‘Stop it,’ Dan said angrily, ‘that’s enough.’
‘But she’s fake, why can’t any of you see that? Look at this afternoon, the way she “fell” in the pool…’
Everyone was just staring at me. Ella started crying, Joy was shaking her head. Jamie was about to say something, but Ella stopped him with a touch on the arm.
‘What is wrong with you all? So she can’t swim,’ I said, gesturing towards her. ‘Big deal, but all that drama when she supposedly thought she was drowning – which, of course, she wasn’t. It was just a performance. Everything she does is a performance.’ I was looking from one to the next; no one said a word.
‘That “performance” as you call it,’ Jamie started, ‘is because Ella is petrified of water.’
‘Petrified? She doesn’t look petrified when she’s hanging around the pool in next to nothing for her Instagram snaps.’
He closed his eyes and continued to talk like I hadn’t spoken. ‘Because her sister drowned.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I felt terrible. I tried to apologise to Ella, but she had her face in Jamie’s chest sobbing and he shook his head when I touched her shoulder.
Given the story about her sister, I couldn’t redeem myself for referring to her accident in the pool as “a performance”。 There was no point in me trying to speak to her, or to tell the others I was sorry for spoiling the evening, so I just left them all standing around looking at each other. I went straight to bed and just lay there in the kids’ room staring at the ceiling. I was frustrated at not being believed, and angry with myself for even mentioning Ella’s swimming “incident”。 In my defence, I had no idea about her sister – but that’s not really a defence, I know. If Ella’s sister really had drowned then I was a dreadful person for thinking that she’d put on a performance. Yet, in spite of learning about Ella’s sister, part of me still felt uncertain. She seemed to have an ‘Ella is amazing’ story for every occasion. So why not an ‘Ella is a victim’ story for the times she needed sympathy? I didn’t know, but nothing was adding up with Ella.
She’d lived quite a life, if she was to be believed. Her Instagram logged many lovely places, five-star hotels, yachts in the South of France, fairy-tale palaces in the Middle East. She inhabited this wonderful world I could only imagine. I was fascinated, and, yes, a little dubious perhaps. But it wasn’t jealousy that caused me to doubt her, it was her – the way things didn’t add up regarding her backstory, the way she’d just ‘bumped into’ Jamie in a bar and married him weeks later – with no family present. And her Instagram was all quite beautiful – but empty. However prettily you try to dress it up – a life of beautiful interiors and avocado toast soon gets old, and the few friends she tagged were people living in other parts of the world. Which made me wonder where Ella’s real friends were, the ones from her home town. And the only sign of family was the photo she’d taken of the Taylors at dinner – which excluded me.
Eventually, I fell asleep, still tossing and turning. I felt ill at ease, like there was something malevolent here, but I couldn’t put my finger on what was bothering me. I dreamt of the woman selling the lemon granitas: she was shouting ‘pericolo’ and ‘morte’ and dragging me by the hand, pulling me away from the villa, but I was screaming for the children.
I awoke to find it was light. Violet was standing over me. ‘Mummy, are you okay?’ she asked, worriedly.
‘Sorry, darling, just a dream,’ I said, and suggested we all get up and have a swim before breakfast. The kids loved this idea.
‘I love Mummy sleeping in our bedroom,’ Alfie said, ‘it’s fun!’
‘I wish you’d stay in our bedrooms at home,’ Violet sighed. ‘It would be great and you and Daddy wouldn’t shout at each other.’
I hugged her. ‘Sorry, darling, grown-ups are a pain, aren’t they?’
‘Some are – but Ella’s not. She’s not a pain, is she, Mum? She’s super cool – and she’s a grown-up.’
This was a statement, it didn’t require an answer, so I just told them to hurry so we could be first in the pool before everyone else. We all dashed downstairs, and I herded them out into the pool area, where I was surprised to see Dan. He was sitting on a sunlounger by himself. The kids all greeted him with delight, and he reciprocated but didn’t look at me.