‘Most actors take other jobs when they’re starting out. I’ve met ones who work in pubs and shops and restaurants and supermarkets and…’
‘Yeah, and sometimes when they’ve been acting for decades… But look, I need to put in the effort right now. I’ve got heaps more auditions before Christmas and… well, it’s an art, turning yourself into somebody else. Just grant me a fair go at it, for a bit? And if it changes, it changes, OK?’
‘You should play Peter Pan. You’d look good in the Never-Never Land.’
The phone rang; the answering machine whirred and beeped. A now familiar male voice: ‘Mitzi? You there?’ A pause; a click. Mitzi yawned.
‘No wonder you’re Ms Grumpsville,’ Harry remarked.
‘It’s not that,’ said Mitzi.
‘A bad Dad day? Oh, Mits.’ Harry launched out of his chair and wrapped her in a bear hug. ‘I miss him too. We’ve got to try and make the best of things, you know? Keep Carpe-ing the Diem, as he’d say. Honestly, he’d want you to. And he’d be glad we stick together.’
‘I know.’ Mitzi let herself hide her face against her brother’s substantial chest for a minute. ‘I feel so stupid being upset when there are so many people in so much more trouble. Another drink?’ She made for the fridge to pour some for them both. ‘I met this girl today who was on the street, begging – she wanted to get back to her dad. And I tried to help, but I’ve just been to look for her and she’d gone…’
‘What did she tell you?’
Mitzi repeated the girl’s story – abusive boyfriend, pregnancy, hospital – and watched Harry’s expression morph from concentration to derision.
‘And you believed it?’ he said. ‘Seriously, Mits, you believed that whole malarkey? She’s got every trick in the book in that little speech. No wonder you gave her all your dosh.’
‘What makes you think it wasn’t true?’ Mitzi rounded on him. ‘How do you know? You didn’t meet her. You never know what the stories are behind all those people in the cardboard boxes. They might be refugees, they might be addicts – it can happen to anyone if you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, breaking up, losing your job… How do you know what people could do, if they only had a chance?’
‘You’d believe anything, Mits.’ Harry gave a sigh. ‘Look, you’ve been lecturing me, so I’m going to lecture you back. Let’s say, for argument’s sake, it’s all true, about that girl. So, you did what you could. But you can’t take everyone’s troubles on your shoulders. She’s not your problem.’
‘But in a way, Hal, why shouldn’t she be? We’re all connected. We should all help each other, if we can.’
‘You could also wonder why you work through every weekend and still you’ve never got any money,’ Harry pointed out. ‘You’ve got to draw the line somewhere… Be sensible. It’s not your responsibility.’
‘But…’
‘Change of subject: how about I distract you? Can I sing you my audition song? They want us to sing “Hey Ho, the Wind and the Rain”, trad version.’
‘Go on, then.’ Mitzi curled up on the sofa, clutching a cushion.
Harry began.
‘When that I was and a little tiny boy
With hey ho, the wind and the rain,
A foolish thing was but a toy,
For the rain it raineth every day.’
His voice was soft and direct, as if speaking, but at pitch.
‘But when I came to man’s estate,
With hey ho, the wind and the rain,
Gainst knaves and thieves men shut the gate,
For the rain it raineth every day.’
When Mitzi opened her eyes, his arm was round her shoulder, bringing her back to consciousness.
‘Oh nooo, sorry… I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I loved the way you sang.’
‘You’re well wasted,’ Harry observed. ‘Get some kip and I’ll head home.’
‘Yes, Mummy.’ Mitzi gave only her second genuine smile of the day.
Harry bounced to the washing machine and retrieved his load. ‘Mind how you go tomorrow,’ he remarked. ‘There’s a storm coming, they say. A really bad one, from the east. It’s got some fancy name. God knows why they give storms names. It’s got to be an O. Olivia or Oswaldia or Odile…’
‘Don’t storms always come from the west?’ Mitzi yawned.
‘Not this one, it doesn’t. Take care and don’t go out unless you have to.’
Mitzi listened for the soft clop of the closing front door. Alone, she pulled off her clothes, gave her teeth a cursory brush and plunged into the wonderfully empty bed. There she drifted towards sleep, her mind still caressing the mournful tune of Harry’s song.
3
By four in the morning, the rain was driving at the roof. By six, the gale had worked into a frenzy that shook the house with a roaring like the groans of a waking demon. At first light, Mitzi opened the curtains to gaze, disbelieving, at mustardy clouds scudding by, twigs and litter somersaulting along the pavement and the chestnut tree bending as if under a dead weight, its branches pleading, outstretched, for help.
The radio news admitted that the weathermen had underestimated the force of Storm Odile. The editor of Nature Now, when Mitzi phoned, was late for work and hadn’t enjoyed her bike ride. ‘It’s hellish,’ she told Mitzi in a shaky voice. ‘The weird thing is that it’s all the wrong way round – we don’t get winter storms from the east. I’m asking our global warming chap to write something about it.’
By ten, raindrops still assaulting her window like paint flung by a furious artist, Mitzi prepared to make her calls for the corporate journal. She had to talk to the managing directors of Cygnford’s top three accountancy firms about their favourite holiday destinations – the magazine’s ploy for advertising revenue, of course, but the piece would pay for her groceries for a month. Everything was pre-organised for that day – and they were the sort of people, or at least the sort of men, who would make their journeys by car rather than bicycle and were unlikely to have made excuses to stay at home.
The third receptionist sounded bored when Mitzi phoned at two o’clock and asked to be put through to the managing director, who would have been alerted by the company’s PR to expect a call. She realised, too late, that she had no idea what his name was.
‘Please hold the line,’ said the receptionist. ‘I’ll put you through to Peter Haddon.’
Mitzi almost dropped the phone.
She knew exactly where Pete Haddon liked to go on holiday. Together, once, they’d enjoyed a week in Rome, tripping over history on street corners, wandering in the shade of ancient archways in the Forum, savouring the evening air by the fountain in the Piazza Navona with a bottle of Chianti, and relishing long nights in which sleep wasn’t a priority.
Paralysed, while the phone piped Tchaikovsky into her left ear, she wondered whether to ring off. Before she could, he was there. ‘Mitzi—!’
‘Pete? Hi. I, um, I didn’t know it was you. I’m doing an article and, believe it or not, I need to ask accountancy MDs where they go on holiday.’ She forced laughter.
‘Mitzi, Mitzi… how on earth are you?’
‘Fine. Chugging along. And you?’
‘Oh, tickety-boo, thanks. I’ve been here a few months – I left the other company after… y’know… but I landed on my feet.’
‘I’m really glad you’re doing so well,’ Mitzi tried to enthuse. ‘It’s really wonderful.’
‘Good to hear your voice, Mitzi. How’s life? Got a nice man?’
She didn’t answer. ‘When’s the baby due?’
‘Another month or so. Hopefully not Christmas Day…’
‘Great,’ said Mitzi. ‘That’s wonderful. Really wonderful. Now, I’ve got to ask you about your holidays…’
When she met Pete, who was ambitious and ten years her senior, he had everything, except a wife. The infatuated Mitzi, romanced by weekly flowers and cards containing her favourite poems, written out by hand, moved with alacrity into his shin
y modern maisonette. She cooked him dinners, brought him coffee in bed, let him choose the weekend outings and did the shopping on her own, believing herself to be the happiest, most fortunate young woman in East Anglia and maybe soon to be married. Then one day her father, who had finally agreed to medical tests after losing a stone in weight, called to tell her the diagnosis. She’d wept in Pete’s bed after visiting first the hospital, later the hospice, watching her father grow thinner, weaker, then insensible as the morphine dose was increased.
Pete came to the funeral and held her hand. A month later, standing in the kitchen, he told her he’d fallen in love with a work colleague, had been seeing her for a while, and she was pregnant, so Mitzi would have to find somewhere else to live. She’d been upset enough to grab hold of a nearby bread knife. Sometimes she’d almost regretted not using it.
And now here she was, listening to him describing some little Greek island, perfect in May or September, and uttering an occasional ‘Yes’, ‘Really?’ or ‘Wow’ when required. She stared at the red light on her voice recorder, resisting the temptation to throw both it and the telephone out into the storm.
‘It’s great talking to you, Mitzi,’ he said. ‘Why don’t we get together and catch up? Come round for dinner and meet Sue.’
‘That’d be really lovely,’ Mitzi lied.
‘Oh – and Mitzi? You can say one more thing. You can say Italy is my Mecca.’
Mitzi’s innards gave a backflip. ‘I will, Pete.’
The book of fairy tales still lay on the sofa. She sat beside it, absorbing the quiet, watching the clouds racing by and the rain hounding her window. Her heart was still thudding and her hands were clammy. The flat was starting to smell damp; there were leaks in the roof, but it wasn’t her place to fix them without the landlord’s say-so via the letting agent, the property management company and the downstairs neighbour – whom everyone called simply Professor Maggie – so if water came in she’d just get wet… Oh, God. She needed to calm down before attempting anything more. Deep breaths, five counts in, five counts out. Calm and focus. In and out.
Beyond the road and the river, something was flying in the wind – a curious triangle, pale as paper, expanding by the moment. A bird. A large bird, in trouble. Its wings, which must have been well over a metre from tip to tip, were offering no resistance; its black webbed feet were pressed back against its belly; its long neck was stretched, straining forward. Mitzi, still counting her breaths, recognised the yellow and black beak of a Bewick’s swan, different from the musty pink of the mute swans that lived on the River Cygn. It flailed, flapping – then, as she watched in disbelief, it turned its back on the wind, set its wings, pointed its beak and dived, in control and with phenomenal acceleration, straight towards her house.
Mitzi leapt up, shielding her face with her arms, as the swan struck. The window imploded, the gale roared in with a geyser of glass and rain, and the swan thudded onto the table, blood trailing crimson in the water across its splayed wings. Its head lolled to one side. Unconscious? Dead?
Shaking, her legs like slush, Mitzi forced herself forward, step by step across the broken glass towards the creature. With one finger she reached out to touch the down on its neck, soft as fur, blotched with blood. Spots swam in front of her eyes and nausea gripped her – shock, she told herself, casting back for the sofa and slumping, head on her knees. Think, concentrate, remember. The swan is motionless – perhaps best to do something immediately useful before dealing with it? Broken window. Kitchen cupboard, scissors. Patch it up, fast. Fighting to control her breath, she pulled herself up. She had to hunt for packing tape and black bin liners, opening them up along the folds. Rain lashed her while she forced the improvised sheets against the gaping mouth of the window frame and the invading elements it was spewing into her room. In her panic, she fancied the storm was pursuing the unfortunate swan. And, oh God, the landlord… what on earth could she say to Robert Winter or his agent about the window?
It, though, was not alive. The swan needed her attention. ‘A swan can break a man’s arm,’ her father used to say when they watched them together. An injured bird might become frantic even if you were trying to help it. Other people said birds were flea-ridden. Mitzi risked the parasites and stroked the swan’s head. Was its eye following her? Watching, perhaps accepting her help? It had to be alive. She couldn’t bear it if it were dead.
If she’d found a wounded cat or dog in the street she’d have known what to do – but a swan?
There was a vet’s surgery further up Richardson Road, just a few minutes away. She looked up the number on the internet. The receptionist sounded as confused as Mitzi felt. ‘A swan?’ she echoed. ‘I’m sorry, I’m new here, I only started two days ago, and the afternoon surgery’s not open yet… but the thing is, Henry isn’t really a bird vet. It’s a different thing, you see… I don’t really know the ins and outs.’
Mitzi’s stomach seemed to plummet towards her knees. ‘What can I do? Is there a vet who does deal with birds?’
‘Ooh, I don’t know… I heard there’s a good one in south-west London…’
‘Look.’ Mitzi tried not to lose her temper. ‘I’ve got an injured swan here, it’s an emergency, I have no way on earth to get to south-west London and I don’t know what the heck to do. Please, just this once, could you consider helping?’
‘Well… I can ask Matthew, our other chap. He’s in today – I’m not sure if he does birds, because we don’t generally but maybe he’ll try… It doesn’t sound – well – usual. I suppose you’d better bring it in.’
‘It’s not usual,’ said Mitzi. ‘Thanks.’
That’s right, just bring it in. A wild swan with a metre-plus wingspan. Assuming it was alive, if it would let her touch it then it might let her pick it up; it would probably be too weak to resist. Mitzi pulled on her raincoat and gloves and prepared to lift the splayed-out bird off the table.
She hadn’t expected its weight, or the flop of its wings to each side, dwarfing her. She managed to manoeuvre it out of her door and step by step down the stairs. The swan’s neck and head drooped over her shoulder, the wings spread across her body; it felt animal, living and warm, its heart beating in a way that seemed almost human. It smelled strange – rain, blood, salt. Could it have been in the sea? In the hall she admitted defeat and put it down.
It lay, helpless, in front of her. She pushed gently at one wing, then the other, encouraging them to fold. Now she could tuck the creature under one arm, supporting its lolling head with her other hand. Five kilos? Maybe six. Out on the river it would look in place and in proportion. In here, it was a pale giant from another world.
On Richardson Road, bicycles and cars flung spray from the puddles over the curb; Mitzi caught vignettes of astounded faces as people spotted her swan.
‘Couldn’t find a bigger pet?’ a man muttered, walking past her too close. She pressed on, head bowed against the wind. She must look odd. A tall blonde in a purple raincoat, hair and face drenched, carrying a swan. A trickle of blood was seeping from one of its cuts onto Mitzi’s sleeve, towards her hand; she felt a horror, as if the bird would be committing itself to her, becoming part of her, if its blood touched her skin. She averted her eyes; she didn’t want to turn faint again.
By the time she reached the surgery, the swan seemed as heavy as a box of encyclopaedias. But thank goodness, Mitzi said to it, pushing the door open with one foot, thank heavens you’re not dead.
The receptionist gasped. ‘Oh, wow! Oh my God!’
‘Quite a big bird.’ Mitzi made for the nearest waiting-room chair.
‘Oh my God, you’re soaked through… Wait, I’ll find something to put it down in – gosh, it is poorly, isn’t it?’ The girl disappeared into the offices while Mitzi waited in the warmth, thankful, stroking the swan, a rush of love for the unfortunate bird taking hold of her. Breathing in whiffs of animal food and some astringent antiseptic, she glanced at her wrist where a smudge of blood was beginning to dry.<
br />
‘Here you go.’ The receptionist placed a broad cardboard box at Mitzi’s feet and fussed about, arranging a blanket patterned with paw marks for the swan to sit on. ‘Matthew will see you in a minute. I checked with him and we do treat wildlife for free.’
Mitzi lowered the bird onto the fleecy softness. It was regaining consciousness at last, but showed no sign of panic; instead, it adjusted its wings, then kept very still. She backed away, fearing it might lash out.
‘A swan can break a man’s arm, you know,’ the receptionist remarked.
‘This one broke my front window.’
The receptionist’s mouth formed into a perfect O. The swan sat, impassive.
‘Ah, the lady with the swan.’ Matthew emerged, striding over to shake her hand. Mitzi recognised him: a couple of years ago he’d had to put her friend Lara’s cat down after its encounter with a Ford Fiesta, and Mitzi had gone along as her moral support. The memory still smarted. He had a kind face, though, and a touch that animals seemed to trust by instinct. She’d seen an injured pit bull terrier grow meek and compliant when he handled it.
‘Let’s get her in here, shall we?’ Matthew lifted the swan in its box and led the way into the surgery.
‘It’s a girl, is it?’
‘Let’s say so for convenience.’ He set the box on the surgery table. ‘You know, of course, I’m not a specialist bird vet, but I’ll do whatever I can under the circumstances. So, let’s have a look. We’re quite a big girl, aren’t we…’ He took a gentle hold of each of the wings in turn, extending them while closing his other hand firmly around the beak. ‘Good, nothing’s broken. Remarkable, really. Let’s give those wounds a good clean, make sure there’s no splinters of glass in there.’
He took some cotton wool and dabbed antiseptic onto it to swab the gashes in the swan’s neck, shoulders and wings. At the first stinging touch the bird flinched; but perhaps Matthew’s vet magic was working. Appearing to understand that she was being cared for, she settled back, cross yet accepting.
Odette Page 3
