Cecelia Ahern - The Book of Tomorrow

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.