The Night Brother. Rosie Garland

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       Copyright

      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

      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

      Cover design by Micaela Alcaino © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018

      Cover photograph © 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

      For Manchester

       and all the wanderers who have found a home

      in this Rainy City

       Epigraph

      All things must change to something new,

      to something strange.

      Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,

       Kéramos

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

      Copyright

      Dedication

      Epigraph

      Manchester: August 1894

       My night brother …

      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 …

       Acknowledgements

       About the Author

       Also by Rosie Garland

       About the Publisher

       MANCHESTER AUGUST 1894

      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.

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