7. Chapter 7
Half a beat late.
But I am never out…
‘Do you often miss things? The odd word or question?’ The doctor pulled at Odette’s earlobe.
From her position, she could only just make out his head in her periphery, twisting, eyes squinting as he peered into her ear.
She shifted on the chaise longue, and he tugged her head into a spot of sunlight so that she sat at a strange angle, contorted and uncomfortable.
He tweaked the funnel of the brass instrument—his otoscope, he’d called it—pressing its cold edges inside her ear.
‘Apologies,’ he mumbled, as he widened his stance.
‘I need to catch the sunlight for the mirrors, so I can see inside your ear canal. When did the ringing start?’
‘A few months ago. Sometimes, my ears will be like this after a performance, but it goes away after an hour or two. That has been happening since I began performing with orchestras. It is just part of being onstage.’
‘Have you been around loud noises at any point in your career?’ He angled her further, and her neck cricked. Not the gentlest of doctors, but at least he was thorough. ‘Louder than an orchestra, I mean, although that would not help. Very loud. It does not have to have been recent.’
‘During one performance, the director used real cannons. And real gunpowder.’ She’d been centre stage for that part, and the ringing had lasted until the following morning.
‘And another time, that same director used fireworks. That was when I was touring the continent, three or four years ago. But this is different. It comes and goes without warning, not only at the theatre or after a performance.’
The doctor released her ear. He returned his instrument to his case, clasped his hands behind his back, and paced back and forth in front of the window of her parlour.
Odette rubbed at her neck as she waited.
Daniel, her head of household, stood ramrod straight by the door, and behind him, Nora was pretending to clean.
The two of them served as her allies in case this doctor decided to try his luck at blackmail, bribery, or worse.
She’d learnt a long time ago that keeping company with men—any men, even those invited to deal with her in a professional capacity—required either witnesses or complete privacy.
Daniel and Nora had been with her from the beginning.
Whether they were loyal to her or what she paid them didn’t matter.
What mattered was that they knew what was expected, and that she could rely on them.
‘There are tiny hairs inside our ear drums.’ The doctor addressed the windows at first, then swung back to face her.
He pointed at his ear in emphasis. ‘Deep inside. You can’t see them.
They’re incredibly fine. They feel vibrations.
That’s what hearing is, those little hairs vibrating, and then the mind turns that into sounds.
But sometimes, those hairs can be damaged.
I see it more with patients who work in factories, especially those who started as children.
And men who’ve been to war. But an orchestra and cannons…
fireworks… All those could do the same harm. ’
‘The tiny hairs in my ear have been damaged?’ she asked. ‘What is the ringing?’
‘Another symptom, I’m afraid. It’s called tinnitus. It will come and go. We don’t know why it starts.’
‘How do we fix it?’
The doctor tapped his fingers together in a nervous jitter, then clasped his hands behind his back. ‘There are instruments that funnel sounds more directly into the ear, closer to those tiny hairs. Ear spectacles and trumpets and such. Some people find they help.’
‘Like an old lady? No. I said, how do we fix it. You say tiny hairs are damaged. How do we make them grow back?’
‘They aren’t hairs like on your body. They don’t grow back.
If you had a perforated eardrum, we might try surgery, but that isn’t the case here.
There isn’t really a fix that we know of.
Maybe one day someone might find a way but for now, there isn’t anything we can do.
’ He picked up his top hat. ‘I wish I had better news, Miss Delaney. Many people get by. Some learn how to read lips if they don’t want to use ear spectacles or trumpets.
I don’t think your hearing will disappear, just become less effective.
If you can limit how much time you spend around loud noises, it may slow down the deterioration.
The ringing will come and go, but I’ve never known a patient who has it constantly.
You will still be able to hear music and sing.
My uncle has lost most of his hearing, yet he still manages to be the loudest at the piano.
’ He laughed, the sound a nervous chitter in the room.
When she did not join in, he mumbled some goodbye.
Odette tipped her head to follow the sound of him as he travelled past the door, but his conversation with Daniel quickly slipped out of reach.
Don’t move. Don’t fidget. Don’t breathe.
She wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Odette would remain motionless because any action, any interaction with the world would mean she’d have to pick up the doctor’s words and take them with her.
Trumpets, ear spectacles, raucous uncles.
Did he not understand what his refusal to find an answer meant?
Perhaps other people could get through their days by muttering pardon, or by sticking things in their ears, but not her.
She had to be aware of every small inflection in the music, had to tune into every note, every beat.
She needed to hear soft introductions or whispers from the edge of the stage.
And any sign of weakness, anything less than perfection would see her passed over.
Not even Karl would take the risk of a soprano who might miss their cue or fumble a note.
And she was not just any soprano—she was Miss Odette Delaney.
The recent coverage from the press was a sharp warning that she was simply not permitted to be anything less than perfect.
Even before Cassius’s suggestion that she’d been a beat late during the last performance, she’d sensed that something wasn’t right.
The ringing had come and gone before, but never as regularly as in the past month.
The audience wouldn’t have noticed such a minor slip, but Cassius, always listening for any shift in inflection, for anything other than perfection, had heard her trip.
Only once, in one song, in one performance over a three-week run.
But how long before it became two? Or three?
How long until she took on a beloved opera, like The Magic Flute, where the audience was known to join in the singing because they knew it so well, and they noticed, too?
Or what if another soprano witnessed her slipping?
A hungry competitor, a young, determined woman willing to tear down Odette’s reputation to build her own?
Other conductors were not like Cassius. Some of them thrived on dissent, mired themselves in gossip and criticism.
One of the reasons she continued to gravitate back to the Constellation—even though she could have taken on roles in bigger theatres and commanded a higher fee—was that Karl ensured the drama remained onstage.
Playing at his theatre had always felt like coming home.
When he’d offered her the opera of her dreams, her very own opera, of course she had agreed.
But with a different opera house, with different ensembles, her immaculate reputation could be destroyed by the end of one failed rehearsal.
And not only that. Sometimes, it hurt. What else had the doctor said? That continuing to perform with an orchestra would make the condition worse?
She managed a breath—a great, stuttering breath that lodged in her throat and shook her chest. At thirty-six, she was already dangerously close to being cast in secondary roles, as older guides or mothers.
As a mezzo-soprano, she’d always had to fight that little bit harder, and her steadfast refusal to be cast in supporting roles unless it suited her had forged her career.
But every season, there was another swathe of eager sopranos.
Young, pretty, talented and na?ve. Less difficult to deal with because they agreed to everything.
What gave Odette her power was her name, her aura, and the promise of perfection.
If she lost that, her place in the world would fade as quickly as a nightingale’s tune.
‘Miss Delaney?’ Daniel’s question held the edge of being asked twice, a blend of concern and insistence. ‘Is there anything you require?’
‘Find me another doctor. Find me three more doctors. Aurists, specialists, anyone.’
‘Dr Brooks came highly recommended—’
‘I don’t care!’ She let her voice rise, then swallowed her anger. Daniel did not deserve her ire. He was so loyal. This was not his fault. ‘Make appointments. Pay them what you need to keep this quiet. Understand?’
He bowed, then closed the door as he left the room.
She’d given everything to become Miss Delaney.
It would not end like this.
She would find another way.