The Book of Love

by Fionnuala Kearney

‘I have money.’

  ‘So?’

  I shrug, roll the window down. ‘Money gives me choices.’ One of Dom’s favourite lines.

  Fitz nods sagely. ‘And what choices are you making?’

  ‘The money from the sale of the company will buy back Valentine’s.’

  More nodding.

  ‘And the other money …’ The life insurance settlement – our adventure money, according to Dom.

  ‘The other money?’ Fitz prompts me.

  ‘The insurance money, I don’t know yet, but it’ll provide an income—’

  Fitz hoots with laughter. ‘You’re forty-five years old. No amount of life insurance is going to give you an income for another forty years. You should stay in work for a while. Keep something familiar in your life and keep a salary coming in.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll open my own coffee joint, or a gin joint. Some sort of rival joint.’

  I dare not look but I can feel Fitz’s despair sizzle from him. ‘You wouldn’t do that.’

  He’s right but I like the thought of it. ‘Maybe I’ll die young like Mum,’ I say, starting the car again. ‘That takes care of the forty years problem.’

  Fitz says nothing. My throat hurts from talking. The rest of the journey is silent but for the sounds from outside through two open windows; horns honking, pedestrian chatter from the pavements, music from other cars, the whirring in my father’s head.

  ‘Look,’ I say as I stop outside our house by his car, ‘I really don’t feel like company tonight. Do you mind?’

  Fitz takes my hand, folds it into both of his. ‘I do know what you’re going through.’ He reaches over and kisses my cheek. ‘Call me.’

  He waits, staring from his driver’s seat, until I’ve closed the front door behind me. And I wait until he’s gone to exhale.

  ‘Dom?’ I call out. ‘I’m home.’

  47.

  Saturday 24th June 2017

  It’s five thirty, all the shops are closing and I’m sitting in a pub just outside the mall waiting for Jude. The crowds and staff from the shops all seem to be heading home to a beautiful evening where, if they can, they’ll sit in their gardens till late. The bar’s surprisingly quiet. My shopping is by my feet and I’m seated with a bottle of sparkling elderflower water in front of me ten minutes before he’s due. Jude is a time pedant – always on time, hates people being late.

  While doubt stews in my chest, I swallow a couple of tablets and, just as I’m about to stand up and pretend I never made it, my son is standing in front of me looking at me with Dom’s eyes.

  ‘Mum,’ he says, air kissing my cheek. ‘Were you about to bolt?’

  ‘No, no, I was thinking you’d be here any second and was just going to get you a drink.’

  ‘Sit,’ he says, ‘I’ll get it. You not having anything stronger?’

  ‘Antibiotics,’ I say and also mimic my hands on a steering wheel.

  Minutes later, he’s back with a pint of Guinness. I watch it as it does its brewing thing before our eyes; as the dark liquid seems to form from the bottom up, bubbling to a creamy top line.

  ‘Three times in ten days?’ he says. ‘A record for us.’

  ‘Yes.’ I steady my breathing. ‘I wanted to see you alone.’

  Jude makes a joke of looking around the empty bar. ‘You got me,’ he says.

  ‘I have something for you,’ I tap the shopping bag.

  He looks uncomfortable and then seems to regret it. ‘Sorry. I’ve inherited your love of surprises.’

  ‘When your dad and I got married,’ I say, ‘Fitz gave us a leather-bound notebook which we called The Book of Love. I’ve been racking my brains what to give you and Freya as a wedding present and … anyway, here it is. This is my gift to you.’ I remove the notebook I’d found in the department store – leather, not exactly the same, but similar. I’ve wrapped it in newspaper and blue ribbon and copied Fitz’s words onto a new card for them.

  He looks at the package I put between us on the table. ‘Shit, Mum, we were hoping for a dishwasher.’

  My face must react because he laughs, shakes his head. ‘Relax, I’m kidding. Do I open it now?’

  ‘No, wait for Freya, do it together.’ For some reason, I feel embarrassed and shift around on the narrow stool.

  ‘Thank you,’ he says, ‘thanks.’

  ‘I’ll get you a dishwasher if you need one,’ I add.

  ‘Oh, Mum …’ He swallows about a third of the pint in one go.

  ‘I’m serious, if you want a dishwasher, I—’

  ‘We don’t need a dishwasher. We don’t have room for a dishwasher.’

  ‘Is there anything you do need?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The gift,’ I nudge my head towards it. ‘When Fitz gave it to us, I thought it was a mad idea until the first time I used it and … anyway … I hope that you and Freya might find it useful. It helps people communicate differently, maybe if there’s something you can’t say—’

  ‘There’s nothing Freya and I couldn’t say to one another.’ He says this with a confidence I didn’t know he possessed.

  ‘Right. Well, your dad and I, we had lots of times we couldn’t, and it really helped. But you know that already …’

  He colours under the facial hair he’s been growing for the last few months. It’s as if he stopped shaving the day Dom died.

  ‘We knew you read our book at least once.’

  ‘I’m sorry about that.’

  ‘It’s okay. Means I don’t really even have to explain how it works.’

  The bar is so empty now that all I can hear is the swishing sound of glasses on a wash cycle behind the bar. I find myself studying his hands. He has long tapered fingers like a pianist, nothing like mine or Dom’s.

  ‘You speak to Rach today?’ he asks.

  I nod. Rachel and I speak every day about nothing at all.

  ‘I used to be jealous of that,’ he says, turning to face me. ‘Your easy relationship with her, and I’d give you a hard time but that’s all a long time ago now.’

  ‘What went through your head back then?’

  ‘Mum, this is one of those times you’re asking a question, but I think you don’t really want an answer.’

  ‘I do.’ Lines criss-cross my brow. ‘What, is this somehow my “control freakery” again?’

  ‘No,’ he laughs and puts his pint down. ‘To be fair, that comment was way out of line, no this … this is when the truth might hurt so I don’t want to be honest.’

  I’m not sure my boy is going to need that book, after all.

  ‘You have to be now – I asked.’

  ‘O-k-ay. Maisie died. Rachel replaced her, which sort of meant I was a spare child.’

  I swallow his blunt truth, am mute and still.

  ‘It’s not how I feel now. Just for a bit when I was younger, when I hated lots of stuff and people in school and—’ He shrugs. ‘You were lumped in there, in the “stuff”. You and Rach were so easy together and I was envious of that.’ Hand up in between us, he stops me interrupting. ‘I know what you’re going to say, Dad and I were easy too.’

  I nod.

  ‘We were, which is why I know it’s silly but, hey, like I said, you asked.’ He looks at my glass of flavoured water. ‘Don’t worry about it, Mum. It’s all old shit. I’m going to go and get another half, you sure you don’t want a glass of wine?’

  I could really do with a drink. ‘I do. I want a glass of wine. And a bag of nuts.’

  Jude leans his six-foot frame down to me and kisses the top of my head. ‘Coming up.’

  ‘Jude.’

  He looks back.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Mum, forget it, okay?’

  As he walks away I touch the space he kissed with my fingertips. I think of the hundreds of times that this boy has made me proud; the school reports, the smiling school photos, the joker in the family, the sensitive child with other children, the dedication to sport, his running trophies, the times I�
�ve known he’s protected his sister, the way he held me when his father died. And I have never been surer that our son, this man-child will, in the long run, be alright.

  Soon I’m sipping the slightly tart Chardonnay when he raises his glass to me. ‘You and Dad had a great marriage. I hope Freya and I are as lucky.’

  I tap the package. ‘Make some luck. You’ll be given plenty but some you have to create.’

  ‘Rachel going to get one of these when she gets married?’

  ‘She sure is.’

  ‘You think she’ll marry Paul?’

  ‘God, no.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  ‘But then again, I never saw you running off to Gretna Green with Freya either. What the hell do I know?’

  48.

  Sunday 25th June 2017

  When I get back from evening mass, I tread on an envelope on the mat before I see it. Then I walk past it. Years of seeing her handwriting on papers at work means I can recognise Lydia’s scrawl from a metre away, even under a dusty footprint.

  ‘You should read that,’ Dom says immediately.

  ‘You read it.’

  ‘It’s addressed to you.’

  I grab it from the floor and head upstairs. ‘I’m running a bath,’ I tell him, yet again avoiding the discussion that’s been hovering around both of us for days, the one that would begin, ‘So … Lydia?’ In the bathroom, I place the stopper in the plughole, run both taps, stand back and watch the roll-top bathtub fill, dropping my clothes on the floor. I toss some salts in, wait for them to disperse, test the water with my elbow the way I used to when I had babies. Stepping in, I lower myself, let the water caress me. It takes only minutes for me to reach for the envelope sitting by the sink and tear it open with wet hands.

  I cannot not read it.

  Dear Erin,

  Both of us, have for different reasons, over the years, come to believe that writing things down works. I could have emailed you but I thought you’d just delete it like others I’ve sent. Hopefully, this letter will be harder to ignore.

  I only have a few things to say:

  I miss you. You’ve been my ‘sister’ for a very long time and I miss you in my life.

  My life - yes, a life I very stupidly tried to end once when I struggled so hard with the reality of not having children. Erin, I hope because you’ve had your own anxieties over the years that you’ll understand and hear this. Someone who comes back from that despair intact, NEVER wants to go there again. I know that anytime I feel remotely close to anything that destructive, I have people ready and willing to listen and to help.

  I fell. Clear and simple. Awful, and ending in the most horrif ic tragedy but my part in that was an accident. Dom’s part was deliberate, heroic. He saved my life, Erin, and I’m grateful. But I also feel overwhelming guilt and I feel his absence so strongly that it’s nowadays, not back then, that I need professionals to listen and help me. That is mine to deal with and I am. I’m dealing with it.

  You’ve been left without the love of your life. And there are no words. Really, I’ve really thought about this, whether there’s anything I can possibly say to make you realise that I know this, and I feel for you and I want to (probably need to) help you. And you’re screaming at the page at the moment, telling me to take my pity and stick it up my ass.

  Your job is here waiting for you if ever you want it. If ever you need it.

  I’m here waiting for you if you ever want me or need me.

  Whether you and I can ever get back to being friends again, I don’t know, but I hope so. It will take forgiveness. I’m learning to forgive myself for being there that day but for us to move forward you have to forgive me too. Dom was a huge believer in hope. He knew how fear could restrict us (you know that too) but he believed in hope, told me once it was the only thing that could set us free.

  They’re the words I’ll end with.

  I love you. I’m sorry. I hope you can forgive me,

  Lydia

  I drop the single page into the water, feel my resolve weaken as I watch the paper slowly soak, the ink run off the page. Then I scrunch it up into a tight ball and fling it across the room. Sinking my head under the water, I feel the briny bath salts line my nostrils. My hair fans out in rusty waves almost blocking out the light in the room. I close my eyes, listen to Dom chattering in my head as I hold my breath. My hair parts and I see a hand hover above me before I jump upwards, gasping.

  Just as the daylight breaks, I hear myself whimper. I’m flat on my back, my right arm lying straight by my side, my left at a right angle. Dom is still asleep beside me and his left hand rests over mine, shadowing it, minding it. It’s so much bigger than my hand and the feel of his fingers spread out over mine relaxes me and I close my eyes again. One, two, three, four, five – our fingers lace. Sleep is instant.

  Erin, my love,

  I’m hoping you can hear me …

  Ours was the best marriage. Let’s at least give ourselves that.

  Sure, like many, there have been white lies throughout. There have been some wounding lies. But above all, Erin, I still believe it was built on love, survived on love and will last for eternity on love.

  Please, be able to hear this … I have our hands just touching; each finger mirroring. There’s me and you and Maisie and Jude and Rachel. One, two, three, four, five.

  Jude was right and yet he’s wrong. Yes, I’m here, with things to say to you but not just because there was unfinished business exactly, more because I couldn’t bear to let you go either. I wasn’t ready. I’m still not ready. And I felt your pain. I’ve never been able to bear seeing you in pain, whether it be childbirth or your old anxieties, or when I may have hurt you. I’ve always wanted to iron out your sadness. So, no, I couldn’t leave you – not when all I could feel was your aching loss. You thought the threat of skin cancer was your biggest fear until you realised it was life without me. You miss me. You want the life we planned. I’m so sorry.

  And I’m here to reassure you.

  You’re going to live a fine life. And now it’s your job to live that life. Take some time off for yourself. You might go back to work – you might not. Do that photography course. Have some adventures that I’ve somehow hoped we could still have together but I feel myself fading around you.

  One, two, three, four, five. I’ve just pressed your fingertips with mine and you moaned a little in your sleep. Good, you’re hearing me.

  It’s you now, Erin. It’s you who will be the parent to our children, and you and I both know how much we need our parents even when we’re ‘grown up’, probably more then – when they become a friend. Don’t doubt yourself. They love you. They need you and you need them. You’ll need each other until you all get to the point where you can sit around and talk about me without tears.

  It will happen. Believe that and yes, I’ll be there.

  They’re wonderful people, our kids.

  Love each other. Never forget what love can heal.

  And be brave enough to love another man, Erin. What you and I had will forever be what you and I still have.

  And never forget.

  I love you mightily.

  I wake to the sound of children laughing as they kick a can along the street outside. Thoughts of Dom and our history are whirring around my head as I yawn. Turning over, I move my hand over the space that he’d lain in. Cold. Sitting up, hands rubbing each other, I call out to him. My hands stop moving, left on right, fingers laced together, and the truth seems caught in between.

  I know.

  As sure as I know that Dom died on another weekend last October, I know he’s left me again on this one.

  49.

  Wednesday 28th June 2017

  The underground is hot, sticky and uncomfortable – the backs of my knees almost clinging to the seat. Up top, the summer showers that poured since early morning have cooled the air and as I climb the steps from the station, it’s such a relief to peel my shirt from my skin. Immediately, bake
ry scents hit in a wave; croissants, biscuits, small pastries with oozing savoury insides remind me I’m hungry – a sensation I can’t remember feeling for a while. The croissant is overpriced but delicious and when I arrive at the solicitor’s office, I’m covered in tiny flakes of buttery pastry.

  Lydia’s already there. She stands when I come in and makes small talk about me sounding much better. It’s as if our last conversation at her house never happened, as if that letter had never been sent. A young guy approaches, asks if we’d like a tea or coffee. Lydia refuses the offer, and I tell him yes. Caffeine is needed. Ten minutes later, in the room I now know that all of Dom’s legal transactions were handled by the man sitting opposite Lydia and me, I picture Dom being here too. I see him sitting opposite the skinny wisp of a man who goes by the name of William Burley, probably in the same seat I’m in now. He looks like he’s come straight from central casting for nineteenth-century solicitors. He sits behind an enormous wooden desk, surrounded by stacks of papers that I imagine no one can touch apart from him. His hair is wire wool. His steel-coloured caterpillar eyebrows meet in the middle and his voice roars with such unexpected authority that I look around to see where it actually came from and I don’t dare ask any questions.

  When Lydia and I both sign the contracts, she as seller and power of attorney for Gerard and me as the buyer of Valentine’s, Burley assures us that because of the simple transaction, contracts will be exchanged and completed this week. Before we know it, both of us are standing outside his office and the reason we’re here is already done.

  ‘Lunch?’ she asks casually.

  ‘I ate something on the way in.’ As if to prove the point, I flick a final crispy flake from my shirt.

  ‘Do you mind if I travel back with you?’ she asks.

  I’d rather be alone, but I shake my head and together we walk side by side to the tube.

  At Waterloo, she doesn’t need to check the flashing timetable above us for the departure time of our next train. ‘It’s twenty past from platform ten,’ she tells me. ‘We have time. You want to get a drink?’

  It’s hot. The station is heaving with people. ‘Okay.’