The Maker of Swans

by Paraic O’Donnell

  These phenomena Clara explains in jottings that Eustace might find anywhere in the house or grounds, at any hour of the day or night. She might scrawl five or six lines on a napkin and leave it behind her at the table. It is not uncommon for him to discover, while dusting off a bottle of Montrachet in the cellar, a stack of Mr Crowe’s calling cards, neatly bundled and bound with ribbon. On the backs of these, in her dense and fastidious cursive, Clara will have set forth some branch of her personal cosmology.

  Today, because she will pass his rooms on her way downstairs, she decides to leave her pages by his bed. He is a fitful sleeper, but her comings and goings rarely disturb him. She is slight, and has the practised stealth of the solitary child who lives among old and undisturbed things.

  At his bedside, even in her quiet haste, she is stilled by something unfamiliar. On the nightstand, loosely wrapped in a soiled handkerchief, lies a pair of ornate pistols. Clara lowers her face to the bundle, drawn by a thread of scent. There is oil in it, and heated metal, a sweet but faded charring. With a throb of disquiet, she studies the stains on the handkerchief, their peculiar complexion of darkness. In this house, the appearance of such things might have a thousand explanations, but she would be less surprised to encounter them among Mr Crowe’s possessions. Eustace dislikes untidiness; it is rare, in his quarters, to find anything out of place.

  Clara glances uneasily at him as she arranges her pages. She has chosen rather formal stationery today, the notepaper bearing the letterhead of a hotel in Biarritz where they spent the last summer but one. The nights there, she remembers, were clouded with hydrangea blossom, and with some scandal that Mr Crowe had either instigated or put right. She thinks of it distractedly as she looks over the title page.

  Natural History of the Nebula Snail, Vol. XI, no. iv

  While it cannot be observed directly from Earth, the nebula snail (Helix nebulosa) is endemic to certain regions of interstellar space, where it grazes on helium and hydrogen and leaves in its wake a diffuse and garishly coloured smear (see fig. (a) below) that is not only extremely unsightly but also very difficult to remove from the fabric of the universe (some authorities suggest that vinegar in solution may be effective).

  [Eustace, can we try snails like the French do? Next time there is company, we could impress them with our sophisticated continental habits. Also, when can I have wine with dinner? I think you’ll find that I am rather more grown up than certain other members of the household. – Ed.]

  Over millions of years, a large enough colony of such snails can leave trails covering such an immense area volume of space that they are visible from Earth, forming what we know as nebulae.

  The monograph continues in this vein for a further four pages, and includes several detailed illustrations. She pictures him waking to find them, knowing just how he will appear as he reads them: his chin raised slightly as if in wariness, his eyes seamed and intent. His expression will soften, though, as he comes upon some oddity that amuses him. He may shake his head gently, tapping a line or passage that gives him particular enjoyment or cause for incredulity.

  Eustace stirs as Clara is leaving. The sheets are roped about his chest, and he grips one of his pillows as if it were a dog intent on mauling him. She hesitates at the door. It is the pistols that are troubling his sleep, and whatever business brought them here. She ought to stow them in her knapsack and take them with her. It would be easy, where she is going, to put them where they could do no more harm. But Eustace would notice at once, and would be alarmed. He might even come looking for her.

  No, it is ridiculous even to think of it. And it is getting late. She cannot deliberate any longer.

  She descends by the back stairs. The stone under her bare soles is mortifyingly cold, but on these steps she can be entirely noiseless. Nor is she likely, taking this way, to encounter Mr Crowe, who keeps no particular hours and often bids her goodnight as she goes down to breakfast. He would not question her business abroad, of course. He would be far more likely to lead her in a foxtrot across the vestibule, or to introduce her to a film actress. Mr Crowe is kindly towards her, even protective in his rather abstract way, but he certainly does not concern himself with her whereabouts when she is not in his presence. If her care were left entirely to him, she reflects, she could make camp in the beech woods and live on sardines and tinned peaches. He himself might well die of hunger, without someone to bring him chops and burgundy.

  The truth is that Clara’s comings and goings are subject to very little scrutiny by anyone in the household. Eustace generally requires that she present herself for meals with some regularity and fit herself out in such a way as to avoid pneumonia, but he does not otherwise hinder her projects and excursions. Even so, on this particular morning she would just as soon meet no one.

  In the pantry, she begins filling her knapsack with provisions. First, she bundles up an entire loaf of bread, not worrying that Alice will notice. After all, Alice herself seems to mislay a considerable quantity of Madeira. And in any case, the bread is the most important thing. The books she consulted in the library were all in agreement on that. In the wild, of course, they can scarcely depend on bread, but they are happy to accept it when they must.

  Next, Clara takes whatever greens are to be found. Some tender lettuce leaves would be best, but it is too late in the year for those. She makes do instead with half a head of cabbage, chopping it as finely as she can, and unbraids and shreds the necks of some onions that have been hung for winter. None of it is quite right, she thinks, but it will have to do.

  Finally, she takes a small blue tin from a high shelf. On its lid, a sturgeon is curled so that its back forms a menacing ring of serrations, encircled in turn by gold lettering in elaborate Cyrillic script. She has been eyeing it for days, faltering always at the last moment. It will be missed, of course, and there will be a fuss. It will have cost a great deal – not that Mr Crowe ever seems concerned about such things – and Alice will have written its price in her book of accounts, even if it is a price she arrived at unaided. It cannot be helped, any of it. It is not the time to skimp on these things.

  She glances up at the narrow, mullioned window. Outside, the darkness has the faintest leavening of lilac. It will not be long until daybreak, when a whole day will have passed since she last fed them. It is time to go. Now, at last, she sits on a low bench and tugs on her boots, then fastens her knapsack and slings it over her shoulder. She is ready.

  Leaving by the kitchen door, she takes her first breath of the cold, feels the quick, knifing surge of it. Under the cold, there is a faint richness, the muted savour of damp leaves and turned earth. She quickens her step, the anticipation rising in her. She feels light and heavy at once, both alert and serene. She cannot explain it.

  In the west lane, she breaks into a gentle run. In the mist and the scarce light, the hedgerows are a parade of shapes that at first she can barely decipher, but then it is only a tall nettle, slackening and discoloured, or the stark coronets of cow parsley gone to seed. A scrawny fox appears in her path, darting quickly aside as it catches sight of her, its teeth clamped over some furred and feebly twitching thing.

  Above the orchard, as she passes, colours are seeping into the hem of the sky. She hurries on, past the neglected herb beds, until she comes to the narrow ironwork gate, partly obscured by ivy, that leads from the walled garden to the wilder grounds beyond. From here the way is downhill, and in the beech woods she begins to run again, scuttling through the thick drifts of leaves until she realises that she is scaring up all manner of birds. Their alarm calls might easily spread through the woods and beyond, and that could ruin everything. She keeps instead to the middle of the track, skipping over the dry leaves and brittle twigs, finding the soft and mossy places to tread.

  When she stumbles from the quiet shade of the woods, she is surprised, as always, by the sudden and limitless air, by the scale and openness of the country before her. She pauses for a moment, looking out over the broad valley
of grassland. Though it is not yet fully light, she can see all the way to the mountains, a swell and fall of bluish shadow some eight or nine miles to the west. From there, a peaty stream threads its way to the mere, the wide and dark-watered lake that lies at the heart of the Estate, its shape so irregular that it seems somehow mutable, its edges half hidden always among the reeds.

  If it seems unreal, this place, its boundaries shifting and indistinct, it is perhaps because she has dreamed of it so often, or of things that happen here. She has come here sometimes, even in daylight, and has wondered whether she is dreaming. In the same way, she has been deeply asleep but believed herself to be out walking in the last hour before nightfall, watching the swans that gather here. This is the more disconcerting experience, especially when it is something forcefully unreal that makes her realise her mistake. She remembers a scarecrow that she saw once. It was starkly upright in the dark water of the lake, and the wind tugged at its tatters of cheesecloth until it pivoted on its post. Beneath its flannel coat gaped a hull of grey and vacant ribs.

  It was this scarecrow, in fact, that gave her the name by which she knows this place. It is a name she uses freely, though she has otherwise kept that particular dream to herself, and even Eustace has come to adopt it.

  ‘The Windbones,’ he said once, appraising her choice. ‘It is apt for that place, for the way the wind chases a whiteness through the grasses. It will chase through you also, if you do not wrap up. You had your woollens on, I trust?’

  She smiles at the recollection, but only briefly. She is nearing the place and must be slow and cautious. She found them in the lee of a young willow, huddled in the ruined heap of the nest. Though it is only yards from the water’s edge, it lies deep enough in the reeds that for now, at least, they have gone unseen from the lake. It is not unheard of for orphans to be nurtured by other adults, but it is rare. Their fate, if they are discovered, is likely to be much less kind.

  She picks her way through the reeds, parting them as gently as she can. Though the woods were already stirring, the lake shore is almost silent. They have come to accept her, she thinks, but they are fearful still. She must be careful, above all, not to startle them from their hiding place. She has learned to tread with laborious slowness as she approaches them, moving her limbs in such tiny increments that she wonders, at certain moments, if she has become entirely still.

  She finds them sleeping, the cygnets. Pushing at last through the fringe of reeds that surrounds the nest, her breathing eases. They are safe, if only for another day. Moving with the utmost care still, Clara lowers herself to her knees. They have woken now, each untucking its head from the downy pouch of its body and staring at her, but they do not take fright. They seem always to know her when she is this close, though whether it is by sight or scent she cannot tell. Tenderly, she strokes the plumage of the one closest to her. It gazes at her for a moment, meekly quizzical, its eyes no more than gleaming pips in the soft tuft of its head. It flexes its tiny neck towards her offered knuckles, as if to accept her touch, and the softness she encounters is barely palpable, like the weightless glancing of dandelion seeds.

  Clara relaxes her posture, sinking lower on her knees. She spreads a cloth over her lap and begins unpacking her provisions. Taking a bowl from the knapsack, she scoops water from the channel that partially encloses the nest. To the water she adds the shredded greens, refilling the bowl each time they empty it. She tears the bread into dainty morsels, moistening these too, and letting the chicks snatch them from her palm.

  On the evening she first found them, she swaddled them in an old eiderdown, covering it with tarpaulin so that it would not become sodden. Their parents were hunted from the mere, she thinks, by another pair of swans nesting nearby. They may even have been killed. She has seen such things before.

  She sees how frail they are still, as the food draws them from beneath the quilt, how matted and patchy their down. Taking out the tin of caviar, she works it open and spoons it out in small, glistening heaps. The cygnets hesitate for an instant, peering down their bills at the dark clusters of roe, then lunge towards them. They eat greedily, snapping at each other’s bills and scouring the tin after she has emptied it. When she offers them more bread, they turn their heads disdainfully away.

  Clara smiles, caressing one of the chicks along its underside, but she feels the meagre heat beneath its ruffled softness. She gets to her feet, aware suddenly of the chill. It will be November soon. The days will grow raw and comfortless, in the woods and on the shore. The nights will widen, welcoming everything that hunts. She has tried not to think of it, but they are only weeks old, and far from fledged. There will be only so much she can do, as winter patiently encircles them.

  She notices something then that has caught on her sleeve. It is the tiniest of feathers, hardly more than a wisp of down. She detaches it carefully, meaning to inspect it more closely, but it is so slight that she cannot keep hold of it. She sees it only for an instant before the wind takes it, a thread of brightness that shivers from her fingertips and is gone.

  Three

  When he woke again, Eustace thought first of running. The impulse was fleeting – he had silenced it by the time he sat on the edge of his bed to straighten his cuffs – yet it was curious, after all this time, how easily it had come to him. But perhaps it was not so strange that he should feel the old urge, that the memory of running should persist. He had seen enough of it in his time.

  He had been no more than a boy the first time. He had been left with little choice, after what had happened – after what he had done. If he had not run, they would have come for him. What awaited him had never been in doubt.

  After that, it was something he became accustomed to. They had fled to Paris first, he and Mr Crowe, when that city was in the last of its true glory. There he had been admitted to another world, to a world of carriage rides and opera houses, of scandals whispered behind silk-gloved fingers; a world of sonatas and cigar smoke, of toothless princesses and jasmine-scented whores.

  It was a world where he knew nothing, but he learned quickly. He was shown without introduction into the lower rooms of half the fine houses in the septième. While he waited for his master to emerge from the salon or the boudoir above, he listened to the talk of the servants, even when there was hardly a word of it that he understood. He kept his eyes on his untouched absinthe, and he tried to pick the sense from the noise. He learned.

  He stood with the valets in the passageways, or among the grooms in the stables, and his education came without order or sequence. He learned the word for horseshit and the word for iron; the words for lice and sores, for maidenhood and stillbirth. But he listened, and he learned.

  He learned the ways in – on se tutoie, hein? – and the ciphers that were meant to warn him off. He learned to look for what might be of use, for the few true secrets that fell unintended among the scraps. He learned that this, as much as anything, was his purpose in those places, that he must be the first to read the signs. He learned to see things coming.

  And he learned when to run.

  For that was the nature of running. You knew, almost without exception, that it was coming. The rabbit kit, still half-blind, learns of the hawk’s intention when it finds itself upside down in the harsh wind, trailing a bright tether of its guts. A man – even a boy, unless he is a halfwit – will have some means, however slender, of warning himself. A woman, in Eustace’s experience, possesses a sharper faculty still. The fine threads of which our safety is woven – these are like a hand that she reads without effort. Not even the slightest twitch that might begin their unravelling is invisible to her.

  It took many forms, Eustace learned, the sign that puts paid to the last of your doubts. The hand that is slipped, at a late hour and before some disreputable doorway, into a coat that hangs too heavily on one side. The blunt smack of the gavel, echoing above the tumult. Or perhaps only the back of a fine gown, turned gracefully against you in a glittering ballroom. Such eve
nts, however unlike each other, were equal in their effects.

  Whatever its nature, the thing that you cannot mistake is only the last in a disquieting procession. For days or weeks before, all ease has been wrung from the life you had. Your sleep is thin and easily torn. You eat only what you must to keep you from weakening. In the sump of your chest, a sour dread is pooling. It will be loosed in your blood, all of it in one rush, when the time comes.

  That much he had learned the first time he had taken to the road, with no provisions but those he could bundle together in ten or fifteen fevered minutes. That was long ago, before he had taken his present name. Since then, there was little about running that Eustace had not come to know. Nothing in its cramped rituals, however calamitous or exotic the circumstances that gave rise to them, was ever fresh or new. The first time, nonetheless, had been set apart in at least one respect. In one detail, it was not repeated.

  Though he had done so many times since then, Eustace did not flee that first night in the company of Mr Crowe. He set out alone, and it was Mr Crowe that he pursued.

  It was a morning he might otherwise have taken pleasure in. The air had a rasp of cold in it, and the sky had the clean, mineral blueness that is seen only in the declining months. He spared it little more than a glance. There would be other such days.

  He began by pacing out the avenue. In the dark, there was only so much he had been able to do. There had been the body, of course, which he had consigned for now to the luggage compartment of the young man’s own car. He had walked the half-mile or so to the main gates, where the avenue joined the public road that bounded the Estate to the north. It carried little passing traffic, even by day, and the country round about held only a scattering of households. If anything had been heard, he knew the lights to look for. He had cleared away the guns, and had seen to the cars. The young man’s was in the old stable yard for now, as any visitor’s would be. He had done what he could with the disfigured lawn.