The Book of Love Page 13

  ‘Three bad decisions, actually. Gambling. Gambling the night Maisie died, and then lying about all of it for far too long. Oh four, you never told your wife you’d borrowed money from Dad. And stop swearing.’

  Dom turned, left the room and headed to the small galley kitchen. He opened a cupboard, took down a half litre bottle of gin and took a deep slug from it, before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Lydia stood in the landing watching. ‘What? You’re now going to add drinking to your list of woes?’

  Dom took another gulp.

  ‘Don’t you see, Dom? What you did made all of her worst fears real. She’s Fitz’s daughter. She was weaned on love being the answer to everything. She met you and you made her believe in that even more and then suddenly – it wasn’t, it’s not. This isn’t her getting back at you. This is her destroyed …’

  Dom felt his insides gnarl as he screwed the cap back on the bottle. ‘Good people can do bad things if they’re in a bind. She has to find a way to forgive me, so we can move on.’

  ‘Jesus, Dom.’ Lydia was shaking her head as if he was a complete idiot. ‘You should hear yourself. This,’ she waved her hands around his bijou space. ‘This is her moving on.’

  ‘Oh, just fuck off, Lydia.’

  He couldn’t look at her face; didn’t want to see any more heavy disappointment.

  ‘Fine.’ His sister bent down, grabbed her handbag from the floor and slammed the door on her way out.

  Dom went back to the bedroom, picked up the screwdriver. He had a job to do. He had to get this place looking as if it could be a home and he had less than twelve hours before his children came to stay the weekend. He would pick them up the next day and they’d stay until he dropped them back on Sunday – New Year’s Day. His free hand circled his stomach. Christmas had been a sad affair and now the eve of another year loomed – a year he simply couldn’t contemplate spending without Erin; without Rachel and Jude.

  Tightening the screws on the wooden frame, though he told himself that he had more important things to deal with than Lydia, he reached for his phone and dialled her number.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said to her voicemail. ‘This week is our ninth wedding anniversary … but I’ll snap out of this feeling sorry for myself lark. You’re only trying to help and I’m a jerk.’

  At midnight, he sat on the bed in his own bedroom. The linen he had bought didn’t fit. The mattress was way harder than it had felt in the shop. The space, though small, seemed to echo with his every movement – as if to amplify his loneliness. He reached into a plastic crate and removed the book. Earlier, the internet had told him that willow was no longer the traditional gift for a ninth anniversary – that leather was the more modern alternative. He wondered if he should just give it back to her but thought she’d toss it in some cupboard.

  Whereas he – he still needed it.

  He read some of the first entry he’d written just after he and Erin had split:

  You’re serious about this, aren’t you? That’s what I don’t believe. I thought you’d calm down that I’d spend a very long time making it up to you and life would carry on with some new normal that I’d eventually fix.

  Erin had never been more serious in her life.

  And Lydia was right – this was her, this was his, new normal.

  He clicked the Travelodge pen that had sat on top of his new Ikea bedside table on and off, listened to the rhythmic sound before he began to write. He sat up, his legs straightened ahead of him on the bare mattress, and with his back against the wall, he wrote with the absolute certainty that Erin would read his words. Someday, not today, but someday, Erin would read his words.

  30th December 2005

  Darling baby Maisie,

  Where does it say in the non-existent rulebook that I always have to write to Erin in here? I mean I know that’s the point of it, but the point of it is sort of lost at the moment anyway. And I say, ‘at the moment’, because I still believe your mum and I will get back together. Sometime. Soon, I hope.

  She believes you’re an angel or that robin that used to scutter about in the low-level plants in the garden. I used to hear her talking aloud to you when she thought she was alone. Maybe she’s right. I hope she is. I hope that spirit exists. I hope you live on in some way because it lessens the pain of you being gone for the last seven years. You’d have been eight years old.

  Sometimes, days pass and I realise that I haven’t thought of you and I feel guilty – even more than I feel normally anyway. I should have been there. Logic tells me that even if I had, more than likely you’d have died anyway, that I wouldn’t have been able to do anything but there are so many ‘maybes’ and ‘what ifs’.

  What if we’d bought one of those baby monitors we said we didn’t need because you were only ever in the next room?

  What if I hadn’t gone out and decided to sit and watch you quietly as I sometimes did on my own, just listening to your breathing. I’d surely have noticed it stopping, your last inhalation and I’d have jumped up, picked you up and breathed life into you, Maisie. What if …?

  What if I’d been home and you’d died anyway? Some part of me realises that I’d have been there more for Erin. I think I’d have been a better support for her, noticed how bad she was with anxiety when you died, and the twins were born. I think I’d have been able to see through the grey and reach her, grab hold of her, had I not been consumed by guilt and grief myself.

  Yes, grief. I didn’t howl or bang walls or make any noise. But in those early days I saw you everywhere, Maisie. I saw your face in the sky. I heard your giggle in the office. I tasted the loss of you, the missed opportunity of your life for what I know you would have become – I chewed it in a piece of toast. What if …?

  It faded, that level of grief, of course it did, but the guilt never went.

  And now, every day, rather than be consumed with the ‘what ifs’ around what would have happened had you lived, I’m buried in ‘what ifs’ around truth.

  Don’t tell anyone, Maisie, because this is not standard parental advice, but truth? It’s so bloody overrated.

  Because if I hadn’t told her, I’d still be with her. We’d have moved to a new house; your mum, your brother, Jude, and sister, Rachel and me. Next May, on your anniversary, we’d have talked about you, about what sort of young girl you might have been then. I’d have held Erin as she cried, and we’d have laughed too, remembering your funny ways. She’d have brought the twins to mass. I might even have gone. I might have watched Erin, head down, praying like she used to as a child, praying for your heavenly soul while I chatted to you in my own way and bribed the twins to stay quiet.

  Instead, I’m chatting to you here.

  What if you’d lived, Maisie, and none of this had ever happened? What could you have done? Who would you have been? I imagine you’d have been the child in school who stops all the bullies. You’d have corralled all the ‘bad kids’ and escorted them to the head teacher. You might have been a teacher, like Jude already says he wants to be. Imagine, you could have gone through uni together, introducing him: ‘This is my little brother’ and he’d be towering over you. And you and your sister – you’d have been close, like twins yourselves. And your mum and I would hover, watching … We’d be together and the three of you would look at us and say, ‘See that? That’s what I want. I want to be like Mum and Dad.’

  As it is, I’m never going to be able to inspire you, Maisie. You’re never going to give me one of those hugs that tells me I’m loved. I’m never going to walk you down the aisle and hand you over to someone I hope is worthy of you. I’m never going to see you grow up except in my mind, where, admittedly, you grow up a pensive, thoughtful child and I’m sure with each year, you’ll grow up to be a beautiful girl and woman, and probably discover the cure for cancer.

  Tomorrow is another day.

  Another day to move forward and still miss you.

  I love you, Maisie-Daisy-do,

  Always have and
always will,

  Dad xx

  21. Dominic

  THEN – May 2006

  Dom sat in his car outside 27a Hawthorn Avenue munching on an apple. He blew into his hands, hoped the weather for the few days he had with the children would feel more like May and less like January.

  When it was time, Dom tossed the core into one of the bins lined up by the entrance and noticed that the tree line creeping over the side return of the ground-floor flat was far too high. He heard Rachel’s squeals as he rang the bell, quelled the feeling in his stomach that he always had on his own doorstep.

  ‘Hey,’ he said when Erin appeared. ‘You want me to lop those Leylandii when you’re away?’

  ‘What? Yeah, okay. Hi, come in, it’s cold.’

  Dom did as he was told, stepped over the threshold for one of only a few times since he’d crossed it going the opposite direction last October. ‘You all set? Excited about the trip?’

  ‘Yes. It’ll be great to see Rob again. The kids are ready. I’ve packed everything they’ll need in one suitcase.’

  Dom looked to his left where a case that was almost bigger than the twin’s room in his flat sat up against the wall.

  ‘They’re just brushing their teeth,’ Erin added, looking at her wrist anxiously.

  He held his breath. He had two things to do. One, pick up the kids and the other to give her the envelope.

  ‘This is for you,’ he pushed it into her hand.

  ‘What is it?’ Her eyes met his.

  ‘It’s a CD,’ he attempted a smile. It was an old joke between them – from a time they’d given each other CDs one Christmas and spent an hour playing a silly game making up crazy guesses at what was in the obvious package.

  ‘Stop messing about. What is it?’

  ‘Dollars, okay? Look, I just want you to have a good time.’

  ‘I don’t need your money. I have that sorted.’ She tried handing it back to him, but he stood back.

  ‘Will you let me do something for you? No agenda. The business is doing well, probably because I’m there twenty-four seven nowadays, but I want to be able to share that with you.’

  She shook her head. ‘Dominic, I’m glad your decision to go out on your own is working but I really don’t want this.’

  ‘Consider it a birthday present.’

  ‘My birthday’s not until October.’

  He lowered his voice. ‘You got nothing except some awful truths last October. Go shopping in New York. Have some fun.’

  There was a tiny flutter in her throat as he watched indecision cloud her lovely face.

  ‘Erin, we are, at least, two people co-parenting two children whom we both love. We’re, at best, two friends who used to be a lot more to each other. Please, take the money. Have some child-free fun in America.’

  She folded the envelope, put it in her rear jeans pocket. ‘Thank you,’ she said, doing that thing with her hair that she did when she was nervous, where she used both hands at the same time to curl it around her ears. Usually, it was followed by a tiny smack of her lips. She’d grown her hair long again and all he wanted to do was to reach out and stroke it with the back of his hand.

  He coughed.

  She smacked her lips together before speaking. ‘Dominic, the Leylandii …’

  ‘When was it that you stopped calling me Dom?’

  Erin looked back at Rachel, who had run from the bathroom to the kitchen yelling that she was just getting her rucksack. She leaned back against the wall and placed a hand on her stomach. ‘I wasn’t aware I had.’

  Dom put his arms out to Rachel, who had stopped dragging the bag she had and was now running towards him. He bent down and raised her high in his arms.

  ‘Where’s Daddy’s favourite girl?’

  ‘Here!’ She laughed as he tickled her before putting her down.

  ‘Where’s your brother? Go on, get him, Mummy needs to get going.’ Rachel ran off yelling Jude’s name. ‘You’re meeting Fitz at the airport?’ he asked Erin.

  Erin nodded, rubbing her left arm with her right hand. ‘It’s cold,’ she reiterated.

  ‘Well, you might even get some sun over there,’ he said, wondering how two people who had fallen in love the moment they met; whose limbs had clung to one another in an ecstasy he would never feel with anyone else; who had conceived three children in love – how they had ended up in the doorway discussing cold fronts on two different continents.

  ‘You definitely got a lift there? I don’t mind driving you.’ Their eyes met. Hers, once grass-green and liquid-soft, now granite, impenetrable, moved to the suitcase and she walked towards it.

  ‘I’ve got a lift, thanks,’ she said.

  ‘Okay … Hey, buddy,’ he said to Jude.

  ‘Hi, Dad,’ their son replied.

  ‘Right, you two,’ Erin bent down and pulled the two children tight to her chest.

  Dom swallowed. However hard he’d made her, Erin was a wonderful mother and would miss the children. He’d had to beg her to let him have them for the week when he’d heard it was planned they’d go to Lydia’s. That was the first row he and Erin had had since he’d left. The first airing of her anger, her fear, her reluctance to trust him for longer than twenty-four hours with their children.

  ‘I’ll miss you,’ she said into their hair. ‘Be good for your dad. And I’ll call you, yeah?’

  Dom reminded himself that she had never left the children to go abroad before.

  ‘I’ll look after them, Erin,’ he said. ‘I promise.’

  She sighed and since they were already out the door blew them kisses. ‘You’d better,’ she replied.

  ‘Looks like your lift is here,’ Dom jerked his head to the street outside. ‘Stop, guys!’ he called to the children. ‘Wait for me!’

  Erin’s face flushed. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow to say goodnight to them,’ she said.

  ‘Have a good time,’ he said. ‘Stay safe.’

  ‘You too.’

  He reached for her, held her for a brief moment and kissed her head. ‘Say hi to Fitz and Rob for me.’

  She didn’t pull away, at least not immediately, and as he walked the children past and loaded them into the car as slowly as possible, he tried to glance at the tall male driver in the parked car. He couldn’t see him clearly, but whoever he was would have seen that hug. And whoever he was, he was simply a blip in Erin’s landscape – a friend to spend time with rather than be lonely. Not someone to love. No, he’d felt it in the moment they’d touched. Despite inclement weather conditions there had been a definite thaw in Erin. There were no sparks or electrics – just a longing. No need for words in that tiny moment.

  Dom was exhausted. The three days and four nights with the twins, though amazing, were tiring and he had a whole new respect for Erin. Cooking for them had been a challenge in the tiny kitchen and the morning before he drove them home, he saw similarities in the twins he’d never noticed before.

  ‘Mummy puts the eggs in a cup to mix them first,’ Jude explained, his questioning face a mirror of his sister’s.

  ‘Daddy, that’s not the way you make scrambled eggs,’ Rachel agreed.

  Dom scratched his head. ‘I make pancakes for you, that’s what I always make for you.’

  ‘But we want scrambled eggs,’ Jude said, and Rachel nodded.

  ‘Right.’ He looked down at the pan, knowing that the eggs would indeed have been scrambled by the fork he was about to use on them.

  ‘They won’t taste the same,’ Jude warned.

  ‘Right.’ Dom repeated as he opened the bin and tossed them. Seven months had passed and still life without her felt like he moved through living and breathing as a half and not a whole. ‘Right,’ he eyeballed his children. ‘Tell me exactly how Mummy does it – what do I do?’

  ‘It’s tough alone,’ he reiterated to Nigel as they both held cold pints of lager shandy at the bar in the Coach and Horses. They’d just played a squash match at the school gym and Nigel had thrashed him.
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  ‘Don’t use a few days with your kids as a reason for your playing shit tonight,’ he grinned, nodded his head at a man who passed by whom Dom didn’t recognise.

  ‘All I’m saying is, I’m ready for my bed, even if it’s still like sleeping on a board.’

  ‘You need to date again.’

  ‘Have you been listening to me at all?’

  Nigel stretched his eyebrows as if daring him to tell him one more time that he was going to get his wife back.

  ‘She texted me earlier, asked me for my email address. What do you think that’s about?’

  Nigel’s expression told him he didn’t care, that he might be just a little bored of the Dom and Erin saga.

  ‘I set up a new one and sent it to her, smartdomnot@hmail.com.’

  Nigel laughed.

  ‘Erin thought it was funny too. See, I’m breaking her down … This time next year, my man, the plan will be complete and normal services will resume.’

  ‘Do I need to worry about you, mate?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘You do remember there’s another man sniffing around?’

  Inside, Dom’s stomach liquefied. Outside, he waved the suggestion away as if he was swatting a fly. He felt Nigel’s hand touch his, three soft taps. ‘I’m trying to let you know that you may be deluded.’

  ‘And I’m explaining that she and I are bigger than any other possible her and him.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Right.’

  Nigel sighed. ‘And you know this how? I mean you don’t know if it’s a thing yet or ever will be. Have you met him, seen them together?’

  ‘Have you?’ Dom glared.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Exactly,’ he replied.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘I am.’ Dom smiled and clinked his glass against his friend’s. ‘You’ll see.’

  As soon as he got in, Dom switched on the desktop that sat on top of the chest of drawers next to his bed. He logged onto the internet and there sitting in the new inbox was an email from Erin:

  -----Original Message-----

  From: Erinthebrave101@btinternet.com

  Sent: 20 May 2006 16:55