‘Already forgotten,’ I said. I wondered if perhaps she’d also forgotten the way she’d spoken to me only hours before?
‘Thing is, you seem to take offence so easily,’ she added. ‘I had no idea you were so touchy, but I promise from now on I won’t joke with you about how you spend your time washing and cooking… oh, and making beds for a living.’
‘Thanks.’ I wasn’t rising to her.
‘Hey, I just thought of something really cool,’ she said, positioning herself onto the sunlounger.
I looked at her over my sunglasses. ‘What?’
‘You should take photos of your kids and start your own mummy Instagram. Stay-at-home suburban mummy with pretty kids trying to lose weight… or something?’
I pushed my glasses back up. ‘Yeah, fat, middle-aged mum who makes beds for a living,’ I said, sarcastically.
‘You could have something there, Clare. Let me know if you need any help,’ she said with a smile.
I didn’t answer her. It seemed any hopes I’d had of ever being friends had vanished. I couldn’t figure out why she seemed to have taken against me so much. It wasn’t like I was a threat to her.
‘Oh no, I haven’t upset you again, have I?’ She sighed theatrically. ‘Honestly, she’s so sensitive, isn’t she, Joy?’
Joy was engrossed in her book and briefly looked up and smiled, which I’m sure Ella took as an affirmative.
‘Not sensitive at all,’ I said, and closed my eyes so she’d know the conversation was over.
What was her game?
* * *
Later, when we all sat together to eat the meal that Joy and I had spent all afternoon preparing, Ella asked Joy what was in the sauce and how we’d cooked the vegetables.
‘Clare cooked the vegetables,’ Joy said.
‘Nothing special, just steamed over slightly salted water, a knob of butter and seasoning and they were done.’ I smiled.
‘Oh wow, so much salt – and butter, Clare?’ she gasped, and looked at Jamie.
‘There isn’t that much,’ I said. ‘Anyway, a little butter and a sprinkle of salt doesn’t do anyone any harm.’
‘Clare. Human beings weren’t meant to eat salt – and yeah, a little butter is fine, but, honey, you’ve drenched these carrots.’ She smiled sweetly at me.
‘Oh, sorry.’ I continued to eat. I wasn’t going to rise to this.
‘No, I’m sorry, that was rude of me – I mean, I can’t expect everyone to understand clean eating.’
‘You mean you have nothing processed?’ I asked, doubtfully.
‘Absolutely, and I try to eat wholefoods, often raw. And I’m vegan – I eat nothing with a face.’ She stared pointedly at the juicy lamb I was biting into – I almost heard the ‘baa’ – and the look she passed at me across the table made me feel like a cannibal. For a moment I considered putting down the next forkful of lamb, but then told myself I wasn’t going to allow a woman who’d arrived only the day before to make me feel guilty about eating. This was a dinner I’d helped to cook in a very hot kitchen on a hot afternoon which she’d spent on a sunlounger, photographing herself.
I continued to chew slowly and smiled at her. I liked my family to eat well and was an animal lover too. But I enjoyed eating meat and I resented how she made me feel about that. I was about to say something, then remembered our conversation earlier that day – her veiled threat – so I smiled through it, and continued to eat and chat and pretend she wasn’t there. I was beginning to feel uncomfortable in her company. I felt so defensive, but I couldn’t respond because I wasn’t sure what she might say, in front of everyone. If this was just another of Jamie’s girlfriends, I would politely avoid her. But Ella was married to Jamie, she was family. Not only was she now a Taylor, she was coming back home with us, like an unwanted souvenir. We wouldn’t be saying goodbye at the airport – this was for life.
After the lamb dinner, Dan and I put the children to bed and he suggested we go for a walk together, and thinking perhaps it would be romantic, I jumped at it. But, apparently, he hadn’t been driven by desire to take me into the garden at ten o’clock at night to kiss under the stars.
‘Clare, I brought you out here because… I have something to confess and you’re not going to like it,’ he started.
‘You’re not seeing… her again, are you?’ I heard myself ask. The breath had been taken from me.