Odette

by Jessica Duchen

  About the Author

  Jessica Duchen’s writing on classical music, opera and ballet has appeared in the Independent, the Guardian and the Sunday Times. Her first five novels have gathered a loyal fan base and wide acclaim: most recently, Ghost Variations (published by Unbound, 2016) was selected as Book of the Month in BBC Music Magazine and placed among the Daily Mail’s Best Reads of 2016 (‘A thrilling read’ – John Suchet).

  Jessica grew up in London, read music at Cambridge and felt torn at first between the prospects of a musical career and a literary one. Music plays a vital role in her fiction as well as her journalism, and she frequently narrates concert versions of three of her novels, Ghost Variations, Alicia’s Gift and Hungarian Dances.

  Recent highlights include her first opera libretto, Silver Birch, for the composer Roxanna Panufnik, commissioned by Garsington Opera and shortlisted for an International Opera Award 2018. Her output also includes plays and concert-dramas, biographies of the composers Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Gabriel Fauré (published by Phaidon) and her popular classical music blog, JDCMB.

  Jessica lives in London with her violinist husband and two cats. She enjoys playing the piano, cookery, long walks and tracking down obscure books about music.

  Odette

  Jessica Duchen

  This edition first published in 2018

  Unbound

  6th Floor Mutual House, 70 Conduit Street, London W1S 2GF

  www.unbound.com

  All rights reserved

  © Jessica Duchen, 2018

  The right of Jessica Duchen to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  ISBN (eBook): 978-1-78965-001-3

  ISBN (Paperback): 978-1-78965-000-6

  Design by Mecob

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A.

  For my dear friends, who make life magical.

  Super Patrons

  Rebecca Saire and Roger Allam

  Judith Barnard

  Janice Barnett

  John Batten

  Monica Bohm-Duchen

  Hannah Bohm-Duchen

  Debra Boraston

  Richard Bratby

  Sidney Buckland

  David Cairns

  Trevor Campbell Davis

  Dennis Chang

  Keith & Edna Clarke

  Marie-anne Cody

  Alexandra Coghlan

  Clare Colvin

  Tamsen Courtenay

  Hilary Craig

  Ellen Dahrendorf

  Margaret Dane

  Dr Marc Desautels

  Cathy Desmond

  Emmanuel Despax

  Emma Diamond

  James Dixon

  Peter Donohoe

  Michael Duchen

  Lily Dunn

  Pip Eastop

  Brian Elias

  Tara Erraught

  Katie Fforde

  Paul Fincham

  Margaret Fingerhut

  Jo Forrest

  Oli Foster

  Marjolaine Fournier

  Sophie Fuller

  Charlotte Gardner

  Florence Garel

  Sarah Goulding

  William Griffin

  William Griffin

  Thomas Guthrie

  Tina Halperin

  Marc-André Hamelin

  Jane Hanson

  Rustem Hayroudinoff

  Christine Holliday

  Guy Holloway

  Jennifer Holloway

  William Howard

  Tristan Jakob-Hoff

  Kerensa Jennings

  Rebecca Johns

  Richard Johnson

  Galen Johnson

  Marjan & Jane Kiepura

  Dan Kieran

  Patrick Kincaid

  Shona Kinsella

  Kristian Rahbek Knudsen

  Piers Lane

  Anna Lapwood

  Mookie Lee-Menuhin

  David Leibowitz

  Ann Liebeck

  Tasmin Little

  Gergely Madaras

  Charlotte Martin

  Anthony Marwood

  Hugh Mather

  H Mathieson

  Eva Mayer

  Christine McGuinness

  Viv McLean

  John McMurray

  Alice McVeigh

  John Mitchinson

  Andrew Morris

  Nina Kaye and Timothy Nathan

  Nicolas Nebout

  Richard Norris

  Francis Norton

  Ilona Oltuski

  Rebeca Omordia

  Roxanna Panufnik

  Birgit Pappers

  Lev Parikian

  Tara Persaud

  Joanna Pieters

  Justin Pollard

  Caroline Potter

  Sophie Ransby

  Stephen Richards

  Seb Scotney

  Helen Sherrah-Davies

  Sue Shorter

  Mary Sigmond

  Clare Slator

  Jane Spencer-Davis

  Nicholas Spindler

  Eleanor Stanier

  Henriette B. Stavis

  Elli Stern

  Gillian Stern

  Clare Stevens

  Katherine Sunderland

  Candida Thompson

  Christopher Tin

  Liubov Ulybysheva

  Angelo Villani

  Jo W

  Ricki Wagner

  Duncan Ward

  Shirley Whiteside

  Lorraine Womack-Banning

  Katherine Youn

  Alan Yu

  With profound thanks to my brother, Michael Duchen, who has believed in me and in this book through thick and thin.

  Contents

  About the Author

  [Dedication]

  Super Patrons

  [Frontispiece]

  OVERTURE

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  Acknowledgements

  Patrons

  By the same author

  OVERTURE

  The swan was high above the coast when the storm broke. Soon after sunrise she had flown up from the lake, skimming the tips of the birches that sheltered her refuge. Balancing on currents of air, she swooped over the island’s rocky shore, then left it far behind. Nature was her homeland, the embrace of light and the open joy of the heavens.

  The gusts were blowing more fiercely around her and the swan sensed their threat, but when she tried to turn back the wind was against her. Swelling banks of cloud blotted out the breaking day. Raindrops pelted her eyes and the gale seized her and tossed her left and right, until she was too numb and frightened to know where she was or which way she was going. She mustered her strength, set her wings and focused on riding the currents, telling herself that soon she must and would land.

  Flailing, tired out, after how long she had no idea, the swan
was still over water – but it was endless water, rough and wild, and she could smell the salt in it as she dodged a wave that rose into the sky, then hammered down, voracious, around her. She dared not guess the extent of this ocean. Her wings weighed like gravestones on her shoulders. Dreading that night would fall before she reached sanctuary, she spurred herself on. She tried to harness the storm’s violent momentum, letting it carry her. She knew that if she could not land by sundown, she would die.

  At last, a curving coastline: low cliffs, agricultural fields, then haphazard villages and towns – tame and crowded compared to her home – all of them silvery with rainwater. She was too exhausted to fight the force that was driving her down among the buildings: narrow lanes, steeples, towers of carved stone and, in the middle, a river, studded with tidy bridges. Fighting on, she aimed for the water. She lost altitude and tried to land, but still the wind would not release her.

  The swan fixed on a final hope. By the river ran a street, lined on the other side with a terrace of houses. Her gaze lighted upon an upper window partly sheltered by a chestnut tree. The branches might break the gale and let her gain control. She turned towards it, stretched her neck forward, poised to strike, wings locked back – and dived. Her beak met glass and shattered it with a crash. Pain sliced across her shoulder as the sharp edges cut. A surface thudded up under her belly; lying still at last, she lost consciousness.

  1

  Mitzi Fairweather, half asleep, could hear an owl calling in the distance. Odd. Owls didn’t usually haunt Richardson Road. Exhaustion clogged her eyes. She thought she heard the hoot again, through the rumbling undertow of rush-hour traffic – and in discomfiting counterpoint, the high-bassoon snores of the man asleep beside her.

  There’d been a party. Lara, the only one of Mitzi’s college friends who still lived in Cygnford, had turned thirty and mixed her birthday with pre-Christmas celebrations. Earlier, Mitzi had been catching up on flat-cleaning and laundry; she missed dinner, slung on a short dress and cycled to Lara’s place, where she drank three glasses of home-made punch, containing something green and astringent, on an empty stomach.

  ‘Absinthe from Prague,’ he’d said, coming to her aid. He found her a chair, gave her a mug of good, clear, pure water and fetched her a ham sandwich.

  ‘I’m vegetarian,’ Mitzi said. Laughing, he insisted that meat was good for you. She returned her strongest words about additives, hormones and antibiotics, and just had time to wonder exactly what ingredients were in the absinthe before the room swung upside down and she found herself staring straight into woollen knots of blue carpet. Her new friend, who admitted to being in financial services, bundled her into his Saab and civilly dropped her at her front door.

  Two days later, he coaxed her out for a dinner date. She was stressed after work, so they’d consumed a good meal of comfort food at Brown’s under the tinsel garlands (he had a burger, she didn’t), polished off two bottles of red wine – and he stayed over. Never mind having nobody to love – why did she keep ending up in bed with men she didn’t even like?

  ‘Hullo, sweetie. Still asleep?’

  Before he could pounce on her again, she swung herself upright. ‘Coffee?’ Smile. Bright smile.

  ‘Milk, two sugars.’ He looked boyish against the bed’s heavy, carved wooden headboard, sleepy gaze fixed on the arc of her hip under her dressing gown. He was all right, really. Just not someone she wanted to wake up next to, ever again.

  In the front room a bay window magnified the morning sunlight, which cast pale slanting rays onto the ceiling-high wooden bookcases. Her landlord evidently had a passion for ancient books; their spines protruded on the shelves like the vertebrae of a living creature. The flat was better equipped with reading matter than with cooking utensils: Mitzi could peruse to her heart’s content mystical poetry by Khalil Gibran, the mythology of ancient Egypt or Bruno Bettelheim’s The Uses of Enchantment, but searched in vain for spatulas and sieves. Yet she’d loved the flat so much on first sight that its occasional impracticalities, and the busy road outside, had ceased to matter. Through its portals, she seemed to step back in time to a bygone world.

  On the herringbone parquet sprawled orange, cream and cerise Turkish kilims, and on them stood worn, dark leather and wood furniture, some of it Edwardian or older. An antique square dining table of polished mahogany had pride of place in the bay window; she never dared eat off it without putting down two layers of tablecloths for protection. Still more books sat in the unusable little study, where the landlord stored superfluous papers, files, pictures and heaven knew what else in high-stacked cardboard boxes and plastic crates.

  The low price had been startling – a sabbatical let – and she’d jumped at it, despite a fair amount of small print further down the contract. Now her battered little pine desk, at the back of the room, away from the sofa and a capacious green leather armchair with footstool, would seem incongruous if it were even visible beneath her computer – never mind the piles of magazines and newspapers to which she had contributed, a tall spike holding receipts to use for her tax return, and a tangle of leads for recharging electronic gadgets that the flat seemed ready to disown as anachronistic.

  While the kettle gurgled in the kitchen, which opened off the living room through an archway, she drew the curtains behind the dining table and stared out at the view. The chestnut tree in front of the house, bare branches pointing twiggy fingers towards the sun. The stone wall, sprouting lichen, splitting chippings. Richardson Road was choked with traffic; bicycles zigzagged between the cars. But the grass on Solstice Green across the footbridge seemed bright today, the river was glinting back the early morning light, and on the water drifted a group of white swans. That was a good sign; she was sure there were fewer swans now on the river than there had been during her student days. Swans, proud of their poise, rising above it all. She prepared two mugs of coffee: his pale and sweet, hers strong, black and bitter.

  He was padding about the bedroom in Cygnford United football socks, fastening his shirt buttons in front of the mirror on the antique wardrobe. ‘I have to get the car home before work. How’s the traffic?’

  ‘Usual mess.’ She sat on the bed, sipping coffee.

  ‘Cool place, this. Big mortgage?’

  ‘Renting. The landlord’s an academic on sabbatical.’ Mitzi kept the story short. ‘I’ve only got it till July.’

  ‘And then?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘You know, I could probably find you a good deal on a mortgage. Interesting offers at the moment – fixed rates, cashback, life insurance. Have a think, yeah? A nice return – you scratch my back, and all that…’

  Mitzi’s hand ached for violent contact with his nose. Instead, she forced a second-rate smile. ‘No chance. Believe me, I’ve tried – I never know what’s coming in from month to month.’

  ‘How much roughly?’

  She told him.

  ‘Oh,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll be out on the streets, I expect,’ she tried to joke.

  At the door he put an arm round her waist and his tongue into her mouth. She pulled away and said, ‘See you, then.’ Alone, she stood fighting nausea, listening to his footsteps clumping down the stairs; then the opening and closing of the front door. She leaned her forehead against the wall and breathed.

  She was still alive, though, so she swallowed grapefruit and toast for breakfast, then took a long, hot shower before settling down at her desk to write up the news story she had been researching.

  A large group of young Romanians were being accommodated by their ‘employer’ in a terraced house in a village not far from the potato fields and chicken processing plants of the flatlands that extended towards the sea. It was a short cycle ride out of town. Mitzi aimed for mid-evening, imagining they might have returned from the factory. Posing as a neighbour needing to borrow a power tool, she rang the bell and soon faced four lads who seemed rather happy to see a friendly blonde on their doorstep. ‘Come in, please,’
they invited her. ‘Have some coffee…’ Nervous, Mitzi followed them into a kitchen that stank of singed, reheated takeaway and something covered in grey fuzz, which turned out to be rotting cauliflower.

  When she asked if she could look around, they showed her three rooms in each of which five sleeping bags lay side by side on the rough carpeting, and in what should have been the living room, seven. Clothing was piled against the walls: threadbare fleeces, tracksuit bottoms, hole-ridden socks. Black fungus spattered the window frames and the bathroom ceiling.

  Where were the others, she asked. At work. Shifts. Some of them did 5am to 3pm, some noon to 10pm, depending. Money? Not what they’d been told. One shrugged. Another laughed. ‘Money? I don’t know this idea, that we get money for work…’ Using body language as much as words, she told the tallest of them, whose hacking cough made his reddened eyes stream, that he must see a doctor, and gave him her GP’s phone number.

  After they’d waved her a cheery goodbye, she walked round the corner to where she’d left her bike, then rode home, fighting palpitations of fury.

  Halfway through writing her article, her vision fuzzy with exhaustion, she paused to make more coffee – then deleted her draft and started again. The caffeine hit was intense; before she’d finished, her fingers were shaking, and not only in the icy draught hustling past the sash windows. Finally she tried to open her email. The connection was down. She was convinced that Cygnford’s broadband gave up the moment the temperature dropped below five degrees.

  Half past eleven. Copy deadline was midday. Fortunately not all her memory sticks had vanished into her Bottomless Pit drawer; minutes later she was pulling her hat over her ears and struggling with her bike lock, which had seized up with cold.

  Pedalling down the towpath along the riverside, past the grand spaces of colleges that traced the centuries in a glance, she felt the wind dragging at her hair and clearing her mind. Life went on and Cygnford glittered with sharp beauty at Christmas. Outside the office, she chained her bike to some railings beside a notice that said NO CYCLES, then marched up to the reception desk to pick up a pass.

  John Wilkins, editor of the Cygnford Daily, met her at the top of the stairs; from there he ushered her through a glass door into the office. The gust of air wafted random papers off his desk. She heard him mumbling expletives – behind his thick-framed glasses he had the look of a man who would explode if brushed with the finest Hungarian goose feather. ‘Mitzi, have a seat. What can I do you for?’