The House We Called Home. Jenny Oliver
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head.
Stella leant forward. ‘No one’s accusing you, Mum. Jack’s just asking.’
‘I know.’ Moira crossed her arms over her chest, then through pursed lips added, ‘I can pop into the bank tomorrow.’
‘Could you do it online now, Mum?’ Stella asked.
‘No, I can’t.’ Moira blushed. ‘I don’t know how. Graham does all that.’
Jack said, ‘Well we can help, do you know the passwords?’
Moira hesitated.
Amy said, ‘Don’t worry, Mum, I never know mine either. That’s why I have them all written down in my phone.’ She saw Gus shake his head at what a stupid thing that was to do. She made a face at him which she instantly regretted when she caught Stella looking.
Moira was getting flustered. Smoothing down her silk blouse, she said, ‘I know I should know them. It’s just something I haven’t quite got round to. There is something written down in the kitchen, though, I think. Hang on, let me have a look.’ She got up to go and rifle through a flowery Cath Kidston box file on the counter.
Jack wrote ‘Account activity’ down as the first point on his list.
Amy leant forward and said, ‘Shouldn’t we be calling all the hospitals and the coastguard and things? We need to be certain he’s not hurt.’
‘Amy, he left a note,’ Stella said, one mocking brow arched, ‘I don’t think he’s hurt.’
‘What if he was made to write the note?’ Amy replied, brows raised back at Stella, defiant.
Stella scoffed. ‘Like a hostage? Please.’
Amy refused to be ignored so easily. ‘Don’t look at me like that, someone might have taken him. It’s a real possibility. I think it should go on the list.’
‘Seriously?’ Stella shook her head. ‘It’s not Murder, She Wrote, Amy! It’s Cornwall.’
Gus snorted into his beer. Stella looked up, appreciative of his finding her funny. Then sat back with her wine, giving her long fringe a smug little blow out of her eyes.
Amy huffed.
‘Here they are. The passwords. I knew I had them somewhere,’ Moira called from the kitchen, brandishing a scrap of notepaper covered in numbers.
Amy pulled off the thin sweater she was wearing, feeling hot and bothered from the stand-off with her sister.
‘I have that top!’ shouted little Rosie, pointing excitedly at Amy’s Primark vest top patterned with different emojis. ‘Mummy, don’t I have that top?’
Amy watched Stella nod as she sipped her wine. ‘You do have that top, Rosie,’ she said, as if of course Amy and a seven-year-old would have the same fashion sense.
‘We’re T-shirt buddies,’ Rosie said, coming over and draping her skinny little arm round Amy’s shoulders, then peering closer to inspect her face said, ‘I like your make-up. You’re so pretty. You look just like Zoella.’
Amy felt the conflicting rush of both embarrassment and pride at what she considered a compliment. In the past she would have just snuggled Rosie up close and relished the adoration. But now she had Gus smirking under his breath at the end of the table. And something made her want Stella not to perceive her as quite such a child. Perhaps because Amy knew at some point she was going to have to tell them all about the baby. And she couldn’t face the accompanying looks of pity and the ‘Oh Amy!’ tone. But most of all she dreaded their lack of surprise that she would do something so stupid. It had made her contemplate just WhatsApping the news: ‘It was a one-night stand! Can you believe it? And when I told Gus he was like, “You’re not having it, right?” [crying laughing emoji]’
But it wasn’t funny.
It was terrifying.
It was hard to say if it was more terrifying now or earlier today when she had been standing on Gus’s North London doorstep delivering the news. She’d only remembered where he lived because it was above a Nando’s. He had winced when she’d told him. His expression as if it were possibly the worst news he had ever heard in his entire life. She had thought he might react badly but not like that. She had presumed he would usher her inside, make her a cup of tea and ask what he could do to help. Not stand in the hallway, his expression somewhere between panic and disgust and say, ‘Do you need money? How much is an abortion?’
‘I am not having an abortion.’ Her phone had rung as she’d spat out the words. ‘Oh, hi Mum!’
Then her already trembling bottom lip had gone into full-blown wobble as her mother told her about her dad going missing. Meanwhile Gus was pacing the tiny, hot hallway, rolling his hands as if hurrying her to wrap the conversation up so they could get back to more important matters.
‘I have to go,’ she said to Gus as soon as she’d hung up.
‘Oh no you don’t. We have things to discuss.’
‘Well I have to go home.’
‘I’ll come with you.’
‘It’s in Cornwall.’
‘I won’t come with you.’
‘Good.’ Amy had stormed out of the dark poky little flat onto the high street, taking in deep breaths of warm sunshine air and traffic fumes. She made her mind up she would never ever see Gus again. Good riddance. She’d block him on any dating app or social media if he tried to contact her.
‘Wait!’
She paused. Turned. Deflated at the sight of Gus jogging lankily towards her in his stupid bright green shorts and old Levi’s T-shirt. ‘What?’ she snapped.
‘I’m coming with you.’
‘No.’
‘Yes!’ he said. She now noticed the bag slung over his shoulder. He narrowed his eyes. ‘You can’t just turn up, tell me you’re pregnant and then leave.’
‘I can.’
‘And what if you decide not to come back. I know nothing about where you live. How would I find you?’
Amy shook out her hair, stood with her hands on her hips. ‘I will come back,’ she said, haughty expression on her face, internally glossing over the fact that permanently avoiding Gus had been her very intention.
‘I don’t trust you.’
‘That’s not very nice.’
Gus laughed, incredulous. ‘You gave me a fake number the night we went out.’
Amy paused. ‘You rang me?’ she asked, unable to help feeling a little smug.
‘No,’ Gus scoffed. ‘I just know how many digits are in a phone number. You don’t, clearly.’
Amy swung round, incensed, and started to stomp away. To her annoyance he followed her a few paces behind all the way. No matter how many times she stopped and tried to plead with him to go home. He sat opposite her on the tube. Made himself at home at her kitchen table as she packed. Walked beside her in the smoggy heat to get the Hammersmith and City line to Paddington. ‘Please go away,’ she said as the train pulled in. ‘Please?’
‘No chance.’
‘You don’t even want the baby.’
‘No, I don’t want the baby. But I don’t want you to have said baby and me not know.’
Amy screwed her eyes tight. ‘You’re muddling me.’
‘Well, let’s stop talking then.’
Now, as she sat round the dining room table, Amy took a covert glance at Gus and immediately had to look away with displeasure. He ruined being back here. The sight of him brought her