The Book of Love

by Fionnuala Kearney

  I follow her through the throng to the escalator and upstairs we find two seats at the edge of a bar overlooking the concourse. Without asking what I want, she heads to order drinks.

  ‘French, rosé,’ she says, minutes later, and hands me the drink I would have asked her to get as she sits with a lemon-heavy G&T.

  I mutter my thanks, look at my wrist.

  ‘I just checked the screen,’ she says. ‘The twenty past has been cancelled. Looks like we’re stuck with each other for an hour.’

  I feel my heart hammer in my chest.

  ‘Will you please consider staying on at work?’ she spits out.

  ‘Right now, because you’re asking me right now, my answer is no.’ I hesitate. Rachel is the only one who agrees with my decision about giving up work. And I’ve convinced myself that Rachel is the voice of reason in my life, so she must know what’s best for me. But both Fitz and Jude think I need the routine that the Bean Pod brings. ‘But if you asked me next week, I don’t know. My head’s all over the place at the moment.’

  ‘What does Dom think you should do?’

  I glance across at her face, convinced I’d see some shades of her indulging me but her expression is sincere. She’s asking a genuine question.

  ‘Dom and I were maybe going to have an adventure,’ I swallow some wine and look down at the hundreds of people I don’t know. ‘But then we sort of knew that might not be possible. He thinks I should do a photography course.’

  ‘That’s a good idea.’

  ‘But Dom’s gone now,’ I tell her. ‘So …’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  I can’t look at her but know she’s genuine. She’s sorry. She’s sorry that Dom saved her and she’s sorry that Dom’s gone. Again.

  Rubbing my arms, I just nod.

  ‘He loved you so very much, Erin.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And he loved me.’

  ‘He did. And you owe it to him to live a big life, Lydia.’

  She sits back on the chair, wipes her eye with her hand. ‘To do that, I need you to be a part of it, to be in my life. To forgive me for being there that morning.’

  And in that moment, I find myself remembering my husband’s capacity to forgive. It was as if he was made of the stuff and the memories start to melt my resistance.

  Before I have a chance to reply, I notice something happening down below me and I find myself looking over the balustrade, staring. There’s a guy in the middle of a crowded space and he’s just started to dance. People around him are moving away and just as Lydia looks over the balcony too, music sounds in the station.

  The guy moves beautifully; his arms swaying and legs flick-kicking to a ‘Thriller’ track that booms from the tannoy. I feel a smile sneak across my lips and when others join in, I see it’s stage-managed and I hear Lydia scramble in her bag.

  ‘A flash mob,’ she removes her phone and starts to film it. Soon, hundreds of people are dancing to a medley of music that has both of us standing by our seats. I’m moving side to side, taking still photographs. Just underneath me, two uniformed police officers stand, their arms folded, smiling and tapping their feet. The guy who started the routine beckons to people to join in and at the edges of the choreographed mass, commuters and tourists alike are bopping side to side.

  Lydia has the iPhone in the air still filming but she’s looking at me. I move closer to her, lean my head on her shoulder.

  I sing along. ‘Dom would love this,’ I tell her.

  She keeps filming. ‘He would but he’d tell you to stop singing.’

  I laugh. She’s right. That’s exactly what he’d say if he were here.

  If he were here.

  When the music changes to a Queen track and all the dancers drop to the floor to air guitar, I catch her eye and we’re both nineteen again working in that boutique where we met. We’re in the stock room and we’re crazy dancing to whatever comes on the radio. She drops her phone in her bag and I take her offered hand, and we dance together, headbanging and strumming our imaginary guitars.

  And when the music stops, and everyone slinks off at the end, as if the moment had never happened, Lydia and I both know it did. She looks at me, tears in her eyes and tells me she loves me.

  I nod, my father’s twenty-year-old words echoing in my head:

  ‘I am Love, and if real, I will never fade …’

  Epilogue

  From The Book of Love:

  ‘I love you because it works for us,

  this love thing.’

  My Tree Girl isn’t dancing.

  No, the only slight movement is the blanket rising and falling with each breath; a mechanical sounding ‘whoosh’ both in and out. The ‘in’ lasts for a fraction less than the raspy ‘out’. Her long arms that first reminded him of a tree’s branches lie alongside her skinny body. If she were a tree now, she would bend in the wind, her weak limbs unable to take any strain. The hippy sway of oh so long ago would break her …

  She lies in a bed, one that angles however she pleases with a voice instruction, but her voice is weak. It neither speaks to the bed or her loved ones these last few days. Beside the mattress is a pull-down diagnostic touch screen and underneath that, a small table protrudes from the wall with a jug of water and a glass on it. Some things will always remain the same, he thinks. She is, as he knew she would be, surrounded by people. Only one remains from their original gang. He rests a hand on Hannah’s shoulder as he passes, and she flinches a little, looks up and reaches her bony hand to the spot he’d just touched.

  Rachel sits opposite, her head back, eyes closed. It’s the woman by her side that holds Erin’s hand, that tightens her grip as Erin moans a little. When Dom hears her voice, it’s still the same to him. Even a tiny groan jolts a memory of her deep and throaty timbre and he laughs as he remembers her first words to him. ‘I’m Erin.’

  Darling Dom,

  I’ve not felt you around for such a very long time and now I think you’re here. I’m sure I saw you skulking in the corner of this room the other day when I tried to open my eyes. It was you, wasn’t it? Is it you, my love. Have you come for me?

  I wrote in The Book of Love every year on our anniversary, you know, until last year when my eyes finally gave in – thirty-six updates. I hated not being able to do it then; hate not being able to write this one now but I remember you saying that you hear me as I think the words. I hope you still can.

  Thirty-six years. That’s a long time to wait for someone, Dom. I never loved another, by the way, despite your last request, but I’m quite sure you know that already. I did try – there were a few candidates – a few men I tried to love but that feeling never came, that feeling of tenderness and warmth and safety that I felt with you. And by the time you’d been gone for ten years, I came to the conclusion that love, for me, was definitely a once in a lifetime thing. We had the good fortune to find that rare thing, a love that lasts forever.

  I’ve asked Rachel and her husband Rav to make sure our book goes in the box with me and that it’s burned with me. I can’t bear to leave it.

  I’ve had a good life, Dom. You told me I would. The best half with you but I think you somehow had a hand in making sure the second half was blessed too. I managed to completely dodge the cancer bullet again but six months ago my heart decided that it’s weary. But look around me – it’s amazing how even my emaciated heart can still love so very much.

  We have only one grandchild, Leila. She’s the woman holding my hand right now. Can you see? She looks just like Rav and she has Rachel’s nature. And Leila has two boys, beautiful, beautiful, twin boys. What a joy they are!

  Jude was here earlier. We were right, by the way, many of those thirty-six updates would have been about Jude in some way – his many highs and lows. No written thoughts saved him and Freya, they were just too young. But he did marry again, in his late thirties; a lovely lady, Julia, four years older than him, and he has three gorgeous step-children. He’s head teacher now
at the school. How weird the circles turn …

  Are they with you? Is there a group of people I’ve loved with you? Fitz, Rob and Maisie. Sophie and Gerard. Nigel and Lydia and you. Or are you alone, my love?

  Will you come and lay by me when the moment’s here? Or will you grasp my hand and whisper in my ear. I have to confess I’m scared – not of dying, not of being with you again, just of saying goodbye. I love them all so very much. I’ve had so many more years than you of touching them and feeling them and I can’t bear to let go.

  That sound is my breathing. It’s awful, isn’t it? That death rasp rattle in my lungs. Still I made it to eighty-two, Dom. You told me I would …

  Darling Erin,

  I was with you all the way, girl. Not just listening to the thirty-six entries but whenever you needed me and many times when you didn’t think you did. That time when you were driving just that bit too fast on a German autobahn a few years after I died. I slowed you down that day. The time when Freya left Jude and he came home to live in Valentine’s and you were at your wit’s end. But you loved him through it. You propped him up and I held you up.

  It’s almost time, love. And I’m here like I said I would be.

  Don’t be afraid. I’ll wait until you’re sure. I’m right here, lying beside you and when you’re ready, just take my hand. That’s all you have to do, my love, one small reach, Erin the Brave. Take my hand, clasp my fingers.

  One, two, three, four, five.

  I’m here and I love you mightily.

  Acknowledgements

  A huge, and I mean massive thanks to HarperCollins UK and Ireland – to everyone across editorial, cover design, sales, marketing and PR. Special heartfelt thanks and hugs to Kim Young and Charlotte Ledger for all their hard work and patience. Thanks too to Mary Byrne, Tony Purdue, Liz Dawson, Jaime Frost and Laura Gerrard. To my agent, Maddy, thank you for keeping the faith and always being there. Thanks too to her incredible team Milburn, especially Alice who helps get my words translated all over the world. Publisher and agent, I really am blessed to work with the very best in the business.

  Thanks to my sister Annie, who read quite a few early versions of this book – LYM, girl, and to Brian, my brother, for that line! And the rest of my siblings, the mad clan and in-laws, it’s been a tough few years but hey, we’re all still standing … Thank you to Sally Metcalf for that Christmas ‘top-box’ tale! To Claire Allan, greatest writer pal and the most patient beta reader ever, thanks for pushing me each step of the way. And to my late great friend, Vanessa Lafaye, a beautiful writer and person, who also beta read and encouraged me, telling me ‘This is the one’ just before she died. I hope I never have to be as brave as her, but if I do, she showed me how. Her loss was one of a few this last year which somehow makes this act of thanking those I’m grateful to more important than ever.

  A big shout out to all of the wonderful book-bloggers, reviewers and book-sellers, who I’m enormously grateful to – thank you for your continued support. To everyone I know on Twitter and Facebook, thanks for the procrastination moments and so much more. Thanks too to the amazing online book-clubs especially The Rick O’Shea Book Club, Tracy Fenton’s The Book Club, The Good Housekeeping Book Room, Woman&Home Reading Room and The Book Tribe – all wonderful spaces for readers. And the Prime Writers, you know who you are – your support and friendship in this mad world of writing means so much. Here’s to many more scones! To my friends, especially Mary and Steph, the book club gang (Ta for the ‘I love you because …’ brainstorm) and also the extended Camberley crew, the GK exes, all the FB school group and everyone else whom I call a friend.

  As always, thanks to my man, our daughters, their men and our gorgeous Esme who just makes us hoot with her chat. That one has been here before … I hope you all feel as loved as you make me feel every single day. As Dom once said somewhere in these pages – ‘It’s love that brings meaning to life.’

  And finally, to you, the readers, thank you. Every day I get to work at the very best job and make up stories to tell and each one of you makes that possible. Thank you for helping make my dreams come true.

  A Q&A with Fionnuala Kearney

  When you started writing the novel did you already know how it was going to end?

  Absolutely! I wasn’t exactly sure how I was going to get there but I knew the ‘reveal’ about Dom before I wrote a single word.

  What do you hope your readers will get from this novel?

  I think I’d like people to question the possibility, or maybe have a renewed faith in, the idea that love could last forever? I wanted to write a story about a marriage with enduring love – as Dom says, early on, in the novel, ‘it’s love that brings meaning to life.’ I needed the characters to go through a lot so that I could show, in their case, in the case of Dom and Erin, love conquered all. We live in such a strange world that it’s often easy to forget that love, either a selfless, kind, loving act, or love that learns and evolves can cure so much.

  Are there any themes in the novel that have come from your own experiences?

  Many! I’ve lived enough years now to know that sometimes fear can stop us moving forward and that hope, and faith, must be prevailing factors to help that happen. I’ve experienced loss and though I don’t prescribe to a religious faith, I believe in spirit. During the writing of The Book of Love, I lost my elderly mother and it makes me happy to think of her still watching me, still loving me.

  I (like most) have had to practise forgiveness at times and have learned to value it’s healing power. And above all, I’m lucky enough to have experienced a long-lasting marriage where, thankfully, the idea of stuffing him under the patio is rare and love triumphs!

  Did you find swapping between perspectives and time frames a challenge? How did you overcome this? What was your writing process?

  Writing this novel was a huge challenge and required many drafts to get it right. The ‘Now’ and ‘Then’ timeframe isn’t something I’ve attempted before and, also, I wanted the reader to hear from both characters in both times, so it was a structural feat to say the least! That said, it was important to write it that way – it was the way the story came to me – and it felt the most authentic way to tell it.

  As far as process is concerned, I wrote the first draft freely, without too much worry. Then the second, third, fourth (etc!) drafts involved a lot of ‘Post-It’ scene planning and huge hand-written spidery character threads on my enormous white-board. I had lots of editorial help and there were many forehead-on-the-desk moments too!

  What made this story so compelling to write?

  I knew that for my third book I wanted to write a love story; to write about a successful marriage with many challenging moments with the ultimate reason for their staying together to be enduring love.

  Communication is key in any successful relationship and so many of us struggle with it at times. I wanted to explore the idea of a couple being able to communicate with one another without fear of being interrupted, ‘writing down whatever it is you can’t bring yourselves to say’. Hence, The Book of Love was born.

  I also loved the principle of the Book of Love being handed down from one generation to the next as something that can work in a marriage – Fitz to Erin and Erin to Jude.

  How did you create Dom and Erin? What do you think are their worst and best qualities?

  I find when I finish one novel, that random characters are already forming in my head for the next one, so Dom and Erin had been chattering in the folds of my brain for ages. I knew they were a married couple, crazy about one another, and though I’d written some character notes before beginning, their real layers arrived as soon as I began to write the first draft.

  I think Dom’s best quality is loyalty and his capacity for forgiveness, and his worst is an inability to be honest about himself and his frailties with the woman he loves. I think Erin’s best quality is her strong will and her worst is her judging herself too harshly.

  Did you always beli
eve Dom and Erin would stay together?

  Yes. No doubt. No question. Whatever life threw at them, Dom and Erin were meant to be …

  Where was your favourite place to write the novel?

  In my study at home, looking out over the trees in my front garden.

  The Book of Love is as much about love as loss. Are there any moments from your life that inspired this connection? Was it an organic pairing, or a tool to make the relationships in the novel believable?

  I see love and loss as a little like yin and yang – almost impossible to have one without the other. If there is no love attached to something or someone, then there are no real feelings of loss when that or they have gone.

  Write it down … As a writer, it’ll come as no surprise that I’ve done this myself sometimes over the years. I’ve kept a diary and written love letters and I’ve always been grateful for the ability it gives me to get to the nitty gritty.

  Long lasting love will inevitably include some form of loss in life. And loss for me doesn’t have to mean the loss of a person, though that’s enormous and life-altering. The demise of trust or faith or security or health or simply missing a person when you’re apart, are things we all relate to and I’m no exception there. With The Book of Love, I wanted to show how life (love and loss) can completely overwhelm people who believe they’re close. Yet, how do we even begin to say some things?

  Do you believe in the Book of Love?

  Yes! It worked for Dom and Erin …

  Book Club Questions for The Book of Love by Fionnuala Kearney

  1. Discuss Erin and Dom’s relationship at the beginning of the novel. What impression do you get of the future? Are there any signs that their love won’t last?

  2. Why do you think Kearney chose to tell the story from each of Dom and Erin’s perspectives? Does hearing from the two of them in both the ‘Now’ and ‘Then’ threads build on our sense of character and time?