Jenny Oliver - The House We Called Home - The magical, laugh out loud summer holiday read from the bestselling Jenny Oliver

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

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.’