Nine Folds Make a Paper Swan

by Ruth Gilligan

  ‘This is for you both,’ she had said as she stood in the hallway of Linda and Robert’s home, each word already drafted and re-drafted in her mind. ‘To say thanks a million for having me.’ She held the bottle out across the gap, poised in her dry-cleaned black dress and her pinned-up blonde hair – the perfectly preened portrait.

  A voice in her head had mocked her for the act. She had glared at it to stop.

  But Linda Geller had just tossed the bottle towards one of the helpers without a single word – didn’t even check the label – and led Aisling through to the chintz-drenched dining room where the pregnant sister and the brother-in-law were waiting; the unnatur­ally coiffed grandmother with the lipstick-orange teeth and the barrage of questions from the moment Aisling sat down, a bowl of soup that never reached her lips.

  ‘Yes, Dublin,’ she had replied, starting as polite as she could. ‘A place called Dalkey. It’s near— ’

  ‘Eh, yes, Maeve Binchy, that’s right.’

  ‘No, I haven’t actually read— ’

  While Noah gripped her hand under the table for support, running his thumb on the soft web of flesh between each finger. Though the tips of his were always rough, callous-hard, as if the magic burned a little every time.

  ‘But I think things are looking up. The Recession— ’

  ‘No, not why I left, actually. Got offered a great— ’

  ‘Obituaries, yes. As they say, the “dead centre” of the newspaper!’

  Next, Noah filled her glass right up to the brim, bargaining for her patience.

  ‘Interesting, yes. Although really it’s not— ’

  ‘Making a narrative out of life. Something we do every— ’

  ‘Ultimately? I’m not sure. Current Affairs has always been— ’

  Doing a decent impression of a son’s current girlfriend whom he has chosen all wrong, but who does seem to be giving all the right answers for now, nu?

  Eventually, the staff had appeared to clear the chicken soup away. Apparently Linda Geller always got the caterers in for special occa­s­ions, needing everything to be just so, no deviations.

  Aisling noticed they were mostly foreigners. She tried to catch their eye.

  It had been beef then for the main course. Potatoes and peas. A pile of onion rings on the side, a pool of grease to signify that ancient oil lamp – she had read all about this too. But with the change of course the conversation began to move on as well, leaving Aisling in peace. For now. But no, do not talk to me about peace – did you hear about the latest attack? Five dead, I read six, may their names be blessed, and none of them of course well there’s a surprise could you pass the piccalilli? And did you read that piece on the Levesen Inquiry in the Guardian? Sammy Stogel’s son… Blake Grant’s younger— And Blake’s a nice name, Olivia – what do you think of Blake? But Mum, I told you, it is bad luck to name him before he is born. Well, tell them, Robert, I had you two chosen before you were even conceived!

  So the conversation had zagged onwards. David Cameron to Dinos Chapman; politics to culture to pass the salt but it is bad for you and so what, so is living. Well, did you hear about Bonnie ­Matthews? No – Cancer? Aliyah? Apparently Moti’s brother has started keeping bees. What, in this country? Is he mad? And the new Warhol exhibition at Tate Modern – absolutely awful stuff. His ‘Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century’ – a colder looking bunch you will never see!

  Only, the longer they went on, the more they didn’t feel cold to Aisling at all, the hurtle warming her up, more beef and more onions and another glass full, ’til she was bold enough to think about joining in, offering her opinions; even, eventually, to think about arguing back.

  ‘But isn’t that the whole point with Warhol? Giving value to banality? I mean, I wouldn’t take it personally if I were you.’

  They looked at her then as if they had forgotten she was even there. She had stared back, refusing to falter, daring a reply. She noticed the grandmother picking at something in her teeth, though she didn’t seem able to catch it.

  Aisling could tell they were surprised, startled even, by the guts of her chiming in, stepping out from her neat little box. But then they had smiled. ‘Well, she does have a point…’ Had challenged her even further. ‘What about Jasper Johns? Are you familiar with his work?’ Had pointed at her glass. ‘Another drop?’

  And then they had asked other questions too, ones that hadn’t been rehearsed; even, eventually, had laughed at her jokes. While Aisling savoured every mouthful, feeling herself flush – not an act any more – all her nerves finally faded and something else there instead, a warmth and a welcome she hadn’t known in a long time, maybe even since she had first arrived to this Godforsaken country, yes, maybe this almost felt a bit like—

  The word jumps her now, filling in the blank.

  ‘Home.’ Noah turns off the ignition with the push of a button.

  To their right the outline of her flat sits hunched above, the grimy whitewash of the Islington terrace.

  As it cools, the engine clicks a metronome beat.

  They sit side by side, each waiting for the other to speak; to exhale at last; to say thank you?

  Out on the street, an old man passes by with his dog, a thin pink plastic bag of shit in one hand and a Santa hat perched on his head. There are five days left ’til Christmas.

  Without the hum of the engine the silence sits even louder between them, the one that still doesn’t make sense. And suddenly the thought occurs to Aisling that maybe she has done something wrong. Convinced she had been a success – that he would be pleased with her, or at least just relieved – but what if she hadn’t? What if there was something she had missed? A bit too comfortable, or a presumption too far – something anyway that has Noah frowning now, building his face right up for the fight.

  ‘Aisling— ’

  ‘What?’ As soon as he speaks she steels herself for defence.

  ‘Just…’

  The pulse of the parcel goes quicker in her groin. God, get her out of this fucking dress.

  ‘Just… Let’s just save the present until tomorrow, OK? I need to pop to the office but I’ll come over straight after, cook us up some brunch, and then we can sit down properly and discuss it all when— ’

  ‘What are you talking about discuss?’ She feigns laughter now as she takes her confusion out on the wrapping paper. ‘Jesus, Noah, it’s only a present – what’s the big fucking deal?’ Wrenching it at last and tossing it behind her all over the back of the car, the shreds like sparks from a bright blue firework. And she remembers once telling him about how fireworks are illegal in Ireland; about how you have to drive up North at Halloween to the lads with their crates plonked along the border haggling a wee deal on some screamers and a load of Catherine wheels.

  By the time the thing is unwrapped Aisling is out of breath. The newborn book is leather, the back cover torn off and then stuck on again, set like a broken limb. The words on the front, though, are elegant in gold.

  ‘What… what…’ Her accent is always stronger when she is breathless, during sex most of all. ‘What is this?’

  Noah waits. A car drives past; it doesn’t have its headlights on. Still he gives no answer.

  She lets the query linger – damned if she will be the one to speak – but of course, she already knows what the present is. Exactly. Realises that in a way, she always did – the climax of everything that was set in motion when he made the dinner invitation. Or even when she first sat there on that stranger-wedged Tube, the one with the paper swan.

  A scrap of blue has got stuck beneath her barely there nail. She tilts it to catch a light.

  Only, if this is the moment she has been waiting for, reading for, then why doesn’t it feel how she thought it would? Why is her body suddenly exhausted, wishing it were anywhere else – maybe down by the canal or back on the Undergrou
nd, the hurtle of the tracks so loud you can’t even hear yourself think, only wait for the moment where you glimpse a passing Tube; a reflection in the darkness of another route, another life, that disappears again just as quickly.

  ‘Look, I know it’s second hand…’ Here in the car, Noah has begun to explain. ‘And totally out of date. So please don’t think you have to… Obviously we will…’ She can see how careful he is being with every word, the moment suddenly fragile as glass. ‘But according to Mum, it’s the only one that was ever published in Ireland, so she thought you… That it might… Anyway, she spent forever trying to track it down. To get you the— ’

  ‘Shut up.’

  With two words, she sees the colour bleed from his face, the tint of him turned as pale as her.

  ‘What?’

  Paler than the whitewash of a dingy one-bed flat on a deserted Islington street.

  ‘I said shut up.’

  Ghost white. Or even blind white, like a panic setting in. Or like—

  ‘Shut up shut up shut up!’

  While below, the gilded letters catch the glow from the streetlamps that has stolen in through the window, to light the whole thing up as it breaks apart.

  A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY –

  CONSIDERING A JUDAIC CONVERSION?

  by

  Rabbi Briscoe

  [O’Brien Press]

  Right from the Commencement of the Journey, One Must Be Open and Honest About the Myriad of Thoughts that Will Undoubtedly Fill One’s Mind.

  ‘OK,’ Aisling begins as she opens the book. ‘Let me get this straight.’ A change in her already – the sarcasm always so quick off the mark. ‘Basically I’m after getting the thumbs up. Passed their interrogations – the Jewish bloody Inquisition – but it turns out it’s like, yes, we approve, but of course we can’t actually approve unless—’

  ‘Aisling, come on. That’s not fair.’

  ‘No? Because from where I’m sitting— ’

  ‘And it’s not like you didn’t know this was coming.’ Once he has said it Noah stares at the gearstick, wondering whether to dare. But he has started now, everything has, a ship that’s found land too hard and too soon.

  ‘Well, I mean, you’ve at least been… playing along…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Asking questions, doing research…’

  ‘Noah, I’m a journalist – that’s what I— ’

  ‘…weren’t even going to go home for Christmas.’

  At this one she has no choice but to stop. She glances at the book. She has opened to the checklist on the very first page – the patronising pointers to start her off.

  It had been an early December evening there in her attic sitting room, the pair of them full from Noah’s latest recipe-book feast. He sat glaring at a deck of cards while she skimmed an obituary about some American actress who had drowned herself in a lake, a hint of bravery to the story she couldn’t quite place.

  So instead she spoke: ‘Noah, I’ve been thinking about Christmas.’

  Despite the surprise of the words he had stayed fixated on his cards, knowing the attention would only make her self-­conscious. Every bit of him, though, had strained to hear, his favourite moments, these, when she let down her guard.

  ‘I just… I still haven’t booked my flights, and they’ve gone up loads…’

  He could make half the deck disappear in a flash; make the Kings and Queens pop up outside the window looking in on her confession. Her plea.

  ‘I suppose there’s always the ferry, but I get awful sea legs.’

  Could make a Heart appear right there in her breast pocket, contrary to what she liked people to believe.

  ‘…really hectic at the paper. And plus, if you’ve got a few days off work, it just seems a bit of a shame— ’

  ‘So then don’t go.’ Until there it was, the trick she had been struggling with all along. ‘Stay with me. You’re right,’ he said, ‘it would be great to have the few days together. You can get your work done and then maybe we could head up to the Lakes or something for New Year’s Eve? A proper escape from this place.’

  In a way, another kind of bravery.

  So she had just done it – or rather, just hadn’t done it – hadn’t booked her flights. It was a shame to miss the festivities, she knew that, but she told herself it was only a once off; that she really was manic with work. Even if a voice inside kept reminding her that the dead would still be dead when she got back. They had a one-week window to publish celebrity obituaries; up to four weeks for everyone else. When her editor had first explained it she thought it sounded a bit like a ‘Month’s Mind’. Only, she discovered then that that was just an Irish tradition, the ceremony in the local church one month after the funeral, to stop people moving on that bit too soon – another round of sandwiches and stories down the pub, Guinness-licked and gorgeous on the tongue.

  ‘Ah, but it turns out that was just an elaborate fucking test.’ She readjusts herself in the passenger seat now, the seatbelt-chafe taut across her chest. Really, it is the only support she has left. ‘And go on, so did everyone in the family have a vote or could certain people veto, Security Council style? Or what is it in Israel – the Knesset – but of course, excuse me for knowing that.’

  ‘Ash— ’

  ‘And how about you, Noah? What did you say to all of this?’

  This time she leaves space for him to answer. He looks at her, straight on, his frown holding fast but only just. ‘I… I explained… that things were complicated— ’

  ‘Oh Jesus, if I hear that word one more bloody… But tell me why, Noah? Come on – you’re an articulate lad. Oxford fucking educated, in case I hadn’t noticed, so explain to me, why is it always so complicated? Or would my poor little Irish brain not— ’

  ‘For God’s sake, Aisling, you know why!’ He looks away from the shouted words back down at the book on her thighs. He sees the off-white of the paper and the wrinkle of the leather, almost like the palm of a hand he used to try to read, back in his earlier, eager days, the love line running short.

  ‘Well, go on then. Enlighten me.’ And she is daring him now, he knows that – forcing him to say all the things that have remained unsaid.

  He fell for the challenge in her right from the start, even if he knew, deep down, it would be the thing to undo them again.

  ‘Because there is something… When the time comes…’ He is tentative still, considering, one last chance to double back. ‘Just always assumed I would…’ Before he realises there is nowhere left to go. ‘Aisling, I need…’ And that actually, that is sort of amazing. ‘Aisling, I… I want to marry someone Jewish.’

  Be Sure to Contemplate the Glorious Scale of One’s ­Journey’s Final Goal.

  She lets the words replay in her head, or really just one of them. The only one. As surprising as it is expected.

  In the distance they hear a siren, the yell of it ripping through the night.

  And beneath it, for a moment, she hears another high pitch – a voice that sounds almost like her own, saying yes. Yes! I mean, I will have to think about it, but… Relished tonight… Felt so welcome, so inspired… And there would be love in there too, surely? Not infatu­ation or joking or cutting remarks, just love, pure and simple. Everything better since… Never been this… Something, maybe, about belonging? And I know I never admit it and sometimes I tell you you’re strange, like that time you made a paper swan appear while we were having sex as if I had given birth and I panicked and screamed at you to fuck off home when actually I liked it.

  Really?

  Yes.

  She looks at him now, seeing this new version of herself reflected back in the dark of those eyes, the same black as the London midnight. ‘Noah,’ she says, barely a whisper. ‘Noah, I…’

  ‘Aisling, it’s OK, we don’t have to…’r />
  While beyond him, out the window, a plane scratches a line through the moon. The plane she decided not to take.

  ‘Noah, I…’

  The plane she could never take again.

  ‘Aisling?’

  The self she wouldn’t be any more.

  ‘I can’t— ’

  And the panic she still cannot ignore.

  ‘Aisling, I’m not— ’

  ‘Yes you fucking are.’ It is with the last dreg of strength that she picks the book out of her lap and flings it, dead against his forehead.

  His whole body flinches, unbreathing. For a moment she thinks he might pass out. But then his hand reaches up to the spot so she opens the door, the ice-cold air gushing in to try to stop the swelling.

  One Must Try One’s Utmost Not to Flee When It Becomes Too Much. Undeniably It Is an Overwhelming Process, but Thorough Rewards will Ensue Provided One Remains Calm and Committed.

  She pushes herself up and out of the car, headfirst into the night. Through blurred eyes she notices the neighbours must have found some Christmas lights, a string of them thonged up between the railings.

  She stabs at the lock until she is in the door and up up up the stairs, all the way to the top-floor flat. It always tickled him, that – the bachelorette in the attic – said that she would grow old and alone and get cats and go crazy and then she told him that in Ireland (never heard of it, ha ha) there is a phrase for someone who is crazy – that they have ‘rats in the attic’. And he had kissed her then, swallowing the knowledge, telling her that in Yiddish they say meshuga – a piece of his world for a piece of hers – holding the shards up to the light to squint at the differences, the connections. Because South Dublin and North London were just the same if you tilted your head, the colloquialisms and the community, the flocks spread out all over the—

  She slams the door so hard it makes her chest shake.