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

immature daubing, feeling a sense of glee. She remembers back in Marine Gallery, the way the curator was almost sniggering at him. Was he trying to get her to sell his work? Erin feels her own laugh building inside her when she hears a desperate sound. A shriek, a keening, mournful shriek. Erin’s eyes dart to the window and, though the blinds are down, through the door of the studio she sees Raf holding Amanda up against the wall by her shoulders? Or is it by her throat? Erin picks up the first thing she finds, the twin-spired crystal, balanced on the leaning shelf, and runs out into the garden.

‘Put her down,’ Erin says, brandishing the rock by one of its columns, the heavy end held up in front of her like a mace. Raf looks round at her through a mop of hair, pupils huge, desperate delight coming into his expression as if she were a rescue ship and he a castaway. He releases Amanda who slides down the wall, holding her throat, gulping big breaths in – he was strangling her? He looks like an entirely different person to her fiancé, pupils huge, face shimmering with sweat. Is he on drugs as well as pissed? Raf has never done drugs, she knows that his house of cards is crumbling around him, but what the fuck has happened to him since this morning? He moves towards where she stands in the door frame but Erin swings the crystal, warning, and he stops where he is.

‘Ez, I am so sorry.’

‘I don’t want to hear it.’

‘She’s lying.’

‘I saw your studio. Your lavish studio that you pay for with, with what money, Raf, because I thought we were skint?’

‘Look, I’ve, I’ve got – Weird about money but –’

‘Shut up! Shut the fuck up! You have lied to me every single day I’ve known you to make me feel like a piece of shit –’

‘Ez –’

‘Shut the fuck up!’ She screams it at the top of her voice, a power and intensity she’s barely ever shown him, and it works. He’s stunned into silence. ‘Amanda, come on.’ Amanda shakes her head on the floor. ‘Come on, for Christ’s sake. He just tried to kill you, come on.’ Amanda looks at Erin, black pupils, large in her eyes too, cheeks streaked with tears and trails of eyeliner. ‘Get up,’ Erin says, playing the role of an action-movie heroine, puffing herself up with forceful authority because she has to get Amanda away from him. She wants to go over and grab her but she can’t get too close to him. ‘Come on, Amanda – now!’

‘OK, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I thought I was going to lose you. I never would have done any of what I’ve done, but you were leaving me.’

‘What the fuck?’

‘You were leaving me, you didn’t know it, but all the people online, hundreds of thousands of people, I was losing you to them, Bobby as well. I had to do something. I know I shouldn’t have made you scared, I never wanted you to be afraid. But I was angry, angry that the rest of the world got this fun, sunny side of you while I had to listen to you moan and moan, on and on about how terrible you felt, how you didn’t feel connected to the baby, how hard it was. I think I was jealous, I was, I was jealous to see you looking at your phone, smiling like you were in love with it while all I got was your misery.’

‘Can you – Just shut up. Amanda!’ Erin doesn’t want to hear this. He looks reasonable again, the shadow of mania seems to have passed, and it’s like he’s genuinely trying to reach her, to find some kind of rapprochement in this batshit-crazy situation. She doesn’t want to hear his excuses, she doesn’t want to get sucked back into his logic, his rationality. He’s an abuser, a paedophile, it’s not just in his past, those pictures were painted in the last few weeks. ‘Amanda, for fuck’s sake, come on.’ Erin roars at her but Amanda only shrugs, blinks away her tears, a sorry shake of the head.

‘It was like when you were acting. You were so desperate to get all these jobs that would fly you around the world away from me, that’d make you famous, loved by all these strangers. So excited about the chance of getting one and then so miserable when you didn’t. For weeks. Until all I ever got from you was misery and despair. You were never as hopeful about our future as you were for these jobs, never so devastated at the possibility of having to leave me for any length of time. I was just funding the fucking roller coaster, a port in the storm, you called me that, a port in the storm. Those first few months you were incredible, transcendent, and that was enough to tie me to you forever, but after that, all I got was your pain. I’m not proud of what I did then and I’m not proud about what I’ve done now, but I knew you’d never listen to me if I just told you that you were changing. I knew that confronting you and telling you that you were neglecting your responsibilities as a mother and a partner would drive you even further away from us. That’s why I put up the video and the photos, I wanted you to see for yourself how toxic the social media stuff is, how it was destroying the incredible woman you are. I know it might seem fucked up, Ez, but you have to see, I was so so scared of losing you. I couldn’t see there was any other way.’

‘You’re the troll,’ Erin says as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Raf looks quizzical, eyes even wider than before, as if he’s just revealed something he shouldn’t.

‘I