The House We Called Home Page 21

  Amy saw him and snorted a laugh through her nose.

  ‘Is that lipstick, Gus?’ Stella asked.

  ‘I believe it is, Stella,’ Gus replied, deadpan.

  ‘No one was playing with me, Mummy,’ said Rosie, hands on her hips. ‘And I said that Gus had spent so long with Sonny that it was my turn for someone to play with me and Sonny wouldn’t.’

  Stella had to bite her lips to stop from laughing. ‘Well, it’s very nice of him, Rosie.’

  ‘I think he enjoyed it,’ Rosie said, very serious.

  Gus folded his arms. ‘I’m right here, you know.’

  ‘That’s quite apparent, Gus,’ said Stella, grinning at his get-up and then walking across the hall to her mum and dad’s room.

  Amy followed, giving Gus a quick up-and-down before shaking her head like she completely despaired of him.

  CHAPTER 27

  ‘His passport’s gone,’ Stella said. They were all sitting round the garden table, the house too warm even with all the windows open. Lines of pink and orange sunset concertinaed the skyline.

  Moira had made Pimm’s. Which Stella thought was inappropriate but decided not to comment given the whole controlling thing.

  ‘And up till now, no one’s checked his passport?’ Gus glanced round the table, incredulous. He was no longer bedecked in Rosie’s fancy dress ensemble but a faint trace of hot pink still stained his mouth.

  ‘He doesn’t travel!’ Amy defended the decision. ‘And he certainly doesn’t fly. You still have lipstick on, you know?’

  ‘Good,’ said Gus.

  Amy rolled her eyes.

  ‘I checked the passports,’ Moira said, stirring all the strawberries, cucumber and mint round in the jug before she poured. ‘There were two in the drawer when I looked.’

  ‘Yes,’ Stella said. ‘Yours and Amy’s.’

  ‘Amy’s?’ Moira made a face. ‘Amy, why is your passport here?’

  Amy shifted uncomfortably in her seat. ‘Daddy looks after it for me.’

  Gus tipped his head back in his chair. ‘Oh, good God.’

  ‘Shut up, Gus.’ Amy glared at him.

  Gus smirked as he continued to gaze upwards.

  Amy crossed her arms and legs in a huff.

  ‘So, where is he then?’ Sonny asked, zooming in on the Instagram picture for the umpteenth time. ‘Somewhere with a staircase and a red bag.’

  ‘Pimm’s, Gus?’ Moira asked.

  Gus shook his head. ‘I’m not a fan of cucumber in a drink.’

  Moira giggled. ‘I can pour it so you don’t get any.’

  Stella sighed. ‘Mum. Can you concentrate for a minute? Where would Dad go with that old red kit bag?’

  Moira shared a sneaky told-off glance with Gus as she poured his Pimm’s, holding back all the cucumber and strawberries with a spoon. ‘I have no idea, darling. Probably off somewhere reliving his youth!’

  Stella tipped her head. ‘What – an Olympic site, do you think?’

  ‘Maybe. Yes. That’s a good idea,’ Moira said. ‘Pimm’s, Amy? Oh no, you’re pregnant.’

  The whole table seemed to pause at the mention of it. Moira glanced up, almost as if it hadn’t ever really sunk in. She put the jug down and looked at Amy. Amy looked back a little awkwardly at the staring. Moira smiled. Then something seemed to click, like Moira remembered this was her family – all of them sitting round together – and perhaps she could be of a little more use. That even if she wasn’t desperate to locate Graham, this was a moment when she could help her girls. She sat up a little straighter in her chair, gave the Pimm’s another quick stir and said, ‘Well, let’s think – his Olympics were Munich, Montreal, Moscow, and LA. And I can tell you one thing, Graham is definitely not in the Soviet Union.’

  ‘Because it’s been dissolved?’ Gus said, brow raised, sardonic.

  ‘No, clever clogs, because of his stomach,’ Moira said. ‘He will not be living off Russian food, not a chance.’

  Gus was intrigued. ‘I think Russian food is pretty similar to our food.’

  ‘Oh no, Gus,’ Moira shook her head. ‘It’s stroganoff and dumplings and things. Graham hates a stew.’

  Gus laughed out loud.

  Stella put her head in her hands.

  Beside her, Jack got his pad out of his top pocket and deemed this the time to take charge. ‘So, we’ve got LA, Montreal, and Munich.’

  ‘He didn’t do as well as he wanted in Munich.’ Moira dismissed the option and went back to pouring Pimm’s for Jack, Stella, and herself.

  ‘Can I have one?’ Sonny asked.

  Everyone looked to Stella. She was about to reply but instead looked to Jack. Her parental delegation may as well start now.

  ‘Urm.’ Jack looked a bit flustered. ‘Well. I don’t know. Maybe just a little one. With lots of fruit.’ He turned to Stella for verification. She would have said no. She didn’t know who was right – the law was on her side, Sonny’s delight was not. She gave Jack a nonchalant shrug like she wouldn’t have minded either way. He was clearly holding in a smile, completely aware of how hard she was trying. ‘So,’ Jack went on. ‘Montreal or LA.’

  ‘He’s got a grand, he could get there easily enough,’ Gus said.

  Moira pursed her lips at the mention of the thousand pounds.

  ‘I’ve told you, he wouldn’t fly,’ Amy sighed, exasperated that no one was listening.

  Sonny, who had gulped down his tiny Pimm’s and now only had a disappointing glass of soggy fruit, said, ‘Well, where is he then?’

  Everyone looked blank.

  ‘Maybe it’s not the racing,’ Gus suggested. ‘Maybe there’s a place that holds more significance.’

  ‘Nothing holds more significance than the racing,’ Moira scoffed.

  ‘Maybe he’s gone to Portugal?’ Amy suggested, a little hesitantly.

  ‘What’s in Portugal?’ Gus asked when no one else said anything.

  Amy shrugged. ‘It’s where we used to go every year. For our holidays. You know – as a family. There was a big pool near our hotel so Stella could train.’

  ‘They bulldozed the hotel years ago,’ Moira chipped in.

  ‘I don’t think he’s gone to Portugal.’ Stella shook her head. ‘I don’t think he’s that sentimental.’

  Moira did a little snort of agreement.

  Amy sat back, unconvinced but lacking the evidence to argue.

  Sonny was doing something on his phone.

  Jack had written Portugal on the list. Stella reached over and put a line through it.

  ‘You can get there without flying,’ Sonny said. ‘To Portugal.’

  Stella sighed.

  Sonny ignored her, turning the phone round so they could all see. ‘Eurostar to Paris. Then down to somewhere called Irun. Then Lisbon. You can be there in twenty-four hours.’

  Gus looked impressed. ‘Good work, Columbo.’

  ‘Who’s Columbo?’ Sonny asked.

  Gus shook his head as if why did he even bother. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘And look…’ Sonny was madly googling something else. ‘The train to Irun, it’s a double-decker. The staircase, Mum. It’s a train not a bus. This has got to be it. This had got to be where he is.’

  They all turned to look at Stella. All of them, even Moira who paused to look up while fishing a strawberry out of her glass. ‘What do you think, Stella?’ said Amy.

  And suddenly the decision to go to Portugal relied solely on Stella relinquishing control and taking the risk that she might not always be right.

  CHAPTER 28

  ‘Come on!’ Jack was clicking his fingers nervously, standing beside the revolving doors of Exeter airport. They were waiting for a bike courier who’d accidentally gone to Bristol to deliver the passports that their cleaner had foraged out of the depths of Jack’s filing cabinet for them. Incredibly the revelation that Stella had a cleaner had not been commentated on by her mother, who seemed to consciously hold her tongue when the calls had been made.

/>   Now all of them – except Moira who had staunchly refused to come – were hovering by the airport doors. Check-in for Flight 762 to Faro, Portugal, was meant to have closed but the lovely woman from the desk was waiting for them. They were hand-luggage only, having decided three days was enough to work out if their hunch was right or wrong, and once the passports arrived they just had to leg it through security.

  Gus was leaning against the silver railing just across from Jack, his bag at his feet. Amy was perched about a metre away from him. Sonny was sitting cross-legged on his rucksack doing something on his phone. Rosie was wheeling the trolley from side to side.

  Time ticked by. No one really spoke.

  Then Gus glanced over at Amy and said, ‘So, have you ever looked after your own passport?’

  Amy didn’t look at him.

  Gus laughed. ‘It’s a serious question.’

  ‘It’s not a serious question,’ Amy said. ‘It’s something that you’re saying so you can go on to say something else which will be bad about me, like, “Wow, man, if you can’t look after a passport how are you going to look after a baby.”’ She put on a really deep voice as she spoke.

  ‘I don’t sound like that.’

  ‘Yes you do.’

  ‘And I’d never say “Man”.’

  Amy rolled her eyes. ‘A baby is very different to a passport, Gus.’

  Gus held his hands up. ‘This is so unfair. You’re having a go at me about something you’ve invented for me to say.’

  There was a snigger of laughter from where Sonny was sitting on his bag on the floor.

  Amy turned away.

  Gus tapped his passport on his knuckles.

  After a second or two, Amy said, ‘That’s a really annoying noise.’

  Gus carried on tapping.

  ‘I said that’s really annoying,’ Amy repeated.

  Gus carried on.

  ‘Gus!’ Amy snapped.

  Stella swung round. ‘Can you two stop bickering. Jesus, Gus – stop tapping.’

  Gus stopped tapping.

  Everyone was silent again. Stella looked at her watch. Jack was still clicking his fingers, peering out into the road constantly checking.

  Sonny looked up from the floor. ‘How come you had your passport with you, Gus?’

  ‘Carry it with me everywhere,’ he said, with a smug raise of his eyebrows. ‘Always ready for adventure.’

  Amy scoffed in disbelief.

  Little Rosie stopped messing with the luggage trolley. ‘Do you go on many adventures, Gus?’

  ‘What do you call this?’ Gus asked, arms stretched wide.

  Rosie looked around at them all, excitement sparking in her eyes at the idea that this was an adventure.

  They’d formed a gang and nothing could split them up. Back at the house the day before when Stella had suggested maybe just she and Amy go, Sonny had kicked off that he was the main reason the search had carried on and demanded a seat on the plane. Newly free-spirited Jack had said a holiday might be good for them. Rosie had whooped. Gus had raised his arms and gone, ‘Why the hell don’t we all just go?’ To which Moira had tutted and said, ‘If he wants to come back he knows where we are. You won’t catch me traipsing half-way across Europe to find him.’

  Unable to stay completely out of proceedings, however, Moira had wrangled them a pretty impressive discount at the camp-site-slash-yoga-resort on the Algarve where Mitch was a regular teacher.

  At which point Stella had frowned and said, ‘Why would Mitch do that for us?’

  ‘He didn’t do it for you, he did it for me.’

  ‘Are you sleeping with him, Mum?’

  Moira had gasped, ‘Stella!’ at the impertinence.

  Now the clock was ticking. Stella shook her head. ‘Adventure or not, I don’t think we’re going to make it.’

  A couple of smokers by the airport door checked their own watches, sharing a look of agreement between them.

  Sonny thumped his bag.

  But then the dark helmet of the motorbike courier drew up alongside them – four passports in his outstretched gloved hand and Jack almost crumpled on the pavement in relief.

  The moment was immediately overshadowed however by the dramatic arrival of Moira, stepping out of a taxi, dressed in black-with-a-hint-of-crazy-fluoro athleisure wear, and unclicking the handle of her snazzy little wheelie case as the driver put it down on the pavement in front of her.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Stella asked.

  Moira pushed her sunglasses up into her big red hair and said matter-of-factly, ‘Catching the plane with you. I checked in online.’

  ‘Come on!’ shouted Jack and suddenly they were all running. The woman from the check-in desk was radioing through to the departure gate. The queue at security glared at them as they squeezed their way to the front full of apologies, expressions anxious – apart from Gus who seemed to be enjoying the drama. The flight attendants welcomed them aboard with raised brows at their lateness. Other passengers audibly sighed as they went past to find their seats. Stella had to look at the floor to avoid any eye contact.

  They sat down: Rosie by the window, then Jack, then Sonny, then Gus, then Stella because Amy nudged her forward so she didn’t have to sit next to Gus, then Amy. Then in the row in front was Moira, who stuck her head through the gap in the seats and said, ‘I don’t know why everyone had to glare at us, we’re not exactly criminals – just a bit late for a plane, for heaven’s sake.’

  Gus nodded. ‘I couldn’t agree more, Moira.’

  ‘Don’t encourage her,’ said Stella. Then leaning forward to talk to her mother’s face pressed between the seats asked, ‘Why are you here?’

  Moira did a haughty little pout. ‘Mitch thought it would be good for me. For closure. His use of the word, not mine; it’s a ghastly term.’ She was about to turn around when she paused and glanced back. ‘And someone has to keep an eye on you all, don’t they?’

  Stella sat where she was, leaning slightly forward, looking at her mother’s hair through the seat gap, strangely relieved that she had turned up. It had concerned her that were they to find their dad, Stella really didn’t know what she would say to him, and suddenly the presence of her mother, for one of the first times in her life, felt amazingly comforting.

  Stella reached through the gap and tapped her on the shoulder.

  ‘Yes?’ Moira asked, her handbag on her lap as she rummaged for her things for the flight.

  ‘You kept my stuff,’ Stella said. ‘In the attic.’

  Moira paused. ‘Yes.’

  Stella nodded.

  Moira twisted round further so she could see if Stella had anything else to add.

  Stella sat back in her seat.

  Moira looked at her for a second then she smiled and turned back round. Stella watched as she put her book club book in the mesh pocket, her bag under the seat in front, and then turned and looked round again, catching her eye just for a moment, before reaching for the in-flight magazine.

  CHAPTER 29

  The camp-site-slash-yoga-resort was situated down a bumpy dirt track at what felt like the end of the earth. Flocks of bright white storks strutted on red legs across the neighbouring farmland. Dogs trotted inquisitively down the centre of the road. A white banner stamped with a huge cross-legged yogi flapped in the gentle breeze as they drew up in the car park late afternoon.

  Jack got out of the car, took his sunglasses off, had a look around and went, ‘Where the hell are we?’

  Wind-chimes tinkled in towering pines. Rows of squat little palm trees lined the walkway like giant pineapples.

  Amy got out. ‘I can smell incense.’

  Gus got out after her. ‘It’s like my teenage bedroom.’ He leant forward and inhaled the smell of one of the incense sticks jabbed in a palm tree trunk. ‘Although here it’s probably not to mask copious amounts of weed.’ He glanced at Moira who was climbing out of the huge SUV with the kids. ‘Having said that …’

  Moira refuse
d to meet his eye. She was saved by the arrival of a grey-haired man tanned the colour of a walnut and dressed in purple tie-dye, clearly born from the same mould as Mitch. He greeted them with a hands-together, head-bowed ‘Namaste’, as they trooped through a lattice archway that marked the entrance to the camp site.

  Stella watched her mother bow back. ‘Namaste,’ she said.

  ‘What are you saying?’ Stella asked with a bemused frown.

  ‘It’s a yoga greeting.’ Her mother’s tone was a little uppity.

  ‘What does it mean, Moira?’ Jack asked.

  ‘I have no idea,’ Moira said, and stalked into the little entrance cabin following the man in the tie-dye with a dismissive toss of her hair.

  Stella, Jack, Amy and Gus exchanged a smirk.

  Moira stood at the desk pulling printouts of their booking from her bag, her lurid sportswear a sharp contrast to the weather-beaten hut with its wooden veranda and scorched palm trees.

  ‘Ahh, the friend of Mitch,’ the man said, his hands aloft as he spoke. ‘Our home, his home, your home.’

  Moira blushed.

  ‘I am Vasco. Come.’ He grabbed some keys on plastic lotus flower fobs from the wall, and led them all out into the piercing Portuguese sunshine.

  They wheeled their various cases over the bumpy arid path. Sonny rested his big sports bag on his head. Rosie kept dropping hers to the floor moaning about how heavy it was. All around them the rising hiss of cicadas felt like the sound of the sun burning down. Every few steps a gust of wind swirled dusty tumbleweeds along the scorched red earth. To their left were the campervans. People with their feet up, reading the paper under awnings with cups of coffee in tin cups and dogs lying weary from the heat. To their right was a slope of desert-esque shrubs; cacti, prickly pears, and giant agaves with fleshy green leaves graffitied with carvings of people’s names. The land was barren. The earth creaked with thirst.

  Rosie stopped midway and wailed, ‘I’m too hot.’

  ‘Come on, Rosie,’ Stella called, sweat dribbling down her forehead. ‘We’re nearly there. Give me your bag.’