The Book of Tomorrow

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I stopped interrogating Sister Ignatius. She had become grey in the face and had lost all of her colour.

‘Sit down, Sister. Come on, sit here on the stool. You’re okay, it’s just hot out today.’ I tried to remain calm as I helped her to the wooden stool. I moved it nearer to the tree trunk so that she was completely shaded. ‘Let’s just rest here for a minute and then we’ll go back to the house.’

She didn’t respond, she just let me guide her, one hand around her waist, the other holding her hand. Once seated, I pushed back some loose strands of hair from her face. She didn’t feel hot.

I heard my name being called in the distance and saw Weseley running. I waved my hands wildly to let him know I could see him. By the time he reached me he was breathless and had to hunch over, hands on his knees, to catch his breath.

‘Hi, Sister,’ he finally said, giving her a goofy wave even though he was right beside her. ‘Tamara,’ he turned to me, alert, ‘I heard it all.’

‘Heard what?’ I asked impatiently, while he tried to catch his breath.

‘Rosaleen.’ Pant. ‘In the kitchen.’ Pant. ‘With my dad.’ Pant. ‘You were right. About it all. About the sugar and the salt and,’ pant, ‘her coming home early. How did you know?’

‘I told you,’ I quickly looked at Sister Ignatius but she was staring distantly into space, looking as though she was going to faint at any moment. ‘It was written in the diary.’

He shook his head disbelievingly and I became angry. ‘Look, I don’t care if you don’t believe me, just tell me what-’

‘I believe you, Tamara, I just don’t believe it. You know?’

‘Yeah, I know. I’m the same.’

‘Okay, I broke away from Arthur at ten o’clock this morning. We separated so that I’d take care of the walnut trees on the south of the grounds. We’re having a problem with walnut blight,’ he looked to Sister Ignatius, ‘so we’ve to try to maintain the soil pH above 6.0, cut out all the affected shoots-’

‘Weseley, shut up,’ I interrupted.

‘Right, sorry. I couldn’t stop thinking about what you’d said and so I went to the gatehouse and I hid outside the kitchen window in the back garden. I heard it all. Rosaleen started talking about her mum first of all, saying her health had deteriorated. She has MS. She asked him a few questions about her, some advice that kind of thing. I think she was just delaying him.’

I nodded. This matched Sister Ignatius’ story so at least I knew Rosaleen hadn’t lied to me about her mother.

‘My dad really annoyed me. I felt like yelling at him and telling him to go upstairs. But just as he said he was going up to your mam, Rosaleen started talking about her. My dad was keen to get upstairs to see her, but Rosaleen was insistent. She said that…’ He paused.

‘Come on, Weseley tell me.’

‘Just promise to be calm when I tell you, till we work something out.’

‘Okay, okay,’ I hurried him.

‘Right.’ He spoke slower now, studying me as he spoke. ‘She said that this had happened before. That your mum was prone to depression and that she regularly goes into states like this where she withdraws from everybody-’

‘That’s bullshit!’

‘Tamara, listen. And she said that your dad and your mum kept it from you all of your life and so you weren’t to know about it. She said your mum was on antidepressants and that the best thing to do was to leave her alone in her room until the depression passed. She said that’s what they always did.’

‘Bullshit!’ I interrupted again. ‘That’s a lie! That’s a fucking lie! My mother has never been like this before. She’s, she’s-uughh, she’s a lying bitch! How dare she say that Dad never told me? I would know. I was home with them every day. She was never like this. Never!’

I was pacing, I was shouting, my blood was boiling. I felt so angry I wanted to tear the sky down. I felt so out of control, like there was nothing I could do to make everything okay again. I questioned myself. Was there some way that I could have missed Mum’s behaviour? Had she been like this before and I couldn’t remember? Was I such a terrible daughter that I could so easily be put off? I thought about the weekends away-were they somewhere else? I thought about her faint smiles to Dad, the fact that she was never overenthusiastic like other mums, the fact she never gave anything away. No, that meant nothing. She just wasn’t emotional, she never cried, she wasn’t sentimental, but it didn’t make her depressed. No, no, no, how dare Rosaleen say that my father had lied when he could do nothing to defend himself. It was wrong. It was all wrong.

Weseley tried to take hold of me and calm me down but I was screaming, that much I can remember. And then I remember Sister Ignatius finally coming to, standing and coming towards me with open arms and that sweet, sad, but older, so much older face than a few minutes ago, that was now so sad and pitying that I could hardly look at her.

‘Tamara, you have to listen to me now…’ she was saying, but I didn’t want to hear. I thrashed and squirmed away from them. And then I remember running, running so fast while I heard them shouting my name. I fell a few times, felt Weseley behind me, then grabbing me. I screamed and kept running, faster and faster thinking he was on my heel. I don’t know when he stopped running, when he decided to let me go, but I kept on going despite feeling an ache in my chest and finding it hard to breathe. Hot tears ran from the corner of my eyes and straight back to my ears, my speed not giving them opportunity to fall down properly. I ran out of the woods and straight onto the road, and the roar of an engine and a screech of tyres and a long car horn sounded in my ear and I froze. I absolutely froze. I waited to be hit, for the bumper to crash into my side and for me to go flying up over the windscreen, but it didn’t happen. Instead I felt the heat of the grid beside my leg, so close, too close, and the dark part of me in the shadows felt it wasn’t close enough. Then the vehicle door opened and there was shouting. A man. My hands were over my ears, I was crying over and over, unable to catch my breath and I could hear my name being yelled over and over. Angry, aggressive, accusing. Like it was my fault.

Finally it got softer and arms were around me and then I was being rocked gently, the noises died down, and I realised I was in Marcus’s arms, the travelling library was beside us and I was sobbing uncontrollably onto his shirt.

I finally looked up at him. His face was concerned, afraid.

‘So where should we go now? Paris? Australia?’ he asked softly, smiling.

‘No,’ I sobbed. ‘I want to go home. I just want to go home.’

I was silent in the bus on the way to Killiney. Marcus had tried to ask questions but gave up after a while. I finally stopped crying, my body stopped shaking and now only trembled a little. I felt weak from the emotion, tired from it all. I finally wiped my eyes with my snotty tissue one last time, and took a deep breath and exhaled.

‘That sounds better,’ Marcus said, looking at me as we stopped at red lights. ‘So, are you going to talk to me now?’

I cleared my throat and smiled at him. ‘Hello, Marcus. I want to get really drunk.’

‘You know what, that’s exactly what I was thinking.’ He smiled mischievously and pulled the bus over outside the off-licence as soon as the lights were green. ‘You’re a woman after my own heart,’ he said before closing the door and running into the shop.

I should have told him then. Again. My age that is. I could have saved a lot of heartache. Less than three weeks to go till my seventeenth birthday and that was probably still too young for him. I’m not quite sure what I was thinking, if I was really able to think at all. I felt numb, and wanted to be more numb. I didn’t want to feel, I didn’t want to have to think. My life felt so out of control that I wanted to lose control of me too. Just for a little while, at least.

We were only an hour away from Killiney. An hour was nothing, but it was a world away for me. I’d been ripped away from my home, my place; I felt like my identity had been taken away with it. I don’t think some people know what it’s like to be taken away from their home. Sure, you can be homesick, or you can move away and miss an area. But we were forced to move. Some bank, some place that had nothing to do with warmth, with memories, with families, had chased my father, had tormented him so much he’d taken his own life. Then, after they’d done that, they’d taken our building of memories, our sense of place, the foundations of our family. And while we were cast out, forced to live with family members we barely knew, it just sat here, huge and empty, with a For Sale sign nailed to the boundary wall like two fingers being held up to us, while we had to sit outside and watch it like strangers, without being able to return.

‘Do you still have the keys to this place?’ Marcus asked as we weaved through the windy roads that led through the area.

I nodded. Another lie.

‘Hey, slow down there, Tamara.’ He looked at me knocking back my third can of beer. ‘Leave some for me,’ he laughed.

I finished it and burped loudly.

‘Sexy,’ he laughed, keeping an eye on the road.

If you ask me now, I’ll honestly say that’s the first moment that I consciously decided what I wanted to do. Of course I can blame him for putting it in my head, but really it was me. Perhaps I’d known from the second I ran out onto the road and he put his arms around me that we’d end up at the house and I’d end up on the floor with him in my bedroom. Maybe I’d decided it the first day I met him. Maybe I did have it all planned. Maybe I was more in control than I thought. Or maybe, the third beer had played havoc with me in my emotional state. I pointed out places to Marcus as we drove, telling him stories, telling him the names of people who lived there. I didn’t wait for responses. It wasn’t really relevant if he answered or not. I was saying them for me. My voice felt like it was coming from elsewhere. I didn’t feel like me. I didn’t really care who I was any more. I had given up pretending to be the person I’d kept trying to be, the same as Zoey and Laura, the same as everybody else around us, as though by being that way we’d get along in life so much better. Well, it wasn’t working. It wasn’t working for Laura, it hadn’t worked for Zoey and it most certainly hadn’t worked for me.

We pulled up outside the house. I told Marcus to park the bus down a nearby laneway so that it wouldn’t be seen from the road. The last thing we wanted was for the neighbours to come looking for books. The house wasn’t visible from the road. The large black gates, with cameras, locked between the tenfoot walls were enough to dissuade any burglar. Dad had put so much time and effort into those gates: drawn plans up over and over again, asked me and Mum what we thought, so proudly walked me to the entrance to ask my opinion and I had never answered; told him I never cared. I hurt him all the time.

I think I was telling Marcus this as we walked along, but I wasn’t sure.

‘I don’t have the zapper for the gate on my keys,’ I heard myself say. ‘I’ll have to climb over and open the gates from the house.’

I’d a system. I’d done this so many times. Mum and Dad had taken my keys most evenings after school so that I wouldn’t escape, but despite its height I’d navigated the gate safely on many an occasion. I could hear Marcus warning me, pointing out which way to go, but I didn’t follow him. On autopilot I just scaled the gate and landed safely on the other side. I heard him applauding as I walked the long driveway to our house. He may have thought he was there with me, but I was nowhere near him.

Our house-glass, stone, wood, bright, light, modern, airy. It was like something from a catalogue. Stone to camouflage parts of the house to match the rock it was built into, wood to blend into the woodlands surrounding it, glass to give us views of the sea that stretched on for ever. Dad had tried to create the most perfect place that neither of us would ever want to leave. He did that right. I knew the front door would be locked, and still on autopilot I made my way round the back of the house.

I saw the tennis ball in the back garden that was always there, lying soggy and wet. It had flown over from our nearby tennis court into the garden and I’d been too lazy to collect it. I’d been playing with Dad that day. Spring had arrived, we’d started using the outdoor court again, but I was playing horrendously. After a winter of having not picked up a racket, I was rusty. I kept missing the ball, kept hitting it over the fence and had grown tired of the times I’d had to search for the ball in the garden. Dad had been patient, he hadn’t yelled, he hadn’t said anything. He’d even gone searching for the ball when it wasn’t his fault. He even purposely fluffed a few shots, and that had angered me even more. I remember him in his little white tennis shorts, his white collared T-shirt, his sport socks that he pulled up too high, which embarrassed me even though I was the only one who could see. My lovely Dad…

In the back there were the same garden statues-an old chubby couple with gardening tools in their hands, the man revealing the crack of his behind-that my granddad, my dad’s dad, always used to talk to before he died. He called the woman Mildred and the man Tristan, for no particular reason, but it had made me laugh since I was a child and Mildred and Tristan had become part of the family. But Mum obviously hadn’t arranged for them to be moved and so Mildred and Tristan remained the only inhabitants of the house. Near the washing line there was a red plastic peg in the grass, dropped there from the last wash.

I climbed up onto the swimming pool roof, where the old weather-beaten wooden ladder was still lying. I’d stored it there for my midnight escapes. In the newest addition to the house, the pool was covered over by a blue canvas, our six pool loungers lay diagonally by the window, still with their pink cushions waiting for me and my morning swim. A deflated swimming ring sat on one of the sun loungers. I’d brought it back from Marbella. It was a pink flamingo. Manuel, a boy I’d kissed last year, had given it to me and I was intent on bringing it home. It lay there now with nobody to use it. A discarded kiss.

Once on the roof, I climbed the ladder to my bedroom balcony. Nobody ever locked my bedroom balcony door. It was supposedly too high up, too inaccessible for any burglar to reach. My head was spinning as I finally pulled myself up onto the balcony. The weather had cooled now as we had driven towards the coast. The sea air was cold, the wind took away the July heat and brought the scent of seaweed and salt. I looked out to the beach and took in the view, remembered sixteen years of summers with Mum and Dad, and nights out with friends. I don’t know how long I’d been standing there watching the imaginary family writing their names in the sand and the little girl burying her daddy in the sand, when I remembered Marcus at the gates.

As soon as I opened the balcony door, the alarm went off. I ran inside, immediately, hoping they hadn’t changed the code. They hadn’t, of course. What owners in their right minds would ever want to break back in to their repossessed house?

After failing on the first attempt, due to shaky fingers, I remembered what to do and the alarm finally stopped. I took a few breaths, waited till the ringing died down in my ears. I pressed the button for the gate, then went downstairs and opened the front door. While I waited for Marcus to make his way up the road, I wandered around the house. I ran my fingers over all the surfaces. Some were slightly dusty. I heard Marcus behind me, his voice echoing in the entrance hall. I heard him whistle, impressed.

I went into the kitchen, saw family dinners at the table, rushed breakfasts at the breakfast counter, Christmas dinners in the nearby dining area, noisy parties, birthday parties, New Year’s Eve. I remembered fights, Mum and Dad, Me and Dad. I remembered dancing. Dancing with my dad for everyone at one party. I remember Dad’s party trick, a long story that I never really understood but loved to hear him tell. He would come alive, he would love the limelight in the company of those he trusted. His cheeks would be flushed with alcohol, his blue eyes glazed but he would recant the tale perfectly and confidently, just dying to get to that final line to see everybody erupting in laughter. I could see Mum’s area where she’d prop herself with her lady friends for the night, all huddled together, elegant women with expensive shoes, thin ankles, tanned skin and highlighted hair.

As I turned away, I saw Dad wander through the halls, wink at me, cigar in hand as he went to the only room Mum would let him smoke in. I followed him in there. I watched him enter and greet his friends. They all cheered as he opened the best brandy, as they settled down for a chat or to play snooker. I looked around the walls and remembered the photographs. His achievements, his degrees, his sports trophies, his family photographs. Me teary-eyed on my first day of school, me on his shoulders in Disney World, wearing a Mickey Mouse T-shirt with my hair in pigtails, a silly smile with missing front teeth. I moved into the next room. Dad and his friends on the top of a ski slope in Aspen. A photo of Dad playing golf with Padraig Harrington at a celebrity charity event.

I moved into the television room and saw him sitting in his favourite armchair watching television. Mum in the other corner, legs curled up underneath her, her arms wrapped around her legs protectively, the two of them laughing at some comedy show. Then he looked at me and he winked again. He stood up and I followed him. We walked through the entrance hall, past Marcus, who was watching me, then he walked through the closed office door. He disappeared. I couldn’t go in there.

The fight. The horrible fight we’d had. I’d slammed that door in his face and run upstairs. I should have told him I loved him. I should have said sorry and hugged him.

‘I never want to see you again. I hate you!’

‘Tamara, come back!’ His voice. His lovely voice that I want to hear again. Oh, Daddy, I’m here, I’m back. Please come out of the office.

Then the next morning, seeing him, my beautiful dad. My handsome dad on the floor. Not the way he was supposed to be. He was supposed to live forever. He was supposed to mind me forever. He was supposed to interrogate my boyfriends and walk me down the aisle. He was supposed to gently persuade Mum when I couldn’t get my way, he was supposed to wink at me when he caught my eye. He was supposed to look at me proudly for the rest of my life. And then when he got old I was supposed to protect him, I was supposed to be there for him, paying it all back.

It had been my fault. It had all been my fault. I’d tried to save him but I didn’t even know how to do that properly. If I’d learned how, if I’d paid attention at school, if I’d tried to be an interested, better person than the selfish one I’d been, then maybe I could have helped. They’d said I got to him too late, that there was nothing I could possibly have done, but still you never know. I’m his daughter-maybe that would have helped.

That room, his room, that smelled of him. His aftershave, of cigars, of wine or brandy, of books and wood. The room he’d taken his life in, with the vomit-stained rug from where I’d thrown up the red wine on the night after his funeral. I couldn’t go in there.

I heard the clink of cans and the rustle of a plastic bag, and I turned around. Marcus was watching me.

‘Nice house.’

‘Thanks.’

‘You okay?’

I nodded.

‘Must be weird being back here.’

I nodded again.

‘You’re not very chatty today.’

‘I didn’t really bring you here to talk.’

He looked at me then. I could see it in his face, he wanted it too.

Tell him. Tell him.

‘So come on, let me show you the best room in the house,’ I smiled. I took him by the hand and I led him upstairs.

Back in my bedroom, I lay down on my bedroom floor, on the soft plush cream carpet where my king-sized bed used to be with the white leather headboard. My head spun from the alcohol and from all that had been going on. I wanted to forget everything that had happened that day-Sister Ignatius, Weseley, Rosaleen, Dr Gedad, the mystery woman in Rosaleen’s mother’s house. I wanted to forget my mother as I’d tried to drag her limp frail body out of bed. I wanted to forget Kilsaney and all the people in it. I wanted to forget we’d ever left this house and that Dad had ever done what he’d done. I wanted to go back to the night I’d crept out and then had the fight with him. I wanted everything to change.

And then everything changed.

Everything.

And if I’d managed at any stage to upstand the dominoes, they all started to fall again.