The Book of Tomorrow

CHAPTER TWELVE

I suppose it was inevitable I would dream the dream I dreamed that night.

As I lay in bed caught in the irony of forcing myself to drift away, my mind went over and over the diary entry I had read in the castle before it had cleared and made way for the next one. Thankfully, I had read it so many times before the words disappeared and were replaced by a new entry that I knew almost every line off by heart. Everything that I’d read had come true that day. I wondered if tomorrow would yield the same supernatural results, if it would all somehow be revealed as somebody’s cruel idea of a joke, or if Sister Ignatius was right and the late-night scribbles of a sleepwalker would reveal themselves to be mere inconsequential babble.

I had heard about things people did when they were asleep. Sleep epilepsy, carrying out weird sexual acts, cleaning or even homicidal somnambulism, which is sleepwalking murder. There were a few famous cases where people committed murders and claimed to be sleepwalking. Two of the murderers were acquitted and ordered to sleep alone with their doors locked. I don’t know if that was one of the documentaries Mae watched or if it was an episode of Perry Mason called ‘The Case of the Sleepwalker’s Niece’ that educated me on that. Anyway, if all of those things were possible, then I supposed it was also possible that I could have written my diary in my sleep and, while I was writing it, predicted the future.

I believed more in the homicidal somnambulism defence.

Knowing the dream that I was going to have-well, according to the Tamara of Tomorrow-my mind tried to think of ways to change the dream, of ways to stop Dad from becoming my English teacher and keep him around so that we could actually talk. I tried to think of a special code that only he would understand, which I could say to him and somehow summon him from the dead to communicate with me. I obsessed about it all so much, I inevitably dreamed about exactly what I’d written: about my dad, whose face morphed into that of my English teacher, and then my school moved to America but I couldn’t speak the language, then we lived on a boat. The only difference was that I was being repeatedly asked to sing by the students, some of whom were the cast of High School Musical, and when I tried to open my mouth no sound would come out because of the laryngitis. Nobody would believe me because I’d lied about it before.

The other difference, which felt far more disturbing, was that the boat that I lived on, the wooden Noah’s Ark style boat, was crammed full of people like millions of bees in a hive. Smoke kept drifting through the halls but nobody noticed except for me, and they kept on eating, stuffing their mouths over and over with food while seated at long banquet tables, which then felt like a Harry Potter film, and all the while the smoke filled the rooms. I was the only one who could see it, but nobody could hear me because the laryngitis had taken away my voice. Boy and Wolf come to mind.

You could say that the diary was right, or a more cynical mind would suggest that because I’d allowed my mind to obsess over the details of the already documented dream, I inevitably forced myself to dream the dream. But I did, as forecast, wake to the sound of Rosaleen dropping a pot on the floor with a yelp.

I threw the covers off and fell to the floor on my knees. Last night I had taken my own forecasting voice’s advice by hiding the diary under the floorboard. If Tamara of Tomorrow felt it was important then I was going to follow her advice. Who knew why she-or I-was going to such great lengths to hide silly hormonal thoughts? Maybe Rosaleen had gone snooping and she, or I, hadn’t written about it. The last few nights I’d taken to blocking the bedroom door with the wooden chair. It wouldn’t keep Rosaleen out but it would at least alert me to her presence. She hadn’t watched me sleep since the first night. As far as I knew.

I was sitting on the floor beside the bedroom door rereading last night’s entry again when I heard steps on the stairs. I looked through the keyhole and saw Rosaleen leading Mum back up the stairs. I almost jumped up and did a song and a dance when, after Mum’s door closed, Rosaleen knocked at mine.

‘Morning, Tamara. Is everything all right?’ she called from outside.

‘Eh, yes, thank you, Rosaleen. Did something happen downstairs?’

‘No, nothing. I just dropped a pot.’

The doorknob began to turn.

‘Em, don’t come in! I’m naked!’ I dived and pushed it closed.

‘Oh, okay…’ Talk of bodies, particularly naked ones, embarrassed her. ‘Breakfast will be ready in ten minutes.’

‘Fine,’ I said quietly, wondering why on earth she had lied. Mum going downstairs was huge. Not to any normal family but to mine at present it was right up there.

That’s when it struck me how important each line in the diary was. Each was that trail of breadcrumbs I longed to drop from my old home to here. Each word was a clue, a revelation, of something that was happening right under my nose. When I’d written that I’d woken to Rosaleen dropping a pot and yelping I should have read into it more. I should have realised that she would never normally do such a thing, that something must have happened to make her drop the pot. Why would she have lied about Mum going downstairs? To protect me? To protect herself?

I settled back down on the floor, my back to the door, and read the entry I’d discovered last night.

Sunday, 5 July

I shouldn’t have told Weseley about Dad. I hate the way he looked at me, with such pity. If he didn’t like me, he didn’t like me. A dad who’d committed suicide wasn’t going to make me any nicer-though seemingly that was the case-but how was he to know that? It’s probably really hypocritical for all this to come from me but I don’t want people’s opinions of me to change just because of what Dad did. I always thought I’d want the opposite, to really milk the sympathy, you know. I’d have everybody’s attention, I could be all I wanted to be.

I thought I’d love it. Aside from the first month, immediately after Dad’s death-I found him, so there were a lot of questions, cups of tea and nice pats on the back, all while I blubbered over my statements to the gardaÍ; and, of course, at Barbara’s mews where Lulu was assigned to tend to our every whim, which for me was mostly hot chocolate with extra marshmallows on an hourly basis-I haven’t been getting any special attention. Unless this is special attention from Arthur and Rosaleen, and next month I become the cinder girl.

I really couldn’t stand this new girl, Susie, in my class but then I found out her brother played rugby for Leinster and all of a sudden I was next to her in every maths class and I stayed in her house every weekend for a month, until her brother was suspended from the team after being arrested for jumping on and crushing someone’s car, after one too many vodka and Red Bulls. The tabloids tore him to shreds and he lost his sponsorship for the contact lense company. Nobody wanted anything to do with him for about a week. And then I was gone.

I can’t believe I wrote that. Cringe.

Anyway, Weseley totally changed when I told him Dad killed himself. I should have said something else, like he died in war or-I don’t know-just something else like a more common kind of death. Would it be too weird if I said, ‘By the way, about the suicide thing? I was just joking. He really died of a heart attack. Ha ha ha.’

No. Maybe not.

Who the hell was Weseley? I looked at the date. Tomorrow, again. So between now and tomorrow evening I’d meet a Weseley. Absolutely impossible. Was he going to climb up the wall of Fort Rosaleen to say hello to me?

After having the weirdest dreams last night, I woke up feeling more tired than before I went to bed. After zilch sleep all I wanted to do was lie in bed all morning-actually, all day. This wasn’t going to happen. The talking clock rapped on my door once before entering.

‘Tamara, it’s nine thirty. We’re off to ten o’clock mass and then the market for a short while.’

It took me a while to figure out what she was saying but eventually I mumbled something about not being a mass person and waited for a bucket of holy water to come pouring down on me. But there was no reaction of the sort. She gave my room a quick look to make sure I hadn’t spread feces all over the walls overnight and then said it was fine if I stayed home and kept an eye on mum.

Hallelujah.

I heard the car leave the drive, imagined her in a twinset with a brooch and a hat with flowers, even though I’d seen she wasn’t wearing one. I imagined Arthur in a top hat driving a convertible Cadillac and the whole world sepia-coloured outside as they went off to Sunday mass. I was so happy they’d allowed me to stay, I didn’t think that perhaps she didn’t want to be seen with me at mass or at the market, until later on when the hurt, though minute, set in. I drifted off again but awoke I don’t know how much later to the sound of a car horn. I ignored it and tried to sleep again but it honked louder and longer. I scrambled out of bed, and pushed open the window, ready to shout abuse but instead started laughing when I saw Sister Ignatius squashed into a yellow Fiat Cinquecento with three other nuns. She was in the back seat, the window was rolled down and half her body was through the gap as though she’d suddenly spurted towards the sun.

‘Romeo,’ I called, pushing open the window.

‘You look like you’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards.’ And then she tried to make me go to mass with her. Her efforts were in vain. Then one of the other sisters tried to pull her back into the car. She folded herself back into the car and immediately it took off, not slowing or indicating as they rounded the corner. I saw a hand wave as they roared away and heard, ‘Thanks for the boooook!’ as they flew round the corner.

I dozed for another few hours, enjoying the space and the freedom to be lazy without clanging pots hinting at me from the kitchen or a vacuum cleaner hitting against my bedroom door as Rosaleen hoovered the landing carpet. For the moments I was awake I pondered what Rosaleen had said the night before. About calling Mum a liar. Had they fought? Had Arthur and Mum fought? She seemed perfectly happy to greet him when we arrived, though. What had changed, if anything had at all? I needed to find time alone with Arthur to really talk to him.

I checked on Mum, who at eleven a.m. was still sleeping, which was unusual for her, but a hand under her nose proved to me she was still alive and there was a picked-at breakfast tray beside the bed, which Rosaleen had left for her. I nibbled at some fruit from the kitchen, wandered around the house, picking up things, studying the few photographs dotted around the living room. Arthur with a giant fish, Rosaleen wearing pastels and holding on to her hat, while laughing, on a windy day. Then Rosaleen and Arthur together, always side by side, never touching, like they were both children forced to stand beside one another and pose for a photograph on their communion day; hands by their sides, or clasped on their fronts, like butter wouldn’t melt.

I sat in the living room and continued to read the book Fiona had given me. At one o’clock on the button, when Arthur and Rosaleen’s car returned to the house, a sense of heaviness came over me. My space was gone, rooms would be shared again, games would be played, mysteries would continue.

What on earth had I been thinking?

I should have explored. I should have broken into the shed and seen how much space they really had. I think Rosaleen is lying about that. I should have called a doctor and had Mum looked at. I should have investigated across the road, or at least peeked in the back garden. I should have done lots of things, but instead I had sat in the house and moped. And it would be another week until I’d have that time again.

What a wasted day.

Note to self: don’t be an idiot in future, and leave the window open.

I’ll write again tomorrow.

I put the diary back into the floor and replaced the board. I took a fresh towel from the cupboard and my good shampoo which was almost empty and irreplaceable due both to convenience and, for the first time in my life, cost. I was about to get into the shower when I remembered the mention of Sister Ignatius’ visit this morning. It would be the perfect opportunity to test the diary. I kept the shower running and waited on the landing.

The doorbell rang and that simple thing spooked me.

Rosaleen opened the door and before she even spoke I could tell from the atmosphere it was Sister Ignatius at the door.

‘Sister, morning to you.’

I peeked round the corner and saw Rosaleen’s back and backside only. Today’s tea dress was sponsored by Fyffes. Clumps of bananas decorated her dress. The rest of her was squeezed out of the small slit she’d made in the opened door, almost as if she didn’t want Sister Ignatius to see past her. And had it not started to rain at that very moment I don’t think Sister would have found herself any closer to me than on the porch. They both stood in the hallway then and Sister Ignatius looked around. We caught eyes, I smiled and then hid again.

‘Come in, come in to the kitchen,’ Rosaleen said with urgency as though the hallway ceiling was about to cave in.

‘No, I’m fine here. I won’t stay too long.’ Sister Ignatius stayed where she was. ‘I just wanted to come over and see how you are. I haven’t seen sight nor heard from you for the past few weeks.’

‘Oh, yes, well, I’m sorry about that. Arthur’s been terribly busy working on the lake and I’ve been…keeping things together here. You’ll come to the kitchen won’t you?’ She kept her voice down as though a baby was sleeping.

You’ve been hiding a mother and her child, Rosaleen, cough it up now.

From Mum’s bedroom, I heard her chair drag across the floor.

Sister Ignatius looked up. ‘What’s that?’

‘Nothing. You must be getting ready for honey season now, I suppose. Come to the kitchen, come, come.’

She tried to take Sister Ignatius by the arm and lead her away from the hallway.

‘I’ll be extracting the honey on Wednesday if the weather holds up.’

‘Please God, it does.’

‘How many jars would you like me to drop by?’

Something dropped in Mum’s room.

Sister Ignatius stopped walking. Rosaleen pulled her along and kept talking, boring small talk. Natter natter natter. So and so died. So and so was taken ill. Mavis from down the town was hit by a car in Dublin after being out to buy a top for her nephew John’s thirtieth. She died. She bought the top and all. Very sad as her brother had died the previous year of bowel cancer, now there’s no one left in the family. Her father is alone and had to move to a nursing home. He’s taken ill over the past few weeks. Eyesight is in great decline and didn’t he used to be an excellent darts player. And the thirtieth party was a very sad one as they were all devastated about Mavis. Blather blather blather about crap. Not once were Mum and I discussed. The elephant in the room again.

After Sister Ignatius had left, Rosaleen momentarily leaned her forehead against the door and sighed. Then she straightened up and twirled around to look up on the landing. I moved quickly. When I ducked my head round the corner I saw that Rosaleen’s bedroom was ajar. A shadow flickered by.

I couldn’t stand to sit with Rosaleen and Arthur for breakfast. I’d have rather been anywhere but in that kitchen with the smell of a fry making me feel sick. But of course I knew what I’d do next. I went to Mum’s room.

‘Mum, come outside with me, please.’ I picked up her hand and gently tugged her.

She was still as a rock.

‘Mum, please. Come out to the fresh air. We can walk around the trees and the lakes, we can see the swans. I bet you’ve never even walked around these grounds before. Come on. There’s a beautiful castle and lots of lovely walks. There’s even a walled garden.’

She looked right at me then. I could see her pupils dilate as she focused on me. She said, ‘Secret garden,’ and she smiled.

‘Yes, Mum. Have you been there?’

‘Roses.’

‘Yes, there’s lots of roses.’

‘Mmm. Pretty,’ she said softly, then as though she’d suddenly become from the North of England and dropped a few words, she said, ‘Prettier than rose.’ She said this looking out the window and then she looked at me and used her forefinger to trace the outline of my face. ‘Prettier than rose.’

I smiled. ‘Thanks, Mum.’

‘She’s walked around here before, hasn’t she?’ I exploded into the kitchen, full of energy, which startled Rosaleen.

She raised her finger to her lips. Arthur was on the phone, an old-fashioned thing that was stuck to the wall.

‘Rosaleen,’ I whispered, ‘she talked.’

She stopped rolling out dough and turned to me. ‘What did she say?’

‘She said that the walled garden was a secret garden and that I was as pretty as a rose,’ I beamed. ‘Or prettier, actually.’

Rosaleen’s face hardened. ‘That’s nice, dear.’

‘That’s nice? That’s fucking nice?’ I exploded.

Rosaleen and Arthur both shushed me.

‘Yes. That’s Tamara,’ Arthur said.

‘Who’s on the phone?’

‘Barbara,’ Rosaleen said, strands coming loose around the front of her pinned-back hair and really starting to sweat as she now put some elbow grease into rolling the dough.

‘Can I talk to her?’ I asked.

He nodded. ‘All right. All right. We’ll come to some sort of arrangement. Yes. All right. Indeed. All right. Bye.’

He hung up.

‘I said I wanted to talk to her.’

‘Oh, well, she said she had to go.’

‘She’s probably sleeping with the pool boy. Busy, busy,’ I said cattily. I’ve no idea where that came from. ‘So what did she call about?’

Arthur looked at Rosaleen. ‘Well, unfortunately they’re having to sell the place where all your things were being stored and so they can’t keep them any more.’

‘Well, there’s no space here,’ Rosaleen said immediately, turning back to the counter and tossing flour on the worktop.

This was familiar to me.

‘What about the garage?’ I asked, the diary now making sense.

‘There’s no space.’

‘We’ll find space,’ Arthur said to me, pleasantly.

‘We won’t because there is none.’ Rosaleen picked up the next dough ball and threw it down on the counter, and started pushing her hands into it, squeezing it, punching it, making some sort of shape.

‘There’s room in the garage,’ Arthur said.

Rosaleen stalled but didn’t turn around. ‘There’s not.’

I looked from one to the other, initially intrigued by this, for once, public disagreement.

‘Why, what’s in there?’ I asked.

Rosaleen kept rolling.

‘We’ll have to make room, Rosaleen,’ Arthur was saying, really firmly now, and just as she was about to interject he raised his voice: ‘There’s nowhere else.’

That was final.

I had a horrible feeling then that the conversation about me and Mum moving in with them wouldn’t have gone too differently.

They didn’t object when I brought the blanket outside to the garden with a plate of fruit and sat under the tree. The sun shower had left the grass wet but I wasn’t planning on moving. The air was fresh and the sun was fighting its way back out again. From my place on the grass I could see Mum sitting at the window gazing outside. I willed her to come out, for the sake of my own sanity as well as hers. Not surprisingly, she didn’t join me.

Rosaleen busied herself about the kitchen. Arthur was sitting at the table listening to the radio at full blast and flicking through the paper. I watched Rosaleen leave the kitchen with the tray and a minute later she appeared in Mum’s bedroom. I watched her do her usual fussing about. Window, table, linen, cutlery.

After Rosaleen had placed the tray down on the table she stood straight and looked at Mum. I sat up. It was unusual, whatever she was doing. Then her mouth opened and closed, as she said something.

Mum looked up at her, said something, then looked away.

I stood up automatically, watching them both.

I ran inside, almost knocking Arthur over, and charged up the stairs. I pushed open Mum’s door and I heard a yelp and a smash as it smacked against Rosaleen and her tray. Everything dropped to the floor.

‘Oh, my!’ Rosaleen hunkered down and grabbed everything in a panic. Her dress lifted up her thigh and she had surprisingly youthful legs. Mum had twisted around in her chair to see, looked at me, smiled and then faced the window again. I tried to help Rosaleen but she wouldn’t let me, swatting me away and racing to pick up every item I reached for time and time again. I followed her down the stairs, like a puppy, almost nipping at her heels.

‘What did she say?’ I tried to keep my voice down so Mum wouldn’t hear us talking about her.

Rosaleen, still in shock from my attack was trembling and a little pale. She wobbled her way into the kitchen with the big tray.

‘Well?’ I asked, following her.

‘Well, what?’

‘What was that noise?’ Arthur asked.

‘What did she say?’ I asked.

Rosaleen looked from Arthur to me, her eyes wide and bright green, her pupils so tiny her green eyes glowed.

‘The tray dropped,’ she said to Arthur and then to me, ‘Nothing.’

‘Why are you lying?’

Her face transformed. Morphed into something so angry, I wanted to take it all back straightaway: it was my imagination, I had made it up, I was looking for attention…I don’t know. I was confused.

‘I’m sorry,’ I stuttered. ‘I didn’t mean to accuse you of lying. It just looked like she said something. That’s all.’

‘She said, thank you. I said she was welcome.’

I forced myself to remember Mum’s lips. ‘She said sorry,’ I blurted out.

Rosaleen froze. Arthur lifted his head from the newspaper.

‘She said sorry, didn’t she?’ I asked, looking from one to

the other. ‘Why did she say that?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said quietly.

‘You must know, Arthur.’ I looked at him. ‘Does that mean anything to you? Why would she say sorry?’

‘I suppose she just feels she’s being a nuisance,’ Rosaleen jumped in and spoke for him. ‘But she’s not. I don’t mind cooking for her. It’s no bother.’

‘Oh.’

Arthur clearly couldn’t wait to leave and as soon as he’d gone, the day returned to what it always was.

I wanted to have a look around the garage when Rosaleen was gone and I learned the best thing to do was to pretend you didn’t want her to go. That way, she was never suspicious.

‘Can I bring something over with you to the bungalow?’

‘No,’ she said, agitated, still annoyed with me.

‘Oh, okay, but thank you very much for offering, Tamara.’ I rolled my eyes.

She took out the freshly baked brown bread, the fresh apple pie. A casserole dish of something else and a few Tupperware boxes. Enough for a week’s dinner.

‘Well, who lives there?’

No answer.

‘Come on, Rosaleen. I don’t know what happened to you in your last life but I’m not the Gestapo. I’m sixteen years old and I only want to know because there’s absolutely nothing for me to do. Perhaps there’s somebody over there who I could talk to that’s not nearing death.’

‘My mother,’ she said finally.

I waited for the rest of the sentence. My mother told me to mind my own business. My mother told me to always wear tea dresses. My mother told me never to reveal her apple pie recipe. My mother told me to never enjoy sex. But nothing else came. Her mother. Her mother lived across the road.

‘Why have you never mentioned it?’

She looked a little embarrassed. ‘Oh, you know…’

‘No. Is she embarrassing? Sometimes my parents were embarrassing.’

‘No, she’s…she’s old.’

‘Old people are cute. Can I meet her?’

‘No, Tamara. Not yet, anyway,’ she softened. ‘Her health isn’t the best. She can’t move around. She’s not good with new people. It makes her anxious.’

‘So that’s why you’re always back and forth. Poor you always having to look after everybody else.’

She seemed touched by that.

‘I’m all she has. I have to take care of her.’

‘Are you sure I can’t help you? I won’t talk to her or anything.’

‘No, thank you, Tamara. Thank you for asking.’

‘So did she move closer to you so you could take care of her?’

‘No.’ She spooned chicken and tomato sauce into a casserole dish.

‘Did you move closer to her so that you could take care of her?’

‘No.’ She put two boil-in-the-bag rice sachets into another Tupperware box. ‘She’s always lived there.’

I thought about that for a minute while watching her.

‘Hold on, so that’s where you grew up?’

‘Yes,’ she said simply, placing everything on a tray. ‘That’s the house I grew up in.’

‘Well, you didn’t move far away, did you? So did you and Arthur move in here after you were married?’

‘Yes, Tamara. Now that’s enough questions. You know curiosity killed the cat.’ She smiled briefly before leaving the kitchen.

‘Boredom killed the fucking cat,’ I shouted at the closed door.

I sloped into the living room as I had done every morning and watched her scurry across the road, like a little paranoid hamster anxious for a hawk to swoop down and grab her.

She dropped a dishtowel and I waited for her to stop and pick it up. But she didn’t. She didn’t appear to notice. I quickly went outside and down the garden path, stalling at the gate like an obedient child as I waited for her to come running back out.

I bravely stepped beyond the gate. And then once I’d done that, I walked to the entrance of the grounds, expecting by now for her to have noticed her missing dishtowel. Red alert; there was an apple pie somewhere omitting heat. The bungalow was a red-brick boring-looking thing, two windows covered in white netting, like two eyes with glaucoma, and separated by a snot-green door. The windows seemed dark and even though they weren’t, the glass seemed tinted and only reflected the light from outside, showing no signs of life inside. I picked up the blue chequered dishtowel from the middle of the road, which was mostly always-mostly always, very dead-empty of traffic. The gate to the front garden was so low I could lift my leg over it. I thought it would be the safest way, or fifty years of rusted gate would give me away. I slowly walked up the path and looked through the window on the right of the building. I pressed my face up against the glass and tried to see through the horrific netting. After all the mystery I don’t quite know what I was expecting to see. Some great secret, a crazy sect, dead bodies, a hippy commune, some weird sex thing with a lot of keys in an ashtray…I don’t know. Anything, anything, but an electric heater in place of a real fire, surrounded by dodgy brown tiles and tiled mantel, green carpet and jaded chairs with wooden handles and green crushed-velvet cushions. It was all a bit sad, really. It was all a bit like a dentist’s waiting room, and I felt a little bad. Rosaleen hadn’t been hiding anything at all. Well, not quite: she’d been hiding the biggest home design disaster of the century.

Instead of ringing the doorbell I walked round the side of the house. Immediately as I turned the corner I could see that there was a small garden with a large garage, just like the one at the back of the gatehouse, at the bottom of the land. From the window of the workshed something sparkled. At first I thought it was a camera flash, but then I realised that whatever had dazzled my eyes and momentarily blinded me only did so each time it caught the sunlight. As I neared the end of the side passage I yearned to see what was around the corner.

Rosaleen stepped in front of me and I jumped, my scream echoing down the narrow alleyway. Then I laughed.

Rosaleen instantly shushed me, seeming jittery.

‘Sorry,’ I smiled. ‘I hope I didn’t scare your mum. You dropped this on the road. Just came to give it to you. What is that light?’

‘What light?’ She stepped a little to her right and my eyes were protected but my view blocked.

‘Thanks.’ I rubbed my eyes.

‘You best go back to the house,’ she whispered.

‘Oh, come on, can I not at least say hello? It’s all a bit too Scooby-Doo for me. You know, mysterious.’

‘There’s no mystery. My mother isn’t good in the company of strangers. Perhaps we’ll have her over for dinner some day if she’s up to it.’

‘Cool.’ Another over-fifty to add to my list of acquaintances.

I was going to try again one last time, seeing as she’d softened so much but I heard a vehicle coming down the road and hoping it was Marcus, I saluted Rosaleen, turned around and ran.

If it hadn’t been Marcus, then that five seconds of hope would have been the most exciting thing that had happened that day. But it turned out it was him. He was standing at the porch of the gatehouse by the time I ran across the road, running his hand through his hair and glancing at his reflection in the glass.

‘There’s a hair out of place just over your ear,’ I called from the gate.

He spun round with a smile. ‘Goodwin. Good to see you.’

‘Have you come for the book?’

He smiled. ‘Eh, yeah, the book, of course. Couldn’t stop thinking about…that damn book.’

‘Actually, there’s a problem with the book.’

‘What’s wrong with you?’

‘No, I mean the actual book, the real book.’

‘You lost it.’

‘No I didn’t lose it…’

‘Don’t believe you. Do you know what the punishment for losing library books is?’

‘Spend a day with you?’

‘No, Goodwin. If you do the crime you have to do the time. I am, revoking your travelling library card.’

‘Nooo, anything but my travelling library card.’

‘Yes. Come on, give it to me.’ He came close and started poking and prodding my body. ‘Where is it? Is it in here?’ His hands were everywhere, in my jeans pockets, padding down my stomach.

‘I refuse to give it up,’ I laughed. ‘Seriously, Marcus, I haven’t lost it but you can’t have it back.’

‘I don’t think you understand the rules of the travelling library. You see, you borrow a book, you read it, or dance around with it if that makes you happy, and then you return it to the handsome librarian.’

‘No, you see, what happened, was that somebody broke the lock and discovered that it wasn’t a book, but in fact a diary. All the pages were totally blank.’

Totally blank. Very dead.

‘So then, somebody wrote in it.’

‘Ah…somebody. That wouldn’t happen to be you?’

‘Actually, no. I don’t know who wrote in it.’ I smiled but of course I was being serious. ‘It’s just the first few pages. I could rip them out and give you back the book but…’

‘You could just say you lost it. It would be easier.’

‘Stay there a minute.’

I ran into the house and upstairs, lifted the floorboard and took the diary out. I brought it outside, hugged it close to my chest.

‘You can’t read it but here’s proof that I haven’t lost it. I’ll pay or do whatever…I just can’t give it back.’

He realised I was serious.

‘No, that’s fine. One book isn’t going to make a difference. Can I read it? Is there anything in there about me?’

I laughed and lifted it out of his reach. But he was too good for me, much taller, and he grabbed it. I panicked. He opened the first page and I waited for him to read the embarrasing admittance that Dad had killed himself.

‘I shouldn’t have told Weseley about dad,’ he read. ‘Who’s Weseley?’ he asked, looking at me.

‘I have no idea.’ I tried to grab it from him, no longer laughing. ‘Give it back, Marcus.’

He handed it back. ‘Sorry I shouldn’t have read it but you got the date wrong. The fifth is tomorrow.’

I just shook my head. At least it wasn’t just me imagining it. This diary thing was really happening.

‘I’m sorry for reading it.’

‘No, it’s really okay. I didn’t write this.’

‘Maybe it was one of the Kilsaneys.’

I shuddered and closed the book. I wanted so much to read it again.

‘Oh, by the way, I found Sister Ignatius!’

‘Alive, I hope.’

‘She lives on the other side of the grounds. I’ll direct you.’

‘No, Goodwin, I don’t trust you. The last residence you led me to was a dilapidated castle.’

‘I’ll bring you to her myself. Come on, Bookman, to the Bookmobile!’ I ran down the path and hopped on the bus.

He laughed and followed me.

We pulled up outside the sisters’ house and I pressed down on the horn.

‘Tamara, you can’t do that. It’s a convent.’

‘Honestly, this isn’t a regular convent.’ I sounded the horn again.

A woman dressed in a black skirt, black jumper, white shirt with a gold cross and a black and white veil opened the door, looking very cross. She was older than Sister Ignatius. I jumped out of the car.

‘What’s all this racket?’

‘We’re looking for Sister Ignatius. She wanted to borrow a book.’

‘It’s prayer time, she can’t be disrupted.’

‘Oh. Well, hold on a minute.’ I rummaged around in the back of the bus. ‘Could you please give her this and tell her it’s from Tamara. It’s a special delivery. She ordered it last week.’

‘I will indeed.’ The nun took the book and closed the door immediately.

‘Tamara,’ Marcus said sternly. ‘What book did you give her.’

‘Bedded by the Turkish Billionaire. One of Mills and Boon’s greats.’

‘Tamara! You’ll get me fired.’

‘Like you care! Drive, Bookman! Take me away from here!’

We drove to the town and pulled over for the public. But really we went to Morocco. He even kissed me by the Giza Pyramids.

‘So what have you been doing the last few days?’ Rosaleen asked happily, spooning three thousand calories onto my plate. The diary had been correct, shepherd’s pie.

She’d grabbed me almost as soon as I’d got home. I’d had just enough time to hide the diary upstairs and come back down. I didn’t want to mention I’d spent the day with Marcus in case she tried to stop me. But she couldn’t complain about my hanging around with a nun, now could she?

‘I’ve been spending most of my time with Sister Ignatius.’

She dropped the serving spoons into the bowl and then with awkward fidgeting fingers, she scooped them out.

‘Sister Ignatius?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

‘But…when did you meet her?’

‘A few days ago. So how was your mum today? Is she coming over for dinner sometime?’

‘You never mentioned meeting Sister Ignatius a few days ago.’

I just looked at her. Her reaction was identical to the one I’d written about in the diary. Was I supposed to say sorry? Was I supposed to have tried to prevent this? I didn’t know what to do, how to manage the information I was being given. What was the point of it?

Instead I said, ‘I never mentioned I got my period on Tuesday either but I did.’

Arthur sighed. Rosaleen’s face hardened.

‘A few days ago you met her, you say? Are you sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure.’

‘Maybe you just met her today.’

‘No.’

‘And does she know where you live?’

‘Yes of course. She knows I’m here.’

‘I see,’ she said breathlessly. ‘But…but she was here this morning. She never said anything about you.’

‘Really? And what did you say to her about me?’

Sometimes your tone can change things, I know that. Sometimes in text messages, people don’t pick up tones, or they pick up tones that aren’t there and completely misinterpret innocent messages. I’ve had countless arguments with Zoey over what she thought I meant by a five-word text. But this statement I made, it came with a tone, a deliberate one. And Rosaleen picked up on that. And being clever, she then knew that I must have heard their conversation. She knew that while she’d been talking to Sister Ignatius, she’d heard the shower running, and she’d known I’d earwigged on her conversation.

‘Is there a problem with my friendship with her? Do you think she’s a bad influence? Am I going to join some weird religious sect and dress in black everyday. Oh, no, hold on, maybe I will! She’s a nun!’ I laughed and looked at Arthur, who was glaring at Rosaleen.

‘What do you talk about?’

I detected panic.

‘Does it matter what we talk about?’

‘I mean, you’re a young girl. What would you have to talk about with a nun?’ She smiled, to hide her panic.

That was the point where I was going to talk about the castle, about the fire and the fact it had been lived in far more recently than I’d thought. I was going to ask Rosaleen the question about who died and where everybody was when I remembered the diary entry. I wish I hadn’t told her about what I’d learned about the castle. Was this what I shouldn’t have mentioned? Rosaleen was staring at me in the long time it took me to think of an answer. I took a forkful of minced meat, to give myself some more thinking time.

‘You know…we talked about a lot of different kinds of stuff…’

‘What kinds of things?’

‘Rosaleen,’ Arthur said quietly.

Her head snapped round to face him like a deer who’d heard a trigger pulled back in the distance.

‘Your dinner will get cold.’ He looked at her plate, which remained untouched.

‘Oh. Yes.’ She picked up her fork and stabbed a carrot, but didn’t lift it to her mouth. ‘Carry on, child. You were saying.’

‘Rosaleen,’ I sighed.

‘Let her eat her dinner,’ Arthur said quietly.

I looked to Arthur to thank him but he didn’t look up, just continued shovelling food in his mouth. There was an awkward silence as we ate, and the sounds of munching and cutlery scraping dishes took over the room.

‘Excuse me, please. I’m just going to the bathroom,’ I finally said, unable to bear it any more.

Only I stayed outside the door to listen.

‘What was that all about?’ Arthur barked.

‘Ssh, keep your voice down.’

‘I’ll not keep my voice down,’ he hissed back, but his voice was lowered.

‘Sister Ignatius called here this morning and said nothing of Tamara,’ she hissed back.

‘So?’

‘So she acted as if she knew nothing about her. If Tamara had met her, surely she’d have said. Sister Ignatius isn’t the kind to not say so. Why wouldn’t she?’

‘So what are you suggesting? That Tamara’s lying?’

My mouth dropped and I almost barged in there, except the next sentence from Rosaleen’s lips, spoken with such bitterness, stopped me.

‘Of course she’s lying. She’s just like her mother.’

There was a long silence. Arthur said nothing.