The Book of Love Page 21

  Twenty seconds after sending the email and two mouthfuls into a much-needed coffee, my mobile rings.

  ‘Dad,’ I say when I answer.

  ‘At last!’ he says. ‘Your phone is on and you actually picked up!’

  I ignore the jibe. ‘You’re up early.’

  ‘I am.’

  The doorbell rings and before I can say a word, he interrupts saying, ‘How come every time we’re talking, your doorbell rings. Anyone would think you don’t want to talk to me.’

  ‘Dad, just hold on a second. Stay on the line. Let me just get rid of whoever’s there.’

  I walk quickly to the front door and pull it open.

  ‘Surprise!’ My exhausted-looking father is standing on the doorstep with a holdall slung over one shoulder.

  ‘Dad.’ I look at my phone and hang up. ‘What—’

  ‘I felt like you needed me,’ he shrugs. ‘You going to invite me in?’

  I needed you six months ago. Where were you then? I’m tempted to leave him on the doorstep but open the door and wave him through.

  Shit. Dom will not be happy. Just as I try to get Lydia sorted, Dad turns up …

  And when will the people in this world who love me get the fact that I hate surprises?

  34. Dominic

  THEN – September 2012

  ‘Who knew it would be me telling you to be brave!’

  Dom stared through the windscreen at the worsening weather as he listened to Erin’s voice through the hands-free. The rain had turned to a light sleet. Switching the wipers to max, the car was suddenly silent except for their rhythmic swish.

  ‘Dom?’

  ‘I’m listening,’ he said, but he wondered if he was. The Cairns View project that his partner Tim was proposing had had Erin and him talking into the early hours last night. A site, forty miles from home; a hundred acres with three stately homes needing complete renovation and outline planning permission on a corner of the site for the building of one hundred new homes. It all sounded wonderful – almost too good to be true – and in Dom’s experience, if something seemed too good to be true, it often was.

  ‘You should do it. I know you’ve banned the word from your vocabulary, but this sounds like it’s worth a gamble.’

  He winced. ‘Things are good. I don’t want to be greedy and I couldn’t face you if things went wrong again. There wouldn’t be a hole big enough for me to crawl into.’ He indicated left and stared at the line of red lights ahead of him. ‘Look, we’ll talk about it when I’m home. I’m just a few miles away but the traffic’s a bitch.’

  ‘So, think about it for the next few slow miles. We’re not talking about this again tonight.’

  Dom laughed. ‘We’re not?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because when you get home to your loving family, your first instinct will be to run from the house, call Tim and find some project really far away that will mean leaving home until both the children do.’

  ‘Okay,’ he sighed. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘I’ll see you soon,’ Erin said, adding, ‘drive safe,’ before hanging up.

  ‘What in Christ’s name have you done?’ Dom spoke through his right hand, stared at his daughter then looked across the room to where Erin was sitting on the sofa, her long legs tucked up under her. Before waiting for a reply from Rachel, he sat next to Erin. ‘Did you know about this?’

  ‘All I knew is that she was having a sleepover at Claire’s and she arrived back this morning like that.’

  ‘Don’t you like them?’ Rachel asked.

  It was a moment before he could speak. ‘Not really, no.’ He thought of his daughter’s luscious and shiny hair now packed into a head of matt dreadlocks.

  Rachel shrugged her shoulders. ‘No, Mum doesn’t either. Still, it’s my hair.’

  ‘How the fuck did—’

  ‘Language,’ his daughter tutted. ‘I did it with Claire’s help, a lot of patience and YouTube.’

  Dom rubbed an itch under his eye, looked to Erin for guidance. He wanted to grab hold of Rachel, pull her upstairs to the bathroom and tell her to sort her hair out – now.

  ‘It’s a phase,’ Erin lifted her book. ‘I’m going to go with the hope that it’s a phase.’

  ‘I’m still here, Mum.’

  ‘I’m aware you’re still here and you’re right; it’s your hair.’

  Dom grabbed hold of Erin and pulled her away instead. In his study, she rubbed her arm dramatically. ‘What the hell, Erin?’ he groaned.

  ‘What do you want me to say? Or do? It’s done now. If we don’t make a fuss, I’m hoping she’ll see sense and—’

  ‘And if she doesn’t?’ Dom was staring back into the hallway, towards the line of pots he’d planted up only days earlier that Erin must have brought in to avoid the night’s predicted late frost.

  ‘We have a beautiful daughter with dreadlocked hair.’

  Dom slumped into his chair, the swivel wheels taking him halfway across the floor. ‘Fuck’s sake – sometimes I hate the way you’re so bloody reasonable.’

  ‘You handle it then,’ Erin’s hand was already on the door. ‘I’ll not say a word. Off you go.’

  Before he knew it, she’d gone. Back to her book, back to being reasonable. He stood and followed her, a trace of her perfume still in the air ahead of him.

  ‘Rachel,’ he said from the door of the living room.

  She turned her head and a mouthful of expensive braced teeth smiled. ‘Dad?’

  Erin reached for the television remote and muted the programme Rachel had been watching, arched her expectant eyebrows.

  ‘I really don’t like your hair,’ he said, eyeballing his daughter.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she replied. ‘You’ll get used to it.’

  ‘I don’t like it either,’ Jude responded only when the television was no longer a distraction. ‘Looks rank. Remember that time Mum cut hers and looked like a boy, well you look like a weirdo.’

  Dom had no idea what ‘rank’ meant but he nodded and pointed at his son. ‘See?’ he said. ‘Why, Rachel? You had beautiful hair …’

  ‘I still have beautiful hair.’

  Dom shook his head.

  ‘Well, see I think they’re beautiful.’

  ‘Don’t they give you a headache?’ Jude asked.

  ‘You give me a headache,’ she replied. ‘You were supposed to be on my side.’

  ‘I hate them,’ he replied.

  ‘Tough,’ she muttered. ‘Thanks a bunch.’ She stood, and with a toss of a hundred dreads left the room.

  ‘You knew she was doing this?’ Erin asked Jude.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘You should have said something.’

  Jude stood and took the pile of books by his side with him. ‘I may not like them but I’m not a grass,’ he told his parents before following his twin up the stairs.

  ‘You two should be doing schoolwork anyway!’ Dom yelled after them. ‘They should be studying or something,’ he repeated, pointing a finger at Erin.

  ‘We ate earlier by the way,’ she said without looking up. ‘You’re an hour and a half later than you said you’d be. Your dinner’s in the microwave.’

  Erin joined him when he was halfway through the chicken curry.

  ‘Thanks, this is really good.’ He held up his thumb and forefinger together in a circle and repeated, ‘Thanks.’

  She sat opposite him, silent at first before clearing her throat. ‘You do probably need to go up and give the kids a nudge,’ she began. ‘I had a call from Nigel today – an official call. Neither of them get that they have to start studying now. These are important GCSE years and Rachel’s already told him that they’re a total waste of her time, that she doesn’t want to be there and that she’s absolutely not staying on for sixth-form college afterwards.’

  ‘She what?’ Dom placed his cutlery on top of his plate.

  ‘So dreadlocked hair is probably the least of our worries.’
/>
  Dom stood, the sound of the chair scraping on the floor making Erin wince. ‘Rachel!’ he yelled from the kitchen door and Erin rolled her eyes.

  ‘Not exactly how I’d planned on doing it, Dom.’

  Rachel thumped down the stairs to the kitchen. ‘What now?’

  ‘Your mother has just told me that Mr Maitland called her today.’ It felt strange for Dom to call his brother-in-law and friend by the name he deserved as head teacher.

  ‘Yes, she said that.’

  ‘What’s this about you not wanting to be in school?’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Rachel, what’s gotten into you?’

  ‘I know I have to be there but it’s not right. I know what I want to do, and I just want to get on and do it.’

  ‘You’re fourteen years old!’

  ‘And I’ve found the course to do it … Two years chef-training.’

  ‘If you want to do that after your GCSEs, we can talk about it then,’ Erin interrupted. ‘You don’t have to go to sixth-form college.’

  Dom glared at Erin. ‘Well, I’d prefer if you didn’t decide now,’ he said, feeling the dream of Rachel possibly following his and his father’s footsteps into architecture slip through his fingers.

  ‘Already decided, Dad.’ Rachel’s head was shaking.

  ‘Whatever happens you’ll need your GCSE grades. You need to knuckle down and study. So start now.’ Dom watched his daughter as she sighed and looked to the heavens. ‘And don’t you roll your eyes at me, young lady.’

  ‘You do know Mum left school at sixteen. She didn’t go to college and she’s fine.’

  Erin put her face in steepled hands.

  ‘If she’s leaving after GCSEs, then I am too,’ Jude appeared in the doorway.

  ‘See, that’s just silly,’ Rachel waved a hand in his direction. ‘I have a career plan. I have it all worked out. He’s just a lazy bollocks.’

  Erin closed her eyes and slumped back into her chair.

  ‘That’s right. Pick on Jude,’ he yelled. ‘Why does she get to leave and not me?’

  Dom watched his son’s sulky pout form; the son who’d been saying he wanted to be a teacher since he’d first had one.

  ‘She says she has a plan,’ Erin said.

  ‘I have a plan!’ Jude slammed the door, still yelling. ‘I’m going to leave school, leave this house and doss for a whole year before even thinking about a plan!’

  ‘Told you,’ Rachel stared in his wake. ‘Look, Dad, Mum – I have all the information. It’s a great college. I have a folder upstairs with everything in it, ready for you to read.’

  ‘Rachel, this is all a long time down the line yet.’ Dom softened his tone. ‘There’s work to be done beforehand.’

  ‘They even have residential internships over school holidays for people who might want to apply for the course later.’

  ‘Where is this place?’ Erin asked.

  ‘Pembrokeshire. The college say they help set people up in local houses together for the duration. Look, I want to be a chef, and this is much better for me than A levels.’

  Dom’s mind fast-forwarded to the time when his dreadlocked daughter would probably be missing from their home and had a strange vision of him laughing hysterically as she left, just like she’d taught him.

  ‘Go get your file, Rachel. Your mother and I will read it tonight.’

  Erin’s head lay on Dom’s lap as he paraphrased the contents of the glossy college brochure for her.

  ‘It sounds great,’ she said quietly.

  Dom stroked her hair. ‘She’s gutsy, knows what she wants. I suppose we have to encourage that.’

  ‘Don’t you think she’ll still be a bit young to go off and live somewhere else?’

  ‘She’ll be home most weekends.’

  ‘I’m not ready to even think about losing her.’

  ‘We won’t be losing her. She’s just on loan somewhere else.’

  ‘It all just happens too quickly. One moment, they’re tiny and the next … Besides, there’s you talking about her knowing what she wants. If I know you, Dom, I know you want to do the Cairn’s View project. You’re scared shitless but you want to do it. And for the record, I think you should take a chance. It could be the making of you, of us,’ Erin said.

  Dom said nothing but when his mobile rang beside him, he checked the time. Almost midnight.

  ‘Nigel,’ he said when he answered, almost immediately straightening up, pulling Erin to a sitting position beside him as he listened.

  ‘Where?’ he asked. ‘I’ll be there in ten minutes,’ he added before hanging up.

  ‘What is it?’ Erin asked.

  ‘Lydia.’ He was already pulling clothes on. ‘It’s Lydia.’

  29th September 2012

  Darling Dom,

  Here I am again in our pages, our Book of Love, where Dad told us ‘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.’

  Never before have those words meant more. Even during the worst times, I think in here, we’ve always been able to write some nugget that could lead to us talking. But I’m not sure you’ll ever look back on these last few weeks and understand why Lydia did what she did. At least, that’s what you’ve told me. Nothing else – that’s all you’re telling me.

  So, for what it’s worth, here’s today’s nugget.

  Do you have to understand? Does anyone have to understand, except maybe Lydia, so that she never does that to herself or the people who love her again? She’s already regretful. She’s already getting the help she should probably have got years ago. And both she and Nigel are finally going to be able to talk about their pain. Funnily enough, her counsellor recommended she write things down, so though they laughed at us over the years with this book, maybe one could really work for them too? I hope so.

  They have a lot to fight for. She has a lot to live for. He loves her for his own million reasons and she loves him back for a million more. So, she, they, will be alright. I really believe that.

  Dominic Carter, I love you because in your desperation to do the right thing, to help her, you’ll eventually realise that all you have to do is love her.

  All of mine to you,

  Erin xx

  30th September 2012

  Darling Erin,

  She took enough paracetamol for it to work. I had to lie to our elderly father and tell him she was in hospital for a ‘procedure’ which thankfully he assumed was ‘woman’s stuff’.

  Why do I want to understand? Because somewhere, I’ve lost who Lydia is as a sister. I suppose that’s the one thing I want to change.

  I just want to find her again.

  In the meantime, and always, I love you because, because, because …

  Dom xx

  31st September 2012

  Dearest Dom,

  Did you hear our daughter teaching Lydia how to laugh again today? Neither you nor I told Rachel what really happened. I think Lydia might have, so wasn’t that the most wonderful sound in the world?

  Erin xx

  35. Erin

  NOW – 19th June 2017

  From The Book of Love:

  ‘You’re a pain in the ass. You’re a pain in my ass.

  You’re my pain in my ass.’

  Dad was up half the night with jetlag and looks older than I ever remember him looking when he comes into the kitchen. His hair has silvered this last year, just a few streaks of his original raven-black left. His eyes look swollen and tired; the whites sore and red with a double layer of dark bags parked beneath. I push a peppermint tea towards him.

  ‘Bins are out,’ he says, washing and drying his hands at the sink.

  ‘Thanks. I hate hauling those things up and down the path.’

  ‘The fact that your recycling bin is full of cardboard cartons says a lot. What shite are you eating? Pr
ocessed, quickie, microwave shite, that’s what.’

  My eyebrows arch. ‘I’m almost forty-five-years-old, Dad,’ I say, leaving out the words that I think I’m both old enough to and capable of choosing how I eat

  He sits down opposite me, avoids my glare.

  ‘Jude emailed me,’ he shifts the mood.

  ‘Dad, about Jude …’

  ‘Told me he got married.’

  ‘Yep, what can I say? Gretna Green.’ My fingers drum the table next to me. ‘She’s a nice girl …’

  ‘Hopefully I’ll get to meet her this trip. Rachel emailed me too.’

  ‘She did?’ I look at my watch.

  ‘You have somewhere to be?’

  ‘I’m meeting Lydia.’

  ‘Oh,’ he grins. ‘That’s good. Please tell me you’re going back to work so I don’t have to talk about Rachel’s email.’

  My sigh is long and loud. ‘Well, you’re going to have to now.’

  ‘She’s worried about you. You’ve been off work a long time apparently.’

  I nod.

  ‘What you told me when you came over a few weeks ago. Your skin problem … I wish you’d told me when you first went through it. I wish Dom had told me. I wish someone had told me back then.’

  Dom has made himself scarce, which is probably just as well. ‘Don’t blame him,’ I say. ‘I didn’t want anyone to know. And the reason I’ve been off work has nothing to do with that …’

  ‘I need to know, Erin. Are you okay now?’

  I fight the urge to laugh but just respond to the particular health-issue question. ‘I’m good, Dad, really. All clear.’

  ‘Well, you should be taking care of your body better. Eating properly.’

  ‘I should.’ I nod in agreement.

  ‘Let me cook something before I go down to the house.’

  I place a hand over my father’s left one, notice it too has aged. His veins are raised; a purple labyrinth of worms. His skin is papery and thin to the touch. On his third finger, he still has the Claddagh ring my mother gave him on their wedding day. ‘You still wear this,’ I whisper.