The Family Friend, C. MacDonald [ereader for android TXT] 📗

new followers. Not a lot. She puts her phone on the table behind the sofa and carries Bobby over to the fridge. She opens the door and sees a bag of tired supermarket parsnips being squeezed into the side by an enormous box of glowing organic vegetables that Amanda’s clearly bought.

When Erin first joined Instagram she was sometimes staggered by how excited she got when someone would like her post, or she’d look through the profile of a new follower to see that they weren’t some lonely loser but a vibrant young mum with an exciting life, a chic house and attractive friends. And when there was a deluge of followers, after the big mummy-blogger Aisling Strang (376k followers) told her acolytes to have a look at Erin’s feed, it felt like a hit of hard drugs. Hundreds of strangers telling her how great she looks, how funny she is, how much she’s smashing motherhood. It’s intoxicating. The only downside is that she’s now hooked to that feeling of validation, and although she acquires new followers every day, when she looks at her phone, she’s always disappointed when the steady flow hasn’t burst into a torrent.

She grabs a large carrot out of the box, snaps the greenery off, goes over to the tap to wash the mud off, all while holding the baby on her less-painful right hip. She bites into the carrot. It’s delicious. Just like all the food that Amanda’s made them since arriving. It’s been a few days now and she’s been the perfect guest. It’s not just that she’s helped out with Bobby, but also the acts of unasked-for thoughtfulness like refilling the basket where they store the nappies; she’s bought candles, reed diffusers and a large succulent she’s put by the fireplace that looks superb. But she hasn’t been under their feet during the day, constantly trying to spend time with Erin. She walks a lot, has gone on a trip to a castle further down the coast on the train, she’s borrowed a bike from one of their neighbours. If anything, Erin would like to see more of her. The times where she’s accompanied Amanda, to town for a coffee, the old underground grotto covered in fake cave paintings done by an Elizabethan eccentric, have been some of the best times she’s had while looking after Bobby, but she seems determined not to impose. And Erin has to respect that. She’s often caught her deep in thought and, although they haven’t talked much about her new-old boyfriend, it seems that Amanda’s genuinely taking some time for herself away from him to try and figure out the future of their relationship. Erin’s in awe of it, slightly jealous even, the sort of studied contemplation of a major life decision that she’s never even countenanced herself doing.

She looks out into the garden and sees their guest through her window, sat on the floor, eyes closed, meditating. People used to take the piss out of meditating, bald people in robes chanting ‘umm’. But now it’s another thing that it’s decreed you’re meant to try and carve out the time to do. Erin’s tried, in the aftermath of her various freak-outs over being a mother, it always seemed to be the Internet’s most consistent catch-all for that kind of thing, but she’s not sure she’s doing it right. She can’t turn the thoughts off, no matter how many times she scans her body.

It’s raining again. Hammering down. The room feels wet, the mossy smell of damp wafting in and competing with the citrus of one of Amanda’s diffusers. It’s coming up to midday and she and Bobby still haven’t left the house.

Maybe she should try and meditate now. Grace was meant to be calling her this morning and Erin’s concerned she’s forgotten. She hasn’t been able to concentrate on Bobby, waiting for her phone to ring. Not that she ever feels she can fully focus on him when she sits with him, going through the motions of playing. Stacking coloured blocks on top of each other, trying to encourage him to join in, dangling a set of plastic keys in front of him to try and make him smile. That’s meant to be the thing that makes all the sleepless nights and stress worth it, when your baby smiles at you for the first time. But Bobby’s really making her wait. Perhaps he never will. Maybe her frowning, grumpy baby will grow up into a frowning, miserable adult.

As if on cue, Bobby grabs at the neck of her T-shirt and makes a sound like a baby seagull. He grunts. Pain, a fart, a poo, she never knows how to make him feel better because she doesn’t have a clue what it is that’s wrong with him. He shoves his fist into his mouth and gives her an agonised expression. Teeth.

She swishes him around the room, a flying tour of the four walls that are beginning to feel like a prison. She drops his eyes down to a banana plant by the entrance to the hall but he wriggles his displeasure. She flies him across the room to the large window, the view of the olive tree outside in the middle of their front garden. The hammering rain doesn’t seem to relax him either so she bounces him over to the mid-century black wire and teak shelving unit at the far side of the living room. He reaches for the shiny foil lettering of one of Raf’s art books before grabbing a clump of her thin Shakespeare editions and tumbling them to the floor. Erin moves him over to the crystal Amanda gave her that now sits on the top right corner of the unit. He runs his fingers over the dual columns of the rock, the surface sparkling like it’s covered in matt glitter. Bobby wants to grab it but it’s too heavy for him and Erin doesn’t want him to break the thing. Although she doesn’t remotely