‘Fine,’ I said quietly, wondering why on earth she had lied. Mum going downstairs was huge. Not to any normal family but to mine at present it was right up there.

That’s when it struck me how important each line in the diary was. Each was that trail of breadcrumbs I longed to drop from my old home to here. Each word was a clue, a revelation, of something that was happening right under my nose. When I’d written that I’d woken to Rosaleen dropping a pot and yelping I should have read into it more. I should have realised that she would never normally do such a thing, that something must have happened to make her drop the pot. Why would she have lied about Mum going downstairs? To protect me? To protect herself?

I settled back down on the floor, my back to the door, and read the entry I’d discovered last night.

Sunday, 5 July

I shouldn’t have told Weseley about Dad. I hate the way he looked at me, with such pity. If he didn’t like me, he didn’t like me. A dad who’d committed suicide wasn’t going to make me any nicer-though seemingly that was the case-but how was he to know that? It’s probably really hypocritical for all this to come from me but I don’t want people’s opinions of me to change just because of what Dad did. I always thought I’d want the opposite, to really milk the sympathy, you know. I’d have everybody’s attention, I could be all I wanted to be.

I thought I’d love it. Aside from the first month, immediately after Dad’s death-I found him, so there were a lot of questions, cups of tea and nice pats on the back, all while I blubbered over my statements to the gardaÍ; and, of course, at Barbara’s mews where Lulu was assigned to tend to our every whim, which for me was mostly hot chocolate with extra marshmallows on an hourly basis-I haven’t been getting any special attention. Unless this is special attention from Arthur and Rosaleen, and next month I become the cinder girl.

I really couldn’t stand this new girl, Susie, in my class but then I found out her brother played rugby for Leinster and all of a sudden I was next to her in every maths class and I stayed in her house every weekend for a month, until her brother was suspended from the team after being arrested for jumping on and crushing someone’s car, after one too many vodka and Red Bulls. The tabloids tore him to shreds and he lost his sponsorship for the contact lense company. Nobody wanted anything to do with him for about a week. And then I was gone.

I can’t believe I wrote that. Cringe.

Anyway, Weseley totally changed when I told him Dad killed himself. I should have said something else, like he died in war or-I don’t know-just something else like a more common kind of death. Would it be too weird if I said, ‘By the way, about the suicide thing? I was just joking. He really died of a heart attack. Ha ha ha.’

No. Maybe not.

Who the hell was Weseley? I looked at the date. Tomorrow, again. So between now and tomorrow evening I’d meet a Weseley. Absolutely impossible. Was he going to climb up the wall of Fort Rosaleen to say hello to me?

After having the weirdest dreams last night, I woke up feeling more tired than before I went to bed. After zilch sleep all I wanted to do was lie in bed all morning-actually, all day. This wasn’t going to happen. The talking clock rapped on my door once before entering.

‘Tamara, it’s nine thirty. We’re off to ten o’clock mass and then the market for a short while.’

It took me a while to figure out what she was saying but eventually I mumbled something about not being a mass person and waited for a bucket of holy water to come pouring down on me. But there was no reaction of the sort. She gave my room a quick look to make sure I hadn’t spread feces all over the walls overnight and then said it was fine if I stayed home and kept an eye on mum.

Hallelujah.

I heard the car leave the drive, imagined her in a twinset with a brooch and a hat with flowers, even though I’d seen she wasn’t wearing one. I imagined Arthur in a top hat driving a convertible Cadillac and the whole world sepia-coloured outside as they went off to Sunday mass. I was so happy they’d allowed me to stay, I didn’t think that perhaps she didn’t want to be seen with me at mass or at the market, until later on when the hurt, though minute, set in. I drifted off again but awoke I don’t know how much later to the sound of a car horn. I ignored it and tried to sleep again but it honked louder and longer. I scrambled out of bed, and pushed open the window, ready to shout abuse but instead started laughing when I saw Sister Ignatius squashed into a yellow Fiat Cinquecento with three other nuns. She was in the back seat, the window was rolled down and half her body was through the gap as though she’d suddenly spurted towards the sun.

‘Romeo,’ I called, pushing open the window.

‘You look like you’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards.’ And then she tried to make me go to mass with her. Her efforts were in vain. Then one of the other sisters tried to pull her back into the car. She folded herself back into the car and immediately it took off, not slowing or indicating as they rounded the corner. I saw a hand wave as they roared away and heard, ‘Thanks for the boooook!’ as they flew round the corner.

I dozed for another few hours, enjoying the space and the freedom to be lazy without clanging pots hinting at me from the kitchen or a vacuum cleaner hitting against my bedroom door as Rosaleen hoovered the landing carpet. For the moments I was awake I pondered what Rosaleen had said the night before. About calling Mum a liar. Had they fought? Had Arthur and Mum fought? She seemed perfectly happy to greet him when we arrived, though. What had changed, if anything had at all? I needed to find time alone with Arthur to really talk to him.

I checked on Mum, who at eleven a.m. was still sleeping, which was unusual for her, but a hand under her nose proved to me she was still alive and there was a picked-at breakfast tray beside the bed, which Rosaleen had left for her. I nibbled at some fruit from the kitchen, wandered around the house, picking up things, studying the few photographs dotted around the living room. Arthur with a giant fish, Rosaleen wearing pastels and holding on to her hat, while laughing, on a windy day. Then Rosaleen and Arthur together, always side by side, never touching, like they were both children forced to stand beside one another and pose for a photograph on their communion day; hands by their sides, or clasped on their fronts, like butter wouldn’t melt.

I sat in the living room and continued to read the book Fiona had given me. At one o’clock on the button, when Arthur and Rosaleen’s car returned to the house, a sense of heaviness came over me. My space was gone, rooms would be shared again, games would be played, mysteries would continue.

What on earth had I been thinking?

I should have explored. I should have broken into the shed and seen how much space they really had. I think Rosaleen is lying about that. I should have called a doctor and had Mum looked at. I should have investigated across the road, or at least peeked in the back garden. I should have done lots of things, but instead I had sat in the house and moped. And it would be another week until I’d have that time again.

What a wasted day.

Note to self: don’t be an idiot in future, and leave the window open.

I’ll write again tomorrow.

I put the diary back into the floor and replaced the board. I took a fresh towel from the cupboard and my good shampoo which was almost empty and irreplaceable due both to convenience and, for the first time in my life, cost. I was about to get into the shower when I remembered the mention of Sister Ignatius’ visit this morning. It would be the perfect opportunity to test the diary. I kept the shower running and waited on the landing.