She was alone, on her phone. I didn’t want an audience, I just wanted to get it over with, so I went over to where she was. ‘I’m sorry I caused such a scene last night,’ I said, kneeling down next to her sunlounger. ‘And I’m sorry if I upset you,’ I added, careful not to say I was sorry for my accusation of theft. I wasn’t.
She stayed gazing into her phone and barely took her eyes from the screen, just nodded slowly and said, ‘It’s okay, Clare. I guess, at your age, hormones play a big part… you were confused. But I’m afraid now I’m going to have to tell Dan what I know.’ Her voice was icy.
‘What do you know?’ I asked, trying to breathe, the panic rising in my throat, threatening to engulf me.
She glanced lazily over at me, like she couldn’t be bothered to even look in my direction. ‘Everything,’ she said, and then went back to her phone.
‘Okay,’ I sighed. The threat was real. I couldn’t risk it. I wasn’t going to fight back. I’d caused enough trouble. I just had to hope that if I stayed away, kept under her radar, she might spare me, at least for the holiday. I’d taken a risk in accusing her of the theft, but I’d been so sure I was right I thought she’d leave in shame, or Joy and Bob would ask her to go. I didn’t think anything she said would be believed, but it was me that no one believed – and now I’d made things worse for myself. She was hurt and, after almost ruining everything for her, I had to be ready for her to take her revenge.
I stood up and walked back to my sunlounger. Dan was with the children, so I was free to do whatever I fancied, a luxury, but when almost every waking hour is filled with children or work, it’s like you forget how to relax. And given what Ella had just said, how could I ever relax again? I just sat there watching Dan and the children.
‘Violet – bring Freddie over here. I’ve got this hilarious video that will make you guys laugh,’ Ella called, and I was immediately on alert.
Dan was relieved of two of his charges as Violet dutifully carried Freddie over to where Jamie had now joined Ella and the four of them sat together laughing at something on her phone. Alfie was more interested in climbing over Dan as a launch pad in the pool, but Violet adored Auntie Ella. She drank her in and, that summer, if you’d asked Violet what she wanted to be when she grew up, I know she’d have said ‘Auntie Ella.’
A little later, when I’d put Freddie indoors for an afternoon nap, I waved to Violet getting out of the pool. She waved back and went to lie on her tummy on a nearby sunlounger with her iPad, and, looking at her, I suddenly spotted that she’d hitched up her bikini bottoms. To my horror, her buttocks were on full display and, within a few feet, was Ella, lying on her tummy, on her phone, exactly the same. This wasn’t good, my little girl was just nine years old, so I got up from where I was sitting and wandered over to Violet for a little chat.
‘Hey, sweetie, do you need some sun cream?’ I asked.
She just shook her head slightly and I realised she was pouting into the camera, obsessed with taking selfies ever since Ella had arrived.
‘Darling, wearing your bikini bottoms like that must be very uncomfortable,’ I said, sitting on the edge of her lounger.
‘No, it’s super cool,’ she answered, not looking up from her screen.
The subtle approach clearly wasn’t working, and I didn’t want to embarrass her, but worried if she thought it was okay to do it here, she might do the same at swimming lessons, or at school games. ‘Sweetie, I think it’s a little inappropriate for you to be wearing your bikini bottoms like that.’
She whipped her head round, her face completely closed, eyes like Dan’s in anger. ‘But Auntie Ella does it!’
‘Darling, Auntie Ella is a grown-up. You can wear your stuff how you like when you’re older, I just don’t think—’ But before I could finish, she’d turned back to her screen. ‘Violet, I will never force you to do anything, but I will make you aware if I think what you’re doing is wrong, might harm you or makes you look silly.’ With that, I stood up and walked away, aware of Ella following me with her eyes.
‘You okay, babe?’ she called to Violet, who just nodded without turning round.
I was angry that Ella had tried to push her way in, but that seemed to be her ‘brand’, as she would probably call it. Still, by the time I sat back down, my daughter had reverted to wearing her bikini bottoms as her mother intended.
I picked up my phone, unable to concentrate on anything, feeling the remnants of Violet’s resentment, Ella’s eyes watching me, her protective voice to Violet, calling her ‘babe’, like they were besties – and I looked up to see she was smirking at the other side of the pool.
* * *
Later that day, I was in the kitchen, making cold drinks for the children, when Ella walked in. She was wearing a small bikini. She seemed so tiny, her body childlike, apart from the full breasts I suspected might not be the ones nature gave her. She took an apple from the fruit bowl. She didn’t speak, just stood against the kitchen units, taking aggressive bites from the apple and chewing slowly. She didn’t take her eyes off me.
I just tried to pretend she wasn’t there and busied myself with the drinks.
‘Clare—’ she suddenly said, throwing the remainder of her apple at the bin, missing and just leaving it on the floor.
I looked at her and she stared back.
‘Are you going to leave that there?’ I asked, unsmiling.
‘Probably.’ A defiant teenager to me as the frazzled mother.
She wanted attention and she’d get it any way she could.
‘Clare, what is your problem with me?’
‘I don’t have a problem,’ I replied.
She sighed theatrically. ‘Yes you do. All that shit last night about the earrings, then coming over to apologise, thinking I’ll just say “it’s okay, you called me a thief, but I forgive you”.’
‘Actually, I wasn’t apologising for the accusation—’ I started, but she talked over me.
‘You tried to bad-mouth me to Jamie, you disrespect my sister and I know you don’t like me being around your kids.’
‘I didn’t disrespect your sister, I didn’t know about her. I just wanted a quiet holiday with my family and I feel like Jamie just introduced you, forced us all together and assumed everyone would get on.’ I couldn’t say any more. I had to stay on the right side of her – she knew too much.
‘Am I so hard to like?’ She put her head to one side, and I wondered if she was toying with me.
I didn’t answer.
‘Look, Clare, we were thrown together, you’re right. I didn’t choose to spend my holiday – my honeymoon – with you either, but if I want to be with Jamie I have to… It’s our honeymoon.’ She stopped talking. ‘I saw you wince at that. Does it hurt, Clare?’
I shook my head. ‘Please don’t try and deflect from what you did. You took those earrings, I saw you. And you might think you’ve got away with it, but the truth will out. You’re nothing but a thief, and I will prove it… As for what happened at the pool – I just thought it was a little over the top.’