’ Gus snorted a laugh. ‘That’s your answer. Very mature. I’m delighted that you’re about to be the mother of my child.’
Amy gasped. ‘How dare you?’
Gus blew out a breath. ‘How dare I?’ He shook his head, turning to look out of the window, closing his eyes for a second longer than necessary.
Amy felt a rush of resentment, it made her want to do something to him – flick his coffee over or maybe pinch his arm. But she sat seething instead, trying to get her hair to stay tucked behind her ear. Gus took a slurp of espresso and went back to his book all aloof.
‘Well at least I don’t read picture books,’ Amy sniped, immediately regretting the comment, immediately realising she’d made herself look even more of a fool.
Gus turned his head slowly as if deigning to address her. ‘What, you mean this Eisner Award-winning graphic novel?’ He rolled his eyes. ‘You stick to your Grazia, Amy.’
‘There is nothing wrong with Grazia.’ Amy wanted to take her new ticket and stab his eyes out with it. ‘It’s very issue-led.’
Gus smirked. ‘I’ll look out for it on the Pulitzers.’
‘I’ll look out for it on the Pulitzers,’ Amy repeated, all whiny and childish.
‘That’s very grown up. Again, mother of child, very glad.’
‘I hate you.’
‘Rest assured, the feeling is mutual.’
CHAPTER 6 (#ulink_768ea950-8f67-5ef8-8177-75e67aca1a2d)
Just pulling up in front of the house in the taxi made Amy feel better: the sweep of purple sunset like smoke out of the chimney, the sparkle of the solar-powered fairy lights wrapped round the almond tree just visible in the early evening light, and the big hydrangea flowers like perfect pink balloons. The gravel underfoot gave the same comforting crunch as it had her whole life. She just had to block out the crunch of Gus’s feet next to her. As she put her key in the lock she could already picture the dark cosy hallway, smell the roast dinner from the kitchen, see the flicker of the TV, and a fire in the front room.
Except it was summer and there was no fire. And she’d forgotten her mother had had the entire ground floor demolished. When Amy left last it had still been a building site. Now, as she opened the door, she saw it was all pale and grand and open. She swallowed. Everyone was looking up from where they sat in the living room, watching. There was no time to take a breath in the hallway any longer or peek her head round the door and beckon her mother over.
‘Er, hello,’ Amy said, conscious of the presence of Gus next to her and everyone staring. ‘Have you found Daddy?’
Moira stood up. ‘No darling, not yet. We’re about to make a plan.’
Amy nodded. She felt suddenly on the verge of tears, like she wanted to throw herself at her mother and sob about everything, but in defiance of Gus and his already derogatory opinion of her she stayed rooted where she was.
‘Hi.’ Gus raised a hand.
‘Hello,’ Stella said back from where she sat at the table, watching intrigued and looking all cool and relaxed in a loose black sleeveless shirt, the plainest gold hoop earrings, skinny jeans and bare feet. Amy saw her glance across at Jack. Jack raise a brow back at Stella. Their silent language asking, ‘Who the hell is he?’
‘This is Gus. My—’ Amy paused by mistake because the word friend got stuck in her throat.
‘Just a friend,’ said Gus, which sounded so ridiculously unnatural that it made Amy want to cover her face as she blushed scarlet under her hastily retouched contouring. Stella was clearly holding in a smirk.
‘Hello darling. Hello Gus, lovely to meet you. You must be exhausted from the journey, it’s such a long time to sit on a train. Come in, sit down, have a drink.’ Moira stood up, glossing over any awkwardness regards this stranger in their midst, and came over to greet the pair.
Gus dumped his bag by the stairs and went to take the beer that Jack was pouring like he’d never needed anything more in his life. Moira gave Amy a kiss and a hug and whispered in her ear, ‘Will you be sharing a room?’
‘Absolutely not,’ Amy snapped.
‘Righto,’ said her mother. Then turning back to Stella said, ‘Rosie and Sonny are OK to share, aren’t they?’
‘Oh, no way!’ Sonny moaned.
Stella nodded. ‘They’re fine.’
Rosie giggled.
Amy went and sat down at the table across from Stella, refusing to meet her eye, even when Stella kicked her under the table.
‘Beer, Amy?’ Jack asked.
‘No, I’ll just have water. I’m really thirsty,’ she replied.
After some pleasantries about how warm the weather was, the length of the train journey, and how long it had been since they’d all seen each other – how terrible it was that someone had to go missing in order for them all to make the journey – Jack cleared his throat and said, ‘Right, shall we get started on a plan of action?’
Stella nodded.
Jack opened the pad that was in front of him then looked up at Amy to explain what had been discussed in her absence. ‘We thought it might be a good idea to note down all Graham’s usual spots. Places he goes most often. Then tomorrow go round and have a word with people. See if he mentioned where he was going, just get a sense of how he was. That kind of thing. Yes?’
Amy nodded. ‘Have you rung his friends?’
‘A few,’ said Moira.
‘Why not all of them?’ Amy frowned.
‘I’ve been busy.’ Moira shifted in her seat.
Amy glanced perplexed at Stella, who just raised a shoulder to show she knew and agreed with whatever it was Amy was thinking but who knew what forces governed their mother.
Gus watched.
Amy said, ‘Mum, you’ve tried to ring Dad, haven’t you?’
‘Of course I’ve tried to ring him. And I’ve sent a text asking where he is.’
‘A text? I rang his phone twenty-three times on the train,’ Amy said.
‘It’s not a competition, darling,’ Moira muttered, turning away to top up her wine with obvious affront.
‘OK!’ Jack held up his hands to try and take back control. ‘We talk to his friends, see what he’s been doing and if anyone noticed anything out of the ordinary. Good. Right. Moira, have you checked your bank account?’
‘I don’t see when you think I’ve had the time to do all these things.’ Moira shook her head.
Stella leant forward. ‘No one’s accusing you, Mum. Jack’s just asking.’
‘I know.’ Moira crossed her arms over her chest, then through pursed lips added, ‘I can pop into the bank tomorrow.’
‘Could you do it online now, Mum?’ Stella asked.
‘No, I can’t.’ Moira blushed. ‘I don’t know how. Graham does all that.’
Jack said, ‘Well we can help, do you know the passwords?’
Moira hesitated.
Amy said, ‘Don’t worry, Mum, I never know mine either. That’s why I have them all written down in my phone.’ She saw Gus shake his head at what a stupid thing that was to do. She made a face at him which she instantly regretted when she caught Stella looking.
Moira was getting flustered. Smoothing down her silk blouse, she said, ‘I know I should know them. It’s just something I haven’t quite got round to. There is something written down in the kitchen, though, I think. Hang on, let me have a look.’ She got up to go and rifle through a flowery Cath Kidston box file on the counter.
Jack wrote ‘Account activity’ down as the first point on his list.
Amy leant forward and said, ‘Shouldn’t we be calling all the hospitals and the coastguard and things? We need to be certain he’s not hurt.’
‘Amy, he left a note,’ Stella said, one mocking brow arched, ‘I don’t think he’s hurt.’
‘What if he was made to write the note?’ Amy replied, brows raised back at Stella, defiant.
Stella scoffed. ‘Like a hostage? Please.’
Amy refused to be ignored so easily. ‘Don’t look at me like that, someone might have taken him. It’s a real possibility. I think it should go on the list.’
‘Seriously?’ Stella shook her head. ‘It’s not Murder, She Wrote, Amy! It’s Cornwall.’
Gus snorted into his beer. Stella looked up, appreciative of his finding her funny. Then sat back with her wine, giving her long fringe a smug little blow out of her eyes.
Amy huffed.
‘Here they are. The passwords. I knew I had them somewhere,’ Moira called from the kitchen, brandishing a scrap of notepaper covered in numbers.
Amy pulled off the thin sweater she was wearing, feeling hot and bothered from the stand-off with her sister.
‘I have that top!’ shouted little Rosie, pointing excitedly at Amy’s Primark vest top patterned with different emojis. ‘Mummy, don’t I have that top?’
Amy watched Stella nod as she sipped her wine. ‘You do have that top, Rosie,’ she said, as if of course Amy and a seven-year-old would have the same fashion sense.
‘We’re T-shirt buddies,’ Rosie said, coming over and draping her skinny little arm round Amy’s shoulders, then peering closer to inspect her face said, ‘I like your make-up. You’re so pretty. You look just like Zoella.’
Amy felt the conflicting rush of both embarrassment and pride at what she considered a compliment. In the past she would have just snuggled Rosie up close and relished the adoration. But now she had Gus smirking under his breath at the end of the table. And something made her want Stella not to perceive her as quite such a child. Perhaps because Amy knew at some point she was going to have to tell them all about the baby. And she couldn’t face the accompanying looks of pity and the ‘Oh Amy!’ tone. But most of all she dreaded their lack of surprise that she would do something so stupid. It had made her contemplate just WhatsApping the news: ‘It was a one-night stand! Can you believe it? And when I told Gus he was like, “You’re not having it, right?” [crying laughing emoji]’
But it wasn’t funny.
It was terrifying.
It was hard to say if it was more terrifying now or earlier today when she had been standing on Gus’s North London doorstep delivering the news. She’d only remembered where he lived because it was above a Nando’s. He had winced when she’d told him. His expression as if it were possibly the worst news he had ever heard in his entire life. She had thought he might react badly but not like that. She had presumed he would usher her inside, make her a cup of tea and ask what he could do to help. Not stand in the hallway, his expression somewhere between panic and disgust and say, ‘Do you need money? How much is an abortion?’
‘I am not having an abortion.’ Her phone had rung as she’d spat out the words. ‘Oh, hi Mum!’
Then her already trembling bottom lip had gone into full-blown wobble as her mother told her about her dad going missing. Meanwhile Gus was pacing the tiny, hot hallway, rolling his hands as if hurrying her to wrap the conversation up so they could get back to more important matters.
‘I have to go,’ she said to Gus as soon as she’d hung up.
‘Oh no you don’t. We have things to discuss.’
‘Well I have to go home.’
‘I’ll come with you.’
‘It’s in Cornwall.’
‘I won’t come with you.’
‘Good.’ Amy had stormed out of the dark poky little flat onto the high street, taking in deep breaths of warm sunshine air and traffic fumes. She made her mind up she would never ever see Gus again. Good riddance. She’d block him on any dating app or social media if he tried to contact her.
‘Wait!’
She paused. Turned. Deflated at the sight of Gus jogging lankily towards her in his stupid bright green shorts and old Levi’s T-shirt. ‘What?’ she snapped.
‘I’m coming with you.’
‘No.’
‘Yes!’ he said. She now noticed the bag slung over his shoulder. He narrowed his eyes. ‘You can’t just turn up, tell me you’re pregnant and then leave.’
‘I can.’
‘And what if you decide not to come back. I know nothing about where you live. How would I find you?’
Amy shook out her hair, stood with her hands on her hips. ‘I will come back,’ she said, haughty expression on her face, internally glossing over the fact that permanently avoiding Gus had been her very intention.
‘I don’t trust you.’
‘That’s not very nice.’
Gus laughed, incredulous. ‘You gave me a fake number the night we went out.’
Amy paused. ‘You rang me?’ she asked, unable to help feeling a little smug.
‘No,’ Gus scoffed. ‘I just know how many digits are in a phone number. You don’t, clearly.’
Amy swung round, incensed, and started to stomp away. To her annoyance he followed her a few paces behind all the way. No matter how many times she stopped and tried to plead with him to go home. He sat opposite her on the tube. Made himself at home at her kitchen table as she packed. Walked beside her in the smoggy heat to get the Hammersmith and City line to Paddington. ‘Please go away,’ she said as the train pulled in. ‘Please?’
‘No chance.’
‘You don’t even want the baby.’
‘No, I don’t want the baby. But I don’t want you to have said baby and me not know.’
Amy screwed her eyes tight. ‘You’re muddling me.’
‘Well, let’s stop talking then.’
Now, as she sat round the dining room table, Amy took a covert glance at Gus and immediately had to look away with displeasure. He ruined being back here. The sight of him brought her previous life into stark relief: the parallel path when she would have run into the house shouting that she was pregnant at the top of her voice, grinning gorgeous husband by her side holding their clasped hands aloft in triumph. A path long gone.
She had to swallow down a rise of sadness. Close her eyes for a second and think of a really complicated times table – her grief counsellor’s tip that had done wonders for her maths. When she opened them she was looking down at her T-shirt, at the three little monkey emojis – eyes, ears and lips covered – and knew how they felt.
Moira had got the laptop out and was waiting for it to crank to life. Gus next to her was wide-eyed at how old and slow it was. When finally the NatWest page loaded, Moira clearly didn’t have a clue what to do.
‘Here, do you want me to do it?’ Gus asked, unable to stop himself. Pained by the slowness, he angled the laptop towards himself.
‘Oh Gus, darling, yes please,’ Moira said, relieved.
Amy winced. She didn’t want Gus to speak. If he was going to be here she wanted him to sit mute. She watched as he keyed in the passwords. Under the table Stella bashed Amy’s leg again, clearly trying to get her attention as Gus and Moira were distracted with the website. But Amy stayed resolutely looking away.
Out of the window the sun had spread pink and orange across the horizon, a bonfire of light that made the room glow amber.
Oh, why wasn’t her dad here? Amy wanted him sitting on that seat on the sofa so she could curl up next to him, her feet tucked under the furthest cushion, his arm around her as they drank tea and he watched the snooker while she put her headphones on and caught up with all her favourite YouTubers. She had prayed he might be back home by the time she and Gus arrived. And that perhaps he would stand at his full six foot two height – her vision of him more from when they were kids, strapping, scary, and heroic rather than in his old Edinburgh Woollen Mill cardigan and slippers – beckon Gus to one side, pull out his chequebook and say, ‘Come on then, how much will it take for you to disappear?’
Her fantasy was interrupted by a loud gasp from Moira.
Amy glanced across.
Her mother was peering close to the screen where Gus was pointing at a withdrawal.
‘A thousand pounds?’ Moira said, outraged. ‘What the bloody hell does he need a thousand pounds for?’
Gus cleared his throat, clearly a little unsure about whether it was a rhetorical question or whether she was in fact looking to him for an answer. ‘It’s … er … most likely so he doesn’t have to take any more out, the bank would be able to tell you where he was if he did.’
‘Oh.’ Moira sat back in her chair, only slightly mollified. ‘Yes, I suppose so.’ She crossed her arms and legs, and added sourly, ‘I didn’t know Graham was so forward-thinking.’
‘Mum!’ Amy’s voice was a little harsher than she’d intended, but she felt like her mother was being far too cold about the whole thing. ‘Why are you not more worried about all this? He’s missing. Dad’s missing!’ she said, looking accusingly round the table. She had envisaged a lot more drama, more police popping round, more notices taped to lampposts and front page head shots in the local paper.
‘Yes, with a thousand pounds of our money!’ Moira said. ‘I am worried, Amy,’ she added, more because it was what was expected of her than with real emotion, ‘but he’s a grown man with enough money to get by and a phone if he needs any help.’ Then Moira paused, as if she’d had a brainwave. ‘His phone. He was on his phone a lot more, wasn’t he Sonny? You taught him all that fancy stuff with that Instabook.’
‘Instagram,’ mumbled Sonny.
They all turned to where Sonny was slumped at the end of the table on his phone.
‘He speaks!’ said Amy.
Sonny glanced up and when he caught Amy’s eye she winked at him. He blushed and half-smiled beneath his mop of hair.
Amy thought Sonny was great. He styled himself like a little grungy One Direction, which made him even more sulkily adorable. He wound Stella round the bend. She remembered last Christmas Eve, the house pre-open-plan all garlanded and twinkling. The huge tree by the fireplace tied with red bows and gold baubles, the fire crackling. The heavy curtains blocking out the drizzle that should have been snow. The waves thundering on the beach. Amy had sat helping Stella wrap all the kids’ Christmas presents, both of them a bit pissed on the Aldi Prosecco their mother had rushed out to buy in bulk after it got voted Top Tipple in the Daily Mail: ‘I’ve never been in an Aldi before. It’s quite something.’
Earlier Sonny had got a bollocking for pressing Rosie to explain why she thought some of her friends at school got more Christmas presents than her – especially the ones she didn’t like. Was it because Santa preferred them to her?
‘He’s just such a pain,’ Stella had said as she curled ribbon with scissors. ‘I’m like, “She’s six years younger than you! Stop being so mean to her!”’
‘I think you said stuff like that to me when we were younger,’ said Amy.
‘I did not,’ Stella gasped with affront.
‘You did. You told me that Jackie down the road had seen her dad scoffing the mince pie and sherry for Santa, and signing the card she’d left out.’
Stella snorted into her Prosecco glass.
Amy raised her brows. ‘Yeah? Remember? You’re basically just the same as him.’
‘Rubbish,’ said Stella. ‘God, I would never have got away with half the stuff he does. Dad would have throttled me.’
Amy had been unable to disagree. If the analogy was right then Amy was the equivalent of little Rosie. Dancing through life unencumbered. Her only discontent coming from the fact she had been almost invisible to their father for the first fourteen years of her life. But that had been more than made up for by being completely doted on by her mother. And her dad had been pretty terrifying so being overlooked had often felt like a blessing. But then Stella had left – her dad erasing practically all trace of her – and Amy had got them both. Her dad subdued, like a tranquillised lion, a soft cushion for his youngest daughter to curl up into.
Now, as Amy looked across at sullen little Sonny, she felt a bit sorry for him – all eyes on him as they wanted to find out more about Grandpa’s sudden interest in Instagram.
‘I thought he hated his phone?’ Stella said.
Sonny shrugged. Then when he realised that wasn’t going to be enough he said, ‘He really liked Instagram.’
‘Why didn’t you say this before?’ Stella asked.
‘You didn’t ask.’ Sonny glared at her.
‘Instagram?’ Amy leant forward, deflecting from the motherson bickering. She smiled, this being the first positive thing she’d heard about her dad since he’d disappeared. ‘Did he post anything ever?’
Sonny shook his head. ‘No, never. He followed everyone, though.’
Around the table phones came out.
‘Even me?’ Rosie piped up.
Sonny nodded. ‘He’s Neptune013.’
‘I wondered who that was,’ said Jack, who had about fifteen Instagram followers and barely ever posted anything. ‘I thought it was someone who’d followed me by mistake.’
Everyone was scrolling through their list of followers, Amy was quietly satisfied that hers was taking the longest. ‘Here he is,’ she said finally and clicked on the avatar picture of waves on the shore. ‘No followers.’ She looked up. ‘That’s really sad.’
‘I’ve just followed him,’ said Rosie.
‘Me too,’ said Jack.
‘Yep,’ said Stella.
Amy nodded. Pressed Follow.
‘And so have I,’ said Gus, his voice taking Amy by surprise that he was even still at the table. She wanted to tell him to immediately Unfollow. That he had no right to be Following. But she didn’t say anything, just had a really quick skim of her Timeline before putting her phone back down on the table.
Sonny looked quite pleased. ‘He’ll like that.’
Amy glanced across at him. ‘You think?’
‘Maybe,’ Sonny said, a little more noncommittal since revealing a smidge of enthusiasm. He was about to go back to his phone when he mumbled, ‘You could put the fishing lake down as well. On the list.’
‘Fishing?’ said Stella.
Moira shook her head. ‘He hasn’t been fishing in years.’
‘We went.’ Sonny shrugged a shoulder. ‘Last week,’ he added, before flicking his fringe in front of his eyes and burying himself back in his screen.
Amy realised that both she and Stella were watching Sonny. Both of them seeing a relationship that had developed that they didn’t know about. Amy wondered what Stella felt about that: Sonny and their dad.
‘Good, right,’ said Jack, scribbling Instagram down on his pad. ‘OK, so what else did Graham’s day look like?’
Everyone turned to look at the sofa.
Jack tried again. ‘Where did he go when he went out?’ This was not how things worked at his office, Amy thought. At Christmas she remembered him saying that they’d introduced five-minute stand-up meetings at his firm. She’d thought that sounded dreadful, the best thing about a meeting, in her opinion, was the catch-up chat at the beginning and the free croissants.
Stella said, ‘He drinks at the Coach and Horses, doesn’t he, Mum?’
Everyone turned to look at Moira who was cradling her wine glass while looking uncomfortable with all the attention. ‘Yes, I think—Yes.’ She nodded, more committed this time, ‘Yes, on a Friday.’ She said, definite.
Amy wondered what had happened in the months since she’d left. Her mother didn’t seem sure at all what their father had been up to. And what were those jeans she was wearing?
‘OK, what else?’ Jack asked.
Moira seemed to visibly wrack her brain, before saying, ‘He sometimes chatted to the cashier at Londis, I can never remember what her name is.’ Her expression showed she was clutching at straws and to save embarrassment quickly changed the subject by saying, ‘Would anyone like anything else to drink? I might put some crisps out, if anyone’s feeling peckish.’
Amy tugged at her emoji vest, embarrassed for her dad’s life. Embarrassed that this was what Gus was hearing about him. She wanted to go and get the photo albums from the bookshelf or drag him into the upstairs loo where all the trophies were kept and say, look this was him, this was him in his heyday. He was a champion. A star. People used to stop him for autographs.
Gus seemed quite oblivious to any awkwardness, or was doing a good job of hiding it, and said, ‘I wouldn’t say no to another beer.’
‘Oh yeah, me too,’ said Jack.
‘Lovely.’ Moira jumped up to go and get some more bottles from the fridge.
Amy watched Gus, unable to quite accept that this guy sitting calmly drinking Budweiser was going to be related to them all for the rest of his life. She wondered how she would have behaved were the situation reversed. She couldn’t even imagine it. She simply wouldn’t have gone. If his family wanted to meet the baby they’d have to come and meet it. She didn’t even want Gus involved, let alone the rest of the— She paused. What was Gus’s surname? He must have told her. She tried to think. No idea.
Jack wrote Londis as the next item on his pad.
Amy cringed again at the mention of it. Suddenly wished for that parallel life again. The one where she was happy about the baby with her husband, Bobby, sitting next to her. His arm round her shoulders – he would have given her a squeeze at the Londis comment. Bobby would have known that she thought it denigrated her father and said something to counter it, something good like, ‘Lucky Graham’s so friendly. I’ve never chatted to the cashier at Londis.’ Even though everyone would know that was a lie because Bobby chatted to everyone because everyone wanted to chat to Bobby because he was so golden and glowing that people couldn’t help flocking to him. The number of people who used to stop them when they were walking around to ask if they knew Bobby from somewhere, if they’d seen him on the TV, which of course they hadn’t. He just looked like a celebrity. Amy would always get a little flutter of pride.
She closed her eyes and tried her times tables again but just got muddled. She felt a wave of nausea creep over her; whether from the memory of Bobby or a side effect of the pregnancy she didn’t know.
Her mother was pouring Kettle Chips into a bowl. Amy reached over for a handful.
‘Since when did you eat carbs?’ Stella asked, surprised.
Amy didn’t eat carbs, she infamously hadn’t touched them since a modelling stint in her teens. But since the pregnancy anything went to quell the sickness.
‘Well, you know me,’ Amy said. ‘Can’t stick at anything!’ She’d said it to try and sound funny, deflect attention by taking the piss out of herself, but it obviously came out less carefree than she’d imagined because Stella was really watching her now. Gus too, come to think of it.
The nausea rose.
Her mother glanced across at her, expression concerned. ‘OK?’ she asked.
Amy nodded. ‘Yeah,’ she said, quick and slightly too sharp.
Then she felt the sympathy of everyone round the table. Like they all knew what she was thinking. Like they were all suddenly thinking about Bobby. Everyone except Gus, who was completely oblivious to the network of undercurrents, unknowingly dangling, like it was Mission Impossible, above a hundred infra-red beams that could set off any number of deep-rooted family alarms. He was just frowning like he’d missed something and had no idea what.
But they didn’t know what she was thinking. Because while she was thinking about Bobby, she wasn’t thinking of him in a, ‘Oh God, he’s dead,’ way, the blank all-consuming way she had two years ago. The way she had when she’d wandered around this house in her pyjamas unaware what day it was, knowing only that time was slower than it had ever been before. But instead she was thinking of him in a, ‘Oh God, why can’t he be alive,’ way because if he were this would all be so much easier. So different. She doubted her father would be even missing if Bobby were still here. And if he was, well, Bobby would at least whisper that everything was going to be all right. He’d make sure of it.
‘I’ve just got to go to the loo,’ Amy said, pushing her chair back and walking quickly to the stairs, trying not to hurry too much so as not to draw more attention to herself but desperate to get out of the room and up the stairs where she sat in the bathroom, the loo seat down, head in her hands, trying to think of nothing. Trying to be mindful. To let the thoughts swish past – Bobby laughing, big white grin as he jogged with his surfboard, her sitting in the sand with her arms wrapped round her knees, wind whipping her hair. Sometimes she wished she’d gone shopping instead of sitting on the beach to watch him surf because it could get very boring at times, but then he’d catch the best wave there was and people strolling on the sand would pause and watch and point and Amy would get high on a rush of pride. She saw them eating popcorn snuggled on the sofa in their little cottage. Laughing down the Coach and Horses. Their wedding barefoot on the beach. The noise of the lost ambulance, like a distant fly buzzing against the window, unable to find the dirt road of the obscure beach where the best surf hit on the high spring tide. Her dad trying to swim closer but the rip current yanking Bobby’s body away, limp like seaweed on the surface of the water. The waves gobbling him up. The watch on the shelf in the bathroom when she got home.
Amy sat up. Pressed her fingers into her eyes. ‘You’re OK,’ she said. Then she said it again and stood up only to be brought back down by another rush of nausea. This time she sat with her hands on her stomach, waiting for it to pass. Knowing there was a baby in there. Knowing it but feeling like she was watching it from afar. That it was someone else’s baby. A kangaroo’s baby in a nature documentary or that woman’s in the pamphlets who was just a faceless cross section.
CHAPTER 7 (#ulink_a3971f6a-acc7-516f-b57f-c87b8b709992)
It was ten o’clock, and Stella was in her room with Jack. Amy had sloped off much earlier, almost the same time as Rosie. Gus had made polite chat for a bit after dinner before offering to walk the dog for Moira, who’d seemed a little reluctant to hand over the duty but accepted when Gus got close to pleading for the task, clearly the more desperate of the two to escape. Sonny had played computer games while Jack and Moira washed up and Stella did some work. Then Gus had come back and everyone had called it a night.
It was hot and sticky in Stella’s bedroom – the stone walls unable to stave off the humidity. They didn’t usually visit in the summer – too many tourists, too much traffic – popping down at Christmas or occasionally Easter instead and so it felt odd to be here in the heat. With the window open Stella could smell the sea, reminding her of when as a kid – a big swim the next day, Trials or Nationals – she’d lie on top of the bed, buzzing with nerves, eyes wide open as the heat pressed down, inhaling the calm familiarity of the salty air. But other than the occasional memory there was nothing in this room that would mark it out as ever being hers. The bright yellow walls had been neatly papered over in cream patterned with green parrots. Her mismatched furniture was long gone, now a French vintage wardrobe and chest of drawers sat next to a huge white bed with scatter cushions the same lime tones as the parrots that soared over the walls. It was like a hotel.
She sometimes wondered where her stuff had gone. To charity if her dad had had anything to do with it. She’d never given him the satisfaction of asking though. The first time she’d been back to visit after she’d left she’d just pretended it meant nothing that all her belongings had gone – all her trophies and medals disappeared while all his still lined the shelf in the bathroom, mocking her every time she went to the loo.
Stella sat at the dressing table. Jack was lying on top of the bed in his boxer shorts and a T-shirt, reading the news on his phone, the duvet had been pushed into a heap on the floor.
‘I think it’s hotter here than at home,’ he said, not looking up from his screen.
Stella nodded. She was inspecting her skin in the mirror. Lifting up one side of her eye. Peering at the lines around her mouth. There wasn’t a chance in hell of Rosie comparing her to Zoella. It made her think she shouldn’t have been quite so disparaging of Amy when she’d looked at teenage Stella all brown from her sea swimming and said, ‘You’ll pay for that.’ At the time Amy’s fledgling modelling aspirations meant she was drinking a litre of water a day, eating mainly cucumber and celery, and constantly applying Factor 50. Stella had scoffed that Amy’s career wouldn’t last longer than the Just Seventeen photo-story she’d been scouted for and was right. Amy stuck at nothing. Except the application of Factor 50. When she’d turned up today – hair all newly bobbed in choppy layers – Stella had, for the first time, found herself jealous of Amy’s youth. Or maybe it was her freedom.
She sighed.
Jack put his phone down and looked at her over his new reading glasses, a move that she hated because it made him look so old. ‘Why are you sighing?’
‘Do you think my skin looks old?’ Stella asked.
Jack inspected her reflection. ‘No older than mine.’
Stella frowned. ‘That was not the answer I’d been hoping for.’
‘Why – do you think I look old?’
Stella paused for a second too long. ‘No.’
Jack laughed. ‘Damned by slow praise!’ Then he sat up and went to sit on the edge of the bed nearest to Stella and stared at himself in the mirror. ‘Christ, I do look a bit tired around the edges.’
‘I don’t think I’ve ever imagined us getting old,’ she said.
‘How have you imagined us?’ Jack looked perplexed.
‘I don’t know. I suppose, whenever we’ve talked about holidays just the two of us when the kids have grown up, I think I’ve always thought of us young, like in those photos of us on the train in Rome. You know? I’ve never thought that we’ll be old.’
‘I’ll have no hair.’
‘I’ll be all wrinkly,’ she said, lifting her eyelid up with one finger then letting it drop again. ‘That’s the problem with parenthood. Half of it is spent waiting it out till it’s done and you can go back to the people you were before, but you don’t realise that the older your kids get the older you’re getting. Those before people have gone.’
Jack glanced at her in the mirror. ‘That sounds very much like the start of a column.’
Stella thwacked him on the leg. ‘I’m serious.’
They were conversing via the mirror still.
‘As am I, that’s the kind of thing you write about, isn’t it? When you’re not bashing Sonny.’
‘Thanks for that, Jack.’
He laughed. ‘I’m joking,’ he said. ‘But you need to talk to him. The longer you leave it the harder it will be.’
Stella nodded.
They stared for a moment, side by side in the reflection. The heat of the room making their skin glisten.
Jack was the first to look away. ‘You look as young and vital as the day I met you.’
She sighed a laugh. ‘That’s just a blatant lie.’
Jack went back to sitting up against the headboard scrolling through his phone.
Stella stared at herself a moment longer. Seeing in her face the features of her mother. Swallowing when she thought of the simmering animosity her mum was currently showing towards her father. It made her pluck up the courage to turn to Jack and ask, ‘Is everything all right between us?’
‘Fine,’ he said, looking up with a frown, bemused as to why she was asking the question.
Stella nodded.
Jack put the phone down. ‘Stel, we’re fine. Just a bit tired, probably.’ He scooched over the bed and gave her a kiss on the cheek, ruffling her hair a bit. She swatted his hand away with a half-smile.
‘All right?’ he checked.
‘Yes.’
That was the reassuring thing about Jack. Whatever happened he’d soldier on through, pick you and everyone else up who might be floundering without a moment’s pause to question.
But as she watched him go back to his phone, she knew it wasn’t fine. The car journey had proved as such – like a condensed version of their current relationship, normal one minute and bickering the next. Both of them too quick to react, like they knew each other so well there was no point plodding through the benefit of the doubt.
A couple of weeks ago, her editor had asked her if she’d wanted to write a piece called MOT Marriage for an upcoming edition of the magazine. They wanted it written as Potty-Mouth, picking up on the current trend for critiquing the minutia of stuck-in-a-rut long-term relationships with a list of tasks and questions for the married couple to complete. Stella agreed, and while she knew she and Jack had precisely the kind of long-term relationship that most of her readers had – a bit stuck in a rut but getting through the day-to-day via Netflix and the anticipation of mini-breaks – she had fully intended to make up the content. Nowadays, fierce competition in the Slummy Mummy marketplace had pushed the Potty-Mouth brand to be much cooler and far more exciting than Stella, like an older sister she was constantly trying to impress. Stella already had it plotted out: Potty-Mouth and her fictional husband were going to throw the questions out of the window and do it their way – going to a host of exciting erotic workshops, flamenco dance classes, and a bit of swinging with another set of parents at the fictional school gate. She’d researched it all, the article was practically written and in the bag.
Now, however, she stared at the face in the mirror, as she thought of the clear disintegration of her parents’ marriage and the strain on her own relationship since the Sonny incident, she wondered if maybe she should do it, for real.
She swivelled round on the bed to face Jack, feeling a nervous warmth creep up her neck.
Outside the sound of the waves rolled gently in the darkness.
Jack looked up. ‘What?’
‘Do you want to help me with an article I’m doing?’
He narrowed his eyes, uncertain. Stella never asked for any involvement in what she was writing. He usually just read about their souped-up life over his Shredded Wheat. ‘What’s it about?’
‘It’s called Marriage MOT,’ she said.
‘Oh Jesus, Stella. We just said everything was fine.’
‘Well, then it should be easy.’
Jack tipped his head back against the wall. ‘What do we have to do?’
‘You know the type of thing: are you having enough sex? Are you listening enough to each other? Harbouring any grievances … blah blah blah.’ She tried to spin it all casual.
Jack sighed. ‘I’m not harbouring any grievances.’
‘Great,’ she said. ‘We’ll tick that off the list.’
Jack thought about it and frowned. ‘We have enough sex, don’t we?’
‘Well that’s what we test. You think you’re fine but you can never be completely sure until you check. Like when we had the car done and he said the brake pads were worn out.’
‘Would the sex be the brake pads?’
‘Maybe?’ Stella smiled.
‘There’s nothing wrong with my brake pads,’ said Jack, puffing his chest out.
‘I’m not sure that analogy makes sense.’ Stella shook her head.
There was a pause. Jack bit down on his lip. ‘I don’t know, Stel. Seems all a bit forced.’
‘Yeah but maybe it’ll be fun. At the very least it might stop us from becoming like them,’ she said, angling her head towards her parents’ bedroom. ‘I don’t want you to go missing.’
Jack looked at her, his eyes softening. ‘I don’t want you to go missing either.’ Then he shook his head like he couldn’t believe what he was about to say. ‘All right, fine.’ He slid his phone onto the bedside table. Stella did a little cheer and came round the bed to get in next to him, the beautifully ironed sheet crisp and momentarily cool. ‘So, what’s the first step of this MOT?’ he asked.
‘We have to start having loads of sex,’ she said.
‘Really?’ Jack looked sort of intrigued.
Stella nodded, the pillow soft beneath her head.
Jack nodded.
There was a pause as they lay in the sticky humid heat.
‘But I’m really tired,’ Stella said.
‘Thank God for that.’ Jack exhaled with relief. ‘Me too.’
CHAPTER 8 (#ulink_271f3940-8456-5baf-8006-9885db9a0498)
Moira caused quite a stir in the morning – while everyone else was either clearing up the breakfast things or, in the case of Sonny and Gus, playing on their phones while Rosie was watching TV – by hoiking her bag onto her shoulder and saying as boldly as she could, ‘Righto, I’m off to my book club.’
Glances had been exchanged.
‘What about Dad?’
‘There’s enough of you to cover all the bases,’ Moira said quickly before adding, ‘Sonny, can you look after the dog?’ and leaving the house without really waiting for an answer.
She didn’t know the protocol of going to one’s book club while one’s husband was missing but if she was quite honest, Moira just had to get away. She loved her children but when they were all in the house together sometimes it just got too overwhelming. She felt herself retreat like a snail; every comment about her clothes, her hair colour, her plans of action, her dog’s stupid name – every one left her edging away, till she hurried out to book club without even thinking about the propriety of it.
It was another bright, hazy day. She wove her way through the back lanes to the village, the sun piercing through the overhanging canopy of leaves to banks of lush ferns, the car clipping the odd wayward frond in her haste. In the past Moira would never have dreamed of joining anything like a book club. There was a twinge of shame now when she thought back. She’d always seen herself as rather above it all. She’d happily indulge in a bit of village gossip but always with the aloof air that she was humouring them all, donating a little of her very precious time. Her husband was an Olympic hero.
She had to touch her face now as she coloured at the cringing memories. Every summer Moira was renowned for throwing a party, a lavish summer bash – strings of Venetian lanterns bobbing across the garden, long tables laid with glasses and drinks served by kids from the private school dressed up as waiters, candles lighting the drive, a gazebo with a band. One year she’d made the marquee men pause their work to help her trail an extension lead all the way over the cliff edge to the beach in order to floodlight the sea. It had been magical. Now, it all seemed a bit too showy-off – done for herself rather than the guests. Her moment in the spotlight. She hadn’t thrown a party since Amy’s Bobby had died and she knew she would never reinstate the tradition. In the past she had viewed herself as the aspirational hostess. Now, she wondered if people had perhaps scorned her behind her back, enjoyed but ridiculed the ostentation. Pitied her even. They knew how often Graham was away. She hadn’t consciously done it for the attention but in retrospect it seemed so wincingly obvious.
She knew Stella would say not to worry about what people thought, to just live as you liked, that at the end of the day no one cared. But they did care. Moira knew they cared. She knew because she cared. She judged Joyce Matthews in the village for having a cleaner – how hard was it to clean your own home? She judged the mayor’s wife for having her Waitrose shopping delivered – get out into the community, for goodness sake. She judged the Adamses for having a monstrous new extension that looked like an alien invasion to house a live-in nanny so they could work all hours – those little children needed to see their parents. She knew what Stella would say to that as well. Tell her that the parents had a right to be happy too. And Moira would have to bite her tongue to prevent herself from snapping back, ‘Did I? I gave up everything for your father and you kids.’
It was her new friend Mitch who had called her on it. Walking the dogs one day on the beach, he had told her she was jealous when she had been muttering about the cleaner.
Moira had felt herself bristle. ‘I’m not jealous.’
He’d laughed. Easy and carefree. Not looking her way. ‘Yes, you are. Bitching is jealousy. It always is.’
She’d gone to say something but hesitated. Feeling both astonishment and affront at being called on her behaviour. Graham never called her on anything, just nodded along at her stories.
‘It’s not bitching, it’s an opinion.’
‘It’s a judgement,’ Mitch had said, his smile irritating. His chin raised to enjoy the wind in their faces. ‘And not a very nice one. Why shouldn’t she have a cleaner? She’s busy. She has other focuses for her time.’
‘It doesn’t take very long to run a Hoover about the house.’
‘Moira.’ Mitch had stopped, his bare feet in the sand, his mutt that was humbly just called Dog on a long piece of faded orange rope, yapping at the surf. ‘If you could go back in time and have a cleaner and a live-in nanny, keep your job, and go for a drink on a Friday night guilt-free, would you? Do you think the kids would have turned out any different?’
‘Well, I don’t know.’ Moira felt herself getting defensive. ‘Yes, I think they probably would.’ Would they? She wondered. Amy might be a bit less dramatic. A bit more self-sufficient. Stella would be much the same. She paused, or perhaps if Moira had had something else to focus on, their relationship would have been completely different. Moira wouldn’t have been quite so envious of Stella: of her easy camaraderie with Graham, or her unequivocal natural swimming talent, of the ease with which she laughed at her mother’s neuroses.
‘Would you and Graham be happier?’
Moira had swallowed.
Mitch laughed again. ‘You don’t have to answer that. Bitching, judgement – Moira, they’re all jealousy. And jealousy, well, that’s just fear isn’t it? Fear of taking the leap yourself.’ Mitch had started walking again, his brushed cotton tartan trousers like pyjama bottoms getting wet in the surf. ‘I think you actually quite enjoyed your life. It’s just now your boxes are empty.’
Moira stopped abruptly. ‘Excuse me!’
Mitch laughed. Then jogging to the shoreline to pick up a driftwood stick he drew two boxes for her in the sand: ‘If all your life is taken up with these two roles’ – he’d written MOTHER and WIFE in two separate boxes – ‘then that’s what your whole life becomes. It’s as simple as that.’ He’d stood there in his cheesecloth shirt with a lump of jade round his neck on a black thong, freshly tanned from a meditation week on the Algarve, and stared at her directly until she’d got embarrassed by the eye contact and had to look away. ‘You need more boxes, Moira,’ he’d said, pointing to the two in the sand with his stick then drawing lots more all around them. ‘You need more elements that create you, that we can write in these,’ he said, gesturing to the new, empty boxes, ‘otherwise your life just gets smaller and smaller.’
Moira had wanted to say, ‘I have Frank Sinatra now.’ But luckily she’d run the sentence through in her head before saying it and realised how pathetic it sounded, on so many levels.
And so she had joined the book club at the library. Where she was sitting right now, with an AWOL husband, in a fancy pair of jeans, next to Joyce Matthews (of cleaner fame), looking about guiltily to check no one was watching because Joyce had tipped a slug of brandy from a hip flask into her cup of lukewarm Gold Blend.
‘Don’t, it’s half past ten in the morning, I’ll be pissed as a fart. I shouldn’t really be here.’ Moira waved the brandy away.
‘Nonsense,’ said Joyce, pouring a dash into her own. ‘Your husband’s gone missing. Sometimes you just need to escape.’
Moira thought of her house filled up with her children, the view like one of those funny optical illusion pictures – look at it one way and they’re all as close as close can be, squint your eye and it’s a room full of strangers.
‘I haven’t read the book,’ she said.
Joyce shook her head. ‘Neither have I.’
Moira gave her a sideways look. ‘You never read the book.’
‘Shall we escape?’
‘I couldn’t.’
Moira could see the librarian walking over. She had her slippers on. She always put them on for book club – she wanted to relax apparently. Moira hated it. Why couldn’t she wear shoes like everyone else? That was judgemental. Surely she couldn’t be jealous of the librarian’s hideous pink moccasins? Maybe she could. Maybe she was jealous of her audacity, or her desire for comfort above all else. Maybe she was jealous that this lady’s husband had not gone missing and all she had to think about was slipping on her slippers to happily chat about what might well be, had she read it, a very good book.
‘Come on.’ Joyce gave Moira a nudge.
‘I can’t. It’s bad enough that I’ve escaped to come to book club. I can’t escape book club as well.’
‘Oh Moira, if you can’t escape now when can you? Come on, let’s go for a coffee. Or to the pub.’
But Moira said no. Propriety got the better of her. She couldn’t bear the idea of the slipper-clad eyes of the librarian watching her back as she retreated, going home to tell her husband or her cat about the terrible woman who lived in the big house by the sea who skived book club when her husband had disappeared. She couldn’t bear the eyes of the locals in the pub – ‘Is that Moira? Moira, good to see you! Take it Graham’s back then?’ ‘No, no, still missing.’
She pulled the book out of her bag and sat with it on her knee as the librarian started flicking through her own copy to the book club questions printed at the back.
As Moira hadn’t read it, the whole chat went straight over her head. So she sat staring at all the people’s shoes in the group and thought instead about Graham. About what a relief it was to come downstairs this morning and not find him sitting on the sofa.
She hadn’t minded Graham’s numb passivity when Bobby had first died. She understood that it was a bit like losing Stella all over again. Bobby had been the first athlete since Stella that Graham had got excited about. Bobby was a star in the making. An ace little surfer when he first met Amy. He just wasn’t strong enough, didn’t have the killer instinct. And so Graham had taken it upon himself to train him up. He had him swimming every morning at six, in the gym every evening on the free weights, constantly pushing him to better his maximums. It was Graham who gave him his pep talks and made his competitive acumen sharper and stronger with visualisation and meditation. It was Graham who got him his first big win. And when Bobby moved into a league higher than Graham could take him – not being a surfer himself – they would still train together, still swim those early mornings. Just like he had with Stella.
But Bobby had died over two years ago. And still Graham sat. To the point that it felt like he’d almost forgotten why he was sitting. The grief subsiding while the hopeless lethargy remained. He seemed to shrink away from life, getting grumpier, angrier, and more annoyed with the world he barely ventured into – bar the occasional trip to the pub but even that he muttered about – too far, TV too loud, beer not cold enough. It had been OK when Amy had moved back in. Her sadness after the accident enough to consume all their lives. It had given Moira back her familiar sense of motherly purpose, like having a baby bird to look after: feeding it, caring for it, keeping it safe and warm until it was strong enough to fly the nest again.
Unfortunately, when Amy did get strong enough she showed no intention of flying the nest again. And the two of them – Amy and Graham – just became a permanent fixture in the house, a morose little team staring zombified at the TV flickering in the corner. Moira had started to worry she might go mad. Even getting the builders in had barely shifted them, after Graham had absolved himself of project management duties they’d just decamped to a makeshift living room upstairs for a couple of weeks. That was why Moira had got the dog – an excuse to get herself away from them. And that was when she’d met Mitch. When she’d found joy in life again. When she’d started, for the first time in almost forever, to see herself as a person in her own right. When she’d plucked up the courage to give Amy a gentle nudge out of the house – which Amy had taken very badly and flounced off to London in an impetuous show of defiance, leaving Moira worried sick that she’d done the wrong thing, hardly hearing from Amy the whole time she was there. She’d only been able to console herself recently when Sonny showed her Instagram selfies of a perfectly happy-looking Amy eating brunch overlooking the Thames.
But with Amy gone, it just left Moira and Graham in the house. The gulf between them ever widening. She thought of the silent dinners, the two of them on either side of the table, when just the sound of him chewing made her body tense with irritation. The sighs when she’d make him lift his feet for the Hoover. The noise of his incessant snoring. It saddened her to think he had become just a litany of annoying noises, that there was no spark left between them. But she had tried to help him and she was exhausted from trying. At some point enough had to be enough.
In the book club circle a small row had broken out which the librarian was ineffectually trying to quash by steering the discussion back to the official book club questions. Moira glanced over at Joyce who rolled her eyes and then gestured towards the door with a tilt of her head, trying again to get Moira to make an escape.
Moira shook her head.
Then she sat annoyed with herself for staying. She couldn’t even leave book club – what hope did she have of leaving Graham? She had thought she was getting braver. Fiddlesticks. That was before the children had arrived, before she saw herself through their eyes as well as her own. Now it all felt a bit silly, the idea of her leaving. Like a flying dream, when you get hooked on the adrenaline of soaring free then wake up to find yourself lying boringly in bed.
The determination she had felt to leave was forever being tempered by propriety, like a game of ping pong, always batted back. But she hoped it was still somewhere deep within her, simmering, because now she was trapped, trapped till the stubborn old fool decided to come back, where she had been poised ready to jump. Ready to soar.
And her fear was that as time ticked, her children – just their raised brows at her jeans was almost enough – and the comforting pressure of respectability, the omnipresent fear of judgement, of being gossiped about as she had gossiped, of being pitied should she fail, would kill her little sliver of courage, and she’d wake up, boringly, in bed forever.
CHAPTER 9 (#ulink_7da86e63-a580-5c2d-b16f-4d97c6ebfc05)
While Moira was at book club, two teams set off to find clues as to Graham’s whereabouts. The decision as to who was on which team essentially came down to the proximity to ice cream. When Gus and Amy were handed their list of places to check, including Londis, Rosie peered at the piece of paper and squeaked, ‘Ooh, they sell Twisters at the Londis. I’m coming with you.’
‘I like a Twister,’ Amy agreed, searching the living room for her sunglasses.
Gus, who had been ready for the last hour and was waiting at the door, made a face. ‘They’re vile.’
Rosie came to stand by Amy and said, eyes wide with disbelief, ‘They’re like the best ice lolly in the world.’
Sonny sloped over to stand by Gus, ‘I’m going to have a Calippo.’
Gus nodded. ‘Wise choice.’
Stella had been rummaging in her bag for the car keys, only to discover Jack was holding them, and when the ice cream chat had finished said, ‘So, I take it you four are going together?’
Amy and Rosie looked disparagingly at Gus and Sonny. ‘I suppose so,’ said Amy, putting her sunglasses on and poofing her hair. Then she looked down at the list again. ‘So, we’ve got the pub, John and Sandra’s house … Oh, that’s going to be awkward – what am I going to say? Have you seen my dad?’
Stella raised a brow. ‘Sounds about right.’
Amy sucked in a breath and went back to the list. ‘Post office, other shops, Londis. OK.’ She nodded, grabbed her bag, and said, ‘Come on then.’ Rosie trotted after her like an adoring puppy, dressed today in her own emoji vest, while Amy was wearing skin-tight white jeans and an acid yellow T-shirt. Sonny and Gus followed a little less enthusiastically, both now checking their phones.
The easiest walk to the village was across the headland. They walked the road part of the way then Amy paused by a gate and started to climb the stile, lifting her legs over it really high so she didn’t mark her jeans.
Gus watched, thinking of when he’d first seen her profile picture online. In it she had long blonde hair in high pigtails, dressed up like Britney Spears for – hopefully – a fancy-dress party. Gus remembered all his friends passing it round the pub table sniggering because it was clear she was a bit of a dimwit, but also mocking because there was no denying she was good-looking and well out of his league in the looks department. That was why, when he’d seen them the next time, he’d sat down all cocky and full of it, making the fact he’d slept with her unmistakable. They hadn’t believed him at first, but when he didn’t back down, didn’t crack a smile and agree that he was winding them up, his best mate had blown out a breath, held up his pint and said, ‘Gus shagged Baby Spice. Nice one.’
Baby.
He felt suddenly woozy.
The air seemed to get muggier and more humid. Above him a gauzy layer of clouds locked in the heat, smothering them all like a huge white duvet.
The kids followed Amy over the stile. Rosie tripped and in the process trod in a cow pat. Sonny laughed. Rosie slapped him on the stomach. Sonny laughed even more and called her Cow Pat Rosie, which made Amy have to hold in a laugh as she told him not to call his sister names while Rosie cried.
It made Gus think about his own family. About the near constant bickering with his siblings – all five of them – and his own parents’ house on a farm in Suffolk, crammed full of stuff and people and kids. There were always more babies, more cats, more dogs, more tiny chicks in the airing cupboard; everything mismatched, spotlessly clean but worn and tired. He couldn’t imagine anyone going missing other than because they’d got lost on the land somewhere. He had spent his life appreciative of it but desperate to escape it. He had lain on his triple bunk bed dreaming of one day having his own space. A place where he and he alone would be in control, where he could do as he pleased, where it would be silent. And now he had it. He cherished his independence, barely had long-term relationships, and shuddered inside when a girlfriend tried to make him commit to a holiday a couple of months in advance. Yet here he was, on the verge of being permanently tied to this Britney Spears wannabe because of one stupid, drunken mistake. He had to make her see sense.
They walked single file down the side of the field, the footpath jagged with stones, the air scented with cows and wild garlic, and the barbs of the blackthorn bushes clutching at their T-shirts.
‘Amy,’ Rosie said, idly plucking at the long grass. ‘Is Gus your boyfriend?’
Gus snorted a laugh at the back as Amy visibly bristled, her hand fluffing up her hair like a nervous tick. ‘No,’ she said, short and sharp without turning round.
Sonny turned round though and made a sniggering face at Gus. And Rosie was walking backwards now, eyes narrowed as if she’d been certain she had cracked a particularly difficult code that no one else had yet deciphered.
Gus raised a brow, smug to have outwitted her.
Amy marched on ahead, not speaking, putting herself as far ahead of the group as she could.
Gus thought about the phone call he’d had with his mother last night when he’d been out walking the dog. Needing to talk to someone but unsure who. As soon as she’d answered the phone he knew she’d been the wrong person to call.
‘She says she’s going to keep it.’
‘Oh, Gus, love, that’s wonderful.’
‘It’s not wonderful.’
‘Where are you? It’s very loud.’
‘Cornwall. It’s the sea.’
‘You could do with a bit of fresh air.’
He imagined her bustling round the kitchen, desperate to envelope him in a big, busty hug. She’d be clutching the cat, probably, to make up for his absence. He’d sighed, regretting the panic that had made him ring in the first place. ‘If she has it, I suppose it’ll only be every other weekend though, won’t it?’ he said, almost to himself. ‘Isn’t that what people do?’ He could hear his sister, Claudia, in the background as his mother relayed the whole chat to her, say, ‘Overnight usually in the week as well, Gussy!’
‘Stop it, the pair of you,’ his mother said. ‘You don’t just have a baby at the weekend, Gus. It’s forever. It’s in your life, that’s it.’
Gus had made a hasty excuse to hang up then walked glassy-eyed after the dog, the word ‘forever’ looping in his head like the monotonous drone of the waves.
Now the air was getting warmer as they walked. Out the other side of the field they trudged up the coastal path. A maze of brambles on one side, a sheer drop on the other. Gus peered down at the sea, tide in, lapping at the base of the cliff like a hungry dog. There was no shade. No one had thought to bring any water. By the time they got to the Coach and Horses they were all sweaty and sulky with thirst. Amy snapped at Rosie and Sonny to stop squabbling as she patted her skin with a tissue, checking in the window that her make-up was all still in place before they went in. Gus wondered if he had time to get a swift half in but thought he’d better not when Amy opened the door and all the locals greeted her with a big show of sympathetic enthusiasm. Gus thought he’d loiter close to the door instead. An old man by the bar gave Rosie a pound for the fruit machine which kept her and Sonny busy. Gus watched as a group of young surfer-looking guys hovered round Amy, hugging her, draping their arms round her shoulders, kissing her on the cheek and ruffling her hair. It was fascinating to watch. She seemed surprised to see them all and less comfortable with the attention than he’d presumed she might be, breaking the chat short to ask the barman if he’d seen her dad recently or noticed anything unusual.
‘Barely been in,’ the barman said. ‘Last couple of weeks haven’t seen him. Sorry, love.’
Amy nodded. ‘That’s OK.’
Behind her the fruit machine started beeping and flashing. Rosie yelped as coins started clanging into the tray. ‘I’ve won!’ she shouted.
The whole place turned to look. Amy’s friends laughed, a couple of them swaggering over to gawp at the jackpot. Gus heard them invite Amy to sit down for a drink but she declined, pointing to the door, inadvertently at Gus, saying that they had to go. Gus lifted his hand in a self-conscious wave. One of the guys raised a brow at Amy. She did a little shake of her head, ‘It’s nothing like that,’ then helping Rosie scoop coins into her pocket, ushered them all back out into the sunshine.
‘Right, to the high street,’ she said, pushing her sunglasses on and pointing up the lane, clearly on edge.
‘Race you, Cow Pat,’ Sonny shouted and ran ahead.
Rosie sprinted after him. ‘Don’t call me Cow Pat.’
Gus found himself side by side with Amy.
They walked in silence for a bit.
‘Everything OK?’ he asked, more just for something polite to say. She definitely seemed a bit odd but then she always seemed slightly odd to him.
‘Fine,’ she said, without turning his way.
Gus nodded.
A bus trundled by. They walked past a tea room and an antique centre. An old woman with a stick was deadheading her geraniums. ‘Oh, hello Amy, love. You all right?’ she asked.
‘Fine thank you, Mrs Obertone,’ Amy said, super polite, taking her sunglasses off and making a point of checking that Mrs Obertone’s children were well, etc.
Gus shuddered. He couldn’t bear the idea of everyone knowing him and everything about him again. Visits to his parents’ house were always accompanied by wind-ups in the pub about when he was going to take over the farm.
When they got to what Amy had referred to as the high street – a gallery, fish and chip shop, pasty shop, and pharmacy – Gus trailed behind her as she went into every shop and enquired about her father. And every single person enquired about her, a subject he noticed Amy expertly deflected, countering quick smart with questions about all the other person’s extended family. For Gus, it was painfully slow going.
Finally, they got to the Londis.
Gus ambled the aisles as Amy queued at the checkout to talk to the cashier whose name nobody could remember.
He found Rosie in the toy section holding a Barbie in a box. ‘Don’t you think she looks like Amy?’ she said.
Gus exhaled as he took the Barbie off her and stared, reluctantly, at the big blue eyes and the big blonde hair. ‘A bit.’
‘You don’t look like Ken,’ Rosie said flatly.
Gus laughed. ‘No, I know I don’t.’
‘Your nose is too big,’ she said, giggling naughtily to herself after she said it.
‘Thanks.’
Rosie looked confused. ‘I don’t understand why you said thanks.’
‘Because your aim was to insult me and it didn’t work.’
Her cheeks pinked. ‘Will you tell my mum?’
‘Yes.’
She looked panicked.
‘No,’ said Gus, rolling his eyes. ‘Why would I tell your mum? How old are you?’
‘Seven.’
‘Well, you’re old enough to learn. Don’t say bad shit about people’s noses.’
‘You said “shit”.’
‘Yes, I did. Got a problem with that?’
‘It’s not nice to swear.’
‘Are you going to tell my mum?’
Rosie giggled. ‘I can’t tell your mum.’
‘Here,’ Gus got his phone out his pocket, ‘ring her up, tell her.’
‘Noooooo,’ Rosie laughed, like he was the silliest person she’d met.
Gus put his phone away with a grin.
Rosie picked up the Ken doll box. ‘He actually looks like Uncle Bobby.’ She turned to look at Gus. ‘He died. Did you know that?’
Gus shook his head.
‘Surfing,’ Rosie said.
‘Oh right.’ Gus nodded. ‘And Uncle Bobby, that was your Mum and Amy’s brother, yeah?’ Part of him knew that that wasn’t going to be the right answer when he said it, but the part of him willing it to be right had overruled it. Because if, as he suspected, this Bobby character had been Amy’s husband then it suddenly added another layer to this person he’d inadvertently slept with. To this person he had intended to persuade to terminate the baby she was carrying. To this person who wasn’t really a person but just an airhead Britney Spears WhatsApp avatar.
Rosie made a face at him, a real winner of an are-you-completely-stupid stare and said, ‘Mum doesn’t have a brother. Bobby was married to Amy. It’s really sad. Amy was really sad. Bobby was really handsome—’
‘That’s enough, Rosie,’ Amy’s voice cut in on the conversation. She was standing at the end of the aisle, arms crossed.
Rosie jumped and dropped the Ken doll.
Gus bent down to pick it up, slowly, all the time watching as Amy came forward and yanked Rosie over to the ice cream freezer.
Then he stood up and slotted the doll back on the shelf, pausing for a second, his hand resting on a Buy One Get One Free sign. ‘Shit,’ he muttered under his breath.
CHAPTER 10 (#ulink_7f5e5103-1982-5956-859f-34173b2c853b)
Stella and Jack were halfway back from the fishing lake when the car broke down. The petrol gauge had been bleeping on empty since they left the house but a trip to the petrol station was in the opposite direction to the lake, and Jack had assured Stella that the Nissan Qashqai can run 43 miles after the needle hits empty on the dashboard. The lake was only ten miles away. Unfortunately, Jack hadn’t factored in a key road on the route being blocked by a lorry pouring concrete for building works and a diversion which then led off into a winding country lane maze outside Stella’s jurisdiction and unnavigable because iMaps wouldn’t load on either of their phones. When they finally got back to countryside she knew, they were out of petrol.
‘We should have got the sat nav fixed,’ Jack muttered, slamming the car door.
‘Or,’ Stella said, standing in the passing point where they’d managed to crawl to a stop, ‘we should have got some petrol.’
Jack didn’t reply. Just sucked in his cheeks, visibly fuming.
Stella scratched her head, looked around to get her bearings. It had been so long since she’d lived around here.
‘Which way?’ Jack said, his phone map still just a frustrating grey grid with a blue dot.
Stella shrugged. ‘Well, the house is that way.’ She pointed slightly to her right. ‘But the quickest route would be straight ahead to the sea and then along the cliff path. So up there.’ She pointed towards the high verge beside them that flanked the road. Jack looked dubious but didn’t argue, clearly still furious with himself about the petrol.
Heat bore down on them as they climbed. The humidity was reaching its peak. Stella slipped on the grass in her flip-flops. Her long blue skirt and white vest were not meant for trudging walks. Midges buzzed round her head.
She felt like she was walking through one of the polytunnels she’d watched out of the window of a coach journey once through the arid wasteland of southern Spain. It was years ago, in the early days of having Sonny when she had no clue how much sun the pale new skin of a baby could handle. Sonny had spent the week squeezed like a fat little sausage into an all-in-one sun protection suit and hat with a white baby-sunblock face. She’d watched other children running about naked. She remembered running about naked herself, but the sun was more dangerous now because of global warming – that’s what she’d read on Mumsnet when she’d googled it before they left. But then one of the posts had warned of babies having vitamin D deficiency nowadays because they were overly protected from the sun. She remembered sitting looking perplexed with Jack – both of them, she knew, secretly remembering the holidays when they could lie back for a nap or nip off to the bar for a beer. Jack did actually nip off to the bar for a beer, and alone with the sand-eating sausage baby, Stella had started to write, scribbling in the back of the paperback she had naively taken to read, and Potty-Mouth was born. The first column was called, ‘Holiday? What holiday?’ The first line: ‘I never believed anyone when they said a holiday with kids was “same shit, different place”. I thought they were just miserable bastards. They were. They had kids.’
She’d actually quite enjoyed the holiday in the end – staying up eating tapas while Sonny snored in the buggy in just his nappy, watching him giggle at the sea and be cooed over by grannies – and the article had gone full circle, ending on a high note but certainly not scrimping on the grizzle. The Sunday broadsheet magazine that she wrote for occasionally had run it, delighted by the angle – their readers loved a shocked snort with their weekend brunch, a nod of retrospective agreement ‘I wish we’d been able to say things like this in my day’ or a pass of the page over the table, ‘read this, it’s like that time it rained in Mallorca every day and the twins got chicken pox’. A flurry of letters arrived in uproarious response – some full-blown thank yous from people just relieved that someone else was finding it all as bad or worse than they were, others who didn’t find her funny at all, she tried her best to ignore those, because Potty-Mouth was hired.
Over the years her column had lost an inch to advertising space and a new editor had made it clear that the readers wanted the grizzle. The best of the bad bits wrapped up in a witty package that took just over three minutes to read.
‘I’m sweating,’ said Jack as he hiked the final few feet up the hill. The verge dotted with spiky gorse bushes and pink heather.
‘Me too.’
Jack wiped his brow with his T-shirt. Dark hair pushed up off his forehead. Face still rigid.
They stopped side by side at the top. Below them the scene dropped into fields of sheep and crops. Rows of cabbages and corn. A tractor was backing into the farm, then further out past a golf course and caravan park was the sea. Glinting and familiar. Pale as the sky. Stella inhaled through her nose, felt her shoulders drop slightly.
Jack shook his head. ‘This is madness. We’re miles away.’
Stella rolled her eyes. ‘It’s not that bad,’ she laughed, his annoyance working to deflate her own.
‘It’s pretty bad,’ Jack said, sweeping his arm to take in the endless view.
Stella shaded her eyes with her hand. ‘Well, look, that’s the Goldstone Caravan Park,’ she said, pointing at the rows of white static vans in the distance. ‘And the leisure centre.’ She squinted, gesturing to the right of the vans, to an ugly grey concrete building. ‘Once we’re there, we’re pretty much almost home.’ It was the distance between them and there that was the worry. ‘We just have to get across all those fields.’ She grinned.
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Jenny Oliver
'Love, humour, family and hope – the perfect ingredients for a summer read' Debbie Johnson‘Dramatic and fun!’ My WeeklyIrresistible, feel-good summer fiction, from Top 10 bestseller Jenny OliverThe house where Stella and her sister Amy grew up never changes – the red front door, the breath-taking view over the Cornish coast, her parents in their usual spots on the sofa. Except this summer, things feel a little different…Stella’s father is nowhere to be seen, yet her mother – in suspiciously new Per Una jeans – seems curiously unfazed by his absence, and more eager to talk about her mysterious dog-walking buddy Mitch.Stella’s sister Amy has returned home with a new boyfriend she can barely stand and a secret to hide, and Stella’s husband Jack has something he wants to get off his chest too. Even Frank Sinatra, the dog, has a guilty air about him.This summer, change is in the air for the Whitethorns…Warm, funny and gloriously feel-good, this is the perfect summer read for fans of Veronica Henry and Milly Johnson.What readers are saying about Jenny Oliver:'Summer holidays wouldn't be the same without one of Jenny Oliver's lovely books to read.''This was brilliant. I was really sad when it came to an end.''Another great read from Jenny Oliver…Looking forward to reading her next one''well written and hilarious family situations which we can all relate to.''Feel good factor in this book. Will be reading more of this author.'
JENNY OLIVER wrote her first book on holiday when she was ten years old. Illustrated with cut-out supermodels from her sister’s Vogue, it was an epic, sweeping love story not so loosely based on Dynasty. Since then Jenny has gone on to get an English degree and a job in publishing that’s taught her what it takes to write a novel (without the help of the supermodels).
Also by Jenny Oliver (#ulink_7057d43f-0d0d-563b-884b-4f72c5b6b5f5)
The Parisian Christmas Bake Off
The Vintage Summer Wedding
The Little Christmas Kitchen
The Sunshine and Biscotti Club
The Summerhouse by the Sea
Copyright (#ulink_742e0c70-f5e8-522c-b34c-4773f82fb068)
An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2018
Copyright © Jenny Oliver 2018
Jenny Oliver asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © June 2018 ISBN: 9780008217990
Version: 2018-06-14
Praise for Jenny Oliver (#ulink_12f7c635-21cd-5d46-8847-bcbe0f0ef0ba)
‘Brilliantly written, this is packed full of humour… A perfect holiday read.’
The Sun
‘This book made me want to dance on the beach with a glass of sangria in my hand. The perfect summer read.’
Sarah Morgan
‘This is a real treat. A touching story of love, loss and finding out what really matters in life. I love it!’
Julia Williams
‘Jenny Oliver writes contemporary women’s fiction which leaves you with a warm, fuzzy feeling inside.’
Books with Bunny
‘Intelligent, delightful and charming! The writing is exquisite.’
What’s Better Than Books
‘A perfect summer read.’
This Price Is Usually Right
‘A sprinkling of festivity, a touch of romance and a glorious amount of mouth-watering baking!’
Rea Book Review
‘…it was everything I enjoy…I couldn’t find a single flaw.’
Afternoon Bookery
‘I didn’t want to put the book down until I had reached the very last word on the last page.’
A Spoonful of Happy Endings
To Emily
Contents
Cover (#ua2750280-5f8d-52ae-866f-4705ef72d526)
About the Author (#u9645f8c6-f12a-54f3-ad20-427d4bf9c8d7)
Also by Jenny Oliver (#ulink_e3a1ac2e-b4f5-56ed-8579-ec5282008b20)
Title Page (#u09620bca-c5e8-5507-ba74-16ce3fd6458c)
Copyright (#ulink_234ff2f2-90c1-5972-86e8-dd74ddec60c1)
Praise (#ulink_2326e048-6223-5ee8-8fa6-de3b71a3e25c)
Dedication (#u8690cb22-735a-5377-86d3-3f6c132ce66b)
CHAPTER 1 (#ulink_65d37617-60fb-57ca-aa39-b54da8635e12)
CHAPTER 2 (#ulink_ae0993aa-9cde-52f6-af47-5735d5421cbc)
CHAPTER 3 (#ulink_ceb73cee-fbc4-5449-965b-3009768fd196)
CHAPTER 4 (#ulink_2089ae74-d39b-5931-ade9-3837d84cf3e6)
CHAPTER 5 (#ulink_72ea7e6c-2654-5c73-8f45-aaecc59f18d2)
CHAPTER 6 (#ulink_9f40ee99-8e50-5965-98c2-0808539535e2)
CHAPTER 7 (#ulink_07eae367-8579-5054-bf1e-80d0a50cd78d)
CHAPTER 8 (#ulink_c68fa28f-ebb5-5175-81be-9312fce26d97)
CHAPTER 9 (#ulink_fb0955d7-e160-5745-b663-ad014b72c5df)
CHAPTER 10 (#ulink_8f921bf2-a563-5b24-a0f1-6708f1b7fd22)
CHAPTER 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 26 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 27 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 28 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 29 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 30 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 31 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 32 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 33 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 34 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 35 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 36 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 37 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 38 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 39 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 40 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 41 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 42 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 43 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 44 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 45 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 46 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 47 (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 1 (#ulink_bc4b147a-54ec-5f6a-9240-a9eb94faa149)
She stood at the cliff edge looking out at the rolling summer surf. The house towering behind her, solid grey stone and slate, bursting pink rhododendrons, white garden furniture that needed a paint. The image, like closing your eyes after glancing at the sun, almost indelible on her retina, beams of light dancing in the dark.
Out ahead, mountains of cloud hovered on the horizon, a windsurfer made painful progress in the non-existent breeze while paddleboarders cruised on water that glistened like a million jumping fish.
Moira balled up her fists. Tight so she could feel her nails in her palms. If she could she would have rattled them like a child throwing a tantrum. If she could she would have screwed her eyes shut and stamped her foot and shouted down at the bloody picture-perfect view, ‘Graham Whitethorn, you goddamn pain in the arse.’
But she couldn’t. Because from inside the hoody of the teenage boy standing beside her she could just glimpse big worried eyes, and see the wipe of snot on his frayed baggy cuffs.
So, instead she took a deep invigorating breath of salty sea air, pushed her hair from her face, and said, ‘Come on then, Sonny. Let’s make some breakfast and call your mother. Tell her what silly old Grandpa’s done.’
They turned back towards the house. The beautiful house. The image on her retina fitting the outline exactly.
CHAPTER 2 (#ulink_c12f6485-c50c-513a-99e6-5e3f91057d36)
‘What do you mean he’s gone missing?’ Stella frowned into her phone, then almost without thinking pointed out of the car window and said to her seven-year-old, ‘Look, Rosie – Stonehenge.’
‘Missing…?’ Jack, her husband, mouthed from the driver’s seat.
Stella made a face, unsure.
Behind her, little Rosie had no interest in Stonehenge, deeply imbedded in YouTube on the iPad, happily powering through their 4G data with her gem-studded headphones on. Usually Stella would have clicked her fingers to get Rosie’s attention and pointed out of the window again to make sure she didn’t miss the view, but the phone call from her mother trumped any tourist attraction. ‘I don’t understand, Mum,’ Stella said. ‘How can Dad be missing? Where is he?’
Jack was frowning. Traffic was backing up from the roundabout up ahead.
‘Well darling, that’s what we don’t know,’ said her mother, her voice tinny over the phone.
Stella felt strangely out of control. Thoughts popped into her head that she wouldn’t have expected.
She and her father did not get along well. They barely talked. Hadn’t for years. Past anger had morphed into silence, and silence into habit – the threads tethered firmly in place, calcifying solid with stubbornness and age. Yet as her mother spoke, Stella found herself overcome by unfamiliar emotion. She worried suddenly that she might start to cry. God that would be embarrassing. Jack would probably crash the car in shock.
‘How long has he been missing?’ Stella asked, turning towards the window, eyes wide to dry the possible threat of tears.
‘Since yesterday,’ said her mother. ‘Although I’m not altogether sure what time he left because we were at Sainsbury’s.’
‘Since yesterday?’ Stella said, shocked. ‘Why didn’t you call before?’
‘Well, I knew you had a long drive today and I wanted you to get a good night’s sleep. And I thought it might be a good idea to give him a chance to come back without worrying everyone.’
This seemed very odd behaviour from her mother, who had never been the kind of person to suffer in silence.
‘So you’ve been worrying on your own?’
There was a brief silence at the other end of the phone.
‘Mum, are you OK?’
‘Yes darling, I’m fine,’ her mother said. And she sounded fine. Too fine. Almost drunk. Stella would have anticipated much more drama. A little more sobbing and neediness when actually she wondered if that was the kettle she could hear being flicked on in the background.
Stella frowned. ‘Is it something to do with Sonny? Is that why he’s left? Has Sonny been a pain?’
‘Not at all. Your father and Sonny have got on very well actually. I only told Sonny he’d gone this morning too – teenagers need their sleep, don’t they?’
Stella scrunched her eyes tight. The idea of her son and her father getting on well was too much at this point.
‘And have you rung Dad?’ Stella asked.
‘Yes. Straight to answerphone. He’s left a little note telling us not to worry.’
Stella pressed her hand to her forehead. She was really tired. They had left at five to avoid the weekend holiday traffic down to the Cornish coast but had stopped once already for Rosie to be sick in a Starbucks cup after secretly shovelling all the sweets meant for the five-hour journey into her mouth in the first twenty minutes. ‘Look, Daddy – a whole Haribo bear,’ she’d said, quite gleeful. The traffic report on the radio suggested that this current tailback was because a caravan had jack-knifed further up the A303. ‘What does the note say?’
‘Just that he’s gone away for a bit.’
‘But where?’
‘To be honest darling, I haven’t the foggiest.’
Something really wasn’t right in her mother’s reaction.
‘Mum, is there something you’re not telling me?’ Stella said, glancing across at Jack who was doing all sorts of faces back at her trying to get the gist of what was going on.
‘No darling, nothing.’
Stella nodded, wary. Disliking the feeling of uncertainty that had settled over her. ‘OK, well we’ll be at yours in about three hours I reckon.’
‘Don’t drive too fast,’ said her mother.
‘Unlikely with this traffic,’ Stella said, then added a goodbye.
When she hung up the phone Jack said, ‘Where’s your dad gone?’
Stella shook her head, chucking her phone into her bag. ‘She doesn’t know.’
Jack half-laughed. ‘That’s absurd. He doesn’t go anywhere.’
Stella held her hands wide. ‘Apparently he does.’
Jack looked like he was about to say something else but was cut off by the car behind beeping when Jack didn’t immediately move forward to fill the gap as the traffic rolled forward a car’s length.
‘I knew we should have taken the M4 route,’ he muttered.
Stella shook her head, incredulous. It had been her suggestion that they take the A303 and she couldn’t believe he hadn’t held in that comment in light of the whole missing-dad fiasco.
They drove on in silence for a while, the car warming up as their dodgy air conditioning failed to compete with the rising sun.
She and Jack had already had a row after she’d admitted being a bit nervous about seeing Sonny.
The reason they were currently driving down to Cornwall was to pick up their thirteen-year-old son, who, at the end of her tether, Stella had sent to stay with her parents for a fortnight.
Jack had sighed and replied, quite haughtily in Stella’s opinion, ‘Well, it should never have got this far in the first place! We should have dealt with it at home.’
‘You can keep saying that, Jack, but you weren’t there. You’re never there to see what a pain he is. You waltz in the door at seven thirty when it’s practically bedtime anyway.’
‘I do not waltz in the door.’
Stella had wanted to say that he very much did waltz in the door, but they’d been over this a thousand times already. That was how her and Jack’s relationship had been for the last few weeks. She’d tried countless times to explain to him the unrelenting frustration of every night trying to force their thirteen-year-old to get off his phone and do his homework, Stella’s own deadlines pressing down on her, stress mounting. Until the evening that Sonny had sworn he was doing his physics project but was just hiding his phone behind half a papier-mâché Vesuvius. Furious, Stella had whipped the phone off him, deleted the game he was playing and every other one and changed the password to her iTunes account so he couldn’t download anything else.
‘You stupid bitch!’ Sonny had shouted at her and then he’d looked immediately at the floor, his face rigid.
‘I beg your pardon?’
Silence.
‘Apologise. Now!’ Stella said, hands on her hips, eyes wide.
Still silence.
Time hung paused in the air.
‘Apologise.’ Nothing.
She could feel her heart rate rising. ‘If you don’t apologise, Sonny, by the time I count to three—’ The words came out of her mouth almost on instinct. As if she was so tired and stressed her brain had resorted to a time when she was guaranteed control. To when Sonny was a little kid and more than happy to apologise if it meant he’d get to keep his chocolate buttons.
Right now, Stella had no idea what she would do when she got to three. She should have used the deleting of the apps as bait but such strategy was easy in hindsight, all she could do now was start counting. ‘One.’
Sonny’s eyes stayed fixed on the ground.
Please just say sorry.
‘Two.’
His jaw clenched.
Stella took a breath in through her nose. She contemplated ‘two and a half’ but knew she was putting it off for her own benefit.
‘Three,’ she said.
Sonny looked up, stared her straight in the eye. Then the corner of his lip turned up in the smallest hint of a smirk, his expression saying, ‘What you gonna do now, Mum?’
For the first time ever, Stella had felt the urge to slap him round the face. She hadn’t. But it had crossed her mind that in that moment she didn’t like her son one bit. Nor did she know what to do with him. So she had walked away, hands raised in the air, and said, ‘Do you know what, I don’t need this.’ A flash of her own childhood had popped into her head. She imagined what would have happened if she’d looked at her father the way Sonny had just looked at her. It was unthinkable. The thought made her pause and turn, look at Sonny still grinning smugly down at the carpet, and say, ‘You can go to Cornwall. See what a few weeks with Granny and Grandpa does.’ Her father had certainly never taken any crap from her growing up.
So here they were, driving down to Cornwall a fortnight later to pick up Sonny. The morning sun was shimmering like dust in the air, tension thrumming through the car.
Stella glanced across at Jack’s profile. His eyes were fixed on the crawling traffic ahead. She hated that he’d cut her down when she’d mentioned feeling nervous about seeing their son because Jack was who she talked to. He was the person who made her feel better, who helped her think straight. Her wingman.
They didn’t usually fight over things like this, Jack usually took her lead on parenting. But they seemed so busy at the moment, both of them distracted with work, the kids being particularly kid-like, and with the start of the summer holidays they hadn’t had a proper chance to talk it all through. She had thought maybe they might on this five-hour journey, but now it all seemed rather overshadowed by the sudden and strange disappearance of her father.
Stella stared out of the window, repeating the fact over in her head, ‘Dad’s missing.’ But it wouldn’t really lodge properly in her brain, like a moth on a light bulb fruitlessly knock, knock, knocking to get inside. She didn’t want to acknowledge it – there were too many questions to know where to begin.
The traffic started moving again.
Stella felt completely off-kilter. She got her phone out to try and distract herself but immediately remembered the emails on there about a looming work deadline that she couldn’t bring herself to open. Work felt like another life. If she thought too much about it she could sense her normal balance of organised chaos teetering precariously into overwhelming. She stared at her phone. The screensaver was a picture of Rosie and Sonny posing over giant milkshakes piled high with whipped cream and a load of Cadbury’s flakes and Oreos shoved in the top – an after-school treat on Rosie’s birthday. It had all gone a bit pear-shaped after the photo was snapped because Sonny had accidentally on purpose nudged Rosie’s face into the cream, but it was rare to get a picture of the two of them smiling for the camera. Stella clicked the phone off and put it back in her bag. It scared her that she didn’t know if she wanted to see her own son. She had a vision of him at her parents’ house, would he even come down to greet them? Then she thought of the empty sofa cushion where her dad always sat and felt herself go a bit dizzy. Like her brain couldn’t hold all this stress. She pressed her palms to her temples.
‘You OK?’ Jack asked, glancing Stella’s way.
‘I’m not sure.’ Stella took some deep, calming breaths.
Jack frowned. Stella was always sure.
‘Are you going to be sick?’ he asked, panic in his voice. ‘Do you need a cup?’
She had to laugh. ‘No, I don’t need a cup.’
Then from the back seat Rosie shouted, ‘I need to go to the toilet.’
And Stella was back in the moment. Her momentary lapse shaken off by the sharp immediacy of parenting. ‘OK there’s a service station just up here,’ she said, glancing round to reassure Rosie and then back to Jack. ‘I’m fine,’ she added, to dispel his look of nervous concern. ‘Absolutely fine. Dad can’t have gone far. As you say, he doesn’t go anywhere so it won’t be that hard to find him.’ She got ready to undo her seat belt as Jack pulled into the Little Chef.
‘We find him. We get Sonny. We go. It’ll be fine.’
CHAPTER 3 (#ulink_0616a8f5-9474-5d9e-8cd4-9976b1d1e0ad)
Moira was nervous about her daughter arriving. She always got a little nervous around Stella, wrong-footed, feeling ever more the neurotic mother as she tried to make too many plans for their stay. Did the kids want to go to the new model railway, for example, because tickets were hard to get hold of and the queue without them snaked round the block. Stella’s replies of, ‘Don’t worry, it’ll be fine. We’ll decide when we get there,’ would leave Moira wound up like a spring – should she get tickets or not? When they arrived, Stella’s family would breeze into the house in a cloud of barely controlled pandemonium, eat everything in the fridge, traipse sand on the carpet, and uncork more wine than Moira and Graham drank in a month. Quite often Moira would escape to the kitchen to tidy up because the energy of them all was just too much. How many times she’d cleared up the plates at Christmas to the sound of one of Stella’s stories, loud and confident, secretly wishing she had a fraction of her daughter’s strength.
Now, as Moira stood in the kitchen making herself a cup of tea and glancing up at the driveway every time she heard a noise, convinced it was them, she thought how the memory of the few holidays Stella had with them existed in a short, loud blur. Like a rollercoaster – pause for too long and it would all fall from the sky.
She unhooked one of her Emma Bridgewater mugs from the Welsh dresser. It was a collection she’d amassed over the years – everyone buying her one of the decorative pieces for birthdays and Christmas after she’d once expressed a passing interest while flicking through a Country Living. Now she was almost overrun with the stuff, it was hard to know how to tell them to stop. When she’d had the kitchen done, Moira had considered packing it all away but couldn’t face the questions, imagining their faces, almost accusing about why she didn’t like it any more – if indeed she ever had. She wasn’t sure, it had just become who she was to them: ‘Mum, that’s the china you like.’ There would be too much hurt confusion to deal with if she changed.
The kettle clicked off. She poured the water three-quarters full, squished the teabag just so and added a long splosh of milk – far too much for Stella’s taste, which Moira would have to remember.
The day was warming up. She leant over and opened the kitchen window, filling the room with the heady, teasing scent of the jasmine that climbed up a trellis from a big pot by the front door. She stood, inhaling the perfume, her hip resting against her beautiful new rose marble kitchen worksurface – a recent, very expensive addition that Graham had huffed was change for change’s sake, but Moira adored. The smell of the jasmine was intoxicating. It made her want to pack up all that china immediately and go and buy the snazzy hand-thrown cups she’d seen in the local gallery with gold handles and bright turquoise stripes.
Graham would hate them.
Stella would mock them.
Or maybe she wouldn’t. Moira paused. Maybe Stella would like a gold-handled mug. Moira sipped her tea and thought briefly about whether she actually knew Stella at all nowadays. The telephone conversation asking them to have Sonny to stay for a fortnight had been the first time Stella had asked for anything in years. Moira had felt a momentary flutter of flattery but knew better than to ask Stella what had happened. ‘Of course, darling. I can meet you in Exeter if you like, save you the full trip. I’ve just repapered the spare bedroom – a lovely Zoffany gold, did you know they did wallpaper in TK Maxx now? – so he can sleep up there. Have his own little space.’ Waffling on in a nervous attempt not to pry.
But my God, she had wanted to know what was going on. The desire had tickled her insides like beetles. This type of thing didn’t happen to cool, confident Stella. Or ‘Potty-Mouth’ as anyone who read the Sunday News knew her as, one of the genre originators of the slummy-mummy brigade. The worst example, according to the Daily Mail, of resentful, neglectful motherhood with her gin-soaked, laissez-faire attitude to childrearing.
While Moira had tutted over a few of the expletives in Stella’s columns she’d always been quietly proud of her daughter’s success. Stella had worked her way up with no help from anyone. It had been an old friend of Moira’s who’d posted the copy of the local magazine where Stella’s first ever article had appeared along with a tiny headshot, ‘Is this your Stella?’ she’d scrawled on a Post-It, and Moira had had to lie when she’d telephoned her friend back, saying she knew all about it. Then soon followed by-lines in the national papers – Stella texting to say when and where at the request of her mother – and then full-page editorials in the colour supplements. Then came ‘Potty-Mouth’, as divisive as it was loved. But however controversial some elements, Moira would often allow herself the odd snigger when a straight-talking anecdote about the frustrations of motherhood touched a nerve.
But right now she couldn’t help wondering if all was quite as it once was. She’d noticed a slightly more acerbic tone to a few of the columns recently. Nothing too bad, just a touch less light-hearted. Poor little moody Sonny, who was currently upstairs locked in some battle on his laptop computer, hadn’t fared so well in a couple of them. She’d almost rung Stella to say something but hadn’t quite had the nerve.
She thought again of monosyllabic Sonny, sulkily slamming the door of Stella’s car at Exeter Services, trudging over in the torrential rain, hood down so his hair got soaked in a seeming deliberate defiance of his mother, and barely scowling a goodbye.
Moira went over to the bottom of the stairs and called, ‘Do you want a cup of tea, Sonny?’
‘No,’ he shouted back. Then a second later, ‘Thanks.’ As if remembering that he wasn’t in his own home and couldn’t quite get away with his desired level of moodiness.
Moira was still getting used to the open-plan nature of the entire bottom floor of the house. When she and Graham had first bought the place, full of youthful exuberance, it had been part of their grand renovation plans but they’d never got round to it. Then after Christmas Moira had insisted. Determined to get Graham up and doing something, she’d thought it was the perfect project. But never had she heard someone grumble and gripe quite so much and, in the end, she’d put Graham out of his misery and taken over the project herself mid-way. After it was done Graham had complained of a draught from the front door. At the time Moira couldn’t have given two hoots about a draught, high on the fact she’d overseen the renovation almost single-handed – with a lot of help from Dave the builder. But nowadays, while she still adored the light and space, she missed the fact she could no longer shut herself away in the kitchen, imagining herself alone. And, if pushed, she might concede to a slight draught, on a chilly day.
Walking back across the beautifully sanded wooden floorboards, she remembered the look of terror on Sonny’s face when on Day One of his Cornish banishment Graham had stood in the centre of the living room and barked, ‘No hoods up indoors, no stomping on the stairs, and we say “please” and “thank you” in this house.’ Graham had marched over to the bottom of the stairs, glowering across at Sonny who had, a second before, been head down, hood up, stomping up the stairs ignoring an offer from Moira of a toasted teacake, and said, ‘Got that, young man?’
Moira had been standing in the exact same place she was now and had been as shocked as Sonny to see Graham unfurl himself from the sofa and stride across to the hallway to issue his orders.
The new layout had proved an unexpected bonus from that moment. It gave Moira the perfect vantage point to view the gradual development of the Sonny and Graham show, something she would have missed had the great big wall still been in place separating the kitchen and the lounge. She would stand, chopping, mixing, sometimes just pretending to do either, and watch the pair of them in bemused fascination.
It had started after an almost silent evening meal – not uncommon in their household lately – when Graham was back firmly in front of the TV and Sonny slumped in the armchair opposite. Graham had muttered, ‘Bloody phones. Do you ever look up from that thing?’
Sonny had glanced up, eyes narrowed, looking the spitting image of Stella and said, ‘Do you ever look up from that?’ gesturing towards the TV.
Moira, who was drying up her Limited Edition Emma Bridgewater mugs to commemorate the birth of each of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s children, had held her breath, waiting to see what might happen. Whether Graham still had it in him to rage at insolence. She’d seen it flit across his face, but Sonny didn’t flinch, just sat, eyes locked with his. The stance intentionally designed to provoke, as if Sonny had gone upstairs after that first telling off from Graham and drawn out his battle plans.
To Moira’s surprise, Graham had reached forward for the remote, turned the TV off and said, ‘Come on then, show me.’
And they sat for hours, Graham having gone to get his glasses then watching as Sonny scrolled through miles on his phone. Moira couldn’t believe there was enough in there to look at. At one point they’d watched something that had them both in stitches. Moira had squashed an urge to go and look at what it was that could make Graham laugh like that nowadays. But just as much she didn’t want to know, she’d wasted enough of her time trying to fathom his moods. Instead she had made herself a peppermint tea in her newly washed-up Prince George mug and considered how much cheaper it was getting Sonny to stay as a way of piquing Graham’s interest than knocking down the entire ground floor.
Now, just the thought of Graham made her furious. Made her wipe down the rose marble with frustrated vigour. Made her slam the window shut, annoyed with the bloody jasmine and its sickly overpowering smell. She thought of him sitting on that sofa barely moving except to come and sit silent and grumpy at the dinner table and chew infuriatingly loudly, scoff at the newspaper, or sigh at building costs and plumbers’ estimates. For the last two years they’d lived under a grey cloud – longer than that if she was honest – and then suddenly he ups sticks and disappears.
Furious was an understatement. In Moira’s opinion he’d gone missing in order to be missed. She paused in her wiping and stared out at the giant hydrangea that lined the gravel drive – pink when she’d have preferred blue, someone once advised she plant a rusty nail in the soil to make it change colour, fat lot of good that had done – and wondered if they could just not find him. If he was old enough to leave, he was old enough to find his way home.
Wouldn’t that teach him a lesson, she thought as she went over and started cleaning the hob, for taking something that for the first time in her life was hers, taking it and stealing it for himself.
It was too hot. Moira walked over to the dining room area and threw open the big French windows, welcoming the deafening sounds of the sea and the unfailingly calming view out over the cliff to the beach.
There was a glimmer of a breeze. Moira fanned herself with her hand considering how, before she had discovered Graham’s note the previous afternoon, she had spent most of the week – rehearsing as she lay in Stella’s old bedroom where she now slept – plucking up the courage to tell Stella when she arrived, ‘I’m leaving your father. I’m starting a new life.’
But Graham had beaten her to it. Stolen her thunder. Kept her firmly where she was, unable to leave while he was missing. Hence why the thought of ignoring his little sojourn teased her so, danced around in her head like an excited imp too wily to catch.
As she stood there smiling, behind her came a great yawn from the sofa. She turned to see Frank Sinatra – the dog – stretch and look up, eyes knowingly guilty as he nestled comfortably in Graham’s usually off-limits seat. Moira watched with no intention of turfing him off. Instead she went over and gave him a little scratch behind the ears.
Frank Sinatra was hers. He had absolutely no interest in Graham. Christened by its previous owner, it was a ridiculous name for a dog. In the past she would never have had a dog, let alone one that made her feel like a fool calling him on the beach. But in retrospect it felt like a symbol. As her friend Mitch said, if she could hold her head up high and shout, ‘Frank Sinatra, come here boy, here!’ she could do anything.
She wondered what Mitch would make of all this. Then she shuddered at the idea of Stella meeting Mitch. She would think him a cliché.
But Moira didn’t have time to dwell on the thought because the sound of gravel crunched outside and there they were, a big black Nissan Qashqai cruising in like a stag beetle.
Moira took a deep breath in through her nose and out through her mouth.
She’d started doing a yoga class at the church hall. Her breath was meant to ground her.
She went over to the window and watched Stella get out of the car, lift her sunglasses up a fraction, narrow her eyes out towards the sea, then put the sunglasses back on again.
Moira felt a shiver of nerves coupled with the gentle fizz of adrenaline. She itched to present her new more confident self but was all too aware of how easily one simple glance from Stella could shatter it to the ground.
What would Mitch say, she wondered. Probably something about taking strength from the grounding force of Mother Nature. Moira looked dubiously down at the Ronseal varnished floorboards.
Sonny appeared beside her at the window, his hair swept heavy across his forehead, his eyes narrowed to the same slits as Stella’s.
‘All right?’ Moira asked him, placing her hand on his shoulder, wondering perhaps if she could take strength from him.
But Sonny just shrugged in a gesture as much to get rid of her hand as an answer.
Moira straightened up, smoothing down her new skinny jeans she wished suddenly that she’d stuck to her old slacks then berated herself for such immediate loss of courage. Doing one more yoga breath, she walked solidly round to the front door, clicked the old metal latch and the wood creaked open.
CHAPTER 4 (#ulink_4d193d1a-199b-5b54-90e4-57db211ccc26)
Stella stood in the driveway, tired and hot. The house towered above her, grey and imperious, like an old teacher from school unexpectedly soothing in their authority. Usually she barely gave it a passing glance, distracted by the dread of the stay, too busy unloading the car, chivvying in the kids, listening to her mother wittering on about such and such’s nephew’s horrendous journey down from London the previous day that had taken a million and one hours and weren’t they lucky that wasn’t them. Today, however, she almost drank in the view: the great solid stone slabs, the white jasmine dancing over the windows, the bright red door cheery as a smile, the seagull squawking on the chimney, its mate squawking back from the wide green lawn. The Little Shop of Horrors giant gunnera was just visible between the house and the old garage that looked more dilapidated than ever but was still standing, the black weather vane stuck permanently on south. The neat little almond tree next to the cherry, the two wind-ravaged palms, and the rusty bench a few metres back from the cliff edge with an uninterrupted view out across the blanket of sea.
Somehow the sight made her father going seem less free-floating, tethered the whole debacle to reality, to familiar bricks and mortar. Looking back to the house it was a relief to know that not everything had changed.
But then the front door opened and Stella was momentarily baffled by the sight of her mother standing in the porch. She’d never in her life seen her wear a pair of jeans let alone this skin-tight pair with a trail of embroidered ivy down one leg. She’d had her hair done as well and seemed to have had lessons in exquisitely flawless make-up.
Her mother looked completely different. Why hadn’t Stella noticed a fortnight ago when she’d dropped off Sonny? Because it had been pouring, she realised. Moira had had her cagoule buttoned up tight, and Sonny had refused to go inside for them all to have a coffee, storming away to slump in the passenger seat of her mother’s Volvo.
Looking at Moira now, Stella didn’t quite know what to do, how to greet her. She tried to think about what she usually did but came up short, realising how little notice she usually took of her. How much her mother normally just blended in like the white noise of her chat.
In the end it was Moira who took the lead. Crossing the gravel drive to give Stella a little squeeze on the arm and a kiss on the cheek. She smelt of something expensive and zesty. No more quick spritz of whatever from the Avon catalogue. ‘Hello darling. How was the journey?’
‘OK in the end,’ Stella said. Then, looking her mother up and down, added, ‘You look very well. New jeans?’
Moira’s cheeks flushed pink as she replied. ‘Well, just – you know. They’re a bit of fun.’
‘Any news about Dad?’ Stella asked.
Moira shook her head, flame-red highlights bobbing. ‘Nothing more than I said on the phone.’
Stella was on the verge of asking why her mother didn’t seem more worried when she caught sight of Sonny hovering in the shadow of the doorway, head down. She swallowed. He looked up, pushing his overly long fringe out of the way. Stella took a couple of steps forward and pulled off her sunglasses to get a better look. Sonny’s eyes were all pinched and worried-looking, his skin ashen.
She got up level with him, ‘Are you all right?’
He nodded.
‘Are you sure?’
He nodded again.
She had missed him over the last fortnight but now as they stood in front of one another she wasn’t sure what to do. Whether to apologise for sending him away, whether to demand an apology from him, whether to hug him or to stand as she was, fearing rejection. She knew after all these years that that was the bit a parent was meant to rise above. There could be no external show of fear regarding a shrugging-off from one’s child – they could sense it, like horses. So she forced herself to wade through it, to not care, and putting her arm round his shoulders she pulled his cardboard-rigid frame into her side and kissed his greasy-haired head. ‘Hello, you idiot.’
He grunted.
He didn’t pull away.
He reached his hand up and touched her arm. Gave it a quick pat.
Then he pulled away.
It was enough for Stella, for the moment. ‘Why do you look so pale?’ she asked.
‘I’m worried. About Grandpa,’ he said, like she was a fool not to realise.
‘Oh.’ She was taken aback that he would have such a reaction. Stella was pretty certain the only thing Sonny had been emotionally wrought about in the last year or so was when Rosie trod on his iPhone and the screen cracked.
She looked up to see Jack watching, all the bags he could possibly carry weighing him down like a packhorse. He kept moving as soon as he saw her see him, and said, ‘Give us a hand with these, Sonny.’
Sonny took the biggest bag, then could barely lift it.
Jack and Stella shared a look, as if asking how they had managed to raise such a nincompoop, then kissing Moira on the cheek as he went past, Jack said, ‘You look well, Moira. Sorry to hear about Graham.’
‘Hello, Jack darling. Yes, it is a nuisance. How are you? Work going well?’
‘Same as always. Can’t complain,’ Jack said, straining under the weight of luggage.
‘Let me help you with some of these bags.’
‘No, no.’ Jack waved the fingers of his hand holding the suitcase handle, refusing to let her take one. ‘I can manage.’
‘He likes to feel the weight of burden,’ Stella joked.
Jack didn’t find it as funny as she thought he would and walked away with a simple raise of his brow.
‘I was only joking,’ Stella muttered, and went back to the car with her mum to get Rosie who was still sitting strapped in, glued to the iPad, oblivious to their arrival.
‘They must be a godsend for a long journey,’ her mother said, gesturing towards the iPad.
Stella nodded, thinking how she would have killed for a similar distraction in the car growing up. Stuck in the back of their maroon Vauxhall Cavalier trundling all over Europe, banned from asking, ‘Are we nearly there yet?’
The engine overheated one time just outside Madrid, the bonnet getting stuck, her dad ranting, and Stella unpeeling her skin from the hot plastic seat and going to sit on the grassy verge with the midday heat beating down in an attempt to escape his furious tirade. She’d ended up with sunstroke, making him even madder and them even later for a race he was determined not to miss. Growing up, their holidays always coincided with wherever the World or European Swimming Championships were, depending on which athletes her dad, ex-Olympic swimmer and GB Team coach, was training. Not a weekend or a holiday went by without it having something to do with swimming. ‘If there’s 365 days in the year, that’s 365 training days.’ And so to spend any time with him, they would go with him, even though he was always busy and in a bad mood for most of it. When his athletes would moan about being over-trained and tired he’d glance up with his infamous mocking, hooded gaze and say, ‘Sleeping is cheating.’ Which, as a kid, Stella always secretly wanted to say back to him when he packed her off to bed of an evening. She could still feel the childish rush of adrenaline at the idea of ever saying it, the punishment never worth the risk of such liberating impertinence.
Above them now the afternoon sun disappeared behind a stripe of cloud in the otherwise blue sky. Stella could hear the drone of bees in the lavender and a tractor thundering down the lane as she wondered what it was that had kicked off such reminiscence of her childhood. A time she tried to give very little thought. She could blame it on the heat of the car combined with the scent of sweets for the journey and the faint whiff of stale sick, but she knew it was simply the strangeness that her dad wasn’t there. His absence, the element of wrongness, forcing Stella to pause.
It made her uncomfortable. The last thing she needed was the distraction of unwanted memories. ‘Rosie!’ she said, a little too snappily.
Rosie looked up from the iPad screen, almost surprised to see that they had arrived. ‘Granny!’ she yelped, unclicking her belt and launching herself across the seat into a giant hug with Moira. For a second, Stella envied Rosie’s ability to take everything at face value, to throw herself carefree into people’s arms and assume they would hug her back. She watched them trot together towards the house, Rosie’s hand in Moira’s as she said, ‘My Barbie has jeans like those, Granny.’
Stella stifled a laugh as she watched Moira blush again. The outfit fascinated her. Her mother’s black and white striped blouse was definitely still Marks & Spencer but it looked like she might have ventured out of Per Una and into the Autograph section. There was a ruffle around the collar and the silk hung heavy and expensive. This was no sale-rail purchase. And her hair, still red but now somehow even redder. Sparkling. Stella tried to inspect it as she followed her back into the house. The sun picked out various shades of copper highlight – it was no Nice’n Easy, head over the bath dye-job. It was hard to imagine her mother handing over what she’d deem ludicrous money for a cut and colour. Yes, Stella had seen her mother be lavish but only at times Moira considered appropriate – a swanky new dress for her annual summer party, a sapphire ring for her big birthday. Things that, if she were ever stopped in the street and questioned about, her mother would feel she could justify. Hair, clothes, and make-up would usually fall into the spendthrift category. The price of a lipstick in a department store elicited a disapproving click of Moira’s tongue.
And it wasn’t because she didn’t have the money. In Stella’s opinion her mother notched up things to disapprove of in order to give herself something to do.
It was only when Stella stepped inside the front door that she realised the makeover extended beyond her mother’s wardrobe. Gazing incredulously at the newly knocked-through ground floor, she began to wonder if it was more a case of what hadn’t changed. ‘Wow!’ she said, taking in all the space from where she stood – the point which had previously been the door of the kitchen. ‘I knew you were having this done, but I don’t think I realised it would be quite like this.’ In front of her was the living room with its wooden ceiling beams now exposed and a flash log burner in place of the open fire. The walls which had once been magenta and Harrods green had been given the Farrow & Ball treatment, licked with Elephant’s Breath. Light flooded in from the wall of windows that lined the old dining room, no longer obscured by heavy velvet drapes but a flutter of white muslin and a wraparound sea view.
Moira frowned. ‘But I sent you pictures?’
Stella nodded. ‘Yeah, I know.’ Had she even looked at them? Messages from her mother were so easy to ignore.
Stella looked down at the floor. The cream ‘no red wine in here, please!’ carpets had gone to reveal beautifully varnished floorboards overlaid with a huge sisal rug. And next to her the old pine kitchen cupboards had been given a Shaker-style makeover alongside some slightly garish marble surfaces. It was all achingly on-Country-Living-trend. Certainly the image of her father sitting silently in his seat staring at the snooker on the muted TV felt a touch outmoded.
‘Sonny!’ Rosie squealed, letting go of Granny’s hand to hurl herself at her brother who was standing in the centre of the living room, head down on his phone, the baggy cuffs of his hoody yanked out of shape. He took the hit like one of those wobbly toys that refuses to keel over. As Rosie wrapped her arms tight around him, Sonny managed to pat her on the head with the one hand that wasn’t on his phone.
Stella paused in the hallway. She blew out a breath, wanting to rip the damn phone out of his hands. Hug your sister, she wanted to shout. Sonny caught her eye and Stella raised a brow at him, he made a face. It was like they lived on repeat. Always the same. He looked away from her, put his phone in his pocket, and made a show of giving Rosie a little, not particularly enthusiastic, hug.
She thought about her last Potty-Mouth column, when she’d written,
The problem is with motherhood that sometimes you don’t want to be selfless. Sometimes you want to tell your son that you actually just don’t like him very much. Then immediately after the thought appears it’s countered by an annoying inner voice that says, this is your fault. It is you that created this behaviour. You who has failedhim by not giving him the right tools, you should have nipped it in the bud. At this point sanity must prevail to remind you that he’s a teenager and that, yes, it really is his fault! Sanity can be found in many forms. And that’s why God invented white wine as well as ovulation.
Stella watched little Rosie, undeterred by Sonny’s unwillingness to show affection, drag him by the floppy cuff as she spotted a black and white Border collie’s head poking up over the side of the great grey sofa. ‘Frank Sinatra!’ she cried.
Stella couldn’t help but smile. She wondered if Rosie even knew there was a namesake. The pictures her mum had sent of this new dog Stella had opened and looked at, more out of disbelief, because Stella couldn’t imagine ever being allowed a pet growing up – she remembered having to watch TV sitting on an old throw as a kid so as not to ruin the sofa, the bare cushions saved for guests only. Everything was always for show, even behind closed doors her mother would never just flop on the couch after dinner, seemingly always on guard in case someone popped by. Never off duty for a second.
It always felt to Stella like her mother had invented this all-consuming lady of the manor persona, spinning off from her dad’s sporting notoriety – nine-time Olympic gold medal winner and nominated for Sports Personality of the Year – to make up for his never being home. As if by raising him up on a plinth it was OK to excuse him anything. Her mother was always on edge waiting for when he eventually did come home, constantly polishing and tidying like a manic bee buzzing about the place, forever straightening corners, always so very uptight. And it was all wasted on him anyway because he only had eyes for the day’s swim times – reams and reams of paper that caused even more mess.
Now Stella watched as the dog licked Sonny’s face and Rosie giggled, feeling a tiny twinge of jealousy at such relaxed freedom existing in this living room.
She went over and sat on the arm of the sofa, giving the dog a little pat on the back, all the time watching Sonny, almost reabsorbing him after their time apart, remembering his stubby little nose and how his eyes could twinkle on the rare occasions that he laughed. She didn’t dislike him. She loved him. She would, as one of the annoying NCT dads had once said, ‘take a bullet for him’. She just found herself constantly exhausted by him. Angry when he did something that she knew he knew better than to do. Frustrated by him for wasting his potential on the cliché of his phone and PlayStation. Disappointed when he did exactly the annoying thing she expected him to do. And he always seemed to know how to infuriate her further, like an angry mosquito bite. For half a minute there would be calm and then there it was again: itch, itch, itch.
Like right now. He wasn’t letting the dog lick Rosie’s face – not that Stella could think of anything more disgusting than having a dog lick one’s face – but Rosie was desperate for a share of the licking and Sonny was having it all to himself.
‘Sonny, let Frank Sinatra lick Rosie!’ There it was. One of the first proper sentences she’d said to her son since she’d got there. Not only was it the stupidest sentence she’d ever said, it stuck fast to their usual rules of communication – her having to constantly tell him to do something differently.
Jack came down the stairs, eyebrows raised at Stella as if questioning whether there was seriously going to be conflict already, and took a seat on the other side of the dog. Then he reached forward and squeezing Sonny on the shoulder said softly, ‘All right son?’
Sonny looked up at him and nodded. ‘Yep.’
Jack smiled.
Stella almost rolled her eyes. That was part of the problem; it was so easy for Jack and Sonny because Jack was allowed to take the path of least resistance. He was good cop. He’d effortlessly bagsied that role early on. Which meant Stella was bad cop, and she had been OK with that – when the kids were still young enough to always relent to a hug. But now, with Sonny, it was a whole new role, like graduating from police academy into the real world – the hits were painful and never let up.
Jack joined Sonny and Rosie in the showering of attention on the dog. ‘Aren’t you lovely? Who gives a dog a name like Frank Sinatra?’ he said, giving him a generous rub behind the ears.
‘Mitch’s dad called him it,’ Sonny said, showing them a trick with the dog’s front paws that Rosie thought was hilarious. They looked the picture of a perfect family.
‘Who’s Mitch?’ Jack asked.
‘Granny’s friend,’ said Sonny. ‘He’s a hippy.’
Moira shut the fridge with a clatter.
Jack looked up and caught Stella’s eye. He raised an intrigued brow. Stella made a similar face back.
‘Does everyone want tea?’ Moira called, all matter-of-fact, lining up her dotty mugs as she deflected attention from this Mitch character.
There was a chorus of Yeses punctuated by a breathless request for hot chocolate from Rosie who was squealing delightedly as the dog licked all over her face. ‘Can we have a dog?’ she laughed.
‘Mum won’t let us,’ Sonny said without looking up from where he and Jack were rubbing Frank Sinatra’s tummy.
Stella sighed. Jack stayed silent. He’d always wanted a dog, Stella always said no. She thought they smelt and she couldn’t think of anything worse than picking up its giant poos. The question of why they didn’t have a dog had become, ‘Mum won’t let us.’ As if having the dog was the given and she was the one taking it away. Which she was. But then it had never been a given in the first place. See, bad cop.
Hating herself for feeling like the outsider, Stella pushed herself up to go and help Moira make the tea. ‘So, are you sure you’re OK, Mum?’ she asked.
‘Oh yes, I’m OK,’ Moira said, pressing buttons on the microwave to warm the milk for Rosie’s hot chocolate. Then she paused and sighed. ‘Just pissed off really – what does he think he’s doing, gallivanting off without telling anyone? His note’s on the table,’ she added, nodding towards the dining area as she shovelled some custard creams out on a plate. Stella wondered how great the tragedy would have to be before they could eat them straight from the packet.
Moira led the way to the dining room table carrying a tray of cups and matching milk jug, the plate of biscuits balanced precariously on the top. She gestured for Stella to follow with the teapot, adding, ‘So you like the new layout?’
‘Yeah, it’s very nice, very airy,’ Stella replied, still expecting her mother to be quite a lot more upset about her dad’s disappearance. She hoped she was just putting on a brave face, otherwise it felt too tragic – that he could slip away and the finding of him be secondary to thoughts on the new decor. How the mighty had fallen.
The dining room table was one of the only things that hadn’t changed. But instead the dark varnished wood had been sanded down to give it a scrubbed driftwood look. Stella wondered who’d done it, whether they’d found all the things she’d scrawled when she was meant to be doing her homework. Defiant teenage graffiti where she’d jab at the underside of the table with her biro after a dressing-down from her dad about her split times for her swim that day. Or when he’d wordlessly leave a graph of her heart-rate calculations on the table, dips in effort marked with just a dot from the tip of a sharpened pencil.
Stella put the teapot down and picked up her dad’s note that was pinned to the table by the edge of a tall white jug – unusually not part of her mother’s treasured Emma Bridgewater set – filled with freshly picked cuttings from the garden. Stella wondered if they had been snipped before or after her father had disappeared.
‘Gone away for a while. No cause for alarm. Graham/Dad/Grandpa.’
How odd that he’d signed it all three names. She glanced back at Sonny, remembering his pale look of worry, and wondering at this sudden relationship between the two of them. She felt a touch of suspicion at the thought of it, immediately wanting to protect Sonny from any sights her father might have set on his grandson’s swimming ability, but also a strange niggle of envy at their apparent closeness. She looked away, across at the dog occupying her father’s seat, and tried to remember the last conversation she’d had with her dad. One that wasn’t him nodding his thanks for the jumper she’d bought him for Christmas, the gift receipt in one hand, the plain grey sweatshirt in another. ‘Great, yep, thanks.’ Did that count as conversation?
Her mother started pouring the tea.
Stella walked over to the window to get a bit of space. Out ahead, past the strip of mown lawn and the patio furniture, was a view of the beach, the water as blue as the sky, light flashing like sparklers off waves rolling gently on the sand. She rarely looked out this way when she came to stay. Not for any length of time anyway, maybe a quick glance to check the weather. In the past she had stared at the sea for hours. Especially in winter, mesmerised by the giant breakers, the harsh angry froth of icy white water. As she stared now, the noise of the kids and the yapping dog loud behind her, she could suddenly feel the burning sensation in her lungs of the 6 a.m. swim. It made her put her hand to her chest, the memory was so sharp. She looked down at her fingers almost expecting to see raw pink skin like whipped flesh or the sting of the salt in her eyes. She felt like she was going mad. The sound of her heart in her ears as strong as the beating of the waves. Like the stress was oozing out of her in strange long-forgotten flashbacks.
Jack came and stood next to her, her dad’s note in his hand. ‘So where do you think he’s gone?’ he asked.
Stella swallowed, unable to believe he could saunter over and think her completely normal, that how she was feeling wasn’t radiating from her body like disco lights. She glanced across. He was waiting, casually expectant. She turned her back on the sea view in an attempt to regain her normality. ‘I have no idea,’ she said, ‘but things here are clearly not quite right.’ She nodded towards where her mother was handing hot chocolates to the kids, and added, ‘And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this Mitch character has something to do with it.’
Jack turned as well, taking in the scene. ‘Do you think he might have something to do with those jeans as well?’
Stella laughed. Relieved at the joke.
Jack put his arm around her. ‘We’ll find him,’ he said, all solid and sure.
Stella didn’t reply. She couldn’t. She had the same rising sensation she’d had in the car, that it was all too much, like she might suddenly burst into tears which was not something she could let happen. Especially not in front of her mother. Or Sonny for that matter. And what would she be crying about anyway? Certainly not the disappearance of a man who’d basically cut her out of the family photo album. She was just tired.
A phone beeped in the kitchen. Her mum went over to read the message. ‘Your sister’s train arrives at about six she says.’
‘Oh God,’ Stella looked up, eyes wide, caught completely unawares. ‘I’d forgotten about Amy.’
Jack wrinkled up his brow as if the workings of her mind continually baffled him. ‘How could you forget about Amy?’
CHAPTER 5 (#ulink_1005de77-bd3c-589f-8d38-7b63214118d7)
‘No, I just can’t find it.’ Amy rummaged through her bag for the umpteenth time. ‘It’s not here. I did buy one though. I did, I promise. I just …’ She trailed off, searching through her bag, her hair straighteners, her phone charger, her teddy. She pushed that hastily to the bottom of the bag.
She could feel Gus next to her, watching.
The ticket inspector loomed above her seat. ‘Sorry madam, failure to show a valid ticket for a journey means I’m going to have to charge you a penalty fare.’
‘No, you can’t.’ Amy shook her head. The flicks of blonde catching on her cheeks. She pushed the short hair back behind her ears, she was no closer to getting used to it. Why in films they always showed someone getting a haircut to start a new life was beyond her. It was a bloody pain in the neck – learning how to style it, straighten it, stop it from being a giant fluffball on her head. She hated it.
She leant forward for another rifle. The hair flopped forward. She held it back with one hand. ‘Honestly, you can’t charge me again. My father’s gone missing,’ she said, pushing pairs of pants out of the way.
She thought she heard Gus scoff and looked across to glower at him but his expression was innocently bemused.
‘Are you going to help me?’ she hissed under her breath.
He shook his head. ‘What can I do?’
‘I don’t know? Talk to the man.’
‘You seem to be doing a very good job of talking to the man. He says you have to pay a penalty fare.’
‘But I bought a ticket.’ She sat back in her seat. ‘Seriously, I did. I could get my bank details up on my phone and show you.’
‘Sorry, madam, I’m being generous here. Last month it was zero tolerance – would have had to escort you from the train at the next stop.’
Amy put her hands up to her head.
‘Just pay it,’ said Gus, one hand holding his tiny takeaway espresso cup, the other some obscure-looking comic book.
‘No.’ Amy felt suddenly like she might cry. Gus was looking at her all superior through his big black glasses like he couldn’t understand why anyone wouldn’t just do what the man had said. ‘No.’ She looked up at the ticket inspector. His face possibly kindly. His bald head reflecting the strip lighting. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘Please, I did buy a ticket. This is a nightmare day for me. I’m going home because my dad’s gone missing. I’m not thinking straight. My emotions are all over the place,’ she sighed, pushed her stupid short hair back, ‘because I’m pregnant. And,’ she sighed again, ‘well, you don’t need to know everything about it, but let’s just say it’s not ideal and I did buy a ticket, I promise I did, because the man at the counter I remember thinking looked like Father Christmas and he gave me a toffee.’ She reached into her pocket, eyes welling up. ‘Look, see here,’ she held up the shiny wrapper of the Werther’s Original. ‘See, this is the wrapper.’ She nodded, trying to elicit a response. She could see the people around her shifting in their seats as they uncomfortably tried to listen and not listen at the same time. ‘Do you see?’ she said, brandishing the tiny crinkle of gold. ‘And I nearly threw it away but I didn’t because I liked that he’d given it to me.’ She put her hands up to her eyes to wipe away the first spill of tears. ‘Do you see?’ she said again, voice plaintive, nodding at him and wiping her face while also trying to find a tissue in her jacket pocket.
The ticket man seemed to think for a second, then reaching into his own pocket brought out a brand new Kleenex. ‘That would be Geoff,’ he said. ‘Santa Claus with the toffees.’
Amy blew her nose. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, Geoff.’ She had no idea what his name had been.
‘OK,’ he said, tapping something into the machine that hung round his neck and handing her a replacement ticket. ‘Just this once.’
Amy put her hand on her chest. ‘Oh thank you, thank you so much.’
He nodded. ‘I hope you find your father.’
Amy nodded.
‘And that everything works out with the baby.’
She nodded again, wiping her eyes, clutching the new ticket.
The ticket inspector walked away down the aisle and into the next compartment.
‘Bloody hell,’ said Gus, flopping back in his seat, shaking his head, dumbfounded. ‘That was unbelievable.’
‘What?’ Amy said, blowing her nose.
‘That you just managed to get away with that.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Yes, you do. That— That little-girl-lost routine. That was unbelievable. How old are you?’
Amy looked at him affronted. ‘You don’t ask a woman that question.’
‘But you ask a little girl.’ Gus raised a brow.
‘Why are you so horrible?’
‘Why are you so like that?’ he said, gesturing to the tissue and the ticket and the blotchy face. ‘Normal people just pay the fine when it’s their fault they lost the ticket. Look at what you put that poor guy through.’
‘He was kind to me,’ Amy snapped, feeling like she was under attack.
‘Yeah, and you made him feel really awkward.’
‘I did not.’
‘You think it wasn’t awkward? You crying about your whole life history?’
‘I don’t want to talk about this any more with you.’
‘Oh, that’s right.’ Gus snorted a laugh. ‘That’s your answer. Very mature. I’m delighted that you’re about to be the mother of my child.’
Amy gasped. ‘How dare you?’
Gus blew out a breath. ‘How dare I?’ He shook his head, turning to look out of the window, closing his eyes for a second longer than necessary.
Amy felt a rush of resentment, it made her want to do something to him – flick his coffee over or maybe pinch his arm. But she sat seething instead, trying to get her hair to stay tucked behind her ear. Gus took a slurp of espresso and went back to his book all aloof.
‘Well at least I don’t read picture books,’ Amy sniped, immediately regretting the comment, immediately realising she’d made herself look even more of a fool.
Gus turned his head slowly as if deigning to address her. ‘What, you mean this Eisner Award-winning graphic novel?’ He rolled his eyes. ‘You stick to your Grazia, Amy.’
‘There is nothing wrong with Grazia.’ Amy wanted to take her new ticket and stab his eyes out with it. ‘It’s very issue-led.’
Gus smirked. ‘I’ll look out for it on the Pulitzers.’
‘I’ll look out for it on the Pulitzers,’ Amy repeated, all whiny and childish.
‘That’s very grown up. Again, mother of child, very glad.’
‘I hate you.’
‘Rest assured, the feeling is mutual.’
CHAPTER 6 (#ulink_768ea950-8f67-5ef8-8177-75e67aca1a2d)
Just pulling up in front of the house in the taxi made Amy feel better: the sweep of purple sunset like smoke out of the chimney, the sparkle of the solar-powered fairy lights wrapped round the almond tree just visible in the early evening light, and the big hydrangea flowers like perfect pink balloons. The gravel underfoot gave the same comforting crunch as it had her whole life. She just had to block out the crunch of Gus’s feet next to her. As she put her key in the lock she could already picture the dark cosy hallway, smell the roast dinner from the kitchen, see the flicker of the TV, and a fire in the front room.
Except it was summer and there was no fire. And she’d forgotten her mother had had the entire ground floor demolished. When Amy left last it had still been a building site. Now, as she opened the door, she saw it was all pale and grand and open. She swallowed. Everyone was looking up from where they sat in the living room, watching. There was no time to take a breath in the hallway any longer or peek her head round the door and beckon her mother over.
‘Er, hello,’ Amy said, conscious of the presence of Gus next to her and everyone staring. ‘Have you found Daddy?’
Moira stood up. ‘No darling, not yet. We’re about to make a plan.’
Amy nodded. She felt suddenly on the verge of tears, like she wanted to throw herself at her mother and sob about everything, but in defiance of Gus and his already derogatory opinion of her she stayed rooted where she was.
‘Hi.’ Gus raised a hand.
‘Hello,’ Stella said back from where she sat at the table, watching intrigued and looking all cool and relaxed in a loose black sleeveless shirt, the plainest gold hoop earrings, skinny jeans and bare feet. Amy saw her glance across at Jack. Jack raise a brow back at Stella. Their silent language asking, ‘Who the hell is he?’
‘This is Gus. My—’ Amy paused by mistake because the word friend got stuck in her throat.
‘Just a friend,’ said Gus, which sounded so ridiculously unnatural that it made Amy want to cover her face as she blushed scarlet under her hastily retouched contouring. Stella was clearly holding in a smirk.
‘Hello darling. Hello Gus, lovely to meet you. You must be exhausted from the journey, it’s such a long time to sit on a train. Come in, sit down, have a drink.’ Moira stood up, glossing over any awkwardness regards this stranger in their midst, and came over to greet the pair.
Gus dumped his bag by the stairs and went to take the beer that Jack was pouring like he’d never needed anything more in his life. Moira gave Amy a kiss and a hug and whispered in her ear, ‘Will you be sharing a room?’
‘Absolutely not,’ Amy snapped.
‘Righto,’ said her mother. Then turning back to Stella said, ‘Rosie and Sonny are OK to share, aren’t they?’
‘Oh, no way!’ Sonny moaned.
Stella nodded. ‘They’re fine.’
Rosie giggled.
Amy went and sat down at the table across from Stella, refusing to meet her eye, even when Stella kicked her under the table.
‘Beer, Amy?’ Jack asked.
‘No, I’ll just have water. I’m really thirsty,’ she replied.
After some pleasantries about how warm the weather was, the length of the train journey, and how long it had been since they’d all seen each other – how terrible it was that someone had to go missing in order for them all to make the journey – Jack cleared his throat and said, ‘Right, shall we get started on a plan of action?’
Stella nodded.
Jack opened the pad that was in front of him then looked up at Amy to explain what had been discussed in her absence. ‘We thought it might be a good idea to note down all Graham’s usual spots. Places he goes most often. Then tomorrow go round and have a word with people. See if he mentioned where he was going, just get a sense of how he was. That kind of thing. Yes?’
Amy nodded. ‘Have you rung his friends?’
‘A few,’ said Moira.
‘Why not all of them?’ Amy frowned.
‘I’ve been busy.’ Moira shifted in her seat.
Amy glanced perplexed at Stella, who just raised a shoulder to show she knew and agreed with whatever it was Amy was thinking but who knew what forces governed their mother.
Gus watched.
Amy said, ‘Mum, you’ve tried to ring Dad, haven’t you?’
‘Of course I’ve tried to ring him. And I’ve sent a text asking where he is.’
‘A text? I rang his phone twenty-three times on the train,’ Amy said.
‘It’s not a competition, darling,’ Moira muttered, turning away to top up her wine with obvious affront.
‘OK!’ Jack held up his hands to try and take back control. ‘We talk to his friends, see what he’s been doing and if anyone noticed anything out of the ordinary. Good. Right. Moira, have you checked your bank account?’
‘I don’t see when you think I’ve had the time to do all these things.’ Moira shook her head.
Stella leant forward. ‘No one’s accusing you, Mum. Jack’s just asking.’
‘I know.’ Moira crossed her arms over her chest, then through pursed lips added, ‘I can pop into the bank tomorrow.’
‘Could you do it online now, Mum?’ Stella asked.
‘No, I can’t.’ Moira blushed. ‘I don’t know how. Graham does all that.’
Jack said, ‘Well we can help, do you know the passwords?’
Moira hesitated.
Amy said, ‘Don’t worry, Mum, I never know mine either. That’s why I have them all written down in my phone.’ She saw Gus shake his head at what a stupid thing that was to do. She made a face at him which she instantly regretted when she caught Stella looking.
Moira was getting flustered. Smoothing down her silk blouse, she said, ‘I know I should know them. It’s just something I haven’t quite got round to. There is something written down in the kitchen, though, I think. Hang on, let me have a look.’ She got up to go and rifle through a flowery Cath Kidston box file on the counter.
Jack wrote ‘Account activity’ down as the first point on his list.
Amy leant forward and said, ‘Shouldn’t we be calling all the hospitals and the coastguard and things? We need to be certain he’s not hurt.’
‘Amy, he left a note,’ Stella said, one mocking brow arched, ‘I don’t think he’s hurt.’
‘What if he was made to write the note?’ Amy replied, brows raised back at Stella, defiant.
Stella scoffed. ‘Like a hostage? Please.’
Amy refused to be ignored so easily. ‘Don’t look at me like that, someone might have taken him. It’s a real possibility. I think it should go on the list.’
‘Seriously?’ Stella shook her head. ‘It’s not Murder, She Wrote, Amy! It’s Cornwall.’
Gus snorted into his beer. Stella looked up, appreciative of his finding her funny. Then sat back with her wine, giving her long fringe a smug little blow out of her eyes.
Amy huffed.
‘Here they are. The passwords. I knew I had them somewhere,’ Moira called from the kitchen, brandishing a scrap of notepaper covered in numbers.
Amy pulled off the thin sweater she was wearing, feeling hot and bothered from the stand-off with her sister.
‘I have that top!’ shouted little Rosie, pointing excitedly at Amy’s Primark vest top patterned with different emojis. ‘Mummy, don’t I have that top?’
Amy watched Stella nod as she sipped her wine. ‘You do have that top, Rosie,’ she said, as if of course Amy and a seven-year-old would have the same fashion sense.
‘We’re T-shirt buddies,’ Rosie said, coming over and draping her skinny little arm round Amy’s shoulders, then peering closer to inspect her face said, ‘I like your make-up. You’re so pretty. You look just like Zoella.’
Amy felt the conflicting rush of both embarrassment and pride at what she considered a compliment. In the past she would have just snuggled Rosie up close and relished the adoration. But now she had Gus smirking under his breath at the end of the table. And something made her want Stella not to perceive her as quite such a child. Perhaps because Amy knew at some point she was going to have to tell them all about the baby. And she couldn’t face the accompanying looks of pity and the ‘Oh Amy!’ tone. But most of all she dreaded their lack of surprise that she would do something so stupid. It had made her contemplate just WhatsApping the news: ‘It was a one-night stand! Can you believe it? And when I told Gus he was like, “You’re not having it, right?” [crying laughing emoji]’
But it wasn’t funny.
It was terrifying.
It was hard to say if it was more terrifying now or earlier today when she had been standing on Gus’s North London doorstep delivering the news. She’d only remembered where he lived because it was above a Nando’s. He had winced when she’d told him. His expression as if it were possibly the worst news he had ever heard in his entire life. She had thought he might react badly but not like that. She had presumed he would usher her inside, make her a cup of tea and ask what he could do to help. Not stand in the hallway, his expression somewhere between panic and disgust and say, ‘Do you need money? How much is an abortion?’
‘I am not having an abortion.’ Her phone had rung as she’d spat out the words. ‘Oh, hi Mum!’
Then her already trembling bottom lip had gone into full-blown wobble as her mother told her about her dad going missing. Meanwhile Gus was pacing the tiny, hot hallway, rolling his hands as if hurrying her to wrap the conversation up so they could get back to more important matters.
‘I have to go,’ she said to Gus as soon as she’d hung up.
‘Oh no you don’t. We have things to discuss.’
‘Well I have to go home.’
‘I’ll come with you.’
‘It’s in Cornwall.’
‘I won’t come with you.’
‘Good.’ Amy had stormed out of the dark poky little flat onto the high street, taking in deep breaths of warm sunshine air and traffic fumes. She made her mind up she would never ever see Gus again. Good riddance. She’d block him on any dating app or social media if he tried to contact her.
‘Wait!’
She paused. Turned. Deflated at the sight of Gus jogging lankily towards her in his stupid bright green shorts and old Levi’s T-shirt. ‘What?’ she snapped.
‘I’m coming with you.’
‘No.’
‘Yes!’ he said. She now noticed the bag slung over his shoulder. He narrowed his eyes. ‘You can’t just turn up, tell me you’re pregnant and then leave.’
‘I can.’
‘And what if you decide not to come back. I know nothing about where you live. How would I find you?’
Amy shook out her hair, stood with her hands on her hips. ‘I will come back,’ she said, haughty expression on her face, internally glossing over the fact that permanently avoiding Gus had been her very intention.
‘I don’t trust you.’
‘That’s not very nice.’
Gus laughed, incredulous. ‘You gave me a fake number the night we went out.’
Amy paused. ‘You rang me?’ she asked, unable to help feeling a little smug.
‘No,’ Gus scoffed. ‘I just know how many digits are in a phone number. You don’t, clearly.’
Amy swung round, incensed, and started to stomp away. To her annoyance he followed her a few paces behind all the way. No matter how many times she stopped and tried to plead with him to go home. He sat opposite her on the tube. Made himself at home at her kitchen table as she packed. Walked beside her in the smoggy heat to get the Hammersmith and City line to Paddington. ‘Please go away,’ she said as the train pulled in. ‘Please?’
‘No chance.’
‘You don’t even want the baby.’
‘No, I don’t want the baby. But I don’t want you to have said baby and me not know.’
Amy screwed her eyes tight. ‘You’re muddling me.’
‘Well, let’s stop talking then.’
Now, as she sat round the dining room table, Amy took a covert glance at Gus and immediately had to look away with displeasure. He ruined being back here. The sight of him brought her previous life into stark relief: the parallel path when she would have run into the house shouting that she was pregnant at the top of her voice, grinning gorgeous husband by her side holding their clasped hands aloft in triumph. A path long gone.
She had to swallow down a rise of sadness. Close her eyes for a second and think of a really complicated times table – her grief counsellor’s tip that had done wonders for her maths. When she opened them she was looking down at her T-shirt, at the three little monkey emojis – eyes, ears and lips covered – and knew how they felt.
Moira had got the laptop out and was waiting for it to crank to life. Gus next to her was wide-eyed at how old and slow it was. When finally the NatWest page loaded, Moira clearly didn’t have a clue what to do.
‘Here, do you want me to do it?’ Gus asked, unable to stop himself. Pained by the slowness, he angled the laptop towards himself.
‘Oh Gus, darling, yes please,’ Moira said, relieved.
Amy winced. She didn’t want Gus to speak. If he was going to be here she wanted him to sit mute. She watched as he keyed in the passwords. Under the table Stella bashed Amy’s leg again, clearly trying to get her attention as Gus and Moira were distracted with the website. But Amy stayed resolutely looking away.
Out of the window the sun had spread pink and orange across the horizon, a bonfire of light that made the room glow amber.
Oh, why wasn’t her dad here? Amy wanted him sitting on that seat on the sofa so she could curl up next to him, her feet tucked under the furthest cushion, his arm around her as they drank tea and he watched the snooker while she put her headphones on and caught up with all her favourite YouTubers. She had prayed he might be back home by the time she and Gus arrived. And that perhaps he would stand at his full six foot two height – her vision of him more from when they were kids, strapping, scary, and heroic rather than in his old Edinburgh Woollen Mill cardigan and slippers – beckon Gus to one side, pull out his chequebook and say, ‘Come on then, how much will it take for you to disappear?’
Her fantasy was interrupted by a loud gasp from Moira.
Amy glanced across.
Her mother was peering close to the screen where Gus was pointing at a withdrawal.
‘A thousand pounds?’ Moira said, outraged. ‘What the bloody hell does he need a thousand pounds for?’
Gus cleared his throat, clearly a little unsure about whether it was a rhetorical question or whether she was in fact looking to him for an answer. ‘It’s … er … most likely so he doesn’t have to take any more out, the bank would be able to tell you where he was if he did.’
‘Oh.’ Moira sat back in her chair, only slightly mollified. ‘Yes, I suppose so.’ She crossed her arms and legs, and added sourly, ‘I didn’t know Graham was so forward-thinking.’
‘Mum!’ Amy’s voice was a little harsher than she’d intended, but she felt like her mother was being far too cold about the whole thing. ‘Why are you not more worried about all this? He’s missing. Dad’s missing!’ she said, looking accusingly round the table. She had envisaged a lot more drama, more police popping round, more notices taped to lampposts and front page head shots in the local paper.
‘Yes, with a thousand pounds of our money!’ Moira said. ‘I am worried, Amy,’ she added, more because it was what was expected of her than with real emotion, ‘but he’s a grown man with enough money to get by and a phone if he needs any help.’ Then Moira paused, as if she’d had a brainwave. ‘His phone. He was on his phone a lot more, wasn’t he Sonny? You taught him all that fancy stuff with that Instabook.’
‘Instagram,’ mumbled Sonny.
They all turned to where Sonny was slumped at the end of the table on his phone.
‘He speaks!’ said Amy.
Sonny glanced up and when he caught Amy’s eye she winked at him. He blushed and half-smiled beneath his mop of hair.
Amy thought Sonny was great. He styled himself like a little grungy One Direction, which made him even more sulkily adorable. He wound Stella round the bend. She remembered last Christmas Eve, the house pre-open-plan all garlanded and twinkling. The huge tree by the fireplace tied with red bows and gold baubles, the fire crackling. The heavy curtains blocking out the drizzle that should have been snow. The waves thundering on the beach. Amy had sat helping Stella wrap all the kids’ Christmas presents, both of them a bit pissed on the Aldi Prosecco their mother had rushed out to buy in bulk after it got voted Top Tipple in the Daily Mail: ‘I’ve never been in an Aldi before. It’s quite something.’
Earlier Sonny had got a bollocking for pressing Rosie to explain why she thought some of her friends at school got more Christmas presents than her – especially the ones she didn’t like. Was it because Santa preferred them to her?
‘He’s just such a pain,’ Stella had said as she curled ribbon with scissors. ‘I’m like, “She’s six years younger than you! Stop being so mean to her!”’
‘I think you said stuff like that to me when we were younger,’ said Amy.
‘I did not,’ Stella gasped with affront.
‘You did. You told me that Jackie down the road had seen her dad scoffing the mince pie and sherry for Santa, and signing the card she’d left out.’
Stella snorted into her Prosecco glass.
Amy raised her brows. ‘Yeah? Remember? You’re basically just the same as him.’
‘Rubbish,’ said Stella. ‘God, I would never have got away with half the stuff he does. Dad would have throttled me.’
Amy had been unable to disagree. If the analogy was right then Amy was the equivalent of little Rosie. Dancing through life unencumbered. Her only discontent coming from the fact she had been almost invisible to their father for the first fourteen years of her life. But that had been more than made up for by being completely doted on by her mother. And her dad had been pretty terrifying so being overlooked had often felt like a blessing. But then Stella had left – her dad erasing practically all trace of her – and Amy had got them both. Her dad subdued, like a tranquillised lion, a soft cushion for his youngest daughter to curl up into.
Now, as Amy looked across at sullen little Sonny, she felt a bit sorry for him – all eyes on him as they wanted to find out more about Grandpa’s sudden interest in Instagram.
‘I thought he hated his phone?’ Stella said.
Sonny shrugged. Then when he realised that wasn’t going to be enough he said, ‘He really liked Instagram.’
‘Why didn’t you say this before?’ Stella asked.
‘You didn’t ask.’ Sonny glared at her.
‘Instagram?’ Amy leant forward, deflecting from the motherson bickering. She smiled, this being the first positive thing she’d heard about her dad since he’d disappeared. ‘Did he post anything ever?’
Sonny shook his head. ‘No, never. He followed everyone, though.’
Around the table phones came out.
‘Even me?’ Rosie piped up.
Sonny nodded. ‘He’s Neptune013.’
‘I wondered who that was,’ said Jack, who had about fifteen Instagram followers and barely ever posted anything. ‘I thought it was someone who’d followed me by mistake.’
Everyone was scrolling through their list of followers, Amy was quietly satisfied that hers was taking the longest. ‘Here he is,’ she said finally and clicked on the avatar picture of waves on the shore. ‘No followers.’ She looked up. ‘That’s really sad.’
‘I’ve just followed him,’ said Rosie.
‘Me too,’ said Jack.
‘Yep,’ said Stella.
Amy nodded. Pressed Follow.
‘And so have I,’ said Gus, his voice taking Amy by surprise that he was even still at the table. She wanted to tell him to immediately Unfollow. That he had no right to be Following. But she didn’t say anything, just had a really quick skim of her Timeline before putting her phone back down on the table.
Sonny looked quite pleased. ‘He’ll like that.’
Amy glanced across at him. ‘You think?’
‘Maybe,’ Sonny said, a little more noncommittal since revealing a smidge of enthusiasm. He was about to go back to his phone when he mumbled, ‘You could put the fishing lake down as well. On the list.’
‘Fishing?’ said Stella.
Moira shook her head. ‘He hasn’t been fishing in years.’
‘We went.’ Sonny shrugged a shoulder. ‘Last week,’ he added, before flicking his fringe in front of his eyes and burying himself back in his screen.
Amy realised that both she and Stella were watching Sonny. Both of them seeing a relationship that had developed that they didn’t know about. Amy wondered what Stella felt about that: Sonny and their dad.
‘Good, right,’ said Jack, scribbling Instagram down on his pad. ‘OK, so what else did Graham’s day look like?’
Everyone turned to look at the sofa.
Jack tried again. ‘Where did he go when he went out?’ This was not how things worked at his office, Amy thought. At Christmas she remembered him saying that they’d introduced five-minute stand-up meetings at his firm. She’d thought that sounded dreadful, the best thing about a meeting, in her opinion, was the catch-up chat at the beginning and the free croissants.
Stella said, ‘He drinks at the Coach and Horses, doesn’t he, Mum?’
Everyone turned to look at Moira who was cradling her wine glass while looking uncomfortable with all the attention. ‘Yes, I think—Yes.’ She nodded, more committed this time, ‘Yes, on a Friday.’ She said, definite.
Amy wondered what had happened in the months since she’d left. Her mother didn’t seem sure at all what their father had been up to. And what were those jeans she was wearing?
‘OK, what else?’ Jack asked.
Moira seemed to visibly wrack her brain, before saying, ‘He sometimes chatted to the cashier at Londis, I can never remember what her name is.’ Her expression showed she was clutching at straws and to save embarrassment quickly changed the subject by saying, ‘Would anyone like anything else to drink? I might put some crisps out, if anyone’s feeling peckish.’
Amy tugged at her emoji vest, embarrassed for her dad’s life. Embarrassed that this was what Gus was hearing about him. She wanted to go and get the photo albums from the bookshelf or drag him into the upstairs loo where all the trophies were kept and say, look this was him, this was him in his heyday. He was a champion. A star. People used to stop him for autographs.
Gus seemed quite oblivious to any awkwardness, or was doing a good job of hiding it, and said, ‘I wouldn’t say no to another beer.’
‘Oh yeah, me too,’ said Jack.
‘Lovely.’ Moira jumped up to go and get some more bottles from the fridge.
Amy watched Gus, unable to quite accept that this guy sitting calmly drinking Budweiser was going to be related to them all for the rest of his life. She wondered how she would have behaved were the situation reversed. She couldn’t even imagine it. She simply wouldn’t have gone. If his family wanted to meet the baby they’d have to come and meet it. She didn’t even want Gus involved, let alone the rest of the— She paused. What was Gus’s surname? He must have told her. She tried to think. No idea.
Jack wrote Londis as the next item on his pad.
Amy cringed again at the mention of it. Suddenly wished for that parallel life again. The one where she was happy about the baby with her husband, Bobby, sitting next to her. His arm round her shoulders – he would have given her a squeeze at the Londis comment. Bobby would have known that she thought it denigrated her father and said something to counter it, something good like, ‘Lucky Graham’s so friendly. I’ve never chatted to the cashier at Londis.’ Even though everyone would know that was a lie because Bobby chatted to everyone because everyone wanted to chat to Bobby because he was so golden and glowing that people couldn’t help flocking to him. The number of people who used to stop them when they were walking around to ask if they knew Bobby from somewhere, if they’d seen him on the TV, which of course they hadn’t. He just looked like a celebrity. Amy would always get a little flutter of pride.
She closed her eyes and tried her times tables again but just got muddled. She felt a wave of nausea creep over her; whether from the memory of Bobby or a side effect of the pregnancy she didn’t know.
Her mother was pouring Kettle Chips into a bowl. Amy reached over for a handful.
‘Since when did you eat carbs?’ Stella asked, surprised.
Amy didn’t eat carbs, she infamously hadn’t touched them since a modelling stint in her teens. But since the pregnancy anything went to quell the sickness.
‘Well, you know me,’ Amy said. ‘Can’t stick at anything!’ She’d said it to try and sound funny, deflect attention by taking the piss out of herself, but it obviously came out less carefree than she’d imagined because Stella was really watching her now. Gus too, come to think of it.
The nausea rose.
Her mother glanced across at her, expression concerned. ‘OK?’ she asked.
Amy nodded. ‘Yeah,’ she said, quick and slightly too sharp.
Then she felt the sympathy of everyone round the table. Like they all knew what she was thinking. Like they were all suddenly thinking about Bobby. Everyone except Gus, who was completely oblivious to the network of undercurrents, unknowingly dangling, like it was Mission Impossible, above a hundred infra-red beams that could set off any number of deep-rooted family alarms. He was just frowning like he’d missed something and had no idea what.
But they didn’t know what she was thinking. Because while she was thinking about Bobby, she wasn’t thinking of him in a, ‘Oh God, he’s dead,’ way, the blank all-consuming way she had two years ago. The way she had when she’d wandered around this house in her pyjamas unaware what day it was, knowing only that time was slower than it had ever been before. But instead she was thinking of him in a, ‘Oh God, why can’t he be alive,’ way because if he were this would all be so much easier. So different. She doubted her father would be even missing if Bobby were still here. And if he was, well, Bobby would at least whisper that everything was going to be all right. He’d make sure of it.
‘I’ve just got to go to the loo,’ Amy said, pushing her chair back and walking quickly to the stairs, trying not to hurry too much so as not to draw more attention to herself but desperate to get out of the room and up the stairs where she sat in the bathroom, the loo seat down, head in her hands, trying to think of nothing. Trying to be mindful. To let the thoughts swish past – Bobby laughing, big white grin as he jogged with his surfboard, her sitting in the sand with her arms wrapped round her knees, wind whipping her hair. Sometimes she wished she’d gone shopping instead of sitting on the beach to watch him surf because it could get very boring at times, but then he’d catch the best wave there was and people strolling on the sand would pause and watch and point and Amy would get high on a rush of pride. She saw them eating popcorn snuggled on the sofa in their little cottage. Laughing down the Coach and Horses. Their wedding barefoot on the beach. The noise of the lost ambulance, like a distant fly buzzing against the window, unable to find the dirt road of the obscure beach where the best surf hit on the high spring tide. Her dad trying to swim closer but the rip current yanking Bobby’s body away, limp like seaweed on the surface of the water. The waves gobbling him up. The watch on the shelf in the bathroom when she got home.
Amy sat up. Pressed her fingers into her eyes. ‘You’re OK,’ she said. Then she said it again and stood up only to be brought back down by another rush of nausea. This time she sat with her hands on her stomach, waiting for it to pass. Knowing there was a baby in there. Knowing it but feeling like she was watching it from afar. That it was someone else’s baby. A kangaroo’s baby in a nature documentary or that woman’s in the pamphlets who was just a faceless cross section.
CHAPTER 7 (#ulink_a3971f6a-acc7-516f-b57f-c87b8b709992)
It was ten o’clock, and Stella was in her room with Jack. Amy had sloped off much earlier, almost the same time as Rosie. Gus had made polite chat for a bit after dinner before offering to walk the dog for Moira, who’d seemed a little reluctant to hand over the duty but accepted when Gus got close to pleading for the task, clearly the more desperate of the two to escape. Sonny had played computer games while Jack and Moira washed up and Stella did some work. Then Gus had come back and everyone had called it a night.
It was hot and sticky in Stella’s bedroom – the stone walls unable to stave off the humidity. They didn’t usually visit in the summer – too many tourists, too much traffic – popping down at Christmas or occasionally Easter instead and so it felt odd to be here in the heat. With the window open Stella could smell the sea, reminding her of when as a kid – a big swim the next day, Trials or Nationals – she’d lie on top of the bed, buzzing with nerves, eyes wide open as the heat pressed down, inhaling the calm familiarity of the salty air. But other than the occasional memory there was nothing in this room that would mark it out as ever being hers. The bright yellow walls had been neatly papered over in cream patterned with green parrots. Her mismatched furniture was long gone, now a French vintage wardrobe and chest of drawers sat next to a huge white bed with scatter cushions the same lime tones as the parrots that soared over the walls. It was like a hotel.
She sometimes wondered where her stuff had gone. To charity if her dad had had anything to do with it. She’d never given him the satisfaction of asking though. The first time she’d been back to visit after she’d left she’d just pretended it meant nothing that all her belongings had gone – all her trophies and medals disappeared while all his still lined the shelf in the bathroom, mocking her every time she went to the loo.
Stella sat at the dressing table. Jack was lying on top of the bed in his boxer shorts and a T-shirt, reading the news on his phone, the duvet had been pushed into a heap on the floor.
‘I think it’s hotter here than at home,’ he said, not looking up from his screen.
Stella nodded. She was inspecting her skin in the mirror. Lifting up one side of her eye. Peering at the lines around her mouth. There wasn’t a chance in hell of Rosie comparing her to Zoella. It made her think she shouldn’t have been quite so disparaging of Amy when she’d looked at teenage Stella all brown from her sea swimming and said, ‘You’ll pay for that.’ At the time Amy’s fledgling modelling aspirations meant she was drinking a litre of water a day, eating mainly cucumber and celery, and constantly applying Factor 50. Stella had scoffed that Amy’s career wouldn’t last longer than the Just Seventeen photo-story she’d been scouted for and was right. Amy stuck at nothing. Except the application of Factor 50. When she’d turned up today – hair all newly bobbed in choppy layers – Stella had, for the first time, found herself jealous of Amy’s youth. Or maybe it was her freedom.
She sighed.
Jack put his phone down and looked at her over his new reading glasses, a move that she hated because it made him look so old. ‘Why are you sighing?’
‘Do you think my skin looks old?’ Stella asked.
Jack inspected her reflection. ‘No older than mine.’
Stella frowned. ‘That was not the answer I’d been hoping for.’
‘Why – do you think I look old?’
Stella paused for a second too long. ‘No.’
Jack laughed. ‘Damned by slow praise!’ Then he sat up and went to sit on the edge of the bed nearest to Stella and stared at himself in the mirror. ‘Christ, I do look a bit tired around the edges.’
‘I don’t think I’ve ever imagined us getting old,’ she said.
‘How have you imagined us?’ Jack looked perplexed.
‘I don’t know. I suppose, whenever we’ve talked about holidays just the two of us when the kids have grown up, I think I’ve always thought of us young, like in those photos of us on the train in Rome. You know? I’ve never thought that we’ll be old.’
‘I’ll have no hair.’
‘I’ll be all wrinkly,’ she said, lifting her eyelid up with one finger then letting it drop again. ‘That’s the problem with parenthood. Half of it is spent waiting it out till it’s done and you can go back to the people you were before, but you don’t realise that the older your kids get the older you’re getting. Those before people have gone.’
Jack glanced at her in the mirror. ‘That sounds very much like the start of a column.’
Stella thwacked him on the leg. ‘I’m serious.’
They were conversing via the mirror still.
‘As am I, that’s the kind of thing you write about, isn’t it? When you’re not bashing Sonny.’
‘Thanks for that, Jack.’
He laughed. ‘I’m joking,’ he said. ‘But you need to talk to him. The longer you leave it the harder it will be.’
Stella nodded.
They stared for a moment, side by side in the reflection. The heat of the room making their skin glisten.
Jack was the first to look away. ‘You look as young and vital as the day I met you.’
She sighed a laugh. ‘That’s just a blatant lie.’
Jack went back to sitting up against the headboard scrolling through his phone.
Stella stared at herself a moment longer. Seeing in her face the features of her mother. Swallowing when she thought of the simmering animosity her mum was currently showing towards her father. It made her pluck up the courage to turn to Jack and ask, ‘Is everything all right between us?’
‘Fine,’ he said, looking up with a frown, bemused as to why she was asking the question.
Stella nodded.
Jack put the phone down. ‘Stel, we’re fine. Just a bit tired, probably.’ He scooched over the bed and gave her a kiss on the cheek, ruffling her hair a bit. She swatted his hand away with a half-smile.
‘All right?’ he checked.
‘Yes.’
That was the reassuring thing about Jack. Whatever happened he’d soldier on through, pick you and everyone else up who might be floundering without a moment’s pause to question.
But as she watched him go back to his phone, she knew it wasn’t fine. The car journey had proved as such – like a condensed version of their current relationship, normal one minute and bickering the next. Both of them too quick to react, like they knew each other so well there was no point plodding through the benefit of the doubt.
A couple of weeks ago, her editor had asked her if she’d wanted to write a piece called MOT Marriage for an upcoming edition of the magazine. They wanted it written as Potty-Mouth, picking up on the current trend for critiquing the minutia of stuck-in-a-rut long-term relationships with a list of tasks and questions for the married couple to complete. Stella agreed, and while she knew she and Jack had precisely the kind of long-term relationship that most of her readers had – a bit stuck in a rut but getting through the day-to-day via Netflix and the anticipation of mini-breaks – she had fully intended to make up the content. Nowadays, fierce competition in the Slummy Mummy marketplace had pushed the Potty-Mouth brand to be much cooler and far more exciting than Stella, like an older sister she was constantly trying to impress. Stella already had it plotted out: Potty-Mouth and her fictional husband were going to throw the questions out of the window and do it their way – going to a host of exciting erotic workshops, flamenco dance classes, and a bit of swinging with another set of parents at the fictional school gate. She’d researched it all, the article was practically written and in the bag.
Now, however, she stared at the face in the mirror, as she thought of the clear disintegration of her parents’ marriage and the strain on her own relationship since the Sonny incident, she wondered if maybe she should do it, for real.
She swivelled round on the bed to face Jack, feeling a nervous warmth creep up her neck.
Outside the sound of the waves rolled gently in the darkness.
Jack looked up. ‘What?’
‘Do you want to help me with an article I’m doing?’
He narrowed his eyes, uncertain. Stella never asked for any involvement in what she was writing. He usually just read about their souped-up life over his Shredded Wheat. ‘What’s it about?’
‘It’s called Marriage MOT,’ she said.
‘Oh Jesus, Stella. We just said everything was fine.’
‘Well, then it should be easy.’
Jack tipped his head back against the wall. ‘What do we have to do?’
‘You know the type of thing: are you having enough sex? Are you listening enough to each other? Harbouring any grievances … blah blah blah.’ She tried to spin it all casual.
Jack sighed. ‘I’m not harbouring any grievances.’
‘Great,’ she said. ‘We’ll tick that off the list.’
Jack thought about it and frowned. ‘We have enough sex, don’t we?’
‘Well that’s what we test. You think you’re fine but you can never be completely sure until you check. Like when we had the car done and he said the brake pads were worn out.’
‘Would the sex be the brake pads?’
‘Maybe?’ Stella smiled.
‘There’s nothing wrong with my brake pads,’ said Jack, puffing his chest out.
‘I’m not sure that analogy makes sense.’ Stella shook her head.
There was a pause. Jack bit down on his lip. ‘I don’t know, Stel. Seems all a bit forced.’
‘Yeah but maybe it’ll be fun. At the very least it might stop us from becoming like them,’ she said, angling her head towards her parents’ bedroom. ‘I don’t want you to go missing.’
Jack looked at her, his eyes softening. ‘I don’t want you to go missing either.’ Then he shook his head like he couldn’t believe what he was about to say. ‘All right, fine.’ He slid his phone onto the bedside table. Stella did a little cheer and came round the bed to get in next to him, the beautifully ironed sheet crisp and momentarily cool. ‘So, what’s the first step of this MOT?’ he asked.
‘We have to start having loads of sex,’ she said.
‘Really?’ Jack looked sort of intrigued.
Stella nodded, the pillow soft beneath her head.
Jack nodded.
There was a pause as they lay in the sticky humid heat.
‘But I’m really tired,’ Stella said.
‘Thank God for that.’ Jack exhaled with relief. ‘Me too.’
CHAPTER 8 (#ulink_271f3940-8456-5baf-8006-9885db9a0498)
Moira caused quite a stir in the morning – while everyone else was either clearing up the breakfast things or, in the case of Sonny and Gus, playing on their phones while Rosie was watching TV – by hoiking her bag onto her shoulder and saying as boldly as she could, ‘Righto, I’m off to my book club.’
Glances had been exchanged.
‘What about Dad?’
‘There’s enough of you to cover all the bases,’ Moira said quickly before adding, ‘Sonny, can you look after the dog?’ and leaving the house without really waiting for an answer.
She didn’t know the protocol of going to one’s book club while one’s husband was missing but if she was quite honest, Moira just had to get away. She loved her children but when they were all in the house together sometimes it just got too overwhelming. She felt herself retreat like a snail; every comment about her clothes, her hair colour, her plans of action, her dog’s stupid name – every one left her edging away, till she hurried out to book club without even thinking about the propriety of it.
It was another bright, hazy day. She wove her way through the back lanes to the village, the sun piercing through the overhanging canopy of leaves to banks of lush ferns, the car clipping the odd wayward frond in her haste. In the past Moira would never have dreamed of joining anything like a book club. There was a twinge of shame now when she thought back. She’d always seen herself as rather above it all. She’d happily indulge in a bit of village gossip but always with the aloof air that she was humouring them all, donating a little of her very precious time. Her husband was an Olympic hero.
She had to touch her face now as she coloured at the cringing memories. Every summer Moira was renowned for throwing a party, a lavish summer bash – strings of Venetian lanterns bobbing across the garden, long tables laid with glasses and drinks served by kids from the private school dressed up as waiters, candles lighting the drive, a gazebo with a band. One year she’d made the marquee men pause their work to help her trail an extension lead all the way over the cliff edge to the beach in order to floodlight the sea. It had been magical. Now, it all seemed a bit too showy-off – done for herself rather than the guests. Her moment in the spotlight. She hadn’t thrown a party since Amy’s Bobby had died and she knew she would never reinstate the tradition. In the past she had viewed herself as the aspirational hostess. Now, she wondered if people had perhaps scorned her behind her back, enjoyed but ridiculed the ostentation. Pitied her even. They knew how often Graham was away. She hadn’t consciously done it for the attention but in retrospect it seemed so wincingly obvious.
She knew Stella would say not to worry about what people thought, to just live as you liked, that at the end of the day no one cared. But they did care. Moira knew they cared. She knew because she cared. She judged Joyce Matthews in the village for having a cleaner – how hard was it to clean your own home? She judged the mayor’s wife for having her Waitrose shopping delivered – get out into the community, for goodness sake. She judged the Adamses for having a monstrous new extension that looked like an alien invasion to house a live-in nanny so they could work all hours – those little children needed to see their parents. She knew what Stella would say to that as well. Tell her that the parents had a right to be happy too. And Moira would have to bite her tongue to prevent herself from snapping back, ‘Did I? I gave up everything for your father and you kids.’
It was her new friend Mitch who had called her on it. Walking the dogs one day on the beach, he had told her she was jealous when she had been muttering about the cleaner.
Moira had felt herself bristle. ‘I’m not jealous.’
He’d laughed. Easy and carefree. Not looking her way. ‘Yes, you are. Bitching is jealousy. It always is.’
She’d gone to say something but hesitated. Feeling both astonishment and affront at being called on her behaviour. Graham never called her on anything, just nodded along at her stories.
‘It’s not bitching, it’s an opinion.’
‘It’s a judgement,’ Mitch had said, his smile irritating. His chin raised to enjoy the wind in their faces. ‘And not a very nice one. Why shouldn’t she have a cleaner? She’s busy. She has other focuses for her time.’
‘It doesn’t take very long to run a Hoover about the house.’
‘Moira.’ Mitch had stopped, his bare feet in the sand, his mutt that was humbly just called Dog on a long piece of faded orange rope, yapping at the surf. ‘If you could go back in time and have a cleaner and a live-in nanny, keep your job, and go for a drink on a Friday night guilt-free, would you? Do you think the kids would have turned out any different?’
‘Well, I don’t know.’ Moira felt herself getting defensive. ‘Yes, I think they probably would.’ Would they? She wondered. Amy might be a bit less dramatic. A bit more self-sufficient. Stella would be much the same. She paused, or perhaps if Moira had had something else to focus on, their relationship would have been completely different. Moira wouldn’t have been quite so envious of Stella: of her easy camaraderie with Graham, or her unequivocal natural swimming talent, of the ease with which she laughed at her mother’s neuroses.
‘Would you and Graham be happier?’
Moira had swallowed.
Mitch laughed again. ‘You don’t have to answer that. Bitching, judgement – Moira, they’re all jealousy. And jealousy, well, that’s just fear isn’t it? Fear of taking the leap yourself.’ Mitch had started walking again, his brushed cotton tartan trousers like pyjama bottoms getting wet in the surf. ‘I think you actually quite enjoyed your life. It’s just now your boxes are empty.’
Moira stopped abruptly. ‘Excuse me!’
Mitch laughed. Then jogging to the shoreline to pick up a driftwood stick he drew two boxes for her in the sand: ‘If all your life is taken up with these two roles’ – he’d written MOTHER and WIFE in two separate boxes – ‘then that’s what your whole life becomes. It’s as simple as that.’ He’d stood there in his cheesecloth shirt with a lump of jade round his neck on a black thong, freshly tanned from a meditation week on the Algarve, and stared at her directly until she’d got embarrassed by the eye contact and had to look away. ‘You need more boxes, Moira,’ he’d said, pointing to the two in the sand with his stick then drawing lots more all around them. ‘You need more elements that create you, that we can write in these,’ he said, gesturing to the new, empty boxes, ‘otherwise your life just gets smaller and smaller.’
Moira had wanted to say, ‘I have Frank Sinatra now.’ But luckily she’d run the sentence through in her head before saying it and realised how pathetic it sounded, on so many levels.
And so she had joined the book club at the library. Where she was sitting right now, with an AWOL husband, in a fancy pair of jeans, next to Joyce Matthews (of cleaner fame), looking about guiltily to check no one was watching because Joyce had tipped a slug of brandy from a hip flask into her cup of lukewarm Gold Blend.
‘Don’t, it’s half past ten in the morning, I’ll be pissed as a fart. I shouldn’t really be here.’ Moira waved the brandy away.
‘Nonsense,’ said Joyce, pouring a dash into her own. ‘Your husband’s gone missing. Sometimes you just need to escape.’
Moira thought of her house filled up with her children, the view like one of those funny optical illusion pictures – look at it one way and they’re all as close as close can be, squint your eye and it’s a room full of strangers.
‘I haven’t read the book,’ she said.
Joyce shook her head. ‘Neither have I.’
Moira gave her a sideways look. ‘You never read the book.’
‘Shall we escape?’
‘I couldn’t.’
Moira could see the librarian walking over. She had her slippers on. She always put them on for book club – she wanted to relax apparently. Moira hated it. Why couldn’t she wear shoes like everyone else? That was judgemental. Surely she couldn’t be jealous of the librarian’s hideous pink moccasins? Maybe she could. Maybe she was jealous of her audacity, or her desire for comfort above all else. Maybe she was jealous that this lady’s husband had not gone missing and all she had to think about was slipping on her slippers to happily chat about what might well be, had she read it, a very good book.
‘Come on.’ Joyce gave Moira a nudge.
‘I can’t. It’s bad enough that I’ve escaped to come to book club. I can’t escape book club as well.’
‘Oh Moira, if you can’t escape now when can you? Come on, let’s go for a coffee. Or to the pub.’
But Moira said no. Propriety got the better of her. She couldn’t bear the idea of the slipper-clad eyes of the librarian watching her back as she retreated, going home to tell her husband or her cat about the terrible woman who lived in the big house by the sea who skived book club when her husband had disappeared. She couldn’t bear the eyes of the locals in the pub – ‘Is that Moira? Moira, good to see you! Take it Graham’s back then?’ ‘No, no, still missing.’
She pulled the book out of her bag and sat with it on her knee as the librarian started flicking through her own copy to the book club questions printed at the back.
As Moira hadn’t read it, the whole chat went straight over her head. So she sat staring at all the people’s shoes in the group and thought instead about Graham. About what a relief it was to come downstairs this morning and not find him sitting on the sofa.
She hadn’t minded Graham’s numb passivity when Bobby had first died. She understood that it was a bit like losing Stella all over again. Bobby had been the first athlete since Stella that Graham had got excited about. Bobby was a star in the making. An ace little surfer when he first met Amy. He just wasn’t strong enough, didn’t have the killer instinct. And so Graham had taken it upon himself to train him up. He had him swimming every morning at six, in the gym every evening on the free weights, constantly pushing him to better his maximums. It was Graham who gave him his pep talks and made his competitive acumen sharper and stronger with visualisation and meditation. It was Graham who got him his first big win. And when Bobby moved into a league higher than Graham could take him – not being a surfer himself – they would still train together, still swim those early mornings. Just like he had with Stella.
But Bobby had died over two years ago. And still Graham sat. To the point that it felt like he’d almost forgotten why he was sitting. The grief subsiding while the hopeless lethargy remained. He seemed to shrink away from life, getting grumpier, angrier, and more annoyed with the world he barely ventured into – bar the occasional trip to the pub but even that he muttered about – too far, TV too loud, beer not cold enough. It had been OK when Amy had moved back in. Her sadness after the accident enough to consume all their lives. It had given Moira back her familiar sense of motherly purpose, like having a baby bird to look after: feeding it, caring for it, keeping it safe and warm until it was strong enough to fly the nest again.
Unfortunately, when Amy did get strong enough she showed no intention of flying the nest again. And the two of them – Amy and Graham – just became a permanent fixture in the house, a morose little team staring zombified at the TV flickering in the corner. Moira had started to worry she might go mad. Even getting the builders in had barely shifted them, after Graham had absolved himself of project management duties they’d just decamped to a makeshift living room upstairs for a couple of weeks. That was why Moira had got the dog – an excuse to get herself away from them. And that was when she’d met Mitch. When she’d found joy in life again. When she’d started, for the first time in almost forever, to see herself as a person in her own right. When she’d plucked up the courage to give Amy a gentle nudge out of the house – which Amy had taken very badly and flounced off to London in an impetuous show of defiance, leaving Moira worried sick that she’d done the wrong thing, hardly hearing from Amy the whole time she was there. She’d only been able to console herself recently when Sonny showed her Instagram selfies of a perfectly happy-looking Amy eating brunch overlooking the Thames.
But with Amy gone, it just left Moira and Graham in the house. The gulf between them ever widening. She thought of the silent dinners, the two of them on either side of the table, when just the sound of him chewing made her body tense with irritation. The sighs when she’d make him lift his feet for the Hoover. The noise of his incessant snoring. It saddened her to think he had become just a litany of annoying noises, that there was no spark left between them. But she had tried to help him and she was exhausted from trying. At some point enough had to be enough.
In the book club circle a small row had broken out which the librarian was ineffectually trying to quash by steering the discussion back to the official book club questions. Moira glanced over at Joyce who rolled her eyes and then gestured towards the door with a tilt of her head, trying again to get Moira to make an escape.
Moira shook her head.
Then she sat annoyed with herself for staying. She couldn’t even leave book club – what hope did she have of leaving Graham? She had thought she was getting braver. Fiddlesticks. That was before the children had arrived, before she saw herself through their eyes as well as her own. Now it all felt a bit silly, the idea of her leaving. Like a flying dream, when you get hooked on the adrenaline of soaring free then wake up to find yourself lying boringly in bed.
The determination she had felt to leave was forever being tempered by propriety, like a game of ping pong, always batted back. But she hoped it was still somewhere deep within her, simmering, because now she was trapped, trapped till the stubborn old fool decided to come back, where she had been poised ready to jump. Ready to soar.
And her fear was that as time ticked, her children – just their raised brows at her jeans was almost enough – and the comforting pressure of respectability, the omnipresent fear of judgement, of being gossiped about as she had gossiped, of being pitied should she fail, would kill her little sliver of courage, and she’d wake up, boringly, in bed forever.
CHAPTER 9 (#ulink_7da86e63-a580-5c2d-b16f-4d97c6ebfc05)
While Moira was at book club, two teams set off to find clues as to Graham’s whereabouts. The decision as to who was on which team essentially came down to the proximity to ice cream. When Gus and Amy were handed their list of places to check, including Londis, Rosie peered at the piece of paper and squeaked, ‘Ooh, they sell Twisters at the Londis. I’m coming with you.’
‘I like a Twister,’ Amy agreed, searching the living room for her sunglasses.
Gus, who had been ready for the last hour and was waiting at the door, made a face. ‘They’re vile.’
Rosie came to stand by Amy and said, eyes wide with disbelief, ‘They’re like the best ice lolly in the world.’
Sonny sloped over to stand by Gus, ‘I’m going to have a Calippo.’
Gus nodded. ‘Wise choice.’
Stella had been rummaging in her bag for the car keys, only to discover Jack was holding them, and when the ice cream chat had finished said, ‘So, I take it you four are going together?’
Amy and Rosie looked disparagingly at Gus and Sonny. ‘I suppose so,’ said Amy, putting her sunglasses on and poofing her hair. Then she looked down at the list again. ‘So, we’ve got the pub, John and Sandra’s house … Oh, that’s going to be awkward – what am I going to say? Have you seen my dad?’
Stella raised a brow. ‘Sounds about right.’
Amy sucked in a breath and went back to the list. ‘Post office, other shops, Londis. OK.’ She nodded, grabbed her bag, and said, ‘Come on then.’ Rosie trotted after her like an adoring puppy, dressed today in her own emoji vest, while Amy was wearing skin-tight white jeans and an acid yellow T-shirt. Sonny and Gus followed a little less enthusiastically, both now checking their phones.
The easiest walk to the village was across the headland. They walked the road part of the way then Amy paused by a gate and started to climb the stile, lifting her legs over it really high so she didn’t mark her jeans.
Gus watched, thinking of when he’d first seen her profile picture online. In it she had long blonde hair in high pigtails, dressed up like Britney Spears for – hopefully – a fancy-dress party. Gus remembered all his friends passing it round the pub table sniggering because it was clear she was a bit of a dimwit, but also mocking because there was no denying she was good-looking and well out of his league in the looks department. That was why, when he’d seen them the next time, he’d sat down all cocky and full of it, making the fact he’d slept with her unmistakable. They hadn’t believed him at first, but when he didn’t back down, didn’t crack a smile and agree that he was winding them up, his best mate had blown out a breath, held up his pint and said, ‘Gus shagged Baby Spice. Nice one.’
Baby.
He felt suddenly woozy.
The air seemed to get muggier and more humid. Above him a gauzy layer of clouds locked in the heat, smothering them all like a huge white duvet.
The kids followed Amy over the stile. Rosie tripped and in the process trod in a cow pat. Sonny laughed. Rosie slapped him on the stomach. Sonny laughed even more and called her Cow Pat Rosie, which made Amy have to hold in a laugh as she told him not to call his sister names while Rosie cried.
It made Gus think about his own family. About the near constant bickering with his siblings – all five of them – and his own parents’ house on a farm in Suffolk, crammed full of stuff and people and kids. There were always more babies, more cats, more dogs, more tiny chicks in the airing cupboard; everything mismatched, spotlessly clean but worn and tired. He couldn’t imagine anyone going missing other than because they’d got lost on the land somewhere. He had spent his life appreciative of it but desperate to escape it. He had lain on his triple bunk bed dreaming of one day having his own space. A place where he and he alone would be in control, where he could do as he pleased, where it would be silent. And now he had it. He cherished his independence, barely had long-term relationships, and shuddered inside when a girlfriend tried to make him commit to a holiday a couple of months in advance. Yet here he was, on the verge of being permanently tied to this Britney Spears wannabe because of one stupid, drunken mistake. He had to make her see sense.
They walked single file down the side of the field, the footpath jagged with stones, the air scented with cows and wild garlic, and the barbs of the blackthorn bushes clutching at their T-shirts.
‘Amy,’ Rosie said, idly plucking at the long grass. ‘Is Gus your boyfriend?’
Gus snorted a laugh at the back as Amy visibly bristled, her hand fluffing up her hair like a nervous tick. ‘No,’ she said, short and sharp without turning round.
Sonny turned round though and made a sniggering face at Gus. And Rosie was walking backwards now, eyes narrowed as if she’d been certain she had cracked a particularly difficult code that no one else had yet deciphered.
Gus raised a brow, smug to have outwitted her.
Amy marched on ahead, not speaking, putting herself as far ahead of the group as she could.
Gus thought about the phone call he’d had with his mother last night when he’d been out walking the dog. Needing to talk to someone but unsure who. As soon as she’d answered the phone he knew she’d been the wrong person to call.
‘She says she’s going to keep it.’
‘Oh, Gus, love, that’s wonderful.’
‘It’s not wonderful.’
‘Where are you? It’s very loud.’
‘Cornwall. It’s the sea.’
‘You could do with a bit of fresh air.’
He imagined her bustling round the kitchen, desperate to envelope him in a big, busty hug. She’d be clutching the cat, probably, to make up for his absence. He’d sighed, regretting the panic that had made him ring in the first place. ‘If she has it, I suppose it’ll only be every other weekend though, won’t it?’ he said, almost to himself. ‘Isn’t that what people do?’ He could hear his sister, Claudia, in the background as his mother relayed the whole chat to her, say, ‘Overnight usually in the week as well, Gussy!’
‘Stop it, the pair of you,’ his mother said. ‘You don’t just have a baby at the weekend, Gus. It’s forever. It’s in your life, that’s it.’
Gus had made a hasty excuse to hang up then walked glassy-eyed after the dog, the word ‘forever’ looping in his head like the monotonous drone of the waves.
Now the air was getting warmer as they walked. Out the other side of the field they trudged up the coastal path. A maze of brambles on one side, a sheer drop on the other. Gus peered down at the sea, tide in, lapping at the base of the cliff like a hungry dog. There was no shade. No one had thought to bring any water. By the time they got to the Coach and Horses they were all sweaty and sulky with thirst. Amy snapped at Rosie and Sonny to stop squabbling as she patted her skin with a tissue, checking in the window that her make-up was all still in place before they went in. Gus wondered if he had time to get a swift half in but thought he’d better not when Amy opened the door and all the locals greeted her with a big show of sympathetic enthusiasm. Gus thought he’d loiter close to the door instead. An old man by the bar gave Rosie a pound for the fruit machine which kept her and Sonny busy. Gus watched as a group of young surfer-looking guys hovered round Amy, hugging her, draping their arms round her shoulders, kissing her on the cheek and ruffling her hair. It was fascinating to watch. She seemed surprised to see them all and less comfortable with the attention than he’d presumed she might be, breaking the chat short to ask the barman if he’d seen her dad recently or noticed anything unusual.
‘Barely been in,’ the barman said. ‘Last couple of weeks haven’t seen him. Sorry, love.’
Amy nodded. ‘That’s OK.’
Behind her the fruit machine started beeping and flashing. Rosie yelped as coins started clanging into the tray. ‘I’ve won!’ she shouted.
The whole place turned to look. Amy’s friends laughed, a couple of them swaggering over to gawp at the jackpot. Gus heard them invite Amy to sit down for a drink but she declined, pointing to the door, inadvertently at Gus, saying that they had to go. Gus lifted his hand in a self-conscious wave. One of the guys raised a brow at Amy. She did a little shake of her head, ‘It’s nothing like that,’ then helping Rosie scoop coins into her pocket, ushered them all back out into the sunshine.
‘Right, to the high street,’ she said, pushing her sunglasses on and pointing up the lane, clearly on edge.
‘Race you, Cow Pat,’ Sonny shouted and ran ahead.
Rosie sprinted after him. ‘Don’t call me Cow Pat.’
Gus found himself side by side with Amy.
They walked in silence for a bit.
‘Everything OK?’ he asked, more just for something polite to say. She definitely seemed a bit odd but then she always seemed slightly odd to him.
‘Fine,’ she said, without turning his way.
Gus nodded.
A bus trundled by. They walked past a tea room and an antique centre. An old woman with a stick was deadheading her geraniums. ‘Oh, hello Amy, love. You all right?’ she asked.
‘Fine thank you, Mrs Obertone,’ Amy said, super polite, taking her sunglasses off and making a point of checking that Mrs Obertone’s children were well, etc.
Gus shuddered. He couldn’t bear the idea of everyone knowing him and everything about him again. Visits to his parents’ house were always accompanied by wind-ups in the pub about when he was going to take over the farm.
When they got to what Amy had referred to as the high street – a gallery, fish and chip shop, pasty shop, and pharmacy – Gus trailed behind her as she went into every shop and enquired about her father. And every single person enquired about her, a subject he noticed Amy expertly deflected, countering quick smart with questions about all the other person’s extended family. For Gus, it was painfully slow going.
Finally, they got to the Londis.
Gus ambled the aisles as Amy queued at the checkout to talk to the cashier whose name nobody could remember.
He found Rosie in the toy section holding a Barbie in a box. ‘Don’t you think she looks like Amy?’ she said.
Gus exhaled as he took the Barbie off her and stared, reluctantly, at the big blue eyes and the big blonde hair. ‘A bit.’
‘You don’t look like Ken,’ Rosie said flatly.
Gus laughed. ‘No, I know I don’t.’
‘Your nose is too big,’ she said, giggling naughtily to herself after she said it.
‘Thanks.’
Rosie looked confused. ‘I don’t understand why you said thanks.’
‘Because your aim was to insult me and it didn’t work.’
Her cheeks pinked. ‘Will you tell my mum?’
‘Yes.’
She looked panicked.
‘No,’ said Gus, rolling his eyes. ‘Why would I tell your mum? How old are you?’
‘Seven.’
‘Well, you’re old enough to learn. Don’t say bad shit about people’s noses.’
‘You said “shit”.’
‘Yes, I did. Got a problem with that?’
‘It’s not nice to swear.’
‘Are you going to tell my mum?’
Rosie giggled. ‘I can’t tell your mum.’
‘Here,’ Gus got his phone out his pocket, ‘ring her up, tell her.’
‘Noooooo,’ Rosie laughed, like he was the silliest person she’d met.
Gus put his phone away with a grin.
Rosie picked up the Ken doll box. ‘He actually looks like Uncle Bobby.’ She turned to look at Gus. ‘He died. Did you know that?’
Gus shook his head.
‘Surfing,’ Rosie said.
‘Oh right.’ Gus nodded. ‘And Uncle Bobby, that was your Mum and Amy’s brother, yeah?’ Part of him knew that that wasn’t going to be the right answer when he said it, but the part of him willing it to be right had overruled it. Because if, as he suspected, this Bobby character had been Amy’s husband then it suddenly added another layer to this person he’d inadvertently slept with. To this person he had intended to persuade to terminate the baby she was carrying. To this person who wasn’t really a person but just an airhead Britney Spears WhatsApp avatar.
Rosie made a face at him, a real winner of an are-you-completely-stupid stare and said, ‘Mum doesn’t have a brother. Bobby was married to Amy. It’s really sad. Amy was really sad. Bobby was really handsome—’
‘That’s enough, Rosie,’ Amy’s voice cut in on the conversation. She was standing at the end of the aisle, arms crossed.
Rosie jumped and dropped the Ken doll.
Gus bent down to pick it up, slowly, all the time watching as Amy came forward and yanked Rosie over to the ice cream freezer.
Then he stood up and slotted the doll back on the shelf, pausing for a second, his hand resting on a Buy One Get One Free sign. ‘Shit,’ he muttered under his breath.
CHAPTER 10 (#ulink_7f5e5103-1982-5956-859f-34173b2c853b)
Stella and Jack were halfway back from the fishing lake when the car broke down. The petrol gauge had been bleeping on empty since they left the house but a trip to the petrol station was in the opposite direction to the lake, and Jack had assured Stella that the Nissan Qashqai can run 43 miles after the needle hits empty on the dashboard. The lake was only ten miles away. Unfortunately, Jack hadn’t factored in a key road on the route being blocked by a lorry pouring concrete for building works and a diversion which then led off into a winding country lane maze outside Stella’s jurisdiction and unnavigable because iMaps wouldn’t load on either of their phones. When they finally got back to countryside she knew, they were out of petrol.
‘We should have got the sat nav fixed,’ Jack muttered, slamming the car door.
‘Or,’ Stella said, standing in the passing point where they’d managed to crawl to a stop, ‘we should have got some petrol.’
Jack didn’t reply. Just sucked in his cheeks, visibly fuming.
Stella scratched her head, looked around to get her bearings. It had been so long since she’d lived around here.
‘Which way?’ Jack said, his phone map still just a frustrating grey grid with a blue dot.
Stella shrugged. ‘Well, the house is that way.’ She pointed slightly to her right. ‘But the quickest route would be straight ahead to the sea and then along the cliff path. So up there.’ She pointed towards the high verge beside them that flanked the road. Jack looked dubious but didn’t argue, clearly still furious with himself about the petrol.
Heat bore down on them as they climbed. The humidity was reaching its peak. Stella slipped on the grass in her flip-flops. Her long blue skirt and white vest were not meant for trudging walks. Midges buzzed round her head.
She felt like she was walking through one of the polytunnels she’d watched out of the window of a coach journey once through the arid wasteland of southern Spain. It was years ago, in the early days of having Sonny when she had no clue how much sun the pale new skin of a baby could handle. Sonny had spent the week squeezed like a fat little sausage into an all-in-one sun protection suit and hat with a white baby-sunblock face. She’d watched other children running about naked. She remembered running about naked herself, but the sun was more dangerous now because of global warming – that’s what she’d read on Mumsnet when she’d googled it before they left. But then one of the posts had warned of babies having vitamin D deficiency nowadays because they were overly protected from the sun. She remembered sitting looking perplexed with Jack – both of them, she knew, secretly remembering the holidays when they could lie back for a nap or nip off to the bar for a beer. Jack did actually nip off to the bar for a beer, and alone with the sand-eating sausage baby, Stella had started to write, scribbling in the back of the paperback she had naively taken to read, and Potty-Mouth was born. The first column was called, ‘Holiday? What holiday?’ The first line: ‘I never believed anyone when they said a holiday with kids was “same shit, different place”. I thought they were just miserable bastards. They were. They had kids.’
She’d actually quite enjoyed the holiday in the end – staying up eating tapas while Sonny snored in the buggy in just his nappy, watching him giggle at the sea and be cooed over by grannies – and the article had gone full circle, ending on a high note but certainly not scrimping on the grizzle. The Sunday broadsheet magazine that she wrote for occasionally had run it, delighted by the angle – their readers loved a shocked snort with their weekend brunch, a nod of retrospective agreement ‘I wish we’d been able to say things like this in my day’ or a pass of the page over the table, ‘read this, it’s like that time it rained in Mallorca every day and the twins got chicken pox’. A flurry of letters arrived in uproarious response – some full-blown thank yous from people just relieved that someone else was finding it all as bad or worse than they were, others who didn’t find her funny at all, she tried her best to ignore those, because Potty-Mouth was hired.
Over the years her column had lost an inch to advertising space and a new editor had made it clear that the readers wanted the grizzle. The best of the bad bits wrapped up in a witty package that took just over three minutes to read.
‘I’m sweating,’ said Jack as he hiked the final few feet up the hill. The verge dotted with spiky gorse bushes and pink heather.
‘Me too.’
Jack wiped his brow with his T-shirt. Dark hair pushed up off his forehead. Face still rigid.
They stopped side by side at the top. Below them the scene dropped into fields of sheep and crops. Rows of cabbages and corn. A tractor was backing into the farm, then further out past a golf course and caravan park was the sea. Glinting and familiar. Pale as the sky. Stella inhaled through her nose, felt her shoulders drop slightly.
Jack shook his head. ‘This is madness. We’re miles away.’
Stella rolled her eyes. ‘It’s not that bad,’ she laughed, his annoyance working to deflate her own.
‘It’s pretty bad,’ Jack said, sweeping his arm to take in the endless view.
Stella shaded her eyes with her hand. ‘Well, look, that’s the Goldstone Caravan Park,’ she said, pointing at the rows of white static vans in the distance. ‘And the leisure centre.’ She squinted, gesturing to the right of the vans, to an ugly grey concrete building. ‘Once we’re there, we’re pretty much almost home.’ It was the distance between them and there that was the worry. ‘We just have to get across all those fields.’ She grinned.
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Jenny Oliver
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 17.04.2024
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О книге: ′Love, humour, family and hope – the perfect ingredients for a summer read′ Debbie Johnson‘Dramatic and fun!’ My WeeklyIrresistible, feel-good summer fiction, from Top 10 bestseller Jenny OliverThe house where Stella and her sister Amy grew up never changes – the red front door, the breath-taking view over the Cornish coast, her parents in their usual spots on the sofa. Except this summer, things feel a little different…Stella’s father is nowhere to be seen, yet her mother – in suspiciously new Per Una jeans – seems curiously unfazed by his absence, and more eager to talk about her mysterious dog-walking buddy Mitch.Stella’s sister Amy has returned home with a new boyfriend she can barely stand and a secret to hide, and Stella’s husband Jack has something he wants to get off his chest too. Even Frank Sinatra, the dog, has a guilty air about him.This summer, change is in the air for the Whitethorns…Warm, funny and gloriously feel-good, this is the perfect summer read for fans of Veronica Henry and Milly Johnson.What readers are saying about Jenny Oliver:′Summer holidays wouldn′t be the same without one of Jenny Oliver′s lovely books to read.′′This was brilliant. I was really sad when it came to an end.′′Another great read from Jenny Oliver…Looking forward to reading her next one′′well written and hilarious family situations which we can all relate to.′′Feel good factor in this book. Will be reading more of this author.′