‘Darling, I’m not stupid, you’re right of course – but boys will be boys,’ was all she said, and I knew in that instant that she’d withdrawn her support. I was leaving the Taylors, and so the Taylors were leaving me.
I can see now that Ella and I were both victims, both outsiders in this family who would only ever support each other when it came right down to it. Joy was fine when you were with her, on her side, in her family, but when she saw a threat, she played her hand. In her own, subtle way she came between us. ‘Do you like Clare, Ella? I worry she’s a little fragile… on the defensive at the moment, especially with someone as attractive as you.’ She was setting the scene, suggesting there may be a problem and giving Ella the diamond earrings I’d always admired, knowing it would hurt me and perhaps even cause some resentment. Joy couldn’t know that I’d see Ella ‘stealing’ them and cause such conflict, such hurt. I realise now that Joy was using me to fire the bullets while appearing to stand back – I was the idiot who made Ella’s life hell for two weeks. But Joy was using the two of us like puppets. Ella was no angel, she could be dishonest, mean, self-obsessed, evidently used her lovers’ money to survive. God knows what she wanted with Jamie, he wasn’t some yacht-owning millionaire with a palace somewhere, so unless she actually loved him, I can’t imagine why she married him. I don’t suppose I’ll ever know what her motives were for coming into his life, but ultimately she was a pawn too.
As for Jamie, he’s okay, and we are finally talking again. When he returned last Christmas, he hugged me as usual and it was like nothing had happened – everything just slotted back into place. Jamie’s never said anything again about wanting to be Freddie’s dad, he’s just been happy to see him like he has the others. I want us to be friends. I feel like we all went through such an ordeal last summer. I want to talk about it, and so does Jamie. Both Joy and Dan don’t have that need, they’ve moved on, for them it was in the past and they don’t want to go there – ‘Don’t dwell on it, dear,’ is Joy’s usual response if I try to talk about it. For Dan, it’s probably too painful; after Ella’s accusations he was so hurt he never really talked about what happened. But whether his hurt was at being innocent or being robbed of his next fling, I don’t know.
Jamie came home from Thailand last week, and he called in to see me, which was nice. I was having a rare morning off and he happened to be passing. I made us coffee and we sat in the living room, chatting, while watching Freddie play with his toys.
‘This is nice, just like old times,’ I said, and after more talk about where he’d been and where he planned to go next, I went deeper. ‘How are you really?’ I asked. ‘Have you been able to move on… a little?’
‘Yeah. I guess. I still keep in touch with her parents.’ He smiled fondly at this.
‘I didn’t realise.’
‘Well, I haven’t mentioned it – don’t think Mum would approve, you know how she is.’
‘Yes, she wants to forget it all, pretend it never happened.’
‘I do too. I went away hoping to forget, but I can’t, and her parents are the only link – it’s like she never existed.’
‘Do you still look at her Instagram?’
‘I can’t. It would be like looking into the past, when we were happy, the wedding photos – everything.’ He shook his head, his eyes red with threatened tears. ‘No… perhaps one day?’ He tried to smile.
I look sometimes. It’s weird that the account still exists and she doesn’t; her fantasy life outlived her. I suppose it’s like a headstone for the twenty-first century: ‘Ella was here’。 Our online lives are our immortality. I think she’d like that.
When she died, the Manchester Evening News did a big article all about her detailing the sadness of the new bride who couldn’t bear to live.
‘How are her parents?’ I asked.
‘Devastated. They still hadn’t got over her sister’s death.’
I recalled their grey faces at the funeral. We spoke briefly, offered our condolences, but this poor couple who’d lost both their children were inconsolable. ‘Losing both daughters…’ I shook my head, unable to imagine it.
‘They said they couldn’t rest when Ella’s sister was flying, and with Ella, they worried about her travelling everywhere – they didn’t hear from her for months.’