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

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.