The Book of Love Page 6

  ‘Well, that and any other fun stuff.’

  ‘I had twins, that’s two babies one after the other. My nether regions are like the Grand Canyon. If you go anywhere near them all you’ll get is a loud echo.’

  Dom smiled. ‘I doubt that.’

  ‘I know we have to, but I just can’t even think about it … can we talk about something else?’

  Dom following one pace behind, raised his eyebrows. She saw that he didn’t even try to hide his disappointment. ‘You choose,’ he shrugged.

  ‘I think right now we need sleep more than sex,’ she said. Neither of them had slept well since Maisie died, and even worse since the twins were born.

  ‘Maybe.’ Dom took a small water bottle from the changing bag and drank from it.

  ‘And maybe we need to open up to each other more, Dom.’

  He laughed, tightened the cap on the bottle again. ‘I’m not too great on the feelings thing, Erin – you know that.’

  ‘So, imagine you’re writing something in the book for me,’ she said. ‘Imagine you have to write how you’re feeling today, what would you say?’

  He raised his hands up and blocked his ears. ‘Argh!’

  Gently, she moved his hands down. ‘Tell you what, I’ll ask you questions and you reply.’

  ‘Is that the time?’ he nudged his head in the direction they’d just come from and grinned. ‘Shouldn’t we head back?’

  ‘Indulge me.’

  ‘Two questions,’ he kept walking towards the river.

  Erin tried to match his new pace. ‘Right. What are you finding hard to tell me right now?’ She noticed a deep frown settle as he seemed to wrestle with the question.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he hesitated.

  ‘Try harder,’ she pressed. ‘Pretend I’m not here – I’m never going to hear your answer.’

  He thought about it a moment. ‘In that case, I’m feeling frustrated.’

  Erin said nothing. Sex again …

  ‘I miss sex. I miss feeling that close to you. I feel tense and I know I’m an irritable bastard,’ he continued.

  Erin didn’t disagree.

  ‘Sometimes,’ he said. ‘I’m completely confused by how much I love you and the kids, yet I still feel … I feel almost trapped.’

  Erin almost waved a white flag there and then. That word ‘trapped’. Stuck. Caught. Imprisoned. Ensnared. It played to every insecurity she had ever felt since first peeing on a stick years ago – since they both realised they’d unwittingly hitched their wagons to one another.

  ‘You did ask,’ he said.

  She glanced in the pram. Both children were asleep, though not for long. Jude didn’t seem to nap at all during the day and when he woke, he always woke Rachel who would probably, given the chance, sleep for hours.

  ‘Erin?’ From his expression, she could tell Dom was already regretting speaking. ‘This is why I hate talking about shit,’ he confirmed. ‘I want you.’ He stopped walking and reached for her gloved hand. ‘You. You’re the one. Maybe I’m wrong but I think the good life we both want for us and the kids – it’ll follow. It will still come.’

  ‘There was a young woman called Er-in,’ Erin’s eyes locked on his.

  ‘Limericks? Now with the Limericks?’ He laughed quietly.

  She made a face, rolling her eyes inwards. Her ability to make up silly rhymes on the hop had always made him smile.

  ‘Who was struck on the head by a bin.’

  His head was shaking.

  ‘The rubbish tipped out, it was flying about,’

  She hesitated. ‘And a nappy got stuck to her chin!’

  ‘Nope, not one of your best ones.’

  ‘There was a young man called Dom,’ Erin was walking ahead of him.

  ‘Who so wished he’d been christened Tom,

  ‘Because Toms have more fun, from problems they run,

  ‘And Toms go through life with aplomb …’

  ‘Oh, that’s good,’ he nodded. ‘That one’s really good.’

  She turned around, linked her arm with his and, with the river almost in touching distance, planted one foot firmly in front of the other and matched his pace.

  There was a young couple called Carter,

  Who were madly in love as a starter,

  But tragedy struck, and their life, it seemed stuck,

  Split into before and then after …

  Sitting on a cold bench at the river, Erin realised when her son stretched an arm out and laughed out loud at a passing family of swans, that the world could still make her smile. She realised when she caught her husband looking at her – with the same look in his eyes that had been captured in the wedding photo in the hall – that his love carried on regardless of loss.

  ‘Please,’ Dom said. ‘Don’t think too much about what I said. It’s what happens when you push me to talk. I talk complete crap.’

  Erin leaned across Jude and kissed Dom gently on the lips.

  When Jude almost leapt out of her arms at the sound of a boat, she allowed herself to really believe he would grow up, and that he might have a love of sailing. When someone nearby played a radio and a piece of music she and Dom both recognised had them humming aloud, Erin allowed herself to lock eyes with her husband; to really see him, as if for the first time, again. And when Rachel giggled as Dom made silly noises at her, Erin gripped Jude tight, closed her eyes and immersed herself in the sounds of love and life.

  4th February 1999

  Dearest Dom/Tom,

  Today was so lovely, not so much like it used to be as like it can and will be.

  Please be patient with me. I know we both need sex but right now I can’t. Not because I don’t want to but because I’m afraid it won’t be like before and I’m scared shitless of getting pregnant again.

  You don’t have to write here if you don’t want to, but Fitz is right about these pages, for me anyway … I find it easier to say stuff here, things that I hold back from saying when I’m with you. Sometimes, when we’re face to face, I’m so afraid of letting you down and other times, I’m just not brave enough to say things out loud. If things are said aloud, they’re so much more real, aren’t they? Like what you said today …

  For now, I’m just trying to hang on to what matters. You and the twins. Fitz, family. But I feel as if I’m on top of a mountain trying to breathe. My lungs are tight, I can’t call out. I suppose it’s my own version of feeling ‘trapped’.

  Be patient? I’m trying.

  I love you because I know when you’ve read this that you’ll hear me.

  Erin xx

  5th February 1999

  My love,

  I will wait as long as I have to. I will do whatever it takes. But please don’t ask me to write shit down. I’m shit at writing shit down.

  And I hurt too.

  That’s all I can say here. I hurt too.

  I love you mightily,

  Dom xx

  6th February 1999

  Darling Dom,

  You’re not that shit at writing things down. Those few lines say a lot.

  All my love,

  Erin xx

  7th February 1999

  To my super-talented wife,

  Unlike you, this took me HOURS!

  ‘There was a young woman called Erin

  When I met her the room had no air-in

  She danced like a tree, I knew we would be,

  Together through thick and through thin.’

  I think from now on for Limerick purposes you should be called Pam and I should be called Steve?? Rhyming would be so much easier!

  I love you.

  Because you’re funny and you make me laugh. Because you look sexy in heels and because you always get the spiders out of the bath.

  I love you because you put a triangle of Toblerone in my suit pocket yesterday.

  Forever yours,

  Dom xx

  10. Dominic

  NOW – 3rd June 2017

  From The Book of Love:<
br />
  “Fuck-it, who cares why, Erin? I love you just because I do.”

  It’s Lydia’s party and I’m standing with a man and woman I don’t know who are having an animated discussion about Brexit. He’s ignoring me and nodding sagely as she speaks. She’s paying no attention to me either, only interested in jabbing the air with her forefinger to make her point. I look around the room – a large front-to-back ground floor of a Victorian villa, it’s packed with people, all deciding they’d rather not risk rain outside.

  The Brexit duo and I are in the exact spot Lydia and Nigel have their pine tree in December. Except for last year. Last Christmas Lydia understandably went all Grinch-like and trees and baubles and sparkles and tinsel and laughing were banned. My eyes search her out in the crowd. She must be in the kitchen directing operations, so I head that way, only stopping when I hear familiar voices in the hallway. Nigel’s booming laugh followed by a quieter, higher-pitched, tone. She sounds just like Erin – their voices have the same timbre, but the tell-tale hairstyle confirms it’s Rachel, our daughter.

  I scramble past strange faces but as soon as I near, I see that she’s brought Paul and I turn back on myself. Though I’ve heard about him, I’ve not met this older live-in lover of hers. Holding back, I watch from my vantage point. And while he doesn’t exactly have liver spots on his hands, it’s there. The age gap is, to me anyway, this big gaping thing standing tall, almost proud, between them. He’s a chino-wearing forty-year-old; shirt nicely ironed, fair hair a little too coiffured for my liking – screams ‘father figure’ – which makes me feel a little sick. Her two-tone, blue-bottomed, dreads are tied back in a ponytail; her silver nose ring glints under the light from the ceiling spotlights as she rests her head on Nigel’s shoulder. He’s hugging her tight and I want to do that so badly.

  ‘Jude here?’ she asks Nigel about her brother.

  ‘Jude’s taken a few days off,’ I hear his reply.

  Jude is interning at the school where Nigel is head teacher and term-time breaks are not encouraged. I wonder if he’s already decided teacher training isn’t his thing – he’s never been great at sticking to things. I keep moving, disappointed I won’t see my son, acutely aware that I’ve always had many more flaws than him and that I spent the afternoon talking to a stuffed elephant.

  ‘Oh,’ Rachel replies, her neat eyebrows arching, ‘he never said. C’mon,’ she grabs Paul by the hand and says. ‘I’m famished, let’s find the birthday girl.’

  I follow, feeling like the guy in that movie, Father of the Bride, chasing his daughter, not quite able to reach her, too many people in the way. Through the kitchen door, I can just about spot Lydia’s head, when some idiot bumps into me, spilling his drink on me, carries on walking. Christ, something’s telling me I should have just stayed away. I swear quietly. All I want to do is hug my daughter, hug my sister, and let them feel my arms around them.

  I ask myself what Erin would say to me right now.

  ‘Get over yourself and get your ass in there. It’s a party! Go party! And maybe see what you make of Paul?’

  Or something like that.

  So, without her on my arm, that’s what I try to do.

  It takes very little time for me to conclude that he’s a boring asshole not worthy of Rachel. If Erin were here, she’d have an elbow firmly wedged in my ribs, primed for an urgent poke. If Erin were here, she’d have hissed. ‘This is her choice, not yours.’

  But Erin is not here, so after another hour, I slip away unnoticed and take the shorter route home.

  11. Erin

  THEN – March 2000

  ‘I’m not going.’

  ‘You are going.’

  ‘I can’t.’ Erin rubbed her palms on her jeans as she peered in the door at the cots. ‘I won’t be able to relax.’

  ‘Erin, you’re going.’

  She watched as her friend Hannah hobbled across the living room towards where she stood in the doorway, felt her take her hand in hers.

  ‘Lydia will be here soon. There’s two of us, that’s one child each – just for one night. We’ll manage.’

  Erin looked down, both eyebrows high, at Hannah’s cast on her ankle, a souvenir from her falling from a pavement after too many cocktails.

  ‘What?’ Hannah said. ‘Lydia can do any of the actual running after them.’ She wagged a finger. ‘You’re going. Now get in there, have a shower and pack – Dom will be home in forty minutes.’

  Erin hugged herself tight before moving towards her bedroom.

  ‘He’s put a lot of effort into this,’ Hannah called after her. ‘Just wants to whisk you away from thankless motherhood. Erin, he wants to see you happy!’

  In her bedroom, Erin rubbed her neck with both hands. She hated surprises. She held her breath and exhaled slowly. She couldn’t leave them … What if something happened? What if the same thing happened? You’re being ridiculous. Rachel and Jude will be two in a few months … Robotically, she stripped off her clothes, dropping them in a line on the way to the shower. ‘Rachel and Jude will be fine.’ She repeated the sentence over and over again, gently tapping her head on the tiles as she felt the comfort of the hot water on her neck. She placed her hands by her side, repeated the words again, ‘Rachel and Jude will be fine.’

  In the car an hour later, Dom was like a child on Christmas Eve. He patted her thigh often during the ninety-minute journey to a small hotel on the edge of the New Forest.

  ‘We here?’ she asked as he drove up a snaking driveway.

  Dom nodded. ‘Just in time for a quick change before dinner.’

  They held hands as they entered the building, Dom carrying their one overnight bag. In the bedroom, he bounced on the edge of the four-poster bed and she laughed, opening the window. Leaning on the windowsill she said, ‘Hear that?’

  ‘What?’ he didn’t move.

  ‘Baa-aa. Baa-aa. Lambs, lots of them.’

  ‘We’re next door to a farm, it’s lambing season.’

  ‘It’s spring,’ she laughed. ‘I love that sound and the birdsong in the morning.’

  ‘Whereas me, I just love the sound of your laugh,’ he replied.

  Erin sat beside him, leaned her head on his shoulder, and laced her fingers through his. ‘You should probably go and have a shower before dinner,’ she said. ‘I’m already done.’

  ‘You could join me. Look …’ He smudged her cheek with his thumb as if removing some dirt. ‘You missed a bit.’

  She laughed. ‘Race you?’ She leapt up, tore off the two layers of clothes she wore on top. Braless, she grinned, pulled her jeans and knickers down and stepped free from them. ‘I win,’ she said, and turned to run.

  Dom grabbed her hand. ‘Don’t.’ His voice was no more than a whisper. ‘Let me look at you.’

  Instinctively, Erin crossed her arms over the breasts that had fed the twins for three exhausting months when they were newborns. Her eyes glanced down at the fleshy part around her middle and she fought the urge to cower, to hide. She knew what should happen. She wanted it to happen. In the last year, she could count the few times they’d made love. No, she corrected herself, they’d had sex, where their bodies met while both of them had an ear open for the kids. She longed to make love again, to be touched slowly by him again. It was time.

  Dom stood and, still fully clothed, pulled her to him. She felt him stiffen against her as a memory flashed – a time just after they’d first met when they’d played strip poker. She’d won but took off her clothes for him anyway – slowly, teasing, burlesque-like. ‘Not fair,’ she whispered now. ‘Get naked or get lost.’

  She watched him peel his clothes from his body. His sweater, he reached with one hand on the back of his neck and pulled it over his head. His jeans, and boxers, he lowered slowly.

  Erin met his gaze as he rolled his socks off with his feet. ‘We’ll be late for dinner.’ She raised her eyebrows in an arch as she took his offered hand.

  ‘We will,’ he nodded.

  And
together they moved, naked, slow dancing through the room, as if glued to one another at their hips. Each of them held a hand in the air at shoulder height, laced their fingers together. Their free hands curled around one another’s necks. Erin stroked the skin just beneath his hairline. They circled slowly, totally in time, as if a slow ballad filled the air.

  ‘We never did find a song.’ Her lips grazed Dom’s ear.

  He stopped moving. ‘Let’s agree. We’ll turn the radio on now, and whatever’s playing is meant to be. It’s our song.’

  Erin panicked. ‘What if it’s that Chumbawamba thing? Or the Britney one about something one more time? Or—’

  ‘Have faith.’ Dom leaned across, keeping hold of her and switched the radio on.

  Immediately, Erin smiled. ‘“At Last”,’ she said. ‘Etta James. How perfect is that?’

  ‘It is,’ Dom agreed, pulling her back to him.

  ‘You’ve never heard of it, have you?’ she laughed.

  ‘Nope, but you’re right. It’s perfect.’

  The next morning the car needed two minutes to warm up and Erin glanced at her wrist.

  ‘Four times,’ Dom told her. ‘That’s every thirty seconds you’ve looked at your watch.

  She made a face. ‘Sorry. It’s just I’m anxious to get back now.’

  Dom groaned. ‘Can’t we revel in the early morning love-making for just a little longer?’

  She bit her tongue as he put the car into gear. All she wanted to do was get home, see the children, put her pyjamas on and cuddle up, all of them huddled on the sofa. She switched the radio on, kept the volume low. ‘You know, I normally hate surprises, really I do, but that was a lovely thing you did. The hotel, the late dinner …’ They both laughed. ‘Thank you, Dom,’ she added, ‘Just in case you didn’t hear me last night, thank you.’

  Her husband pursed his lips and blew her a kiss. ‘But surprises are a no-no …?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Have I changed your mind?’

  ‘Maybe. Yes, I mean. Agh, no, sorry. I still hate surprises. Think it’s about being in control.’

  ‘No shit, really?’ His look told her he already knew that much.