Nine Folds Make a Paper Swan

by Ruth Gilligan

  In the wood beneath I noticed another set of letters. ‘AH’ carved into the grain.

  When my mother loosened her arms from around me the panic was quick to rush in, but I saw that it was only to grab her handbag and fumble for other things; tissues to wipe her face and the tear stain on my shirt – proof, at least, that she really was here.

  I could sense the nuns hovering in the office doorway. Sister Monica especially, a vulture for the scene.

  But Ima didn’t seem to care. ‘Shem, pet…’ Her body was turned at an angle so that it almost faced me but not quite. The light made a little halo around her features. ‘Shem, I’ve spoken to your father…’

  My heart knocked now, the same place in my ribs where her whispers had just been.

  ‘Shem, I’ve… I’ve been begging with him all month…’ Her voice was a little calmer than before, the tears wiped off and sucked away. ‘As… as you know, all along he’d said August, but he… he agreed to wait…’ A smoothness to them that poured over me like liquid, like grace.

  Because very slowly, through the shock, it began to dawn on me what exactly was going on – the last thing in the world I had expected.

  I began to smile.

  And I began to look around me now, to believe this was really it. I saw the bench below and the console table across the hall, the one with the telephone I had used to ring her, all those months ago. The call my friend had organised – his side of our special bargain.

  And then something else hit me, more pieces slotting into place, because ‘AH’. Of course! Alfred bloody Huff! So my smile let rip because finally the thing made sense – his initials, etched all over the house – the same-old fear of being forgotten and the need to leave something, any kind of thing, behind.

  ‘…but today’s the thirty-first now, pet, so we…’

  My triumph lasted a little longer, still only half-listening to what was being said, the particulars irrelevant to the truth. Talk about radiance! But then I faltered, letting the words play again; tripping up on the ‘we’. Because something about it didn’t sound quite right – not quite big enough for three.

  ‘Shem, we’re going tonight.’

  And very slowly my smile began to unrip itself, tooth by tooth.

  ‘Oh love, I have no choice!’ Ima was facing straight ahead now, so that all I could see was the curve of her ear, the jut of her jaw as it clenched and unclenched. ‘He’s my husband. And he says… Oh pet, it’s just so… It’s more complicated than you can possibly know. But it is very important that I go to Israel. To be… to be a good Jew.’ She ducked out of my sight then, leaving the strange words in her wake, though their sense was irrelevant compared to their tone. ‘So pet, I’ve brought you some things… Some photographs, like, just in case…’

  Her tiny fingers began to shuffle a little pile like cards for a trick; a last-minute miracle. ‘I thought that maybe, if you looked at them you might…’ And her voice began to fidget too, going up a pitch as she held out her offerings. ‘Look.’

  The first was her and me on my sixth birthday, surrounded by balloons. Already I was tall next to her, my mouth wide with two black locks hanging down around my ears and a bright green cone on my head that meant a party. A joy.

  The next one I was a bit older, lanky with acne and a large microphone. It was the Cheder Summer Concert, down in the Shul hall where I had squawked a rendition of ‘Goodnight Irene’ and dedicated it only to her despite how the other boys went nuts with their jeers.

  ‘Do you remember that, pet? You enjoyed that didn’t you? Sang so nicely for us all?’ She spoke as if to a child, word for simple word, a patronising music I knew was nothing but pure plea.

  I nodded.

  But the gesture only seemed to make her angry, the music booming louder again. ‘So then tell it to me, Shem. Why can’t you just tell me you did?’ The wet had returned to her eyes, red-rimmed like bitten nails. But then something distracted them at the corner and I looked as well.

  Sister Frances had emerged from the office. She scurried past us, out the front door, before she closed it gently behind her.

  The pause held us; a breath inhaled with no release.

  But then my mother had to let go. ‘Just one sentence,’ she continued, breaking it down for me as best she could. ‘Just something, love. A line. Come on.’ Such a simple request – surely it wasn’t too much to ask?

  But even now, in the pink of the hallway, I could only feel the same lines on my lips – the very ones I knew that I couldn’t give.

  Like: I saw you having an affair.

  Or: My mother was unfaithful to my father.

  Or: I am a gossip who spreads hurtful secrets, the worst crime a Jew can commit.

  She carried on. A photo of my first day of school. Us on holiday on a beach in Cork. Always the two of us, hand in hand; always smiling. I tried to picture her over in Israel – surely a much better beach by far – the proper Eastern sunshine instead of the pithy Irish spit. Not that she had ever been a great one for the tanning, the glare of it harshest on the backs of her knees and the little arcs of freckles that bloomed beneath her eyes. When I was a boy I told her they looked a bit like tears, brown ones that must have got stuck to her face.

  A face that was worth saving, that was for sure, even as it fell apart.

  ‘Shem, please.’ Her voice was straining thinner, the energy running out. ‘Please.’ A sound almost like I was strangling her; like she was begging me to stop. ‘Just a word – just one single word. That’s all it will take, I promise.’ Like the first time I heard her use the phrase lost for words and I thought that she meant the number four. Lost four words. ‘But it’s OK, Ima,’ I had tried to console her. ‘There are still lots of good ones left. Maybe even four hundred and forty-four?’ Until she closed her eyes and I knew that she would never understand. And out of everything, that hurt the most.

  The car horn beeped from out the front of the House. Sister Frances reappeared at the door. Ima waited, blind. A hope suspended. Before she opened her eyes and stood up; stepped back into the pastel light of the glass. She gathered her things and stuffed them reckless into her bag, not even caring when one of the pictures fell to the floor. And as I watched her it struck me that she looked a bit like an actress, packing away her props.

  It was the last time I ever saw her in my life.

  Tuesday

  The first thing she hears when she wakes is Shane McGowan’s voice, telling her it is Christmas Eve, babe.

  Christmas Eve. So this is it – she is staying?

  Outside, she can hear the day already alive; the percussion tock of the neighbours’ heels off into the city centre to join the rest of the hordes for family lunches and last-minute shopping, the whole of town heaving like a lung. Then at three o’clock Damien Rice and the other singer-songwriter types will go back to their roots for the annual Grafton Street busk, choruses of poetry warbled out onto the drink-sticky air; a cover version of ‘Fairytale of New York’ just to keep the mobs sweet.

  Aisling picks at the sleep from her eye. She sees the book on the floor where she left it last night after their drive; their failed attempt. Despite the electric-blanket sweat she shivers. Though when she does finally drag herself downstairs there is a bulge in the pouch of her hoodie; a reassurance in the weight of the thing as she goes.

  ‘Morning, darling.’ Her mother is ensconced in her armchair throne. Coffee. Marlboro Light. Three remote controls arranged in a row, armed for anything. ‘How’re you feeling?’

  The sitting room is a vast, beige thing – an endless vista, broken only by portraits of the four of them down through the years, different versions of Aisling scowling at the camera like she has anywhere in the world better to be than locked up in that gilded frame. The fire is set, a box of turf from some faraway bog. Above the mantelpiece hangs a series of watercolours by a renowned Cork artist, the
paint streaked as if they have been left out in the rain. And over it all lies a thin layer of dust, the same as the fuzz that scums Aisling’s teeth; scald it off with a mug of tea but she cannot be bothered to face the kitchen.

  ‘And looking to 2014, what the country needs is to embrace a more philosophical attitude…’ The radio’s musings sit her down, some news-show panel clattering from the speakers on the side. ‘…too afraid for too long of asking the big questions, and sure, look where that’s after getting— ’

  ‘Christ,’ her mother says. ‘Bit heavy for Christmas Eve, what?’ She aims one remote like a gun to shut it up, then another at the television to bring on the Planner screen. Aisling watches from the side.

  The pickings are slim, nothing but reality TV – her mother’s newfound fascination – obsessed with other people’s lives far more than her own. The pointer dithers between Sixteen and Pregnant or last week’s University Challenge – such an unlikely pair – until here they are, Queen’s University Belfast versus some Oxford team, a different college to Noah’s but Aisling knows she will be listening all the same.

  He used to ask why she never auditioned for the show herself – an encyclopaedic mind and a teenage lust for Jeremy Paxman – the man himself now firing out starter-for-tens until, finally, one sticks.

  ‘Correct,’ he tells a group of barely-adults, disdain in every syl­lable. ‘Three questions now on wildlife. First: Which dietary staple is the main source of the flamingo’s distinct pink colouring?’

  The Oxford lot plummet into a huddle; whispers like hisses until the chosen one emerges. ‘Shrimp?’

  ‘Correct,’ Paxman says. ‘Many species of flamingo predominantly filter feed on brine shrimp, the cartenoid proteins of which are then broken down into pink pigments by the liver enzymes.’

  ‘The shrimp diet?’ Aisling’s mother says, swilling her coffee. ‘Their cholesterol must be through the roof.’

  And they mustn’t be Jewish, Aisling thinks, for what it isn’t worth.

  ‘Question two,’ Paxman continues, oblivious to them all. ‘True or false: Giraffes are famed for their genetic lack of vocal cords.’

  The studio lighting glints off the students’ tortoiseshell glasses, making an ugly glare. Aisling wonders if they really have poor eyesight at all, or if they have just dressed up to play the part.

  How does a genius look and can I be one today?

  The image half the battle.

  She never did see Noah’s college, despite how he always suggested they pay a visit, even just a road trip for the afternoon – tumble over the cobbles and swoon at the Bodleian; take some snaps by the Porter’s Lodge. But she always declined, bitter jibes about how she would probably stick out like a sore thumb, the gormless Paddy imposter – the self-inflicted stereotypes that frustrated him the most.

  ‘True,’ the team captain announces.

  Paxman relishes in telling him otherwise. ‘And lastly, which member of the Anatidae family is distinct in its tendency to retain the same mate for life?’

  The contestants are beyond wired now, the final question of the round; the stakes shooting right to the sky. While her own body begins to twitch, wanting to call out the answer or to just rip a page from the book and fold it nine times, exactly how he once taught her.

  ‘Could you repeat the question?’

  ‘Which member,’ Paxman snarls, ‘of the Anatidae family is distinct in its tendency to retain the same mate for life?’

  Aisling looks at her mother, featureless behind a cough of smoke. She feels the dig of a corner in her rib, as hard and sharp as a stitch.

  ‘Is… is it a swan?’

  Paxman gives the points.

  Her mother snorts. ‘Stupid birds.’

  Aisling rolls away into the cushions. She hears a tinkle of coins that have fallen down, a fortune between the cracks, so close now to being lost forever.

  Half an hour later there is Séan, the stench of alcohol behind him like an entourage.

  ‘Struggling?’ Aisling deadpans.

  ‘Absolute ribbons,’ he replies, clutching a poppyseed bagel.

  ‘Town?’

  ‘Lock-in. Deadly craic. Just myself and JP.’

  ‘JP Dawson?’

  ‘Nah, JP Kenny.’

  A whole generation of namesakes. Born in the years after His Holiness John Paul II visited Ireland, so all the mammies decided to name their babbies in his honour.

  Next Aisling’s father joins the scene, bringing his own dose of religion. ‘Now, lads,’ he says. ‘Let’s talk about Mass.’ He is dressed to the nines, impeccably so, even though they have no plans for the day. ‘We could do midnight tonight, or tomorrow morning, but then it depends what you want to do about a Christmas Day swim? Could cycle down to the Forty Foot like we used to – start the big day the bracing way!’

  But Aisling cannot listen any more. Hangovers and Popes and Oxford brains; the reality of Christmas taking place after all.

  She abandons the couch and makes for bed; maybe for the beginning of the book all over again. Or even another round of Googling to try to track this Máire one down – to see what family, if any, she has left – just in case they might be willing to answer a couple of questions; a couple of starter-for-everythings.

  She stands, dancing with the headrush, half-cut on her brother’s Jäger breath. She thinks of the Pogues and then the other girl who was in the song as well, Kirsty MacColl. She died young, Aisling recalls; killed by a boat. She isn’t sure if she read the obituary somewhere, or if she is just making it up – formulating other lives as her own slips out of touch.

  This time, the phone joins in, lamentation shrill. The four of them stare at it like a bomb that is about to go off; to blast the beige apart.

  The calls are incessant at the newspaper. Strangers ringing up to ‘pitch’ their relatives’ lives, as if getting the portrait down in print will somehow ease the loss.

  ‘I’d like to propose…’

  ‘I was wondering if you would consider…’

  ‘He had a fascinating life my husband/ brother/ father/ soulmate…’

  Aisling and her colleagues will half-listen, jotting down the vague gist on a spare scrap of paper, trying to determine if the tale is worthy of a mention; an irrelevant midweek slot. Playing God, or at least the Gods of forgetting.

  Her father answers the call, booming his politician’s boom – ever the performer. As if, of course, she is one to talk. ‘Aisling. It’s for you.’

  She looks up, unconvinced. He must have got it wrong. It couldn’t be one of the girls – she knows she is etched firmly in the bad books there, having gone completely underground from the moment she returned. But her gut warns against the other option. She doesn’t think he has the number. And even if he did, would he really be so bold as to just barge into the middle of her family home?

  To make the decision for her?

  She takes the receiver, an antique model, mostly for show. A little cavern of cold against her ear and then a voice.

  She listens.

  She loops the stiff coil of wire around her finger, knotting the circulation blue, before she says goodbye and replaces the handset. ‘Mum, can I borrow the car?’ Though she is out of the room before the answer can even leave the contestant’s lips.

  There are no leaves on the trees to block her view so she sees the sign from the end of the street. It is a brightly coloured thing, a pretty drawing of a flower, almost as if the place were for children instead of the opposite. Down the side she spots the EU logo. Back when funds were flush. She makes a half-smile then indicates and turns.

  The car park is busy, chocked full with Christmas Eve visitors. As she parks she spots an Audi in the row next to her; thinks of the S7, the tack of the leather to the back of her thighs. Apparently Linda and Robert had been furious when he first chose it – a German make
? Noah, what were you thinking? – history and hurt laced into everything yet, a taste that will not go away.

  The voice on the phone had known very little really, only that there might still be a nephew of Gerry’s, maybe, locked up in a Home. Aisling had faltered on the word, sensing the capital letter even down the line, which made it a different thing entirely.

  And it is a feeble lead, she knows – pathetic, really – a wild goose chase she can barely remember beginning. But it is still better than the couch; still a thing she can be doing – explaining herself and asking questions like whether this woman did it? And was she happy? And what would be the price for me to be that thing too?

  She takes the book from the passenger seat and slams the door. She sees a SANTA STOP HERE sign in the porch, but doesn’t let it put her off. She wonders if it would be any different if people called it a ‘wild swan chase’ instead, and if, in a way, that’s what this really is.

  The reception area is a pantomime of tinsel. Banners and wreaths. Comfort and Joy. A backing track of classical music that goes smoothly on her nerves.

  She hovers for a moment, savouring.

  Her explanation to the receptionist is clumsy, like a foreigner speaking a language she doesn’t quite know, but eventually she is led in through the key-coded doors, ignoring the knock knock of her chest against the book so loud the nurse can surely hear.

  She is surprised by how meticulously the place is kept. A vase of lilies. Some crayon masterpieces: I HEART GRANDMA. A fold-up Christmas tree so that the needles do not shed. Only, the more she walks, the more she starts to register them too, sat in their armchairs, their wheelchairs, their upright beds; their skins as ­wrinkled as leather, the same texture as the old book clasped to her breast.

  And she stops then, suddenly realising. Has she forgotten herself entirely? Too other-self-obsessed to notice? Because here she is, an obituarist in a Home for the Elderly – talk about the Grim bloody Reaper! And she almost laughs; would if she weren’t knotted so tight; felt like an imposter already, but now?