Free The Good Neighbour by Beth Miller

said. As soon as she was in the kitchen, she tipped the milk Minette had given her down the sink, and hastily rinsed the baby bottle out, cursing herself under her breath. She returned to the living room to find Minette walking up and down, a sobbing Tilly on her shoulder.
    ‘Sorry about the noise, Cath. Did she do this with you?’
    ‘No, she was good as gold.’
    ‘I don’t know what the matter is. She can’t be hungry yet.’ But Tilly’s piteous cries were obviously hunger.
    What sort of monster are you?
    She shook her head to get rid of Andy’s voice. ‘She’s probably just ready for her lunch.’
    ‘She’s not due more food till one o’clock though.’
    Oh, for heaven’s sake, these middle-class mummies and their routines. ‘Sometimes they need a bit extra. Growth spurts, you know. I’ll do her some bread and butter.’
    Cath escaped back to the kitchen and threw the food together. God, she really dropped the ball there. Got to be more careful, Cathykins.
    Soon they were all sitting at the table, with a much happier Tilly. Minette marvelled at how much she ate, even slices of Cheddar which she’d never liked before.
    ‘She can see Lola eating cheese,’ Cath said. ‘They love copying the older ones.’
    ‘It’s so nice, having lunch with other people,’ Minette said.
    ‘Haven’t you met many women at mother-and-baby groups? Or NCT classes, that’s where I made friends.’
    ‘I tried a baby group, but it was awful, everyone sat round like zombies. And I didn’t click with anyone at the NCT. Most of them were pretty old.’
    ‘What, like me?’
    ‘Oh, god, I didn’t mean it like that. I don’t think of you as old.’
    Cath laughed. ‘I don’t think of myself that way either.’
    ‘Shit, sorry Cath. You’ve got older children anyway. There were loads of forty-two-year-olds having their first baby.’
    ‘I guess you’re quite young to have kids these days. Mad though, isn’t it?’ Cath said. ‘My mum was seventeen when she had me.’
    ‘Wow, that must have been hard for her.’
    ‘She did her best. So, have many of your friends had babies?’
    ‘No, I’m the first one. I was hoping my mum, or even better, Abe’s mum, would help more, but they’re both so busy.’
    So Minette didn’t just have the normal baby-at-home-boring-blues, but was isolated from her friends as well. That’s why she’d been willing to leave her baby with Cath, who she’d only known a few weeks. Because there was no one else.
    ‘Can I watch telly?’ Lola asked, snuggling against Cath’s back.
    ‘Again? You watched loads already. All right, ten minutes, but then we’ve got to fetch Davey.’
    Minette said, looking disappointed, ‘Wow, Davey’s school finishes early.’
    ‘No, we’re taking him out for a hospital appointment.’ Cath decided to wait before asking her along. ‘So how come you and Abe went for a baby, then? Was it planned?’
    ‘Yes, though we didn’t know it would happen so quickly. But we were both up for it. We’ve been together nine years.’
    ‘Jeez, Louise. You must have been kids when you met.’
    ‘Pretty much. Not quite as young as your mum. We got together the second year at university.’
    ‘Love at first sight?’
    ‘No, it was more of a slow-burn thing. There was this older guy, Paul, a postgraduate. We had a thing, very intense, and I guess I took it too seriously. He was unbelievably sexy. Everyone thought so. Including my friend Bella, or should I say, my ex-friend Bella.’
    ‘One of those boyfriend-nicking Bellas, huh?’
    ‘Someone nicked him off her pretty quickly, too. Anyway, I’d been friends with Abe for ages, and I cried on his shoulder and …’
    ‘One thing led to another.’
    ‘Yes. He was so kind, and trustworthy. He said what he meant.’
    ‘Will you get married, do you think?’
    ‘Lots of our friends are, but we’ve got a mortgage and a baby instead.’
    ‘Those are big commitments.’
    ‘We’ve done the two hard bits and not had the