The Book of Tomorrow (26 page)

Mum broke down at that and Sister Ignatius held her tightly in her arms, her face revealing her heartbreak. I stopped then, realising that it wasn’t just me that was lied to. Mum had just found out the man she loved hadn’t died after all. What kind of a sick joke had they all been playing?

‘Mum, I’m sorry,’ I said softly.

‘Oh, darling,’ she sniffed, ‘maybe I deserve it. For doing this to you.’

‘No. No, you don’t deserve this. But he doesn’t deserve you either. What kind of sicko must he be to pretend to be dead?’

‘He was trying to protect her, I suppose,’ Sister Ignatius said. ‘He was trying to give the both of you a better life, one that he couldn’t give you.’

‘Arthur said he was badly disfigured?’ Mum looked at me then. ‘What…what does he look like? Was he kind to you?’

‘Arthur?’ I snapped to attention again. ‘Arthur Kilsaney? He’s Laurie’s brother?’

Mum nodded and another tear fell.

‘It’s just one thing after another with you all,’ I said, but not as angrily this time. I hadn’t the energy.

‘He didn’t want to go along with it,’ she said, drained now too. ‘Now it makes sense to me why he was so against it. He said he wanted to always be your uncle. We never said he was my brother. Not until you just assumed it and then…’ she waved her hand, sensing the ridiculousness of it all.

Weseley arrived in the room then. ‘Okay the garda?are on their way. Are you all right?’ He looked at me. ‘Did he hurt you?’

‘No, no, he didn’t.’ I rubbed my eyes. ‘He saved me from Rosaleen.’

‘But I thought he…’

‘No.’ I shook my head.

‘I locked him in his bedroom,’ Weseley said guiltily, producing the room key from his pocket. ‘I thought he was trying to hurt you.’

‘Oh, no.’ My main anger passed then. I felt sorry for him. He had been defending me. He had been reaching out to me giving me gifts. He’d remembered my birthday. My eighteenth birthday. Of course he had. And how had I thanked him? I’d locked him away.

‘Where’s Arthur?’ Sister Ignatius asked.

‘He’s gone to the bungalow, to Rosaleen.’

And then I remembered. The diary. ‘No!’ I scrambled to get up again.

‘Honey you should relax,’ Mum said trying to coax me back down again, but I jumped up.

‘He needs to get away from there,’ I panicked. ‘What have I been doing here all this time? Weseley, call the fire brigade, quick.’

‘Why?’

‘Honey, just relax now,’ Mum said, worried. ‘Lie down and—’

‘No, listen to me. Weseley, it’s in the diary. I have to stop it. Call the fire brigade.’

‘Tamara, it’s just a book, it’s only—’

‘Been right every single day until now,’ I responded.

He nodded.

‘What’s that?’ Mum suddenly asked, walking to the window.

Over the tree tops in the distance, plumes of smoke were drifting up into the sky.

‘Rosaleen,’ Sister said then with such venom, that it chilled me. ‘Call the fire brigade,’ she said to Weseley.

‘Give me the key,’ I said, grabbing it from Weseley and running from the room. ‘I have to get him. I’m not losing him again.’

I heard them all calling to me as I ran, but I didn’t stop, I didn’t listen. I ran through the trees and followed the smell, ran straight towards the bungalow. I had just lost the father who’d raised me. I wasn’t about to lose another.

When I reached the bungalow there was a squad car parked outside. I could see Rosaleen standing on the grass alongside her mother. Talking to her was a rather impatient garda, who kept asking her over and over if anybody was inside. Rosaleen was wailing, hands covering her face, and looking back at the house as though she couldn’t decide. Beside the garda was Arthur, who was barking at Rosaleen, shaking her by the shoulders and trying to get her to answer.

‘He’s in the workshed!’ she finally shrieked.

‘He’s not, I looked!’ Arthur yelled.

‘He has to be!’ she shrieked. ‘He has to be. He always locked his bedroom door when he went to the workshed.’

‘Who?’ the garda was saying over and over again. ‘Who’s in the house?’

‘He’s not there.’ Arthur’s voice was hoarse. ‘My God, woman, what have you done?’

‘Oh my God,’ Rosaleen was shrieking over and over again. Her mother was softly crying.

Sirens were wailing in the distance.

I ignored them all. I ran past them unnoticed, down the
side passage and in through the back door of the bungalow. Smoke was everywhere, filling the halls, so black and thick that as soon as I inhaled it I was choked. It sent me to my knees, retching and gasping, stinging my eyes so badly I rubbed them over and over but it only made them worse. I placed my cardigan across my face. I had soaked it in cold water from the outside tap and put it across my mouth and nose to help me breathe. Peering out from one eye, I felt my way along the wall. The plastic beneath my feet was dangerously hot and sticky, so that the rubber in my trainers was sticking to it. I kept to the sides of the hallway, where it was tiled. I felt my way along the wall to his bedroom door. When I placed my hand on the metal door handle it burned me so badly I let go and cowered over, cradling my hand, coughing, eyes stinging, retching, hand burning. The open door at the end of the hall relieved the hallway at least of some smoke and I knew it wasn’t far. I could always run out the door.

I shoved the key in the door, hoping the whole thing hadn’t melted, and I turned it. Stepping back, I used my foot to push down the handle and the door swung open. More smoke followed me in and I pushed the door closed. The corners of the photographs were curling with the heat. I couldn’t see any fire, just smoke, thick black heavy smoke that hurt my lungs. I tried to call out but couldn’t, just kept coughing over and over, hoping he’d hear me, that he’d know I was there.

I felt my way along the bed, felt his body, felt his face. His beautifully scarred face, ruined just like the castle, which carried such a story I was drawn to it and not repelled. His eyes were closed; I could feel his eyelids. I shook him, moved my hands all over his body to try to wake him. Nothing. He was unconcious. Behind me I felt intense heat, felt fire. It would quickly close in on me, in this room of photographs. I pulled at the net curtains, bringing a little light into the grey
smoky room. I felt around to try to open the windows. They were locked. There weren’t any keys. I picked up a chair, threw it at the window over and over to smash it, but I couldn’t. I tried to pull at him, but he was too heavy. I tried to get him to his feet. I was getting tired, running out of energy, feeling dizzy. I lay down beside him, trying to wake him. I held his hand, the two of us huddled together on the bed. I wasn’t going to leave him.

Suddenly I dreamed of the castle, of a banquet with a long table filled with pheasant and pig, everything dripping with grease and sauces, wine and champagne, the most delicious duck and vegetables. Then I was with Sister Ignatius and she was shouting at me to push, but I didn’t know what to push. I couldn’t see her but I could hear her. Then the darkness faded and the room was filled with such wonderful light, and I was in Sister Ignatius’ arms. Then I was in the field of glass, running, running, with Rosaleen hot on my heels. I was holding Weseley’s hand just like before only it wasn’t Weseley, it was Laurie. Not as I knew him from today but as I first saw him in the photographs, handsome, young, mischievous. He was turning round and smiling at me, his perfect white teeth opening and closing as he laughed, and I realised then how alike we were, how I’d always wondered why I didn’t look like Mum or Dad, and now it all made perfect sense. His nose, his lips, his cheeks and eyes—all were like mine. He was holding my hand and telling me we were going to be okay. We were running together, laughing and smiling, not worried at all about Rosaleen because she couldn’t catch us. Together we could outrun the world. Then I saw my father, at the end of the field, clapping and cheering us on as though I was a child again, at the community races in the rugby club. Laurie was gone and it was me and Mum for a moment, legs tied together in the three-legged race, just like we used to do
when I was young. She was anxious-looking, not laughing but worried, and then she left and Laurie was back. We were running, tripping up, and there my dad was, laughing and cheering, beckoning us forth, arms open and ready to catch us when we fell across the line.

Then the glass mobiles in the field exploded all around us, shattered into millions of pieces and I lost Laurie’s hand. I heard Dad scream my name and I opened my eyes. The room was filled with glass, it was all over our bodies, all over the ground and the smoke was pluming out through the window. I saw a claw, a giant yellow claw, disappear through the glass and the smoke drifted out. But it didn’t stop the fire. It ravaged the photographs, racing through them with such speed and ferocity it was eating away at everything around us and leaving us until last. We would be next. Then I saw Arthur. I saw Sister Ignatius. I saw my mother’s face, alive, present, terrified. She was outside, moving, talking and, despite her alarm, I was relieved. Then there were arms around me and I was outside, coughing, spluttering. I couldn’t breathe, I was on the grass. Before I closed my eyes I saw my mother, felt her kissing my head, then saw her embracing Laurie, crying and crying, her tears falling onto his head as if they alone could put out the fire between them.

For the first time since I’d found my father on the floor of his office, I exhaled.

Once upon a time there was a little girl who lived in a bungalow. She was the youngest child, with an intelligent older sister, and cute older brother so handsome that he turned heads in the street, invited conversations with strangers. The little girl was what some people would call a surprise baby. To her parents, who had long finished having children, she was not just unplanned but unwanted and that she knew well. At forty-seven years old and twenty-two years since she’d had her last baby, her mother was not prepared for the arrival of another child. Her children had grown up and moved away, her daughter Helen to Cork to be a primary school teacher and her son Brian to Boston, where he was a computer analyst. They rarely came home. It was too expensive for Brian, and her mother preferred to go to Cork for holidays. The little girl didn’t know these two strangers she rarely met and who called themselves her brother and sister. They had children older than she; they knew little of who she was or what she wanted. She’d arrived too late, she’d missed the bonding that they had all had together.

Her father was the gillie at Kilsaney Castle grounds, which
was across the road from her home. Her mother was the cook. The little girl loved the position her family were in, so close to such grandeur that the children at school considered her to be a part of it too. She loved that they were privy to bits of gossip that nobody else was. They were always the benefactors of great Christmas bonuses, leftover food, fabrics or wallpapers from recent refurbishings or clear-outs. The grounds were strictly private but the little girl was allowed to play inside its walls. It was an absolute honour for her and there was nothing she wouldn’t do to please the family, such as odd jobs around the house, running from her father Joe to the groundsman, Paddy, with messages from her mother on what to catch that day, what vegetables to choose for dinner.

She loved the days she was allowed to enter the castle. If she was off sick from school her mother couldn’t very well leave her at home. They were good like that, Mr and Mrs Kilsaney. They allowed her mother to bring her child to work, knowing there was nowhere else she could possibly leave her child and there was nobody else who could take care of their three meals a day so well, feeding them so well with money that was lessening by the year. The little girl would remain quiet in the corner of the great big kitchen where she’d watch her mother sweat all day over steaming pots and a roaring Aga. She would be quiet, never giving any trouble, but she’d take it all in. She’d take in her mother’s cooking but also she absorbed the goings-on in the house.

She noticed how, whenever Mr Kilsaney had a decision to make, he’d disappear into the oak room and stand in the middle with his hands behind his back while he stared at the portraits of his forefathers, who grandly watched over him from their great big oil paintings with elaborate gold framing. He would exit the oak room, chin high, fired into action as
though he was a soldier who’d just received a good talking-to from his sergeant-major.

She also saw how Mrs Kilsaney, who was so besotted with her nine dogs and ran around the house in a frenzy, trying to catch them, failed to notice much of what went on around her. She paid more attention to her dogs, in particular the mischievous King Charles spaniel named Messy, who remained the only dog who couldn’t be tamed and who took up most of her thoughts and most of her conversation. She didn’t notice her two young boys play-acting around the halls for her attention, or her husband’s fondness for the none-too-attractive chambermaid Magdelene, who revealed a black tooth when she smiled and who spent much time dusting the Kilsaneys’ master bedroom when Mrs Kilsaney was outdoors with the dogs.

The little girl noticed that what made Mrs Kilsaney mad was dead flowers. She would inspect every vase as she passed, almost as though it were an obsession. She would smile with delight when the nun would arrive every third morning with fresh bouquets from her walled garden. Then, as soon as the door closed, she would pick at them, while grumbling, pulling out anything that was less than perfect. The little girl loved Mrs Kilsaney, loved her tweed suits and brown riding boots, which she wore even on days when she wasn’t riding. However, the little girl decided she would never allow so much to go on in her own home without her knowing. She adored the mistress, but she thought her a fool.

She didn’t think much of the husband frolicking in plain sight with the ugly chambermaid, tickling her behind with a feather duster and acting younger than the little girl herself. He thought she was too young to notice him, too young to understand. She didn’t much like him, but he thought her a fool.

She watched everything. She made a pact with herself always to know everything going on in her home.

She loved watching the two boys. They were always up to mischief, always racing around the halls knocking things over, breaking things, making the chambermaid scream, causing a ruckus. It was the older one she watched all of the time. It was always he who initiated the plan. The younger one who was more sensible and went along with it only because he wanted to look out for his older brother. Laurence was the elder, or Laurie, as they called him. He never noticed the little girl, but she was always there on the outskirts, feeling involved without being invited, playing along in her imagination.

The younger boy, Arthur, or Artie, as they called him, noticed her. He didn’t invite her to play, he didn’t do anything of his own accord, he merely followed his brother’s ideas, but if Laurie did something silly he’d look to the little girl and roll his eyes or make a joke for her benefit. She’d rather he didn’t. It was Laurie she wanted to notice her and the more he didn’t see her, the greater her longing grew. Sometimes when he was alone and running, she would deliberately stand in his way. She’d want him at least to look at her or stop, or shout at her, but he never did. He ran around her. If he was searching for Artie in a game of hide-and-seek, she’d help him by pointing out his hiding place. He wouldn’t acknowledge her, he’d search somewhere else, then shout to Artie that he was giving up. He wanted nothing from her.

The little girl stayed home from school a lot, just so she could spend time in the castle. Summer holidays were the best, having every day free to herself around the grounds without having to pretend to cough or to have a sore tummy. It was during one of these summers, when the little girl was seven, Artie was eight and Laurie was nine that she was outside in the grounds playing alone as always when her mother called
her to the castle. The Kilsaneys were gone out for the day, fox-hunting with their cousins in Balbriggan. Mrs Kilsaney had called her up to her room to help her pick out her dress, a floor-length silk olive-coloured dress, to be worn with pearls and a fur coat. The little girl’s mother was in charge for the day and when she reached the front of the castle she could tell from the look on the boys’ faces that they were in trouble.

‘It’s a beautiful day so play outside and get some fresh air and don’t be getting under my feet,’ her mother said. ‘Rosaleen will play with you too.’

‘I don’t want to play with her,’ Laurie sulked, still not looking at her, but at least she knew that she wasn’t invisible to him, that he could see her after all.

‘Be nice to her, boys. Say hello, Rosaleen.’

The boys were tight-lipped, but the little girl’s mother barked at them then.

‘Hello, Rosaleen,’ they both mumbled, Laurie looking at the ground, Artie smiling at her shyly.

The little girl had no name before that. When she heard her name pass his lips, it was as though she had been christened.

‘Now off with you,’ her mother said and the boys ran off. Rosaleen followed.

Once they were deep in the woods, they stopped running as Laurie went to study an ant hole.

‘I’m Artie,’ the younger one said.

‘Don’t talk to her,’ Laurie huffed, picking up a stick from the ground and waving it around as though he were in combat.

Laurie ignored them and concentrated on poking the stick in the hole of tree trunk. Suddenly they heard voices and Laurie, ears pricked, followed the sound. He held his hand up and they stalled and they all spied through the trees and saw the groundsman, Paddy, on his knees, sorting through
some brambles while beside him, in the wheelbarrow, lay a little girl aged about two, with white-blonde hair.

‘Who’s that?’ Laurie said, and his voice sent warning signals straight to Rosaleen’s heart but, excited for their first conversation, she replied, with a pounding in her chest, conscious of her voice, wanting it all to be so perfect for him.

‘That’s Jennifer Byrne,’ she said, ever so prim and proper as Mrs Kilsaney spoke. ‘Paddy is her dad.’

‘Let’s ask her to play,’ Laurie said.

‘She’s only a baby,’ Rosaleen protested.

‘She’s funny,’ Laurie asked, watching her lazing about in the wheelbarrow.

From that day on it was the four of them. Laurie, Artie, Rosaleen and Jennifer played together every day. Jennifer because she’d been invited, Rosaleen because they’d been forced. Rosaleen always remembered that. Even when Laurie kissed her in the bushes or when they were boyfriend and girlfriend for a few weeks, she always knew that little Jennifer was his favourite. She always had been. She captivated him. Whatever it was about the things she said and the way that she moved, Laurie was entranced by her, always wanted to be around her.

Jennifer grew even more beautiful year by year though she was completely unaware of her beauty. Her big boobs, her tiny waist, her hips that all of a sudden appeared during one summer. Without a mother in her life since she was three years old, she was quite the tomboy, hanging out of trees, racing both Artie and Laurie, stripping off and diving into the lakes without a care in the world. She always tried to get Rosaleen to join in but never understood why she wouldn’t. Rosaleen on the other hand was biding her time. She knew that the tomboy act would wear off with the boys. They’d lose interest. They’d want to find a real woman some day and
she was going to be that woman. She could be like Mrs Kilsaney, she could keep the castle, cook the food, train the dogs, make sure the nun brought her nothing less than perfect flowers. She dreamed of Laurie someday being hers, that they could live together in the castle, looking after the dogs and the flowers while Laurie received inspiration in the oak room from his forefathers on the walls.

When the boys went off to boarding school, Laurie wrote only to Jennifer. Artie wrote to both of them. Rosaleen never let Jennifer know this. She would pretend that she had received a letter too but that it was too personal to read aloud. Jennifer never seemed to mind, having so much confidence in her friendships it made Rosaleen even more jealous. Then when the boys went off to college, Rosaleen’s mother’s MS was deteriorating, her ageing father was ill, they needed money, and Rosaleen’s brother and sister were too far away to help, so Rosaleen’s parents relied on the child they never wanted to look after them. Rosaleen was forced to leave school and take over her mother’s job at the castle, while Jennifer continued to prosper, taking trips to Dublin to visit the boys.

Those were the worst days for Rosaleen. The weeks were long and boring without them. She lived for Laurie to return; she lived in her head, dreaming of all that was past and creating all that could be in the future, while they were off in the city doing exciting things—Laurie at art college, sending home his glass work, Artie studying horticulture—Jennifer being offered modelling jobs every time she stepped outside of the door. When they returned home during the breaks, Rosaleen’s life couldn’t be happier except that she yearned for Laurie to look at her as he did Jennifer.

She didn’t know how long their romance had been going on. She could only assume it started in Dublin while she was at home plucking pheasants and gutting fish. She wondered
if they were ever going to tell her, if it hadn’t been for that embarrassing day when she brought him to the apple tree to finally tell him how she felt, showed the carving in the tree, ‘Rose Loves Laurie’. She was so sure he would be blown away, that he would see her for who she really was, how she had been keeping the castle going without him, how capable she was. She’d imagined the day for months, for years.

But it hadn’t worked that way. It hadn’t gone exactly as she’d imagined for all those years and for all those months alone in the kitchen in the castle. Life became dark and cold then. Her father passed away, the boys returned from college to attend the funeral, her older sister tried to take her mother away with her to Cork but without her mother, Rosaleen had nothing. She promised to look after her. Jennifer offered her a firm friendship and Rosaleen accepted it while all the time hating her. Hating everything she said, everything she did, hating that Laurie had fallen for her.

The autumn of 1990 Jennifer fell pregnant. Rosaleen’s life fell apart. Jennifer was welcomed in the Kilsaney household with open arms. A delighted Mrs Kilsaney showed her her wardrobes, the wedding dress, the everything that should have been Rosaleen’s. Jennifer and her father were invited to dinner weekly. Rosaleen cooked for them. The humiliation was beyond repair.

The child was born, two weeks early and with not enough time to get to the hospital. Rosaleen had run through the dark night to fetch the old nun. They had a little girl. They called her Tamara, after Jennifer’s mother, who’d passed away when she was a child. The couple weren’t yet married but living in the castle. Rosaleen and Arthur were godparents. The christening was in the castle chapel.

But life in the castle was not easy. The Kilsaneys were finding it difficult to keep the castle going, money wasn’t
coming in, they were becoming desperate. All those rooms to keep, to heat, to maintain—it was all too much. They would meet at dinner to talk about it. Rosaleen, as though hiding in the walls would hear it all.

Perhaps they would open the castle to the public. Every Saturday allow the public to trample through their home, taking photographs of their eighteenth-century writing desks and the oak room filled with portraits, at their chapel, at their age-old letters from generations ago between lords and ladies, politicians and rebels, during times of great unrest.