Nine Folds Make a Paper Swan
Page 28
By the time his third read is done he has seen enough. He closes the cover and places it down on the floor. Next, he goes to the bedside table where a photograph sits in the drawer, its corners crispy like a leaf. The woman inside wears a swimsuit on a greying beach. She is smiling, one of her lips almost half as big as the other. Beside her in the sand grins a young boy, though he is almost the same height as her. His face is glowing, in the sunshine yes, but also just in her presence – it is clear how much he loves her – so much that he would do anything for her; would run into the freezing Atlantic right there and then; would give up his entire life and not say a single word if he thought that it would save her from disgrace.
If he thought wrong.
The old man places the photograph back into the drawer. He reaches up to the top of his head and takes off his kippah; drops it to the ground and gives it a little kick. Exposed, his bald patch feels very cold. One last time he looks around the unwritten room, the walls he barely recognises, before he crawls beneath the covers, face down into the feathery pillows. Because he had a friend once, in another life, who told him that it was better to be buried this way, just to be sure.
About the Author
Ruth Gilligan is an Irish novelist and journalist. Her debut novel Forget reached number one on the Irish bestsellers list when she was eighteen, making her the youngest person in Ireland ever to do so, while her subsequent books Somewhere In Between and Can You See Me? were both published while she was still at university. She writes and reviews for the Irish Times, the Irish Independent, the TLS and the Guardian, and she teaches creative writing at the University of Birmingham.
First published in hardback and trade paperback in Great Britain in 2016 by Atlantic Books, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.
Copyright © Ruth Gilligan, 2016
The moral right of Ruth Gilligan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
Every effort has been made to trace or contact all copyright-holders. The publishers will be pleased to make good any omissions or rectify any mistakes brought to their attention at the earliest opportunity.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Hardback ISBN: 978 1 78239 856 1
Trade Paperback ISBN: 978 1 78239 857 8
E-book ISBN: 978 1 78239 858 5
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