Aware of the crowds waiting expectantly for her, she pulled Almost Dan in and whispered, ‘Give me a goodbye kiss on the cheek and then you can get back on the phone.’ She was mortified but the whole show needed to look right. ‘Thanks,’ she added, barely able to look at him – what must he think?
Almost Dan gave her a peck, headed off towards a waiter distributing jelly sweets, grabbed a handful and stuffed them into his pocket. Shelly watched as he held the phone up to his ear and shouted, ‘Asia, it’s me, let’s get back to that money deal.’
She suppressed a shudder and turned to her followers.
After the selfie session, Shelly took Georgie over to where the Insta-mum squad were gathered in a roped-off area by the rose garden – their children, being fielded by a fleet of minders, grandparents and bored older siblings, were scattered nearby.
‘Shelly!’ @HolisticHazel greeted her by remaining seated on her cashmere picnic blanket and firing a couple of lacklustre air kisses at her while Polly jumped up to embrace her enthusiastically. It was a weird set-up with Hazel and Polly. They cultivated a friendship to a certain extent, tagging each other, commenting on each other’s posts and making a big show of building each other up in worthy blogposts about women helping women, but at the end of the day Shelly, Hazel and Polly were the three biggest fish in a very small pond so the undercurrent of envy and competition was never far from the surface.
Hazel was a former singer. She’d had some degree of success in the early 2000s with a single called ‘Everybody’s Gonna Party’, then she’d disappeared from view only to re-emerge ten years later on the Insta-scene, remade as a bona fide earth mother, dripping in children and extolling the virtues of very, very expensive natural hair and skin care – her own line, natch. Her beautiful home was floor-to-ceiling hessian, attractive for the ’gram but itchy as hell, Shelly thought any time she went over there.
Hazel’s online persona was one of Zen equilibrium with a great eye for a flat lay; in person she was a complete megalomaniac with an unending appetite for bitching. Polly, on the other hand, was sphinx-like with her views, never committing an opinion to the record in case she’d be held to something. She had two little boys and a devotion to crafting that was impressive or suspicious, depending on how much one really knew about the behind-the-scenes machinations of Instagram. Amy insisted there must be a sweatshop of poorly paid minions responsible for Polly’s exquisite output.
‘Great news re the impending bump! That’s going to be so good for engagement.’ Hazel smiled coolly.
‘Eh, yeah, I suppose so,’ Shelly said, trying to seem like she didn’t totally catch Hazel’s meaning.
‘Oh, come on, Shelly,’ she continued impatiently. ‘You know it! If my body wasn’t so wrecked from so many natural deliveries I’d still be at it. Financial reviews of the years I was growing my babies were just incredible. We might still do a bit of fostering – that’s a corner of the market that’s pretty untapped, though I think there’re privacy issues with those kids. Still, always ways around these things – a little tasteful pixelation, perhaps.’
‘Hazel.’ Polly looked rightly disturbed at this idea.
‘Oh, drop it, Polly. I’m just thinking out loud. Anyway, I’m so flat out with the new app it’ll be a while before we can really get back to working on the family – in development terms, I mean.’
Hazel made Amy’s shady activity seem mild in comparison. Before her sixth child was born she’d casually mentioned that she’d arranged the pregnancy so her due date would fall in summer because summer bumps ‘performed better’ on Instagram. Just then, Hazel’s summer bump, named (shock) Summer, ran past heading to the charcuterie table, leading Shelly to notice something of a stir over at the entrance.
‘What’s going on?’ Polly asked.
Hazel turned to see, looking quizzical. ‘Weird, we’re all here already.’
‘Hazel!’
‘Shut up, Polly, we were all thinking it!’
‘It’s that newbie, Ali Something – the one with the wild card for the Glossies,’ Polly murmured.
‘Ah yes, the bump rival.’ Hazel fixed her piercing green eyes on Shelly. ‘It’s going to be very hard to compete with a young, pert bump like that. You’re due around the same time, yes?’
God, she missed nothing, thought Shelly.
‘Ha, you’re too much, Hazel!’ Shelly feigned breezy. ‘I actually know Ali – she’s a great girl. She used to be in production onDurty Aul’ Town.’
‘Mm-hm.’ Hazel sounded sceptical.
‘They’re coming over …’
Shelly craned to see Ali and a tall guy wending their way through the marquee.
17
Ali was nervous at meeting the Insta-mums and parading Sam around her new Insta-life. He’d seemed a bit confused over the last few weeks whenever she’d update her Stories in front of him or get him to take a picture of her outfit.
‘You don’t really sound like the real you when you go on there,’ he’d said.
‘Yeah, well, no one’s very interested in the real anything on Instagram,’ she’d replied.
Entering the Insta-world of an event like this seemed particularly surreal with Sam in tow. There were women everywhere talking into their phones.
‘It’s just so fab to get some quality time together as a family,’ @LindasLittlePrecious shouted into her iPhone to their right while just beyond, her husband looked bored on his phone and their little girl had taken off her own soiled nappy and was hitting other children with it.
