long has he been missing?’ Stella asked, turning towards the window, eyes wide to dry the possible threat of tears.
‘Since yesterday,’ said her mother. ‘Although I’m not altogether sure what time he left because we were at Sainsbury’s.’
‘Since yesterday?’ Stella said, shocked. ‘Why didn’t you call before?’
‘Well, I knew you had a long drive today and I wanted you to get a good night’s sleep. And I thought it might be a good idea to give him a chance to come back without worrying everyone.’
This seemed very odd behaviour from her mother, who had never been the kind of person to suffer in silence.
‘So you’ve been worrying on your own?’
There was a brief silence at the other end of the phone.
‘Mum, are you OK?’
‘Yes darling, I’m fine,’ her mother said. And she sounded fine. Too fine. Almost drunk. Stella would have anticipated much more drama. A little more sobbing and neediness when actually she wondered if that was the kettle she could hear being flicked on in the background.
Stella frowned. ‘Is it something to do with Sonny? Is that why he’s left? Has Sonny been a pain?’
‘Not at all. Your father and Sonny have got on very well actually. I only told Sonny he’d gone this morning too – teenagers need their sleep, don’t they?’
Stella scrunched her eyes tight. The idea of her son and her father getting on well was too much at this point.
‘And have you rung Dad?’ Stella asked.
‘Yes. Straight to answerphone. He’s left a little note telling us not to worry.’
Stella pressed her hand to her forehead. She was really tired. They had left at five to avoid the weekend holiday traffic down to the Cornish coast but had stopped once already for Rosie to be sick in a Starbucks cup after secretly shovelling all the sweets meant for the five-hour journey into her mouth in the first twenty minutes. ‘Look, Daddy – a whole Haribo bear,’ she’d said, quite gleeful. The traffic report on the radio suggested that this current tailback was because a caravan had jack-knifed further up the A303. ‘What does the note say?’
‘Just that he’s gone away for a bit.’
‘But where?’
‘To be honest darling, I haven’t the foggiest.’
Something really wasn’t right in her mother’s reaction.
‘Mum, is there something you’re not telling me?’ Stella said, glancing across at Jack who was doing all sorts of faces back at her trying to get the gist of what was going on.
‘No darling, nothing.’
Stella nodded, wary. Disliking the feeling of uncertainty that had settled over her. ‘OK, well we’ll be at yours in about three hours I reckon.’
‘Don’t drive too fast,’ said her mother.
‘Unlikely with this traffic,’ Stella said, then added a goodbye.
When she hung up the phone Jack said, ‘Where’s your dad gone?’
Stella shook her head, chucking her phone into her bag. ‘She doesn’t know.’
Jack half-laughed. ‘That’s absurd. He doesn’t go anywhere.’
Stella held her hands wide. ‘Apparently he does.’
Jack looked like he was about to say something else but was cut off by the car behind beeping when Jack didn’t immediately move forward to fill the gap as the traffic rolled forward a car’s length.
‘I knew we should have taken the M4 route,’ he muttered.
Stella shook her head, incredulous. It had been her suggestion that they take the A303 and she couldn’t believe he hadn’t held in that comment in light of the whole missing-dad fiasco.
They drove on in silence for a while, the car warming up as their dodgy air conditioning failed to compete with the rising sun.
She and Jack had already had a row after she’d admitted being a bit nervous about seeing Sonny.
The reason they were currently driving down to Cornwall was to pick up their thirteen-year-old son, who, at the end of her tether, Stella had sent to stay with her parents for a fortnight.
Jack had sighed and replied, quite haughtily in Stella’s opinion, ‘Well, it should never have got this far in the first place! We should have dealt with it at home.’
‘You can keep saying that, Jack, but you weren’t there. You’re never there to see what a pain he is. You waltz in the door at seven thirty when it’s practically bedtime anyway.’
‘I do not waltz in the door.’
Stella had wanted to say that he very much did waltz in the door, but they’d been over this a thousand times already. That was how her and Jack’s relationship had been for the last few weeks. She’d tried countless times to explain to him the unrelenting frustration of every night trying to force their thirteen-year-old to get off his phone and do his homework, Stella’s own deadlines pressing down on her, stress mounting. Until the evening that Sonny had sworn he was doing his physics project but was just hiding his phone behind half a papier-mâché Vesuvius. Furious, Stella had whipped the phone off him, deleted the game he was playing and every other one and changed the password to her iTunes account so he couldn’t download anything else.
‘You stupid bitch!’ Sonny had shouted at her and then he’d looked immediately at the floor, his face rigid.
‘I beg your pardon?’
Silence.
‘Apologise. Now!’ Stella said, hands on her hips, eyes wide.
Still silence.
Time hung paused in the air.
‘Apologise.’ Nothing.
She could feel her heart rate rising. ‘If you don’t apologise, Sonny, by the time I count to three—’ The words came out of her mouth almost on instinct. As if she was so tired and stressed her brain had resorted to a time when she was guaranteed control. To when Sonny was a little kid and more than happy to apologise if it meant he’d get to keep his chocolate buttons.
Right now, Stella had no idea what she would do when she got to three. She should have used the deleting of the apps as bait but such strategy was easy in hindsight, all she could do now was start counting. ‘One.’
Sonny’s eyes stayed fixed on the ground.
Please just say sorry.
‘Two.’
His jaw clenched.
Stella took a breath in through her nose.
