The Book of Love Read online

‘I’ve never understood what that word actually means.’ He took her hand in his as he walked.

  ‘Ants in your pants, agitated, a little restless. Dare I say it, even a little anxious?’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong,’ he said, then felt her hand fall from his as she stopped walking.

  ‘This isn’t about Isaac this morning, is it?’

  Dom laughed. ‘No, Erin, this isn’t about Isaac.’

  ‘Then what. Spill before we get to your dad’s because everyone will be there, including Jude who has surfaced after spending the night, and day, at Tigger’s.’

  He hesitated.

  ‘Did you lie? Dominic Carter, was that another of your whiter shade of pale lies when you told me earlier that there had never been anyone else? This your guilt clouding your craggy face?’ She was smiling as she spoke and there under the yellow light from the street lamp he believed she had never looked lovelier. She touched his bracelet. ‘Atone,’ she whispered. ‘Immediately.’

  ‘I didn’t lie.’ He pulled her to him. ‘Why in hell would I ever want another woman?’

  ‘Because you were lonely back then and I was busy hating you.’

  ‘You never hated me.’ He kissed her gently on the lips. Strawberry lipbalm.

  ‘I was busy disliking you so much that it really felt like hate. What’s up? You’re not yourself.’

  ‘Ignore me. It’s just a mood. And what’s a craggy face? Isn’t craggy a word used for rocks? Is it code for old?’

  As always, when she smiled and laughed he stored it; kept the image and the easy sound alive in some vault in his head for when he might need them. ‘Rugged, then,’ she offered. ‘Odd and irregular in a handsome sort of way.’

  ‘You’re a proper walking thesaurus tonight. Come on,’ he pulled her by the hand. ‘We need to get a move on.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re old, by the way.’

  ‘Yeah, you do.’

  ‘Older, not old. And I love it. I love that we’re older together.’

  They crossed the cobbled high street and Erin stopped outside an estate agents. ‘We will own Valentine’s again, won’t we?’ she asked suddenly.

  He frowned. ‘You know the plan is to buy it back from Dad in January after year end. But you only have to look in that window to guess how much it’s gone up and we’ll be buying it back at the peak of the market.’

  Erin pressed her nose up against the glass. ‘We’d have done it by now if it wasn’t for Miss Masterchef in Wales.’

  Rachel’s course fees and accommodation over two years had put a dent in their plans.

  ‘It’ll happen,’ he told her, before nudging his head urgently in the direction of his father’s.

  They walked the remaining five minutes in silence, her arm linked in his. He wondered what she was thinking. Maybe the house, maybe not. He wondered if Valentine’s Way could feel any more their home when they owned it one more time. Possibly. Probably. He wondered if she’d thought of Isaac since this morning or if she ever thought of him. He didn’t think so. He wondered if she believed him when he said he hadn’t – because it was the truth. Isaac was in their past. And just before they reached Gerard’s home, just before he rang the bell, when she raised his hand to her lips and kissed it, he thought only of their future.

  41. Erin

  NOW – 20th June 2017

  From The Book of Love:

  ‘With you, I’m strong.’

  In town, there’s a girl who reminds me of Rachel busking in the central square. She has long dark hair, untouched by dreads and her hands weave magic on the harp she grips between her knees, but something about her makes me stop and think of my daughter. Maybe the way her head lowers and rises as she feels the music – it makes me think of how Rachel used to pretend to conduct an orchestra when she had playmates over as a child. I watch the way this stranger’s fingers seem to fan the expanse of her instrument, so completely lost, yet so completely in control.

  A small crowd has gathered and opposite me the girl sings lyrics I don’t know, though I do recognise the tune, something about having someone to watch over her. When she reaches the chorus I nod at her, smile, and before I make my way home, I throw all the coins in my pocket into the flat cap on the ground.

  Passing the bakery, I drop in and buy a large tiger bloomer cut into thick slices by the in-house machine. I take my purse from my pocket and tap the debit machine with my card before putting it back in my purse with the other four things I carry there. Not cash. I never seem to have cash nowadays because that tapping thing is worryingly easy. There are two photos – the one of Dom and me and Maisie that I found in his old wallet that awful day, and a more recent photo of Dom and me and the twins, all making faces at the camera. A folded sheet of paper separates them, just a few handwritten lines that Dom wrote for me when we renewed our vows in Tenerife a few years ago. Every time I open my purse I think maybe I should paste it into the Book of Love but then I remember Dom being horrified at that idea, telling me it wasn’t a scrapbook …

  Erin,

  I loved you when we first took vows …

  I shove the loaf into the woven bag I’m carrying next to the magazines I bought earlier and begin to walk home.

  And I love you still.

  My face is raised slightly towards the sun as I walk, and I slide my sunglasses from the top of my head down over my eyes.

  And I will love you every tomorrow.

  They cover the tears and the warm sun dries any salty trace on my face instantly.

  Every tomorrow …

  I quicken my pace towards Valentine’s Way, one hand gripping my woven bag of purchases, the other still closed around my purse.

  And all the while as I walk, my footfall matches my heartbeat. Behind the sunglasses, my eyes blink like shutters blotting out the image of that fifth thing I keep in the purse. It is merely a three-inch newspaper cutting from last October. That’s all it is.

  I keep it, yes I do.

  But it will never be pasted in our Book of Love because it’s no scrapbook.

  42. Dominic

  THEN – October 2016

  ‘The cat has the shits …’

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake. What do you want to do?’ Dom looked at his wife. She was tired, her eyes circled by bruise-like dark shadows.

  ‘Want? I want to go on holiday and put the cat in the cattery for the week where she’s supposed to be, but instead I’ve had to take her to the vets for something to help and now I have to put the cat in the car for a six-hour drive to Cornwall.’ She lowered her voice although there was no one around to hear. ‘I want to not have a throbbing headache. I want to not worry about our children not being with us on holiday. I want to be able to accept that they’re responsible human beings who don’t even live at home anymore and I want to not miss them like I do.’

  Her voice broke and he reached for her.

  ‘Don’t, don’t touch me, okay? Please, just put the cat in the bloody carrier and put it in the passenger footwell.’

  ‘I’ll put her in the back,’ he suggested.

  ‘She comes in the front with me. Did I mention that I also want my daughter to come and take her bloody cat back?’

  Dom said nothing. Rachel had got the cat before her latest boyfriend, who was apparently allergic to it. Erin offered to take the cat, thinking the boyfriend wouldn’t last, and that had been two months ago. If Dom had his way, the cat would have been deposited back at Rachel’s flat as a means of keeping said latest boyfriend away. He hadn’t even met him yet but had heard he was ‘a lot’ older than his daughter.

  He didn’t want to argue with Erin, not today, so he shoved the cat into the footwell as requested, promising himself that on their return Rachel could take her shit-fest-of-a-cat back and Paul, or whatever his name is, would just have to man up and fucking sneeze.

  ‘Shall we stop for lunch?’

  Erin rubbed her temples with bunched fingers. ‘I’d rather get there quicker.’

  ‘I�
�ll pull in somewhere and grab a couple of sandwiches.’

  Dom listened to her sigh.

  ‘I’m sorry. I want to not be a bitch to you.’

  ‘If you cheer up,’ he said, ‘I’ll tease you with the fact that I’m taking you to something special in May, something you’ll love.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s a surprise.’

  ‘You’re hilarious,’ she said, a half-smile forming on her mouth.

  He took her hand. ‘I am.’

  ‘Sometimes. Where are you taking me in May?’

  ‘Can’t tell you. It’s a thing, not a place.’

  ‘Are we glamping in Glastonbury?’ Erin asked, her face barely concealing how much she’d hate that.

  ‘Glastonbury’s in June but if you fancy it?’

  ‘No, ta, but I’ll eat a sandwich if you tell me where we are going.’

  ‘Eat the sandwich first and then I’ll tell you.’

  Dom was already pulling into the garage shop. ‘You fill up and I’ll grab some food.’ He picked his wallet up from the central console. ‘Anything you’d like, or shall I surprise you?’

  ‘Stop. I’m pissing myself. A chicken wrap, please,’ she said as she rummaged in her bag for her ringing phone. ‘Hannah,’ she mouthed to him as he closed the door.

  They’d gotten there late, after an accident stopped the traffic on the A303. By the time they’d unloaded the bags into the tiny cottage that backed onto the sea, and greeted Nigel and Lydia, everyone agreed that they weren’t hungry, and they were all tired. Nigel excused himself saying he needed sleep and Erin, seeing that Dom wanted to spend some time with Lydia, did the same.

  His sister was curled up on an armchair, a large picture window behind her, the sea thumping its way to land below. Dom stood next to her, looked out toward the rolling waves. ‘Some spot,’ he said, ‘well done for finding it.’

  Lydia barely nodded. She was beat, he could see that, exhaustion oozed from her.

  ‘Turn up the thermostat behind you, will you, it’s just on the wall to your left.’

  Dom did as he was told, watched her cough then sip a hot whisky Nigel had made for her. He could smell the cloves in it from three feet away.

  ‘Anything wrong?’ she asked. ‘You’re hovering.’

  ‘I’m worried about you.’

  Lydia shook her head, small tight head shakes. ‘Please don’t be …’

  ‘When you moved into Dad’s, you know I didn’t agree with it.’

  ‘Dom, I’ve a stinking cold and we’ve been over this a hundred times this year. Not again, eh? We’re here to relax not bicker.’

  ‘Just over the course of the next few days, when you’re away from it and other people are looking after him, just think about it, please. We all agree he needs full-time care. None of us have ever agreed it should be you giving it. Especially not him. Dad wants to go into a care home. He’s already asked me to check one he picked out and it’s—’

  She pulled the blanket back and stood. ‘That’s crap. We’d have to sell the house to finance that and I want to look after Dad. Please? Let’s not do this, again.’

  Dom ran a hand through his hair, felt her lips brush his shoulder as she passed.

  ‘Stop being such a big brother all the time. I’m fine.’

  She blew him another kiss, which he made a point of catching before nodding in her direction.

  A home measure of whisky later, Dom began to do what he’d known all along he would do this weekend. In the narrow hallway, just under the old creaking stairwell, he pulled the red travel bag out and unzipped the side pocket. Removing a pen, a block of Post-its and their book, he took up the space Lydia had left in the armchair. Without thinking about it. In the same manner that he always had, he allowed his thoughts to spill freely:

  22nd October 2016

  My darling Erin,

  I could go upstairs right now. I could nudge you from sleep, hold you in my arms and tell you what I have to tell you. We talk now, like never before, so why am I not doing that? Probably because I reckon you’d throw something at me for the first time, because you’d scream and shout and yes, I’m telling you this now, over this weekend, because the latent coward in me is hoping you’ll temper your response while we’re away with Lydia and Nigel for half-term.

  Who am I kidding? You’re probably going to fucking lose your shit anyway and I know it.

  But when considering what I’ve written here, I’m asking you to please, please, understand that I really believe it’s for the best. There are some things that I’ve felt truly frustrated by this last year and yes, we’ve talked about them, but they’ve always ended up being things we felt we couldn’t change, so we went around and around in circles. These things, primarily, my father and his care for however many years he has left, Lydia’s decision to move in and look after him, and our ownership of Valentine’s, are the main things that stop me sleeping or wake me up in the night.

  Erin, I tried to raise the solution with you at the end of last year and you were having none of it. I listened. I didn’t agree, but at that time I listened. And then, the same ‘solution’ arose again last month and timing to talk to you about it was all wrong, so I just did it.

  I sold the company to Tim.

  It’s done and dusted. Signed, no going back. And this is where you’d throw something at me if I was telling you this face to face. But, hear me out.

  Dad is bedridden now but, as he says, still has all his marbles. There are two things he has never wanted since recurring kidney problems have affected him. One, he refused to entertain the idea of us mortgaging to buy back Valentine’s when ‘if we’re a little patient, it will be ours anyway’, and two, he did not want Lydia to take on the challenge of his care. I can’t say this any other way, Erin than, I owe him. He has rescued me so many times and it’s my turn to help him now. We have, for the first time, in our lives a small fortune in the bank. And money means choices. We can buy Valentine’s, own it again, something I feel I owe you. The money Dad gets, he will move into a care home with, one he has already chosen. I know, Lydia will take some convincing but that’s where Dad will come in. With cash in the bank, he’s more than capable of making his own argument. Sure, Lydia will live at Dad’s – the house is hers in all but name anyway, but what he doesn’t want is her taking on responsibility for him. His old friend Trevor is already at the same care home. I think he’d like his company and the company of other ‘oldies’ as he calls them.

  In selling the firm, the three things that have kept me awake for the last year have been sorted or are, at least, on the way to being sorted.

  I didn’t tell you because just as a potential sale was mooted by Tim again, you, (just under a year from your five-year-clear anniversary), had to have another of those skin-fuckers removed, this time from the back of your neck. The timing wasn’t good.

  I didn’t tell you because when we spoke about it as an option last year, all you kept saying was ‘No! You love your job! You set that place up!’

  But the truth is, Erin, that though the Cairns View project and subsequent big contracts have now made us rich, I’ve not had much fun. It’s been hard. Working twenty-four seven for the last three years has meant no time with you and the kids. And for quite a long while now, I’ve not enjoyed the actual work as it’s gone more building-centric than pure architecture. Your first question will probably be, ‘What will you do?’ Followed by a rapid, ‘You’re forty-seven – you can’t retire!’ Of course, I can’t, but I can become a consultant university lecturer and talk endlessly about the beauty of creating exciting buildings, to young people who have a passion like I used to.

  And the truth is that we have to face that though we’re constantly told not to worry, I wanted there to be money there should you ever need the option of private health care.

  There you have it.

  I’m making sure I’m going to be out first thing tomorrow, when you read this, so line up the things you want to throw
for when I get back. I’ll duck where I can.

  Love you always,

  Looking forward to taking some holidays, spending some real time together, because you’re still the one I want to grow old with.

  Mightily,

  Dom xx

  Dom climbed the narrow steps. At the top just to the left of a tiny landing was the room Erin slept in. He pushed the door ajar, listened for her breathing, prodded a small tear of peeling wallpaper back into the door frame. Asleep … definitely. He crossed to her bedside table and placed the Book of Love there next to a glass of water, tapping the leather cover twice as if for good luck. The small yellow square with Erin’s name on it, he placed on top and then walked around to the free side of the bed. Expecting it to creak, he moved gingerly. Despite the sleeting rain and biting cold from the ocean side of the house, the tiny cottage was warm inside. He undressed and slipped in beside his wife. Not wanting to wake her, he kissed his fingertips and laid them on her cheek. And then he slept, with none of the things that had kept him awake for so many months bothering him.

  The next morning, he woke to the sound of the front door opening and shutting and then again, the same, five minutes later. Silently, he picked up his clothes and left the room. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, cricked his neck side to side. Next to the coffee machine downstairs, Nigel had left a note saying he’d gone into town to get some supplies. In true head teacher fashion, he’d timed the note at 08.03, listed the things he’d gone to buy and asked whoever was up next, to call him if he’d missed anything. Dom looked at his watch 08.24, rubbed his head with both hands, felt as if a cleaver had parted his brain. Whisky and he had never been friends.

  He drank an instant coffee and, taking his coat from a brass rack on the wall shaped like a sailing cleat, he left the house. A walk; a brisk walk along the pier would clear his head. He ambled down the cobbled lane where other rendered fisherman’s cottages backed onto the wild sea, his neck back, his face lifted towards the heavy grey clouds, feeling the rain pelt his face. Dodging an enormous kamikaze gull, he stumbled on a wet mossy cobble and broke his fall with his hands. Just grazed, he shoved them in his pockets and kept walking.