Erin grabs a napkin off the table and blows her nose into it. She smoked last night and it’s bunged her up, made the hangover feel about twelve times worse. She hadn’t really thought about the implications of Amanda looking after Bobby. When Grace called about the podcast the only thing going through her mind was a strategy to get to the recording studio without her screaming baby. After that, it just seemed fine. Amanda’s always delighted to look after Bobby, shooing Erin off, saying ‘get going now, don’t miss your train’, whenever she’s lingered with them before going up to one of her meetings. And Raf hadn’t said anything. As far as she was concerned, he was OK with it. But now he’s said it, she knows he’s right. Erin doesn’t know this woman and she couldn’t have been more delighted to leave her baby with her.
‘Has it been nice?’ she asks, trying to keep the bitterness out of her voice.
‘What?’ Bobby tries to make a goalkeeper’s dive off the sofa so Raf spins him around and jigs him up and down in a galloping motion.
‘Spending time with Amanda?’
‘I wasn’t doing this to spend time with her.’
‘I know, but has it been nice? She’s here to visit you. You thought it might be weird. Is it weird?’ Raf moves his head in a figure-of-eight motion, Bobby still bouncing on his legs. Erin takes a bite of her shortbread.
‘It’s been all right. Good to catch up.’
‘Reliving the glory years?’ she says, spitting a crumb into the air in front of them.
‘I left everything –’ he seems uncomfortable – ‘left Australia completely behind after what Dad did. So yeh, I guess it’s nice to hear bits and bobs about how things are now.’ He puts his aquiline nose in Bobby’s face who squirms away from it as if it were a small animal. ‘Mainly been good to spend a bit more time with this little legend, hasn’t it, mate?’
‘She’s great with him, isn’t she?’ Erin can feel the acid seeping up through her words. After seeing her baby with Amanda, snuggled up with her, she feels the need to hurt herself more, to curdle her hangover with a double shot of self-loathing.
‘It was a late one last night. Finished up late, didn’t it?’ His voice is firmer, his smile gone, and she feels like she’s talking to a teacher.
‘Quite late, yeh.’
‘Drank a lot?’
‘The speech went really well, like really well. Thanks for asking.’ Urgh, she thinks, she sounds like a stroppy teenager. He sighs, an almost imperceptible shake of his head. Perhaps she doesn’t have a right to be angry with him for taking time out to be with Amanda and Bobby. She entrusted their baby to someone because she was an old friend of his. That’s not enough, that’s not enough for a conscientious parent, for anyone. But, with all of Grace’s plans for her swirling in her head, half of which Raf knows nothing about, it felt like she’d dropped into their lives like manna from heaven. And the fact that Amanda was holding her child close, there’s nothing wrong with that. A nursery nurse would do the same, Erin thinks. But the image of Bobby squeezed against Amanda’s naked chest swims back into her head. Raf catches her eye, the side of his mouth smiles. What would he think if she told him about how she found Amanda and their baby in his bedroom? Would he double down on his needing to be around? Would he suggest that she ease off her trips to London? Erin’s got to go at least twice next week to try and firm up some brand partnerships. She can’t pull away now, just when she’s on the verge of getting paid, money she’s earned, going into her account for the first time in forever.
‘But, you know what,’ he says, ‘I was being overcautious. You were right not to be worried, she’s amazing with him.’ He would be fine with the napping, Erin thinks. He’d love it in fact. She’s always got the sense he wanted her to be more motherly. ‘Skin-to-skin’ contact was something the antenatal classes had always banged on about being a way of getting an angry baby calm. Raf would probably think that Amanda had found that the solution to their problem baby is to simply act like his mother.
21
Erin stands swaying on the decking outside what’s become Amanda’s lodgings. The blinds are up but there’s no sign of movement. Most of the front of the building is glass, revealing a sofa bed, small table and chairs, and a wood burner in the corner. There’s wood panelling on either side of the frontage that conceals a kitchenette on one side and a small shower room and toilet on the other. Everything visible has been kept very tidy. Amanda has accessorised the gunmetal-grey sofa with a colourful scarf, her backpack is propped next to the thin wardrobe, a yoga mat leans against the back wall, but otherwise it could be unoccupied.
She comes round to the front of the studio and presses her palm on the cold glass of the door, condensation marks spreading out from her fingers. The morning is cloudless but cold. She looks down at Bobby sleeping in the sling, its strap leaving a beaded indentation on his delicate little forehead. It’s been two days since she found him and Amanda in the nursery. She hasn’t left him with her since and the incident hasn’t been discussed. But it’s had an effect on her. Although there’s been a staggering amount of engagement with her feed since clips of her speech at Claridge’s have been shared online, she’s made an effort to leave her phone upstairs while she’s with Bobby
