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
