was saying how she’d come
to the group cos of your
Insta. Lorna got right on one.
About how it was her that
started the group and
now she couldn’t even go.
Erin
The church group?
Wasn’t it Jesus’s idea?
Caz
She did start it though. Year or so
before you moved down. There was
nothing for mums going on so she
set it up.
Erin
Not exactly
Glastonbury though.
Caz
She was saying how her and
most of the local mums have stopped
going because it’s become, her words,
a ‘trendy love-in’.
Erin
What is her problem?
Caz
The group is pretty rammed
but it’s not exactly your fault.
Erin
It’s got nothing to do with me.
Caz
I don’t know. She was
properly pissy about it.
Erin
WTAF
Caz
Small town, small mind.
Erin
She was there, nearby, when the
the video of me shaking the buggy
was taken.
Caz
Really?
Erin
Saw her pushing the twins and Clara. They were going in the opposite direction, but still.
Caz
Reckon it’s her?
Erin
I didn’t. But I also didn’t think I’d hijacked her precious baby group. Think she’s capable of something like that?
Caz
She was raging the other day but,
I don’t know, seems a bit full-on.
There been any follow-up from
your agent?
Erin
She says it’s not worth getting worried about.
Caz
But are you worried?
Erin
It’s harmless.
Caz
A lot of weird comments on
your feed atm.
Erin
Welcome to the Internet Cazabelle.
Caz
What’s Raf said?
Erin
Um …
Caz
You didn’t tell him?
Erin
He’d do his protective bit if he knew someone had filmed me. Not worth getting him het up over nothing.
Caz
Think it is nothing?
Erin
Not been anything else. It’s just some lonely dickhead with an axe to grind.
Caz
Let you know if I hear Lorna
slagging you further. It’d be mad
if it was her but you never know.
Erin
Yeh, do. Got a call in ten.
Mañana chica.
25
Erin pushes the Bugaboo up the hill, her back almost parallel to the ground as its wheels rumble over the cobbles. Bobby stares up at her, unimpressed. He’s tired but also, perhaps, wired as she probably gave him too many titbits of pastry in order to quieten him down in the twenty minutes before she made her escape from the ‘mum-summit’ at the brasserie at the end of the harbour they were just at. She’s not sure he’s going to sleep and she gets the drop-in-altitude feeling at the thought of him screaming for the whole walk home. But at the moment he’s quiet, looking angelic in the winter sun, and as she gets to the high street, she gets her phone out to treat herself to a quick flick on Instagram.
She swiftly imbibes the thirty-seven new followers she’s got since she last looked – she was careful not to check it at the brasserie, hyper-aware of the eyes of the room on her – then ignores the 186 notifications she has and searches for Sophie Delauney’s handle. Erin had gone to the summit expecting to see Sophie and her scenester posse because their friend Aleya had organised the event, but they weren’t there. Erin’s not exactly friends with them but they mostly discuss TV shows and films they’ve seen, what gigs are coming to town and the best new music, obviously, which makes them far more appealing to spend time with than the normal diatribe of nap times, nipples and weaning advice that underscores most mum-group interactions.
Lorna Morgan was at the summit, however. Erin didn’t talk to her but she was constantly aware of her buzzing around at the far side of the room. Erin caught her glaring at her at one point. It seems absurd that she’d be the one that filmed her shouting at Bobby but she has always seemed like someone who carries a heavy sack of grudges with her wherever she goes, so Erin shouldn’t discount it.
She finds @sophdelano and clicks onto her ‘stories’. Her tattooed music producer boyfriend doing up her kitchen, her cat swiping at their huge TV, and finally a picture of a very beautifully rendered latte and something samosa-like next to it. Erin turns her buggy off the high street and towards the car park that sits behind it. She knows the cafe Sophie’s in, if she’s still there. Erin went to sleep late last night trying to keep up with the daily deluge of messages she’s had since her speech at Claridge’s went faintly viral, so she could do with a coffee. Then she could breastfeed Bobby to sleep, put him straight in the buggy and avoid the napping battle on the way home. It’s a great plan.
She crosses through the car park and over the threshold into the courtyard of the Beets and Peaches Cafe and it’s like crossing over into a different country. Tropical-looking trees hung with Chinese lanterns, lizard-motif murals on the wall next to an outside toilet, metal tables in vivid yellow and pink. She hears laughter inside, and Bobby seems to snap to attention. He begins to struggle against his constraints, bouncing up and down in his seat like he was on a horse. She walks into the cafe and hears Sophie Delauney’s elfin voice. Erin sees her sat on the other side of a free-standing bookshelf that’s filled with succulents in wonky-looking pots, the people she’s with laugh again. Erin pushes the buggy towards the shelf when a voice stops her.
‘I think it’s really damaging,’ the Australian accent says. It’s Amanda. Bobby wriggles in his buggy again. Erin glances past the plants in the bookshelf and makes out Sophie’s acolytes Mercedes and Kristina sitting opposite Sophie and Amanda, who she’s obscured from seeing by a column of doorstop fashion books.
‘Instagram specifically?’ Kristina asks.
‘All of it. In ten, maybe even five years, I think doctors will be talking about it like they did about smoking. The pressure to look perfect, have the perfect stuff, the perfect life. And it’s so addictive, way more than any drug.’
‘I’m totally addicted,’ Kristina chips in.
‘I try not to look at it at weekends, but it’s hard,’ says Sophie.
‘Is she on it all the time?’ Mercedes asks Amanda and Erin feels her hands grip on the handle of the buggy. She’s paused here, hiding behind some cactuses, earwigging in on their conversation because she somehow knows that she’s been the subject of this conversation. She considers bursting round the corner to interrupt but she wants to hear Amanda’s response.
‘She seems so stressed by it all. I want to take her phone off her and just be like “look at the sky, play with your son, talk to your husband”, you know? She’s so, so lovely, but she’s completely in its thrall.’ Erin swallows a boulder-sized lump in her throat.
Bobby wrenches his whole body towards where the women are sitting, almost sliding out of the seat. He squawks at still being constrained and Erin hears the women clear their throats and shuffle in their seat when they realise someone’s next to them. Erin pushes the buggy away from them, up towards the counter.
‘Erin!’ Amanda’s voice, elated, betraying nothing of what she’s just been saying about her. Erin turns to see her with Sophie’s boy Able in her arms and Sophie, Mercedes and Kristina, lounged over oriental scatter cushions on a pair of sofas, assorted kids ambling around t
he table. The floor’s littered with wooden blocks, the table with coffee cups, a board of hummus and pakoras along with three brown, what look like, medicine bottles.
Bobby squawks like a furious seagull so Erin lifts him up out of the buggy. He throws his fist towards Able in Amanda’s arms and begins to flip around on Erin’s chest like a fish on the floor of a boat.
‘Someone’s amped to see you, Mand,’ Sophie says. Amanda hands Able back to his mother and Erin, flustered, finds herself depositing Bobby into Amanda’s open arms. Her baby nestles his head in the nook between Amanda’s head and shoulder. She turns to Sophie and her friends, scrunches her face up in that way she does to indicate something along the lines of isn’t he a darling. Mercedes catches Erin’s eye, a hint of furtiveness gives away some sense of concern at her having heard some of their conversation. Amanda sniffs theatrically towards Bobby.
‘Ooo, stinky-dinky bum. Shall I go change him?’ Erin nods, still not quite sure what’s going on here. Amanda fishes into a black patent leather bag, Sophie’s, Erin thinks, for a nappy and wipes and sweeps past towards the outdoor toilet. Why was Bobby so desperate to see her? He’d practically punched Erin in the face to try and get into Amanda’s arms. Sophie and her perfect spherical pregnant belly stand up and beckon her to come and join them.
‘Didn’t know you were around, love,’ Sophie says, pincering Erin’s shoulder as she sits down on the seat where Amanda was. ‘Has Manda got you on any of these?’ Sophie leans over to one of the bottles. Erin shakes her head, looks towards where Amanda’s gone off with Bobby.
‘What is it?’
‘Verbena, fennel, a load of flower oils.’ She takes the lid off and offers a sniff to Erin. It smells like sambuca. ‘I told her I was feeling anxious the other day so she made me this up. So sweet. I’ve been looking for a good herbalist for ages.’
‘That’s what you’re all doing here?’
‘What?’
‘Is she giving you –’ Erin searches for the word – ‘a herbal thing, a consultation?’ Sophie looks over to Kristina whose baby is now attached to a surprisingly large boob. Erin has only ever seen her in workwear, boiler suits and the like, and now struggles to return her attention to Sophie.
‘We were just having a morning hang. Amanda brought us all something –’ she indicates to the bottles – ‘just for things we’d spoken about.’
‘Mine’s for my back,’ Kristina adds. ‘Don’t know what it’s got in it but it’s funky as fuck. Think it’s got booze in it too because I’m feeling a’ight.’ The girls laugh.
‘She’s lent me this bracelet –’ Mercedes waves her wrist showing off a chunky band made of gemstones – ‘and sent me a link to this great website. Sustainably sourced, verified healing crystals, quite reasonably priced too.’
‘I didn’t know you knew each other?’ Erin says, trying to seem as enthusiastic as they are about healing crystals and herbal tinctures.
‘We’ve been doing Pilates – she came out to Phoenix Wines the other night.’
‘She’s tried to recruit us for yoga on the beach,’ Mercedes adds, her plummy voice and blackberry-stain lips always making her seem a bit drunk. ‘But I’m not fucking touching that till the spring.’ The other women laugh again. Erin absent-mindedly picks up a pakora and pops it in her mouth. It tastes like a salsa verde bath-bomb. She looks up at the cafe’s decor, prints by local artists, posters of French films, a palm-tree-themed wallpaper, the furniture either upcycled or intended to look like it’s been.
‘And, shit, actually, God.’ Sophie prods her lip-ring with her tongue. She has a pixie cut that she’s recently dyed rose gold. It looks great. ‘I should have checked it was OK with you, I only just asked her.’ What now? Erin thinks. She feels entirely discombobulated by this little gathering. She’s just spent the last hour and a half at a dated restaurant soaking up the earnest acclaim of a bunch of strangers, but there was a whole other party going on, the one where the cooler mums were discussing herbal remedies and reminiscing about nights out at wine bars she didn’t even know had happened. ‘I’ve asked Amanda to be my doula. Is that OK?’
‘I thought you were due in April?’
‘End of March. Did you need her for something then?’
‘Um, no. No.’
‘She’s just so great. How she is with Bobby? Must be heaven having her at home. And, I don’t know if you get the same, but I feel like I relax, like my whole body just relaxes, being around her. Able’s birth was so traumatic. I think it could make all the difference having her to help.’
‘Yeh,’ Mercedes says as if Sophie’s just revealed a unique insight, ‘I totally get what you mean.’
‘But –’ Sophie turns to Erin – ‘only if it’s cool with you.’
‘Yeh, course, I’m not her boss,’ Erin says, laughing nervously. It’s the beginning of February. The end of March is nearly two months away. Amanda said she was stopping off with them before going on some travels around Europe. Erin hadn’t really thought about it because having her around seemed so fortuitous, but surely she was only planning on staying for a couple of weeks. But now she’s making plans, concrete plans, the sort that aren’t easy to disregard, to stay for another two months. And if she were to stay, how much of a commitment is being someone’s doula? Would she still be able to help with Bobby? Is she starting a business teaching yoga, selling herb tinctures to people? Erin feels hot, feverish almost, thoughts tripping, barrelling over each other in her head. She needs to tell Raf. They need to have a discussion. They need to get some kind of clarity on this whole situation immediately.
‘Oh my God, look at this. Look at this, everyone.’ Amanda rushes back into the room from the toilet. Bobby in her arms, his lower half in nappy only. ‘Look!’ They all look, Erin almost lifting out of her seat as Amanda stations herself and Bobby in profile like they’re about to do a skit together. Then she roars into the little boy’s face, not like a lion or a dinosaur but more some strange monster, contorting her face as she does it. Then Bobby does something extraordinary. His face widens into a grin and he laughs. A sucking-in laugh, like a cackling witch, but a laugh nonetheless.
The girls start clapping, someone whoops, like it’s the end of a concert. They all look at Erin, excited, delighted. Sophie puts an arm around her. Erin’s posted so many times about how, no matter what she does, she can’t get little Bobby to smile and how she’s trying not to let it deflate her high spirits, so they all know how big a moment this is for her. Amanda glances round at everyone, a bemused Bobby following suit, the hint of happiness glowing still in his shining round face. Amanda fixes Erin with a look, widens her eyes, gives that shrug, an almost imperceptible raising of her eyebrow. Is she checking Erin’s pleased, pleased enough that her grumpy little boy is finally smiling? Or is it something else, is there a hint of smugness, a touch of triumph? Amanda breaks her look and grabs Bobby into her, smothers his neck with kisses and sits down opposite Erin.
‘Good boy,’ Amanda says, ‘clever boy.’
26
‘Roaharrrr.’ Erin finds a guttural sound from deep within her stomach, hands in claw-like pincers in front of Bobby sat in his high chair. He stares up at her like a withering talent-show judge, not the slightest hint of a smile. ‘Fuck’s sake.’
‘Ez,’ Raf reprimands her, leaned in the crook of their horseshoe kitchen cabinets.
‘I don’t get it. What she did wasn’t even very good.’
‘He’s probably not in the mood. I’m not exactly Mr Chuckles when bedtime’s round the corner.’ Erin walks behind Bobby’s high chair, to the other side of the living room, then turns and creeps back towards him. She can feel Raf’s concerned eyes on her. She’s been trying to make Bobby smile for the last ten minutes, trying to show Raf what she saw in the cafe, trying to show him that it wasn’t Amanda that made Bobby smile, but that she just happened to be the person in the right place at the right time.
‘Raaaaaaa!’ Erin shouts into Bobby’s ear, pincering his
little shoulders, trying to surprise him. He tenses under her grip, eyes close, face wrinkles like an old peach and it looks like he might be about to cry. Erin steps back, practises a different monster face, puts her arms wider, preparing a different approach. Three years of drama school, she thinks to herself, I can be a much better monster than Amanda. She looks up to see Raf, piercing her with a side-eye like she’s lost her mind as he lifts Bobby out of the high chair, back towards the low kitchen lights and into the safety of his arms.
‘You didn’t know?’
‘You said Sophie only asked her to do it this morning. How would I know?’
Erin’s in their bedroom going through a box of #gifted breathable athleisure that arrived this morning. She catches her reflection in the window. She looks wide. She knows she’s not fat but she’s never thought she was wide before. Perhaps she should take this unexpected delivery as a spur to start running. She could document herself doing ‘couch to 5K’, she thinks – that would be super accessible for her followers.
‘How long did you think she was staying?’ she says to Raf, who’s crouched down on the floor with Bobby who’s rolling around on a large bath towel naked, having some ‘nappy-off time’, reaching into the air and staring at a revolving light that puts stars and planets on the ceiling.
‘Don’t know.’
‘What did she say? I was at the no phones thing when she first got here. What did she actually say about how long she’d be here?’ She stretches a boob tube out. It’s far too small so she tosses it into a pile on the bed.
‘She didn’t,’ Raf says, keeping his voice low. ‘I guess I thought she’d be here a couple of weeks.’
‘Exactly, not three months.’
‘She’s only in the kitchen,’ he says in a stage whisper.
‘Are you going to talk to her?’
‘Er, yeh, sure.’
‘You know she’s giving out herbal remedies to people. People she barely knows. Sophie was all “I’ve been looking for a herbalist. Don’t let her leave.”’
‘Right,’ Raf says. ‘Can you?’ He indicates to a squirming Bobby who he’s struggling to hold in place while he tries to put a nappy on him. Erin grabs a smartphone running case from among the new delivery and gives it to Bobby to distract him. She holds him in place while Raf secures the nappy and rubs moisturiser into his plump little belly. She feels the rolls around her baby’s elbows under her fingers and swells with affection. His eyes, so similar to Raf’s, are locked on to his dad even as his mouth and hands attempt to fit more of the Velcro strap into his mouth. Raf picks him up and wriggles him into his pyjama bottoms over on the bed.
The Family Friend Page 11
