The Book of Love Read online

  10th September 2001

  Darling Dom,

  You lied to me tonight. I don’t know why but I know you lied. Now I want to know why. And don’t give me some crap about Louise’s drawings in work.

  Here’s the place to spit whatever it is out.

  Come on. I can’t shout or scream. At least not until I read your reply.

  Whatever it is, tell me, because the thought that you’ve lied already has my stomach churning. Whatever it is can’t be as bad as what I’ve imagined.

  Dom, I love you because I know there are depths to you that I don’t always see but I believe in you. I trust you. So, be honest with me.

  All my love

  Erin xx

  11th September 2001

  To my beautiful wife, Erin Carter,

  The woman of my dreams and the only woman I have ever loved. I didn’t lie last night and us arguing over whether I did or didn’t seems so puerile right now, so let’s not.

  Because all those people died in those towers today and you and I are still here.

  I can’t get my head around it. The horrific images have been stockpiling in my head since it happened this morning. You and I know more than most; we know how one bloody awful moment can be a turning point in two people’s lives. But thousands of people, in so few moments, so many dead, and so many other lives completely destroyed … It’s hard to believe that New York Minute is even real.

  What sort of a world do we live in? What sort of a world are we raising children in?

  I want to understand yet I never want to understand.

  Dom xx

  12th September 2001

  Dom,

  Love is far more powerful than hate.

  Love is far more powerful than loss.

  That’s what we will teach our children.

  I love you because you feel.

  Erin xx

  13. Dominic

  NOW – 4th June 2017

  From The Book of Love:

  ‘You have faith in the human spirit.

  And God. Your God, Erin, not mine,

  but I still love you for it.’

  The day after the birthday party I wander downstairs to an angry answerphone message from Lydia telling me off for leaving without saying goodbye.

  Shit.

  Outside, the blue-grey light of the early morning backdrops the silhouettes of the trees. Without checking the time, I can tell it’s about seven. Already the air in the house is warm and I go out to the rear garden, glad of the cooler breeze. The garden, full of begonia, freesia and gladioli, erupting from bulbs I planted months ago, is awash with colour. I take a walk, the earth still damp underfoot from yesterday’s downpour. I touch leaves, smell the flowers, and am back standing in the doorway, asking myself what might be next, reminding myself of my own words to Erin ‘Life unfolds just the way it should’, when I hear the sound I’ve been waiting for.

  My eyes dart to the other end of the hallway. The click of the key turning twice in the lock echoes in the space and there she is. She pushes a suitcase in the door ahead of her and the relief I feel when I see her face is total. She’s home. She’s wearing those bug eye sunglasses that I hate, probably because she won’t have slept much on the flight – never does. Her slim ankles poke out the end of skinny jeans and, on top, her white T-shirt has a small dribble of something at boob-level, coffee probably.

  ‘Hey you,’ I say. ‘Surprise!’

  Front door still open, she removes the glasses, then grins widely.

  It’s as if the house suddenly fills with the sound of her laughter, as if an empty vacuum crams with needy air. If I were outside, looking in, the house would be smiling too.

  ‘You’re home.’ I state the obvious.

  She runs to me, grabs hold of me. ‘Dom …’

  My hand strokes her straightened hair, and I inhale her. I don’t move until she does. ‘You alright?’ I whisper.

  ‘I’m okay. It’s so good to see you. You look … tired.’ She runs a hand slowly down the side of my face.

  ‘Lydia’s birthday.’ I say, deciding it was the reason sleep evaded me last night.

  She grimaces. ‘I’m sure I wasn’t missed.’

  ‘I’ve missed you,’ I hear myself say.

  She kisses me softly on the lips.

  ‘You have a good time?’ I ask as she pulls away.

  ‘Tiring. I’m exhausted too.’

  ‘And Rob okay?’ I ask about her brother and Mel, his wife, and their two kids and am greeted with monosyllabic answers so I leave her there staring out the kitchen window, looking at the view of blooms that had captivated me ten minutes earlier. Sixteen days in New York. And now she’s home. She’s back in Valentine’s. With me.

  ‘I’d better call him, Rob, he’ll know I landed hours ago.’ She heads back into the hallway towards the stairs. ‘I’ll use the phone in the bedroom.’ She stops a moment, looks back at me. A familiar anxious look criss-crosses her forehead. ‘And we’re okay?’ she asks.

  I give her a reassuring nod.

  ‘I’m glad,’ she says and with that, she’s gone, and I stare at the space she took up as if she’s left damp footprints on the tiled floor.

  Shortly after, I find her, face planted in a pillow, fully clothed. Letting her sleep, I lie beside her on our bed and study the fine lines and contours of her still beautiful face.

  Having slept for too long, she’s wired and still on New York time. I stay up with her, chatting. Her legs tucked under her, she’s next to me on the sofa sipping a large glass of white wine.

  ‘That won’t help you sleep,’ I warn her.

  She frowns, then eyeballs me. ‘Tell me about the party. Was it a bit weird for you? And how was Lydia?’

  ‘I didn’t stay long. She was on autopilot at first and then quite pissed. She was leaning on Hannah by the time I left.’

  Erin nods as if she’s not surprised.

  ‘Of course, you could go and see her, see for yourself.’ I risk the words because I need to do everything I can to help make things right between them. It’s vital I get them talking again.

  ‘Not going to happen.’ She shakes her head. ‘Were the kids there? I haven’t been able to reach them on the phone.’

  ‘Rachel’s working tonight, she did say that, and Jude – who knows – apparently he took Friday off from school and is away for a few days.’

  Erin’s frown deepens. ‘Weird that he’s not answering his phone.’

  ‘He’s a grown-up, Erin.’ I grin. ‘Or he likes to think so. As grown up as a boy can be at nineteen.’

  ‘Exactly …’ Erin peers over her glass at me. ‘And Paul? What did you think about him?’

  I hesitate. ‘From what I could tell, I thought he was a very pleasant young man.’

  She snorts. ‘No, you didn’t,’ she says, ‘you thought he was a very pleasant old man.’

  ‘Okay,’ I concede. ‘I thought he was boring as fuck and far too old for her.’

  Erin laughs. ‘He is thirty-eight. Exactly twice her age.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Yup.’

  Since I saw Paul for the first time last night, I’ve been trying to dispel all the stereotypical notions of sugar-daddies that I have, because Rachel is happy and Paul, he seems happy too. I’m running through it in my head when Erin speaks again.

  ‘Maybe they’re in love …’

  My head moves left to right slowly. ‘What can they possibly have in common, Erin?’

  ‘What did we ever have in common?’ she asks. ‘Seriously,’ she adds. ‘You come from money and have always been blasé about it. You have a university education and became an architect, then set up your own specialist firm. Squash with Nigel three times a week, love sport and fancy cars. And you’ve always cared what people think. Me? My family had nothing, I worked in a boutique after leaving school and, admittedly, went on to help run a business. I count pence and pounds – believe in saving. I hate sport of any kind and the only exercise I get is wal
king. I drive a ten-year-old Mini and, even during my most anxious moments, don’t give a shit what people think of me.’

  She doesn’t stop to draw breath and I’m mulling what she’s said when she pokes me. ‘Dom?’

  ‘That’s a list of stuff that doesn’t matter,’ I reply. ‘It’s got nothing to do with what we do have in common.’ She’s quiet as I speak.

  ‘We’ve been together for most of our adult life. That’s what we have in common. We share the children, our home, and our friends. You should read some of our Book of Love and remember just how much we both share.’

  Erin bites her lower lip.

  ‘Our determination to survive, our ability to work hard at our marriage, the way we both believe in love. That rare forever love …’ I’m on a roll.

  ‘Okay, okay.’ She smiles, holds up a hand.

  ‘He’s nearly twenty years older than Rachel. My concern would always have been, and is, whether they can ever want the same things at the same time if they tried to share a life together.’

  ‘Okay,’ she repeats. ‘But Rachel really knows herself better than most nineteen-year-olds. She’s comfortable in her skin – much more so than Jude. She knows her own mind and is pretty good at expressing it.’

  I smile. ‘That she is. And as Fitz would say, “she didn’t lick that off a stamp … ”’

  ‘You remember,’ Erin adds, ‘remember way back when you couldn’t express any feelings at all? I dragged you kicking and screaming to writing things down.’

  ‘Yeah, and do you remember when you were an irritating over-sharer?’

  We both laugh. Without realising it, she has picked up Elephant and is stroking his only ear as her head leans on my shoulder.

  ‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ she whispers.

  ‘Where else would I be,’ I reply, ignoring the pounding, drumbeat thought in my head:

  This can’t last.

  14. Erin

  THEN – May 2002

  The last month of spring was always the toughest of the year. Erin could almost taste the flavour of fear in her mouth come the first of May. April thirtieth, everything would be fine: her anxiety would be under control, life would be ordered, routines in place, and then the new month and the countdown to the anniversary would begin. It did, as people promised, seem a little easier each year, but, she thought as she lay in bed, it could still derail her if she let herself think about it. And earlier today, in her new working environment, she had allowed herself to think about it, and the thoughts had lined up and rammed into one another until she couldn’t breathe.

  Lydia had brought her home from work, put her to bed and looked after the children until Dom came in.

  She could hear them now; talking at the front door, their voices hushed. Erin blinked slowly in the darkened room. Grateful for the flow of air from the open window, she tried to focus on the sounds coming from the television in the next room. She could tell it was the children’s favourite DVD; Maisy, the tales of a tiny white mouse and her mates. Her children happily watching Maisy Mouse.

  When the door opened, she closed her eyes as she felt him sit on the edge of their bed and take her hand.

  ‘Not the best day, eh?’ he whispered.

  Erin said nothing.

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

  No, she didn’t. She didn’t want to talk about how she’d been standing in the middle of the control room when it happened. She didn’t want to tell him how she’d felt adrenalin pulse through her body in shockwaves, how her lungs had emptied of air, how her whole body had felt paralysed with fear. It was the worst anxiety attack she’d ever experienced.

  ‘Erin?’

  No. She didn’t want to tell him how Isaac, her boss of only four months, had known exactly what to do, how a room full of health professionals had helped her breathe her way through it. No. She didn’t want to tell him, and he didn’t need to know.

  She had thought she could do it.

  Erin pulled her hand away and curled up in the bed. ‘You’ll just tell me you were right. You’ll be nice about it, but whatever you say, you’ll really mean “I told you so”.’

  ‘That’s not fair.’ Dom murmured. ‘Yes, I thought working right in the hub of the ambulance service might be asking too much. I know, I know,’ he held a hand up. ‘I know it’s a “part-time PA role” but you’re still there, immersed in 999 shit – hearing whatever—’

  ‘I thought I could help in my own way.’

  ‘I know. Now move over, Grumpy.’

  Erin shifted as Dom climbed in beside her, sighed deeply when he wrapped his arms around her. ‘You should have called me.’ He stroked her hair.

  ‘I didn’t want you to know.’

  ‘Why not? For God’s sake, Erin, why not?’

  That’s why not, Erin thought, that slight hint of exasperation. Dom was someone who was so in control of everything in his life. How could she begin to explain today’s episode when she couldn’t yet rationalise it herself? All she could tell him was one moment she was walking across the control room, a tray with two coffees on it in one hand, one for Isaac and one for her, and the next minute she was bent in two, drinks askew, unable to breathe.

  ‘Have you been taking your pills?’

  ‘Yes.’ He didn’t need to know that either. She didn’t want to hear him talking calmly about how the pills kept her steady. And he didn’t want to hear that the truth was that she’d stopped taking them because she’d been feeling so well.

  ‘The money is helpful,’ was the start of her defence. ‘It goes straight into the moving-house-pot.’

  ‘Being there. In that place,’ he replied. ‘I still think it’s too much for you.’

  ‘The money helps us,’ she repeated, ‘and I have to work. I want to work.’

  ‘I realise that, but we have to find something where you’re not surrounded by other people’s disasters!’

  There. There it was again. That slight irritation. She chomped her bottom lip – maybe she was being unfair to him. ‘I wanted to be somewhere I could make a little bit of a difference.’

  He kissed her head. ‘Wherever you are, Erin, you make a difference.’

  She began to cry. Soft fat tears dripped onto his shirt sleeve and he never moved.

  ‘Something else will come up,’ he whispered. ‘And you’ll love it, and everything will be okay.’

  She nodded.

  ‘But you need to take your meds.’

  She nodded again, swallowed another needless denial and stopped short of asking for the bottle there and then, so she could take a few together, so that they might help chase away the crippling, invasive dread lodged in her chest since midday.

  There would never be a better time, she thought, to try and tell him, to try and explain what it was like. Yet, she held her words, unsure if they would spill later in writing, and unsure if she would even try. How do you explain a blindsiding paralysing irrational panic to someone who is in complete control? Even if you do love him. Even if he does love you?

  ‘Once,’ Dom lay on the flat of his back and pulled her up onto his chest. ‘Once I drove into a bollard in the supermarket car park and never told you. The twins were babies and they were in their car seats in the back. It was just a bump, they were fine – I got the scratch fixed and never said a word.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m just letting you know we all tell white lies. Take your pills, Mrs Carter.’

  She tapped his chest twice. ‘Once, I lost my purse and it had a whole week’s shopping money in it. I got the purse back, no money, but we had a week of beans on toast and I never told you either.’

  Dom laughed, and she inhaled the sound of him. ‘I hate it when I’m trouble,’ she whispered, ‘when I’m less than perfect in your eyes.’ She sat up in the bed, grateful for the dusky light, imagined his brown eyes boring holes in her own.

  He reached up and stroked her face and she covered his hand with hers. ‘When will you learn that even when you�
��re trouble – you’re perfect,’ he said.

  ‘Now that’s just not true but keep talking.’ She hugged him. ‘I’m sorry. I’ll take the pills.’

  ‘So, what’s he like? Your boss, the guy I met the other day?’ Lydia asked the question the following Friday night when they met Hannah for a drink.

  ‘He’s quite cool.’ Erin’s reply was instinctive. Isaac was cool. She’d found it hard to age him but had guessed at late thirties. He was single, a little bit flirty, but not in a heavy-handed way, and he liked to laugh.

  ‘You’re smiling,’ Hannah frowned. ‘And your boss is “cool”. Hmmm …’

  ‘He is cool. He wears a uniform with flip-flops.’

  ‘You fancy him!’

  ‘I really don’t.’ Erin batted the comment away and sipped from her soft drink, respecting the fact that alcohol and her pills didn’t mix. ‘Besides, he won’t be my boss after next week. I’ve resigned.’

  ‘Oh, Erin.’ Lydia’s hands went to her face. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Dom was right. You were all right. It wasn’t the best place for me.’

  Erin was smiling at the tumbleweed silence when Lydia grabbed her arm.

  ‘Come work for me! Sorry, with me. You can manage the Bean Pod while I look for premises for the next one.’

  Though Erin admired all that Lydia had achieved in opening the first of her gourmet-coffee-pod-cafés right opposite the university, she hoped her face didn’t reveal exactly how much she didn’t want to pour coffee for a living. She winced as Lydia dug her in the ribs.

  ‘And you won’t be pouring coffee,’ Lydia read her mind. ‘This is just the first premises in my five-year plan. By the time we reach 2007, we could be ready to franchise the idea.’

  Erin rubbed her diaphragm, arched her eyebrows.

  ‘I’m being serious,’ Lydia said. ‘I’ve just advertised for a manager. Now the first Bean Pod is up and running, I need someone who can do the books for the company; someone whom I trust and who’s business savvy. You’d be brilliant, and coffee, trust me, it’s the way forward.’