Odette

by Jessica Duchen

  Mitzi had been up half the night with the ecstatic Odette, listening to her description of piano lessons with Franz Liszt and the songs she was going to sing in the pub with Chris on Saturday. The transformation between Odette at sea in modern life and Odette riding the waves of her music was almost as great as that between her swan self and her human incarnation. Now she had a calling, a vocation that compelled her and spurred her on – something Mitzi had never experienced to half that degree.

  ‘I thought you were quite an ambitious lady,’ said John.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘In which case, you should have been the first person I thought of to cover the big story that came in today.’

  ‘Big story?’ Mitzi’s heart lurched.

  ‘This.’ John thumped the space bar on his computer keyboard. The screen brightened in front of Mitzi, showing a drafted headline: ‘Dismembered corpse found in River Cygn.’

  ‘A bizarre case. Dismembered, mutilated, unidentifiable. May have been there for a week or longer. Found, in classic TV murder mystery style, by someone walking a dog. Nobody has any idea who it is – doesn’t fit the profile of anyone reported missing, or any of the homeless ones around the town. And who do I call? I call the crime reporter, Mitzi. Not someone with her head in a cloud of fairy tales.’

  ‘I see,’ Mitzi said, miserable on several counts: not just that he was rubbing her nose in her unsuitability to report on a murder, but scared out of her wits that the body might belong to the homeless girl who had been trying to go home to Ripon.

  ‘What is it you want, Mitzi? Where do you see yourself in ten years’ time?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe a national. Maybe broadcasting.’

  ‘My dear, let’s face facts. You aren’t going to get to the Times or the BBC unless you sharpen your act up a bit.’

  ‘I’m not your dear – and nobody would ever make any progress if they never did anything but report on birds falling off roofs!’ Mitzi declared – then remembered she couldn’t take her words back.

  ‘Oh yes?’ said John.

  Five years of frustration welled up in Mitzi’s mind and then in her throat. ‘There are thousands of refugees drowning in the Mediterranean, there’s modern slavery right here in East Anglia, and our top story was a bird falling off a roof? How was that even news? And this murder story – of course you could have given it to me to report, but you chose someone else, and then you tell me I have to sharpen up my act. How can I do that if I never have the opportunity?’

  John’s glare made her imagine him as a frustrated army colonel without a war to fight. ‘I guess we’re not good enough for you any more.’

  ‘I never said that. But while we’re about it, I noticed the fees have been falling over a couple of years and nobody’s ever told me why. You’re paying me £120 instead of £200 for a piece of the same length.’

  ‘It varies… it depends on the exclusivity of the story, and our ability to syndicate it,’ John said. She wondered if he was improvising. ‘Let’s see.’ He clicked on the email and scanned through Mitzi’s copy, uttering a brief ‘Hmm’ now and then. ‘Madeleine Philips wasn’t very talkative, was she?’

  Mitzi fought her own temper. ‘You put my Romanian food-packers story on page ten. That should have been “front page stuff”.’

  John sat back in his chair, surveying her with his most enigmatic gaze – one she could fathom no better after five years than she had on the first day she came in to meet him. ‘Young women who tell me how to run my paper have never been exactly welcome here,’ he said. ‘If I were you, I’d think very seriously about my options. As you’re freelance, it might be a good thing for you to try lancing a little more freely. Try writing for someone you like, for instance. Think about it.’

  Mitzi turned tail and strode out of the door. She knew she would never set foot through it again.

  John might have enough chips on his shoulder to feed the whole of Cygnford University for the academic year, but he also had the power to remove her most regular source of income, diminished though it might be. Mitzi fought a rising inner tide of fury, fright and despair. What had gone wrong? Earlier she’d had no intention of arguing with him. A sea-monster seemed to have woken inside her and crashed up through the surf.

  Outside a café in the next street, she paused, tempted by a whiff of chocolate. She tied up her bike and went in. Armed with a double espresso and a brownie, she sat at a table in the window, trying to close her ears to the soundtrack of American Christmas carols and watching the Cygnford street go about its business as if nothing had changed.

  Licking chocolate crumbs from her teeth, she tried to calm herself and winnow out her different strands of response. First of all, she noted, she was madly happy at the idea of never having to speak to John again. Everything she’d said to him was true, which was why he didn’t like it. Even he would never get beyond his current rut if he could put nothing more exciting in his headlines than ‘Bird Falls Off Chapel Roof’. If the paper was struggling to stay afloat – as she often read elsewhere that it was – then should the editor not have to shoulder some of the blame? She was free to find better work. She could even pluck up courage to email The Guardian about her cheerful Romanians and the sleeping bags placed cheek by jowl on the floor of that village house. And yet…

  Somehow she was feeling less enthusiastic about trying to get ahead in journalism. If it meant, as it seemed to, years of scribbling too fast about events that signified nothing, while stories of real interest were relegated behind clickbait and fear-mongering, while her pay was cut and cut again, and she could do nothing to stop that happening, and while quality coverage was being shredded in front of her eyes… There must be something else that would suit her better.

  She couldn’t sing, and God – plus the neighbours – knew how badly she’d played the piano as a child. But Odette was alight with love when she talked about music; once they’d set her free from her spell, assuming they could, she’d never turn back. Mitzi imagined her at the Proms, raising the roof. She wanted to switch on as powerfully as that. She wanted something that fed her with that same deluge of delight. She could string together a decent sentence. She had a degree. She could draw. That wasn’t enough. Like Odette – like her own brother, on stage playing Shakespeare – she wanted to fly.

  The trouble was that nothing she had ever done for herself alone had brought her such a degree of satisfaction. What was the greatest thrill she had found in anything recently? She took out her phone and began to make notes on it. Showing Odette Tolstoy on a tablet, and seeing the wonder in her face. Giving cash to a girl on the street to help her get back to Yorkshire. She thought of Harry, playing Romeo – of all things – last year at the Amateur Dramatic Club, and Juliet’s line: ‘My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep; the more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are endless.’

  And there was that blasted conundrum again, threatening to drown her dream. She could volunteer for the Refugee Council, or go back to college and train as a teacher, but she still had to pay her rent. And what if she returned to Richardson Road to find the police waiting for her, asking questions about Odette? What in heaven’s name would she do if Rob were to turn round, despite everything, and turf her out?

  Twenty minutes later, at home – mercifully free of police – Mitzi dumped her coat on the sofa and plunged straight for her filing cabinet and a folder marked FLAT. There was her contract, with Rob’s florid signature at the bottom beside her own. She ran one finger along the clauses on its three thin blue pages. ‘4.4 No subletting is permitted. The landlord’s permission must be sought before admitting any other person(s) to stay overnight in the property.’ And further down, ‘4.6 No pets or other animals permitted.’

  Odette avoided the stretch of river where she had met the hostile swans. She flew for a long time, relishing the wind under her wings, sometimes letting the currents lift her, at other moments turning against them, using them to her advantage, testing her m
anipulation skills. Today, in the cold air with its whiff of incipient snow, she was in control and could do as she pleased. She followed the winding river until, a little way out of town, she noticed a widening of the channel and drifted down to land.

  To one side lay an expanse of fields, brown, ochre and soft green; to the other, a towpath along a twiggy hedgerow still sporting its last scarlet berries. Small gaggles of walkers were braving the cold in laced-up boots, fleecy hats and gloves. In spring the dark tangle of overhanging hawthorn trees would brighten with a galaxy of star-shaped blossoms. The clouds reflected in silver ripples on the water and some ducks passed by, glancing nervously at the swan, but ignoring her when she ignored them. A pair of mute swans stared with more suspicion and Odette knew to give them a wide berth. She was a stranger to them and could be no different, just because her beak was a different shape and colour. A male on his own would avoid her at best, or more likely hiss to chase her away. Over the centuries she had met more avian suitors than human ones, at least when they first spotted her, but swans trusted their instincts more than human beings usually did. Male Bewick’s swans sensed something wrong in her being, something peculiar in her behaviour, and if they didn’t think better of involvement within a moment, they certainly would when she vanished at nightfall. They had no idea that the woman crouching on the threshold of her makeshift hut, watching them, held the soul they were seeking on the water. Swans were careful; they mated for life.

  A flat wooden boat was drifting towards her. At one end, a young man stood on a platform, wielding a pole, dropping it so that its end pushed against the riverbed and propelled the boat forward. Reclining in the seats were two girls and another boy, wrapped in coats, hats and blankets, but sipping champagne from wineglasses; their breath rose in misty clouds while their laughter glittered through the hawthorn branches. Odette recognised them as two couples who had danced with her and Harry at the ball. She honked and flapped her wings.

  ‘Look!’ cried one of the girls. ‘What a wonderful swan!’ Her companions made exclamations of delight and the other girl produced a mobile telephone like Mitzi’s, pointed it at her and pressed a button. ‘Sorry, swannikins, we didn’t bring any bread,’ she called.

  Swannikins? Bread? Odette watched the punt float on down the river, then turned her back and prepared for take-off.

  She wanted to look at the town she was trying to make her home. High over the rooftops, she thought its scale mean and pokey. She was used to a different kind of beauty: endless, rolling, empty land; vast lakes and forests, realms where few people ventured even nowadays. This city was different. The outskirts were broad, new and lacking in any aesthetic dimension, with building sites and red bricks and cars on roads too choked to let them move. The centre was more concentrated, its streets haphazard curlicues when seen from above, yet everything was better ordered around the old market square and the spacious buildings near the river.

  She let herself sink lower and idly watched two women pushing infants in buggies along the riverside path, talking hard and laughing; a man in blotched green and grey military trousers, alone on a bench despite the cold, drinking from a tall open can and staring into space; an elderly woman, alone too, making unsteady progress down the street with a three-legged frame in front of her and a patient terrier padding beside her on a lead. Students stood in groups, joking together over their bicycles. In several doorways lay piles of torn cardboard boxes and padded sleeping bags; in one, she spotted the long shape of a slumbering figure, ignoring and ignored by the people wandering past. A thread of music from a shop reached her: a child’s voice singing about peace on earth, good will to men.

  Someone was pointing up at her. Odette was enjoying herself so much that she looped the loop for them; she was just close enough to hear responding yells of surprise and joy. Beyond simple survival, she had not had much else to practise for the last century and a half. How was it possible that from where she was now, master of space that was barred to all these humans, the city could look so enticing? Yet when she was in the world, trying to be one of them, she was shouted at and censured just because she was a stranger and didn’t know how things worked.

  None of those people could fly, though they all wanted to. They’d envy her power. Still, they’d hate having to eat pondweed.

  Tired but happy from her night of music and her day of flight, she turned homewards, her well-exercised wings aching. She followed the river until she could glimpse, tiny as a blade of grass, the chestnut tree and the bright new windowpane in Mitzi’s flat. She felt uneasy for a second – but the owl was nowhere to be seen. Her new friends would help her; and as long as he didn’t return, she was safe.

  She swooped towards the window and tapped her wingtips on the glass. Mitzi was inside, tidying the kitchen; at the sight of the hovering swan, her eyes lit up and she stepped across to let her in. Odette noticed that her movements had changed: her steps were heavier and faster, her expression firm.

  ‘Hello, Odette!’ Mitzi pushed up the sash and Odette arrived in a whoosh of feathers by her box. Landing without water was getting easier, slowly but surely. Mitzi patted her on the head and filled up her bowl with water; Odette bent her long neck to drink. Mitzi was making coffee, as usual. Her eyes were too bright and her mouth was set. Odette lifted her head and watched her. She had never seen her so angry.

  She waddled across the room to where Mitzi was settling on the sofa and rested her beak on her hand.

  ‘Odette,’ said Mitzi. ‘Dear Odette. What’s going on? You wouldn’t believe it. I don’t believe it either. First you come crashing in and now I’ve lost more than half my work, and there’s a phone message from a terribly nice-sounding policeman who got our number from Uma. Any moment I’m going to wake up and find it’s all a nightmare.’

  Nightmare? Odette raised her head in protest and rustled her wings; she wanted to say that for her it was no nightmare, but a beautiful dream come true. All that emerged was a honk. She pumped her neck up and down.

  ‘OK,’ said Mitzi. ‘You’re having a good time. So am I, really. I wouldn’t have missed this last week for the world. Do you know it’s only a week since we went out for that Mexican meal, and you got plastered on chicken-tails?’

  Odette as a swan was not blessed with the ability to laugh, so she squawked.

  ‘So now I’m finished with the bloody newspaper – which everyone says is bound to shut down in any case. I just wish I had something like you have, something to love as much as you love playing the piano and flying. And there’s you. And – oh God – there’s Rob. I hate losing my temper, you know. I only lose it about once every four years. It’s terrible, I start shaking all over and I run a fever.’

  The swan rustled and pumped to show she understood. Mitzi held out a hand to her and Odette reached forwards and leaned her beak on Mitzi’s lap, a human cry in her swan’s throat. Her arms were fighting under her wings to embrace Mitzi, but her bones were the wrong shape. She clattered her bill in frustration, wishing that she could be saved, fast: if only she were human now, she could comfort her friend, make her see how little need there was to be angry, tell her how wrong anyone would be to cause her pain.

  How much there was that human beings could do that she could not – little things, everyday things that existed as a matter of course in towns, cities and societies, yet went far beyond the basic survival tactics that were all she used at home in her forest. Resentment fluttered under her breast feathers that something so simple had been removed from her by force, and could only be restored if she found the right man to make the necessary vow – even though the growing friendship between her and Mitzi would have nothing to do with him or anybody else.

  She had to bide her time. Soon she would see Harry again. Her hopes concentrated on him with all their might.

  16

  On Saturday morning Mitzi cycled out of town towards Rob’s house in the woods, her hood raised against a dark pewter sky and the drizzle and bluster that appeared dete
rmined to stop her. She wouldn’t be stopped. Pedalling along the country road, the wind slicing at her ears, she had to concentrate on every metre of progress, which had the side effect of removing her from the goings-on of her new life, at least for a while.

  A note was pinned to Rob’s cottage door: STUDIO. An arrow pointed towards the converted garage. She could hear a quiet, pulsing hum emanating from it, mingling with the soft tap of raindrops on the roof.

  Rob was inside, in a spattered grey overall, his hands clamped around a lump of clay. The hum came from the potter’s wheel, spinning hypnotically as his foot worked the pedal. A two-bar electric heater to one side warmed the studio, and a wet, earthy smell filled the air; Mitzi breathed in, liking it. Under Rob’s fingers the clay became a smooth ball, then widened, and began to lengthen upwards. As he varied his touch, pressing into the hollow with his thumb or pinching and pulling the sides of the emerging pot, the shape became clearer. The vase, if vase it would be, began from a narrow base, then seemed to open up towards the light.

  ‘That’s amazing,’ Mitzi exclaimed. Rob started; the pot on the wheel went instantly askew.

  He scooped the collapsed object aside into a pile of discarded clay. ‘Mitzi! I didn’t hear you come in. How long have you been there?’

  ‘I forgot to say hello, I was so busy watching you. I thought you’d be running around getting ready for this afternoon?’

  ‘It’s all done. The procession is all down to kids from the school, the classroom teachers have taken over sheepdog duties and I need only make a speech and take the credit. And we have to hope the rain stops.’

  ‘Show me how this works?’ Mitzi approached the wheel.

  ‘Put this on first.’ Rob fetched a spare overall from a hook behind the door. Mitzi pulled it over her head. ‘Good, come and sit here. Now, take a lump, about this size, and the first thing you need to do is to centre it.’