We both smiled at that. I liked it when Dan smiled.
‘Poor Bob, he looks tired to me,’ I said. Bob never seemed to have the stamina that Joy did when it came to the children.
‘Yeah, you’re right, and it is his retirement. Been at it over 50 years. Left school at fourteen, you know?’ He said this in his father’s voice. It was something Bob often said, it was his badge of honour: ‘I didn’t need no university education.’ I could almost hear Joy correcting his grammar in the background, and I laughed. Bob was very proud of his lack of formal education; he was a self-made man. He didn’t get the modern world, the internet, the signing of contracts – ‘We just shook hands in my day,’ he’d say, and Dan would turn pale at the very thought. ‘I’m amazed Dad hasn’t been fleeced, or bankrupted, the way he does business,’ he’d once said to me. ‘Taylor’s could have been so much bigger if he’d been more open to change.’ But Bob wasn’t interested in making millions, he just wanted everything to run smoothly and if things weren’t right, he’d just fix them. There were lots of staff at Taylor’s, but Bob seemed to operate in his own orbit with his own rules, and Dan just let him get on with it while trying to drag the company into the twenty-first century. There was a lot of potential, and I knew it sometimes got to Dan that it wasn’t being realised, but as Bob always said, ‘All I ever wanted was to be able to provide for my family – anything else is a bonus.’
Dan was now standing in the bedroom doorway, about to leave. ‘What was that with you and Ella earlier?’
‘What was what?’ I asked, knowing the red leopard-skin patterns that formed on my neck when I didn’t tell the truth would soon give me away.
‘You know what I’m talking about. When you raised your voice at her, by the pool?’
‘Oh that, I just asked her not to go on in front of the kids about eating meat, making it sound like poison.’
‘You don’t like her, do you?’
‘I tried! When they arrived on Wednesday, I thought it might be nice to have another woman around, we could go shopping together and—’
‘Ha! I doubt you two would shop at the same places.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, look at her.’
I was stung. ‘You mean young and slim and—?’
‘No, there you go again, putting yourself down, comparing yourself. I meant expensive. Ella likes designer stuff. Jamie was complaining last night that she spends a fortune on clothes. He’s got his hands full there.’
‘Well, it’s not up to Jamie to keep her in Gucci. With her modelling and whatever else it is she does, she can probably buy her own, can’t she?’
‘I suppose so. Modelling can be lucrative, can’t it?’
I nodded. ‘But working on the social media at Taylor’s isn’t.’ And I should know.
‘If she does come on board, she won’t be doing that for long. Someone like Ella needs more than Taylor’s.’
I tried not to read too much into his words, but the implication was that someone like me didn’t need more than Taylor’s.
‘Does she need more than Jamie?’ I wondered. ‘They’re so different. She seems so materialistic, and—’
‘They’ve only just got married, give them a chance!’ he laughed. ‘Would you be happier if Jamie hadn’t brought his new wife on holiday?’
‘No.’
‘I can see the red patches on your neck.’
Caught. ‘Damn you, Daniel Taylor,’ I said theatrically. ‘I just find her a bit much, with her big-eyed lectures on dead calves, and telling the kids they can’t have plastic bottles. I heard her telling Alfie if he didn’t flush the toilet, he’d be saving the planet. He didn’t know what the hell she was talking about, he just heard, “you don’t have to flush the toilet”. It’s taken me over a year to get him to flush the bloody toilet.’
Dan laughed at this. ‘Well, good for her. It’s about time our kids understood the meaning of plastic water bottles and waste water – it’s their future we’re saving.’
‘I agree, but I won’t be lectured to by Ella. She’s a hypocrite, uses wipes to clean off her make-up, and she travels all the time, has a place in America she says she visits regularly – she must jet around on aeroplanes like other people use buses. How dare she dictate to us, like she’s some kind of eco warrior, while her make-up wipes are strangling the tuna.’
‘Isn’t it the fishing nets that are strangling the tuna?’ He looked puzzled.
‘Yes, but my point is that maybe she’s as responsible for the death of the oceans with her fancy wipes as Alfie is with his flushing. And trust me, if I had to choose, I’d want Alfie to flush – for all our sakes,’ I added.
‘I too have seen the contents of the toilet bowl after Alfie, and I have to agree,’ he said with a smile. ‘But, Clare… just go gently, they’re only just married, don’t want to scare her off in the first week.’
‘Scare her? You must be joking. Don’t you worry, our Ella can look after herself.’
‘I’m not convinced,’ he said. ‘She looks pretty fragile to me.’
‘You’re the male of the species and taken in by a female’s faux fragility,’ I said, rolling my eyes.
‘Yeah, well she’s nice enough,’ he continued, ‘and she’ll be good for Jamie, she’s just what he needs.’
‘Perhaps,’ I said, but before we could continue the conversation we heard, ‘Daddy!’
‘That’s Alfie,’ Dan said, half in the room, half out. ‘He probably wants to go in the pool. I have to go or he’ll just jump in without me there.’
‘Yes he will, I know from experience. GO!’ I laughed.
‘Look, all I’m saying is,’ he said, ‘just be nice to Ella.’ He added a wink to soften this, then made a swift exit. Classic Dan. He once told me that if he wanted to contradict Joy as a kid he used to say what he thought, and before she could respond he’d just make a run for it. Like he’d just done with me now. Despite him cutting and running like that, it was the first time we’d talked in a while and it felt like a small step forward. Even if most of it had been about Ella and the environment (that sounded like a reality TV show if ever there was one), we were opening up, being honest and that was all that mattered, because I couldn’t cope if he was hiding anything else. Then I checked myself – I was such a hypocrite, because whatever he might be keeping to himself, it couldn’t be as bad as the secret that I was hiding.
Chapter Fourteen
A little later, I headed downstairs to join them at the pool. Ella and Joy were sitting together giggling when I turned up. This was a little disconcerting. Joy wasn’t particularly a giggler, but Dan’s words were still ringing in my ears and I decided to give Ella the benefit of the doubt, so I smiled openly at them as I approached.
‘Ella and Jamie have just come back from the bakery, they brought back some lovely cakes,’ Joy said. ‘We saved you one. I’ve been keeping them in the shade.’ She brought out a white cardboard box from under her sunlounger and Ella handed me a plate from a pile on a tray. She smiled, and I smiled back and I thought how it couldn’t be easy for Ella coming into this family and despite appearances she may have been feeling as insecure about being the new girl as I was about having her here.