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

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

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 failed him 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.