The Book of Love Read online

  And Maisie being conceived that night was possibly careless, but you’ve always said that life unfolds the way it should, and I like to think that was the first time I believed that, believed you. Friends, parents, said we were hasty, irresponsible even; but we were Dom and Erin and we were so ready to take a chance on love.

  Right now, instead of writing this to you, I wish you were here, that we were together upstairs. I wish I could just plug myself in to you again. I wish we’d just made love and were lying down, limbs knotted, my hair sprawled across your chest. I wish your hands were twisting through it and I could just listen to your heartbeat.

  Da-dum, da-dum, da-dum.

  Love you always,

  Erin xx

  Change is coming.

  I can feel it in my bones as surely as I can feel the gentle waft of warm summer air whisper past my bare legs, as sure as the white blossoms on Sophie’s tree shiver next to me. Dom is sitting on the stump of an old oak that we had to have cut down last year. He’s leaning forward, one elbow on his thigh and his head resting on his hand, just like Rodin’s The Thinker. I’m sitting on a low deckchair in the shade of the tall Japonicus watching him think.

  Summer … my favourite season.

  By October, autumn, the killing season, Sophie’s scented buds will wither on the wet ground and the foliage from the two oaks that still surround me will cover the lawn in a shrivelled rusty carpet.

  Dom shifts, his arm reaching out, his hand catching mine in his.

  ‘Everything is going to be okay,’ he speaks with his usual confidence.

  A football bounces onto our patio from the two children playing next door. Dogs bark from the house on the other side.

  Then silence descends and almost all is well in Valentine’s Way.

  I smile, lock eyes with him and I believe him over again.

  32. Dominic

  THEN – November 2011

  He could see her at the entrance to the tube just as he exited the solicitor’s office. Despite being shrouded in a full-length green padded coat, some rust-coloured strands of the hair she’d been growing again for the last year escaped the fur-lined hood.

  ‘How’d it go?’ she asked as he kissed her cheek.

  ‘All done.’ Dom put an arm around her shoulder and began to walk. ‘Now, how about a quiet hour together before returning to the teenagers who like to hurl food and insults at one another.’

  ‘Dom, people are arriving at seven.’

  ‘We have time for one celebratory drink.’

  Minutes later as they sat in a bar off Soho Square, Dom ordered champagne. Sensing she was antsy, he reached for her gloved hand. ‘Erin, we both know this is the right thing for now.’

  ‘Putting our savings into you and Tim going into business together is the right thing to do. We can wait to own Valentine’s again.’

  Dom listened to her practised mantra, let go of her hand and leaned back in his chair. He watched as she handed her coat, which had lain on her lap, to one of the staff, as her eyes roamed the bar. It was as if she were looking for confirmation of what she’d just told him in the floral wallpaper, or the bartender’s shoes – anywhere but his eyes.

  ‘Erin?’

  ‘Uh, huh.’

  He sat forward, turned her face to his. ‘I can go back. I can go back to that office and instruct the solicitor to tear up the papers. I can do that because we both need to be on board.’

  ‘I am, I am,’ she said, covering his hand with one of hers as they were served two glasses of bubbles.

  She was first to raise her glass. ‘To you and Tim and the new partnership, Carter & Chimes. And to us.’

  He clinked her glass, relieved that her smile seemed genuine. ‘To all of that,’ he said.

  It was seven minutes to seven that night when Dom had to agree with his daughter’s message. Laughing was infectious. Both he and Erin were stood in the living room watching Rachel and her group of friends.

  ‘It’s like this,’ Rachel kept the straightest face possible and on the count of three, she and the others all waved their hands in the air and laughed. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! He couldn’t help it and began to join them as Erin laughed aloud too.

  ‘See?’ Rachel giggled. ‘You have to laugh when you hear a certain sort of laughter.’

  ‘We should send them out to the Middle East as envoys,’ Erin whispered.

  Dom glanced at the face of the grandfather clock in the corner. ‘I’m just going to pop outside and check everything’s in place. Jude?’ He called his son’s name as he walked to the rear of the house through the kitchen. Jude was stood by the French doors swigging from the top of an open beer bottle. Dom looked at the line of bottles he and Erin had opened for the visiting adults.

  ‘I can see that, you know. You should probably at least attempt to hide it.’

  ‘It’s one beer, Dad.’

  ‘You’re thirteen years old. Put the beer down and come and help me outside.’

  ‘It’s freezing, I—’

  ‘Jude,’ Dom was already in the garden handing him a large torch. ‘We’ll be two minutes. Come on, just hold this and point,’ he said.

  In the garden, Jude pointed the beam of light skyward. ‘A clear night,’ he said.

  ‘All the better for fireworks,’ Dom replied as they neared the rear of the garden. ‘Aim that light over here.’

  At the end, by the back wall, Dom had lined up the boxes.

  ‘Okay, looks good.’ He clapped his son on the back as they both shivered heading back to the house. ‘Nine o’clock kick-off. Who have you got coming?’

  ‘Just a couple of mates from school.’

  ‘Do these mates have names?’

  Jude hesitated and handed Dom the torch. ‘Tigger and Tosh.’

  ‘You have friends called Tigger and Tosh?’ Dom was greeted with a rare smile.

  ‘Yep. Tigger because he can’t sit still and Tosh because he talks shit all the time.’

  Dom laughed as he rubbed his arms warm. ‘I see. What do they call you?’

  ‘Lanks’.

  ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘I’m tall and skinny – lanky.’

  ‘Ahh,’ Dom replied. At six foot, he was tall for his age, already taller than Erin and just two inches short of him. And his shoulders seemed to have widened of late. Dom was looking at a young man and absently patted his own hairline where it had begun to thin recently. ‘Let’s go in, Lanks, get our coats lined up for later.’

  Erin was in the kitchen. ‘We’re missing a beer,’ she said glaring at Jude’s back as he left the room. ‘Chilli’s ready, rice is done, people will start arriving any moment.’ Erin pointed at things as she spoke before walking over to Dom, resting her head on his shoulder.

  ‘I’ve just this minute accepted I’m losing my hair,’ he whispered. ‘And did you know our son’s nickname is Lanks because he’s tall and skinny.’

  Erin laughed, a soft comforting sound, next to his ear.

  ‘And he hangs out with two lads called Tigger and Tosh.’

  She laughed louder, moved away, towards the ringing doorbell.

  ‘And our daughter is running laughing classes,’ he murmured to himself, shaking his head.

  ‘Need a hand out there?’ Fitz was already putting his coat on.

  Dom nodded. ‘Jude is supposed to help but …’

  ‘You got some water nearby, just in case of—’

  Dom interrupted, ‘Hose nearby, they’re all lined up. All I need is you to hold the torch while I light the match and then run like hell. That’s both of us, Fitz.’ He put an arm around his father-in-law’s shoulders. ‘You can still run, can’t you?’

  ‘Cheeky fucker,’ Fitz laughed.

  ‘Okay, folks,’ Dom called out. ‘Anyone who wants to see the fireworks, they’re a minute away so come to the back doors, or out on the patio, now.’

  He slid his arms into his overcoat, looked back at the house to see a crowd gather inside and out and shook the box of matches
in his pocket. At 9.03 p.m. Dom Carter lit the fuse on the first rocket of the night, but the real explosion came the following morning.

  After eating breakfast alone, Dom closed the door to his study behind him and sat at his desk, his legs crossed and stretched out in front of him. He had caught up with emails and was filing the signed contracts from yesterday in a new file, with the tab ‘Carter & Chimes’, when he heard shouts coming from the kitchen. Instant adrenalin kicked in and he ran towards the voices.

  Erin was sat at the head of the table, with Fitz seated on her right staring at his twisting hands in his lap.

  ‘Erin?’

  ‘Dad’s got some news,’ she said as she stirred her tea into a beige whirlpool.

  Outside, a car backfired and Erin flinched.

  ‘Well, someone speak!’ Dom poured himself a coffee from the cafetiere on the table.

  ‘I’m going to the States.’ Fitz raised his head.

  ‘Why the commotion?’ Dom blew the steam from his mug and took a seat opposite Erin. ‘Why don’t you join him – it’s been ages since you visited Rob.’

  ‘You misunderstand,’ she murmured.

  ‘I’m going there to live,’ Fitz announced, ‘at least to see if I can. The plan is to stay for at least a year. Rob has an annexe, well you know that, that Rob has an annexe …’

  Dom looked at Erin. His father-in-law had been born just outside New York but had lived in Ireland since the age of two until moving to London at twenty. Dual nationality made it possible for him to mess with Erin’s head now. Shit. She was devoted to Fitz and vice versa.

  ‘It will be a chance to see some of his kids growing up too,’ Fitz added.

  ‘Dad’s met a woman.’

  ‘What?’ Dom frowned. ‘Fitz?’

  ‘I’m not moving there because of her. Erin, you know that.’

  ‘Dad met a woman when he was at Rob’s last Christmas. Remember I told you?’

  Dom didn’t remember her telling him, and Fitz meeting a woman at sixty-eight was something he thought he would remember, but now was not the time to argue so he nodded.

  ‘Well,’ Erin said, standing up, ‘Dad met Penny at Christmas and now he’s moving to the States, yet one has nothing to do with the other.’

  ‘Erin,’ Fitz said.

  ‘Yes, Dad.’

  ‘I know you’re upset, but—’

  ‘You have to do what you have to do, Dad.’

  ‘Don’t be like that, please. This is hard for me too.’

  Erin shook her head and walked out of the room.

  ‘You could have given her some warning.’ Dom stared after her. ‘Shit, you could have warned me last night.’

  ‘Look, there’s always been an open invite from Rob and …’ He looked down the empty hallway after Erin. ‘I know there’s not much point in going after her.’

  ‘You know fuck all.’ Dom thought of everything Erin had been through, the things that she had kept back from their children and her father. He stood and walked over to Fitz’s chair. ‘You get your ageing ass up those stairs and reassure her nothing will change between you two even though we all know it will.’ He pulled the back of the chair as Fitz stood. ‘And who’s this Penny anyway?’

  ‘I’m not moving for Penny. I’m doing it because if I don’t do something different now, I never will. As you so sweetly put it, my ass and the rest of me are ageing.’

  Dom listened to him thud up the stairs and heard their raised voices again. Fitz was moving. That was bad news on any level. Erin would miss him. The kids would miss him. Hell, even he would miss him. And a woman.

  Despite himself, he smiled; there was life in the old dog yet.

  4th November 2011

  Darling Erin,

  How do you tell your father, when you’ve kept your health scares a secret, that you’re on constant skin change watch? You decided not to tell anyone – that’s your choice – but I saw today that you’d wished you had. You wished you’d already said something to Fitz during the last few years, because you won’t now. It would look like you’re telling him to make him stay and you’d never do that.

  I’m sorry. I’m sorry he’s going to live in New York and I hope he’ll hate it.

  You’ve gone dark. Quiet. And I can’t reach you, but I want you to know I’m trying.

  Love you always,

  Dom xx

  5th November 2011

  Dearest Dom,

  I never really told you how my mother died, did I? You know she died of cancer, but I’ve never talked about how long she was sick for, except in very ‘general’ ways. I was fourteen when she was first diagnosed with melanoma and eighteen when I held her hand as she died from secondary cancer. None of it was pretty and all of it is responsible for creating the fearful me.

  And Dad, he helped me through that time. He has always been there when I needed him and now it feels like he won’t.

  Childish. Silly, I know, but I’m going to miss him and the thought of him not being there makes me stupidly scared all over again, worrying about the what ifs of these basal skin things. They may be a good type to have had and I know there’s nothing there now, but strip that away and they’re still cancerous.

  Love you,

  Erin xx

  6th November 2011

  Erin, baby,

  My scared baby …

  Now listen here. You and I have had more than enough to deal with to date and the truth is we’re both going to die in our beds from old age. Okay, you’ll go first, but not until we’re old and decrepit and losing our marbles and bladders. And not the way your mum or my mum went. Neither of those things are going to happen, okay?

  No, we wait until your eighty-second birthday and then I’ll let you stop breathing, just a few minutes before I do the same. By then (I calculate 2054), I imagine all this will all be in our control. What do you think? I think you’ll love the idea, and I love the idea because I don’t want to be without you for longer than those few minutes. I’ll do them; I’ll wait them and make sure you’ve gone, but that’s all. No longer.

  There you have it. They’re your orders, Erin. There’s no room for skin cancer to interfere. Don’t let me down.

  Love you mightily,

  Dom xx

  12th November 2011

  Darling Erin,

  Come away with me.

  I have the tickets booked.

  You and me on a far-off beach for a week under a large brolly to keep you shaded from the sun. I’ve raided what’s left of the House Fund. Valentine’s will be ours again someday but today – we need this. Tim will keep the coal fires burning at work and Fitz is organised to come and live in with the kids. I’ve spoken to Lydia and booked your time off. We leave on Thursday next.

  Let’s make crazy love, outside, inside. And just so there are no surprises, I’ve arranged a thing at the hotel. It’s a sort of a thing that you’ll need a new dress for. Maybe a white one, maybe not – buy whatever you want. All I ask is that you feel special in it.

  Let’s renew our vows … just you and me and the palm trees.

  Love you mightily,

  Dom xx

  16th November 2011

  Darling Dom,

  I’ll be the one on the beach in a gorgeous scarlet silk dress. And a very wide-brimmed hat.

  Love Erin xx

  33. Erin

  NOW – 18th June 2017

  From The Book of Love:

  ‘You’re good at that, Dom. You know how to stop

  me fearing the worst. You know when not to talk

  about tomorrow – when to just help me breathe

  on this side of midnight.’

  ‘I realise you need me to resolve things with Lydia.’ I’ve a bag of split-peas and grains in my hand and am tossing some into the swans gathered at the edge of the river bank. Dom is walking ahead of me, facing backwards. ‘If you fall in, I’m not going in after you,’ I tell him.

  He laughs out loud. ‘You so would.’ Then he tilts his head a
nd whispers it again, those brown eyes of his narrowed sadly. ‘You so would …’

  My head shakes and as I empty the contents of the bag, the six swans watching my every move go crazy.

  Dom stops walking, just says, ‘You were saying. Lydia?’

  ‘Well, firstly, I’m resigning – going to send her an email today.’

  Beside me, he looks out across the river, pauses a moment before turning towards me. His hands cup my face. ‘So, you won’t work together anymore. But what about the twenty-two years of friendship?’

  ‘Twenty-one,’ I correct him. ‘I’ve hated her since October.’

  ‘You don’t hate anyone. Not even me when you said you did all those years ago, and what was it you were saying yesterday in the garden about life being short?’

  Suddenly, I feel the cold as if the river’s whipped up a breeze and goose bumps scatter over my arms. ‘I know,’ I tell him.

  ‘Come on, Erin, what do you want from life, now, what do you want?’

  My jaw trembles. ‘Family. You. Us.’

  For a moment, he’s quiet. ‘Lydia is family too,’ he then adds cautiously. ‘And you know, you know you need Lydia now more than ever.’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ I tell him, listening to the pulsing sound of a siren nearby. ‘Don’t say any more. I’ll talk to her.’

  -----Original Message-----

  From: [email protected]

  Sent: 18 June 2017 15: 04

  To: [email protected]

  Subject: Everything

  Lydia,

  Having been on extended sick leave for a long time now, please take this mail as my official resignation, with immediate effect. I know you’ve sent a hundred emails and messages – I’ve read none of them but if you want to meet, I’ll see you tomorrow at the Bean Pod at 11 a.m.

  Erin.

  I press ‘send’ on the hundredth version before I can think of some other nuanced way to say, ‘I’ll see you, but I’m not sure I want to.’ Thankfully, Dom has stopped looking over my shoulder at earlier attempts and is now busying himself somewhere else.