The Family Friend by C. MacDonald (love story novels in english txt) 📕

Caz

She did start it though. Year or so

before you moved down. There was

nothing for mums going on so she

set it up.

Erin

Not exactly

Glastonbury though.

Caz

She was saying how her and

most of the local mums have stopped

going because it’s become, her words,

a ‘trendy love-in’.

Erin

What is her problem?

Caz

The group is pretty rammed

but it’s not exactly your fault.

Erin

It’s got nothing to do with me.

Caz

I don’t know. She was

properly pissy about it.

Erin

WTAF

Caz

Small town, small mind.

Erin

She was there, nearby, when the

the video of me shaking the buggy

was taken.

Caz

Really?

Erin

Saw her pushing the twins and Clara. They were going in the opposite direction, but still.

Caz

Reckon it’s her?

Erin

I didn’t. But I also didn’t think I’d hijacked her precious baby group. Think she’s capable of something like that?

Caz

She was raging the other day but,

I don’t know, seems a bit full-on.

There been any follow-up from

your agent?

Erin

She says it’s not worth getting worried about.

Caz

But are you worried?

Erin

It’s harmless.

Caz

A lot of weird comments on

your feed atm.

Erin

Welcome to the Internet Cazabelle.

Caz

What’s Raf said?

Erin

Um …

Caz

You didn’t tell him?

Erin

He’d do his protective bit if he knew someone had filmed me. Not worth getting him het up over nothing.

Caz

Think it is nothing?

Erin

Not been anything else. It’s just some lonely dickhead with an axe to grind.

Caz

Let you know if I hear Lorna

slagging you further. It’d be mad

if it was her but you never know.

Erin

Yeh, do. Got a call in ten.

Mañana chica.

25

Erin pushes the Bugaboo up the hill, her back almost parallel to the ground as its wheels rumble over the cobbles. Bobby stares up at her, unimpressed. He’s tired but also, perhaps, wired as she probably gave him too many titbits of pastry in order to quieten him down in the twenty minutes before she made her escape from the ‘mum-summit’ at the brasserie at the end of the harbour they were just at. She’s not sure he’s going to sleep and she gets the drop-in-altitude feeling at the thought of him screaming for the whole walk home. But at the moment he’s quiet, looking angelic in the winter sun, and as she gets to the high street, she gets her phone out to treat herself to a quick flick on Instagram.

She swiftly imbibes the thirty-seven new followers she’s got since she last looked – she was careful not to check it at the brasserie, hyper-aware of the eyes of the room on her – then ignores the 186 notifications she has and searches for Sophie Delauney’s handle. Erin had gone to the summit expecting to see Sophie and her scenester posse because their friend Aleya had organised the event, but they weren’t there. Erin’s not exactly friends with them but they mostly discuss TV shows and films they’ve seen, what gigs are coming to town and the best new music, obviously, which makes them far more appealing to spend time with than the normal diatribe of nap times, nipples and weaning advice that underscores most mum-group interactions.

Lorna Morgan was at the summit, however. Erin didn’t talk to her but she was constantly aware of her buzzing around at the far side of the room. Erin caught her glaring at her at one point. It seems absurd that she’d be the one that filmed her shouting at Bobby but she has always seemed like someone who carries a heavy sack of grudges with her wherever she goes, so Erin shouldn’t discount it.

She finds @sophdelano and clicks onto her ‘stories’. Her tattooed music producer boyfriend doing up her kitchen, her cat swiping at their huge TV, and finally a picture of a very beautifully rendered latte and something samosa-like next to it. Erin turns her buggy off the high street and towards the car park that sits behind it. She knows the cafe Sophie’s in, if she’s still there. Erin went to sleep late last night trying to keep up with the daily deluge of messages she’s had since her speech at Claridge’s went faintly viral, so she could do with a coffee. Then she could breastfeed Bobby to sleep, put him straight in the buggy and avoid the napping battle on the way home. It’s a great plan.

She crosses through the car park and over the threshold into the courtyard of the Beets and Peaches Cafe and it’s like crossing over into a different country. Tropical-looking trees hung with Chinese lanterns, lizard-motif murals on the wall next to an outside toilet, metal tables in vivid yellow and pink. She hears laughter inside, and Bobby seems to snap to attention. He begins to struggle against his constraints, bouncing up and down in his seat like he was on a horse. She walks into the cafe and hears Sophie Delauney’s elfin voice. Erin sees her sat on the other side of a free-standing bookshelf that’s filled with succulents in wonky-looking pots, the people she’s with laugh again. Erin pushes the buggy towards the shelf when a voice stops her.

‘I think it’s really damaging,’ the Australian accent says. It’s Amanda. Bobby wriggles in his buggy again. Erin glances past the plants in the bookshelf and makes out Sophie’s acolytes Mercedes and Kristina sitting opposite Sophie and Amanda, who she’s obscured from seeing by a column of doorstop fashion books.

‘Instagram specifically?’ Kristina asks.

‘All of it. In ten, maybe even five years, I think doctors will be talking about it like they did about smoking. The pressure to look perfect, have the perfect stuff, the perfect life. And it’s so addictive, way more than any drug.’

‘I’m totally addicted,’ Kristina chips in.

‘I try not to look at it at weekends, but it’s hard,’ says Sophie.

‘Is she on it all the time?’ Mercedes asks Amanda and Erin feels her hands grip on the handle of the buggy. She’s paused here, hiding behind some cactuses, earwigging in on their conversation because she somehow knows that she’s been the subject of this conversation. She considers bursting round the corner to interrupt but she wants to hear Amanda’s response.

‘She seems so stressed by it all. I