Cecelia Ahern - The Book of Tomorrow

Wednesday, July 22

I called Marcus today. I found his name in the phone book. There aren’t many Sandhursts in Meath. Turns out his dad is a big legal eagle and has a famous firm in Dublin. How much more embarrassment could I have caused Marcus? I was terrified I was going to have to speak to his parents first but some woman answered, sounded all official and then put me straight through to him. As soon as he heard my voice I had to plead with him not to hang up. Then when I’d convinced him, I had no idea what to say. I apologised so much, going on and on and on, that he eventually stopped me. He said that all the charges had been dropped. Hadn’t I been told?

No.

I asked him if his dad had arranged that. He couldn’t believe I’d asked him that. He said I’d far more problems than he’d thought if I didn’t know. He wished me well and hung up.

What on earth was he talking about? If I didn’t know what?

I called Marcus the next day, feeling less nervous knowing his dad wouldn’t answer. It all went exactly as I’d written except instead of my asking if his dad had arranged for the charges to be dropped, I asked, how they had been dropped. An entire night to think about it and that’s the best I could come up with. I still didn’t get any answers. In fact, he may have hung up sooner.

Thursday 23 July

I spent time with Mum in her bedroom before I went to bed. She was humming a tune to herself. I don’t know what it was but it made her smile. I told her I’d something for her and I took the glass tear out of my pocket and laid it down beside the bedside table. She stopped humming as soon as she saw it. She lay on the bed, her eyes turned enough for her to see it. She just kept staring at it.

‘It’s pretty, isn’t it?’ I said.

She looked at me, a sharp look that took me aback a little, then she stared at the glass tear again. It seemed like its very presence offended her and so I reached for it, to take it back. Her hand came up quick and landed on mine. It didn’t hurt but I got a shock and so I just left it with her.

Later that night I was fast asleep dreaming of visiting Marcus in prison when I felt a hand on my shoulder. In the dream it was a prison guard but I quickly woke up and Mum’s face was close, her nose almost touching mine. I swallowed my scream. She whispered into my ear, ‘Where did you get it?’

I was still half-asleep, I didn’t know what she was talking about. I didn’t know if she meant the diary, or if it was the packet of cigarettes I’d hidden in my wardrobe.

‘The tear,’ she whispered again with urgency in her voice.

I panicked, to be honest. I thought I was going to be in trouble for going over to Rosaleen’s mother’s house when I wasn’t supposed to. I was half-asleep, like I said, and in shock that she was here in my room-talking-in the middle of the night. Now and then I could hear the springs in Arthur and Rosaleen’s bed move and I just felt frozen in some kind of strange fear. And so, well, I lied. I told her that I found it around the house, that I thought it was nice so I kept it.

As soon as I’d said it to her, I immediately knew what was different in her, apart from the fact that she was talking. It was the light that had suddenly arrived in her eyes, making them alive again. I had missed that. But the only reason I noticed the light was because as soon as I said those words, as soon as I lied, the light faded again. Her eyes were dull, empty, lifeless. I’d killed whatever excitement was rushing through her, I’d thrown water on the fire. She left the room silently then and returned to her bedroom.

Rosaleen’s door opened. Footsteps down the corridor. My bedroom door opened. The long white nightie was illuminated in the moonlight. She interrogated me for a few minutes about hearing a door close but I denied it. She stared at me in a long silence, as if trying to decide whether I was telling the truth or not, nodded, then closed the door. I heard her bedsprings and after that, silence.

I couldn’t sleep after that. I just kept thinking about whether my lie to mum was right or wrong. By the time morning light had flooded my room, I realised I had made a mistake. I should have just told her the truth.

I’ll write again tomorrow.

After reading that entry, I had the day to plan what I was going to say to Mum. I felt anxious throughout the day, watching Mum’s silent living and knowing that soon enough that spell would be broken. I tried to remember the diary entry word for word. I didn’t want to get it all wrong. I wanted to do and say exactly the same things as I’d written so as to summon the same response. I wanted her to come to my room in the middle of the night. Then I wanted to tell her the truth about the glass tear drop. I waited all day.

Finally after dinner I went upstairs to her bedroom. She was lying in bed, examining the ceiling, humming softly.

‘I have something for you,’ I said, my voice so croaky that the words were barely audible. I started again. ‘I have something for you.’

She kept humming as I reached into my pocket and felt around for the glass, which was warm from my body. I placed it down on the bedside table. The gentle tapping sound made her eyes turn, but not the rest of her head. When her eyes landed on the glass tear drop, she instantly stopped humming and her finger stopped twirling her hair.

‘It’s pretty, isn’t it?’ I asked.

She looked at me then, and I recognised the moment that spark entered her eyes. She returned her stare to the tear drop. Not wanting to but knowing I should follow protocol, I reached for it and just as I’d written, out came her hand and it landed on mine to prevent me from taking it.

‘No,’ she said firmly.

‘Okay,’ I said, smiling. ‘Okay.’

I sat up in bed, unable to sleep, knowing she would awaken me. I read the diary entry for the next day, unsure whether it would be accurate as events that were about to unfold would probably alter the day that Tamara of Tomorrow had.

Friday 24 Friday

Happy Birthday to me. Seventeen. I decided to get out of bed this morning and Rosaleen was surprised to see me. I think I almost gave her a heart attack in the pantry when I entered the kitchen. I thought she was up to something, because she looked as guilty as sin and shoved something in the pocket of her apron. It could have been something for the cake but I don’t know…

She gave me an awkward hug and kiss, and then danced off with Mum’s tray to give her her breakfast and then to get my gift from her bedroom. She returned with a perfectly wrapped gift, pink paper with white and pink ribbon. It was a basket of Strawberry bubble bath, soaps and shampoo. She was practically hyperventilating while I opened it, leering over me with a nervous smile to see if I liked it or not. I told her I did. I told her it was perfect and I genuinely did like it. It was different for me. Last year for my sixteenth birthday, I’d received a Louis Vuitton handbag and a pair of Gina shoes, this year, a bubble bath and shampoo set, but weirdly I was more grateful for this because I actually needed it. I was running out of shampoo and the red squirrels weren’t easily impressed by the Louis Vuitton bags.

Then she said an extraordinary thing-‘I saw it last month, would you believe, and I thought to myself and I even said it to Arthur, “That’s got Tamara’s name written all over it.” I’ve been hiding it in the garage since then and I was so terrified you’d find it,’ she giggled nervously.

That comment chilled me. Rosaleen was cleverer than I gave her credit for. There was no way that she would have avoided my going to the garage, or tried to stop us storing our belongings in there because she was hiding a little soap basket. She was either cleverer or she thought I was stupid. My hunger to get inside that garage has been stirred even more.