The Book of Tomorrow: A Novel by Cecelia Ahern

Author:Cecelia Ahern [Ahern, Cecelia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fatherless Families - Ireland, Children of the Rich - Ireland, Family Life, General, Fatherless Families, Children of the Rich, Ireland, Fiction
ISBN: 9780061706301
Google: TLdLXK-9uDYC
Amazon: 0061706302
Publisher: Harper
Published: 2010-03-21T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

One o’Clock

The diary told me I had until one o’clock that day.

It was quite unusual really, the morning playing out exactly as I’d read the night before. Rosaleen waking me, telling me to stay home, and it seemed so obvious then—the second time round—that she just didn’t want me visible to the rest of her little world. Imagine the horror and shame of having to tell people that Mum and I existed; that a man had taken his life, the worst sin of all. I’d felt angry about that and had to fight my desire to demand I go to mass too but I stayed under the covers, and as I listened to their car drive away in the sepia-coloured day, here’s where my day differed to the diary. It was unusual, having things happening that I felt had technically already happened, but I was sort of getting used to it.

Instead of falling back asleep after Rosaleen and Arthur had driven off, I got dressed and ran downstairs. I was sitting on the garden wall when the yellow Cinquecento came flying down the road, with the window rolled down.

‘Ah!’ Sister Ignatius’ eyes lit up. ‘Just the girl I wanted to see. Are you coming to mass?’

I looked in the car at the four nuns squashed together.

‘Oh, you can sit on Sister Peter Regina’s knee,’ she teased, and I heard a ‘pah’ from inside. ‘We sing at all the morning masses. You’re part of a choir, you should join us if the laryngitis isn’t still at you.’

Can’t, I mimed, grabbing my throat and opening and closing my mouth.

‘Gargle some salt and you’ll be as right as rain,’ she glared at me, then brightened. ‘Thanks for the book, by the way.’

‘You’re welcome,’ I broke my silence. ‘I picked it especially for you.’

‘I thought so,’ she chuckled. ‘You know at the beginning, I didn’t like her, Marilyn Mountrothman. She was stuck up and expected far too much, but by the end I grew to love her. Just like Tariq. It didn’t seem an obvious pairing but the way he knew just what she was thinking all the time, particularly when she was crying about the message from her father but wouldn’t tell him. Oh, that got me, I must admit. But he figured it out. He knew that she loved him. Smart man! I suppose that’s how he made his millions and became the oil tycoon. I like it when they put the photos of them on the front covers. It helps me visualise them all the way through. Him with his hair slicked back and all those muscles…’

‘You actually read it?’

‘Oh, yes, of course I did. Sister Conceptua has started it now.’

The woman in the front passenger seat twisted around. ‘Don’t tell me what happens. He’s just chartered the private plane to Istanbul.’

‘Oh, you’ve the best bits to get to yet,’ Sister Ignatius clapped her hands. ‘Two words—Turkish delight,’ she said.

‘I said sshh,’ Sister Conceptua snapped. ‘You’ll give it away.’

‘We have to go,’ Sister Mary barked from behind the wheel.

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