‘I know how to do it, know what people like…’
‘So what did you do before, if you only started this six months ago?’
‘The same. I just deleted the old account, wanted something fresh – no one wants stale old news, Clare. Like I said, you have to keep on top of things.’
I kept looking, trying to ignore what she was saying. It was clearly personal.
‘And how can you earn a living from this? I don’t mean that in a rude way. I genuinely want to know what an Instagram model is, how your career works?’
She shifted slightly. ‘Big companies get me involved in their ads…’
‘Big? Like who?’
‘Just… I mean make-up and beauty companies… and… you wouldn’t have heard of them.’
‘I might?’ I felt like she was avoiding the question, and I couldn’t help but think, what was she hiding – and why?
‘Too many to name,’ she said and, standing up, wandered over to Jamie, who was sunbathing, and curled up next to him like a baby on his towel. Meanwhile I was left trying to work out just who Ella was and wondering why no one else seemed to question her.
* * *
After I’d eaten, I felt obliged to take the others’ dirty plates from around the pool and wash up. But when Joy offered to help, I said, ‘No, you do enough, stay by the pool. Dan will help me.’
‘But that doesn’t make any sense,’ Ella piped up as she stood by her sunlounger, her breasts gently bouncing under a fitted T-shirt as she tied her hair in a messy knot.
‘Why doesn’t it make any sense, Ella?’ I asked, trying not to look at her buttocks in the tiny bikini as she now bent over to pick up one of the plates from the ground.
‘If you and Dan are in the kitchen, then Joy has to look after the kids… so she won’t be able to lie down and relax. Which is the point – isn’t it?’ she said, a sense of faux confusion on her face. I knew exactly what she was doing.
‘Oh okay, so what do you want to do?’ I asked, bored of her picking up on everything I said and sniping at me with that sickly smile.
‘Look, you and Joy stay by the pool. You look tired, Clare.’ I felt a frisson of irritation at this, the implication being that I looked rough, or old. She always tried to take the wind from my sails. Why was she so hell-bent on undermining me, stripping me of what little confidence I had? She took my plate from my hands. ‘I’ll help Dan with the washing up. We’ll soon have this cleared, won’t we, Dan the Man?’ she called across to him and he stuck his thumb in the air and heaved himself from his lounger. She then took her nearly naked buttocks and stood far too close to my husband and giggled pointlessly for at least forty-five seconds while he balanced a pile of forks and plates. He couldn’t exactly refuse to help, but he didn’t have to be quite so bloody eager.
I turned away from them and spotted Bob sitting in the shallow end up to his neck in water, holding Freddie, while the other two splashed around. Joy was now engrossed in her Barbara Taylor Bradford and Dan and Ella were disappearing into the villa with a few plates, and I settled myself down in the shallow end with Bob and the kids.
As I was now there, it meant that I could be with Freddie in the shallow end while Bob went a little deeper with the other two, Alfie on his shoulders. I’d been there a few minutes when Jamie suddenly got up from where he was lying and came to join me.
‘You having fun?’ he said, sitting beside me, letting his feet fall into the water.
‘Yes we are.’ I smiled, suddenly feeling a little embarrassed, a little flushed. At thirty-five, Jamie was seven years younger than Dan, and he looked even younger, with the tan, the flat stomach, and the short, boyish haircut. Ella was a lucky girl. ‘So, how is married life?’ I asked. We’d barely spoken since he arrived and now it felt strange, uncomfortable. I was sad that we’d lost the easy friendship we’d previously had, but under the circumstances I suppose it was inevitable.
‘Married life is good.’ He nodded. We were both watching the kids, especially Freddie who was now holding on to my leg with one hand and pushing his toy yacht through the water with the other. Bob had been commandeered to ‘captain’ the flamingo and for a moment Jamie and I instinctively looked at each other and almost smiled. In the past we’d have giggled at Bob grappling with the huge floppy pink creature while Violet and Alfie shouted their orders. But it felt odd, like we didn’t know each other.
We sat in silence for a few moments and then he took a breath and said, ‘She’s a good person – Ella.’