Nine Folds Make a Paper Swan

by Ruth Gilligan

  ‘So last weekend when no one was around Janey Quinn dunked the little pet into the kitchen sink and said a few prayers, to make sure he wasn’t ending up in limbo.’

  Only now the decision must be made – which side of her won’t be invited back.

  ‘But because he didn’t realise, the following day Daithí Quinn did exactly the same – tipped the wee one over the sink…’

  Her choice stacked up in her bedroom with the gaffer tape like a gagged mouth that needs to speak.

  ‘…so the lucky thing is after getting a double dip!’

  ‘Noah has asked me to convert to Judaism for him.’

  As soon as it comes, the laughter for the anecdote dies a death.

  They stare at her, their spoons held aloft. Her father. Her brother. Her mother.

  Aisling lifts a finger to bite a nail, the rim bloodshot like an eye.

  She doesn’t know how long they sit there, staring, a family of mutes, the sickly slime of jelly on their teeth. After a while, Aisling finds herself thinking about that couple from the bomb again. She wonders if the man ever found his lover, underneath the rubble, or if he is still looking for her even now; wandering Ireland and refusing to accept that they have really been blown apart.

  ‘Aisling? When did this— ’

  ‘Oh love. We had no— ’

  ‘Pub?’

  Slowly, she moves her eyes to her brother. Already he has stood up, his head cocked towards the door, away from their parents’ stumbles.

  So she rises, following him out into the freezing night, the suburb streets weaving down and away like a maze they might never escape.

  When they step inside, O’Gormon’s is pure swelter. The place has been renovated since the last time she was here, a more sophisticated model. Roaring fire. Reek of turf. Blackboard specials, an impossible eighteen Euro.

  Everyone knows everyone.

  Everyone is drunk.

  Everyone except for her.

  They shove their way through the half-cut light, trying for the bar, but the sea of Christmas jumpers is dense; the wall of Jaysus, Creedon, is that you? We heard you’d married a kangaroo! The various snippets of the annual rant in all its different forms, like how lucky they are to have escaped, but how bloody amazing it is to be home – The Gathering indeed – nostalgia and disdain all slurred into one, the emigrant’s beautiful paradox.

  Séan orders the first round just in time for ‘Fairytale of New York’ by the Pogues to belt out over the speakers, as if the raptures couldn’t grow any more rapturous. Aisling has to hold her vodka in the air like an offering to the Gods to avoid the thrust of the elbows; the Céilí dance, part-merriment part-violence.

  As it happens, she got to do the obituary for Shane McGowan himself, lead singer of the Pogues. They call it an ‘advance’ or a ‘pre-dead’, written and stashed away so that when he finally boots the bucket, all they need to do is add the when/where/how of the end – the mouldy cherry on the top. It turns out he grew up down in Tipperary, but then deferred to London – a literature scholarship to Westminster School, no less. Only he was expelled then for bold behaviour – bold, pikey Irish behaviour – and decided to write songs about bums and lost dreams instead.

  ‘Jesus, all the old heads.’ It takes Séan a full five minutes to join her at the table in the corner, resisting the pleas to stay social.

  They should have gone somewhere quieter, Aisling thinks. They shouldn’t have come at all.

  ‘And did you see the state of Joe Mac?’ he goes on. ‘I heard from Facebook he’s after getting engaged, but Christ, you wouldn’t know it from the cut of him.’

  She nods, though she doesn’t answer; takes a mouthful of her drink. Facebook profiles. LinkedIn. Dating apps and sites. All just the same as obituaries, really – the glowingly inaccurate portraits of the people we would like to be.

  ‘And do mine, do mine,’ Noah had once begged her.

  ‘Fine.’ She had smiled, wondering just how cruel she could get away with. ‘How about: “Banking bigshot turned illusionist, desperate for love. Skills: Killer risotto chef and origami master. Weaknesses: Does whatever his mammy says.”’

  His laugh was wild but his reply tame, knowing by now her skin was never quite as thick as she made out. ‘“Irish bombshell, tentatively seeking. Whose steely determination breaks hearts and touches lives.”’

  ‘Tea-totaller,’ she had joked, guarding herself against the sentiment.

  ‘Likes long walks in the rain.’

  ‘Ha! My arse.’

  ‘Oh yes, of course, and how could I fail to mention the perfect arse?’

  ‘Well, strictly speaking it wouldn’t be the first time you’ve decided to switch religions.’

  It takes a full moment to register Séan’s voice. Or at least, the Australian version. And then another to realise what he has said – the acknowledgement come at last.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do you not remember? You were about five at the time. Said you wanted to become a Protestant because you were going up North to try and solve the “Doubles”. That’s what you called them – the “Doubles”. As if the problem was just something to do with the number two.’

  She stares at the vodka as if she will find the memory there, but she can manage nothing – a portrait of another girl entirely. She listens.

  The gathered voices bellow something about an NYPD choir; a place called Galway Bay.

  ‘Well, if it’s any use,’ Séan says next, producing a packet of Tayto crisps –nostalgia’s sake and nothing else – God knows they have eaten enough, ‘but Mum and Dad won’t mind, if that’s what you’re worried about.’

  Aisling rolls her eyes, inhaling cheese and onion.

  ‘No, I mean it,’ he says, chewing fast. ‘They seem to have liked your man the few times they’ve met him. Never made much fuss about him being— ’

  ‘So then what about the Quinns’ fucking granddaughter?’ The snap is louder than she means it to be, which only makes her more annoyed. She looks away to behind the bar where the waitress is stealing a gulp from a dented two-litre bottle of TK red lemonade.

  ‘What?’

  The bob of the Adam’s apple is violent, a hard-fought battle with the fizz.

  ‘I mean…’ she says. ‘Can’t you just see them, like, with me and Noah’s poor baby?’ She tries to stay calm, but her voice is rising. ‘Dunking him in the kitchen sink when no one is around, to baptise him on the sly? Give him a nice saint’s name, just to be sure, his snipped little willy and all.’ She glares at her brother, wondering when was the last time he slept – probably continents ago.

  But all of a sudden he is gone, doubled up with laughter. She is not long after. Whether it is the mental image or the tension, neither is sure, only that their laughs are noisy over the fiddle’s instrumental, a crack in her throat and a dimple in his chin she had forgotten about when he smiles too hard.

  Their shoulders shake for longer than they might.

  ‘And Aisling?’ Séan asks, his voice still high-pitched. ‘How long has Dad been sleeping in the spare room?’

  Until they stutter still.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I’m a bit— ’

  ‘I know,’ she says. ‘I know, Séan. Me too.’

  The song fades out. The bar is silent, a heave of elation and exhaustion before they have to do the whole thing all over again.

  Aisling looks the other way. This time she sees a couple standing in the corner, the girl’s hand in the boy’s back pocket, stealing his soul.

  ‘Well look,’ Séan sighs, his most serious-sounding yet. ‘I know it’s a big decision.’ He finishes his drink to be sure. ‘But I’d just… take my time if I were you – just talk it through with Noah and— ’

  ‘Well, that’s the thing.’ She ignores the stab of the name. ‘We’
ve… we’ve broken up.’

  ‘Oh. So that’s why you ended up coming— ’

  ‘Yeah,’ she admits, all other excuses long gone. ‘That’s why I came home. We were supposed to spend Christmas together – or December the twenty-fifth, whatever – but I think… well, if we don’t… I think I’ve decided that’s the end.’

  She looks down. Her beer mat has gone soft and torn in two.

  And she knows, really, that there is no rush, the ultimatum as much in her head as anything. But she also knows that if she is ever going to make a decision then she needs the cut-off point – Jesus, they have wasted enough time on this already – no point dragging the thing out. Plus, that is how she has always functioned, on deadlines.

  And lifelines?

  ‘And tell me, Ash.’ Séan takes on the last of the crisps. ‘Is he the one?’

  She shoves the cardboard pieces back together again. If only she had a strip of gaffer tape to make it right. ‘What?’

  The couple is closer now, the boy nibbling the girl’s neck, a cluster of stars tattooed down the length of her nape.

  ‘You know – the one. Is he?’

  And Noah once suggested that they got a tattoo themselves, the pair of them, right across their knuckles. He said they should find a phrase that only made sense when they held hands – all the letters, slotting into place.

  T

  H

  I

  S

  I

  S

  H

  O

  M

  E

  ‘Well, it depends…’ she replies, the ghost of a smile as she dips her finger into the crumbs, the foil of the pack like blue wrapping paper. ‘Did I mention about the book?’

  The bedroom is barely lit by the antique lamp. The Journalism MA sits framed on the wall, next to Mandela’s eyes – the poster poignant now he has finally passed away. Down the back of the door hangs a map of the world, a slit at Antarctica so the handle can poke through, a strange beast rising up from beneath the glaciers.

  ‘OK, well, I’ll leave you to it, so.’ Séan stands in the middle of the room, remembering in glances. ‘Let me know if there’s anything else you need.’ He turns to go, clumsy with his step – one pint too many and the rest – but then he stops and lingers at the map, tracing the epic span he has to cross again in just one week’s time.

  Aisling wonders what she could say to make him stay.

  His footsteps disappear down the stairs before the muffled shriek of the television comes to life. Three a.m. programming, though his body clock probably doesn’t know any better.

  She waits a minute longer, straining. The silence of a family at night. Somehow the most together it will ever be.

  She sits for a while with the book in her lap. She dozes then wakes almost immediately. The push on her belly makes her need to pee. She cannot for the life of her get up. So instead she decides to open it; to tense her hands, one beneath the bulk of it and the other to hold the cover down, the leather so dark you’d think it would rub off on your skin.

  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.

  She stares at the first in the checklist – the preparation for everything that lies ahead. She feels herself waver, her and this other self, the one she may or may not become.

  But eventually she reads on, for better or for worse. Because maybe it is the buzz of the evening, or her good-for-nothing-or-possibly-everything brother, but if she has any hope of finding an answer then she supposes she may as well know it all first, every last word – the bones and the basics and the right questions to ask – the pages held together if only just. And whenever she thinks about stopping she pictures her parents next door in their two separate bedrooms, their two separate beds, facing the other way. She ­wonders if they bothered to cut their electric blanket down the middle too.

  part four | In the desert…

  1931

  What about the one with the farmer in the desert?’ Ruth almost shouted the question, loud enough so that it could be heard over the wheeze of the almost-mother who lay below on the hospital bed, her lungs declaring war on the agony between her legs.

  ‘Or maybe the legend of Oisín and Princess Niamh? And the land of Tír na nÓg?’ Ruth sopped a cloth across the woman’s forehead, glancing at the splatter of blood up the wall.

  It always looked more like they were in the business of killing here, instead of the opposite.

  ‘Well, her name was Niamh,’ she went on, no time to wait for an answer. She saw the first glimpse of skull begin to show. ‘Niamh of the Golden Hair.’ The cranial bones spread out across the anterior fontanelle. ‘And his was Oisín, son of Fionn— Now just keep pushing, Mrs Klein, we’re nearly there— ’

  But in between panting, it seemed the patient had other ideas. ‘No!’ she cried, toes flexed skeletal with the force of it. ‘The story,’ she said. ‘Don’t you dare stop the story!’

  As she crouched down, Ruth tried her best to hide her smile, her palms stretched wide and ready for anything.

  It had become her signature addition, this telling of tales – the reason the expectant mothers requested her, specifically, to do the honours. Of course, the vast majority of them also tended to share her religion, faces she recognised from around her new Dublin neighbourhood, but she liked to think it was more than just that.

  Apparently her father was a great man for the stories too.

  A bit odd that she’s so up on all the native ones, nu?

  Ah, but from what I hear there was oddness in the family. Sure have you seen the state of those eyes?

  ‘So Tír na nÓg,’ Ruth went on, then translated: ‘The Land of the Young. It was a gorgeous place in the far far West, off the edge of any map. But there, nobody ever grew old, or knew sickness or pain, only beauty and most of all youth.’

  The skull slipped out a little further, almost an eye. Ruth spotted the tips of ears.

  ‘And the poet Oisín was invited by the beautiful Princess Niamh to come and live with her in— Deep breaths now, Mrs Klein. Remember in-out, in-out, like we— ’

  ‘Keep going! I said keep going!’

  It had started with a few of Tateh’s forgotten ideas, something to distract the mothers-to-be. Then after a while, Ruth had added a couple of Niamh’s stories too, and then a few bits she had gathered herself over the years – books and rumours and things overheard – all the little Irish snippets. So now when the big day finally arrived she felt as much of a responsibility bringing another child safely into this world as she did bringing it specifically into this country, this tapestry of tales.

  ‘So Niamh took Oisín atop her magical horse— That’s it, pushing, pushing— Who could gallop atop the Atlantic— You’ve got to— ’

  ‘The story! Give me the story.’

  ‘Until, eventually— That’s it… Eventually they reached… that blessed, sacred…’

  ‘AH!’

  They let the baby’s cries finish the myth for them, the gurgle like a gobful of sea.

  Ruth held the tiny fidget of flesh in her hands while Maura, her assistant, called the father inside. She handed him the scissors, slippery fingers that could barely believe let alone cut.

  Ruth remembered she once heard someone say umbilical cords were a bit like phone lines, linking us all together.

  ‘A boy,’ she announced now as she wiped the child clean. ‘A beautiful baby boy.’ Smearing away red mucus of his old world and exposing his perfect skin to the shiver of this one instead.

  It took hours every night to scrub away the rings of pink from underneath her nails.

  She handed the tiny creature over to his parents; saw the first sinews of love reach out to meet him, as pure as they would ever be. And she could have stayed all
day, watching them – a jealousy and a joy – the moments she only ever saw from the outside, looking fondly in. But once Mr and Mrs Klein had signed the birth certificate (Nataniel Joshua; 7 lbs 7 oz) Ruth wished the family well and left them alone. She never liked to linger too long, despite how their eyes suddenly pleaded in terror as she walked away, out into the squeak of the corridor, the feel of it so empty compared to the delivery room circus.

  Tír na nÓg. The Land of Eternal Youth.

  She smiled. She hadn’t told that one in a while.

  She scuttled away from the room, her shoes giddy on linoleum skids. She dodged the traffic of wheelchairs and beds, the smell of raw meat and the sound of cries from lungs as small as pebbles. She took the marble staircase down to the hospital’s entrance hall, the mahogany banister steady beneath hands that still buzzed with the touch of new skin, so supple you’d think your fingers would leave dents in it.

  The foyer was lavish in tiles and chandeliers; pregnant women and bag-eyed men. Ruth smiled at them all, longing to just sit them down and fix them a round of tea. A couple of biccies. But she couldn’t linger just yet, because she still had to cross to the back staircase and descend again – one more step before the birth was truly complete. If anything, she thought, as she scraped her key into the basement lock, her favourite step of all.

  It was three years now since she had moved to Dublin; nearly two since she had joined The Rotunda. Originally it had been called the Dublin Lying-In Hospital, as if the women just checked in for a couple of extra hours in bed. But as a maternity hospital it was the first of its kind in Europe, and, as of 1926, it held the rare distinction of having a Jewish man for its Master. Bethel ­Solomons was an Irish rugby legend turned gynaecologist, his giant paws guiding those babies’ heads with the same tenderness as they had guided those leather balls. Though Ruth had heard they used to make them out of pigs’ bladders, so she wondered if his parents had made him wear gloves while he played, to keep the victories pure.

  His cousin was a friend of Leb Epstein’s, so when Ruth relocated to the capital a meeting had been set up. She had been terrified, awake through the night staring at her compass – surely she was too old to be starting all over again? But Dr Solomons had promised that if she managed to complete the Midwifery course at Trinity College then there would be a job here waiting for her, a fresh start in her fresh city, wrapped up in a dicky-bow smile.