The Book of Love Read online

  ‘Make it fly, Daddy!’

  They were at the highest point in the park. Dom widened his eyes. ‘I’ve never flown a kite before!’

  Erin was looking over his shoulder. ‘No Nigel? I thought it might take two of you to get it to fly.’

  ‘No Nigel.’ Dom shook his head. ‘Now,’ he leaned across and kissed his wife, ‘who’s going to help me? I suppose I just run and let it go?’

  ‘It’s an eagle, Daddy,’ Rachel repeated.

  Erin shrugged. ‘Try it – the running and letting go – and I prefer to think of it as a phoenix, by the way.’

  Whatever it was, Dom loved it. And as he ran, tossing a six-foot balsa wood frame of a flaming bird into the air, hoping the wind would make it rise and soar, he pushed all thoughts of Nigel and Lydia from his head and immersed himself in the moment. He held the reins with Jude and Rachel, somehow, naturally, teaching them to make it soar and swoop. He would recall the swishing sound of that first kite flight many years later, not just whenever he looked at the framed photograph Erin took of the three of them, but anytime he needed to feel hope overcoming sadness, he would close his eyes, and hear the flapping of that bird’s ascent.

  14th July 2009

  Dearest Erin,

  I’m braving the Book of Love to say something that I want to say but don’t feel able to say out loud and I’m not sure I want you to either. I’m not even sure I want you to respond.

  I’m worried about Lydia.

  I worry about Lydia.

  Nigel, though he’s hurt, can withstand a tsunami of pain. Lydia has her limits and I think she’s close to them.

  There is nothing we can do, I know, except to be there and hope she’s okay.

  Why am I writing any of this down for Christ’s sake?

  I’m crossing this out, NOT tearing it out, just wish I hadn’t started it.

  Love you,

  Dom xx

  30. Dominic

  THEN – June 2010

  Showers through the night had made the earth soft, malleable, easy to dig. When the tree had been delivered that morning, it was already in blossom and as he’d moved it, he did so gingerly, wanting to preserve as many as he could of the bell-shaped white flowers that clung to its skinny branches. ‘Styrax Japonicus’, the label said, and Jude had translated it earlier from the internet as ‘Japanese Snowbell’. Dom looked at the hole by his feet. Not deep enough for the root ball yet. He poised the spade one more time, wiping his brow with the back of his arm.

  Just as he was wondering what the temperature might be in the humid heat, Jude approached with a glass of water. ‘Mum said to give you this and wants to know if you’re ready yet.’

  ‘Almost,’ Dom replied, downing the water in one go. ‘Thanks, Son.’

  ‘Okay.’ Jude turned to leave.

  ‘Jude?’

  ‘What?’

  Dom ignored the ever-present impatience that edged every word that came from his pre-pubescent son’s mouth. ‘I just wanted to say thank you. This was a great idea.’

  ‘Okay.’ The two syllables were grunted just before Jude walked back up the garden.

  ‘Would you like to help? I could do with a hand getting it in?’ Dom didn’t need a hand lifting the six-foot-high specimen into the hole and Jude probably knew that. ‘I just don’t want to lose the blossom.’

  Jude first folded his arms across his chest before letting them loose by his side. ‘Okay,’ he said, and Dom smiled. Together, they lowered the young tree into place. ‘Why have you put it in this part of the garden?’ Jude finally spoke a full sentence as he used the spade to fill the earth in around the root ball.

  ‘Because this one will grow tall, it loves sunlight. It’ll be slow but should get to twenty or thirty feet. Here looks like the best place, what do you think?’

  Jude seemed to look around then nodded.

  Dom held the tree straight. ‘Pack it in tight,’ he told his son. ‘All around and pat it down with the back of the spade. Then, we’ll have to water it.’

  ‘Mum says it’s going to rain.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter, we have to give it lots of water, bed it in. I’ll go get the hose. Do you want to start on the other hole?’ He watched his son as he studied the surrounding earth.

  ‘Where, how close to the tree?’ Jude asked.

  ‘Not too close, we want to allow the roots room to spread. But, we also want to know exactly where it’ll be.’ Dom watched Jude work it out, moving in a straight line about four feet from where they had just planted.

  ‘Here?’ he asked, tapping a space with the shovel.

  ‘Perfect. I’ll be back.’

  As Dom unreeled the long hose that sat on the rear patio, Erin opened the kitchen window. ‘Ready yet?’ she asked, then looked at the sky. ‘Those rain showers won’t be long.’

  ‘Almost, the tree’s in, Jude is digging the other hole. Give us five minutes.’

  As Dom soaked the roots, he watched his son with his typical almost-a-teenager gait. His drainpipe jeans were slung low over his slender hips. His hair, straight and the same sandy colour as his own, was long and tucked around his ears. Above his top lip, a line of dark fuzz had prompted Dom to show him how to shave recently. Jude, being Jude, had opted to keep his furry lip and could be seen chomping on it regularly as if to convince himself that it was still there. Dark green eyes, the same shade, but somehow much more serious than his mother’s, looked across at him. ‘That deep enough?’ Jude asked.

  Dom nodded, to the sound of the girls walking down the garden. Under her arm, Rachel held the large glass coffee jar, now sterilised and containing folded sheets of paper. He kissed her head as soon as she was stood opposite him.

  ‘Dad, you going to say something?’ Rachel asked.

  Dom looked at Erin. They hadn’t actually discussed how this might unfold, just agreed with the children when Jude had suggested the idea as a good way to honour Sophie. He wasn’t sure he wanted to talk; not because he was overwhelmed with grief since her passing three weeks earlier, but the opposite, because the major feeling he’d felt since losing his mother had been relief – the disease had already robbed him of his vibrant mother a long time ago. Whatever grief he felt had been spent a long time.

  ‘I’ll say something,’ Erin stepped in and he winked at her. ‘Has everyone put what they want in the jar?’

  Dom licked his lips and ran his fingers along the edge of his mouth. ‘No,’ he said, reaching into his rear jeans pocket, and pulling a small manila envelope from it.

  Erin unscrewed the cap and held it in front of him.

  ‘Just a letter, like the rest of you,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Okay,’ she cleared her throat. ‘We’re planting this lovely tree today in honour of Sophie, whom we all loved. And we’ve all written something for her to remind her of that. I think she’ll have fun, reading them somewhere …’ She looked skyward and frowned. ‘That’s it,’ she said, ‘rain’s coming.’

  Dom held a hand out feeling the drops. ‘Great, now let’s get this thing in.’

  He put both arms around Erin and Rachel and watched as Jude lowered the jar into the second hole. Each of them kicked some soil on top and Jude finished the job with the back of the spade just before the heavens opened.

  As they ran up the garden he considered what he’d just done. It was only one of those white lies. There had been a short note to his mother, but the sealed envelope also contained that ‘missing page’ that had been burning a hole in various pockets and drawers over the years. He’d never been able to get rid of it, saw it as a permanent reminder of his failure to do the right thing at the right time. And now it was time to let it go.

  Later that day, in between the predicted showers, he’d been walking to see his father and took a detour onto the high street. His steps automatic, the route instinctive, it was as if he was testing himself without it, without that page to constantly remind him.

  At the place he’d known all along he was going to, he stood
back at the heavy glass door as two men exited. Once inside, his high was instant – all of his nerve endings fired up – he felt an actual tangible feeling of both pleasure and pain. Pleasure because the feeling of a win was something his body and brain remembered greedily. Pain because right there beside the high was the anguish he’d caused, the suffering he’d cause if he ever gambled again.

  He perched himself on the edge of a stool near the door, inhaled deeply, played with his bracelet – rolling the dog tag over and over on his wrist. Years of historic cigarette smoke that lay embedded in the walls made him want to gag. He closed his eyes, listened to the pulsing commentary of the two thirty at Doncaster and when the favourite passed the post first, some innate part of him wished he’d had thirty quid to win on him. Dom focused, remembered a man called Peter whom he’d met at Gamblers Anonymous. Peter had gambled everything but the air he breathed away and would have gambled with that too if it allowed him another fix. Dom concentrated on recalling his features; eyes that had probably once been bright and ambitious, dulled by disappointment, his face scrawny and skin mottled from lack of proper nutrition. Peter had been the most extreme case in his group, and because of that he was the one he talked to, prayer-like, during these moments. Dom prayed to Peter, wherever he was, because he, Dom, was godless, motherless and now pageless. He asked for the strength to leave the place because he had so much to walk away for.

  When Dom stood, he didn’t look back and once safely outside the door, his breathing levelled. The thank you to Peter, a whisper, disappeared into the soft summer breeze. He began to walk towards the old family home, what was now just his father’s house. He pulled his phone from his jeans pocket, pushed a button for the last number dialled.

  ‘What’s up?’ she asked.

  ‘I wanted to hear you.’

  Erin laughed. ‘You only left fifteen minutes ago!’

  Dom didn’t hesitate. ‘I just spent seven of them sitting in the bookies.’

  Silence crackled between them until she said ‘And?’

  ‘And I walked away. I smelled the air, remembered the high, swallowed the fact I thought it might be what I want today, and left.’

  ‘Good,’ she said. ‘I’m glad.’

  ‘So, I wanted to hear you, to remind me why I try to be a better man.’

  ‘Oh, Dom.’

  He sensed she might be about to cry. ‘Because even after all these years, everything I do, I do to impress you. I still want to make that Tree Girl fall in love with me.’

  ‘She did. Twice.’

  ‘I still want to make her proud of me.’

  ‘She is. Always. Especially today.’

  ‘See you later.’

  ‘You will. Kiss your dad for me.’

  ‘Yeah, I will.’

  Gerard was, Dom could see, doing remarkably well. He’d found him cleaning the oven after baking mini-muffins from a recipe Lydia had given him. Though he hadn’t dared to raise the subject, Dom suspected his father too felt some relief at Sophie’s passing. As if he’d read Dom’s mind, Gerard looked at him over the rim of his mug of tea and whispered. ‘I miss her, but I’m glad she’s at peace.’

  Dom took a bite of the cake his father had insisted he have.

  ‘She’s up there looking after your little one now.’

  He sucked the crumbling mixture in his mouth, swallowed it. ‘That’s a nice idea, Dad,’ he said.

  Gerard smiled. ‘I know you don’t believe in it, Dom, but that’s just because you think with your brain instead of feeling with your heart.’ His father sipped some tea from his mug. ‘It’s different when it’s someone we’ve loved. The only way we can keep going is to believe that somewhere on some other plane, they do too.’ He raised his mug as if in toast. ‘For all of my previous cynical beliefs as a younger man, now, I choose to feel with my heart.’

  Dom shifted in the chair.

  ‘Heck, Dominic, you must believe what you believe.’ His father looked all around him, waved his hands around and said. ‘But I can feel her all around me still.’

  ‘I’m sure she is, Dad,’ he told his father what he wanted to hear.

  ‘Did you hear Lydia’s offered me a job?’

  ‘What?’ Dom’s look was one of surprise.

  Gerard continued, ‘I can’t rattle around this house on my own. I’m going to become a barista!’

  Dom smiled at his father’s smile as Gerard shrugged. ‘How hard can it be? I’m going to serve coffee in the Bean Pod three mornings a week.’

  ‘It’s a good idea, Dad.’

  ‘Maybe make some muffins for them?’

  It had been a long time since Dom had seen his eighty-one-year-old father smile and he nodded repeatedly.

  ‘How are you?’ his father asked and Dom for a split second debated telling him of his detour to the bookies.

  ‘I’m okay,’ he replied. ‘We planted a tree in the back garden for Mum, Jude’s idea, and buried some letters for her.’

  ‘She’d have loved that,’ Gerard said. ‘She will love that,’ he added, looking out the window next to him.

  ‘She’d have loved the idea of you serving coffee,’ Dom poked his dad with his elbow and Gerard laughed.

  ‘You’re right, she’ll probably hate that, but she’ll want me happy,’ he shrugged.

  ‘That’s all I care about too, Dad.’ He looked around the old, dated kitchen, at the scarred oak worktops that his mother had once lavished with linseed oil. ‘Is there anything you need or want?’

  Dom looked down as his father’s liver-spotted hand covered his own. ‘I want you and Lydia to carry on leading your own lives and not worry about me. No fussing.’ Gerard shook his head. ‘No feeling you need to pop in and check on me. I’m good to go,’ he tapped his watch and smiled at him, ‘for another few years at least.’

  19th June 2010

  Darling Dom,

  I’m proud of you. I’ve already told you this face to face tonight so why tell you again in our Book of Love? How can I tell you I’m proud of you differently in here?

  I can say it without you shushing me, or blushing, or being generally uncomfortable when I praise you to your face. I can say: I’m proud of you, Dom – for putting us first, for handling your demons, for walking away today, for being a good son today and always. And your mum knew that about you too.

  I also wanted to share my last memory of her with you in here – that way you can read it as often as you like. The week before she died, I went over to help your dad on Wednesday morning like I always do. Sophie was quiet, and I urged your dad to go for a walk, to see a friend, just to get a break. He left me with her for an hour and we talked. Well, I talked, and Sophie listened, but I was chatting about the time we’d all gone camping together in Cornwall and the tent collapsed, remember? Well she did, because she smiled, Dom. I’d swear it – she smiled – a big wide grin. She smiled, and it was such a lovely moment and made all the more special because I think she knew who I was, and I think she knew that I was special to her and that she was special to me.

  A lesson to our children that relationships can change and do change and that we should never judge. A lesson to me that she could still hear, that she was still in there somewhere.

  Today we planted that tree together. The kids are well. We’re healthy. All the things that matter are in place – as Sophie herself once said – ‘The rest is noise.’

  If you need me, I’m here. Right beside you.

  All my love,

  Erin xx

  21st June 2010

  Erin the Brave,

  I’ve been wondering what exactly I need to convince me that Mum lives on, watches over us. You believe that; Dad believes it and I’d really like to, but it’s never been part of the way I’m wired.

  Memories are what live on – the happy images and feelings we can recall with our loved ones and I have many of them with Maisie and Mum. But do I believe in some heavenly place we all go to live happily ever after? It’s a bit too sweet (and convenient
) a notion for me. Do I believe, like you, that spirit lives on? No. I don’t. We are our loved one’s legacy. Their spirit and energy live on in us.

  Mum’s not with us anymore, but that steely part of her? That part of her that lived for family – I like to think she and I share that, and that maybe that part of her energy stayed behind to strengthen it in me for the rest of my life. It was certainly with me the time I sat in that bookies the other day.

  Family. It meant everything to me before she left us and if it’s possible it means even more now.

  Mightily,

  Dom xx

  31. Erin

  NOW – 17th June 2017

  From The Book of Love:

  ‘You told me once, after you’d lied, after the shit

  had hit the fan; after you’d left, after you came

  back, you told me the only truth that mattered

  was me and you.’

  17th June 2017

  Darling Dom,

  You weren’t here this morning when I opened my eyes and I woke really wanting your arms around me. That squeeze of yours that always lasts just a couple of seconds that tells me you’re here and I’m here and everything else, as Sophie would have put it, ‘is noise’. I was lying there in our bed, thinking of the night we know Maisie was conceived and I was right back there … 1996 in my bedroom in the flat I shared with Lydia; my tiny room with a double bed edged up against the wall and just enough floor space to walk around it.

  That night, we’d been out to see a movie and afterwards we went straight to the bedroom. We were just standing there, and you ran your fingers slowly the length of my arms, shoulder to wrist and I remember feeling that that was the most erotic thing I’d ever felt.

  And this morning, before getting up, before that long stretch I do every morning, my eyes closed, thinking about that time, I remembered the zip on my dress opening as if I was back there again with you. A slow movement, the sound of each metal tooth catching, just enough to slide it off my shoulders, lower it down my body. I could almost feel your kisses again, barely touching my skin. Before we made love that night, there wasn’t a square inch of my body you hadn’t kissed. There wasn’t a part of my spirit your eyes hadn’t reached. And I knew – I knew you were the one I’d take a chance on. You were the one I’d be reckless for.