Chapter 10
Odette
SHE WALKS, STEADY, UNBENDING, through the dank and lightless winter night.
The blood has dried on her hands and face, and on her dress, tacky and stiff.
If people look, she does not notice.
The pavements are slick with the runoff from the rain and rotting leaves pile in the gutters and against the walls. The rows of houses stand back from the street as though lifting their skirts from the mess Odette trails with her, shuttered and bolted against the chaos of the world.
Her mother walks behind her, plucking at her sleeve, pulling at her hair. ‘You are not finished, my girl – go back, go back. How can you leave me? How can you forget about me?’
Odette walks.
The streets change, the trees swaying bare-limbed overhead, narrow houses giving way to mansions and back again, a darkened school, a gasworks, the station still spitting out people and steam rising from the engines moving along the tracks.
Gas lamps reflect in the puddles, cobbles smeared with horse dung and discarded papers.
It is at once so familiar and like a world apart.
Her feet are numb, her hands like marble. She does not belong here.
Still she walks on.
Walks and walks until she reaches the hospital where Cecilia has been taken.
There are so many people: doctors, nurses, visitors, patients – she cannot work out who is who, what is what. The lights are too bright, the smell of carbolic too strong. The corridors echo, all high ceilings and white tiles.
‘Cecilia?’ she calls, as though speaking her name will guide the way.
People turn to look at her. Someone screams.
A doctor comes up to her, in concern and fear. He says something, but she cannot hear it.
Odette walks through the crowd that parts before her.
There are voices – Help! Call the police!
She walks through the corridors, looking into wards of beds with stiff sheets and starched gowns.
‘Cecilia? Cecilia!’
Too many faces, all wrong. Is she too late? Oh God, has she missed her?
Is Cecilia gone?
‘Cecilia!’
She is running now, desperate. Please. She has to find her. Cecilia has to be alive. She cannot be too late.
Then – there.
A face she knows as well as her own heart.
Cecilia, laid out on sterile white sheets, arms above the covers, eyes closed and face ashen.
Odette flings herself onto the bed.
Living or corpse, she must be with her now.
‘Cecilia. Please. Wake up, I’m here.’
She touches her face, the curve of her cheek, the swell of her lip.
She is cool to the touch – but not cold. There is the flutter of a pulse at her throat.
Odette sobs with relief. ‘Cecilia, oh God, I am so sorry. I love you. I love you. I am so sorry I ever left you.’
She curls herself into Cecilia’s side, fits their bodies together as they have done on so many nights.
Her mother stands beside the bed, staring at her. Perhaps it is the light, but she seems faded at the edges. Softer.
There is something of Lydia in her expression again.
Odette presses her face into Cecilia’s hair. She must say it all now.
‘I love you. I should have listened to you. I treated you so terribly. I do not ever deserve your forgiveness, but I am here to beg for it anyway. Please, Cecilia, wake up.’
Please still love me. Please do not leave me alone.
Beside them, Lydia’s face has sweetened, the colour come back, her smile true and pained.
You will live a happy life, won’t you? Promise me?
Lydia touches one hand to Odette’s neck, familiar and tender.
Then she steps back. And back.
Begins to fade.
Odette presses her forehead to Cecilia’s cheek. ‘Please. Wake up.’
There is a clatter of noise in the corridor – shouts, footsteps.
Cecilia stirs.
Only gently, only the smallest movement, as she turns towards Odette.
Her eyes flutter open, her focus swimming until it fixes.
Odette’s eyes are bright with tears.
Her mother steps back again – and is gone.
The door to the ward bursts open. There is a tumult of people: police in dark blue, doctors in tweed, nurses in their starched aprons.
What happens next, Odette does not know.
But Cecilia’s hand moves, grasps Odette’s.
She loves and is loved in turn.