As we approached, I could see Ella standing at the side, stretching and holding her thick blanket of hair up to the sun in worship. I was shocked how tiny her bikini was –the bottoms didn’t even cover her backside! Was it a bit much in front of her new in-laws, or was I showing my age?
I couldn’t help but notice the S bend of her spine as she leaned back to stretch, her breasts pointing to the sun in a way that was either magical or surgical. Even as I walked around the far side of the pool, I could see her tummy was taut, hips enviably svelte, her body confidence through the roof. At seventeen years younger than me, she wasn’t just from another generation, she was from another planet. Waddling by the pool, a child on one hip, scars from childbirth and baby weight still clinging on from my two-year-old, I felt like the resident brood mare. I watched her from behind my sunglasses – she was perfect. Even bending over into the bushes to pick up Alfie’s beach ball didn’t cause a ripple or a dimple, just golden flesh, smooth as a pebble.
‘Ella… Ella, over here!’ Alfie was calling as she bent right over, the cheeks of her bottom on full view to everyone around the pool. He was sitting on Jamie’s shoulders, Violet was sitting with Granny and Grandad crayoning and Dan – ‘the amazing father’ Ella had admired the previous evening – was asleep on a sunlounger.
I tightened my sarong around me and, still holding Freddie, went to sit with Violet and Joy – safety in numbers and all that.
‘Hey, Mummy,’ Violet shouted, announcing my arrival.
Jamie waved, Ella looked up and gave me her whitest Instagram smile and Joy lowered her sunglasses like she couldn’t believe it was me.
‘Is Freddie better?’ she asked.
‘What?’
‘Doesn’t he have a headache?’
‘No, he’s fine.’ Then I remembered with a thump that she knew what I’d said about her being bossy. ‘But thanks for asking, Joy, you’re always so thoughtful,’ I added. Yes, if pressed, I could admit to her that I’d said she was bossy, but I could also deny it, say Ella lied. Apart from the fact it would let me off the hook, it might make Joy feel better – I didn’t want to hurt her and felt so bad about the comment.
‘It’s just that Violet told me he had a headache.’ She put her sunglasses back over her eyes, before adding, ‘Like Mummy.’ A shady comment needed shade. She was obviously still smarting from what Ella had told her; I didn’t blame her, who wouldn’t?
‘No, Freddie ’s good, and so am I.’ My voice faded; there was no point in trying to defend myself.
‘Oh, you’re in swimwear,’ she said, in a way that one might say, ‘Oh, you’re in sewerage.’
‘Yes… I thought I’d have a swim in the pool today,’ I said, feeling even more self-conscious.
‘Is everything okay – with you and Dan?’ She peered at me over her sunglasses and I just nodded, my cheeks burning.
I always felt Joy knew everything about everyone, sometimes before they knew it themselves. She’d told me I was pregnant with Alfie, who was a surprise, to say the least. I denied it emphatically, insisting privately to Dan that she was losing her marbles. But then, only days later as I vomited into the toilet bowl, I thought of Joy.
‘I wonder what to cook tonight,’ she half-murmured to herself now as we sat in the sunshine.
‘We could make those meatballs?’ I suggested, on safe ground, eager to get back to where we were. ‘The Elizabeth David recipe?’
She was about to respond when Ella, who’d now finished posing by the pool, started wandering towards us, all golden tan and tight abs. ‘Hey girls,’ she said in that cutesy voice, waving at us madly like we were miles away.
‘We were just wondering what to cook for dinner this evening,’ Joy said, taking off her sunglasses, shielding her eyes with her hand and looking up at Ella.
‘I think the meatballs,’ I said, settling back down like it had already been decided. Me, Joy and the meatballs had history – we made them every year, they were a Taylor signature dish.
Ella had arrived at our sunloungers and now knelt at Joy’s feet. As the mother of her only grandchildren, an heir and two spares, I was sitting to her right hand on my sunbed throne. Surely I was allowed to be a little comfortable; even Ella’s nasty little leak about what I’d said hadn’t damaged mine and Joy’s bond.
I’d tried to be friends with this woman, who had criticised the Taylor website I’d worked on, who’d referred to my nursing career as bed-making, badmouthed me to my mother-in-law and then threatened to tell everyone about what she called my ‘dirty little secret’. God, I hoped she was bluffing, but clearly she knew something or she wouldn’t have said it. I didn’t trust her, so how could we possibly be friends? Ever since her Louboutins hit the gravel and she gave me that first cutesy little wave with just her fingers, I knew she’d had it in for me. But why? I sat by the pool going over and over this, aware that those bikini bottoms were halfway up her bum and her husband couldn’t take his eyes off her.
‘Meat… balls?’ Ella was saying now in response to my suggestion, like I’d just suggested we go and kill a local dog for supper.
I nodded vaguely and turned to Joy. ‘We could make that lovely garlic sauce we made last year, in the South of France?’ I said, aware I was excluding Ella, but making it clear that this is what we do, what we’ve always done and she couldn’t just turn up and change things.
Joy was about to answer me when Ella butted in, ‘The thing is, as I said last night, I don’t eat meat.’
‘Oh, of course, you mentioned that.’ Joy nodded. ‘So, what can we make for you?’
‘Well, I was thinking… we could all eat vegan? It’s healthier for the kids too,’ she said accusingly, like I’d been feeding them chocolate bars all week.
‘The children eat a lot of veggies,’ I said, ‘but I like them to have a varied diet and iron is very important to growing kids.’
‘Yes, and there’s plenty of iron in leafy greens, you don’t need to give them dead cow,’ she said, at which point Violet, who’d been sitting nearby on her tablet announced that she had no intention of eating ‘dead cow’ ever again and wanted to be,’ a veganarian, just like Auntie Ella’.
‘That’s fine, but let’s start when we get back from the holidays,’ I said. I was sure Joy was finding all this tiresome, she just wanted to make dinner for everyone. If Ella wanted a bowl of bloody broccoli then so be it, but I wanted meatballs, and so did Joy, who usually didn’t trust anything she didn’t do herself, including veganism. ‘Ella, I respect your choices,’ I started, ‘but would you mind not talking too much about not eating meat in front of the kids?’
She pulled her head back on her neck with feigned surprise. ‘Why on earth…?’
‘Sorry, it’s just that it’s hard enough to get Violet to eat anything, and if she thinks meat’s bad for her, then—’
‘But, Clare… it IS.’
‘That’s your opinion… I…’
‘No, not just mine, it’s proven.’
‘Okay, well, if you’d just—’