‘Oh my God, look at this. Look at this, everyone.’ Amanda rushes back into the room from the toilet. Bobby in her arms, his lower half in nappy only. ‘Look!’ They all look, Erin almost lifting out of her seat as Amanda stations herself and Bobby in profile like they’re about to do a skit together. Then she roars into the little boy’s face, not like a lion or a dinosaur but more some strange monster, contorting her face as she does it. Then Bobby does something extraordinary. His face widens into a grin and he laughs. A sucking-in laugh, like a cackling witch, but a laugh nonetheless.
The girls start clapping, someone whoops, like it’s the end of a concert. They all look at Erin, excited, delighted. Sophie puts an arm around her. Erin’s posted so many times about how, no matter what she does, she can’t get little Bobby to smile and how she’s trying not to let it deflate her high spirits, so they all know how big a moment this is for her. Amanda glances round at everyone, a bemused Bobby following suit, the hint of happiness glowing still in his shining round face. Amanda fixes Erin with a look, widens her eyes, gives that shrug, an almost imperceptible raising of her eyebrow. Is she checking Erin’s pleased, pleased enough that her grumpy little boy is finally smiling? Or is it something else, is there a hint of smugness, a touch of triumph? Amanda breaks her look and grabs Bobby into her, smothers his neck with kisses and sits down opposite Erin.
‘Good boy,’ Amanda says, ‘clever boy.’
26
‘Roaharrrr.’ Erin finds a guttural sound from deep within her stomach, hands in claw-like pincers in front of Bobby sat in his high chair. He stares up at her like a withering talent-show judge, not the slightest hint of a smile. ‘Fuck’s sake.’
‘Ez,’ Raf reprimands her, leaned in the crook of their horseshoe kitchen cabinets.
‘I don’t get it. What she did wasn’t even very good.’
‘He’s probably not in the mood. I’m not exactly Mr Chuckles when bedtime’s round the corner.’ Erin walks behind Bobby’s high chair, to the other side of the living room, then turns and creeps back towards him. She can feel Raf’s concerned eyes on her. She’s been trying to make Bobby smile for the last ten minutes, trying to show Raf what she saw in the cafe, trying to show him that it wasn’t Amanda that made Bobby smile, but that she just happened to be the person in the right place at the right time.
‘Raaaaaaa!’ Erin shouts into Bobby’s ear, pincering his little shoulders, trying to surprise him. He tenses under her grip, eyes close, face wrinkles like an old peach and it looks like he might be about to cry. Erin steps back, practises a different monster face, puts her arms wider, preparing a different approach. Three years of drama school, she thinks to herself, I can be a much better monster than Amanda. She looks up to see Raf, piercing her with a side-eye like she’s lost her mind as he lifts Bobby out of the high chair, back towards the low kitchen lights and into the safety of his arms.
‘You didn’t know?’
‘You said Sophie only asked her to do it this morning. How would I know?’
Erin’s in their bedroom going through a box of #gifted breathable athleisure that arrived this morning. She catches her reflection in the window. She looks wide. She knows she’s not fat but she’s never thought she was wide before. Perhaps she should take this unexpected delivery as a spur to start running. She could document herself doing ‘couch to 5K’, she thinks – that would be super accessible for her followers.
‘How long did you think she was staying?’ she says to Raf, who’s crouched down on the floor with Bobby who’s rolling around on a large bath towel naked, having some ‘nappy-off time’, reaching into the air and staring at a revolving light that puts stars and planets on the ceiling.
‘Don’t know.’
‘What did she say? I was at the no phones thing when she first got here. What did she actually say about how long she’d be here?’ She stretches a boob tube out. It’s far too small so she tosses it into a pile on the bed.
‘She didn’t,’ Raf says, keeping his voice low. ‘I guess I thought she’d be here a couple of weeks.’
‘Exactly, not three months.’
‘She’s only in the kitchen,’ he says in a stage whisper.
‘Are you going to talk to her?’
‘Er, yeh, sure.’
‘You know she’s giving out herbal remedies to people. People she barely knows. Sophie was all “I’ve been looking for a herbalist. Don’t let her leave.”’
‘Right,’ Raf says. ‘Can you?’ He indicates to a squirming Bobby who he’s struggling to hold in place while he tries to put a nappy on him. Erin grabs a smartphone running case from among the new delivery and gives it to Bobby to distract him. She holds him in place while Raf secures the nappy and rubs moisturiser into his plump little belly. She feels the rolls around her baby’s elbows under her fingers and swells with affection. His eyes, so similar
