‘Then what?’
Her father fidgets like a schoolboy, and Odette realises that he is attempting to organise his expression into something authoritative. Not as he did the night Claudine caught Odette and Cecilia playing at Godiva; this is something real.
Odette stills, in confusion, then in apprehension. She doesnot speak.
‘The way you have behaved towards Claudine is not acceptable, and I have been derelict in my duties as a father for not disciplining you sooner.’
The birdsong is too loud. That is all Odette can think. Why is the birdsong so loud?
Maybe she can get up and start walking and walking and walking and travel far enough away that this isn’t happening.
‘I don’t understand,’ she says quietly.
‘She went to a great deal of effort to arrange a special dinner for your birthday, and you gave her no thanks at all. In fact, she told me she saw you making childish faces at Cecilia, pretending you didn’t like it.’
‘I – I did say thank you. I’m sure I did.’
She is a good daughter because she is discreet. Pleasant. She needs nothing, no guidance, no scolding, no help. Her mother demands so much, there is no space for Odette to demand too, and she knows what a comfort it is to her father that she asks so little from him.
Some lurching gap opens beneath her. She has not smoothed things over. She has not made things easy. She has failed.
Oh God, here’s the fear: will he stop loving her if she stops being easy?
‘Claudine has taken so much responsibility off your shoulders since she arrived, and you have not shown gratitude for any of it. She has been caring for your mother and running the house on your behalf so that you may go off to university, and you act as if you thought yourself entitled to all of it.’
Odette thinks she might be sick. It would be odd to be sick here, in the garden, on her nice shoes. She barely ate breakfast – would there even be anything to throw up?
‘But .?.?. but Mother is her sister. Why should she not look after her?’
George gives a short, mirthless smile. ‘You have a sharp tongue, Odette, and you cut more people with it than you care to know.’
She is hot with shame. This is all wrong, but she cannot put her finger on what or where or how. Her tongue is fat and stupid in her mouth; she cannot work out how to say what it is she thinks, what it is that seems right, to defend herself. No, she does not like Claudine, and perhaps that is obvious, but if Claudine is to string her up for her offences, then should Odette not get her chance to list Claudine’s own failings?
But she cannot find the right words.
‘I am sorry.’ Those words again. Is she? No, she is not, but she does not know how to fight, only how to roll over like a craven dog and bare her soft underbelly.
‘There. You’ll find a moment to say it to Claudine. I am sure she will understand.’
No, she won’t. Odette knows that already.
She feels the ground shifting again, the lines redrawn – and she finds herself pushed out and out.
‘Best behave yourself today; you know how women are.’
Her father pats her hand and leaves her in pieces.
5
Cecilia
CECILIA FINDSODETTE DOWNin the meadows, watching the farmhands build bonfires.
She disappeared after speaking to her father, and Cecilia cannot shake the worry that has crept around her. Something is wrong, something she doesn’t understand. Odette is slipping further and further into a world apart, and Cecilia would do anything she can to keep her.
Cecilia takes up position beside Odette, leaning on the fence that surrounds the field where the farmhands are stacking dry brush and hedge trimmings.
‘Come. We have a few days more. I would see you happy.’