The Book of Tomorrow Read Online Free PDF Page B

that I suggested Mum should visit the doctor. Barbara just patronisingly sat me down in her kitchen and told me that Mum was doing what is called ‘grieving’. At sixteen years old, you can imagine how delightful it was to learn that word for the first time. And then I settled down for a conversation about heavy petting. But she didn’t go there. Instead, she asked if I minded sitting on her suitcase while she zipped it shut because Lulu, the glue that holds her life together, had taken the kids to their horse-riding lessons. As I sat on her bulging Louis Vuitton suitcase and she zipped in her zebra-print bikinis, gold thong sandals and ridiculous hats, I made a wish for it to burst open on the conveyer belt at the airport in St Tropez, and for her vibrator to fall out and buzz around for everybody to see.
    So there we were, on the first day of the rest of my life, outside the gatehouse, Mum with her eyes closed, Rosaleen staring at me with excited wide green eyes and her little pink tongue licking her lips now and then, Arthur snot-snorting at Barbara, which meant he didn’t want her to carry any bags, and Barbara watching him with bewilderment and probably trying not to gag at his snot-snorting, in her loose tracksuit, flip-flops and Oompa-Loompa orange face. She’d just had a spray tan that morning.
    ‘Jennifer,’ Rosaleen finally broke the silence over on our side.
    Mum opened her eyes and smiled brightly and it seemed to me that she recognised Rosaleen and knew exactly what she was doing. If you hadn’t spent every second of the last month with her as I had, you’d think she was okay. She was bluffing rather well.
    ‘Welcome,’ Rosaleen smiled.
    ‘Yes. Thank you.’ Mum chose a correct response from her little words file.
    ‘Come in, come in, and we’ll get you some tea,’ Rosaleen said with urgency in her voice, as though we were all going to die unless we had some tea.
    I didn’t want to follow them. I didn’t want to go in because then that would mean that it all had to start. Reality, that is. No more in-betweenness of funeral arrangements or Barbara’s mews. This was the new arrangement and it had to begin.
    Arthur, the king prawn, rushed by me and up the garden path laden down with bags. He was stronger than he looked.
    The car boot slammed and I spun round. Barbara was fidgeting with her car keys and shifting from one Louis Vuitton flip-flopped foot to the other. It was only then that I noticed she had cotton wool between her toes. She looked at me, awkwardly, in a heavy silence while she figured out how to tell me she was leaving me.
    ‘I didn’t realise you had a pedicure done too,’ I said to fill the silence.
    ‘Yes.’ She looked down and wriggled her toes as if to confirm it. Jewels glistened from her big toes. And then she added, ‘Danielle’s invited us to a drinks party on her yacht tomorrow evening.’
    Most people would think those two sentences were unrelated, but I understood. You can’t wear shoes on Danielle’s yacht, therefore competition of the jewels and white tips would be fierce. Those women would find ways to accessorise their patellas if they were the only parts showing.
    We stared at each other in silence. She was dying to go. I wanted to go with her. I too wanted to be shoeless on the Mediteranean coast while Danielle floated around the guests holding a martini glass daintily between her squared French tips, a plunging Cavalli dress revealing tits as pert as thepimento-stuffed olive floating in her glass, and on her head a tilted sea captain’s hat, making her look like Captain Birdseye in drag. I wanted to be a part of that.
    ‘You’ll be all right here, sweetheart,’ she said, and I sensed sincerity. ‘With family.’
    I looked back uncertainly at the ‘Hansel and Gretel’ house and wanted to cry again.
    ‘Oh, sweetheart,’ she said, sensing this, and came at me again with her arms held out. She was really good at hugging, she obviously felt comfortable