Cecelia Ahern - The Book of Tomorrow

I put the diary down and he lifted me from the waist. I scrambled to pull myself to the top, my bare elbows scraping the concrete, my knees banging against the wall, but finally I was there. Weseley handed me the diary and I jumped in to the field on the other side. Pain shot though my ankles and up my legs as I landed. Weseley wasn’t far behind. He grabbed my hand again and we ran.

Across the road and straight into the gatehouse, I screamed for Arthur and Mum between heaving breaths. There was no answer, the house stared back silently at us, with its empty rooms, the ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall the only response. We both ran up and downstairs, flinging open doors, shouting into every eave. I had been worried before that, then I started to panic. I sat on my bed, the diary in my arms, not knowing what to do. Then, as I hugged it tightly and started to cry, it became clear.

I opened the diary. Slowly but surely the burned pages began to uncurl right before my eyes, unfolding and lengthening, and words no longer neatly looped and lined appeared in jagged and messy scrawls as though written in blind panic.

‘Weseley,’ I called.

‘Yes!’ he shouted up the stairs.

‘We have to go,’ I shouted.

‘Where?’ he yelled. ‘We should call the garda? What do you think? Who was that guy? My God, did you see his face?’ I could hear the adrenaline pumping through his words.

I stood up quickly. Too quickly. All the blood rushed to my head and I felt dizzy. Black spots formed before my eyes and I tried to keep walking, hoping they’d eventually disappear. I made my way out to the hall, holding on to the wall, trying to take deep breaths. The pulse in my forehead beat an insane rhythm, my skin felt hot and clammy.

‘Tamara, what’s wrong?’ was all I heard.

I felt the book fall from my hand and hit the ground with a thud. After that-nothing.

I woke up to find myself staring at a painting of Mary, smiling down upon me in a baby-blue-coloured veil. Her thin lips smiling and telling me it was all going to be okay, her hands held out and open as though giving me some invisible gift. Then I remembered what had happened in the bungalow and I sat up with a start. My head felt like it was being crushed, as though the atmosphere was pushing down on me.

‘Ow,’ I groaned.

‘Hush, Tamara, you must lie down. Slow down now,’ Sister Ignatius said calmly, taking my hand in hers and placing another on my shoulder to coax me gently back down.

‘My head,’ I croaked, lying back down and taking in her face.

‘That’s a nasty bang you got,’ she said, taking a cloth dipping it in a dish and carefully dabbing at my skin above my eye.

It stung and I tensed.

‘Weseley,’ I panicked, looking around, and pushing her hand away from me. ‘Where is he?’

‘He’s with Sister Conceptua. He’s fine. He carried you all the way here,’ she smiled.

‘Tamara.’ I heard another voice, and Mum came rushing over to me and fell to her knees. She looked different. She was dressed, for one thing. Her hair was scraped back into a ponytail and her face was thinner, but it was her eyes…despite being bloodshot and swollen as if she’d been crying, her eyes had life back in them again. ‘Are you okay?’

I couldn’t believe she was out of bed I just kept staring at her, studying her, waiting for her to go into a trance again. She leaned forward and kissed me hard on the forehead, so much it almost hurt. She ran her hands through my hair, kissing me again and telling me she was sorry.

‘Ouch,’ I winced as she grabbed my wound.

‘Oh, love, I’m sorry.’ She let go immediately and moved back to examine me. She looked concerned. ‘Weseley said he found you in a bedroom. There was a man, with scarring…’

‘He didn’t hit me.’ I jumped to his defence immediately though I didn’t really know why. ‘Rosaleen showed up. She was so angry. She kept spouting all of these lies about you and about Dad. I ran at her to tell her to stop and she pushed me…’ I placed my hand on my cut. ‘Is it bad?’

‘It won’t scar. Tell me about the man.’ Mum’s voice trembled.

‘They were having a fight. She called him Laurie,’ I suddenly remembered.

Sister Ignatius held on to the couch tightly as though the floor were swirling beneath her. Mum looked at her, her jaw tightened, and then she looked back at me. ‘So it’s true. Arthur was telling the truth.’

‘But it’s not possible,’ Sister Ignatius whispered. ‘We buried him, Jennifer. He died in the fire.’

‘He didn’t die, Sister. I saw him. I saw his bedroom. He had photographs. Hundreds and hundreds of photographs all over the walls.’

‘He loved taking photographs,’ she said, quietly as though thinking aloud.

‘They were all of me.’ I said, looking from one to the other. ‘Tell me about him. Who is he?’

‘Photographs? Weseley didn’t mention that,’ Sister Ignatius said, shaking, her face pale.

‘He didn’t see, but I saw everything. My whole life was on the walls.’ The words caught in my throat but I kept going. ‘The day I was born, the christening,’ I looked at her then and an anger came flooding through me. ‘I saw you.’

‘Oh.’ Her wrinkled bony fingers went flying to her mouth. ‘Oh, Tamara.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you both lie?’

‘I so wanted to tell you,’ Sister Ignatius jumped in. ‘I told you I’d never lie, that you could ask me anything, but you never asked. I waited and waited. I didn’t think it was my place, but I should have. I realise that now.’

‘We shouldn’t have let you find out this way,’ Mum said, her voice trembling.

‘Well, neither of you had the guts to do what Rosaleen did. She told me.’ I pushed Mum’s hand away and turned my face away from her. ‘She told me some ridiculous story about Dad arriving here with Granddad, wanting to buy the place to develop it into a spa. She said he met Mum, and he met me.’ I looked at Mum then, waiting for her to tell me it was all lies.

She was silent.

‘Tell me it’s not true.’ My eyes filled up and my voice trembled. I was trying to be strong but I couldn’t. It was all too much. Sister Ignatius blessed herself. I could tell she was shaken.

‘Tell me he’s my dad.’

Mum started to cry and then stopped again, took a deep breath and found strength from somewhere. When she spoke her voice was firm and deeper. ‘Okay listen to me, Tamara. You have to believe that we didn’t tell you this because we believed it was the right thing to do all those years ago, and George…’ she wavered, ‘George loved you so much, with all of his heart, just like you were his own…’

I yelped at that, couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

‘He didn’t want me to tell you. We fought about it all the time. But it’s my fault. It’s all my fault. I’m so sorry.’ Tears gushed down her cheeks and though I wanted to feel nothing, to stare her down and show her how she’d hurt me, I couldn’t. I couldn’t feel nothing. My world had shifted so viciously, I was spinning out of orbit.

Sister Ignatius stood up and placed a hand on Mum’s head as she ferociously tried to stop her tears, wipe her cheeks and comfort me instead. I couldn’t look at Mum so my eyes followed Sister Ignatius as she then crossed to the other side of the room. She opened a cupboard and brought something back over to me.

‘Here. I’ve been trying to give this to you for some time now,’ she said, her eyes filled. It was a wrapped present.

‘Sister, I’m really not in the mood for birthday presents right now, what with my Mum telling me she’s lied to me my whole entire life,’ I spoke with venom and Mum pursed her lips and her forehead creased. She nodded slowly, accepting whatever it was I threw at her. I wanted to shout at her more then. I wanted to use that opportunity to say all the bad things in the world that I’ve ever felt about her, just like I used to do when fighting with Dad but I stopped myself. Consequences. Repercussions. The diary had taught me that.