The Book of Tomorrow (25 page)

‘STOP IT!’ I shrieked. ‘STOP IT!’ I ran at her to hit her, slap her, anything I could do to stop her from saying all these
lies, these horrible nasty dirty evil lies, but she got to me before I got to her. Those strong arms, toned from punching dough, rolling apple pies all day, toiling her organic vegetable patch, carrying trays up and down those stairs every morning, were strong. With one arm held out she pushed me so hard I instantly felt winded, as though my chest had been crushed. I went flying backward and hit my head against the corner of the locker. I lay on the floor gasping. Then I started to cry. My vision was blurred, I tasted blood in my mouth but didn’t know how as I’d hit my head. I was disoriented, couldn’t stand up, couldn’t find the door.

After a time, I don’t know how long, I finally saw Rosaleen at the doorway, her image blurred. Feeling woozy I sat up, I touched my head and blood was on my trembling fingers.

‘Now, now,’ Rosaleen said gently, ‘why did you do that, child? Why did you make me do that? We’ll have to work out what we’re going to say,’ she said. ‘We can’t have you going back like this, after seeing all of this. No. No, I must think. I must think now.’

I mumbled something so incoherent I have no idea what exactly I was trying to say. All that I could think of was that she’d said my dad had taken me and my mum away from here, that Mum already had me. It was impossible. Nothing made sense. They’d met at a banquet dinner, a posh meal with lots of people, and as soon as he’d lain eyes on her he had to have her. He said it himself, he said it all of the time. They fell in love straightaway. They had me. That was the story, that’s what Dad had told me. Maybe I’d heard it wrong, maybe Rosaleen was making it up. But I had such a headache and now I was so tired, my eyelids so heavy, I just needed to close them. I realised then that Rosaleen was talking, but not to me. I opened my eyes again. She was looking down the hall, looking a little fearful.

‘Oh,’ she had her small voice on again, ‘I didn’t hear you come in. I thought you were in the workshed.’

The woman who made the glass. If I shouted out I could get some help but I heard a man’s voice and that made me nervous. It wasn’t Arthur’s voice. It wasn’t Weseley—oh, where was he? Had he been hurt? He’d gone to the field of glass, all that glass. I’d had nightmares about that glass almost every night. Blowing in the wind, it would scrape and scratch, pierce and stab as I ran up and down the field, trying to get out, and the woman would be watching me. Where was the woman now?

‘Why don’t you go into the kitchen and I’ll make you a cup of tea? Wouldn’t that be nice? What do you mean? How long have you been standing there? But she ran at me. I was only trying to defend myself. I’m going to bring her back to the house now as soon as I sort her out.’

He said something else and I could hear the sound of the plastic floor. A footstep, followed by a dragging sound, a step again, then a dragging.

I pulled myself up to a sitting position and then I held on to the bed to try to stand up. Rosaleen was so busy talking to the man that she didn’t notice me stand. I couldn’t hear what the man was saying but her voice got harder then. It lost its nervous sweet edge and was back to the Rosaleen from moments ago. Possessed.

‘Possessive,’ Sister Ignatius had pondered my surmise of Rosaleen weeks ago. ‘That’s an interesting choice of word.’

‘Is this why you never let me into the room? Is this how you intended me to find out? This isn’t right, you know.’

His voice again, followed by a stamping sound, then a dragging.

‘And what’s this?’

Finally her arm came out from behind her back and she
whipped out the glass mobile that had been given to me. I wanted to shout out that it was mine but there was so much commotion in the hallway.

‘This wasn’t part of the deal, you know, Laurie. I was happy to let you play around with the glass because you wanted it so much, I thought the fire and the glass would be healing for you after…well after everything, but you’ve taken it too far. You’ve ruined everything, you’ve ruined absolutely everything. Things have to change now. Things most certainly have to change.’

Laurie. Laurence Kilsaney RIP.

I was chilled. She was imagining him. Or she was seeing a ghost. No, that wasn’t right. I could hear him too.

There were some angry words and then Rosaleen swung her arm back and flung the glass mobile down the hall. I heard a scream. Then she dived at him and I saw a walking stick being swung and it knocked her away, and she fell back against the wall with a thud. She looked at him fearfully and I backed into the corner, huddled my head into my legs tightly just wanting to get out of there, wanting to be anywhere else but there but not able to move.

‘Rose?’ I could hear a voice call.

‘Yes, Mammy,’ she said, scrambling to get to her feet, her voice trembling. ‘I’m coming, Mammy.’ She gave the man one last look, then ran down the hall to the television-room door.

The man stepped into the doorway and I prepared myself but when I saw him, I screamed. Beneath long scrawny hair, a face which was so distorted stared back at me. One side of the face looked as though it had melted and had been pulled at and the skin had been put back in the wrong place. He quickly lifted a hand to his hair and tried to cover his face. He was wearing a long sleeve but as he lifted his hand to his face it revealed a stump. His left side was completely burned,
his shoulder drooped downward as though it were candlewax sliding down the side of the left-hand side of his body. His eyes were big and blue, one was perfectly framed against soft smooth skin, the other was pulled down so much that it appeared to leap from its socket, revealing the white of the eye and all that was beneath. He started to come towards me and I began to cry.

I heard the back door open and the wind whooshed in. I heard steps on the plastic covering and the man Rosaleen had called Laurie turned in fright.

‘Leave her alone!’ I heard Weseley shout, and Laurie raised his hands in the air, looking shocked, sad, shaken. Then Weseley came in and saw me. I must have looked a mess because his face changed, anger took over, and he pushed Laurie up against the wall, his hand around his neck.

‘What did you do to her?’ he growled in his face.

‘Leave him,’ I heard myself say, but, I couldn’t get sounds out.

‘Tamara, get out of there,’ Weseley said, his face red, the veins throbbing in his neck from the effort it was taking to hold him off.

I don’t know how but I finally stood up, grabbing the diary, and pushed myself forward. I managed to lay a hand on Weseley to stop him. He let go of Laurie, grabbed me and pulled me from the room, pushed Laurie inside, slammed the door and locked it. He took the key and put it in his pocket, while I heard the man shouting to let him out.

Just as I reached the end of the passageway, Rosaleen swung herself round the corner to block me. She’d obviously left through the front door. She reached out and grabbed my arm, but I moved just within her grasp and her nails dug into my skin as she pinched me and tried to hold on. I screamed.

‘Follow me,’ Weseley said, and turned and ran.

I was running but was abruptly jerked backward, feeling a pain in my neck as Rosaleen grabbed my hair and tried to pull me back. I elbowed her hard in the stomach and she released me. Despite her behaviour to me over the past hour I still felt bad and stopped to see if she was okay. She was doubled over, winded.

‘Tamara, come on!’ Weseley shouted.

But I couldn’t. This was ridiculous. I didn’t understand why we were fighting, why she had turned on me. I had to see if she was all right. As I came near her, she looked up, pulled back her right arm and slapped me hard across the face. I felt the sting long after her hand left my face. Weseley tugged on me and I had no choice but to run.

We ran down the back garden and past the workshed which
separated domestic life from the secret field of glass. Once in the field I realised how much the wind had picked up. It was blustery now and my hair was billowing around my face wildly, sometimes blinding me, sometimes stuffing my mouth with a lock of hair. Weseley was squeezing one of my hands so tightly I needed the other to balance myself as we ran across the lumpy grass, so I couldn’t move the hair from my face. The glass was swinging violently in the wind, back and forth but with no rhythm so it was hard to judge whether it was going to come flying at our faces as we darted past. It was difficult to dodge and an effort to avoid being scraped by its jagged points.

I held on tightly to Weseley’s hand and I just remember thinking, don’t let go, don’t ever let go. Every now and then he turned round to make sure I was still there, although his hand was wrapped so tightly around mine it was crushing my fingers. I saw the worry in his face, the panic in his eyes. We were in this together and I had never been so grateful to have such a friend. We ducked under lines of glass mobiles and made our way to the edge of the garden. Weseley began to figure out a way we could get over the wall. I stood there keeping watch, feeling my arms stinging as the scrapes on my arms and possibly on my face started to bleed and the cold air blew on them. I kept watch for Rosaleen who quickly appeared at the workshed and was scanning the garden for us. Our eyes met. She surged forward.

Weseley moved quickly, gathering crates and concrete blocks, layering them up, building them up so that we could get over the wall. He stepped up and finally he could reach the top of the wall.

‘Right Tamara. I’ll lift you up.’

I put the diary down and he lifted me from the waist. I scrambled to pull myself to the top, my bare elbows scraping
the concrete, my knees banging against the wall, but finally I was there. Weseley handed me the diary and I jumped in to the field on the other side. Pain shot though my ankles and up my legs as I landed. Weseley wasn’t far behind. He grabbed my hand again and we ran.

Across the road and straight into the gatehouse, I screamed for Arthur and Mum between heaving breaths. There was no answer, the house stared back silently at us, with its empty rooms, the ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall the only response. We both ran up and downstairs, flinging open doors, shouting into every eave. I had been worried before that, then I started to panic. I sat on my bed, the diary in my arms, not knowing what to do. Then, as I hugged it tightly and started to cry, it became clear.

I opened the diary. Slowly but surely the burned pages began to uncurl right before my eyes, unfolding and lengthening, and words no longer neatly looped and lined appeared in jagged and messy scrawls as though written in blind panic.

‘Weseley,’ I called.

‘Yes!’ he shouted up the stairs.

‘We have to go,’ I shouted.

‘Where?’ he yelled. ‘We should call the garda? What do you think? Who was that guy? My God, did you see his face?’ I could hear the adrenaline pumping through his words.

I stood up quickly. Too quickly. All the blood rushed to my head and I felt dizzy. Black spots formed before my eyes and I tried to keep walking, hoping they’d eventually disappear. I made my way out to the hall, holding on to the wall, trying to take deep breaths. The pulse in my forehead beat an insane rhythm, my skin felt hot and clammy.

‘Tamara, what’s wrong?’ was all I heard.

I felt the book fall from my hand and hit the ground with a thud. After that—nothing.

I woke up to find myself staring at a painting of Mary, smiling down upon me in a baby-blue-coloured veil. Her thin lips smiling and telling me it was all going to be okay, her hands held out and open as though giving me some invisible gift. Then I remembered what had happened in the bungalow and I sat up with a start. My head felt like it was being crushed, as though the atmosphere was pushing down on me.

‘Ow,’ I groaned.

‘Hush, Tamara, you must lie down. Slow down now,’ Sister Ignatius said calmly, taking my hand in hers and placing another on my shoulder to coax me gently back down.

‘My head,’ I croaked, lying back down and taking in her face.

‘That’s a nasty bang you got,’ she said, taking a cloth dipping it in a dish and carefully dabbing at my skin above my eye.

It stung and I tensed.

‘Weseley,’ I panicked, looking around, and pushing her hand away from me. ‘Where is he?’

‘He’s with Sister Conceptua. He’s fine. He carried you all the way here,’ she smiled.

‘Tamara.’ I heard another voice, and Mum came rushing over to me and fell to her knees. She looked different. She was dressed, for one thing. Her hair was scraped back into a ponytail and her face was thinner, but it was her eyes…despite being bloodshot and swollen as if she’d been crying, her eyes had life back in them again. ‘Are you okay?’

I couldn’t believe she was out of bed I just kept staring at her, studying her, waiting for her to go into a trance again. She leaned forward and kissed me hard on the forehead, so much it almost hurt. She ran her hands through my hair, kissing me again and telling me she was sorry.

‘Ouch,’ I winced as she grabbed my wound.

‘Oh, love, I’m sorry.’ She let go immediately and moved back
to examine me. She looked concerned. ‘Weseley said he found you in a bedroom. There was a man, with scarring…’

‘He didn’t hit me.’ I jumped to his defence immediately though I didn’t really know why. ‘Rosaleen showed up. She was so angry. She kept spouting all of these lies about you and about Dad. I ran at her to tell her to stop and she pushed me…’ I placed my hand on my cut. ‘Is it bad?’

‘It won’t scar. Tell me about the man.’ Mum’s voice trembled.

‘They were having a fight. She called him Laurie,’ I suddenly remembered.

Sister Ignatius held on to the couch tightly as though the floor were swirling beneath her. Mum looked at her, her jaw tightened, and then she looked back at me. ‘So it’s true. Arthur was telling the truth.’

‘But it’s not possible,’ Sister Ignatius whispered. ‘We buried him, Jennifer. He died in the fire.’

‘He didn’t die, Sister. I saw him. I saw his bedroom. He had photographs. Hundreds and hundreds of photographs all over the walls.’

‘He loved taking photographs,’ she said, quietly as though thinking aloud.

‘They were all of me.’ I said, looking from one to the other. ‘Tell me about him. Who is he?’

‘Photographs? Weseley didn’t mention that,’ Sister Ignatius said, shaking, her face pale.

‘He didn’t see, but I saw everything. My whole life was on the walls.’ The words caught in my throat but I kept going. ‘The day I was born, the christening,’ I looked at her then and an anger came flooding through me. ‘I saw you.’

‘Oh.’ Her wrinkled bony fingers went flying to her mouth. ‘Oh, Tamara.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you both lie?’

‘I so wanted to tell you,’ Sister Ignatius jumped in. ‘I told
you I’d never lie, that you could ask me anything, but you never asked. I waited and waited. I didn’t think it was my place, but I should have. I realise that now.’

‘We shouldn’t have let you find out this way,’ Mum said, her voice trembling.

‘Well, neither of you had the guts to do what Rosaleen did.
She
told me.’ I pushed Mum’s hand away and turned my face away from her. ‘She told me some ridiculous story about Dad arriving here with Granddad, wanting to buy the place to develop it into a spa. She said he met Mum,
and
he met me.’ I looked at Mum then, waiting for her to tell me it was all lies.

She was silent.

‘Tell me it’s not true.’ My eyes filled up and my voice trembled. I was trying to be strong but I couldn’t. It was all too much. Sister Ignatius blessed herself. I could tell she was shaken.

‘Tell me he’s my dad.’

Mum started to cry and then stopped again, took a deep breath and found strength from somewhere. When she spoke her voice was firm and deeper. ‘Okay listen to me, Tamara. You have to believe that we didn’t tell you this because we believed it was the right thing to do all those years ago, and George…’ she wavered, ‘George loved you so much, with all of his heart, just like you were his own…’

I yelped at that, couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

‘He didn’t want me to tell you. We fought about it all the time. But it’s my fault. It’s all my fault. I’m so sorry.’ Tears gushed down her cheeks and though I wanted to feel nothing, to stare her down and show her how she’d hurt me, I couldn’t. I couldn’t feel nothing. My world had shifted so viciously, I was spinning out of orbit.

Sister Ignatius stood up and placed a hand on Mum’s head as she ferociously tried to stop her tears, wipe her cheeks and comfort me instead. I couldn’t look at Mum so my eyes
followed Sister Ignatius as she then crossed to the other side of the room. She opened a cupboard and brought something back over to me.

‘Here. I’ve been trying to give this to you for some time now,’ she said, her eyes filled. It was a wrapped present.

‘Sister, I’m really not in the mood for birthday presents right now, what with my Mum telling me she’s lied to me my whole entire life,’ I spoke with venom and Mum pursed her lips and her forehead creased. She nodded slowly, accepting whatever it was I threw at her. I wanted to shout at her more then. I wanted to use that opportunity to say all the bad things in the world that I’ve ever felt about her, just like I used to do when fighting with Dad but I stopped myself. Consequences. Repercussions. The diary had taught me that.

‘Open it,’ Sister Ignatius said sternly.

I ripped off the paper. It was a box. Inside the box was a rolled-up scroll. I looked to her for answers but she was kneeled beside me, her hands clasped and her head dipped as though in prayer.

I unrolled the scroll. It was a certificate of baptism.

This Certificate of Baptism is to certify that Tamara Kilsaney was born on the 24th day of July, 1991, in Kilsaney Castle, County Meath and was Presented to the World with Love by Her mother, Jennifer Byrne, and her father, Laurence Kilsaney On this day 1st January 1992

I stared at the page, reading it over and over, hoping my eyes had deceived me. I didn’t know where to begin.

‘Well, first things first. They got the date wrong.’ I tried to sound confident but I sounded pathetic and I knew it. This was something I couldn’t beat with sarcasm.

‘I’m sorry, Tamara,’ Sister Ignatius said again.

‘So that’s why you kept saying I was seventeen.’ I thought back over all our conversations. ‘But if this was right, then I’m eighteen today…Marcus.’ I looked up at her. ‘You were going to let him go to gaol?’

‘What?’ Mum looked from one to the other. ‘Who’s Marcus?’

‘None of your business,’ I snapped. ‘I might tell you in twenty years.’

‘Tamara, please,’ she pleaded.

‘He could have gone to gaol,’ I said angrily to Sister Ignatius.

Sister Ignatius shook her head wildly. ‘No. I asked Rosaleen over and over to tell you. If not tell you, to tell the garda? She kept insisting he’d be fine. But I stepped forward. I told the garda, Tamara. I went to Dublin to Garda Fitzgibbon and gave him this certificate myself. There was a breaking-and-entering charge too, but bearing in mind the circumstances, it’s all been dropped.’

‘What’s been dropped? What happened?’ my Mum asked, looking at Sister Ignatius with concern.

‘God, Tamara, if you don’t know that by now, then you’ve far more problems than I thought. Listen, I wish you good luck with everything but…don’t call me again.’

That had been our last conversation. He’d known then why the charges had been dropped. How messed up was I that I didn’t even know my own age? I had been so relieved for Marcus that my anger subsided momentarily. Then that faded and I was fuming again. My head pounding, I held my hand
to my wound. They had been feeding me lies, dropping a trail of breadcrumbs in their path which I had been forced to follow in order to learn the truth for myself.

‘So let me get this straight. Rosaleen wasn’t lying. Laurie
is
my father. The freak…with the photographs?’ I shouted then. ‘Why didn’t anybody tell me? Why did everybody lie? Why did you all let me think I lost my dad?’

‘Oh, Tamara, George
was
your father. He loved you more than anything in the world. He raised you as his own. He—’

‘IS DEAD,’ I shouted. ‘And everybody let me think I’d lost my dad. He lied to me. You lied to me. I can’t believe this.’ I was up then, my head spinning.

‘Your mother thought Laurie had died, Tamara. You were only one year old. She had a chance to start a new life. George loved her, he loved you. She wanted to start again. She didn’t think you needed this hurt.’

‘And that makes it okay?’ I addressed Mum, even though Sister Ignatius had defended her.

‘No, no, I didn’t agree with it. But she deserved to be happy. She was so broken when Laurie died.’

‘But he’s not dead,’ I shouted then. ‘He’s living in the bungalow, eating sandwiches and apple pie every bloody day. Rosaleen knew he was alive.’