Cecelia Ahern - The Book of Tomorrow

Even though Mum had a hissy fit, thought that Dad was still alive, and appeared to be falling apart, I felt like it was the start of something new, something better. And as we watched them drive away, Rosaleen looking back at us with concern, not wanting to leave us but not wanting to leave Arthur and Mum alone, I really couldn’t help it. But I smiled and I waved.

As soon as they were gone, I raced into the house. On the coat stand, Rosaleen’s apron had been messily strewn across the top in her effort to hurry outside. I grabbed it and dug my hand into the pocket.

‘Tamara, what are you doing?’ Weseley was close behind me. ‘Maybe I should make you a cup of tea or something, to calm you dow-What the hell is that?’

He was referring to the container of pills I held up in my hand.

‘I was hoping you could tell me that.’ I gave him the pills. ‘I caught Rosaleen putting them in Mum’s breakfast.’

‘What? Whoa, Tamara,’ Weseley said. ‘She was putting pills in her food?’

‘I saw her opening them and emptying the powder stuff into the cereal and then mixing it around. She doesn’t know I saw her.’

‘Well maybe they’re prescription pills.’

‘You think? Let’s see, shall we? Despite the fact Rosaleen likes to pretend that I know nothing of my own mother’s medical history, I do know that her name isn’t…’ I read the label of the container, ‘Helen Reilly.’

‘That’s Rosaleen’s mother. Let me see them.’ He took them from me. ‘They’re sleeping pills.’

‘How do you know?’

‘It says it on the label. Oxazepam. That’s a sleeping pill. She’s putting these in your mum’s food?’

I swallowed, tears sprung in my eyes.

‘Are you sure you saw her do this?’

‘Yes I’m sure. And Mum hasn’t stopped sleeping since we arrived. Non-stop.’

‘Does your mum usually take them? Is Rosaleen just trying to help her, maybe?’

‘Weseley, Mum is so drugged she can barely remember her own name. This is not helping her. It’s almost like Rosaleen’s trying to make her worse. This is making her worse.’

‘We have to tell somebody.’

The relief at hearing ‘we’ came like a tidal wave.

‘I have to tell my dad. He’ll have to tell somebody, okay?’

‘Okay.’

I felt relieved then that I was no longer alone. I sat on the stairs while he phoned his dad to tell him.

‘Well?’ I jumped up as soon as he’d hung up.

‘They were in the room with him so he couldn’t comment on it. He just said he’d take care of it. We’ll just have to keep these safe in the meantime.’

‘Right.’ I took a deep breath. What will be, will be. ‘So will you help me get Arthur’s toolbox, please?’

‘What do you need that for?’ he asked, completely baffled now.

‘To break open the lock on the garage.’

‘What?’

‘Just…’ I searched for the words, ‘help me, please. We don’t have much time and I’ll explain everything later. But for now can you please, please help me? They’re rarely out of the house. This is my only opportunity.’

He thought about it in a long silence, turned the container of pills around in his hand while thinking. ‘Okay.’

While Weseley ran into the workshed beside the house, I paced the garden, hoping they wouldn’t return before I’d had a chance to have a good look round. I stopped pacing to peer at the bungalow, wanting to see if the glass that shone directly into my bedroom was still there. It was gone. But something on the garden wall caught my attention. A box. I moved closer.

‘Weseley.’

He immediately heard the warning in my voice and turned round, following where my finger was pointing.

‘What’s that?’ he asked.

I crossed the road and examined it. Weseley followed me. The package was covered in brown paper and my name was written on the front along with ‘Happy Birthday’.

I picked it up and looked around. There was nobody at the windows, behind the net curtains. I opened the brown paper to reveal a brown shoe box. I lifted the lid. Inside was the most beautiful glass mobile, a series of different-sized tears mixed with hearts, joined together with wires through tiny holes. I lifted it up and raised it to the light. It sparkled against the sun and spun around in the breeze. I smiled and looked to the house to wave, to smile, to thank somebody.

Nothing.

‘What the hell…’ Weseley said, examining it.

‘It’s a gift. For me.’

‘I didn’t know it was your birthday.’ He took it and examined it.

‘Well, she did.’

‘Who? Rosaleen’s mother?’

‘No.’ I stared at the bungalow again. ‘The woman.’

He shook his head. ‘And I thought my life was weird. Who is she? My mam and dad didn’t think anybody other than Mrs Reilly lived there.’

‘I have no idea.’

‘Let’s go in and meet her. To say thanks.’

‘You think I should?’

He rolled his eyes. ‘You were given a present-it’s the perfect opportunity to go in there.’

I chewed on my lip and looked at the house.

‘Unless, of course, you’re afraid.’

That’s exactly what I was.

‘No, we’ve got more important things to do right now,’ I said. I crossed the road and hurried to the back garden, to the garage.

‘You know, Sister Ignatius has been going crazy trying to see you. You just ran off that day and you gave her a fright. You gave us both a fright.’

I glared at Weseley while he poked around in the toolbox for the correct tool to break the lock.

‘I heard about what happened. You okay?’

‘Yes, I’m fine. I don’t want to talk about it,’ I snapped. ‘Thank you,’ I added more gently.

‘Heard your boyfriend is in a bit of trouble.’

‘I said I don’t want to talk about it,’ I snapped. ‘And he’s not my boyfriend.’

He started laughing at that. ‘So you know just how I feel.’

Despite all that had gone on that morning, I smiled.

It didn’t take Weseley long to pick the lock. We were in and I was immediately faced with my old life, all of it piled up, out of order, the kitchen with the living room, my bedroom piled on top of the games room, the spare bedroom with the bathroom towels. It fit together as perfectly as the thoughts in my head. Leather couches, plasma TVs, ridiculous-shaped furniture that seemed cheap and soulless now.

I was more interested in seeing what Rosaleen and Arthur had hiding in here. As Weseley threw the dustsheets off the far end of the garage I was highly unimpressed. Just more old furniture, destroyed by time, eaten away at by dust mites and smelling of mothballs. I don’t know what I’d been expecting-a dead body or two, a money printer, boxes of guns and weaponry, a secret entrance to Rosaleen’s batcave. Anything else other than this mothball-laden stinky furniture.

I made my way back to my belongings. Weseley soon followed, oohing and aahing at a few items as he rooted around in the boxes. Taking a break from his investigations of Arthur and Rosaleen’s hidden life, we sat on my once-upon-a-time living-room couch, looking through my photo album while Weseley laughed at the various stages of my adolescence.

‘Is that your dad?’

‘Yeah,’ I smiled, looking at his happy animated face, on the dancefloor at a friend’s wedding. He loved dancing. He was crap at it.

‘He’s so young.’

‘Yeah.’

‘What happened?’

I sighed.

‘You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.’

‘I don’t mind.’ I swallowed. ‘He just…borrowed so much money, he couldn’t pay it back. He was a developer, very successful. He had properties all over the world. We didn’t know but he was in big trouble. He’d started selling up everything to pay back the debts.’