The Family Friend

by C. C. MacDonald

  ‘Not even tempted then?’ Caz says down from where she is.

  ‘Nope,’ Erin says with a definitive shake of the head.

  ‘Most people probably have some awful reason they got their big break. You deserve something good to come out of it. Now, tap the top, Bobby-boy, that’s right, tap, tap, tap.’

  Erin squirts some water from her bottle onto the pile of dry soil Imogen’s got her hands in and she giggles with the mess. Erin’s just been telling Caz about the swathe of offers to audition her old acting agent’s had since the news broke. Nothing brilliant, a couple of fringe plays, a Shakespeare in Leeds, Hollyoaks, an American network sitcom. It seems so bizarre that people are suddenly interested in her from that point of view but she knows the producers are all thinking of the PR angle. Everyone wants to be seen as the person that gave a traumatised former actor her restart and they’ll be thinking how journalists will lap up the chance to rake over the sordid details of her and her late fiancé’s relationship. Grace’s been in touch as well. A production company are pitching a true-crime documentary about the whole thing, but Erin shut it down, cited the fact that she wanted to move on. She does. They all deserve to move on.

  ‘That ship’s sailed I think, Cazabelle, and it’s for the best.’ Bobby toddles over to his mother, covered head to toe in mud, and hugs at her trouser leg. She bends down and he leaps into her arms getting dirt all over her #gifted couture dungarees and she couldn’t care less. ‘I’m happy where I am,’ she says and she means it. Now Bobby’s a bit older, his tummy’s not causing him any problems and the screaming has stopped. The couple of months she spent with just Bobby and her mum, trapped in the house while the story about Raf blew over, had been some of her happiest since she was a kid. For Erin and her mum, the feeling of them against a cruel world, the permission to mother and be mothered, erased the guilt and blame they’d felt towards each other, rebuilding their relationship organically; but, more than that, coming back to each other as adults, they’ve discovered a friendship that had never been there before. Her mum’s currently looking at houses, planning on moving down to be near her daughter and grandson. And with Bobby, that time cemented the kind of bond, the kind of intense love and dependency on each other that, for the first few months of his life, Erin didn’t think they’d ever have.

  As she looks around her huge garden – she won’t be here much longer, she needs to buy somewhere smaller as her new job, she’s training to be a drama teacher, isn’t going to pay for a particularly lavish life – she notices how much lighter she feels now. She’d never realised it before, so grateful was she to Raf for working to support her and put a roof over her head, that trying to please him, trying to second-guess what she had to do to avoid one of his suggestions of how she could do things better, had created this intense anxiety, a weight in her that she’d not felt before they were together.

  But perhaps the sense of freedom comes from somewhere else. Raf left over seven million Australian dollars. When Erin got the call from an Australian solicitor she almost slammed the phone down in disbelief. She should have put it together from Amanda’s journal and the mention of some huge estate him and his dad were living on, but it seems that Raf wasn’t just more comfortable than he was letting on to her, he was in fact from an incredibly wealthy family, a line of Italian factory owners who’d moved to Australia a few years before the Second World War. It also explained why, after getting engaged less than a year after they met, Raf had never pushed marriage in the same way he’d pushed everything else – to try and ensure she had no legal recourse over his fortune. The lawyer told her that all of the money is bequeathed to Bobby and there’s no doubt that, even if Erin never earns more than enough to feed them and clothe them, the knowledge that her son will be much more than OK financially is a very, very liberating one. And the very least the boy deserves. Erin tries to dismiss the thought of what she’ll tell him about his father when he grows up. When he’s old enough, she’s decided, she wants to tell him the truth. But how truthful should she be? Should she tell him that she hit his father over the head? Knocked him out? And was it Amanda’s poison that killed him? In the months since, Erin’s often wondered whether the head wound she’d caused was as innocuous as she’d convinced herself it was at the time.

  ‘Here, look at the state of this,’ Caz says, smartphone in hand. She shows her a picture of Lorna. She’s had a drastic haircut, perhaps trying to emulate some of the trendier mums. It’s Barbie-pink, cut in a long bob, and looks like someone’s dropped a vat of candyfloss on her from a great height. Erin shoves the phone back towards Caz.

  ‘Stop it,’ she says, tone warning.

  ‘Come on!’

  ‘I mean it, we said we’d be nice to her. We said we’d be nice to everyone. And you should come off that thing as well.’ Caz looks at her with an eyebrow so raised it’s almost coming off her head. Erin laughs. ‘OK, fine, not that, do what you like, but we’ve all had shocking haircuts. And that is shocking, but write her a message telling her you love it. For me.’ Caz smirks and begins typing, then shows Erin the complimentary message to which she nods her approval. Erin owes Lorna. She came forward and told the police that she’d been walking the twins up and down Erin’s former road to avoid the wind on the front and she hadn’t seen anyone anywhere near the house around the time they suspected Raf died but that she did see him at one point through the window and told them it looked like he was drinking and in distress. With that testimony and in light of everything that Erin could tell them about what he’d done, the police felt it was a cut-and-dried case of suicide and the coroner didn’t request an inquest. Erin doesn’t know why Lorna lied, and it must have been a lie because Erin and Amanda weren’t just there the once that day. So Lorna must have been lying for her, but when Erin went to see her she simply stuck to the story she’d told the police. ‘That’s just what I saw,’ she’d said. But there was something in her eyes, a glint of complicity. Whatever her motivation, it’s allowed Erin and Bobby to be here in this garden building mud pies, so she couldn’t be more grateful.

  It’s an hour later and Erin sits on the chair in Bobby’s new nursery watching her baby sleeping, hand clutched round a monkey puppet that he’s become absolutely obsessed with. Her eyes move to a shelf on the other side of his cot and the two spires of the huge rose quartz Amanda gifted her that first night they met. The stone she’d gone back into the studio to recover from next to her fiancé’s body, his dead body. Right after she’d moved the small dining table into a position that would make it conceivable that he’d hit his head on the corner of it on his trajectory to the floor.

  Erin had discovered, in an idle moment on Google images a couple of months ago, that its twin spires mark it out as a soulmate stone, which makes more sense of Amanda giving it to her to put in the house, presumably to remind Raf that his true soulmate was her. Erin thought it right she put it in Bobby’s room, because he’s her soul now, the only one she’ll ever need.

  She stands up and presses a button on her old smartphone, which she now uses solely as the monitor for her baby boy. She and Amanda haven’t had any contact since the photo Erin insisted she send her from the arrivals hall at Sydney airport. But at this time every day, Bobby’s nap time, Erin always checks in on the home section of the monitor app and sees that ‘iPhone 5’ is ‘online’. When she first saw that Amanda was logging into the app every day she was shocked, it seemed so creepy that she’d want to watch her baby on a live feed on her abuser’s old phone. Erin thought about getting a different monitor and cutting off Amanda’s contact with them for good. But then she remembered how she was in that hotel room, the expression on that little girl’s face in those paintings. Amanda won’t ever be able to move on from what happened to her. She’ll always be ‘married’ to that man, and Bobby, his son, is the only thing left in the world that can still connect her to him. So Erin did nothing, because Amanda deserves some happiness, whatever form it takes. She also finds it reassuring, because ev
ery day before she leaves the nursery to try and return her house to some semblance of order after her now walking bundle of joy has blazed a trail of destruction through it, Erin can go onto the app, click on the icon next to ‘iPhone 5’ and check the geotag still says ‘Sydney, Australia’, just to make sure that Amanda’s still a long way from them, on the other side of the world, as she watches her baby sleep.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  To my friends and those close to me, thank you for your love and support. Without your belief, very few words would make it onto the page.

  To the imperious Juliet Mushens who I’m ever grateful to have as my agent. At times, writing this book was like a heavyweight bout and having Juliet in my corner coaching me through gave me the best chance of delivering a knock-out. Thank you also to Liza De Block for all of her help and kindness.

  A huge thank you to my editor Jade Chandler who’s helped me craft and hone this book with precision and care and is such a joy to work with. I’ve always felt in such good hands with you Jade and in uncertain times that means a huge amount. Thank you also to Liz Foley, Sophie Painter, Mia Quibell-Smith, Dan Mogford and the whole team at Harvill Secker. Thanks as well to Sara Adams for her early work on the book at a time when I wasn’t sure exactly what it was going to be.

  To Sam H Freeman, our conversations about books, film, story are such an important part of my writing. The way in which our careers have evolved from those humble beginnings writing average short plays in the Soho Theatre Café has been beyond both of our hopes and dreams and I’m so grateful for that.

  To our wonderful community in Margate, I thank you for your friendship and camaraderie in this sleep-deprived and often manic portion of our lives. The energising conversations and stolen afternoons helping our children build sandcastles and paddling in the water have become a huge source of joy.

  To my wife Joanna’s family, Tina, Stewart, David and Hannah, thank you for all your warm-hearted interest and support. And on my side, to Al, Lyndsey, Mac and my mum Lesley, to whom this book is dedicated, your excitement about my books and never-ending cheerleading is forever appreciated.

  To my daughter Sadie, your sunshine lights up our days and we love you for it. To the boy, Otis, I began writing this book when you were a very screamy little man. But, with your cheeky smile and that giggle, what a little legend you’ve turned into. We love you both so much.

  To Joanna. Thank you for your patience with me and this book. I’m so lucky to have you and the life we’ve built. You constantly challenge me and our conversations about social media, #metoo, coercive control and the psychology of possession and misogyny have provided the bedrock of this book. I’ve learnt so much from you.

  And finally thank you to all my readers. The reviews and feedback I had about Happy Ever After were so gratifying and such a huge part of what kept me chipper while writing this book. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate everyone who’s chosen to spend their valuable time reading my words.

  VINTAGE – home to the world’s greatest authors and books. Where new writers are discovered, bestselling books are found and yesterday’s classics revived for a new generation of readers.

  Our authors represent the very best in creativity and quality and have won the most prestigious prizes the book world has to offer including the Man Booker, the Samuel Johnson and the Nobel.

  Born in New York in 1974, and arriving in London in 1990, VINTAGE publishes beautiful books with the very best design for people who love to read.

  @vintagebooks

  penguin.co.uk/vintage

  Vintage

  UK | USA | Canada | Ireland | Australia

  New Zealand | India | South Africa

  Vintage is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.

  First published by Harvill Secker in 2021

  Copyright © Chris MacDonald 2021

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  Jacket design © Dan Mogford

  Cover from photographs courtesy of Unsplash.com and © Getty Images

  Author photograph © Gemma Day

  ISBN: 978-1-473-56868-6

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.