Читать книгу The Book of Love - Fionnuala Kearney - Страница 16

THEN – February 1999

‘You need to look after your wife, Dominic.’

Erin listened behind the door to her kitchen. Her mother-in-law speaking up for her still felt a little odd and her hand rested on her chest.

‘We need to look after each other,’ was Dom’s reply.

Erin placed her forehead on the pine architrave. He was, of course, right but where and how to begin? She moved to push the door in front of her but paused at Sophie’s next words.

‘She loves you. You love her. You’re the one who tells me that it doesn’t have to be any more complicated. Look, I’m sorry …’ Erin imagined her looking at her watch. ‘But I’ve got to meet your dad at the club for lunch. I’m assuming you don’t want to join us?’

Dom laughed. ‘Er, no, ta, we’re going for a walk down by the river.’

She loves you. You love her. It doesn’t have to be any more complicated.

Erin’s eyes rested on a black and white image hanging on the wall of the hallway to her left – a picture Hannah had taken of her and Dom on their wedding day – one of those snapped when they weren’t looking. Both of them in profile, she was laughing at something Dom had just said. She could never remember what it was, but the slight tilt of her head backwards said so much more than that she’d just listened to something funny. It said she’d heard something funny from someone she loved. And his eyes, his eyes gazed at her as if he couldn’t believe he’d made this woman whom he loved, laugh like that. Wonder, awe in each other … She closed her own eyes for one brief moment.

Opening them meant she would either push the kitchen door open or opt to look further left. Left a little, where just beyond the wedding frame hung a small collage of photos of the children. A few pictures Dom had taken of their beautiful twins, Rachel and Jude, now almost eight months old, already making each other laugh. In the centre, just one of Maisie on her first birthday, covered in chocolate cake, only a month before they lost her. Erin had no need to actually look. The grinning images of her three children were burned on her brain. She swallowed hard and entered the kitchen. Crossing the porcelain tiles she’d mopped an hour earlier, she hugged her mother-in-law tight.

‘Oh,’ Sophie said, obviously puzzled at the embrace. ‘What was that for?’

Erin shrugged. ‘Just thank you.’ Of all the people who had helped when Maisie died, Sophie was the biggest surprise. Overnight her mother-in-law had seemed to realise that losing a child to sudden infant death syndrome while pregnant with twins was too much for any soul.

Erin pulled her padded coat from the back of the kitchen chair. ‘I’m ready if you are?’ she said to Dom checking the buckles on the twins’ pushchair. Despite the sunshine and clear blue sky outside, both babies were cocooned against the cold. She touched Jude’s face. He, unlike his sister, was fighting sleep.

‘He’ll nod off once we start moving.’ Dom put his jacket on, wrapped a scarf twice round his neck before ushering his mother towards their front door.

‘Bye, Erin!’ Sophie called back. ‘Give them a kiss from me when they’re up!’

‘See you!’ Erin replied as she angled them through the awkward kitchen doorway, pushing the pushchair along the narrow hallway.

Dom stepped outside and took over. ‘Daddy will drive,’ he said as she closed the door behind them.

Erin pulled the collar of her coat high, pressed her gloves tight between each of her fingers. It was her favourite sort of day; a crisp, cloudless sky, cold, but cold you could wrap up against. She leaned into the pram one more time and tugged the children’s blankets right up to their mouths, before sinking her gloved hands deep into her coat pockets.

Together she and Dom walked the length of Hawkins Avenue, silent, not needing to talk. They turned into Percival Way, a long, wide, tree-lined road, that bypassed the mall and the station, towards the river. They walked, crunching through iced leaves from the aging birch trees, crisp and brittle on the ground. Erin could see Jude was finally asleep.

‘You were listening at the door, weren’t you?’ Dom, his breath misting, was first to speak.

Erin said nothing.

She loves you. You love her.

‘We need to look after each other, apparently,’ he continued.

‘Actually,’ Erin smiled. ‘I think what your mother said is that you need to look after me. I think she realises you’re already well looked after.’

‘Hmmm …’

‘Do you love me?’ she blurted.

‘Completely. Mightily.’ His ungloved knuckles whitened as he gripped the bars of the pram and she reached across for his hand as he stopped walking.

‘And I love you.’

‘So, we move on, don’t dwell on things,’ he said, his head making tiny side to side movements. ‘We have each other. We have two more children.’

But no Maisie … She nodded.

‘While you were in the loo, Mum was suggesting we focus on what it was like before.’

It had been such a short time, just nine months, nothing at all – too soon to imagine laughter, to try and recreate the ‘before’.

‘So,’ he said. ‘Is she right? Any idea on how we can inject some fun into our lives?’

Erin began to walk again. He was talking about sex. She did want to talk; she wanted to talk like they used to so very much, but not about sex. ‘You mean sex?’ Despite herself, she heard herself say it aloud.

‘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