Chapter 8 #2
Odette imagines Leo pacing, pulling at the lock of hair at his forehead that curls like his sister’s, marching about the room as though he can demand the world stop and reorganise itself along the lines of his own wanting.
‘I am so terribly sorry, dear boy.’ Claudine’s voice is soft. Does she place a gentle hand on his arm, an encouragement to sink further into his grief?
‘What she did to my mother – my sister – the girl pulled my family to pieces, and for what? Her own mad delusions? It is – it is – I cannot let it lie.’
‘And you are right not to,’ says Claudine. ‘She has done the same to me, though I am fortunate that things have not yet gone so far. George is blinded by his fatherly feeling, but you and I know better. The girl cannot be allowed to roam free.’
No, no, it is wrong, wrong. Everything laid at her door should rightly be laid at Claudine’s. Odette cannot let it stand. She will no longer suffer the lie. They speak so boldly when they do not know she has the measure of them, that she spies on them even now.
Leo gives a bitter laugh. ‘Well, you tried to lock her up, but fortune favours her even there. God, if any harm had come to that poor girl travelling with her I could never have forgiven myself.’
‘I was a soft-hearted fool. I never imagined she would stoop to so evil a trick.’
‘If she comes back here, I – I—’ Leo stops himself, laughs again, choked and short. ‘Well, I do not quite know what I would do, but perhaps it is better if she never returns to find out.’
A pause. Claudine eking out the tension. ‘I cannot help but think – no, I should not say.’
Leo takes the bait. ‘What?’
Odette creeps down another step. What? What is it Claudine plans now?
‘No, I cannot bother you with my thoughts,’ says Claudine. ‘You carry too much of your own burden.’
‘Please. I insist. There is no one else in this world now who understands me as you do.’
Odette frowns in distaste. How wholly Leo allows himself to be taken in. She expected more of him, though she is not sure why anymore. They are all fools, and they deserve what is coming to them.
Another pause. ‘I feel the same,’ says Claudine. ‘Forgive me, but I find myself thinking too often that the wrong person has died.’
‘You do not need to hide such thoughts from me.’ Leo is soft now, confiding. ‘I – well, I share them.’
Claudine sighs. ‘We would all be better off without her. We know she is mad and dangerous. She will never stop. You saw how she hunted me.’
‘Yes,’ says Leo, ‘yes.’
‘And again, I find myself thinking . . . a mad girl like that could come to many nasty ends.’
Odette covers her mouth with her hands to hide her gasp.
‘What are you saying?’ asks Leo, hesitant.
‘I am saying that it would be no surprise if she lost hold of herself and took her own life. Don’t you think?’
‘But . . . would she?’
Claudine is firmer now. ‘We can make sure she does.’
‘I don’t – oh. Oh. I understand.’ He is too quiet. Too calm.
Odette is dizzy, dizzy, slipping out of herself and half down the stairs, half into the street, with Claudine and Leo and their plan to murder her, with her mother waiting for her on the other side of the veil. What is she to do?
‘In the drawer in my dressing table,’ says Claudine, ‘there is a revolver. It is only small – for a woman’s protection, you must understand.’
‘You mean—’
‘I mean if – when – Odette returns here, there could be a tragic end. The key is to fire at close quarters, then place the gun into her hand at once.’
Odette holds onto the banister to anchor herself. It is only a plan. It has not happened yet. She can prevent it, she can fight. But how?
‘I – am not sure I can do it.’
‘Not for your sister?’ urges Claudine. ‘Your mother?’
‘God. God, all right.’ Leo is distraught. ‘Yes – I can do it. I cannot let her harm anyone else. I will do it.’
Odette must get the gun first. That is the only path she can see. Get the gun and then – then – what does it matter after that? She can think on it when it matters. She must survive, second by second.
She crawls back up the stairs, carpet rough on her palms, then turns towards Claudine’s room where the gun is stashed; but the sound of a maid coming down from the floor above sends her flying into the nearest room – Lydia’s room – before she can think.
There is the clank of the coal bucket as the maid reaches the landing – the fires are being tended.
Surely they will have no need to come into this dead space, but Odette wriggles under the bed all the same.
More footsteps. Soft laughter. Two maids talking outside. She does not recognise the voices, which is as disconcerting as anything could be. It is as though she has fled home from the Continent and onto a different plane of reality, Alice’s Wonderland or the backward world of fairy.
She breathes in the dust, the thick stuff of the mattress an inch from her nose.
How long must she hide here? Will she be too late to seize the gun?
How can she face them both? What is it she even means to do?
There is something by her head, a sharp corner pressing against her temple; she pushes it aside, only to realise it is an envelope.
Strange.
An envelope beneath her mother’s bed.
The voices grow quiet, as the clank of the bucket continues on.
She must go now.
She emerges, grime clinging to her damp skin, the envelope coming with her.
Odette.
There, written in her mother’s writing: the only word on the plain paper.
What?
She turns it over in confusion. She recognises it and she does not. It is the same stationery used throughout the Hampstead house, the looping hand of her mother she would recognise anywhere.
And yet she does not know what this is.
Odette prises the letter open.
It is one short sheet of paper and a folded banknote.
My darling Odette,
This is the first of much more to come, or so I hope.
Mr King is confident the exhibition will be a great success, and he has bought from me directly the Elaine piece, though it is unfinished, as a show of his firm belief.
I enclose the money here, for you. It is all for you, darling.
What else? What other meaning does my life hold?
When you were so small, I thought I could hold you in one hand.
You would look at me in that fixed-gaze way that babies do, and I knew you saw right through me.
I have never felt love like it. We are all unequal to the task of loving, I think, and I fear I have been poorer than most. But I do love you, my darling girl.
If there is anything in this world I can give you, it is yours. I ask nothing of you.
You will live a happy life, won’t you? Promise me?
There, that is enough for now.
We will have more time.
Your ever loving,
Mother
The note is for fifty pounds, many times folded and unfolded, but real. Solid.
She cannot breathe. She cannot breathe.
Oh, it is like seeing her mother’s coffin go into the ground again.
For a moment, her mother was alive. She could hear her – not the coarse sound of the ghost but her real mother, her soft, mad, generous mother.
It is too much to bear.
She sobs again, skin raw from tears. They will hear her, they will find her, but she cannot control herself. She is cracked open, guts spilled around like confetti; she is a corpse already, she is a live nerve of agony.
The cold arms of the ghost settle around her.
‘Get up,’ the voice hisses. ‘You are not done here.’
No. No she is not.
Odette wipes her face on her sleeve, folds the letter and puts it in her pocket. Shakily, she stands, testing the weight on each of her too-human limbs. She will be equal to this task. She must be.
First, the gun. Then – the rest.
She eases the door open, and when she is sure it is safe, she darts from Lydia’s room down the hall to Claudine’s, opening the door just enough to slide through—
She is inside, but she is not alone.
Leo – with the gun – is staring at her, wide-eyed, his own hand on the door, about to leave.
A moment hangs between them, all the world in it, all possible worlds.
Then his face twists into a snarl, and he points the gun, at the same time as Odette grabs at his arm, his wrist, wrestling him back with all the weight of her.
There is one brief, frantic struggle, his hot breath on her cheek, the cold barrel of the gun grazing her temple, wavering back and forth between them.
The gun fires.