The Family Friend C. MacDonald (reading comprehension books .txt) 📖

‘I’m amazed you and your mates aren’t out here all the time. What a place to bring up a bubba.’

‘It’s always talked about but never really happens.’

‘I’d have thought everyone would want to go for a walk with a famous Insta-mumma – that is what it’s called?’

‘Insta-mum, usually. I don’t know, it’s – I don’t hang out with my followers, that’s not how it is.’ Erin hears a note of sadness in her voice. She probably knows north of fifty mums locally and there are many, many more that know who she is, she can tell by the way they look at her, but she still wouldn’t really call any of them friends, apart from Caz, and they met the old-fashioned way. ‘And he – he can be so hard. I find it more stressful being with people when he’s kicking off, you know, them seeing me, not calm.’ Amanda gives her a sympathetic smile, this morning on the grassy bank implicit in her words. Amanda was wonderful when she stepped in to help and hasn’t mentioned it since, no judgement. Seeing so much of other people’s approaches to motherhood through the window of social media, Erin has started to forget that there are people in existence who don’t judge.

‘Have you not got family close?’ Amanda asks, Bobby reaching an arm out of the sling and leaning on it so he looks like a Lothario cruising for girls in his soft top. He is cute, crazy cute. Those dark, dark eyes, all that hair, tiny Kirk Douglas dimple in his chin. All Raf, Erin sees none of herself in her baby boy, maybe it would be easier to forgive him for his screams, for his need, for his desperation if she could.

‘My mum’s in Croydon, my brother lives in west London.’

‘Is that far? London’s not too bad, is it?’

‘Not too far. But we’re not that close any more. Mum really didn’t want me to move away, and Alex, my brother, he and I have drifted apart.’

‘That’s so sad.’

‘He’s quite down the line, you know? Good job, capable wife, perfect kids. He’s happy with how everything’s turned out and I get the impression that he and Beth, his wife, find me a source of unnecessary drama.’

‘You are an actress.’

‘Exactly. Beth’s very, partner in a law firm, power suits, you know, “lean in”, that sort. Probably thinks I’m a bit of a joke.’

‘No!’

‘Anyway, it was getting me down, and Raf, level-headed as always, said that it would be best to accept that we were in different places in our lives, so we made the decision to just –’ Erin makes a cutting action in the air.

‘And with your mum?’

‘I think she thought I’d live a five-minute walk away from her forever. For months after we moved, every time I rang she’d make me feel so awful and, I don’t know, her and Raf, she’s always been pretty rude to him.’

‘Really?’

‘She has this thing about Australian men, thinks they’re all machismo.’

‘Couldn’t be less like Raf.’

‘I know. She never made much effort to get to know him and, he never mentioned it, but I know it bothered him, so I stopped ringing and she was far too proud to be the one to reach out. Makes me sound stubborn.’

‘Not at all.’

‘I was always an obedient little girl, teacher’s pet, those roles from when we’re kids, we’re expected to be like that forever. Families! Fuck.’

‘It won’t be forever. These bonds we have, especially ones from when we were kids, they don’t just end. They’re part of us, they develop in our genes, in our DNA. All of you are still connected here.’ She touches her heart like Erin’s seen yogis do and she hopes Amanda’s right. Erin misses them. Her big brother’s the only person that could ever really make her belly-laugh and she misses the euphoria of that. But every time she’d leave their beautiful Victorian house in Richmond after a visit, with its vast basement kitchen and its two well-adjusted if a little obnoxious children, her life choices, all those bad decisions would run around her head like a miniature train set for weeks afterwards. They’ve barely seen them since they moved to the seaside, and although Erin’s mum came down to meet Bobby when he was born, she made a point of not staying and hasn’t been back since. She used to be supportive of anything Erin did but she couldn’t understand why they were moving away, just at the time that they might need her help, and because it was Raf’s idea to move, she’s childishly taken it as Erin choosing him over her. And with everything going on in Erin’s head, the constant shame she feels for still not loving her baby enough, the financial drain she’s become on Raf, no sight of a career on the other side of this year of nominal maternity leave, she just didn’t have broad enough shoulders to bear her mother’s disappointment as well. She’s learned that sometimes you have to make difficult decisions, to end difficult relationships, just as a form of self-preservation.

‘I’ve not spoken to my ma for nearly twenty years,’ Amanda offers, eyes fixed on the horizon, ‘but I still think about her every day. And I know she does me.’

‘Do you have other family?’ Erin asks, up near the cliff now, feeling the chalk dry-rub onto her hand as she runs it along the sheer face. Amanda leans her head to the ground slightly, only for Bobby to shove a hand up under her chin. She laughs.

‘Not family, no. There’s a – there’s someone,’ she says, smothering a sheepish grin, ‘someone significant, who’s come back into my life recently.’

‘A boyfriend?’

‘It’s not –’

‘Sorry, that’s so nineteenth century of me. Girlfriend? Dolphin-friend? Sorry, I shouldn’t even be asking. Just ignore me. I’m a nosy bitch.’

Amanda laughs at Erin’s flustering. ‘No, it’s – it’s fine. It’s just there’s a lot of water under the bridge, so, you