Room_ A Novel - Emma Donoghue [117]
I walk to Bed Wall and touch it with one finger, the cork doesn’t feel like anything. “Is good night in the day?”
“Huh?”
“Can we say good night when it’s not night?”
“I think it would be good-bye.”
“Good-bye, Wall.” Then I say it to the three other walls, then “Good-bye, Floor.” I pat Bed, “Good-bye, Bed.” I put my head down in Under Bed to say “Good-bye, Eggsnake.” In Wardrobe I whisper, “Good-bye, Wardrobe.” In the dark there’s the picture of me Ma did for my birthday, I look very small. I wave her over and point to it.
I kiss her face where the tears are, that’s how the sea tastes.
I pull the me picture down and zip it into my jacket. Ma’s nearly at Door, I go over. “Lift me up?”
“Jack—”
“Please.”
Ma sits me up on her hip, I reach up.
“Higher.”
She holds me by my ribs and lifts me up up up, I touch the start of Roof. I say, “Good-bye, Roof.”
Ma puts me down thump.
“Good-bye, Room.” I wave up at Skylight. “Say good-bye,” I tell Ma. “Good-bye, Room.”
Ma says it but on mute.
I look back one more time. It’s like a crater, a hole where something happened. Then we go out the door.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my beloved Chris Roulston and my agent, Caroline Davidson, for their responses to the first draft, as well as Caroline (aided by Victoria X. Kwee and Laura Macdougall) and my U.S. agent, Kathy Anderson, for their exuberant commitment to this novel from day one. Judy Clain at Little, Brown, Sam Humphreys at Picador, and Iris Tupholme at HarperCollins Canada for their intelligent editing. Also my friends Debra Westgate, Liz Veecock, Arja Vainio-Mattila, Tamara Sugunasiri, Hélène Roulston, Andrea Plumb, Chantal Phillips, Ann Patty, Sinéad McBrearty, and Ali Dover for their suggestions about everything from child development to plot development. Above all, my brother-in-law Jeff Miles for his unnervingly insightful advice on the practicalities of Room.
ROOM
ALSO BY EMMA DONOGHUE
The Sealed Letter
Landing
Touchy Subjects
Life Mask
The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits
Slammerkin
Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins
Hood
Stir-fry
Room is for Finn and Una, my best works.
First published 2010 by Picador
This electronic edition published 2010 by Picador
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ISBN 978-0-330-53398-0 PDF
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Copyright © Emma Donoghue 2010
The right of Emma Donoghue to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This is a work of fiction. The people, events, circumstances and institutions depicted are fictitious and the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance of any character to any actual person, whether living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Published in the USA by Little, Brown and Company
Epigraph excerpt from "Danaë" by Simonides. Translated by Richmond Lattimore in Greek Lyrics © 1955 by The University of Chicago.
All rights reserved. Used with permission.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title page
Half-title page
Dedication page
Epigraph page
Acknowledgements
Contents
Presents
Unlying
Dying