I stood up and walked back to my sunlounger. Dan was with the children, so I was free to do whatever I fancied, a luxury, but when almost every waking hour is filled with children or work, it’s like you forget how to relax. And given what Ella had just said, how could I ever relax again? I just sat there watching Dan and the children.
‘Violet – bring Freddie over here. I’ve got this hilarious video that will make you guys laugh,’ Ella called, and I was immediately on alert.
Dan was relieved of two of his charges as Violet dutifully carried Freddie over to where Jamie had now joined Ella and the four of them sat together laughing at something on her phone. Alfie was more interested in climbing over Dan as a launch pad in the pool, but Violet adored Auntie Ella. She drank her in and, that summer, if you’d asked Violet what she wanted to be when she grew up, I know she’d have said ‘Auntie Ella.’
A little later, when I’d put Freddie indoors for an afternoon nap, I waved to Violet getting out of the pool. She waved back and went to lie on her tummy on a nearby sunlounger with her iPad, and, looking at her, I suddenly spotted that she’d hitched up her bikini bottoms. To my horror, her buttocks were on full display and, within a few feet, was Ella, lying on her tummy, on her phone, exactly the same. This wasn’t good, my little girl was just nine years old, so I got up from where I was sitting and wandered over to Violet for a little chat.
‘Hey, sweetie, do you need some sun cream?’ I asked.
She just shook her head slightly and I realised she was pouting into the camera, obsessed with taking selfies ever since Ella had arrived.
‘Darling, wearing your bikini bottoms like that must be very uncomfortable,’ I said, sitting on the edge of her lounger.
‘No, it’s super cool,’ she answered, not looking up from her screen.
The subtle approach clearly wasn’t working, and I didn’t want to embarrass her, but worried if she thought it was okay to do it here, she might do the same at swimming lessons, or at school games. ‘Sweetie, I think it’s a little inappropriate for you to be wearing your bikini bottoms like that.’
She whipped her head round, her face completely closed, eyes like Dan’s in anger. ‘But Auntie Ella does it!’
‘Darling, Auntie Ella is a grown-up. You can wear your stuff how you like when you’re older, I just don’t think—’ But before I could finish, she’d turned back to her screen. ‘Violet, I will never force you to do anything, but I will make you aware if I think what you’re doing is wrong, might harm you or makes you look silly.’ With that, I stood up and walked away, aware of Ella following me with her eyes.
‘You okay, babe?’ she called to Violet, who just nodded without turning round.
I was angry that Ella had tried to push her way in, but that seemed to be her ‘brand’， as she would probably call it. Still, by the time I sat back down, my daughter had reverted to wearing her bikini bottoms as her mother intended.
I picked up my phone, unable to concentrate on anything, feeling the remnants of Violet’s resentment, Ella’s eyes watching me, her protective voice to Violet, calling her ‘babe’， like they were besties – and I looked up to see she was smirking at the other side of the pool.
* * *
Later that day, I was in the kitchen, making cold drinks for the children, when Ella walked in. She was wearing a small bikini. She seemed so tiny, her body childlike, apart from the full breasts I suspected might not be the ones nature gave her. She took an apple from the fruit bowl. She didn’t speak, just stood against the kitchen units, taking aggressive bites from the apple and chewing slowly. She didn’t take her eyes off me.
I just tried to pretend she wasn’t there and busied myself with the drinks.
‘Clare—’ she suddenly said, throwing the remainder of her apple at the bin, missing and just leaving it on the floor.
I looked at her and she stared back.
‘Are you going to leave that there?’ I asked, unsmiling.
‘Probably.’ A defiant teenager to me as the frazzled mother.
She wanted attention and she’d get it any way she could.
‘Clare, what is your problem with me?’
‘I don’t have a problem,’ I replied.
She sighed theatrically. ‘Yes you do. All that shit last night about the earrings, then coming over to apologise, thinking I’ll just say “it’s okay, you called me a thief, but I forgive you”。’
‘Actually, I wasn’t apologising for the accusation—’ I started, but she talked over me.