Read Online The Book of Tomorrow by Cecelia Ahern - Free Book Online
Authors: Cecelia Ahern
Tags: Fiction
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crap. It’s as though my head is continually filled with thoughts I’d never had before, which gives me a headache. But Mum…?
Mum seems lighter. Grief doesn’t seem to be weighing her down at all. Instead, it feels like she’s flying away, like she’s halfway in the air and nobody else cares or notices, and I’m the only one standing beneath her, at her ankles, trying to pull her back down.
CHAPTER SIX
The Bus of Books
The kitchen had been cleared and cleaned; scrubbed to within an inch of its life, and the only thing left that wasn’t stacked away on a shelf somewhere was me.
I had never seen a woman clean with such vigour, with such purpose, as if her life depended on it. Rosaleen rolled up her sleeves and sweated, biceps and triceps astonishingly well formed, as she scrubbed, wiping away every trace of life having ever existed in the place. So I sat watching her in fascination, and I admit with a hint of patronising pity too, at the unnecessary act of such intense polishing and cleaning.
She left the house carrying a parcel of freshly baked brown bread that smelled so good it sent my taste buds and my already full stomach into spasms. I watched her from the front living-room window power-walking across the road, not an inch of femininity about her, to the bungalow. I waited by the window, intrigued to see who would answer the door, but she went round the back and spoiled my fun.
I took the opportunity to wander around the house without Rosaleen breathing down my neck and explaining the history behind everything I laid my eyes on as she’d done all morning.
‘Oh, that’s the cabinet. Oak, it is. A tree came down hard one winter, thunder and lightning, we’d no electricity for days. Arthur couldn’t rescue it—the tree that is, not the electricity; we got that back.’ Nervous giggle. ‘He made that cabinet out of it. Great for storing things in.’
‘That could be a good little business for Arthur.’
‘Oh no,’ Rosaleen looked at me as though I’d just blasphemed. ‘It’s a hobby, not a money-making scheme.’
‘It’s not a scheme, it’s a business. There’s nothing wrong with that,’ I explained.
Rosaleen tut-tutted at this.
Hearing myself, I sounded like my dad, and even though I had always hated this about him—his desire to turn everything into a business—it gave me a nice warm feeling. As a child if I brought home paintings from school he’d think I could suddenly be an artist, but only an artist who could demand millions for my works. If I argued a point strongly, I was suddenly a lawyer, but only a lawyer who demanded hundreds per hour. I had a good singing voice and suddenly I was going to record in his friend’s studio and be the next big thing. It wasn’t just me he did that with, it was everything around him. For him life was full of opportunities, and I don’t think that was necessarily a bad thing, but I think he wanted to grab them for all the wrong reasons. He wasn’t passionate about art, he didn’t care about lawyers helping people, he didn’t even care about my singing voice. It was all for more money. And so I suppose it was fitting that it was the loss of all his money that killed him in the end. The pills and the whisky were just the nails in the coffin.
‘Is it that photo you’ve got your eye on?’ Rosaleen would continue as my eyes roamed the room. ‘He took that when we visited the Giant’s Causeway. It rained the entire day and we got a puncture on the way up.’
And on she went.
‘I see you’re looking at the curtains. They need a bit of a clean. I’ll take them down tomorrow and do them. I bought the fabric from a woman doing door-to-door. I never usually but she was a foreign woman, hadn’t much English, or money, and had all this fabric. I like the flower in it. I think it matches the cushion there, what do you think? I’ve lots left in the garage down the back.’
Then I looked to the garage down the back and she’d say, ‘Arthur
Mum seems lighter. Grief doesn’t seem to be weighing her down at all. Instead, it feels like she’s flying away, like she’s halfway in the air and nobody else cares or notices, and I’m the only one standing beneath her, at her ankles, trying to pull her back down.
CHAPTER SIX
The Bus of Books
The kitchen had been cleared and cleaned; scrubbed to within an inch of its life, and the only thing left that wasn’t stacked away on a shelf somewhere was me.
I had never seen a woman clean with such vigour, with such purpose, as if her life depended on it. Rosaleen rolled up her sleeves and sweated, biceps and triceps astonishingly well formed, as she scrubbed, wiping away every trace of life having ever existed in the place. So I sat watching her in fascination, and I admit with a hint of patronising pity too, at the unnecessary act of such intense polishing and cleaning.
She left the house carrying a parcel of freshly baked brown bread that smelled so good it sent my taste buds and my already full stomach into spasms. I watched her from the front living-room window power-walking across the road, not an inch of femininity about her, to the bungalow. I waited by the window, intrigued to see who would answer the door, but she went round the back and spoiled my fun.
I took the opportunity to wander around the house without Rosaleen breathing down my neck and explaining the history behind everything I laid my eyes on as she’d done all morning.
‘Oh, that’s the cabinet. Oak, it is. A tree came down hard one winter, thunder and lightning, we’d no electricity for days. Arthur couldn’t rescue it—the tree that is, not the electricity; we got that back.’ Nervous giggle. ‘He made that cabinet out of it. Great for storing things in.’
‘That could be a good little business for Arthur.’
‘Oh no,’ Rosaleen looked at me as though I’d just blasphemed. ‘It’s a hobby, not a money-making scheme.’
‘It’s not a scheme, it’s a business. There’s nothing wrong with that,’ I explained.
Rosaleen tut-tutted at this.
Hearing myself, I sounded like my dad, and even though I had always hated this about him—his desire to turn everything into a business—it gave me a nice warm feeling. As a child if I brought home paintings from school he’d think I could suddenly be an artist, but only an artist who could demand millions for my works. If I argued a point strongly, I was suddenly a lawyer, but only a lawyer who demanded hundreds per hour. I had a good singing voice and suddenly I was going to record in his friend’s studio and be the next big thing. It wasn’t just me he did that with, it was everything around him. For him life was full of opportunities, and I don’t think that was necessarily a bad thing, but I think he wanted to grab them for all the wrong reasons. He wasn’t passionate about art, he didn’t care about lawyers helping people, he didn’t even care about my singing voice. It was all for more money. And so I suppose it was fitting that it was the loss of all his money that killed him in the end. The pills and the whisky were just the nails in the coffin.
‘Is it that photo you’ve got your eye on?’ Rosaleen would continue as my eyes roamed the room. ‘He took that when we visited the Giant’s Causeway. It rained the entire day and we got a puncture on the way up.’
And on she went.
‘I see you’re looking at the curtains. They need a bit of a clean. I’ll take them down tomorrow and do them. I bought the fabric from a woman doing door-to-door. I never usually but she was a foreign woman, hadn’t much English, or money, and had all this fabric. I like the flower in it. I think it matches the cushion there, what do you think? I’ve lots left in the garage down the back.’
Then I looked to the garage down the back and she’d say, ‘Arthur
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