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

‘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.’