The Book of Love Page 2

Minutes later he pulled the car to a stop just outside the building they lived in. ‘Thank you, parking fairies,’ Erin whispered. 27 Hawthorn Avenue had, in Victorian times, been home to single families; gentile people whom Erin often imagined roaming through the rooms. Today, the building was divided into three flats and she and Dom lived in the high-ceilinged rooms of the ground floor, giving them access to their own private garden. Despite having Gerard and Sophie Carter as landlords, Erin loved living there; loved the original ornate cornice and ceiling roses, loved the stone fireplace in the living room, the picture rail in their bedroom, and the groaning wooden floors with years of story in every creak. Having come from a sixties-built, two-up two-down that her parents had mortgaged to buy from the local council, Erin loved the fact that she could feel the history in this house.

  ‘Right,’ he said, putting an arm around her and locking the car with the remote. ‘How are we going to do this?’ he asked as they neared the main front door. ‘Is this the threshold or is it the door to the flat?’

  ‘Dom, no, it’s too awkward, I’m too—’

  Before she could finish the sentence, he handed her the keys and scooped her up into his arms, carrying her with one arm under her back and the other under her knees. She opened the door laughing. ‘That’s enough!’ she cried.

  ‘No! We have to do the other one too. Just in case. It might be bad luck!’

  After entering the flat, Erin was lowered to the floor. And as Dom feigned an injured back, rolling on the hard, varnished wooden planks, his hand hitting against their three-foot plastic tree with its red and green baubles, her own hand rested on the moving child. Their baby was laughing too.

  It was, according to things she’d read on the subject, nature’s way of preparing her but Erin was tired of being tired, of not being able to sleep at night and having to snatch catch-up naps during the day. She shook the kettle on top of the Aga and moved it to the centre of the heat, careful to stand there as it came to the boil; the thing had a high-pitched whistle and she didn’t want to wake Dom.

  As she stirred a camomile teabag in a large mug, she walked past the sink, towards the pile of presents sitting on the kitchen table. Her empty teacup from this morning, when she’d been a single woman, sat upside down on the draining board. She took a seat at the head of the table – solid oak, country style with carver legs and a cutlery drawer at one end – it had been a present from the Carter family. They had offered to pay for a wedding; probably somewhere like Erin had dreamed of, but neither she nor Dom had wanted to accept, sensing a disapproval of Erin that was never discussed.

  She ran her hand over the array of gifts. There was only one in the tall mound that she was interested in opening, one she knew Dom wouldn’t mind her getting the first look at. Fitz had wrapped it in old newspapers, bound it with blue ribbon.

  The box was flat, A4 size and inside it, amongst layers of tissue paper, lay a leather-bound notebook. A bitter chocolate colour, soft nappa leather, with an opening flap like an envelope. From the point of the flap came a single strand of leather to tie around it. Picking it up, it felt lighter in her hand than she’d imagined. Her forefinger traced the embossed words on the front:

  What am I?

  I am The Book of Love,

  The pages of truth with its light and shade.

  I am Love,

  And if real, I will never fade.

  Opening it, a card fell to the table and on the back, her father’s handwriting:

  Erin and Dom, your mother and I used to do this. I’d swear it rescued us from many sticky times so this is a ‘borrowed’ idea for your gift. I hope you use it like we did – to talk to one another – to write down whatever it is you can’t bring yourselves to say. In years to come, this book will be a place where you’ll look back and read about the things you were possibly too young or naïve to understand. Only two rules – First, don’t do it too often, it’s a route to talking about difficult things, not the only place to mention them. And second, when you write something, start and end it with love, like ‘My dearest Erin/Dom’ etc. and always, ALWAYS end it with a reminder to each other that you love each other and why e.g. ‘I love you because …’

  Erin appreciated the thought in the gift but still replaced it in its box shaking her head, unable to imagine a time when she and Dom couldn’t simply say exactly what they wanted to one another.

  The sound of the soft pad of his feet on the tiled floor made her turn around.

  ‘Come to bed, love.’ Dom, wearing striped pyjama bottoms but bare chested, rubbed one of his eyes.

  ‘I can’t sleep.’ From behind, she felt both his arms circle her waist.

  ‘It’s three a.m.’ he yawned. ‘What’s in the box?’

  ‘A gift from Dad.’

  Dom pulled a chair up beside her, took a sip from her mug and grimaced. ‘No wonder you can’t sleep. That stuff is powdered shit.’ His head jerked towards the gift. ‘So, what is it?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter – just one of Dad’s hare-brained ideas.’

  Dom took her hand. ‘You remember when we first met, Mrs Carter?’

  She laughed. ‘It was only a year ago. Of course.’

  ‘Lydia’s New Year party. The first time I saw you, you were dancing, all five-foot-ten of you.’ He stroked the downy hair on her arm. ‘You were doing that weird hippy-sway-thing you do, those long limbs of yours flailing about.’

  ‘You called me Tree-Girl and I hated you.’

  ‘You fancied me.’

  ‘Okay, I fancied you a little. I hated the nickname.’

  ‘I knew I’d marry you, right then, that first moment I saw you.’

  ‘You did not.’

  ‘I did so.’

  Erin cupped his stubbled chin in her hands, focused on the amber speckles in his tired brown eyes. ‘Really?’

  ‘Really,’ he nodded. ‘Mind you, if I’d known I’d be awake at three a.m. on my sexless wedding night, I’d have left you there, bopping away in the living room.’

  ‘Ouch.’

  ‘I’d have turned right around and never looked back.’

  ‘Liar.’

  ‘You know me so well,’ he smiled.

  She stared back at the box. ‘You reckon we’ll always be able to talk to one another. Like this? Just spit out whatever’s on our mind?’

  ‘Sure. As long as it’s not always at three a.m. It’s been a long day, love, come back to bed?’

  Erin sighed, stood up with him and slipped into the crook of his arm, knowing he wouldn’t sleep again unless she tried to.

  Seconds later, when they climbed into bed, she shivered in the cold sheets. She curled her body into a foetal position, slipped gratefully into his spoon, instantly feeling his body warm hers; feeling his quiet mind soothe hers; feeling his love melt from his pores into hers, nourishing her. In the slivers of light angling through the Venetian blind, she caught sight of the third finger on his left hand where, rather than a ring, he’d had ‘Erin forever’ tattooed. His mother had almost had a coronary when she saw it. Erin had loved it, unable to believe that any man, especially this man; this man who had such passion for everything, had stamped himself as hers.

  Her hand squeezed his. With her free hand, she reached back and touched his cheek, the scent of leather still lingering on her fingertips.

  ‘I am Love,’ she whispered.

  ‘You too,’ he said softly.

  She smiled and closed her eyes.

  3. Erin

  THEN – April 1997

  ‘You’re kidding, right?’

  Dom was shaking his head, his expression deadpan.

  ‘Yes, you are! You’re kidding,’ Erin laughed. ‘Even you wouldn’t suggest strip poker to a woman who’s nine months pregnant and who can no longer see her feet.’

  She watched him as he held the tray steady in his hands, almost tripping over the small hospital bag she’d packed weeks ago.

  ‘What? So, I get a cup of tea and toast in bed if we play “because it
’s the weekend and we can”?’

  ‘Yep,’ he said setting the tray down beside her. ‘And I’ll thrash you. You will be naked first.’

  Erin took a bite of toast, flicked the crumbs from her flannel pyjamas, remembering the first outing of naked card games. It was only weeks after they met and they hadn’t left her room for an entire weekend. ‘I have two items of clothing on and I’m not taking them off,’ she said, but he was already pulling a deck of cards from his pocket.

  ‘Well, you’d better win then, hadn’t you?’

  Erin groaned. ‘Dom … I—’ She felt his eyes on her.

  ‘You’re beautiful,’ he told her. ‘I know you don’t feel it right now but there is nothing sexier than your pregnant body having my baby. And I’m trying to keep your mind off that – the “having the baby” thing.’

  Erin rubbed her tongue over her front teeth. She had morning breath. She had crumbs sticking to the creases at the edge of her lips. She’d been hoping for a lie-in, but here he was with his breakfast tray and his infectious way. She smiled, her hand held aloft for some of the cards he was already shuffling. ‘Hang onto your trousers, Dom,’ she said.

  ‘Won’t need to.’ He took a bite of her toast. ‘Ugh, sorry. It’s a bit cold.’

  ‘When I win, you can go and make some more.’

  ‘When I win, after you’ve put some clothes back on, I’ll take you out for an early lunch.’

  ‘Deal,’ she said, curling her hair around her ears, already practising her best poker face.

  Having spent a perfect, lazy day with Dom, Erin leaned against the back doorway and tried to swallow a sense of unease. Her natural anxiety was, of late, worsened by pregnancy hormones.

  ‘You don’t understand,’ she whispered, her hand making tiny circles around her navel.

  ‘So, explain it to me.’ Dom stopped her hand moving by taking it in his.

  Her voice faltered, unsure. ‘I suppose I’m afraid.’

  ‘Of what? I mean tell me exactly what you’re afraid of.’

  Erin lowered her eyes. Just outside the door by her stockinged feet lay a cluster of late-blooming crocuses still not quite ready for spring. Maybe the next day, she thought, maybe the next day the purple and golden yellow flowers would open and flash their bright stamens proudly. She watched her bump rise and fall with the pull and push of her lungs. And maybe once her baby was born she would feel ready to become a mother.

  Sometimes she couldn’t believe that there was another human being alive inside of her. Other times, the ones when the child kicked and complained in the confined space of her stretched womb, she was acutely aware of it. And tonight, as her insides tightened with more Braxton Hicks contractions, ‘teasers’ that could only have been named such by a man – she wondered if now would be a good time to tell Dom that she wasn’t doing this ever again. The thought of having someone else taking over her body again …

  ‘Talk to me,’ he pressed her.

  She closed her eyes, conscious that if she said how she really felt, was truly honest with him, Dom would only worry. She could have confessed she was afraid that becoming parents would change them, that their love might not have space for another person. She might have told him that her hormones seemed to play havoc with old anxieties, fears that had been prodded and poked awake. She might have told him she was afraid she was going to die in childbirth. The sensible part of her brain knew there was nothing logical about the panic that set in when she thought about giving birth, but … She batted away the scary thoughts.

  ‘Erin?’ Dom said.

  Raising his hand to her face, she angled it to cup her cheek, leaning into it. ‘I’m just being silly.’

  She felt his lips on her forehead – a kiss that confirmed he was right there with her, that he would listen to her ‘silly’ if she wanted him to. But Erin remained quiet, unable to speak her doubts to her waiting husband who believed he could kiss her fears away.

  Four days to go to her due date and the thoughts lined up now, colliding anxiously with one another. What if, she asked him silently in her frightened head, what if I die and leave you alone? What if I live and we have a beautiful child and I can’t love it? What if I love it more than you? What if I stay this weight – will you ever fancy me again? What if we’ve forgotten how to make love? She thought of earlier when he’d beaten her at strip poker and they had lain in the bed naked, just holding each other. She gripped her tightening stomach and breathed through the discomfort.

  ‘You got those false contraction things again?’ he asked, and she nodded, thinking he too could probably feel them as he held her. ‘Must be the weirdest thing.’

  ‘Yep,’ she pulled away from him and doubled over placing her hands on her knees. ‘Though these ones haven’t gone away,’ she said, one hand straight away steadying herself in the doorway.

  ‘Breathe.’ Dom rubbed her back. ‘Slowly.’

  And that’s what she was doing, breathing away the uncomfortable ‘teasers’, feeling Dom’s hand massaging her back gently, when she felt a small pop and watched water trickle down her legs onto her socks.

  ‘Shit!’ Dom reared upwards. ‘Is that …?’

  Erin straightened. ‘Get the bag, love.’

  ‘Right,’ he was staring at her.

  ‘Dom, the bag?’ She closed the back door, turning the key in the lock, moving the handle up and down to make sure.

  ‘You alright?’

  She nodded. ‘The—’

  ‘I know, the bag.’ Dom patted his pockets as if the ordered holdall she’d packed six weeks ago could be found in one, and Erin reached for his hand.

  ‘I’m okay,’ she said, and in that same moment recognised all her own worries in his darting eyes. Of course. Of course, he was frightened too. ‘I’m okay.’ She squeezed his hand.

  He nodded before moving at speed to their bedroom.

  ‘Get me some clean knickers and leggings,’ she called after him.

  ‘Right.’

  She heard him in the next room pulling out drawers, muttering to himself, and she began to peel her lower clothes from her body. With the leggings she’d been wearing, she wiped the tiny puddle of water from the floor, ignoring the thought that she’d expected a torrent, a waterfall, and that if that was all the amniotic fluid in her, it could only mean the rest was all baby. ‘Shit,’ she whispered to no one but herself.

  She was stood at the sink, filling the plastic basin with hot water and swishing her soiled clothes with her hands when Dom was suddenly by her side.

  ‘Okay, let’s get going,’ he laid a gentle arm around her shoulder.

  Erin gripped the sink, a wave of pain and nausea overcoming her. ‘Knick-ers,’ she panted.

  ‘Yes, sorry, I put them in the bag.’ Dom unzipped the bag and bent down, sliding the knickers up over Erin’s legs. She winced as she felt pinching lace and realised he’d obviously picked a pair from the pre-pregnancy drawer she hoped to return to someday.

  ‘A thong?’ she asked as she felt the useless triangle of material sit somewhere on her lower bump and a thin elastic line wedge between her bum cheeks.

  ‘God! Sorry.’ He was already pulling her foot through one leg of a pair of black leggings and began to peel it from her again.

  Erin tried to smile. ‘Leave it – it’s fine,’ she said gripping hold of his shoulder just as another contraction threatened. ‘It’ll give the nurses a laugh. Now, hospital,’ she said as she pulled the leggings up as far as they would go. ‘And step on it.’

  ‘Nooooooooo!’ Erin cried out as Susan, a heavy-set midwife from the west of Ireland, whom they had met nine hours earlier, now mentioned the word ‘doctor’. She had read the books, heard other women’s stories. A doctor meant a caesarean. She could do this. Her eyes fixed on Dom’s – deep brown – set beneath a sweaty, worried brow and above a surgical mask. ‘Tell them I can do it.’ She gripped his hand. ‘Ple-ea-se …’

  Dom stood, not letting go of her. ‘She says she can do it,’ he anno
unced to the room in some weird ‘I’m in charge’ voice that she had never heard before but loved him for.

  ‘Okay, Erin,’ Susan looked up at her from between her legs. ‘We’ll give it one more go. Breathe now … then wait for this next one before pushing,’ she said, glancing at the screen to her side. Erin had just a few moments to catch her breath before she could feel it rolling inside her; another pain that would gather speed like a determined tide. She tried to control it, watched the monitor strap across her middle stretch and breathed into it just before a torturous tightening racked her body. Without waiting to be told, Erin pushed to the point that she felt as if her head might explode. This was nothing like any book had told her; nothing like the classes she and Dom had practised simple breathing exercises in. And as she screamed into the final thrust that would give birth to her child, she felt sure her body would snap in two.

  ‘Push, love, push,’ Dom urged, and she wanted to thump him. She wanted to yell at him; ask him how exactly he’d shit a melon, but she needed any energy she had and the only sound that left her mouth was a long wail – a piercing cry that lasted the length of time it took for her baby to emerge. And when she finally breathed again, it was to the sound of Dom sobbing. ‘You did it, sweetheart. Jesus, you did it.’

  Erin waited for a baby’s cry. She tried to raise herself up on her elbows. ‘Where …’

  And then she heard it, a tiny mewling yelp, again, nothing like she’d been led to believe it would sound.

  ‘You have a little girl,’ Susan smiled at her as she wiped the struggling baby before placing her on Erin’s chest. Erin stared, mute, at the frowning bloodied infant, all wrinkles and wriggling limbs. She pulled her into her arms, checked for fingers and toes. Dom’s face grazed against hers and together they watched as their newborn opened her eyes. The books were wrong again. Because Erin felt that their daughter could really see already – had spotted them, focused on them both as if to say, ‘Hello, Mummy and Daddy. I’m here. Are you the people who’ve been talking to me for so long?’

  She clutched her baby, ignored the commotion south of her waist; paid no attention to words like ‘afterbirth’ and ‘stitches’.