The House We Called Home

by Jenny Oliver

  Lightning crackled on the horizon.

  Amy and Stella shared a look, they knew exactly what it was.

  Jack shrugged a shoulder, standing up to go over to where Sonny was making faces as he sniffed. ‘Probably just the drains in this rain.’

  ‘No, it’s not that.’ Stella shook her head.

  Gus looked over, intrigued. ‘What is it?’

  Moira walked over to the sink where water was backing up in the plug hole. She had her hands on the rim, head hanging. ‘It’s the septic tank.’ She turned round to face the family, and announced, ‘I think it might be blocked.’

  ‘Urgh, gross,’ laughed Sonny, making gagging noises.

  ‘Why?’ Rosie squeaked, delighted by the drama. ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘It means poo is going to flood the house.’ Sonny grinned.

  ‘Sonny, shut up!’ Stella sighed.

  Sonny made a face at her. Rosie giggled, nervous and excited.

  ‘Well quick, let’s call the drain people,’ Amy said, holding out her phone for someone else to take it and do the actual mechanics of calling and speaking.

  ‘They won’t come in this weather,’ said Moira, peering out at the thunderous sky.

  ‘Mum, people work in the rain,’ Amy said, then glancing at her phone frowned. ‘Oh, I haven’t got a signal. Anyone got a signal?’

  No one had a signal.

  All the lights went out.

  ‘Oooh, a power cut,’ Rosie said, gleefully. ‘Shall I get candles?’ She jumped up to go and search in the cupboard under the stairs.

  ‘Rosie, we don’t need candles.’ Stella went over to stop her as she grabbed a handful. ‘We can still see,’ she added, gesturing to the grey afternoon half-light.

  Rosie stuck her bottom lip out. ‘I like candles.’

  Standing on the living room side of the kitchen counter, Amy was pressing buttons on the landline. ‘It doesn’t work!’

  Jack nodded, coming over to have a go. ‘Cordless rarely do in a power cut.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ asked Gus, bemused and impressed.

  Jack shrugged.

  ‘Jack knows stuff like that,’ said Stella. ‘It’s his thing.’

  ‘What?’ Gus looked confused.

  ‘Kind of obscure useless knowledge,’ Stella said.

  Gus laughed. ‘Good thing to have.’

  Jack made a face of mock offence. ‘I like to think it’s more on the useful side of the scale. This being a case in point.’ He gestured to the phone.

  ‘Can you fix it?’ Gus asked.

  ‘No,’ said Jack. ‘But I know why it isn’t working.’

  Stella rolled her eyes and went to look out of the window.

  Gus came to stand next to her. ‘So, where’s the tank?’

  ‘There.’ Stella pointed to the raised patch of grass behind the pink hydrangea bush where the gazebo always used to go at her mother’s garden parties. ‘There’s a manhole cover just by the steps. There’s a pipe from all the drains in the house that runs under the drive. See that drain cover there—’ she angled her hand down to where water was bubbling up from a drain in the centre of the gravel drive.

  Gus had to peer through the rivulets of rain on the window. ‘I see it. So, what do we do?’

  ‘We’re going to have to go out there, have a look and see what’s happening. See whether it’s blocked.’ Stella shuddered. ‘It’ll be disgusting.’

  Jack came over to join them. They all stared out of the window.

  ‘Well.’ Gus shrugged. ‘It all sounds quite exciting to me.’

  Stella made a face like he had to be joking.

  He grinned.

  Amy cut in, ‘It’s not exciting, Gus. We have no power and if someone doesn’t do something or we don’t call anyone, Sonny’s right, the septic tank will literally back up into the house.’

  Gus chuckled as if she were being a drama queen.

  Amy replied with a death stare.

  ‘Right, no point standing around here talking.’ Jack clapped his hands. ‘What can we do to sort it out, Moira?’

  Moira looked unsure. ‘Graham usually deals with it,’ she said, sheepish. ‘He’s got rods and gloves in the garage that clear any blockages, if indeed it is a blockage.’

  ‘Yuck!’ Sonny gagged again. Rosie collapsed into giggles.

  Stella sighed.

  ‘Right.’ Jack rolled his shoulders back. ‘Good. Rods and gloves in the garage.’ He looked a little daunted heading to the coat rack for his anorak, like he was going off to war.

  ‘I’ll help,’ said Gus, following with a spring in his step.

  ‘Oh, that’s terribly kind of you, Gus.’ Moira went to search the coat rack for a waterproof. ‘Here – wear this,’ she said, handing him Graham’s old grey fishing jacket. ‘I don’t know what you must think of us all. It’s not usually like this.’

  Jack had his dark green anorak on and was tying the cords of the hood around his face. ‘Anyone else? We’ll need more than the two of us, I think.’

  ‘I’ll help but I have to change this skirt,’ Stella said, nipping up the stairs.

  ‘There’s no way I’m doing it,’ muttered Amy, arms crossed.

  ‘Why not, it’ll be fun!’ said Gus, swamped in the massive grey jacket with a million pockets. ‘I grew up on a farm. I’ve seen a lot of shit.’

  ‘Not a chance.’ Amy shook her head. ‘It’s poo. I don’t want to see poo.’

  ‘Probably your poo.’ Gus grinned.

  Amy gasped. ‘That’s disgusting.’

  Sonny sniggered.

  Gus opened the door, still smiling.

  Stella returned in jeans and started rummaging on the coat rack for her turquoise rain jacket. ‘Mum, are you coming?’

  Moira made a face and gave a little shake of her head.

  Stella zipped up. ‘But you know where everything is better than us.’

  ‘They’ll work it out, Mum,’ Amy said, coming to stand next to Moira. ‘We can stay in here.’

  Both Amy and Stella knew their mother would never go outside and deal with the septic tank. That was their dad’s department. Moira stayed in and made the tea and toast for when it was all dealt with and then thrust the Fairy liquid at their dad to wash his hands outside.

  Amy gave her mum a little in-cahoots nudge, like they’d be able to peer out at the garden together, all cosy inside, quietly chuffed that they weren’t getting wet and looking at poo, her mother opening the window every now and then to shout instructions.

  But then suddenly, after some hesitant dillydallying, Moira pushed her shoulders back and said, ‘Yes. Yes, I do know where everything is.’ And marched towards her wellingtons.

  Amy looked bereft. Like her mother was acting off-script. She wanted her inside with her by the window not belting up her Joules ‘Marine Navy’ quilted jacket.

  Stella was tying up her hair. ‘Kids, you stay inside with Amy.’

  ‘But I wanna see the poo,’ Sonny whined.

  Stella shook her head.

  Then Gus chipped in and said, ‘Let the kid see the poo.’

  Everyone was momentarily silent.

  Gus looked embarrassed, like he’d said something casually that had been taken much more seriously than expected.

  But this stranger’s voice amongst the mix was enough to pull Stella up short.

  ‘OK, Sonny, get your boots on,’ Stella said and Sonny did a celebratory fist pump that he immediately looked like he regretted.

  The thunder had rolled into the distance but still cracked loud enough to make Frank Sinatra whimper.

  ‘I’ll look after you,’ Rosie whispered, kneeling down and hugging the dog’s neck.

  Sonny yanked on one of the cagoules from the peg and dashed outside.

  ‘You can look after me, too, Rosie,’ said Amy, going to kneel by her and the dog, jumping when the thunder clapped again. Rosie put the arm not cuddling the dog round Amy and squeezed her tight.

  Then Gus appeared in the doorw
ay, back from the pouring rain. ‘Amy, we need torches. Can you get them? I’m soaked.’

  Amy sighed, moving away from Rosie’s cute little embrace to start opening and shutting kitchen drawers. ‘I don’t know where they are…’

  The rain outside seemed to get louder. The lightning now in sheets across the sky. The heavy heat of the day rising like a volcano in the darkness.

  Gus was hopping from one foot to the other, waiting, clicking his fingers. In the garden Jack was swearing as he tried to prise up the manhole, rain pounding.

  Amy was panicking trying to find the torches. Feeling under pressure, she rushed about the kitchen and living room, finally finding them in a box under the telephone. ‘Here you go,’ she said, bundling two heavy Maglites and a head torch into Gus’s hands.

  ‘You two all right in here?’ he asked, pushing the torches into his pockets then pulling his hood back up again, his jacket way too big, hair slicked in rats’ tails on his head.

  ‘Fine,’ said Amy, tone curt, as if she was put out by the question.

  Gus laughed. ‘Enjoy it. It’s fun.’

  Amy threw him her best disdainful stare before slamming the door shut with a flick of her wrist.

  CHAPTER 13

  It must have been about teatime. Moira had envisioned herself serving a summer berry tart with clotted cream and maybe doing the crossword, certainly not standing outside with rain-soaked jeans clinging to her legs. The Joules jacket was holding up well, she would write that on the website product review they were constantly chasing her for. Currently, she was getting ready to shine a torch into the septic tank once Gus and Sonny, who were on their hands and knees, managed to lift the manhole cover. Rain was making the task awkward. Jack and Stella were standing in the drive, Jack with Graham’s arm-length black gloves on screwing the drainage rods together to make one huge stick that he would plunge through the drain to clear any blockage – or at least that’s what Moira had seen Graham do out of the window in the past and presumed it was nothing more complicated than that. Stella heaved the lid off the small drain cover at their end. ‘Oh, Jesus Christ,’ she turned around and made gagging noises at the floor.

  ‘Is it bad, darling?’ Moira shouted, wiping rain from her face with the back of her hand.

  ‘It’s disgusting,’ Stella coughed, ‘it’s the most disgusting smell I’ve ever smelt.’

  Gus and Sonny snorted with laughter below her.

  ‘You wait,’ Moira said to them, pointing to their manhole cover, ‘it’ll be here when you lift that up.’ She found herself smiling as well. When Graham did this it wasn’t a laughing matter, it was all very serious and stressful. He got very annoyed when it didn’t go to plan. Gus and Sonny, however, seemed to have lightened the mood for everyone. Gus mainly, she thought. He injected a bit of humour that had been long missing from the Whitethorn brigade. He allowed things to be funny.

  She wondered if Graham would be laughing, were he here. No probably not, because they would have had a massive argument about how this could have happened in the first place, and she would have sent him out to fix it alone.

  Gus said, ‘OK, heave, Sonny!’

  ‘It’s like World’s Strongest Man!’ Sonny panted, rain dripping down his face.

  ‘And what a lame episode it would be,’ Gus replied, voice strained with effort as they tried to lift the massive slab of metal. ‘Oh God, I think you’ve frightened my muscles away.’

  Sonny laughed and dropped his end of the manhole.

  ‘Don’t let it fall!’ Moira shouted and, dropping the torch to the grass, helped them heave the rain-slicked metal lid.

  The smell was atrocious.

  ‘Oh man!’ Sonny buried his face in his cagoule. ‘That is savage.’

  Gus turned his face away. ‘That is savage,’ he said, but then he turned back to the deep underground well. ‘Quite invigorating though. Elemental.’

  ‘No way,’ said Sonny.

  But Moira found herself inclined to agree, almost giddy from the noxious fumes. All her senses alert. Grounded completely in the soaking-wet present with these two chaps, neither of whom she really knew very well but who were both vastly entertaining.

  It angered her if she thought of all the experiences she had missed by so tightly weaving her role in life. She had blamed Graham on more than one occasion, the years of absence as a result of his job and then later his stubborn reluctance to do anything new. She had blamed the children needing her. She had even blamed the expectations the people in the community had of her. And when, on the beach, Mitch standing with his stick, drawing the boxes in the sand, had simply blamed her, she had refused to believe him. She had done her book club, she had even joined yoga, but she still harrumphed that Graham was stifling her life. Her decision to leave him was based on it being entirely his fault. But as she looked down at Gus and Sonny shaking with laughter as they examined the full extent of the septic tank contents with the torch light, she wondered if really she had become as cossetted as Graham. Had found her equivalent of his sofa in her opinions and, as Mitch pointed out, her judgements. In her refusal to use a computer. In her inability to understand social media or the DVD player or know anything about the accounts.

  She always thought of herself like a bird trapped in a cage of Graham’s making, but now she wondered if perhaps they were both birds and the door had always been open but they had sat there on their perches refusing to fly away.

  ‘Right, what now Moira? Do we just go for it with the rod?’ Jack was shouting through the rain. Lightning lit up the sky behind him like a strobe.

  ‘Yes,’ she called back. ‘Yes, I think so. I think that should do the trick.’

  ‘What does it look like up there?’ Stella shouted.

  ‘Like poo soup!’ Sonny shouted back.

  ‘Blocked,’ shouted Moira.

  ‘OK, here goes,’ said Jack and he started to feed the ten-foot rod into the drain in an attempt to clear any blockage. ‘Shout if something happens.’

  The rain was incessant. Dripping off their noses and eyelashes. The clouds pressed low and dark trapping the heat and making them sweat in their plastic anoraks. Moira had to cover her mouth from the smell. Sonny had his head buried in his raincoat. Gus was watching it all enthralled. ‘Nothing yet!’ he shouted.

  The window of the house opened. Amy peered through. ‘What’s going on?’ Rosie’s little head squished in beside her trying to see.

  Gus sat back on his haunches. ‘You should join us,’ he called. ‘You’re missing out!’

  Amy made a face. ‘It stinks.’

  Rosie called to her brother, ‘Sonny, is it fun?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he shouted back. ‘It’s gross but pretty fun.’

  Moira looked down at the cavernous gloop of the septic tank and wondered if anyone had ever called this fun before.

  Then suddenly the drainage rod appeared at their end of the drain, and along with it a torrent of all manner of disgusting things. Sonny retched onto the grass.

  ‘Jackpot!’ Gus whooped.

  Sonny wiped his mouth and looked back. ‘Wow.’

  Gus glanced across at him. ‘Now that is savage.’

  ‘Properly savage.’

  The sound of the window shutting was followed by the crunch of little feet on the drive as Rosie appeared next to them. ‘I want to see! I want to see what’s savage.’

  And then along came a very reluctant Amy. Moira could hardly believe it.

  ‘I didn’t want to miss out,’ Amy said with a shrug. She was wearing one of the see-through ponchos Moira kept in the box with the torches for emergencies. Amy peered into the tank. ‘Yuck! Yuck! Yuck!’ She covered her face. ‘Yuck.’ She coughed and spluttered into the flowerbed. ‘You said it was fun!’

  ‘It is fun!’ said Gus.

  ‘That is not fun.’

  Jack was still going with the rod, Stella helping him. The rain eased up enough for them to wipe their faces and not be immediately drenched again. Gus gave Jack a thumbs-u
p that the contents of the drain seemed to be moving now, all unblocked. Sonny and Rosie were seeing how long each one of them could lean right over the tank without having to move away from the smell. Amy hovered on the sidelines, occasionally stepping forward to have a look at what was going on then immediately stepping back again, disgusted. The thunder rolled over the sea.

  Jack shouted, ‘I think we’re done! What do you think?’

  Moira said, ‘Someone has to go in and flush the chain of the toilet.’

  ‘I’ll go,’ Amy volunteered, clearly keen to be back indoors. She walked tentatively in slippy flip-flops back to the house. A few seconds later they heard the toilet flush and watched the water swish through the drain as it should.

  ‘We’re good!’ Jack shouted.

  There was a collective whoop. Sonny and Gus high-fived. Rosie did a little dance then slipped and was saved from toppling into the tank by her brother.

  ‘I think we need to get the lid back on, pronto,’ said Gus.

  Amy stuck her head out of the door. ‘Did it work?’

  Moira nodded, overcome by a rush of pride that they had managed to navigate this task – that she had managed to navigate it. She felt the same thrill as with the downstairs renovation, of having expanded her role.

  Gus and Sonny hefted the manhole cover back into place and the smell disappeared. Stella did the same her end with the little drain lid.

  The air was muggy and humid. Despite the rain they pulled their hoods down and unzipped their jackets to escape the heat, relaxed now the job was done. All the lights suddenly came on as the power was restored and the inside of the house was bathed in light.

  ‘Good job, team,’ said Jack. Then he made a move to try and hug Stella with his dirty black gloves on.

  ‘That’s disgusting, go away!’ Stella shouted, trying to run from him.

  Jack laughed and went after her.

  ‘Get her, Dad,’ Sonny shouted.

  ‘We’ll block her off this way.’ Gus jumped up so he and Sonny could make a human wall.

  ‘Save me, Rosie,’ Stella yelped, laughing, trying to escape Jack and his disgusting poo-stained gloves.

  ‘Over here,’ Amy shouted from the driveway where she had picked up the lid of a dustbin and was holding it like a shield.