The House We Called Home: The magical, laugh out loud summer holiday read from the bestselling Jenny Oliver. Jenny Oliver
lion, a soft cushion for his youngest daughter to curl up into.
Now, as Amy looked across at sullen little Sonny, she felt a bit sorry for him – all eyes on him as they wanted to find out more about Grandpa’s sudden interest in Instagram.
‘I thought he hated his phone?’ Stella said.
Sonny shrugged. Then when he realised that wasn’t going to be enough he said, ‘He really liked Instagram.’
‘Why didn’t you say this before?’ Stella asked.
‘You didn’t ask.’ Sonny glared at her.
‘Instagram?’ Amy leant forward, deflecting from the motherson bickering. She smiled, this being the first positive thing she’d heard about her dad since he’d disappeared. ‘Did he post anything ever?’
Sonny shook his head. ‘No, never. He followed everyone, though.’
Around the table phones came out.
‘Even me?’ Rosie piped up.
Sonny nodded. ‘He’s Neptune013.’
‘I wondered who that was,’ said Jack, who had about fifteen Instagram followers and barely ever posted anything. ‘I thought it was someone who’d followed me by mistake.’
Everyone was scrolling through their list of followers, Amy was quietly satisfied that hers was taking the longest. ‘Here he is,’ she said finally and clicked on the avatar picture of waves on the shore. ‘No followers.’ She looked up. ‘That’s really sad.’
‘I’ve just followed him,’ said Rosie.
‘Me too,’ said Jack.
‘Yep,’ said Stella.
Amy nodded. Pressed Follow.
‘And so have I,’ said Gus, his voice taking Amy by surprise that he was even still at the table. She wanted to tell him to immediately Unfollow. That he had no right to be Following. But she didn’t say anything, just had a really quick skim of her Timeline before putting her phone back down on the table.
Sonny looked quite pleased. ‘He’ll like that.’
Amy glanced across at him. ‘You think?’
‘Maybe,’ Sonny said, a little more noncommittal since revealing a smidge of enthusiasm. He was about to go back to his phone when he mumbled, ‘You could put the fishing lake down as well. On the list.’
‘Fishing?’ said Stella.
Moira shook her head. ‘He hasn’t been fishing in years.’
‘We went.’ Sonny shrugged a shoulder. ‘Last week,’ he added, before flicking his fringe in front of his eyes and burying himself back in his screen.
Amy realised that both she and Stella were watching Sonny. Both of them seeing a relationship that had developed that they didn’t know about. Amy wondered what Stella felt about that: Sonny and their dad.
‘Good, right,’ said Jack, scribbling Instagram down on his pad. ‘OK, so what else did Graham’s day look like?’
Everyone turned to look at the sofa.
Jack tried again. ‘Where did he go when he went out?’ This was not how things worked at his office, Amy thought. At Christmas she remembered him saying that they’d introduced five-minute stand-up meetings at his firm. She’d thought that sounded dreadful, the best thing about a meeting, in her opinion, was the catch-up chat at the beginning and the free croissants.
Stella said, ‘He drinks at the Coach and Horses, doesn’t he, Mum?’
Everyone turned to look at Moira who was cradling her wine glass while looking uncomfortable with all the attention. ‘Yes, I think—Yes.’ She nodded, more committed this time, ‘Yes, on a Friday.’ She said, definite.
Amy wondered what had happened in the months since she’d left. Her mother didn’t seem sure at all what their father had been up to. And what were those jeans she was wearing?
‘OK, what else?’ Jack asked.
Moira seemed to visibly wrack her brain, before saying, ‘He sometimes chatted to the cashier at Londis, I can never remember what her name is.’ Her expression showed she was clutching at straws and to save embarrassment quickly changed the subject by saying, ‘Would anyone like anything else to drink? I might put some crisps out, if anyone’s feeling peckish.’
Amy tugged at her emoji vest, embarrassed for her dad’s life. Embarrassed that this was what Gus was hearing about him. She wanted to go and get the photo albums from the bookshelf or drag him into the upstairs loo where all the trophies were kept and say, look this was him, this was him in his heyday. He was a champion. A star. People used to stop him for autographs.
Gus seemed quite oblivious to any awkwardness, or was doing a good job of hiding it, and said, ‘I wouldn’t say no to another beer.’
‘Oh yeah, me too,’ said Jack.
‘Lovely.’ Moira jumped up to go and get some more bottles from the fridge.
Amy watched Gus, unable to quite accept that this guy sitting calmly drinking Budweiser was going to be related to them all for the rest of his life. She wondered how she would have behaved were the situation reversed. She couldn’t even imagine it. She simply wouldn’t have gone. If his family wanted to meet the baby they’d have to come and meet it. She didn’t even want Gus involved, let alone the rest of the— She paused. What was Gus’s surname? He must have told her. She tried to think. No idea.
Jack wrote Londis as the next item on his pad.
Amy cringed again at the mention of it. Suddenly wished for that parallel life again. The one where she was happy about the baby with her husband, Bobby, sitting next to her. His arm round her shoulders – he would have given her a squeeze at the Londis comment. Bobby would have known that she thought it denigrated her father and said something to counter it, something good like, ‘Lucky Graham’s so friendly. I’ve never chatted to the cashier at Londis.’ Even though everyone would know that was a lie because Bobby chatted to everyone because everyone wanted to chat to Bobby because he was so golden and glowing that people couldn’t help flocking to him. The number of people who used to stop them when they were walking around to ask if they knew Bobby from somewhere, if they’d seen him on the TV, which of course they hadn’t. He just looked like a celebrity. Amy would always get a little flutter of pride.
She closed her eyes and tried her times tables again but just got muddled. She felt a wave of nausea creep over her; whether from the memory of Bobby or a side effect of the pregnancy she didn’t know.
Her mother was pouring Kettle Chips into a bowl. Amy reached over for a handful.
‘Since when did you eat carbs?’ Stella asked, surprised.
Amy didn’t eat carbs, she infamously hadn’t touched them since a modelling stint in her teens. But since the pregnancy anything went to quell the sickness.
‘Well, you know me,’ Amy said. ‘Can’t stick at anything!’ She’d said it to try and sound funny, deflect attention by taking the piss out of herself, but it obviously came out less carefree than she’d imagined because Stella was really watching her now. Gus too, come to think of it.
The nausea rose.
Her mother glanced across at her, expression concerned. ‘OK?’ she asked.
Amy nodded. ‘Yeah,’ she said, quick and slightly too sharp.
Then she felt the sympathy of everyone round the table. Like they all knew what she was thinking. Like they were all suddenly thinking about Bobby. Everyone except Gus, who was completely oblivious to the network of undercurrents, unknowingly dangling, like it was Mission Impossible, above a hundred infra-red beams that could set off any number of deep-rooted family alarms. He was just frowning like he’d missed something and had no idea what.