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The Night Brother
Rosie Garland
‘Echoes of Angela Carter’s more fantastical fiction reverberate through this exuberant tale of a hermaphrodite Jekyll and Hyde figure … enjoyably energetic’ SUNDAY TIMESLate nineteenth-century Manchester is a city of charms and dangers – the perfect playground for young siblings, Edie and Gnome. But as they grow up, they grow apart, and while Gnome revels in the night-time, Edie wakes each morning, exhausted and uneasy, with only a dim memory of the dark hours.Convinced she deserves more than this half-life, she tries to break free from Gnome and forge her own future. But Gnome is always right behind, somehow seeming to know her even better than she knows herself. Edie must choose whether to keep running or to turn and face her fears.The Night Brother is a dazzling and adventurous novel exploring questions of identity, belonging, sexual equality and how well we really know ourselves.
Copyright (#u888039a4-2cb4-5c07-bf4b-ea851005cb8a)
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
The Borough Press
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2017
Copyright © Rosie Garland 2017
Rosie Garland asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
Cover design by Micaela Alcaino © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018
Cover photograph © Shutterstock.com (http://shutterstock.com)
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books
Source ISBN: 9780008166137
Ebook Edition © May 2018 ISBN: 9780008166120
Version: 2018-02-12
Dedication (#u888039a4-2cb4-5c07-bf4b-ea851005cb8a)
For Manchester
and all the wanderers who have found a home
in this Rainy City
Epigraph (#u888039a4-2cb4-5c07-bf4b-ea851005cb8a)
All things must change to something new,
to something strange.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
Kéramos
Contents
Cover (#u24106c0b-3878-587e-b098-25edd1326829)
Title Page (#u3598de25-7f72-5a73-8e4c-17e9db75954d)
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Manchester: August 1894
My night brother … (#u3fdfc52e-21fd-5fac-bb0a-d75302f799c6)
Part One: Manchester 1897–1904
Edie: 1897–1899
Gnome: 1899
Edie: 1900–1901
Gnome: 1901
Edie: 1901–1902
Gnome: 1902
Edie: 1902–4
Gnome: 1904
Part Two: Manchester 1909–1910
Edie: March 1909
Gnome: March 1909
Edie: March 1909
Gnome: March–June 1909
Edie: June–September 1909
Gnome: September 1909–January 1910
Edie: January 1910
Gnome: January 1910
Abigail
I am an … (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Also by Rosie Garland
About the Publisher
MANCHESTER AUGUST 1894 (#u888039a4-2cb4-5c07-bf4b-ea851005cb8a)
My night brother is here.
Halfway between yesterday and tomorrow morning, he shakes my shoulder.
‘I’m asleep, Gnome,’ I grunt. ‘Go away.’
I hug the blanket close. Sounds from the taproom steal through the floorboards: calls for mild and bitter, porter and stout; jokes and merriment to ease the day’s care and pour forgetfulness upon the toil to come. The tide of voices rolls back and forth and swells into shouting. This is brief and all contention settles into a rumbling burr, laced with the toffee scent of malt, breathed-out beer, wet coats and wetter dogs. A bedtime story that rocks me back to sleep.
‘“Boys and girls come out to play,”’ he sings. ‘Wake up.’
‘Don’t want to,’ I mumble.
He claps his hands and I taste the tremble of his anticipation.
‘Have you forgotten what’s happening tonight?’ he cries. ‘It’s Belle Vue fireworks!’
He yanks away the blanket and we begin our tug-of-war: me hanging on to one end, him the other. He wins. He always wins, for he bests me in strength as in everything else: bravery, brains, riot and loving kindness. The room swirls awake. One blink and I can make out the rectangle of the window. Two blinks, the door.
‘Shake a leg,’ he whispers.
I sit up and it sets off a yawn so wide it could swallow the mattress. He presses my lips together, shutting me up as tight as the bubbles in a crate of ginger beer.
‘Don’t give me that. You’re not tired.’
I am, but I save my breath. He always gets his own way.
‘We can’t go without asking Ma,’ I say.
‘She won’t miss us. What she doesn’t see won’t grieve her.’
‘But I’m not allowed out in the dark.’
‘I’ll get you back before it’s light.’
‘But she’ll see us come in.’
‘Then we’ll sneak through the window.’
‘But she’ll shout.’
‘She won’t.’
‘But—’
‘But but but! You don’t half whine, Edie. We’re going and that’s that.’
I yield to the press of his authority. For all my protestations I am thrilled. For two weeks I have been breathless with hoping Ma might take me to the firework show, the street having spoken of little else. Even Miss Pannett’s Sunday School voice brightened when she described last year’s extravaganza. Excitement tingles down my arms, into my legs. I leap from the bed.
‘Good,’ he grunts. ‘About time, silly girl.’
He speaks fondly and I am not hurt by the words. Ma says there’s no money to squander on toys. I have Gnome. Better than a hundred dolls. Wherever I go he holds my hand. I watch him lay the bolster along the mattress and arrange the blanket on top of it.
‘It doesn’t look anything like me.’
‘Who cares? It’s not like Mam is going to come in and kiss you goodnight, is it?’
‘She might,’ I protest, voice as empty as my wishes. If Ma looks in at all, it is a swift open and shut of the door after she’s cleared the bar at closing time.
‘And I’m the king of …’ Gnome mutters, fastening me into a pair of britches. He snaps braces over my shoulders to stop them falling down, for they are far too big.
‘Why have I got to wear trousers?’ I ask. ‘I’m not a boy.’
‘Hush your racket. It’s easier to climb out of windows, and no one will remark upon— Oh, I haven’t got time to explain, you little goose. We must go.’
He drags me towards the window.
‘Wait,’ I say.
‘No waiting.’
‘Wait!’ I grab a handful of marbles from under the pillow: each one a prize hoarded from the cracked throat of a lemonade bottle. I shove them into my pocket and hear the reassuring clink. ‘They’re lucky,’ I say.
He sighs. ‘Are you ready? We must go. Now.’
He rolls up the sash and hauls me on to the sill. I blink at the long climb down the drainpipe.
