The Book of Tomorrow

by Cecelia Ahern

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Beginning Began

  My mum’s best friend, Barbara, drove us to our new life in Meath. Mum didn’t say a word the whole way. Not one word. Even when asked a question. Now that’s a hard thing to do. I got so frustrated that I shouted at her in the car; this was back when I was trying to get her to respond.

  It all happened because Barbara got lost. Her satellite navigation kit in her BMW X5 failed to recognise the address and so we just headed to the nearest town it could locate. When we got to the town, a place called Ratoath, Barbara had to rely on her own brain and not the equipment in her SUV. As it turns out, Barbara’s not a thinker. After ten minutes spent driving down country roads with few houses and no signposts, I could tell Barbara was starting to get nervous. We were driving down roads which, according to the sat nav, didn’t exist. I should have taken this as a sign. Used to going somewhere, and not down invisible roads, Barbara began to make mistakes, driving blindly through crossroads, veering dangerously on to the other side of the road. I’d only been there a handful of times over the years and so I was no help, but the plan was this: for me to look on the left-hand side for gatehouses and for Barbara to look on the right-hand side. She snapped at me at one stage for not concentrating, but really, I could see that there were no gates for at least a mile, so there was absolutely no point in looking. This, I shared with her. At breaking point she snapped that meant ‘feck all,’ seeing as we were already driving down ‘fecking roads that don’t exist’, so she couldn’t see why there couldn’t be ‘a fecking house without a fecking gate’. Hearing the word ‘fecking’ come out of Barbara’s mouth was a big deal considering her usual expression of annoyance was ‘fiddlesticks!’

  Mum could have helped us but she just sat in the front seat smiling as she looked out the window. So, trying to help matters, I leaned forward and-okay, it wasn’t right and it wasn’t clever, but it was what I did, regardless-I shouted in her ear, the loudest possible scream that I could summon up. Mum jumped with fright, blocked her ears and then when her shock had died down, with two hands she swatted me across the head over and over again as though I were a swarm of bees. It really hurt me too. She pulled at my hair, scratched me, slapped me and I couldn’t escape her grip. Barbara got so upset she pulled the car over and had to pry Mum’s hands off me. Then she got out of the car and paced up and down the side of the road crying. I was crying too and my head was pounding from where Mum had pulled and scratched at it. It’s fashionable where I’m from to have a hairstyle like a haystack but Mum just ruined it; she’d made me look like somebody from an insane asylum. We both left her in the car, sitting upright, looking straight ahead and angry.

  ‘Come here to me, sweetheart,’ Barbara said, between tears, and she reached her arms out to me.

  I didn’t need to be asked twice for a hug. I longed for a hug. Even when Mum was on form, she wasn’t a hugger. She was bony, always dieting, had the same relationship with food as she had with Dad; loved it but didn’t want it most of the time because she felt it was bad for her. I know this because I overheard a conversation she had with a friend at two a.m. on returning from a ladies’ lunch. But regarding the hugging, I think she just felt awkward having somebody physically so close. She wasn’t a comfortable person and so had no comfort to give anybody else. It’s like words of advice; you can’t give them unless you have them. I don’t think it meant she didn’t care. I never felt she didn’t care. Well, okay, maybe I did, a few times.

  Barbara and I stood on the side of the road embracing and crying while she apologised to me over and over again about how unfair this all was for me. When she’d pulled over, she’d left the car’s arse sticking out on the road and so every car that came round the corner blasted us with its horn, but we ignored them.

  The tension was released somewhat after that. You know the way storm clouds gather when there’s going to be rain-that’s what had been happening with us all the way from Killiney. It was all building, and finally it exploded. So feeling like we’d all had the chance to release at least a portion of our woes, we prepared ourselves for what lay ahead. Only we didn’t have time because as soon as we rounded the next turn we were there. Home sweet home. On the right-hand side stood a gate, and just inside it on the left, was a house. Rosaleen and Arthur were standing by the little green gate of their ‘Hansel and Gretel’ house and God knows how long they’d been waiting there. We were almost an hour late. If they were pretending not to look worried about the whole thing, then it must have been near impossible when they saw our faces. Not knowing we were so close to the house we hadn’t enough time to compose ourselves. My and Barbara’s eyes were red raw from crying, Mum was in the front seat with a look of thunder on her face and my hair was high in tatters-well, more tattered than usual.

  I never thought about how difficult that moment must have been for Arthur and Rosaleen. I was so busy thinking about myself and how much I didn’t want to be there, I didn’t once think about how they were opening their home to two people they had no relationship with. It must have been so unbelievably nerve-racking for them and I didn’t thank them once.

  Barbara and I got out of the car. She went to the boot to sort out the bags, and I assume give us all a moment to greet. That didn’t quite happen. I stood there looking at Arthur and Rosaleen, who were still standing behind the little green swinging gate and I immediately wished I’d dropped bread-crumbs all the way from Killiney so I could find my way home.

  Rosaleen looked from one of us to another like a meerkat, trying to take in the SUV, Mum, me, Barbara, all at once. She clasped her hands at her front, but kept unlocking them to smooth down her dress as though she were at a Lovely Girl competition in a country feis. Mum finally opened the door and got out of the car. She stepped onto the gravel and looked up at the house. Then her anger disappeared and she smiled, revealing puce lipstick on her front teeth.

  ‘Arthur.’ She held out her arms as though she had just opened the door to her home and was welcoming him to a dinner party.

  He snot-snorted, inhaling the mucus-the first time I’d heard it-which made my lip curl in disgust. He stepped towards Mum and she took his hands and looked at him, her head tilted, that strange smile still pulling at her lips like a bad face-lift. In an awkward movement she leaned forward and rested her forehead against his. Arthur stayed there a millisecond longer than I thought he would, then patted the back of her neck and pulled away from her. He patted me hard on the head as if I was his faithful collie, which messed my hair even more, and then made his way to the boot to help Barbara with the bags. So that left me and Mum staring at Rosaleen, only Mum wasn’t staring at her. She was inhaling the fresh air deeply, with her eyes closed, and smiling. Despite the depressing situation, I had a good feeling then that this could be good for Mum.

  I wasn’t as worried about her then as I am now. It had only been a month since Dad’s funeral and we were both feeling numb and unable really to say much to each other or to anybody else for that matter. People were so busy talking to us, saying nice things, tactless things, whatever things popped into their heads-almost looking for us to console them and not the other way around-that Mum’s behaviour wasn’t noticeable so much. She was just sighing along with everybody else every now and again, and saying little words here and there. A funeral is like a little game, really. You have to just play along and say the right thing and behave the right way until it’s over. Be pleasant but don’t smile too much; be sad but don’t overdo it or the family will feel worse than they already do. Be hopeful but don’t let your optimism be taken as a lack of empathy or an inability to deal with the reality. Because if anybody was to be truly honest there would be a lot of arguments, finger-pointing, tears, snot, and screaming.

  I think there should be the Real Life Oscars. And Best Actress goes to Alison Flanagan! For walking down the main aisle of the supermarket just last Monday, face in full makeup, hair freshly blow-dried, despite feeling like wanting to die, smiling bri
ghtly to Sarah and Deirdre from the Parents’ Association and behaving as if her husband hadn’t just left her and her three children. Come up here and get your award, Alison! Best Supporting Actress goes to the woman he left her for, who was just two aisles away, and who subsequently quite hastily left the supermarket, missing two items of the makings of her new boyfriend’s favourite lasagne. Best Actor goes to Gregory Thomas for his performance at the funeral of his father, whom he hadn’t spoken to for two years. Best Supporting Actor goes to Leo Mulcahy for playing the role of Best Man at a wedding celebrating the marriage of his best friend, Simon, to the only woman Leo has ever, and will ever, truly love. Come up and get the gong, Leo!

  That’s what I thought Mum was doing, just playing along, being the good widow, but then afterwards when her behaviour didn’t change, when it felt like she didn’t actually know what was going on and she was using those same little words and sighs in every conversation, I wondered then if she was bluffing. I’m still wondering how much of her is actually with us and how much she’s pretending just so she doesn’t have to deal with it. There was a crack in her, quite understandably, immediately after Dad died, but when people stopped looking at her and went back to their own lives, the crack kept growing, and it seemed like I was the only person who could see it.

  It wasn’t the Bank that were being exceptionally unreasonable by turfing us out on our ear. They had already given Dad the repossession date but, along with a ‘Goodbye’, it was just another message he’d forgotten to pass on to us. So even though they’d let us all stay for much longer than they’d threatened, we had to leave at some stage. Mum and I stayed in the back of Barbara’s house, in her Filipino nanny’s mews, for a week. Eventually we had to leave there too because Barbara had to go to their house in St Tropez for the summer and was obviously afraid we’d steal the silver.

  Though I said I wasn’t as worried about Mum as when we first arrived at the gatehouse, it doesn’t mean that I wasn’t concerned at all. My suggestion before we arrived here was that Mum go see a doctor, whereas now I’m thinking she should check herself into one of those places where people wear white bumless smocks all day and rock back and forth in the hallways. It was to Barbara that I suggested Mum should visit the doctor. Barbara just patronisingly sat me down in her kitchen and told me that Mum was doing what is called ‘grieving’. At sixteen years old, you can imagine how delightful it was to learn that word for the first time. And then I settled down for a conversation about heavy petting. But she didn’t go there. Instead, she asked if I minded sitting on her suitcase while she zipped it shut because Lulu, the glue that holds her life together, had taken the kids to their horse-riding lessons. As I sat on her bulging Louis Vuitton suitcase and she zipped in her zebra-print bikinis, gold thong sandals and ridiculous hats, I made a wish for it to burst open on the conveyer belt at the airport in St Tropez, and for her vibrator to fall out and buzz around for everybody to see.

  So there we were, on the first day of the rest of my life, outside the gatehouse, Mum with her eyes closed, Rosaleen staring at me with excited wide green eyes and her little pink tongue licking her lips now and then, Arthur snot-snorting at Barbara, which meant he didn’t want her to carry any bags, and Barbara watching him with bewilderment and probably trying not to gag at his snot-snorting, in her loose tracksuit, flip-flops and Oompa-Loompa orange face. She’d just had a spray tan that morning.

  ‘Jennifer,’ Rosaleen finally broke the silence over on our side.

  Mum opened her eyes and smiled brightly and it seemed to me that she recognised Rosaleen and knew exactly what she was doing. If you hadn’t spent every second of the last month with her as I had, you’d think she was okay. She was bluffing rather well.

  ‘Welcome,’ Rosaleen smiled.

  ‘Yes. Thank you.’ Mum chose a correct response from her little words file.

  ‘Come in, come in, and we’ll get you some tea,’ Rosaleen said with urgency in her voice, as though we were all going to die unless we had some tea.

  I didn’t want to follow them. I didn’t want to go in because then that would mean that it all had to start. Reality, that is. No more in-betweenness of funeral arrangements or Barbara’s mews. This was the new arrangement and it had to begin.

  Arthur, the king prawn, rushed by me and up the garden path laden down with bags. He was stronger than he looked.

  The car boot slammed and I spun round. Barbara was fidgeting with her car keys and shifting from one Louis Vuitton flip-flopped foot to the other. It was only then that I noticed she had cotton wool between her toes. She looked at me, awkwardly, in a heavy silence while she figured out how to tell me she was leaving me.

  ‘I didn’t realise you had a pedicure done too,’ I said to fill the silence.

  ‘Yes.’ She looked down and wriggled her toes as if to confirm it. Jewels glistened from her big toes. And then she added, ‘Danielle’s invited us to a drinks party on her yacht tomorrow evening.’

  Most people would think those two sentences were unrelated, but I understood. You can’t wear shoes on Danielle’s yacht, therefore competition of the jewels and white tips would be fierce. Those women would find ways to accessorise their patellas if they were the only parts showing.

  We stared at each other in silence. She was dying to go. I wanted to go with her. I too wanted to be shoeless on the Mediteranean coast while Danielle floated around the guests holding a martini glass daintily between her squared French tips, a plunging Cavalli dress revealing tits as pert as the pimento-stuffed olive floating in her glass, and on her head a tilted sea captain’s hat, making her look like Captain Birdseye in drag. I wanted to be a part of that.

  ‘You’ll be all right here, sweetheart,’ she said, and I sensed sincerity. ‘With family.’

  I looked back uncertainly at the ‘Hansel and Gretel’ house and wanted to cry again.

  ‘Oh, sweetheart,’ she said, sensing this, and came at me again with her arms held out. She was really good at hugging, she obviously felt comfortable with it. That, or her implants suitably assisted in cushioning my head. I squeezed her tightly again and closed my eyes, but she let go a little sooner than I wanted and I was plunged back into reality.

  ‘Okay,’ she inched her way towards the car and placed her hand on the door handle. ‘I don’t want to disturb them inside so please tell them-’

  ‘Come in, come in,’ Rosaleen’s voice sang out from the blackness of the hallway, stopping Barbara from climbing up into her jeep. ‘Hello, there,’ Rosaleen appeared at the door. ‘Won’t you come in for a cup of tea? I’m sorry I don’t know your name, Jennifer didn’t say.’

  She’d have to get used to that. There was a lot Jennifer wasn’t going to say.

  ‘Barbara,’ Barbara replied, and I noticed her grip tightening on the door handle.

  ‘Barbara,’ Rosaleen’s green eyes glowed like a cat’s. ‘A cup of tea before you hit the road, Barbara? There’s some fresh scones and home-made strawberry jam there too.’

  Barbara’s face was frozen in a smile as she thought hard for an excuse.

  ‘She can’t come in,’ I responded for her. Barbara looked at me, gratefully, and then guiltily.

  ‘Oh…’ Rosaleen’s face fell, as though I’d ruined her tea party.

  ‘She has to go home and wash her fake tan off,’ I added. I told you, I’m a horrible, horrible person, and in my eyes, even though I was none of Barbara’s business and she had a life of her own, which she needed to get back to, she was still leaving me behind. ‘And her toes are still wet.’ I shrugged.

  ‘Oh.’ Rosaleen looked confused as though I’d spoken some odd Celtic Tiger language. ‘Coffee then?’

  I burst out laughing and Rosaleen looked hurt. I heard Barbara flip-flopping behind me and she passed by without looking at me. I’d made it easier for her to leave. Next to Rosaleen, Barbara-even in her velour tracksuit, flip-flops and dirty fake-tanned neck-looked like some sort of exotic goddess. And then she was sucked inside the house, lik
e a Venus flytrap catching a butterfly.

  Despite Rosaleen gazing at me hopefully, I still couldn’t bring myself to go inside.

  ‘I’m going to have a look around,’ I said.

  She seemed disappointed, as though I’d denied her something precious. I waited for her to go back into the house, to disappear into the blackness of the hallway, which was like another dimension, but she didn’t move. She stood at the porch, watching me and I realised I’d have to move first. With her eyes searing into me, I looked around. Which way to go? To my left was the house, behind me was the open gate leading to the main road, in front of me trees and to my right a small pathway that led into the darkness of the trees. I started walking down the main road. I didn’t turn round, not once, I didn’t want to know if she was still there. But the further I walked it wasn’t just Rosaleen that I felt was watching me. I felt revealed, as though beyond the majestic trees somebody else was watching. Just that feeling you get when you intrude on nature’s world, that you’re not supposed to be here, not without an invitation. The trees that lined the road all turned their heads to watch me.

  If men dressed in armour had come galloping towards me on horseback and waving swords, they wouldn’t have seemed out of place. The estate was steeped in history, crowded with ghosts of the past, and now here I was, just another person ready to begin my story. The trees had seen it all, yet still I held their interest, and as the light summer breeze blew, leaves swished to one another making the sounds of gossiping lips, never growing bored of another generation’s journey.

  I followed the main road and finally the trees, which were cleverly landscaped to conceal the castle, fell away. Even though it was me that was moving towards it, the castle felt suddenly upon me, as though it had sneaked towards me without my even noticing, a whole pile of sneaky stone and mortar on its tiptoes with a finger across its lips, as if it hadn’t had a bit of fun for the past few hundred years. I stopped walking when it came in sight. Little me before big castle. It felt to me to be more domineering, more commanding as a ruin than as a castle because there it stood before me with its scars revealed, all wounded and bloody from battle. And I stood before it, feeling a shadow of who I used to be, with my scars revealed. We instantly bonded.