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

believe Amanda’s denying it now. ‘I wanted to try and be around. I’ve stayed in when you and Bobby have been here, made sure I’m close by when you’ve been out and about.’

‘And that’s not following me?’ Erin’s exasperated but Raf gives her a warning look.

‘She told me that you said I had asked you to keep an eye on her? After I’d seen the video.’ Raf says it plainly. There’s no anger in his voice, only curiosity. They stand in a triangle, Amanda in the kitchen, Raf by the back window, Erin in the far corner of the room. It feels like a stand-off from an old Western but there are no guns, just calm expressions, the casual, almost soothing words of Amanda and Raf as Erin stands, the perpetrator in this kangaroo court, silent.

‘You didn’t ask me to do anything like that,’ Amanda says. Erin glances between the two of them. She knows that behind her is the painting, the painting that Amanda says impelled her to travel around the world to come and visit them. It’s bullshit. It’s all bullshit. She’s lying. She said that he asked her to follow her, that he was worried for Bobby’s safety.

‘You said that though,’ Erin says, trying to maintain a veneer of civility. ‘Down by the front. You told me Raf asked you to make sure Bobby was safe with me.’

Amanda cocks her head, face dripping with concerned confusion. ‘I thought you’d want someone being there for Erin.’ She speaks to Raf as if she wasn’t in the room. Erin looks at her hands, they’re shaking. She knows she should feel angry, but her outburst of violence has soaked up any residual feeling she has in her body and replaced it with pure, juddering adrenaline. ‘You were upset about it, you told me.’ She goes towards him, simpering almost, but he backs away.

‘I was worried, yeh.’ He darts a stern look at Erin. ‘I am worried about how you’ve been, Ez.’ Erin looks at the floor. ‘I’m frightened about how you are being, but I never asked to have you followed. That’s insane.’

‘You said, Amanda, that’s what you said. That Raf asked you to keep an eye on me after he saw the video.’

‘I thought, he might want me to keep an eye on you. That’s what I said. Not that he asked me to follow you. I remember that that’s exactly what I said. I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear.’ She looks to Raf. There’s a steeliness in Amanda’s tone Erin’s only heard her use when Bobby’s gone to hit or nibble her. That might have been what Amanda said, she can’t remember. ‘I’d never want you to think I was spying on you Erin, and –’ she glances at Raf, Erin might be imagining it but it seems like something passes between them – ‘I’ve grown really attached to Bobby, and stress, tiredness, hormones, I’ve seen it with my work back home, it can make mums behave in a way they wouldn’t normally. Like the video –’ she looks at the mess on the kitchen floor – ‘I know you’d never do something like that, something that aggressive, but that was before this person started attacking you. I can’t imagine how strung out you must be feeling now.’ Amanda has her arms wrapped round her waist and there’s something strained in her expression, worried almost. ‘I wouldn’t have been able to forgive myself if something had happened to Bobby. I shouldn’t have skulked around without you knowing. That was wrong –’ she takes Erin’s hands in hers, her cold fingers massaging her wrists – ‘and I hope you can forgive me for that.’

‘No harm done,’ Raf says curtly. Amanda smiles, touches the crystal on the shelf above Erin’s shoulder and turns back to Raf. ‘Just a misunderstanding like I thought,’ he says. ‘No harm done.’

‘Let’s get this up off the floor,’ Amanda says, too chirpy. ‘I reckon I could salvage a couple of bowls. Cheesy stuff at the top’s the best bit anyway.’

She gets plates and scoops some of the pasta up into it. Erin stares at Raf, desperate for him to look at her, but he just stands in the shadow of the corridor that leads to Bobby’s room, jaw tensing, a gale of thought blowing behind his eyes. He snaps out of it, blinking the fact that the mother of his baby has just thrown a boiling dish at him away as he heads across the room to help their guest clear up the mess that Erin’s made as if they’re all happy families now. Bobby coughs, a whimper comes through on the monitor. Erin wants him to burst into a full-on wail so she can run to him and escape the toxicity that overlays the others’ put-on normalcy. She looks at the crystal next to her, sparkling with what seem like dots of some internal light source. She touches it, holds on to one of its spires, grips it harder until her fingers stops shaking.

42

‘I don’t want to go away for a few days.’

‘You assaulted me.’

‘I didn’t –’

‘You don’t think what you did was assault? Fuck’s sake, Erin.’

‘Sorry.’

‘It’s not OK.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she says. Raf makes a sound between a grunt and a laugh. ‘Are you asking me to move out?’

‘No. No, I’m saying exactly what I mean. You need a break from Bobby, from Amanda, from social media, from me even, from everything. You need time to reset. I don’t recognise the person that threw a dish of boiling pasta at me.’ It sounds like he’s saying the word ‘pastor’ and Erin feels her nose wrinkling with indignant irritation. She’s lying in bed, covers pulled up to her neck. Raf stands by the window. It’s eleven o’clock. He went for a run after Amanda left them and she’s been sat up here in bed, stewing, considering, trying to make sense of everything