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

quid though. Couldn’t say no.’ Lorna doesn’t look down at Erin’s gleaming #gifted Bugaboo Buffalo, but her meaning’s more explicit for it. ‘Anyway, must be nice.’

‘It’s a lot of work, and you’ve seen at the church, he’s not the easiest baby.’ Jesus, Erin thinks to herself, sweating now, why am I playing the victim in front of this woman?

‘I’ve not been to the group for the last six weeks.’ Lorna peers her head over her buggy to check the boys are sleeping. They are; she folds her arms and stares straight ahead. Her coat is enormous, far too wide for her slight figure. Erin can’t help herself thinking that she looks like when multiple children put on a trench coat in a cartoon and pretend to be an adult. Lorna’s dislike of Erin seems to squeeze out of her pores, olfactible almost. For someone who feels the need to denigrate everyone in order to inflate her own status and who probably saw herself as the queen bee in waiting for all the various children’s groups, it must be galling that someone living two streets away, a woman new to the town, is, both at the groups and by the clear metric of Instagram followers, far more popular than she has ever been. But would Lorna troll her? It’s such a strange way to attack someone, and if she did would she hide behind anonymity? Wouldn’t bringing down the mighty BRAUNEoverBRAINS be exactly the kind of thing someone like Lorna would get off on?

‘You Airbnbing at the moment?’ Lorna asks.

‘Um, no, no. I’ve not really got that sorted yet.’ Lorna runs holiday rentals for second-homers and has a couple of holiday-park rentals she owns so Erin must have mentioned her and Raf’s plan to rent out the studio in the garden at some point. The chemist’s assistant finally arrives with Bobby’s prescription.

‘Oh. Oh, right,’ Lorna says, turning back to face the counter. She looks shocked, though she has very fair eyebrows so it’s hard to tell whether that’s just her face.

‘Hope you’re not here too long,’ Erin says, executing a three-point turn that gives Bobby the scope to grab at a clutch of toothbrushes and knock them to the floor. Erin considers leaving them, a quick glance at the clock above the door, but she can’t face Lorna’s judgement so bends down to pick them up. From the floor she clocks the woman looking down at her, making a strange face, eyes wide, cheeks sucked in like she’s chewing a sherbet. ‘Is there something wrong? Erin doesn’t mean to sound so confrontational, but she doesn’t want to get dragged into nudges and winks.

‘I … ’ She puts a hand up to her mouth. ‘I don’t know, I probably shouldn’t say.’

‘I think you kind of have to.’

‘Well,’ Lorna feathers her chest with her hand, ‘I saw a red-headed woman coming out of the back of your house.’ Her head wobbles like a toy dog in the back of a car as she waits for her response. ‘If it’s not an Airbnb guest –’

‘Raf’s old friend from Australia.’ Erin enunciates each consonant to crush whatever Desperate Housewives fantasy the woman’s trying to allude to. ‘She’s staying with us for a bit.’

‘Oh, thank goodness,’ she says, hugging her padding tighter. ‘I’ve seen her with your partner, Raf is it? Out walking together with Bobby on the prom –’ Erin flushes with heat – ‘and I thought it was a bit odd. That’s a relief.’ Lorna’s not relieved.

‘What do you mean, seen them?’ Erin asks. ‘When?’ Bobby’s trying to lift himself up to grab more things from the shelf.

‘One time earlier this week, and once last week as well.’ Lorna shrugs but keeps her eyes front, suddenly far more interested in the activities of the team of chemists up behind the counter. ‘Can’t remember what day. She wears such funny clothes, like something out of Merlin.’

Erin ‘hmps’ in reply. She looks around the chemist, the sea of grey heads in their brightly coloured coats seeming to merge into each other. Raf’s the busiest he’s ever been. Erin’s never seen him so stressed with work. He’s going back to it after Bobby’s down and they’ve had dinner, sometimes until one in the morning he says, and yet he’s taking time off work to go for walks with Amanda. He hasn’t mentioned that to her. He hasn’t said anything about it.

‘Well, it’s lovely that he’s got company if he’s holding the baby for you.’ Erin wants to get away from here. She doesn’t want to know what Lorna thinks of her fiancé going for walks in the middle of a workday or her opinions about Amanda’s Arthurian get-up. Raf works in London one or two days a week and a studio in town the rest of the time, so it’s not like he’s necessarily been skipping whole days, but why wouldn’t he mention it? Erin wheels the buggy back towards the chemist’s desk, seeing a woman with a Zimmer frame now blocking the aisle she was planning to escape down. ‘Funny old time to visit.’ Erin wants to get home, get changed and get out of this incestuous little place for a few hours. ‘Bridget, do you know Bridget? Has the three huge cats, lives on Plandell Road?’ Erin nods though she’s not listening as her eyes dart around the lines of pensioners, desperate to find the quickest way out. ‘She said she saw her doing some exercises, as the sun was setting a couple of afternoons ago. Must have been about four degrees. Australians are very outdoorsy so that does make more sense.’

‘I’ve got to go to London,’ Erin says, seeing a window to the exit.

‘Course,’ Lorna says, giving her a three-fingered wave as Erin shoves the buggy towards the photo booth, nearly kneecapping an older gentleman who’s staring at a selection of combs.

18

Erin stares at the three cherubs playing their gold-plated instruments