The Sister-In-Law(36)

Our time together now was precious. I had to go straight back to work when we returned home, so I had to make the most of this. I’d allowed Ella to get inside my head. The earring theft, the lies, the vicious personal remarks, her whole bloody presence had taken up far too much of my energy and attention. But now the sun was shining, I could feel the warmth on my back, and the still blue pool rippled only by the children splashing, the flamingo bobbing, and this was all that mattered.

Eventually, Dan and Ella returned from washing up. She appeared by the side of the pool, all smiles, with a tray of orange juice in paper cups. ‘Guys, guys, come and get it!’ she called, and the children scrambled out of the water for a drink.

‘Your husband is great around the house, isn’t he?’ Ella said, as I climbed out of the pool and she handed me a cup of juice.

‘Mmmm. He was probably on his best behaviour for you,’ I said.

‘Oh, he was,’ she smiled, ‘it was quite the performance.’ She winked at him and I smiled awkwardly and sipped my juice. Was she trying to make me question what exactly had happened during the washing up, or was it just an innocent jokey remark, one sister-in-law to the other? I didn’t know, because I still didn’t know the real Ella, I wasn’t sure any of us did.

I moved away, putting some distance between us and, while she played Domestic Goddess with her tray of drinks, I picked up my phone and scrolled through my photos. I had already taken some lovely ones of the kids and while looking at the blue sky, blue water shots I came across one from before our holiday. It was a lovely photo of me with a patient I’d known a while, Mrs Marsden. She had terminal cancer, and in the few months she’d been coming for treatment, I’d got to know her well. But as I’d left to go on holiday, she was about to be moved to a hospice. ‘Have a wonderful holiday,’ she’d said. ‘My husband and I often holidayed in Italy. We loved Gianduia; it’s this chocolate hazelnut spread – like Nutella, but a million times better. That’s what’s sad about knowing you’re going to die, there are things I’ll never see, never taste again. Oh what I would give,’ she’d sighed. ‘I’d eat it straight from the jar, with a big spoon!’ She’d laughed. When we said our final goodbyes, I said, ‘Hang on in there, and I’ll bring you some of that chocolate spread back – with a big spoon of course!’ So I was determined to track it down and take it back for her. I googled the stuff, and found a shop in a nearby town that looked like it’d be likely to have it in stock. I thought about Mrs Marsden, the busy life she’d lead, the way she’d loved her husband, was proud of her kids and I hoped she was still there when I got home. But even thinking about Mrs Marsden didn’t distract me for long, and I was soon back on Ella’s Instagram. It was like a compulsion.

What was I looking for? Ella was hardly going to post anything that gave her away. In fact, it was impossible to see who she really was in the photoshopped selfies, the choreographed sunsets, the close-up bikini shots. I needed to see the real Ella when she thought no one was looking; there’d been glimpses but nothing I could hold on to. I kept on clicking through her impossibly perfect photos until I couldn’t bear to look any more.

I told Dan I was going for a shower and to watch the kids. I headed inside and, once upstairs, I checked through the landing window that they were all still in and around the pool, and when I was sure, I went into Jamie and Ella’s room. It hadn’t been vacated long by us, they’d only moved in that morning but I wanted to see her stuff, see if there were any clues about her – and, most importantly, any sign of Joy’s earrings.

Just walking back into that gorgeous room filled me with sadness all over again. I’d had such high hopes for this holiday and it started with the lovely bedroom, and Dan and I rediscovering each other on that first night. For the first time in weeks I’d felt like we really had a chance, and I’d been right to have faith in Dan, and we still had a connection, something to build on. But it was tenuous, so fragile, and being in this sanctuary could have made the difference, it was our chance to be alone, in a new environment, and make a fresh start.

The bedroom I’d first shared with Dan, looked like a completely different room now Ella and Jamie inhabited it. The bed was unmade, a pot of face cream was open on the dressing table, where a powder explosion covered everything like dust. Ella’s clothes lay in pools of fabric on the floor, even her worn underwear abandoned in tiny tangles. There was a half-drunk glass of wine on what had to be her bedside table, where coffee-cup stains had already made circles on the white wooden surface. Jamie’s side of the bed was neat and tidy.

As I picked my way across the room, I was struck by how far away this was from Ella’s perfectly set-up Instagram pics of folded towels piled in shades, dainty sets of lingerie hung on beautiful hangers on the doors of the old Italian wardrobes like paintings. Not to mention the carefully chosen book in the carefully chosen shade on the bedside table, which was now lying on the floor, disposable and ‘sooo yesterday’. And standing there surrounded by Ella’s discarded stuff, I realised it didn’t tie in with the image she was presenting to us, and the rest of the world. I couldn’t help but think that if she treated people the way she treated things, we should be worried. But who was the real Ella – and did I really want to meet her? I felt a shiver run up my spine.