The Book of Tomorrow

I ended up taking an essay about the castle from the internet. I was called to the principal’s office and she failed me for plagarism, which was ridiculous because Zoey did her project on Malahide Castle, stole everything from the internet, changed a few words and dates around, got the words and dates wrong to make it look like she didn’t copy it, and she still got a higher score than me. Where’s the justice in that?

Surrounding the castle is one hundred acres of land. Arthur is the groundskeeper here and, with one hundred acres to look after, he’s out first thing in the morning and back at five thirty on the button, as dirty as a coal miner. He never complains, he never groans about the weather, he just gets up, eats his breakfast while deafening himself with the radio, and then goes out to work. Rosaleen gives him a flask of tea and a few sandwiches to keep him going and he rarely comes back, except to get something from the garage that he forgot, or to go to the toilet. He’s a simple man only I don’t really believe that. Nobody who says as little as he does, is as simple as you’d think. It takes a lot to not say a lot, because when you’re not talking, you’re thinking, and he thinks a lot. My mum and dad talked all the time. Talkers don’t think much; their words drown out any possibility of hearing their subconscious asking, Why did you say that? What do you really think?

I used to stay in bed for as long as possible on school mornings and on weekends until Mae dragged me out kicking and screaming. But here, I wake up early. Surrounded by so many gigantic trees, the place is swarming with birds. They’re so loud and I just wake up without feeling tired. I’m always up by seven, which is nothing short of miraculous for me. Mae would be so proud. The evenings here are long too, and so there’s pressure having to keep myself busy during the daylight. That’s an awful lot of hours for an awful lot of nothing to do.

Dad decided he’d had enough in May, right before my Junior Certificate exams, which was a little unfair as, up until then, I thought I was the one who was supposed to want to top myself. I did my exams anyway. I probably failed them, but I don’t really care and I don’t think anybody else does either. I’ll find those results out in September. My entire class came to Dad’s funeral, which I’m sure they loved because they got a day off school. With all that going on, can you believe I was actually embarrassed about crying in front of them. I did it anyway, which started off Zoey and then Laura. A girl in my class called Fiona, who nobody ever talked to, hugged me really tight and gave me a card from her family saying that they were all thinking of me. Fiona gave me her mobile number and her favourite book, and said she’d be there for me if I ever needed somebody to talk to. At the time I thought it was a bit lame, her trying to get in with me at my dad’s funeral, but thinking about it after—which is something I do now—it was the kindest thing anybody did or said to me that day.

I started reading the book in the first week I moved to Meath. It was a kind of a ghost story about a girl who was invisible to everybody in the world, including her family and friends, even though they knew she existed. She was just born invisible. I won’t give away the rest but she eventually becomes friends with someone who does see her. I liked the idea and thought Fiona was trying to say something, but when I stayed overnight in Zoey’s house and told her and Laura, they thought it was the weirdest thing they’d ever heard and that Fiona was even more of a freak. You know what, I’m finding it increasingly hard to understand them.

During the first week that we moved here Arthur drove me to Dublin so that I could stay overnight in Zoey’s house. The car journey was over an hour and we never spoke once. The only thing he said was, ‘Radio?’ and then when I nodded he turned it on to one of those channels that just talk about the problems in the country and don’t play music and he snot-snorted his way through it. But at least it was better than silence. After spending the night with Zoey and Laura—and bitching about him all night—I was feeling confident. Back to my old self. We all agreed that he and Rosaleen definitely lived up to being called the Deliverance Duo and that I shouldn’t allow them to pull me into their weirdo existence. That meant that I should be able to listen to whatever the hell I wanted in the car. But the next day, when he picked me up in his filthy dirty Land Rover, which Zoey and Laura so obviously couldn’t stop laughing at, I felt bad for Arthur. I felt really bad.

Having to go back to a house that wasn’t mine, in a car that wasn’t mine, to sleep in a room that wasn’t mine, to try to talk to a mother that didn’t feel like mine, made me want to hold on to at least one thing that was familiar. Who I used to be. It wasn’t necessarily the right thing to hold on to, but it was something. I kicked up a fuss in the car and told Arthur that I wanted to listen to something else. He put my favourite radio station on for one song and then he got so frustrated listening to the Pussycat Dolls singing about wanting boobies, he grumbled and changed it back to the talk channel. I stared out the window in a huff, hating him and hating myself both at the same time. For half an hour we listened to a woman crying down the phone to the presenter about how her husband had lost his job in a computer factory, couldn’t find another and they had four children to look after. My hair was down across my face and all I could do was hope that Arthur didn’t see me crying. Sad stuff really gets to me now. I heard about it before but I was kind of numb to it. It just didn’t happen to me.

I don’t know how long we’re going to live here. Nobody will answer that question for me. Arthur simply doesn’t talk, my mum isn’t communicating and Rosaleen isn’t able to cope with a question of that magnitude.

My life is not going as I planned. I’m sixteen and by now I should have had sex with Fiachrá. I should be in our villa in Marbella swimming every day, eating barbecued dinners, clubbing every night at Angels & Demons and finding guy number two to fancy and sleep with. If the first person I sleep with ends up being the man I marry, I think I’ll die. Instead, I’m living in hicksville, in a gatehouse with three crazy people, the nearest things to us being a bungalow housing people that I’ve never seen, a post office that’s practically in somebody’s living room, an empty school, and a ruined castle. I have absolutely nothing to do with my life.

Or so I thought.

I’m choosing to start the story from when I arrived here.