I thanked her and shook my head.
Everyone just murmured agreement and kept on eating, including me. All I could think of was whether the door had been locked and if the windows upstairs were secure. God, she knew how to get under my skin.
‘Anyway, don’t you worry, Clare, we won’t be offended if you feel you have to go and check them. I mean, you’ll have to, won’t you – any good mother would.’
‘And father,’ I corrected. ‘I’m sure they’ll be fine, but me and Dan will take it in turns.’ I smiled sweetly.
‘Mmm, that’s what the parents did in the article I read – but it didn’t make any difference. You can’t be there with them all the time, can you?’ she said.
‘Oh dear, I don’t think this is very appropriate conversation for the dinner table,’ Joy said assertively.
‘Hear hear, Joy, to changing the subject,’ I said, grateful for Joy stepping in. I lifted my glass, enjoying a minor moment of triumph, while hopefully concealing the fact that I was now fretting about my children sleeping upstairs.
Dan and Jamie continued their conversation about cricket, and Joy then offered to help Ella serve the main course, so I was left with Bob, who was lovely but slightly deaf and talking in some detail about the injured bird he’d rescued.
I wondered how Ella had become Joy’s favourite in such a short space of time. She’d managed what had taken me years. Then again, I still couldn’t work out if Joy really was taken in, or if she was just being nice.
After they’d been gone about ten minutes, poor Bob looked like he was about to pass out with hunger.
‘I asked if there were any nibbles to go with the pre-dinner drinks,’ he said. ‘But Ella said she’d worked very hard and wanted us to save ourselves – which is fair enough… but that starter was only a few little tomatoes.’ Always amenable and not willing to enter into confrontation, Bob had been trained by Joy not to answer back, so I assumed he’d just gone along with it, but I had to laugh when he said, ‘Good job I found my own nibbles,’ nodding his head down to his lap, revealing several digestive biscuits wrapped in his napkin.
‘Bob! I didn’t have you down as a rebel,’ I whispered.
‘I know Ella would be very cross, but it’s not the war, is it? I feel like I’m on bloody rations,’ he whispered back.
I giggled. ‘I know what you mean, Bob. I’m starving too – I won’t tell her, if you let me have one.’ I held out my hand and he smiled and handed me a precious biscuit with a sly wink.
‘Don’t you get me in trouble with Ella,’ he said quietly through crumbs.
I nodded. ‘Your secret biscuit stash is safe with me, Bob.’
‘Clare,’ he muttered, nudging me, ‘probably best not mention it to Joy either. You know how she can be.’
‘Mum’s the word.’ I smiled, just as the two other women emerged from inside carrying trays of food.
Dan poured the wine while Ella and Joy took lids off. Then Ella stood there at the head of the table and said, ‘Last week, I married my darling Jamie, but I also got an extra special gift on my wedding day, his beautiful family – the Taylors. You’ve all made me so welcome. I know I only met you all just a few days ago, but it feels much longer.’ She smiled, her eyes glistening. She looked over at Jamie, who was sitting there proudly, drinking her in, and she lifted her glass to make a toast. ‘As some of you know… I was orphaned as a child.’ She paused for effect. ‘My sister was my only family, all I had left in the world, and then… then… I lost her too. But now, now, finally, I have a family again.’ She stopped for another pause and an additional, stifled sob. ‘Here’s… to the Taylors!’ She sat down, almost collapsing onto Jamie as she did.
We all sat in silence, some of us shocked and sad I’m sure, but some of us wondering just how much of the speech, if any, was true.
Eventually, Dan broke the silence. ‘Thank you, Ella,’ he said. ‘And, as the eldest son, and therefore your big brother, I’d like to say welcome – and let’s eat now because I’m famished and Dad might collapse!’
We all laughed at this. Ella’s speech had been a surprise, and, if true, quite touching, and it needed someone to break the tension. I could relate to what she’d said. I was also without a family when I met the Taylors and I was grateful to be one of them. I raised my glass to her and she raised hers back in a rare moment of solidarity and I wondered if, another time, in another place, we might have been friends? Even though she’d seemed determined from the first moment for us to be enemies.