The House We Called Home

by Jenny Oliver

  ‘A pleasure,’ said Pete, holding out stubby fingers.

  Jack did his usual solid handshake and charming small talk as Pete ushered them down the corridor, through the changing rooms and out into the wide blue of the pool.

  Stella stopped by the silver barriers, overpowered by the scent of chlorine. There was the tingle of familiar adrenaline as she’d walked through the changing rooms, every sound setting off a chain of reaction in her head: the slam of the lockers, the turn of the key, feet against the wet tiles on the floor, the hiss and suck of the filter. She watched an old lady doing achingly slow lengths in the middle lane. It was all so familiar.

  ‘Nothing’s changed, eh?’ Pete nudged her forward. She didn’t want him to touch her. ‘We can sit in the office. I’ve got a lesson in ten.’

  ‘We won’t keep you long,’ Stella said, unable to stop glancing across at the water – the garish blue, the string of floats, the black-tiled numbers, and the five-metre flags.

  ‘Or you could help me with the lesson?’ Pete said, opening the door to the office.

  Stella fake-laughed.

  The office was just the same. Stacks of paper-filled boxes, rows of lever arch files, chipped trophies, the cork noticeboard, and the casually chucked rescue Torp were all so familiar. Like time here had paused, all of these relics frozen just waiting for her to step back in.

  Pete gestured to the chairs opposite his desk, shoving a pile of papers off one of them on to the floor. Stella felt immediately small. Immediately under interrogation. Her palms were sweating and she turned her hands up to look bemused at the layer of moisture, then subtly tried to wipe them on her skirt. She hadn’t felt like this for years.

  She retied her hair, lifting it from the back of her neck, and adjusted her position on her seat while internally pep-talking herself: you are a grown-up, Pete is your equal. But she remembered flinching as he’d slammed his hand against a wall, bellowing, ‘You stupid bitch. I could f’king kill you right now, Stella, I’m so angry!’ Her dad standing next to him in stony-faced silence.

  ‘So,’ said Pete, leaning back, hands clasped over his belly, his chair squeaking under the weight. ‘I take it this is about Graham?’

  Stella nodded.

  Jack, realising that Stella seemed to have lost her words, said, ‘We’ve just heard that he’s been swimming again.’

  Pete flipped forward in his chair and shook his head. ‘Have you now?’

  Stella and Jack exchanged a glance.

  Stella found her hands were gripping the edge of the seat. ‘Has he been here often?’

  ‘Not often,’ said Pete, leaning back in his chair again, taking a moment to look at the two of them, clearly relishing the fact he knew things they didn’t. ‘Couple of times recently. Once last week,’ he added, hard eyes watching Stella.

  Stella decided then that this had been a mistake. She hated that she was not only back here but also back at Pete’s mercy. She was about to say her thanks and get up and leave when Jack asked, ‘And did he tell you anything about where he was going?’

  The side of Pete’s mouth turned up. Stella internally winced. He would love this. He would love that they didn’t know where Graham was, that she had had to search Pete out for answers. ‘Let me think,’ he said, scratching his tummy. ‘Oh aye aye, there’s my kid for his lesson.’ He nodded out towards the pool, deliberately stringing out his reply to Jack, Stella thought. ‘Sorry, duty calls.’

  Stella and Jack stood up, watched as a gangly kid in green Speedos hovered nervously by the door.

  Pete opened it quickly and went, ‘Boo!’

  The kid nearly fell over with fright.

  Pete roared with laughter.

  Stella shook her head. ‘You haven’t changed, have you?’

  ‘Why mess with perfection,’ he laughed, throaty and bold.

  The gangly kid was scuttling along behind him to the edge of the pool. He was probably just a bit younger than Sonny.

  ‘Right, ten warm-up lengths. Go!’ Pete clapped his chubby hands and the kid jumped in, nervous like a foal.

  Pete went to stand by Stella. She could still smell his power over her. It made her want to edge away but she forced herself to stay put, thinking about how Jack had said she had strength of character. She didn’t feel strong.

  ‘Ten lengths?’ she tried to joke. ‘I thought it was twenty?’

  Pete shrugged. ‘I’ve mellowed with age.’

  Jack made a face behind him like he dreaded to think what he’d been like previously.

  Stella watched the skinny boy splashing cack-handedly through his lengths. Her heart clenched.

  ‘Oh, I miss the old days,’ said Pete, watching the boy as well. ‘Look what they give me now.’

  ‘Well, go and make him better. Stop talking to us,’ Stella said with mock reproach, using it as an excuse to back away. ‘His stroke’s all over the place. What’s he doing with his elbow?’

  ‘Do you want to take the lesson?’ Pete asked, his voice flipped in an instant, tone questioning, bushy brows raised because she had dared suggest she knew better than him.

  ‘No way,’ Stella forced a laugh, like it was all good-natured.

  Pete chuckled, as if he’d been teasing her. ‘Calm down,’ he said, as though she’d been the one to get defensive. Then he stared at the terrible swimmer and blew out a breath, resigned to his next half an hour. He blew sharp on his whistle. ‘Elbow up,’ he shouted. ‘Up!’ Then shook his head again.

  ‘Well, we’d better be off, leave you to it,’ Stella said, edging backwards. ‘I take it he didn’t mention where he was going?’ she added, just to make sure.

  ‘No.’ Pete shook his head. Keeping his focus on the swimmer in the pool, he said, ‘Kinda funny that it’s you here asking though, isn’t it …?’

  Stella ran her tongue along her lip, waiting for whatever it was he was going to say next. Pete liked nothing better than a ‘kinda funny’ followed up by his own musings on why so hilarious. ‘Hey Stella, kinda funny that you went slower on that length than the one before, isn’t it? I’d like to say it’s cos you’re tired. But I’m gonna say it’s cos you’re a pussy. The only thing you’re not afraid of is failure.’

  Pete turned to look at her, head swivelling like a lion, lazy and lethal. ‘I mean considering what you did pretty much destroyed him.’

  Stella stood stock-still, staring as his mouth stretched into a broad grin.

  Out of the corner of her eye she could see Jack frown. Could see him hovering on the verge of saying something like, ‘I think that’s enough now.’

  In the end he didn’t have to say anything because Pete just walked away, blowing his whistle to chivvy the scrappy little swimmer along.

  ‘You OK?’ Jack moved closer, arm round her shoulders.

  Stella immediately shrugged off his embrace, aware that she didn’t want Pete to see her need anyone. ‘He’s an arsehole,’ she said, watching Pete’s portly figure hanging over the railings shouting something mocking down at the kid in the water. ‘Always has been, always will be.’

  ‘Come on, let’s go,’ said Jack, touching her briefly on the small of her back.

  ‘Yeah.’ She walked with him to the exit at the far end of the pool.

  Pete was still at the other end with his stopwatch, and beside them the kid was getting ready to do another length, struggling to hold onto the side and adjust his goggles at the same time.

  ‘Hey.’ Stella found herself crouching down so she was level with him, bunching up her skirt so it didn’t get soaked in the puddles of water round the edge of the pool. The kid squinted up at her, fluorescent light catching on his goggles.

  ‘Tell your mum to find someone else to teach you,’ she said.

  The kid made a face like he thought she was crazy. It reminded her of Sonny. ‘I’m serious,’ she said. ‘It’s meant to be fun. Not like this.’

  ‘Whitethorn, what are you doing?’ Pete’s voice bellowed from where he stood at the shallow end.r />
  Stella straightened up. ‘Just telling him about his elbow. How to correct it.’

  Pete narrowed his eyes.

  Stella smiled. Wide and cheek-aching.

  Then she turned back to the kid. ‘Do it.’

  Pete blew the whistle, loud and sharp. Stella flinched. She watched the kid go. Splashing and struggling. He reminded her of Sonny. Then suddenly he reminded her of herself. The endless lengths in her navy blue swimsuit and white swimming cap. Whistle blowing. Orders shouted, all a dull murmur under the water. Tired coltish limbs speckled with goose pimples as she shivered, awaiting instructions.

  She had a vision of her dad and Pete: one at each end of the pool. Both with their stopwatches, their shining 1970s Great Britain Team sweat-jackets, their hard eyes. Pete with his cigarette.

  ‘Nope. Again.’

  ‘Nope. Again.’

  ‘No! Again.’ Hands raised, incredulous at the slowness.

  ‘You’re just wasting time, Stella. Our time, your time. You want to go home? Me too! Believe me. Me too!’ Her dad always silent. The watcher. He left all the hard shouting to Pete only to swoop in every now and then with a closed-eye shake of the head or some technical gem that would shave a tenth of a second off her time. He was the one everyone wanted to impress.

  Sometimes, at the end of a length, she’d look up and she’d see it. The tight, contained exuberance. Painfully covetable in its rarity. The click of the watch and the blink-and-you’d-miss-it air punch. The barely perceptible pleasure coiled tight. And then he and Pete would confer – they’d stroll to meet midway down the pool, her dad resting an arm on the high lifeguard’s chair, eyes languidly glancing at the legs of the female on duty.

  Stella would pull off her goggles, panting, waiting. Pete would light another cigarette, walk away and shout, ‘Warm down!’ He lived by a belief that if you told someone they’d done well, they’d stop trying. But her dad would walk back, tracksuit glinting in the pool light, his hair coiffed and skin tanned from some warm weather training camp, feet always flip-flopped. And just before someone would stop him for a chat, or Peggy from the front desk would bring him a tea with adoration in her eyes, he’d catch Stella’s eye and he’d wink. And she would pull off her cap, tip her head back in the water feeling it cool and sharp through her hair, and look up at the fluorescent strip lighting to bask in a wink.

  Now, as Stella watched the kid only halfway through his length, meandering off course and hitting the floats, she had the rising feeling that she missed him. She missed her dad. Not who he had become but who he had been. She didn’t miss this – this pool, Pete, the hours that she had spent there that seemed so important and now so insignificant. But she missed the man who had winked at her, the one who waited outside the changing room with his classic homemade electrolyte drink and peanut butter sandwiches for her and said, ‘Are you warm enough? Put this on,’ handing her a jumper he’d packed just in case.

  In the pool, the kid finished his length. Pete scoffed, ‘Jesus, I thought you’d never finish. It’s almost lunchtime.’

  ‘Stella?’ Jack touched her arm.

  Stella turned her back on the water. Nodding at Jack, she walked out through the changing room with him.

  Outside, she gave the pool once last look. She didn’t want to miss her dad. She had wasted too much time trying to rationalise how he had allowed all this to be more important than her. She was happily, neutrally detached from him. She didn’t want the feelings back – the ones that made her want to punch him in the face and then be hugged by him.

  CHAPTER 12

  The sky darkened as Stella and Jack hiked back from the pool. The initial novelty of walking through fields was long gone, dissipated further by the first pitter patter of warm summer rain.

  Stella was distracted. To silence the confusing thoughts brought on by the visit to the pool she was working out excuses to gather up the kids and their suitcases and flee for home. Her quietness threw Jack off balance. He’d once said that she was the one that talked and he was the one that answered – that was the way their relationship worked. So when she wasn’t talking, the balance tipped and Jack was left floundering, to the point that he’d stopped walking as they came to an empty field, hands on his hips, sweat pouring from his brow, and said, ‘Come on then, let’s do it.’

  Stella frowned. ‘Do what?’

  ‘Have sex in the bushes.’ He’d been all upbeat, trying to cajole her back to normality. He’d even pulled faux-sexily at the bottom of his polo shirt.

  Stella felt her shoulders slump. ‘No,’ she said, as if it were the most ridiculous thing she’d heard, and carried on walking.

  After that they had stumbled on mostly in silence. They arrived back at her parents’ house just as the pitter patter morphed into an all-out downpour that sounded like hands slapping on the windows. It was a relief to see the solid stone walls and the glow from the kitchen.

  ‘You were lucky,’ Moira said as she opened the front door, an apron with some witty slogan about having no wine left for cooking wrapped round her waist, in the middle of rolling out pastry for a summer berry tart.

  Sonny was lying flat on the sofa, arms raised, holding his phone above his face, the dog asleep on his legs. Amy was in the armchair, eyes shut, headphones on.

  Sonny sat up when he heard the door. ‘What did they say at the pool?’ he asked.

  Stella shook her head. ‘Just that he’s been there. Nothing else.’

  ‘I had no idea he’d been swimming,’ said her mother.

  Sonny looked momentarily crestfallen that there was no more news.

  Jack walked over and ruffled his shaggy hair. ‘We’ll find him, don’t worry.’

  Her mother said, ‘Cup of tea?’

  Amy pushed one headphone back and said, ‘So, how are we going to find him?’

  Stella felt like the walls were closing in on her.

  At the table Gus was playing Barbies with Rosie. She had him fashioning a house out of a cardboard box. ‘Not like that, Gus!’ Rosie sighed all dramatic when he started drawing on a door with glitter glue.

  ‘You OK there, Gus?’ Stella asked as Rosie issued strict instructions on how the door should look.

  ‘Having a great time, thanks Stella,’ Gus replied.

  Stella liked him immediately. In that instant. She didn’t think there were many people who would give themselves over to Rosie.

  Amy glanced round to see what was going on and scowled when she saw Stella laugh, like she didn’t want Gus to be funny, she didn’t want him to amuse her family. It made Stella remember how proud Amy had been of Bobby, draped over him as they lolled on the sofa together drinking Diet Cokes. Stella had liked Bobby, he’d been amiably funny but after about five or ten minutes’ chat, usually about surfing, she’d never known what to say to him. She’d often wondered what he and Amy had talked about when they were together – how they had spent their time. She’d worried that Amy had spent a lot of it, like their mother had, waiting for her husband to come back, making their cottage beautiful for when he jogged in from the waves. But she and Amy hadn’t had the kind of relationship where she could ask her. And what would she have said, ‘Are you lonely in your perfect marriage, Amy?’

  As if she knew she were the subject of Stella’s musings, and wanting not to be, Amy sat up in her seat, pulled off her headphones and said, ‘Seriously, what are we going to do now? What’s the next plan?’

  Stella thanked her mother for the cup of tea that appeared as if by magic and said, ‘We have to leave tomorrow.’

  Outside the sky was dark as a winter night. Lightning forked over the sea.

  ‘What?’ Amy was aghast.

  Sonny sat forward. ‘We can’t, Grandpa’s still missing.’

  ‘You go, darling, if you want to go,’ Moira said calmly. ‘There’s no need to stay.’

  ‘I don’t want to go, we have to go,’ Stella said, knowing that she absolutely did want to go. ‘Sonny, your dad’s got to go back to work.’<
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  Sonny swung round to look at Jack. ‘Can’t you take time off? This is a family emergency.’

  Jack nodded his head. ‘Well, I could certainly ask.’

  ‘No,’ said Stella categorically.

  ‘Dad!’ Sonny thwacked the back of the sofa when Jack shrugged as if it were up to Stella. ‘This is so unfair!’ he shouted, stomping over to the table to slump down next to Gus.

  Rosie was watching, wide-eyed and hesitant.

  Gus leant forward and whispered something that made her giggle, distracting her from the tension. Then they started cutting snazzy crenellations into the top of the cardboard box castle.

  Stella looked down at her shoes.

  Amy stood with one hand on her hip. ‘That’s typical.’

  Stella licked her lips before glancing up. ‘What is?’

  ‘You. Leaving.’

  ‘Oh please.’ Stella blew out a breath.

  ‘You always go.’

  ‘I do not always go.’

  ‘You do.’

  ‘Girls!’ Moira said sharply.

  They stopped, pouting down at various spots on the floor. No one made eye contact. Sonny sat hunched in a sulk, glaring out of the rain-soaked window. Gus and Rosie quietly stuck stickers on the cardboard box. Jack sat with elbows on his knees on the sofa, hands clasped together, head bowed. Moira started wiping down the rose marble counter. The rain hammered, bang bang went the hands smacking the glass. Stella took a sip of her tea and it burnt her mouth.

  Above them clouds rumbled with thunder. The dog jumped scared off the sofa and trotted over to the kitchen, winding its way through Moira’s legs. Everyone was silent.

  Then Stella heard Sonny sniff. And sniff again.

  She narrowed her eyes, looking over at him, trying to work out his game.

  Gus paused with his glitter glue.

  ‘Can anyone smell poo?’ Sonny said, screwing up his face.

  ‘Sonny!’ Stella cut in.

  Rosie stopped sticking, sat up straight and sniffed loudly. ‘I can.’

  Moira stopped wiping and straightened up, smelling the air. ‘Oh my goodness.’ She looked mortified.