The Book of Tomorrow (12 page)

‘Now let’s get down to bizzz-ness,’ she said as we reached the hives. ‘So, very important. First question, and I probably should have asked you this earlier, are you allergic to bees?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘Have you ever been stung by a bee?’

‘No.’

‘Hmm. Okay. Well, irrespective of all the protective measures, you may receive the occasional sting. Oh, don’t look at me like that, Tamara. Okay then, off you go to Rosaleen. I’m
sure she’s got the lovely hind legs of a cow for you to snack on while you wait for your dinner.’

I was silent.

‘You will not die from this sting,’ she continued. ‘Unless you’re allergic, of course, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take. I’m brave like that.’ Her eyes twinkled mischievously again. ‘There’ll be a slight swelling in the affected area, later followed by some itching.’

‘Like a mosquito.’

‘Exactly. Now this is a smoker. I’m going to blow smoke into the hive before inspecting it.’

Smoke began to exit through the nozzle. I was already feeling a little funny as everything I read from the diary early that morning was coming true, playing out before me like a script. She held the nozzle under the hive.

‘If a beehive is threatened, guard bees will release a volatile pheromone substance called isopentyl acetate, known as an alarm odour. This alerts the middle-aged bees in the hive, which are the ones with the most venom, to defend the hive by attacking the intruder. However, when smoke is blown in first, the guard bees instinctively gorge themselves on honey, a survival instinct in case they must vacate the hive and recreate it elsewhere. This gorging pacifies the bees.’

I watched the smoke drift into their home. Then suddenly I thought about the panic. A wave of dizziness came over me. I reached out to hold on to the wall.

‘I’m going to extract the honey next week. That suit is yours if you want to join me. It’ll be nice to have a bit of company. The sisters aren’t interested in beekeeping. I like to be alone sometimes but, you know, it’s nice to have company once in a while.’

My head swirled as I imagined the smoke in the hive, the bees gorging themselves on food, the sheer and utter panic of
it all. I wanted to snap at her and tell her to stop talking, that I had no interest in extracting honey with her, but I heard the tone in her voice, the excitement, the delight over company, and I remembered the wish I’d made in my diary about wanting to take back my response. I held my tongue and nodded, feeling faint. All that smoke.

‘Or at least it’s nice to have somebody there who pretends they’re enjoying it. I’m old. I don’t care much any more. But that’s great that you’ve volunteered. I think Wednesday will be a good day to do it. I’ll have to check the weather forecast and make sure it’s a good day. Don’t want us getting soaked again like today…’ On and on she went until I felt her staring at me. She couldn’t see my face nor I hers underneath the netting of our headgear.

‘What’s wrong dear?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing is ever nothing. It’s always something. Is the diary worrying you?’

‘Well, yeah, of course. That is…but it’s not that. It’s nothing.’

We were silent for a while and then as if to prove her point, I asked, ‘Was there anyone in the castle when it went on fire?’

She paused before answering, ‘Yes, unfortunately there was.’

‘Just watching that…that smoke going in. I can imagine the panic and the people being so afraid.’ I held on to the wall again.

Sister Ignatius looked at me with concern.

‘Did anyone die?’

‘Yes. Yes, indeed. Tamara, when the fire ravaged that home, it ravaged so many people’s lives, you have no idea.’

That home. Home. It made it all the more mysterious that a building such as that could be called such a thing. It had meant something to people once upon a time, whoever they were.

‘Where do they live now? The people who survived.’

‘You know, Tamara, Rosaleen and Arthur have been here for so much longer than I—you should really ask them that. Ask me a question and I’ll never lie, you understand? But this one you should ask them. Won’t you?’

I shrugged.

‘Do you understand me?’ She reached out and gripped my forearm. I felt her strength through my gauntlet. ‘I’ll never lie.’

‘Yes, yes, I understand.’

‘You’ll ask them, won’t you?’

I shrugged. ‘Whatever.’

‘Whatever, whatever, the language of sloths. Now, I’m going to lift this off, and I’ll show you the inhabitants of the honeycomb empire.’

‘Whoa. How did you get them all in there?’

‘Ah that was the easy part. Like all of us, Tamara, a swarm is always actively looking for a home. Now, do you know how I’m going to show you the queen bee?’

‘You’re going to draw on it with a marker.’

‘However did you know that?’

‘Apparently I wrote it in my diary when I was sleepwalking. Lucky guess, huh?’

‘Hmm.’

When I got back to the house, it was late. I’d spent the entire day out. Arthur was returning from work too, walking down the road in his lumberjack shirt. I stopped and waited for him.

‘Hi Arthur.’

He threw his head back at me.

‘Good day?’

‘Ah.’

‘Good. Arthur, could I have a word with you before we go inside, please?’

He stopped. ‘Is everything all right?’ Concern that I hadn’t seen before crossed his face.

‘Yes. Well, no. It’s about Mum—’

‘Well, there you are,’ Rosaleen called from the front door. ‘You both must be starved. I’ve the dinner just out of the oven, piping hot and ready to go.’

I looked at Arthur, and he looked back at Rosaleen. There was an awkward moment as Rosaleen refused to leave us. Arthur gave in and walked up the garden path and into the house. Rosaleen stepped aside for him to enter and then back to where she was to look at me, then went inside to see to the dinner. Once we were all seated at the table Rosaleen prepared Mum’s food ready on a tray to bring upstairs. I took a deep breath.

‘Shouldn’t we try and get Mum to eat downstairs with us?’

There was a silence. Arthur looked at Rosaleen.

‘No, child. She needs her peace.’

I’m not a child. I’m not a child. I’m not a child.

‘She has plenty of peace all day. It would be a good idea for her to see people.’

‘I’m sure she’d rather have her own space.’

‘What makes you think that?’

Rosaleen ignored me and carried the tray upstairs. For one minute Arthur and I would be alone. As if reading my thoughts she came back to the kitchen. She looked at Arthur.

‘Arthur, would you mind getting a bottle of water from the garage. Tamara doesn’t like the tap.’

‘Oh, no, I don’t mind. I’d rather drink from the tap,’ I said quickly, stopping Arthur from getting to his feet.

‘No, it’s no bother. Go on, Arthur.’

He stood again.

‘I don’t want it,’ I said firmly.

‘If she doesn’t want it, Rosaleen…’ Arthur said so quietly I could barely make out his words.

She looked from him to me and then legged it up the stairs. I had a feeling it would be her fastest trip ever.

Arthur and I sat in an initial silence. I spoke quickly.

‘Arthur, we have to do something about Mum. It’s not normal.’

‘None of what she’s been through is normal. I’m sure she’d rather eat alone.’

‘What?’ I threw my hands up. ‘What is it with you two? Why are you so obsessed with locking her away on her own?’

‘Nobody wants to lock her away.’

‘Why don’t you go talk to her?’

‘Me?’

‘Yes, you. You’re her brother, I’m sure there’s stuff that you can talk about that will bring her back to us.’

He covered his mouth with his hand, looked away from me.

‘Arthur, you have to talk to her. She needs her family.’

‘Tamara, stop it,’ he hissed, and I was taken aback.

He looked hurt for a moment. A deep sadness flicked through his eyes. Then, as though he’d built up some sort of courage, he quickly looked to the door of the kitchen and then back to me. He leaned in towards me, opened his mouth, his voice was hushed. ‘Tamara, listen—’

‘Now, there we are. She’s in great form.’ Rosaleen said, out of breath, rushing back in with her little-boy walk. Arthur studied her all the way in and to her seat.

‘What?’ I asked Arthur, on the edge of my seat. What was he about to tell me?

Rosaleen’s head turned like an antenna finding a signal.

‘What’s that you’re talking about?’

For once it seemed Arthur’s snot-snort came in handy. It was enough of a response for Rosaleen.

‘Dig in,’ she said perkily, fussing about with serving spoons and bowls of vegetables.

It took Arthur a while to begin. He didn’t eat much.

That night I sat staring at the diary for hours. I kept it open on my lap, waiting for the moment the words would arrive. I couldn’t even last until midnight because when I woke up at one a.m., the diary was still open on my lap, every single line filled in my handwriting. Gone was yesterday’s forecast and instead was another entry, a different entry for tomorrow.

Sunday, 5 July

I shouldn’t have told Weseley about Dad.

I read that sentence a few more times. Who on earth was Weseley?

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.