In the middle of the sadness, there were bittersweet moments when we ate together, or one of the children made us laugh with something they said, and though it had been a close call, we’d all – like elastic – bounced back together.
‘Oh God, what a tragic death,’ Joy was saying over dinner one evening. ‘Let’s just hope that fragile flower is resting in peace.’ She gave a little sigh, and touched her eye with her hankie. Fragile flower is not the term I would use to describe Ella – even in death – but at least this way Joy could paint a favourable and more wholesome picture of her deceased daughter-in-law. ‘Such a sad life, she had no family, you know, after her sister died. It just makes me think how lucky we are to have each other – we’re so strong together,’ she reassured us all repeatedly. ‘Detective Bianchi – Roberto – said he thinks it’s suicide,’ she said over a glass of gin ‘for the shock’。 ‘That poor, poor girl.’
‘Trust Joy to be on first-name terms with the detective. I bet she charmed the Italian pants off him,’ I’d said to Dan later, when we were on our own.
‘Mum seems to cope surprisingly well in difficult times. If something bad happens, she always rallies round.’
‘You mean like the way she “rallied round”， and removed your lover from the company? That was your mother wasn’t it, who sacked her?’ I said. It may have seemed callous to bring it up then, but I couldn’t help it, the words just came out. I was questioning everything and everyone.
‘Yeah,’ he said awkwardly. And I glimpsed the child, the mummy’s boy who was always protected, never wrong, however naughty he’d been.
‘Your mum would do anything to keep this family together, especially if she sees an outsider as a threat.’ I paused. It was something I’d been going over and over in my mind since Ella’s death. ‘Do you know where she is now… Marilyn, was it?’ I said this as if I couldn’t quite remember her name, like I hadn’t daydreamed of writing it in her own blood.
‘I don’t think now is the time to get into…’ He shifted uncomfortably.
I’d never really questioned it at the time, just grateful that someone else had done the dirty work and I’d seen the back of Marilyn. But I’d begun to wonder if there was more to Marilyn’s ‘dismissal’ from Taylor’s.
‘I’m not getting into anything Dan, I’m not. It’s just that, I wonder what your mum… did with her?’
‘Did with her?’ He laughed nervously. ‘They found some irregularities with the money… we had to let her go.’ He stopped and paused for a moment. ‘What are you saying, Clare?’
‘I don’t know.’ All I could think was, What am I missing here? ‘I keep thinking, if Ella was going to kill herself, it would have been far more aesthetic. She would have worn something other than her yoga gear. She’d have been in a long white dress, the drowned bride – not in scarlet Lycra. As a nurse I knew about the demons people battled, and the mental health struggles that could lead to suicide. I’d sat holding the hands of scared, wide-eyed survivors, and grieving families; I knew the horrors of suicide. But this felt so different. Of course, I couldn’t know what was going on in Ella’s head, but she’d been happy, looking forward to her next adventure. She was just about to move on like she always did.
‘Who knows what happened, and perhaps that’s why she did it, she’d had enough of the whole Instagram life?’ he said.
I reckoned that was way off the mark, she lived for it, Instagram was in her DNA, but I kept my thoughts to myself.
‘So. Where is Marilyn now?’ I asked gently.
‘She moved to Australia. She had family there. But I haven’t made contact… We’ve not been in touch…’
‘And has anyone heard from her since she left?’ I asked, ignoring his protestations of innocence.
‘How would I know? Clare, can we please move on?’ he said, clearly feeling some discomfort.
‘I’d love to,’ I said, ‘I’m just not sure that I can.’
* * *
Later, when we’d put the kids to bed, Dan, Joy, Bob and I all ate leftovers in the kitchen. No one said very much – we were all suddenly like polite strangers passing the butter, commenting on the weather. What had happened was almost too big to talk about; whether it was suicide or something else, it wasn’t something that could easily be traversed. Despite it being late evening, it was hot and stuffy, especially in the kitchen where we all sat round the table, thinking our own thoughts. I could feel knots forming in my head and had to get outside to walk around and think.