The House We Called Home

by Jenny Oliver

  The feeling bowled her backwards to another time she had stayed put. The British National Swimming Championships, the final selection race for the Olympic team. Another moment she had been poised ready to spring, where she had tried to will her body to dive against its will. She saw the view of the swimming pool as she stood on the blocks. The turquoise of the water, the smell of the chlorine. She could feel the nerves of the people next to her, the girls she’d raced and beaten year in, year out. She felt the nerves of her father on the side. Saw him already visualising the Olympic Stadium, the tour bus, the scoreboard, the medal podium. This was it for him – this wouldn’t be any normal coaching job. This would be reliving the Olympic dream. The glory. Reliving it through her. This would be pride born out of blood. His daughter, there in no small part because of him. She could be as good if not greater, that’s what people said. And she had been one swim away. One dive into that rippling turquoise blue. Everything they had worked for. Every morning. Every evening. Every nutritionally balanced meal. Every holiday – always Portugal because they had an Olympic-sized pool near good beaches for her mother. Every injury. Every physio. Every training camp. Every weekend.

  Stella retreated out of the waves and sat down on the shore. She wrapped her arms around her knees. The sea lapped cold around her bottom.

  She shut her eyes. The bright blue of the pool flickered like the sun behind her lids. She remembered the cool absence of any nerves. Nothing. No pre-race vomit, no trembling, no bone-jangling fear. Not a single scrap of adrenaline pumped through her body that day. Which meant that rather than glancing down the course and envisioning the searing pain to come, thriving off it, taut with robotic focus, blinded to the enemies in neighbouring lanes knowing that this would be hers, as it always was, she could instead have turned to the girl on the blocks next to her, head down, quivering with nerves, and gone, ‘Hey, why so serious?’

  Because Stella had lost the biting, furious desire to win. It had slipped away, in retrospect, gradually during two months off to recover from a rotator cuff injury in her shoulder just before her eighteenth birthday, but at the time it felt like it happened overnight. Waking one morning and finding the impulse gone, she scrabbled around her brain trying to get it back, trying to grasp in the dark for her competitive edge. Pleading with her body to find its desperate want. But coming back empty-handed. Lying in bed trembling with the terrified sinking feeling that she would have to tell her dad. Tell him or else just pretend nothing had happened. Go through the motions, her limbs in every stroke slowed with reluctance like an anchor dragging along behind. Stand in the locker room with nothing but a bubble of nervous laughter. Climb onto the blocks and wait and see what happened.

  On the beach, Stella glanced around her, checking that no one else was around to catch her sitting in the waves wearing her shorts and vest. There was nobody. Just a mile of yellow sand and ochre cliffs and seagulls stalking like sergeant majors. She turned back to the water. She swallowed. She felt the bind of so many versions of herself; Stella the daughter, Stella the swimmer, Stella Potty-Mouth, Stella the mother and the wife. And immediately she wanted to be just Stella. Stella with the weight of no disappointments, no expectations, no responsibilities, no let-downs or controls.

  Suddenly she was standing. And then she was running, ungainly and splashy, through the waves. Her brain no further ahead than her body. And then she was diving. Her hands cutting the surface, her face stinging, the freezing water shivering over her like gloss. Hard and tough, painful and exquisite.

  Her head throbbed from the cold. Her cheeks pink, her heart thumping. Her muscles on autopilot, carving her through the water – like they had been crying out for this for years, dusting themselves off, fizzing for joy. She swam and swam, right out through the glassy stillness of the water. And then the moment hit, as it did, as she had forgotten, every time, when the cold and the adrenaline made her fly. When she felt the majesty of every wave. When the world became as small as this stretch of sea. When her body burnt from cold and her skin stung from salt and her muscles screamed and her heart thumped and she felt a rush course through her like bubbles in champagne.

  She swam and she swam. She thought of nothing. She thought of everything. She saw the look on her dad’s face after she hadn’t dived in at the start of that race – the flash of worry that something was wrong then the shock and the barely restrained fury. The image of him edging quickly between the plastic seats, trying to get to the selection committee, his hand movements as he protested, the officials coming to talk to Stella. The silent shake of her head. The astonished, nervous faces when the shout of her father’s curse echoed round the pool. She heard her mother’s sigh of disappointment, her look of what a waste of time. She saw herself slamming the door of her crappy Fiat Uno car packed for university, a last-minute place through clearing, standing on the drive with her father inside the house refusing to say goodbye and her mother telling her softly that it was better if she just went, that she didn’t want to make a scene, did she?

  Stella swam until she thought her lungs might pop. Then she rolled over slick like a seal, gasping for air, lying on her back, floating with her arms outstretched staring up at the sky, blue and pink like a bag of penny sweets.

  She closed her eyes and let herself sink, the water closing over her, hair swirling in tentacles. She remembered when her and her dad would sit, wrapped in their towels, drinking their tea, eating their sandwiches, staring out to sea in silence, gulls drifting in the sky above. A moment of being completely alone but together. The world retreating. And her dad would look at her and say, ‘Best part of the day.’ And they would grin, high, like they held the secret of life while others simply strolled on by.

  She wondered where that feeling had gone. All that love. And why, when it went, did it all have to go. She lay submerged. Why couldn’t she have kept this bit – this swimming, this sea, this calm, this elixir. Why couldn’t they have saved this?

  It made her think of Jack. The man she had married not just because of his stability and his being proper. But for his evenness. His rationality. His calm whatever the storm. That, unlike her father, he would never in the heat of emotion say, ‘I am so ashamed of you I can’t look at you.’ She hadn’t married him as an antidote to her dad, she had married him because he had shown her way of living different to the one she had known. A balance, a partnership, an equality.

  ‘Hello there? Everything OK? Need a hand?’ Stella was snapped spluttering back to reality by a booming voice on the shore.

  She looked around disorientated, treading water and shielding her eyes from the sun to see a tall white-haired man standing on the shoreline in yellow baggy trousers and a black T-shirt, two dogs were sniffing about in the sand and next to him was a woman who looked remarkably like her mother.

  ‘Fine!’ she shouted back. ‘Thank you.’

  He nodded.

  ‘Oh, it’s Stella!’ she heard the surprise in her mother’s voice and got the impression that she and her mum were wanting the same thing – that they should just continue on their dog walk and Stella stay where she was. But the man – Stella presumed he must be Mitch the hippy – did not appear to be for moving. He just stood watching with an annoying-looking smile on his face. Like the sight of her swimming was abundantly pleasing to him.

  Stella did not want to be watched. And since he didn’t seem to be going anywhere, she had no choice but to swim back in. The distance suddenly quite long and exhausting, the joy lost with this stranger and her mother standing watch.

  When she finally got shallow enough she walked the rest of the way out of the water, the pull of the almost non-existent waves against her legs. Self-conscious of the fact she was in her shorts and vest with no towel, the spontaneity of her moment beamed embarrassingly off her.

  ‘Stella, you’re in your clothes.’ Her mother frowned.

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  Mitch was still smiling. The dogs were off chasing a ball he’d thrown. ‘Apologie
s if we ruined your swim, but it’s early and I just wanted to make sure you weren’t in trouble.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Stella said, pulling at her wet clothes. The fabric clung like suction cups.

  ‘Stella, this is Mitch,’ her mother said, her cheeks marked with the smattering of a blush.

  Stella squeezed her wet hair. ‘Hello,’ she said, a little wary. This was the guy who had her mother going to book club, divorcing her father, and wearing embroidered jeans.

  Mitch thrust out a hand, big silver rings on two of his fingers, leather straps round his wrist and a tattoo of Buddha on his forearm.

  Stella inwardly rolled her eyes.

  ‘Your mother and I walk our dogs together,’ he said, just as a scruffy mongrel dropped a saliva-covered ball at his feet and next to it Frank Sinatra panted for it to be thrown again.

  Stella wanted to ask if they were having an affair.

  ‘Do you not have a towel, Stella?’ Her mother frowned, looking around on the beach for where Stella had left her things.

  ‘No, but I’m fine.’ Stella waved away the concern in her voice.

  ‘You’ll catch a chill,’ her mother pushed.

  ‘Moira,’ Mitch cut in, giving her mother a look. ‘Stella is perfectly capable of looking after herself, remember.’

  Her mother inhaled, a deep breath through her nose. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, I suppose she is.’

  Stella couldn’t help the slight upturn of her mouth or the bemused expression on her face as she looked between the pair of them. No one ever said anything like that to her mother, not without getting a shocked harrumph in reply.

  The dogs came bounding back. Mitch hurled the ball miles down the beach. ‘No word from Graham today?’ he asked, as if enquiring whether the postman had been.

  Stella shook her head. ‘Not that I know of.’

  Moira said, ‘No.’

  Mitch nodded. ‘I’m sure he’ll turn up soon.’

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ Stella half-laughed, almost warming to this character. ‘Then we can all go back to normal.’ She said it before thinking. Her mother walked away a few paces, picking up a pebble from the shoreline then tossing it into the sea.

  Mitch was watching Stella watching Moira. An annoying half-smile on his face. ‘You’ll never get back to normal, Stella,’ he said. ‘There’s no such thing.’ The dogs were back, nudging around his ankles, keen to move on. Mitch threw the ball, it landed with a smack in the frothing water and the dogs splashed full tilt into the surf.

  Stella didn’t reply.

  His expression was smug in its knowingness. ‘As I’ve said to Moira, if it’s ever normal again no one’s saying what they really feel. You’re all politely lying.’

  Stella was about to scoff at this guru-ish psychobabble, but then she was reminded of Jack’s earlier confession and the polite lies of their marriage.

  Her mother threw the ball this time. Underarm, high up in the sky, the dogs hovering in anticipation. Stella watched as Mitch briefly touched her on the small of her back. ‘Shall we carry on?’ he asked. Her mother turned and nodded. Stella felt a bit ill watching the gentle intimacy of their movements. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her dad touch her mum.

  ‘There are fresh beach towels in the airing cupboard, Stella.’

  ‘Moira!’ Mitch warned, jokey but firm.

  ‘Yes, yes, I know. She can look after herself.’ Her mother shook her head. ‘OK, I’ll see you later, darling,’ she said, giving Stella a quick peck on the cheek.

  ‘Lovely to meet you, Stella,’ Mitch said, shaking her hand again, rings clacking. Just before he turned to go, he added, ‘Remember, never wish for normal,’ with a confident, cocky wink.

  CHAPTER 18

  Stella stood watching them walk on, the chill her mother had warned of beginning to seep under her skin. Unable to look away she was still watching the figures tiny in the distance, goosebumps on her arms, when she heard a voice call, ‘Mum! Mum!’

  Stella looked across to see Sonny walking at a pace a little quicker than his normal lope down the beach towards her. He was wearing his stripy pyjama bottoms and a grey T-shirt, his phone outstretched in front of him. ‘Mum, take a look at this!’

  After the encounter with Mitch and Moira it was a relief to see him, if also a surprise. She walked up the beach to meet him midway. When she got closer she could see that he’d just woken up, his hair standing on end, a line in his face from the pillow.

  He handed her his phone.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  Sonny was a little breathless, more with excitement than exertion. ‘It’s an Instagram. He’s Instagrammed.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Grandpa.’

  ‘No way!’

  Sonny was nodding, grinning as he stood next to her and tapped in his passcode. ‘I took a screenshot as well, in case he deleted it. I don’t think he knows how so it’s just a precaution.’

  ‘Well done,’ Stella said, casting a quick glance at her son.

  ‘Thanks.’ He flicked his hair out his eyes with a sweep of his head. Her chest tightened at their camaraderie. Then, almost to undercut his own buoyancy, Sonny added, ‘I think he’s posted it by accident, so it’s well…’

  Stella turned to look at the photo posted under the account name Neptune013. What she’d been expecting she wasn’t sure; a smiling sun-lounger selfie maybe or a shot of a serene landscape. In reality the image itself was a bit of a disappointment, partly out of focus and taken at the awkward angle of being snapped by mistake. There was a pole in the centre of the shot from a train or a bus, a grey scuffed floor with different pairs of feet, and then a jean-clad leg – pale denim, a touch too short, white athletics socks and a pair of old white Nike hightops – without a doubt, her father’s leg. On the floor was a red triangle – the corner of something or a box. She zoomed in to see if she could decipher more but the focus was too grainy.

  Sonny peered over her arm at the screen. ‘That’s his leg, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ Stella agreed.

  ‘And do you see there?’ Sonny reached over and zoomed right in close. ‘That’s a staircase.’

  ‘Really?’ Stella wasn’t sure.

  Sonny shrugged. ‘It might not be.’

  ‘No, no, it could be. A double-decker bus, maybe? And what’s that red thing?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  She blew out a breath. ‘How annoying.’

  ‘Well, at least it’s a clue,’ he said, glancing up at her, hopeful.

  Stella smiled, still surprised by how much he cared. Softened that he had come to find her when he’d seen it. Her dad unwittingly uniting them with his accidental Instagram post.

  She could feel the weight of Sonny leaning against her arm, she watched his fingers zooming in on the photo and wondered when the last time they had shared an interest was, when the last time they had done anything together that wasn’t her sighing up at the ceiling as Sonny wrote gobbledegook numbers down on his maths homework.

  ‘It means he’s looking at his Instagram,’ Sonny said.

  Stella nodded.

  ‘Maybe we need to post something?’ Sonny went on. ‘Tell him to come home?’

  Stella shook her head. ‘I don’t know, Sonny. He knows people will be worried and still he’s choosing not to come back.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Sonny took his phone back. ‘You’re right.’

  They walked on a few steps. Stella inwardly quite stunned by their chat. It felt like the first grown-up conversation they had ever had. This was Jack’s recommended Time Out, sneaking up on her unawares. And now she’d recognised it, she was desperate to keep it afloat. From the fact Sonny had ceded her point, it felt like he knew it too. The conversation now a game of bat and ball that had reached the hundreds, neither wanting the ball to drop.

  Sonny stopped walking. ‘Maybe we need to post to show him what he’s missing. Rather than that we’re missing him.’

  Stella pau
sed, she smiled. ‘That’s a nice idea.’ She wondered if she would ever have been able to come up with Sonny’s plan – because to Sonny her dad was a person. To her he was an object entitled her ‘father’. One she wanted back purely so she could move on, sort her own shit out. Get back to normal – a phrase now ruined by Mitch the hippy. Perhaps their mistake so far had been trying to locate her dad’s whereabouts via the practical. All of them too aware of his character to consider any other way. Sonny, on the other hand, had enough youthful hope inside him to aim for the heart, banking on the fact her dad could feel.

  The sun was higher now, the sky more blue and less pink. Stella’s clothes were starting to dry as they walked. ‘So you two got on, did you?’ she asked.

  Sonny kicked the sand ahead of him. ‘Kind of.’

  Stella pulled her wet hair back and gave it a squeeze. ‘What did you talk about?’ she asked, trying not to sound as keen as she was to know.

  ‘I dunno. Stuff,’ he said. Then he picked up a bit of driftwood and chucked it ahead of them. ‘Sometimes we talked about you,’ he said. ‘When you were younger.’

  ‘Did you?’ Stella was shocked. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘He said you could have won an Olympic medal.’ Sonny picked up another stick. ‘I didn’t realise you didn’t dive in at the trials. I thought you just, I don’t know, weren’t good enough.’

  Stella scoffed. ‘I wasn’t good enough.’

  Sonny looked up. ‘He said you were.’

  Stella crouched to pick up a big blue mussel shell, taking a moment out, annoyed with her dad for still pedalling the myth. ‘Thing is,’ she said, standing up, running her thumb over the barnacle-dotted surface of the shell, ‘to get a medal, you have to want to win. It all has to come together, it’s all up here.’ She pointed to her head, ‘It’s not enough just to be good. And I didn’t want it as much as he did.’ She let the shell fall from her fingers.

  They walked some more, Sonny scuffed up the sand with his bare feet. ‘I can’t believe you didn’t dive in! That’s mental. Grandpa must have been mad.’