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

‘You want to go downstairs and get a coffee?’ he asks, looking over his shoulder at his co-workers, most of whom are still plugged into their headphones, fixed on their screens.

‘I thought you were “the busiest you’ve ever been”?’ Bobby slightly undermines her airquotes gesture by grabbing at her fingers. A few of the freelancers look up from their computer screens. She gets Bobby to do a little wave to Amina. ‘They’ve got baby toys in the place downstairs?’ she mumbles to Raf. He nods, before throwing a chivalrous arm out, after you, putting his hand on her lower back and leading her and Bobby out the door.

Raf collapses into the cracked leather sofa opposite her. Bobby is at the end of the coffee table between them, manhandling metal cars against the table, making Erin flinch with every clatter. Raf reaches forward for his macchiato and sips it.

‘You’re pissed off because I didn’t tell you?’

‘Every day since you’ve gone back to work I’ve wanted to text you, wanted to call you, wanted you to come home and be with me, to be with us, because it’s boring and lonely and awful, mostly, looking after a baby. But I didn’t, because you have to work, I know you have to work so I didn’t. But to find out from fucking Lorna Morgan that you’ve been swanning around with Amanda. That is why I’m pissed off.’ Raf looks around, self-conscious, and catches the eye of someone he knows who’s sitting in the corner with a MacBook and an overlarge glass teapot filled with mint leaves. He cheerses his little cup into the air. The cafe is painted white but sells houseplants and hand-painted pots, so has the feeling of a very chic greenhouse. He turns back to her and sighs.

‘I didn’t want you to feel guilty.’

‘Me feel guilty?’

‘About me having to take time out to check our baby’s safe.’ Erin swallows. ‘We don’t really know Amanda, and you left Bobby with her, without asking me, then it just became an arrangement. We never discussed it and, I don’t know, I don’t think we should be leaving our only kid with a stranger.’ Raf runs his fingers through Bobby’s mop of hair. The baby looks round at him, one eye a bit lazy, before going back to his cars. Erin goes into her bag and gets out some lip salve and puts it on. She wants to be angry with him. After the shock of thinking that they might be doing something, together, in flagrante in Bobby’s room, she planned to interrogate him further about their relationship. But what he’s saying makes sense. And, is he right?

‘She’s not a stranger,’ she says.

‘I’ve not seen her for twenty years. I’m not sure we should just trust her to look after our not even one-year-old. Maybe I’m more risk-averse than you.’ He says it with a smile. She came into this cafe puffed up with righteous indignation but now she feels like a burst lilo.

‘If you didn’t want her looking after Bobby, why didn’t you say anything?’ Raf leans forward and runs a hand over the back of his head. Shreds of silver in his dark hair catch the light from an old-school film lamp.

‘Honestly?’ Erin shakes her head, Of course honestly. ‘I thought you’d say I was being “obstructive”.’ His turn to do air quotes but he does it only with his tone. ‘Back when you were still trying to act, every time I suggested you study something else or get a job or whatever, you told me I was being obstructive. And the couple of times recently, I’ve said that I thought your social media stuff is getting a bit much, like the other weekend when Bobby’s rifling through the cleaning cupboard, manhandling bottles of bleach while you’re staring at your phone, and I innocently pointed out that we might need to watch him a bit closer now he can move around more, you told me I was being obstructive. It’s been your word of the week for every week for as long as I can remember. So yeh, I didn’t feel like I could “obstruct” you from getting Amanda to watch our son.’

Erin can’t handle this. She gulps at her can of ginger beer, hoping its fieriness will somehow spike her into some sort of response. He’s been lying to her, at least not telling her, that he’s been skipping work to go and spend time with his family friend and yet she’s the one who’s somehow on the end of a character assassination.

‘Sorry –’ she bites the side of her lip – ‘what has this got to do with me being on my phone?’ Her hand thrusts forward, stiff, aggressive and she has to wrap it into a fist and bring it back into her lap.

‘I wanted to be around, for the first few times. I went out with them once or twice but mostly I’ve been upstairs in the bedroom working, just to be on hand. You don’t find Bobby easy, it didn’t feel responsible just handing him off to Amanda and expecting her to get on with it.’

‘So now I’m irresponsible.’

‘And this is why I didn’t tell you.’ He speaks through a laugh. She notices the snagged indent on his canine tooth, a result of too much fingernail biting, he told her once. His other teeth are pristine, shining white against the black of his beard. ‘It’s not a judgement on you. You want to do this stuff –’ he points to her phone on the coffee table – ‘I don’t fully understand it but –’

‘It’s a job. We can make money from it.’

‘Because that’s your motivation.’ Sarcasm courses through his words. Bobby grizzles so Raf lifts him up and stands him on his thighs, facing Erin. The boy jiggles his head in her direction. She widens her eyes and pastes on a smile to try to cheer him up.

‘I