21
Erin stands swaying on the decking outside what’s become Amanda’s lodgings. The blinds are up but there’s no sign of movement. Most of the front of the building is glass, revealing a sofa bed, small table and chairs, and a wood burner in the corner. There’s wood panelling on either side of the frontage that conceals a kitchenette on one side and a small shower room and toilet on the other. Everything visible has been kept very tidy. Amanda has accessorised the gunmetal-grey sofa with a colourful scarf, her backpack is propped next to the thin wardrobe, a yoga mat leans against the back wall, but otherwise it could be unoccupied.
She comes round to the front of the studio and presses her palm on the cold glass of the door, condensation marks spreading out from her fingers. The morning is cloudless but cold. She looks down at Bobby sleeping in the sling, its strap leaving a beaded indentation on his delicate little forehead. It’s been two days since she found him and Amanda in the nursery. She hasn’t left him with her since and the incident hasn’t been discussed. But it’s had an effect on her. Although there’s been a staggering amount of engagement with her feed since clips of her speech at Claridge’s have been shared online, she’s made an effort to leave her phone upstairs while she’s with Bobby in the day. It’s been hard, she’s felt like she’s been blinking twice as much as before as her thoughts strum around about what she might be missing on there, but it’s made a difference. She’s found herself getting more engaged in creating little games with Bobby on the rug of their living room, playing simplified versions of theatre games and inventing distinctly accented characters in his animal-infested board books.
Amanda’s not been popping her head in as much as she was before either. She spent yesterday morning with some acupuncturist she met, and Erin hasn’t seen her this morning. Perhaps it’s her acknowledgement that, although Erin had asked her to help with Bobby, she had overstepped the mark a little. But Erin’s missing their little chats, Amanda asking about people she had met in town, telling Erin about the history of some natural beauty she’d visited or trying to educate her about a new holistic practice that Erin would almost certainly never try. Amanda not being around as much has also made Erin wonder about how she’ll manage when she goes. Grace is finalising negotiations on a contract for a brand ambassadorship that would involve going to London at least once a fortnight and probably far more, and even if she can convince Raf to put Bobby in childcare, it’s not something that can just happen overnight. There are settling-in sessions and she knows people whose babies have basically been rejected because they’ve screamed from the moment they were dropped off. Erin’s fairly sure Bobby would be such a baby.
She finds herself trying the handle of the glazed door of the studio, telling herself that she’s just checking everything’s OK with it for Amanda, as she walks in. But the smell that hits her is so overpowering she thinks it might wake Bobby so she nearly turns round and goes straight back out the door. It’s herby, a bit like weed but not quite as acrid. There’s notes of a pizzeria, basil, which she’s always thought tastes like the smell of fresh-cut grass. On the shelf above the one-burner hob there’s a line of small hessian sacks, with various types of dried herbs and spices poking out of the opening at the top of them. Erin wanders over to the kitchenette and studies the labels. The names are like something from Game of Thrones. Ginkgo Biloba, Feverfew, Belladonna, Digitalis, Verbena, and then ones she’s heard of, Camomile, Echinacea, Eucalyptus, Elderberry. The colours are tantalising and she has a desire to sniff them but, knowing she’d probably manage to spill something all over Bobby’s head, thinks better of it.
She opens a cupboard and sees a blue Post-it stuck to the bottom corner of the inside of the door. ‘SONNET 116’ it says in black biro capitals. Erin had to learn some of Shakespeare’s sonnets for their voice classes at drama school but she can never remember which one’s which.
As she turns away from the kitchenette, Erin notices that Amanda’s arranged a collection of her crystals in a pattern on the table. There’s a circle of them intersected by lines of little rocks that lead to a tiny obelisk-like murky grey crystal in the middle, a little larger than the others. There are pale pink stones, the same as the crystal Amanda gave her, but also a brighter pink with lines of white within it, and then some translucent deep red, highly polished stones, like rubies. The whole arrangement is bordered by a square of peach-coloured rose petals with a plain white candle at one corner. Erin’s read that crystals are a big wellness trend at the moment.
She picks up a small pebble from the corner opposite the candle, careful to clock where to replace it. She rubs her thumb over the roughness on one side of it. What ‘energy’, she wonders, does this perfect little pattern indicate? Calm perhaps. Are these the secret to Amanda’s effortless tranquillity?
She seems so content with everything. Like every leaf on every tree is the most wonderful thing in the world. It might be she’s had a lot of therapy, Erin thinks, her brother had an old girlfriend who was similar. Very level. Very calm. Every word measured. Erin later found out it was down to years of therapy when she was a teenager. The cadence of Amanda is similar. She seems so joyful. Perhaps, Erin thinks, she sees herself like the bus in Speed, that if she ever showed anything negative, she might explode.
Erin skips past the window and into the bathroom. The studio was a fairly new addition to the house put in by the previous owners so the room has the grey slate finish and gleaming dark tiles that Erin’s seen on various home improvement shows, but the room’s tiny. A box of a shower, toilet, small corner sink with a bathroom cabinet above it and barely space for an adult to be able to access any of them. On the ledge above the sink stands a large muddy-green wedge of soap, the sort with chunks of bark in it that you might get from one of those shops that smell so pungent that the staff must be nursing a constant headache. She looks down at a bamboo cup at the back of the sink. A wooden-handled toothbrush, accompanied by a tube of some toothpaste brand she doesn’t recognise, but there’s something else in the cup. She plucks it out by the handle, it’s a small screwdriver. She tries to find what Amanda has been fixing in the bathroom, but she can’t see anything. She replaces the screwdriver and tries to reposition it exactly where she found it.
She opens the door of the cabinet and reveals a line of tiny glass bottles containing different coloured liquids and covered in Chinese symbols. She picks out a luminous pink one. On the back there’s a picture of a droplet going into an eye. She closes the cabinet, being careful not to clatter it into Bobby in the cramped room, and looks at her bloodshot eyes in the mirror. She leans her head back and shakes a drop into each of them before she has time to think about whether it’s a wise move. It stings but once she’s blinked away the remains of whatever’s in the bottle, and she’s regained her ability to focus, the woman gazing back at her looks quite different. The red tributaries in the whites of her eyes have disappeared and her pupils have dilated to such an extent that the ring of pond-green iris that encircles the huge black dot in the middle of each eyeball is barely visible.
She stands in the doorway, blinking at the buzzing feeling in her eyes. When she opens them again she notices something catching the light underneath the sofa bed. She moves over to the middle of the room and bends down as much as she can while still keeping Bobby upright. She sees what looks like an oversized jar of pickles nestling in the darkness in the gap where the mattress folds in on itself. She gets her phone out and shines a light onto the jar and sees something that makes her stumble back and nearly drop her phone. Two black, lifeless eyes were staring back at her from inside the container. Bobby rouses slightly with the jolt of her movements. Her breathing’s spiked and she has to get it under control as she shhes him back to calm. She goes back to the sofa, one knee on the floor, desperate not to bend Bobby’s body, but needing to see what it was looking at her from inside a pickling jar. She manages to get in a position, shoulder resting against the wall, to pull the jar towards her.
T
he sound of the rattle of metal, the lock on the back gate, makes her jump and she bangs her elbow on a sharp corner of the sofa bed, swearing under her breath at the pain. She glances at the contents of the jar quickly. A small doll, naked, head and legs plastic, body made of flesh-coloured fabric. Some rusty nails. What looks like mud. Dots of red – chilli flakes? She hears steps on the wooden patio of the studio and pushes herself up the wall to stand. She sees Amanda’s arm reach towards the door and kicks the jar back under the sofa as far as she can without disturbing Bobby.
Amanda’s in the open doorway. She wrinkles her brow slightly at seeing Erin and Bobby in her room. She’s wearing a chunky cardigan over a peach dress, her hair in a huge braid wrapped around her head like a crown, and she carries a bucket of some sort of green sludge.
Erin opens her mouth, making a show of being about to speak, about to make her excuses, and then she points down at Bobby, puts the side of her face in her palm to indicate that he’s sleeping. Amanda’s face creases into a loving smile – that’s sweet.
‘You OK?’ Erin mouths. Amanda nods, cocks her head to the side, admiring the picture of mother and baby. It’s Erin’s property but she feels as if she’s been caught out in the studio and is suddenly aware of her huge pupils and what she must look like. Amanda uses the drops, Erin just clocks. Perhaps that’s why she always looks so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Maybe she’s always on Chinese uppers. Erin points to the garden, making a gesture that says, I’ll get out of your way.
Amanda stares at her, her eyes blank like the doll she keeps in a jar. What the hell is she doing with a doll in a jar? Erin thinks. Is she into voodoo as well as crystals? Something to do with the boyfriend back in Oz? As she passes, Amanda leans towards Erin to say something. She smells like Earl Grey tea.
‘Sea lettuce,’ she whispers, indicating the bucket of sludge. ‘Clears heat from the liver. Super important in terms of general balance.’
‘Be nice in an omelette,’ Erin whispers back, making a mock-disgusted face and tries to go, sure that Bobby’s going to wake if they keep talking. Amanda grabs her just above her elbow, a touch firmer than the feather touches of tactility she’s employed with Erin since the moment they first met.
‘Perhaps I can make you a tincture, be wonderful for you to get everything in balance.’ She releases her grip and strokes Erin’s upper arm. It sends a shock of electricity up Erin’s neck. She swallows, a little disquieted. Amanda blows Bobby’s hair and walks past her and into the bathroom.
Erin wanders back towards the house. She glances down at her arm. A band of red remains where Amanda’s fingers were.
22
22 January 1999
I have to make a choice.
I found Mum in my room again. Snooping. She’s trying to find this journal. I’ve kept one since I was 11 and even though I told her I’d stopped, she knows I’m lying. But she’ll never think to look behind the extractor fan in my toilet. I’m not sure if she knows I can use a screwdriver. She might find out I can if I find her in my room again.
Last week she found one of Donny’s Post-its wedged into the pocket-inside-a-pocket of my jeans. It was a sketch of one of his skeleton goddesses. I’d had some trouble from one of the footie boys that morning and he’d given it to me to remind me how powerful I was. He often calls me his goddess. I’m no good at drawing so Mum knew instinctively it must have been from the person I’ve been seeing.
She’s desperate to find out who I’ve spent all of this summer vacation with. I felt bad to begin with, watching her and Craig losing their tiny little minds over where I’d been, who the mystery boy, they’ve assumed it’s a boy, is. But then I discovered Craig’s been getting people to spy on me throughout Palmerston and has even tried to follow me out to the plantation house. So I don’t feel too bad about our secret now.
She’s tried to ground me, like we’re characters in a high school movie, but she’s working during the day so I’ve just not been coming home until late at night, sometimes not at all. She’s threatened all sorts of punishment, but I don’t have pocket money, I don’t watch TV, she doesn’t know where I keep my books. She’s powerless.
The irony is that this is the most attention I’ve had from her for years. I know it’s not been easy since Dad left. But she hasn’t needed to go to the pub every Friday and Saturday since I was nine – ever since she’s deemed me young enough to be left by myself. She’s not needed to tell me to make myself scarce the evenings Craig’s poker mates come round or she and him need to have their ‘date nights’, which I know consist of them drinking three bottles of wine and largely failing to have sex. I’ve seen it from the gallery at the top of the stairs. It’s funny, before I met Donny, that’s what I thought grown-up love was.
Craig I feel more worried about. He’s always done the territorial, alpha male of the house act when it comes to me, but it’s getting out of control. He keeps talking about what it’s like for him as my dad even though he isn’t my dad. He’s come into my bedroom, sat on the end of my bed, tried to tell me that teenage boys only want sex and even then they don’t know what they’re doing. That they don’t appreciate how special I am. He got almost emotional the other day when he asked if I wanted to go for a walk with him and I said no.
I feel so blessed that Donny found me. We did alloys at the end of last term, in chemistry class, and that’s what it feels like we have. Two elements reacting together to make something new, our spirits fusing into one entity making our bodies, our minds, our souls stronger. I feel three times the person with him as when we’re apart.
He’s worried though. I can tell. Every time I tell him about what Mum’s been doing he clams up and stops talking to me. When I’ve pressed him he says it’s because he’s scared of losing me. He’s convinced someone will find out and that once that happens, they won’t let us be together.
He’s not going back to school. He says he can’t, not now. He’s going to Darwin, he has money for somewhere to live. There’s a gallery owner who’s taken an interest in his work. He says I could find a job. Mum will disown me if I go. Craig, who knows what he might do, but I know he’d see it as me betraying him, he’d be jealous, he’d poison Mum against me. I know it would be irreversible.
But Donny needs me to go with him. He says that without me, he isn’t an artist any more, he’s barely human. He needs me. I wish I had the words to describe how extraordinary that feels.
I have to choose. But there’s no choice. There’s no question. This is the beginning of a life I never thought I could have. This is the beginning of something magical. I never dared to believe in fairy tales before, but now I know they can come true.
23
BRAUNEoverBRAINS
414 posts 54.3k followers 1,638 following
ERIN BRAUNE
This is my Zen poncho. Because I’m the new face of worldwide Zen.
DEEEELIGHTED to announce that I will now be the online, and occasional physical, ambassador for Phibe Digital, home of the incredible PieceOFMind mindfulness app. They’re working on a new social networking app specifically designed for mums on maternity leave, providing a one-stop shop for information and booking for baby groups, support groups, mindfulness and just general ‘dating’ for mums who are trying to stay sane while bringing up their lovely human. AND THEY WANT MY ADVICE ON IT. SO. Please DM me, comment, anything that you’d like to see and I will act as a conduit for all your amazing ideas and suggestions. The girls at Phibe – YES THEY’RE GIRLS – and I want to give every new mum, whether they’re struggling with their new baby or loving every second, a support network living in their pockets. Cos without all the love I’ve had from you guys, I might not have been able to get out of bed, let alone be standing in the sunshine, baby asleep in the buggy, listening to the Fearne podcast, absolutely loving my life. Huge props to @gracefentiman for getting me and @phibedigital together. I can’t wait to get cracking @lydiamanuel
@alicetrenchard
@lydianmanuel YAY. We c
an’t wait to get you back in the office, Erin. Super excited about future plans.
@andywesto this is awesome awesome awesome stuff. What an amazing resource for new parents. (Stay-at-home dads allowed on it too right? LOL)
@lydiamanuel 100 andy. We love anyone that’s staying-at-home-to-look-after-bubbas.
@annamaitron HOLY GUACAMOLE. This is going to be huge. I’m sure @phibedigital have it covered, but I will happily invest 20–75 English pounds in this app. What’s that in stock options @BRAUNEoverBRAINS?
@crowleypoly Q: She’s amazing. How does she do it? A: She doesn’t.
24
Caz
Congratulations pal.
Erin
Ta babe. Excited.
Caz
Frappuccinos are on you then?
Erin
Whenever the contract’s signed,
for shizzle! How was Friday group?
Caz
Mega. Amanda was there with B-man.
Had a chat. She was wearing a
full-length lace number.
Miss Havisham vibes.
Erin
Harsh!
Caz
Lorna was there,
first time in ages.
Erin
I missed her. WHAT a shame.
Caz
In full shite-chatting
flow too. Some newbie
The Family Friend Page 10
