‘Yeah.’
‘When?’ I pressed.
‘What do you want me to do, Clare?’ he asked, irritated. ‘Shall I run into the village now and tear the kids away from the ice cream, make a big scene and drag them back, telling them never to speak to Auntie Ella again?’
‘Don’t be stupid.’
‘No, you’re being stupid. When they get back, we will just calmly ask her to take down the account – if it’s making you so unhappy.’
‘Why do you have to add the caveat “if it’s making me unhappy”?’
‘I can’t win! Whatever I say is wrong. You do what you want to do, Clare,’ he said, and closed his eyes.
I couldn’t get through to Dan, so I stood up and wandered over to Joy, who put down her book.
‘Are you okay, dear?’ she asked.
‘You’ll never believe this. Ella seems to have a whole Instagram account devoted to the kids!’
I showed her on my phone, and she scrolled through. I was so desperate for her to see what Ella had done now I didn’t care what she made of the hashtags, they were open to interpretation and she had no idea, so wouldn’t think twice.
‘That’s a lovely one of all three of them – and that one of Freddie – you should ask her for copies,’ she said.
‘Don’t you think it’s a bit creepy?’ I asked as she handed me back my phone.
‘Why? They’re lovely, you can print them and get them framed. They’d look good on your sideboard in the dining room.’
‘I didn’t even know she was taking them.’ What the hell was going on here? Even Joy wasn’t understanding the gravitas of this. Another woman was passing someone else’s kids off as her own.
‘She’s been taking pictures all holiday, love,’ she said, in the same voice she used to explain to Alfie why he should stop hitting Freddie.
‘Yes, but I think it’s a bit off to set up a whole account with someone else’s kids on and not mention it.’
Joy looked up at me. ‘Clare, I’m sure she didn’t mean anything. They’re beautiful children, she just wanted to photograph them. And I think it’s good they’ve gone for a while today. It’s been like a pressure cooker here since Ella and Jamie arrived.’
Finally, she was admitting she felt the same too and I jumped on it, desperate for her to believe me, to be on my team.
‘This has made me very uncomfortable. I know you want to believe Jamie’s made a good choice, and I don’t want to bring up the earrings again, but I’m just not sure Ella’s trustworthy, Joy,’ I added, not least to pre-empt anything Ella might say to Joy about me and Jamie.
‘Oh, she’s young, she just wants to impress us all. But you don’t see eye to eye with her do you?’
I suddenly felt like Joy was shifting all this on to me. ‘No, I don’t suppose I do.’
‘I really wouldn’t take it to heart, Clare. I’m sure she didn’t mean anything by the photos, she probably didn’t like to ask you because you… well, she’s a bit scared of you.’
I almost laughed in her face. ‘Is that what she told you?’
‘Well, not exactly, she just said she finds Dan easier to get along with. She finds you intimidating – she thinks you don’t like her.’
‘Intimidating?’ I almost laughed at that one, and I was seething that she’d made me out to be the villain. But she’d manipulated the situation and to everyone else that must have seemed plausible. ‘She’s right, I don’t want a relationship with her – she stole your earrings, let’s not forget that,’ I said, rather lamely throwing the worst thing I could think of at Joy. But what else could I say? There was so much I couldn’t talk about, and by skirting around the edges I was aware I was beginning to sound like the jealous older woman in all this. Which I reckoned was exactly what Ella wanted.When Joy didn’t respond, I used a risky strategy and pushed her. ‘Joy, you know she took your earrings, right?’
There was a moment’s hesitation before she launched into this weird, accepting version of Joy that had been present ever since Ella had turned up. ‘Perhaps she did. But I have them back now, so all’s well that—’
It was so unlike her to be passive, and it was all for Jamie, so he’d come back into the fold and stay this time.
‘So you admit you think she took them?’ I pushed again.
‘I don’t know, Clare, we’ll never know for sure, will we?’ She didn’t like me questioning her, she seemed flustered, but why?
‘Well I know for sure, Joy, even if no one else is prepared to say it.’
‘Clare, look… I can understand why you might feel a little – threatened. Dan obviously… likes Ella.’
This comment was loaded, the emphasis and ambiguity placed on ‘likes.’ I knew what she was trying to tell me and it hit me right in the solar plexus. So I wasn’t the only person who’d noticed Dan paying Ella so much attention? Was Joy trying to tell me something? Was she warning me? Or had this holiday, the intense heat and the tense atmosphere made me so paranoid I’d lost the plot?
Was this true, did my husband have a thing for my new sister-in-law? Or was Joy trying to set me against Ella by suggesting Dan liked her? Let’s face it, it wouldn’t have been in Joy’s interests for her daughters-in-law to get too friendly, they might gang up against her. And knowing how she worked I knew it wasn’t beyond her to divide and rule, in an attempt to shape the family dynamics in her favour. ‘It’s about survival,’ she’d once said to me when I questioned her spreading a rumour about a friend. ‘They’re like seals screaming for fish, so I throw them some and let them fight among themselves. It gives me a break, and while they’re attacking each other, they aren’t watching me,’ she said, then must have seen the look on my face and added with a giggle, ‘Oh, don’t mind me love, I’m only teasing.’ But she wasn’t.
I didn’t get chance to consider Joy’s part in the daughters-in-law drama because, to my deep relief, I heard children’s voices in the distance – my children’s voices – and the blood rushed to my chest as I ran through the garden. I probably greeted them like they’d been away forever, but I’d never been so happy to see them.
‘God, Clare, we only went to the ice cream shop,’ Ella was saying as she sashayed along behind them. She was carrying Freddie, who had his head buried in her neck; the intimacy of this bothered me more than it should, but I was eager to take him off her and reached for him. Instinctively, Freddie would always come to me, and I could see he’d spotted me, because his eyes were open, but he pushed himself back against Ella, like he didn’t want to be moved.
‘He’s certainly bonded with you.’ Jamie smiled at her, and she positively glowed, her eyes sparkling back at him.
I couldn’t force Freddie to come into my arms. I also didn’t want to risk him screaming if I tried, so asked Violet and Alfie about the ice cream they’d had and they described their cones in some detail.
‘So, who wants a last swim?’ I said, in a blatant bid for The Best Mum award. This was my chance to win back favour with my children. She could buy them all the ice cream they wanted, but at least Auntie Ella was never going to play with them in the water. The older two shouted, ‘Yesss!’ and immediately began throwing off their T-shirts, but Freddie continued to cling to Ella. ‘Freddie, are you coming in the water with Mummy?’ I asked gently.