The Book of Tomorrow Read Free Page A

weather. The sadnews about a poor person on the other side of the world. Her friend down the road who has broken her arm, or who has a father with two months to live, or somebody’s daughter who married a dick who is leaving her with her second child. Everything is doom and gloom and followed by some sort of utterance about God, like, ‘God love them,’ or ‘God is gracious,’ or ‘Let God be good to them.’ Not that I talk about anything important, but if I ever try to discuss those things in more detail, like get to the root of the problem, Rosaleen is totally incapable of carrying on. She only wants to talk about the sad problem, she’s not interested in talking about why it happened, nor in the solution. She shushes me with her God phrases, makes me feel like I’m speaking out of turn or as though I’m so young I couldn’t possibly take the reality. I think it’s the other way around. I think she brings things up so that she doesn’t feel like she’s avoiding them, and once they’re out of the way, she doesn’t talk about them ever again.
    I think I’ve heard my uncle Arthur speak about five words in my life. It’s as though Mum has gone through her life speaking for both of them—not that he would have shared her views on anything she said. Arthur speaks more than Mum these days. He has an entire language of his own, which I’ve slowly but surely learned to decipher. He speaks in grunts, nods and snot-snorts; a kind of mucous inhale, which is something he does when he disagrees with something. A mere, ‘Ah,’ and a throw back of the head means he’s not bothered by something. For example, here is how a typical breakfast-time would go.
    Arthur and I are sitting at the kitchen table and Rosaleen as usual is buzzing about the place with crockery piled with toast, and little dishes of home-made jam, honey and marmalade. The radio, as usual, is blaring so loudly I can hear every word the presenter is saying from my bedroom;some annoying miserable man talking in monotone about the terrible things happening in the world. And so Rosaleen comes to the table with the teapot.
    ‘Tea, Arthur?’
    Arthur throws back his head like a horse trying to rid his mane of a fly. He wants tea.
    And the man on the radio talks about how another factory in Ireland has closed and one hundred people are losing their jobs.
    Arthur inhales and a load of mucus is sucked up through his nose and then down his throat. He doesn’t like this.
    Rosaleen appears at the table with another plate of toast piled high. ‘Oh, isn’t that terrible, God love their families. And the little ones now with their daddys out of work.’
    ‘Their mothers too, you know,’ I say, taking a slice of toast.
    Rosaleen watches me bite into the toast and her green eyes widen as I chew. She always watches me eat and it freaks me out. It’s as though she is the witch from ‘Hansel and Gretel’, watching for me to become plump enough so that she can throw me into the Aga with my hands tied behind my back and an apple stuffed in my gob. I wouldn’t mind an apple. It would be the fewest calories she’d ever given me.
    I swallow what’s in my mouth and put the rest of my toast down on my plate.
    She leaves again, disappointed.
    On the news they talk about some new government tax increase and Arthur inhales more mucus. If he hears any more bad news, he’ll have no room for his breakfast with all that mucus. He’s only in his forties but he looks and acts older. From the shoulders up he reminds me of a king prawn, always bent over something, whether it’s his food or his work.
    Rosaleen returns with a plate of Irish breakfast enough tofeed all the children of the one hundred factory workers who have just lost their jobs.
    Arthur throws his head back again. He’s happy about this.
    Rosaleen stands beside me and pours me tea. I’d love nothing more than a gingersnap lattÉ but I tip the milk into the strong tea and sip it all the same. Her eyes watch