The House We Called Home: The magical, laugh out loud summer holiday read from the bestselling Jenny Oliver. Jenny Oliver
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Amy did get strong enough she showed no intention of flying the nest again. And the two of them – Amy and Graham – just became a permanent fixture in the house, a morose little team staring zombified at the TV flickering in the corner. Moira had started to worry she might go mad. Even getting the builders in had barely shifted them, after Graham had absolved himself of project management duties they’d just decamped to a makeshift living room upstairs for a couple of weeks. That was why Moira had got the dog – an excuse to get herself away from them. And that was when she’d met Mitch. When she’d found joy in life again. When she’d started, for the first time in almost forever, to see herself as a person in her own right. When she’d plucked up the courage to give Amy a gentle nudge out of the house – which Amy had taken very badly and flounced off to London in an impetuous show of defiance, leaving Moira worried sick that she’d done the wrong thing, hardly hearing from Amy the whole time she was there. She’d only been able to console herself recently when Sonny showed her Instagram selfies of a perfectly happy-looking Amy eating brunch overlooking the Thames.
But with Amy gone, it just left Moira and Graham in the house. The gulf between them ever widening. She thought of the silent dinners, the two of them on either side of the table, when just the sound of him chewing made her body tense with irritation. The sighs when she’d make him lift his feet for the Hoover. The noise of his incessant snoring. It saddened her to think he had become just a litany of annoying noises, that there was no spark left between them. But she had tried to help him and she was exhausted from trying. At some point enough had to be enough.
In the book club circle a small row had broken out which the librarian was ineffectually trying to quash by steering the discussion back to the official book club questions. Moira glanced over at Joyce who rolled her eyes and then gestured towards the door with a tilt of her head, trying again to get Moira to make an escape.
Moira shook her head.
Then she sat annoyed with herself for staying. She couldn’t even leave book club – what hope did she have of leaving Graham? She had thought she was getting braver. Fiddlesticks. That was before the children had arrived, before she saw herself through their eyes as well as her own. Now it all felt a bit silly, the idea of her leaving. Like a flying dream, when you get hooked on the adrenaline of soaring free then wake up to find yourself lying boringly in bed.
The determination she had felt to leave was forever being tempered by propriety, like a game of ping pong, always batted back. But she hoped it was still somewhere deep within her, simmering, because now she was trapped, trapped till the stubborn old fool decided to come back, where she had been poised ready to jump. Ready to soar.
And her fear was that as time ticked, her children – just their raised brows at her jeans was almost enough – and the comforting pressure of respectability, the omnipresent fear of judgement, of being gossiped about as she had gossiped, of being pitied should she fail, would kill her little sliver of courage, and she’d wake up, boringly, in bed forever.
While Moira was at book club, two teams set off to find clues as to Graham’s whereabouts. The decision as to who was on which team essentially came down to the proximity to ice cream. When Gus and Amy were handed their list of places to check, including Londis, Rosie peered at the piece of paper and squeaked, ‘Ooh, they sell Twisters at the Londis. I’m coming with you.’
‘I like a Twister,’ Amy agreed, searching the living room for her sunglasses.
Gus, who had been ready for the last hour and was waiting at the door, made a face. ‘They’re vile.’
Rosie came to stand by Amy and said, eyes wide with disbelief, ‘They’re like the best ice lolly in the world.’
Sonny sloped over to stand by Gus, ‘I’m going to have a Calippo.’
Gus nodded. ‘Wise choice.’
Stella had been rummaging in her bag for the car keys, only to discover Jack was holding them, and when the ice cream chat had finished said, ‘So, I take it you four are going together?’
Amy and Rosie looked disparagingly at Gus and Sonny. ‘I suppose so,’ said Amy, putting her sunglasses on and poofing her hair. Then she looked down at the list again. ‘So, we’ve got the pub, John and Sandra’s house … Oh, that’s going to be awkward – what am I going to say? Have you seen my dad?’
Stella raised a brow. ‘Sounds about right.’
Amy sucked in a breath and went back to the list. ‘Post office, other shops, Londis. OK.’ She nodded, grabbed her bag, and said, ‘Come on then.’ Rosie trotted after her like an adoring puppy, dressed today in her own emoji vest, while Amy was wearing skin-tight white jeans and an acid yellow T-shirt. Sonny and Gus followed a little less enthusiastically, both now checking their phones.
The easiest walk to the village was across the headland. They walked the road part of the way then Amy paused by a gate and started to climb the stile, lifting her legs over it really high so she didn’t mark her jeans.
Gus watched, thinking of when he’d first seen her profile picture online. In it she had long blonde hair in high pigtails, dressed up like Britney Spears for – hopefully – a fancy-dress party. Gus remembered all his friends passing it round the pub table sniggering because it was clear she was a bit of a dimwit, but also mocking because there was no denying she was good-looking and well out of his league in the looks department. That was why, when he’d seen them the next time, he’d sat down all cocky and full of it, making the fact he’d slept with her unmistakable. They hadn’t believed him at first, but when he didn’t back down, didn’t crack a smile and agree that he was winding them up, his best mate had blown out a breath, held up his pint and said, ‘Gus shagged Baby Spice. Nice one.’
Baby.
He felt suddenly woozy.
The air seemed to get muggier and more humid. Above him a gauzy layer of clouds locked in the heat, smothering them all like a huge white duvet.
The kids followed Amy over the stile. Rosie tripped and in the process trod in a cow pat. Sonny laughed. Rosie slapped him on the stomach. Sonny laughed even more and called her Cow Pat Rosie, which made Amy have to hold in a laugh as she told him not to call his sister names while Rosie cried.
It made Gus think about his own family. About the near constant bickering with his siblings – all five of them – and his own parents’ house on a farm in Suffolk, crammed full of stuff and people and kids. There were always more babies, more cats, more dogs, more tiny chicks in the airing cupboard; everything mismatched, spotlessly clean but worn and tired. He couldn’t imagine anyone going missing other than because they’d got lost on the land somewhere. He had spent his life appreciative of it but desperate to escape it. He had lain on his triple bunk bed dreaming of one day having his own space. A place where he and he alone would be in control, where he could do as he pleased, where it would be silent. And now he had it. He cherished his independence, barely had long-term relationships, and shuddered inside when a girlfriend tried to make him commit to a holiday a couple of months in advance. Yet here he was, on the verge of being permanently tied to this Britney Spears wannabe because of one stupid, drunken mistake. He had to make her see sense.
They walked single file down the side of the field, the footpath jagged with stones, the air scented with cows and wild garlic, and the barbs of the blackthorn bushes clutching at their T-shirts.
‘Amy,’ Rosie said, idly plucking at the long grass. ‘Is Gus your boyfriend?’
Gus snorted a laugh at the back as Amy visibly bristled, her hand fluffing up her hair like a nervous tick. ‘No,’ she said, short and sharp without turning round.
Sonny turned round though and made a sniggering face at Gus. And Rosie was walking backwards now, eyes narrowed as if she’d been certain she had cracked a particularly difficult code that no one else had yet deciphered.
Gus raised a brow, smug to have outwitted her.
Amy