The House We Called Home

by Jenny Oliver

  Stella looked up to see why Amy was laughing. ‘Oh my God.’

  Gus held his hands wide. ‘Brilliant.’

  Jack didn’t make eye contact with any of them. Just strode past like if he was going to do this he was just going to get it done. On his head was a green helmet. On his feet were turquoise Adidas skater shoes. Black pads were strapped to his elbows and knees and he had fingerless glove supports on his wrists. Under his arm was a plain wooden skateboard.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ murmured Stella as they followed. The only thing she hadn’t noticed on this barren field was the skatepark at the other side of the playground.

  ‘Dad’s a boarder?’ Sonny jogged to catch up with them. Heat almost visible as it rose from the boiling concrete and sizzled beneath their feet.

  ‘This is the strangest thing I’ve ever seen.’ Amy was trying not to giggle as they walked through the gap where a gate had once been into the skatepark full of ramps and giant slides. A couple of kids on the far side looked up from something they’d been watching on their phone. They eyed Jack warily.

  Jack didn’t stop. He kept on striding till he got to the top of the highest ramp. The others paused at the concrete bench.

  Stella didn’t quite know what to do as she watched Jack poised on the lip of the half-pipe, eyes closed and deep breathing. Part of her was relieved that he hadn’t taken up something really weird or deviant, but staring up at him now she couldn’t help thinking this was absolutely ridiculous. He was a grown man. And he was up there in his special skater shoes, his face crammed into his helmet, all his little pads and his brand new board. He looked like a complete wally.

  ‘It’s very high,’ Gus said, shielding his eyes from the sun glancing off the steel ramp.

  ‘Do you think he should start on something lower?’ Stella said. ‘Surely he’s going to break his neck on that one.’

  Gus shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’m no skateboarding expert.’

  ‘Jack!’ Stella called. ‘Jack, honey! Are you sure that’s not a bit high?’

  Jack seemed to pretend he hadn’t heard.

  ‘Mum, you’re kinda ruining his cool,’ Sonny cringed, gesturing with a nod of his head towards the gang of kids in the corner watching with clear amusement.

  Stella just wanted the whole thing over. Jack hadn’t been going to work, he had been skateboarding?! She shook her head with slight despair.

  Next to her Gus smiled. ‘It’s good,’ he said. ‘Exciting.’

  ‘Easy for you to say,’ Stella replied.

  Amy settled herself down on the bench. In her big hat she looked like she’d taken a wrong turn for Ascot.

  Rosie was watching from the swings.

  Jack teetered on the platform.

  Stella held her breath.

  Then suddenly off he went. Zooming down the ramp. Flying up the other side. Stella gasped. ‘Please don’t die,’ she said under her breath. But he stopped safely on the other side.

  Gus clapped. ‘Go Jack,’ he shouted.

  The kids on their phones were laughing at this old guy trying to skateboard. The sun shimmered on the ramp. Sweat trickled down their backs. Jack was doing deep centring breaths.

  Sonny, trying his best to maintain his cool in front of the other kids, winced at his dad’s deep breathing, but still his eyes shone with intrigued amazement.

  When Jack dropped again, this time he flew a foot into the air on the other side of the half-pipe in a move usually reserved for cool kids in Coke adverts. Stella’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. Gus whistled, ‘Wow.’ But then the board landed slightly off-kilter, thwacking down on the glaring metal. Jack couldn’t quite get his footing, all his weight on the back wheels, the board tipping up in front of him, like slipping on a banana skin, panic swept across his face and suddenly he was down, shoulders slamming hard against the ramp, board clattering, helmet ringing against the metal.

  Stella’s hands flew to her mouth. ‘Oh my God, Jack are you all right?’

  Amy jumped up from the bench, Gus took a step forward. Rosie ran from her swing to the railing where the playground edged the skatepark.

  But Jack was already standing. ‘Fine,’ he said, holding his hands up, a gesture for them to back away. ‘I’m fine.’

  The video kids were heads down, shoulders shaking as they sniggered.

  Jack gathered up his board, checked one of the wheels, and then climbed straight back up to the top.

  ‘He’s not going to go again?’ Stella said to Gus. ‘He can’t. Jack,’ she shouted, ‘don’t go again, it’s OK, we’ve seen it. You don’t need to do this.’

  But Jack wasn’t listening. This time there were no deep breaths and centring of self. He just put the board down and went. Dropping into the gleaming metal. He did another jump at the top, a little fast, a little unsteady on the landing but this time when he lost his footing just at the last minute he managed to right himself. The look of panicked concentration relaxing when he stopped shakily on the deck.

  Stella put her hand on her chest in relief.

  Sonny whooped. Rosie cheered from where she was sitting on the playground wall to watch. Gus punched the air. Amy whistled, two fingers in her mouth. Gus glanced over impressed that she could whistle. Amy pretended not to notice.

  Jack did a tiny bow.

  The skater kids’ laughter was still mocking.

  And then Jack went again. This time higher. This time with more finesse. This time with his arm out as he paused midair at the top, showing off, this time landing all smooth on the transition. This time smiling. Grinning. Ear to ear. Wiping his brow with a faux-phew when he reached the top. Laughing. Them all laughing. Amy whistling again. Gus clapping. Sonny cheering and taking photos on his phone.

  The skater kids were bored now Jack was getting better, their attention back on YouTube.

  But Stella watched. Watched as Jack went again and again. Better and better. Less awkward in his helmet and his knee pads. More relaxed. And as she watched she started to see him differently: like when someone comes back from holiday with a tan. His legs looked like legs rather than Jack’s legs – calf muscles tense, thigh muscles bulging a little. His arms like arms, his neck like a neck. All the composite parts one notes in a stranger rather than just the familiar limbs and body parts of her husband. She looked at his face, his chin, his cheeks as he smiled. His eyes as the wind of the movement whipped at his skin.

  When was the last time she had actually looked at Jack? Even the other day, when they’d been side by side in the mirror she’d been mostly studying herself.

  She stared up at him as he paused at the top. He had a nice jaw. A good nose. A little dimple. Ridiculously neat sideburns. He was good-looking, always had been. Jack wiped the sweat off his face with his T-shirt. He was grinning. High. Eyes sparkling. Looking only at the shimmering slope of metal in front of him.

  Stella got a sudden rush of panic that she was about to lose him. That he would go off all hip and cool with his skater buddies. Given the kids slumped over their phones at the end of the park this was irrational, she knew, but she imagined her skater-chick usurper. ‘You’re kidding right? You didn’t even know he’d lost his job? That is In-Sane.’

  Gus clapped at the end of every ride. Amy watched, wide-eyed and bemused. ‘He’s good, isn’t he?’ she said to Stella.

  Stella nodded but didn’t say anything. She felt odd. Vulnerable. She felt on the outside of Jack’s life. She wanted to be happy for him but couldn’t summon it up over the hurdle of feeling both duped and forgotten.

  Gus came over. ‘He’s a dude.’

  Stella slipped her sunglasses on. ‘Yeah,’ she said. But Jack wasn’t a dude. Jack had never been a dude. Jack wore Crew sweatshirts.

  They stood watching in silence for a bit. Then Stella said, ‘Why do you think he didn’t tell me?’ She wouldn’t have asked had it not been Gus – he was neutral territory.

  Gus frowned. ‘Like you said earlier,’ he said, ‘some things you’ve gotta do on your
own.’

  He said it like he’d been impressed with her rational coolness when it came to Jack’s deception. Like she’d nailed the perfect answer in one fell swoop. His expression now was hesitant like he worried he’d been too quickly impressed. That she was about to let him down by responding with run-of-the-mill annoyance.

  And he would be right. Stella hadn’t meant it. It was just some bullshit she’d spouted to keep Sonny happy. But the look on Gus’s face made her pause. Made her remember her promise to give Jack the benefit of the doubt.

  She thought of her morning swim again, imagined how different it would have been had Jack been standing on the shore saying something like, ‘You can’t go in in your clothes. Why don’t we go back to the house, get a towel and change? I don’t want you to get upset out there on your own. Maybe I should come in with you, just to be on the safe side …’

  Stella had to swallow down a wave of frustration just at the idea of this fake conversation. Then Rosie’s high little voice cut in on her musings. ‘Daddy, can I have a go?’

  Jack was catching his breath at the top. ‘OK Rosie,’ he said. ‘Wait there, we can go on that smaller one.’ He jogged down the steps.

  Stella wasn’t sure about Rosie going on any of the ramps, they looked like death traps, but Jack was giving her a little lesson on the flat ground first.

  ‘Can I have a go?’ Along went Sonny.

  Stella watched Jack with the kids and realised that was what it would have been like had he told them – there’d be Rosie and Sonny in tow. She corrected herself, it wouldn’t have been like that at all because there was no way she would have agreed to him going off and skateboarding rather than looking for another job. And she doubted, had he ever voiced the desire to learn to skateboard out loud, it ever would have got further than a throwaway comment, she and the kids would have laughed him down – made the tentative notion scuttle back into hiding.

  Admittedly Jack’s secret time alone had been a little longer than her morning swim – but how nice would it have been, she thought, to have held her swimming close to her chest for a few weeks, what a luxury to have been allowed to explore it completely without comment. To sneak out every morning undiscovered and unmissed. She suddenly envied him his brief sojourn of aloneness.

  Rosie was attempting a ramp, Jack holding her tight around the waist. ‘OK, no steady, Rosie. Lean into it, not on me. Concentrate. Almost.’ His feet straddling the board, Jack looked like a waddling duck as he ran down behind her. Halfway, Rosie slipped and fell on her bottom.

  Stella watched realising that, whatever the simmering undercurrent regarding his decision to keep this adventure from her, she wanted to give him more of his moment in the here and now. Had the situation been reversed, she would have wanted him to take the kids for an ice cream as she was lying on her back in the sea staring up at the pink-skied sun.

  So Stella stepped forward and said, ‘Rosie, Sonny – come and sit over here. Let Daddy show us a bit more of what he can do.’

  Rosie came bounding over, almost relieved that she didn’t have to do any more. Sonny sloped after her. ‘Can you do any tricks?’ he asked, kicking a can across the concrete on his way to the bench.

  Jack nodded. ‘A couple,’ he said, but his eyes were on Stella, looking at her quizzically, surprised that she’d called the kids away and encouraged him to do more.

  Stella did a nonchalant little shrug. Jack raised his brows, she raised hers back. He frowned like he was trying to figure her out. She looked down and smiled, turning to walk away and sit on the scrubby grass at the side. She stretched her bare legs out in front of her, resting back on her hands, the sun shimmering off her skin.

  Jack strode to the top of the ramp.

  Stella looked away, down at the grass, thinking how this notion of him needing a break from life, to be alone, tied up tightly with the feeling like she might lose him – not to someone else necessarily but to himself, that he had found contentment without her. The thought that he wasn’t comfortably, sedately hers, while terrifying, was also strangely exciting. That she had to continue to work at this. She flicked her hair from her face, toyed with her necklace, did her best to look sultry. Inside feeling giddy like a teenager.

  There was a cough. She looked up and saw Jack waiting at the top of the ramp for her attention. Wanting to impress her. And she realised the feeling was mutual.

  Stella bit her lip, held her hair up from her neck, and watched languid with faux-indifference as Jack dropped into the ramp. Who knew middle-aged skateboarding could be such an aphrodisiac.

  CHAPTER 23

  Moira was at Mitch’s yoga class in the village hall. She usually enjoyed it very much but today it was too hot. Stuffy even with the windows open. The label on her new leggings itched. She glanced at the clock which made her lose her balance mid-Warrior Pose. Mitch appeared by her side. ‘It’s because you lost your breathing, Moira. The focus comes from the breath,’ he said, elongating the word breath and raising his hand in the air to emphasise the point.

  She blew out her bloody breath, rolled her shoulders, and tried to get back into position, surreptitiously glancing round the room to see if anyone in the class had watched her fall. They hadn’t, they were all now bent double, left elbows pressing on the inside of their left knees, staring up at the ceiling, while Mitch wandered round the room calling out more about ‘breath’ and carefully adjusting various arms and shoulders.

  Moira followed suit, staring contorted up at the cracks in the ceiling. Mitch had said that yoga would help her let go of some of her anger. He said that she carried it all in her upper body, tight like a ball of fire. She had told Mitch that she wasn’t angry. He had smiled and told her to use her breath to connect with her heart.

  Moira didn’t go in for things about hearts and love being all you needed and more often than not let her mind wander to what she needed from the supermarket when they were doing all that kerfuffle.

  But today she didn’t seem to be able to get into any mood whatsoever – not even zoned out enough to think of her shopping list. She kept thinking of how everyone stepped forward after they’d unblocked the septic tank and claimed responsibility for Graham’s disappearance. And then the girls sitting round her at the table telling her she couldn’t leave. Stella this morning saying that she wanted it all back to normal – as if their family was a jigsaw puzzle to be slotted back together if only they could find the missing piece. No one saying – maybe it was him. Maybe it was his fault. Maybe the lost piece of the puzzle had been vacuumed up and thank God for that!

  And so when, at the end of the class, Mitch made them shut their eyes, cross their arms and place their hands around their backs to give themselves a good hug – ‘Let yourself know that you think you’re OK’ – Moira burst into tears. She couldn’t think of the last time anyone had hugged her. She had hugged – she had hugged Amy when she’d wept over Bobby and she had hugged little Rosie hello – but it had been years since she had been given a good squeeze just for being herself.

  She wiped her eyes on her Sainsbury’s Tu yoga wear – just like Sweaty Betty but half the price – and said, ‘Goodness me, I don’t know what came over me,’ as Mitch smiled encouragingly, then she nipped off to the loo all embarrassed.

  She only ventured out again when she knew everyone else had left. She’d heard all the ‘cheerios’ and the car engines starting up. Her bag and sandals were still in the main room. She crept in. Mitch was leaning over one of the long tables pushed to the side of the room, used for the OAPs’ Wednesday lunch, reading the paper.

  Moira grabbed her bag and clutched it over her shoulder. ‘I’m sorry about that.’

  Mitch glanced round, white hair slicked back, big smile on his face. ‘Never be sorry, Moira. It’s good. It’s a step forward.’

  ‘I haven’t cried in years.’

  He tipped his head. ‘I cry all the time.’

  Moira found herself smirking.

  He raised a brow. ‘You think me
n shouldn’t cry?’

  ‘Well no, I just, I don’t—’ She stopped herself. He always made her feel like this. Got to the root of everything she believed and then yanked the whole thing out in one fell swoop.

  Mitch smiled.

  Moira sighed.

  ‘Would you like to come back to the van for a coffee?’ he asked.

  Moira hesitated. She’d never been to his van before. As he had never been to her house. They met on the beach to walk the dogs. They sometimes had a cup of tea at the beach café, but never at the other’s territory. The idea was quietly thrilling. Especially in contrast to the muddle at home. ‘Yes, I’d like that,’ she said.

  Mitch nodded, pleased, like he could tell she’d finally acquiesced to her own instinct.

  The walk from the village hall to the campsite that housed Mitch’s van wasn’t far. It was a straight line down towards the sea, along a grey stone path lined with fir trees that smelt sweetly of pine in the sunshine. The dogs trotted along about three feet in front of them at all times. There was a tiny bakery open just in the summer months on the right before the fence to the field. Mitch stopped to buy freshly baked bread and a couple of croissants. The girl at the counter knew him by name, he’d been there months. Then tucking the paper bag under his arm he unlatched the gate and beckoned for Moira to go in ahead of him.

  She could tell she was blushing, felt like she was doing something illicit, coming here to have coffee. All her other male friends were part of a couple and, on the rare occasions she and Graham went out together, she predominantly spoke to the wives.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Mitch asked, hand on the gatepost, waiting.

  ‘I’m just a bit worried people might, you know, talk.’ Moira glanced back at the girl in the bakery who wasn’t paying them the slightest bit of attention.

  Mitch guffawed. He stood with his arms wide. ‘Moira, it’s the middle of the day. We’re two adults having coffee. Good Lord, you have a lot of rules.’

  Moira felt immediately foolish. She gave a little nod and scuttled through the gate, followed by the remnants of Mitch’s laughter.