CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A little later, I headed downstairs to join them at the pool. Ella and Joy were sitting together giggling when I turned up. This was a little disconcerting. Joy wasn’t particularly a giggler, but Dan’s words were still ringing in my ears and I decided to give Ella the benefit of the doubt, so I smiled openly at them as I approached.
‘Ella and Jamie have just come back from the bakery, they brought back some lovely cakes,’ Joy said. ‘We saved you one. I’ve been keeping them in the shade.’ She brought out a white cardboard box from under her sunlounger and Ella handed me a plate from a pile on a tray. She smiled, and I smiled back and I thought how it couldn’t be easy for Ella coming into this family and despite appearances she may have been feeling as insecure about being the new girl as I was about having her here.
‘Dolce Alla Napoletana,’ Ella said, as I put the cake on the plate.
‘Thank you, it looks lovely.’ I took a bite; it was delicious. I found it hard to believe it was vegan, and under different circumstances I might have questioned this – but didn’t want to rock the boat.
‘It’s from a super cute little bakery down the road. Me and Jamie bought them when we went for our run. It’s a sweet layer cake, eaten to celebrate Ferragosto, the mid-August celebration of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary into heaven,’ Ella said, like she was an expert in random Italian religious festivals.
‘Wow,’ was all I could say.
‘Joy and I are on a mission this holiday, Clare,’ she called over to me as I ate my cake.
‘Oh, that sounds interesting?’ I said.
‘Yeah, we’re going to create some really amazing new vegan recipes and start a joint Insta account.’
‘So you’ve converted Joy?’ I said, and my motherin-law didn’t comment, just smiled serenely, which was so out of character.
‘Yeah. Joy and I are going to show you meat lovers that there are better options than eating dead bodies,’ Ella continued, which didn’t really make sense because Joy ate meat. The redder the better.
‘Eww, I don’t want to eat dead people,’ Violet squealed. This was chorused by Alfie and Freddie who hadn’t a clue what she was talking about but joined in anyway.
‘It’s not dead people… it’s food. Auntie Ella’s just being silly,’ I said, still trying to keep it light.
‘I’m sorry, yes, I was just being silly kids. Your mummy’s right.’ She looked at me with her head to one side, self-pity and hurt on her face. She did hurt very well – could conjure it up from nowhere in fact. To everyone else I must have sounded like a bitch, while Ella seemed perfectly reasonable, contrite even – but I heard the sarcasm in her voice.
We continued to sit by the pool, mostly in silence, with Dan throwing me daggers while the layer cake from ‘the cute little bakery’ sat in my gullet refusing to budge. He’d clearly heard me calling her silly, taken it out of context and was now judging me for it. Oh go away, Dan, I thought. Since when did he get to play the sanctimonious husband?
‘So, you must tell me where to find your new vegan Instagram,’ I said. ‘In fact, I don’t even follow your main account, what’s your name?’
‘It’s @EverythingElla123.’ She smiled proudly.
I picked up my phone and clicked on her profile. She had over twenty-five thousand followers – I’d somehow expected more for an influencer, but what did I know? ‘Wow, lovely photos,’ I murmured, scrolling through the selfies with sunsets, selfies in wonderful hotels in long-haul destinations, selfies in swimwear/tight dresses/tiny dresses, all relevant companies tagged for maximum marketing.
Only five minutes before, she’d posted a photo of herself in a long grey silk dress, standing in the villa. ‘Home at last! #Home #Italy #MyPlace’
‘And, Clare, don’t take offence, but I don’t follow back.’
‘No problem.’
‘I don’t want to fill my timeline with what you had for your dinner, how much weight you’ve lost that day, you know? Oh, and when I say “you”， of course I don’t mean “you”。’
‘No, of course not.’ She so did.
I sat up, still scrolling through all the photos, the beautiful clothes, the cars all tagged, and when I moved to the bottom of the page, I realised the account had only been running about six months. She didn’t have a lot of followers for an Instagram model, but she had a lot considering she’d only had the account for six months. ‘Do you mind me asking,’ I said, leaning over in her direction, ‘how you got so many followers in such a short time? We’ve had the Taylor’s account for years and I think we’ve only got about 500 followers.’