Room (2010) by Donoghue Emma

Author:Donoghue, Emma [Emma, Donoghue,]
Format: epub
Publisher: Young Picador
Published: 2011-01-14T19:18:23.687000+00:00

Noreen’s there without me seeing, she asks if we’d like dinner by ourselves or in the dining room.

I carry all my toys in the big envelope. Ma doesn’t know there’s six not five. Some persons wave when we come in so I wave back, like the girl with the no hair and tattoos all her neck. I don’t mind persons very much if they don’t touch me.

The woman with the apron says she heard I went outside, I don’t know how she heard me. “Did you love it?”

“No,” I say. “I mean, no, thanks.”

I’m learning lots more manners. When something tastes yucky we say it’s interesting, like wild rice that bites like it hasn’t been cooked. When I blow my nose I fold the tissue so nobody sees the snot, it’s a secret. If I want Ma to listen to me not some person else I say, “Excuse me,” sometimes I say, “Excuse me, Excuse me,” for ages, then when she asks what is it I don’t remember anymore.

When we’re in pajamas with masks off having some on the bed, I remember and ask, “Who’s the first baby?”

Ma looks down at me.

“You told Morris there was a she that did a murder.”

She shakes her head. “I meant she got murdered, kind of.” Her face is away from me.

“Was it me that did it?”

“No! You didn’t do anything, it was a year before you were even born,” says Ma. “You know I used to say, when you came the first time, on Bed, you were a girl?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, that’s who I meant.”

I’m even more confused.

“I think she was trying to be you. The cord—” Ma puts her face in her hands.

“The blind cord?” I look at it, there’s only dark coming in the stripes.

“No, no, remember the cord that goes to the belly button?”

“You cutted it with the scissors and then I was free.”

Ma’s nodding. “But with the girl baby, it got tangled when she was coming out, so she couldn’t breathe.”

“I don’t like this story.”

She presses her eyebrows. “Let me finish it.”

“Idon’t—”

“He was right there, watching.” Ma’s nearly shouting. “He didn’t know the first thing about babies getting born, he hadn’t even bothered to Google it. I could feel the top of her head, it was all slippery, I pushed and pushed, I was shouting, ‘Help, I can’t, help me—’ And he just stood there.”

I wait. “Did she stay in your tummy? The girl baby?”

Ma doesn’t say anything for a minute. “She came out blue.”

Blue?

“She never opened her eyes.”

“You should ask Old Nick for medicine for her, for Sunday-treat.”

Ma shakes her head. “The cord was all knotted around her neck.”

“Was she still tied in you?”

“Till he cut it.”

“And then she was free?”

There’s tears falling all on the blanket. Ma’s nodding and crying but on mute.

“Is it all done now? The story?”

“Nearly.” Her eyes are shut but the water still slides out. “He took her away and buried her under a bush in the backyard. Just her body, I mean.”

She was blue.

“The her part of her, that went straight back up to Heaven.

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