Purgatory

I was grounded for the next two weeks, going up and down the stairs for breakfast, lunch and tea, and doing whichever chores Rosaleen decided would be appropriate punishment, such as vacuuming the living room, polishing the brass, removing all the books from the shelves and dusting, watching her tend to her vegetable and herb garden while explaining to me what she was doing. I think she enjoyed the entire thing, babbling away to me chirpily as though I was a toddler and everything she said was the first time I’d ever heard it. I think it gave her a lease of life to have so many drained souls living around her, like a vampire. The more exhausted we got, the stronger she grew. I couldn’t even bring myself to read the diary. It was as if I had given up on everything. Every day that went by I felt there was more life coming from Mum’s room than from mine. The more energy I lost, the more she gained. I would hear her pacing the room like a caged lioness.

I was rebelling against the diary. I held it responsible for getting me in this position in the first place. I felt that every decision I had made up until this point had been because of what the diary said and I didn’t want that life any more. I wanted control over my days. I wanted to lie in bed and let the world pass by under my nose, just like it had before.

Every day I waited for Marcus to call. He didn’t.

Every day Sister Ignatius called by. I was so mortified, I refused to see her. I’m sure she knew what had happened; I’m sure the whole town knew. So much for my new start. I didn’t want a lecture. I didn’t want a stern stare. I missed the honey extraction, which I’d promised to do with her, I missed going to the market. Yet every day she called round. I should have helped her, but instead I lay in my bedroom, hiding under my bedclothes, mortified at the very thought of what had happened. Arthur made a few attempts to see Mum. He’d wait until Rosaleen was out in the back garden and he’d knock lightly on her bedroom door. If he thought she was going to call out to him to enter, then it was clear he really didn’t get it. After a minute or two he’d just walk away.

One night, Rosaleen and Arthur had another fight. I heard Arthur say, ‘I can’t do this any more.’ Then he stormed up to Mum’s bedroom, where he stayed for fifteen minutes. Rosaleen listened outside the door the entire time. I couldn’t hear him talking.

On Sundays I stayed in bed all day. I heard the sisters honking the horn to get me out of bed, but I didn’t move. I didn’t even look out the window. I just want to hide away from them all. I wondered if maybe I should contact Marcus, maybe I should write to him. But I did know what on earth I should say. All I could think of was sorry and that wasn’t enough.

One day the removal van arrived with all of our stuff from Barbara’s husband’s warehouse. I watched them back the van down the trail that leads to the garage and didn’t feel an ounce of excitement. Those things didn’t belong to me any more. They belonged to that girl who used to live in that house. It was not who I was any more. I didn’t know who I was any more. I fell back asleep again. I woke up when I heard the doorbell ring. It was Sister Ignatius again. She was being very persistent. At first I just thought she was friendly, then concerned, but that day she was a little frantic. I listened to her from my bedroom. It was all mumbling, but then Sister Ignatius raised her voice.

‘Are you just going to muffle muffle lie up there and let her think she’s done something wrong, let that poor boy muffle muffle all that?’

Muffled words.

‘Tell her that she must come to see me.’

Muffle, muffle.

Then the door closed. I looked out the window, just peered above the windowsill, and I saw Sister Ignatius, wearing a floral shirt and skirt, head down and walking away. My heart broke for her but also, in a weird way, it lifted. She was telling Rosaleen to make sure I didn’t feel guilty. Maybe she’d forgiven me after all. Even thinking that that was possible lifted my spirits. It gave me hope, made me think I was overreacting and that I should just learn from everything and get over it.

That night I couldn’t settle, I couldn’t sleep at all. I took the diary from the floorboards and waited and waited for the words to appear, hoping that by ignoring it I hadn’t made it all disappear. When it finally arrived it made me sit up and take notice.

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.

Mum slept all day again. Zoey and Laura both phoned the house. I told Rosaleen to tell them I was out.

Sister Ignatius called by with a present for me. Rosaleen offered to pass it on but Sister wouldn’t give it to her. The longer I ignore her, the worse I’m making it. Now I’ve so much more to apologise for. I think she’s been the best friend I’ve ever had but I just feel like hiding from the world. I can’t bear being seen.

After dinner, Rosaleen emerged from the pantry with a chocolate cake with candles singing ‘Happy Birthday’. That must have been what I almost caught her doing in the pantry this morning. It’s probably too late to check that apron pocket now.

I’ll write again tomorrow.

I must admit I hadn’t thought much about my birthday during the past couple of weeks and the times I had thought about it, it was with a heavy feeling for poor Marcus. If only we’d just waited. If only I’d just told him. I hadn’t thought about what kind of celebrations I could have or would have had in my previous life or what kind of presents I would have been adorned with from the moment I woke up to the moment I fell asleep. But after reading today and yesterday’s entry, I was fired up. I was excited.

It was as though I’d spent the past days wandering through a misty glen and I couldn’t see past my own nose. But now the fog had lifted. My mind had just been so busy mulling over something in all that time that it couldn’t concentrate on anything else. It seemed to have come to the end of its wander because I was sitting up in bed, fully alert, my heart racing, feeling breathless as though I’d run for miles. I was intent on figuring out what on earth Rosaleen had been doing, or was about to do in the pantry tomorrow morning.

As I was working out a plan, I heard Mum’s door open. I quickly lay down and closed my eyes. She closed the door behind her ever so quietly, aware that she needed to be silent. She sat on the edge of my bed and I waited for her hand on my shoulder. There it was. The urgent squeeze.

I opened my eyes, not feeling the panic I’d written about, but instead feeling totally prepared.

‘Where did you get it?’ she whispered, her face close to mine.

I sat up.

‘Across the road. In the bungalow,’ I whispered back.

‘Rosaleen’s house,’ she whispered, and immediately looked out the window. ‘The light,’ she said, and I noticed a kind of a light flashing on my bedroom wall opposite the window. It had the same effect of trees swishing from side to side across the moonlight causing the light to appear and disappear in the room. Only it wasn’t the trees because it seemed to sparkle more, like glass, releasing prisms of colour. It reflected against Mum’s pale face and she seemed caught in its field, entranced. I immediately looked out my window and across to the bungalow. Hanging in the front window a glass mobile caught the light, sending beams flashing outward, almost like a lighthouse.

‘There are hundreds more of them over there,’ I whispered. ‘I wasn’t supposed to be there, it’s just that, she…’ we both looked to the wall as we heard the springs in Rosaleen and Arthur’s bed, ‘she was being so secretive. I just wanted to say hello to her mother, that’s all. I brought her over some breakfast a couple of weeks ago and I saw someone in the shed in the back garden. It wasn’t her mother.’

‘Who?’

‘I don’t know. A woman. An old woman, with long hair. She was working in there. Making them. She must blow the glass herself. Do you think she’s allowed to do that? Legally?’ I looked at the tear drop in her hand. ‘There were hundreds of them. All hanging on lines. I’ll show you them. When I went back to collect the tray, it was sitting on the wall outside. This was in it.’

We both looked at the tear drop.

‘What does it mean?’ I broke the silence.

‘Does she know?’ Mum asked, not answering my question.

I took the ‘she’ to mean Rosaleen. ‘No. What’s going on?’

She squeezed her eyes shut and covered them with her hands. She rubbed her eyes fiercely, then ran her hands through her hair as though trying to wake herself up.

‘I’m sorry. I feel so fuzzy. I just can’t seem to…wake up,’ she said, rubbing her eyes again. Then she looked at me directly, her eyes shining. She leaned in and kissed me on the forehead. ‘I love you, sweetie. I’m sorry.’

‘Sorry for what?’

But I was asking her back view as she rose and quietly left my bedroom. I looked outside again at the light, the jagged glass twirling around as though being blown from inside. Then, as I was concentrating on that, the curtain moved and I realised someone had been watching me. Or had been watching us.

Then I heard Rosaleen’s door open, footsteps down the hall and my door opened. There she stood in her vision of white.

‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.

‘Nothing,’ I said, following the diary.

‘I heard a door close.’

‘Nothing’s wrong.’

After a long stare, she left me alone to ponder what I had achieved by telling Mum the truth. Something good had to come of it surely, and I was sure I was about to find out. I opened the diary again to see if the entry had changed. I held my breath.

As I opened the front page, the pages started to slowly curl inward at the edges, becoming browned and charcoaled, as though they were burning before my very eyes. Eventually they stopped retreating and the burned stained pages stared back, hiding tomorrow’s world from me.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 718