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.
