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

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

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.