Читать книгу The Book of Love - Fionnuala Kearney - Страница 11

THEN – January 1998

Erin drove … She drove faster than the legal speed limit told her she could, the needle on the dashboard sliding past eighty. It was only Maisie’s waking cry from her seat in the back that made her take her foot off the gas.

‘Sssh, darling.’ She reached behind and finding the baby’s lower leg, stroked it. ‘Nearly there, sweetheart.’

Maisie, the happiest child since the moment she first drew breath, gurgled a giddy response.

Erin angled the rear-view mirror and sang a nursery rhyme from her own childhood, something about Miss Polly having a dolly who was sick. Indicating off the M3, she smiled at the irony. Sick. Poor Dolly. Poor Erin.

In the narrow street outside the home she’d been raised in, Erin parked behind her father’s car. Fitz’s Toyota, with its thin layer of overnight frost still in place on the windscreen, seemed as old as him and she struggled to remember a time when he’d had another car. A mechanic by trade, at fifty-seven Fitz still worked full time and maintained that car engines were like human hearts. They needed looking after; loving, nurturing and occasional tuning. The front door to the house was open before her hand was off the wheel. Her father was opening the rear door cooing at the baby and removing her from her seat before Erin even had time to say hello.

‘You can go now,’ Fitz said as he walked off with his grandchild. Erin swung the baby bag over her shoulder, locked the car door and as soon as she saw her father’s hand reach back for her, she grabbed it, grateful.

‘Joking, of course. It’s always great to see my baby girl,’ he said. ‘Seeing her baby girl too is a bonus. Have you eaten?’

Erin nodded, her eyes cast downwards, sure that if she looked up she’d be caught in her lie. She’d fed Maisie. That was all that mattered. The thought of food today made her want to vomit.

They sat in the small kitchen at the rear of the house. Gone was the shiny pine table she and Rob had sat at for family meals and homework. Whoever had purchased it from the charity shop her father had donated it to would have had to sand away its wounds – some pen or felt-tip messages etched in the wood, her name where she had stabbed it for posterity with the point of her compass, the large dent that the frozen turkey had made one Christmas when her mother had dropped it. In its place was a strange-looking desk-like thing with the longer side placed up against the wall. Two odd chairs, one with stuffing oozing through a small hole, were parked at each end. There’s nothing worse, her father had once told her, than eating alone at a big table. Erin took the nearest chair and sat rocking Maisie on her lap.

‘Tea,’ Fitz announced, filling the kettle.

She breathed in the familiar room with its wallpaper of patterned tiles, each ‘tile’ with a different vegetable image. In the corner, a box containing stacks of What Car? magazines stood waiting to either be read again or passed on to someone who might want them. Beside it sat a smaller carton spilling with paperchains and tired tinsel. Relieved to be among her father’s chaos, she took a deep sigh – she was there – safe and sound.

‘You heard from Rob this week?’ she asked Fitz.

‘He called last night. Everything is going really well.’

It wasn’t what Erin wanted to hear. Her only brother leaving to live in New York to work for an American bank had come as a shock the previous Christmas. She still wasn’t sure if she’d forgiven him. Maisie, with one fist in her mouth, gnawing at her skin with her cutting teeth, tried to grab at anything in reach on the table with the other hand. Erin’s eyes were drawn to the centre, where a well-thumbed notebook sat. Curious, she leaned forward, holding both Maisie’s hands to limit her reach.

‘Ah-a, don’t you touch either,’ Fitz called over. ‘That’s there for explanatory reasons. For my eyes only.’

Erin nodded as if she understood, but she didn’t. She wiped her brow, thinking she should be at home tackling the never-ending list of things to do. The washing pile would talk to her if it could. Who knew a baby could create so much laundry? Who knew that looking after one small person could fill her day like it did, exhaust her like it did? Yet there she was, watching Fitz pour two mugs of stewed tea from a pot, exhausted.

‘Right,’ Fitz sat opposite. ‘What’s up?’

‘My mother-in-law is a lunatic,’ she said.

‘No. No, she’s not.’ Fitz laughed.

‘You’re right but she hates me.’

‘Well, that’s a different thing altogether. And I thought things had settled with her since Maisie was born?’

‘They have, but … She adores Maisie, adores Dom but she’s still a bit off with me.’

‘Having met Sophie, I think she’d be like that with anyone she sees as taking her son away from her. Or maybe it’s because she had to wait such a long time for children – how old was she when she had Dom, forty? And she sees you, Miss Fertile, pregnant and married in months.’

Erin flushed, rubbed her neck with her hand. ‘I just need to find a way to talk to Dom about stuff. It’s one of the reasons I came to see you.’

Her father’s forehead creased.

‘For example, he’s gambling,’ she blurted. ‘Only small stuff but he doesn’t tell me.’

‘Gambling?’

Erin thought Fitz looked as if he had a sudden headache brewing. ‘Poker games with his mates and bets in bookies, mostly. Stupid arse leaves the stubs in his trousers. It’s just a worry.’

‘Have you asked him about it?’

‘He waffles.’ She hesitated. ‘I suppose some might call it lies.’

Fitz sighed, sat back in his chair.

‘Then again, I don’t tell the truth when he asks me if I’m alright, whether I’m coping, when he senses I might not be. I don’t tell him when my stomach coils in on itself. Seems that despite the fact we love the bones of one another and laugh together every single day, we both have stuff we … we just don’t seem willing or able to talk about.’

‘Right.’

‘Dad?’ Erin’s eyes filled at the edges. ‘We love being together. We’re meant to be together. Just sometimes, we’re not great at actually talking.’ She bounced a restless Maisie on her knee. ‘So, like I said when I called – that leather book you gave us when we got married – how does it actually work?’

‘In only fourteen months since the wedding,’ Dom raised a glass to her across the table, ‘we’re new parents, and I’m newly qualified.’ He sipped from his glass. ‘You not drinking?’ he asked as he began to slice into the roast chicken she’d prepared.

‘Tummy’s a bit upset,’ she said.

‘Oh.’ He put down his cutlery. ‘You alright?’

‘Yes, yes, I’m fine, probably Fitz’s pâté sandwich.’ She made a face and then instantly smiled. ‘I didn’t tell you – Maisie tried to stand up today! I had her down on the floor and one moment she was there, grabbing my legs and the next she was pulling herself up! Fitz loved it.’

‘Sometimes,’ Dom’s eyes were wistful, ‘sometimes, I wish I could stay at home all day and just watch her.’

Erin sliced her meat and nibbled on a piece. ‘No, you don’t,’ she said. ‘You’d last a day of shitty nappies and baby talk before you went scrambling back to the office for some peace.’

‘I do know what you do for her, you know. I do know that there’ll come a day when maybe you want more.’

Erin stared at the vegetables on her plate. She should eat the broccoli. ‘Tell me about work,’ she said. ‘What’s going on in the Carter Empire?’

‘My father’s empire is doing great and his one and only son and heir is being made to work from the bottom up.’ He waved a knife. ‘I don’t mind. It’s the right thing but there’re moments where …’ Dom hesitated. ‘Oh, I don’t know. It’s as if I’m penalised for being his son.’

‘By him or others?’ Erin asked.

‘Gah,’ he said. ‘It’s nothing. At least nothing I shouldn’t expect. I am his son and I am only there because of that.’

‘You’re there because you got a first in Architecture after studying for six years, Dom.’

‘Yeah, along with the hundreds of other applicants for entry-level jobs.’ His eyes widened. ‘I’m there because I’m his son and everyone, including me, knows that.’

Erin stood and came to sit on his lap. ‘If anyone can make it work, you can.’

‘Mrs Carter, if you’re trying to seduce me, could you please wait until I’ve eaten?’

‘I’m on my way to get a soft drink, actually, need the bubbles …’ She traced the line of his five o’clock shadow with her fingertips before grazing his lips with hers. ‘And it could be worse,’ she said before heading to the fridge.

‘Oh yeah?’ he asked, cutlery in hand again.

‘You could be working for your mother,’ she grinned as her eyes scanned the inside shelves and she heard him laugh loudly as she popped open a can of lemonade.

Dom’s snore, aided by the bottle of red which he’d got from a grateful client and had almost finished, prompted her out of bed. Tying her robe around herself, she slid her feet into slippers and first checked on Maisie.

Running her fingers along the top of the radiator, she made sure it was hot. There was a heavy frost outside, the threat of snow and Maisie hated being cold; she was the only baby that Erin had ever seen shiver. Leaning into the cot, she felt her forehead briefly and Maisie stirred, pursing her bud lips in her sleep. Not for the first time, Erin stayed a minute staring at the child’s features. Her pale skin was flawless, velvet to the touch. A hint of strawberry could be seen in her straight golden hair, but only in certain lights. As Erin pressed a few strands between her thumb and fingers, marvelled at its softness, then traced the arch of her daughter’s brow with the slightest of touches, she convinced herself that somehow, she and Dom could stay this lucky.

In the living room, she wrapped herself up in a blanket on the sofa and took the leather book from the changing bag. Remembering what Fitz had said, and without thinking about it too much, Erin began to write.

18th January 1998

My darling Dom,

I can’t sleep, so I thought I might as well do this! Fitz says it works; that it helps people focus on exactly what they want to say without any fluff.

I’m not sure what to do, how to do it, other than I start things by being first. And the first thing I need to say is that I love you. All of you, despite the fact that you’re snoring away in bed after drinking wine I can’t drink and I’m here awake again.

Yep. Sleepless nights, insomnia again. For about another six months.

I bet you’re scratching your head now. I can see you; your face is wrinkled, you’re trying to work out what the hell I’m saying and how the hell you should respond and whether I expect you to reply. Do I really expect you to write back? Well, yes – I’m going to leave this book on the hall table. I’ll stick a big post-it with your name and instructions on the mirror above, so you’ll see it first thing in the morning, when you’re up with the birds and I’m finally asleep. Read Fitz’s card again – it’s just on the inside flap and it explains what this is about. And when you write back, please be honest. Be brutal. No, don’t be brutal, I’m not sure I could take it. I’ll take honest though.

And just because honesty is what this is about. Here it is, the fluff-free version, written down because I’m not sure your poker face is good enough to hide your feelings and I can’t bear to see if I’m right:

I’m pregnant again. Over three months, I reckon. It must have happened during that time I was ill in October, probably didn’t keep the pill down for a few days. I’ve only just found out because, since Maisie, it’s quite normal for me to miss a period. Or two. But not three …

I love you with all the love in my heart but according to Fitz I’m supposed to end anything I write with a reason why, so …

I love you because you’re a brilliant father and I hope that being a father again won’t faze you. And I love you because you iron my jeans, and because you run a bath for me when I’m tired and because I heard you apologise to a snail yesterday when you accidentally stood on it.

Erin x

19th January 1998

Beautiful Erin,

This is just the second of our many un-planned plans. You ARE the most beautiful woman in the world. And you’re mine and I’m yours and we’ll work it out. We will.

Love you mightily,

Dom x