‘But you can’t fly,’ Mitzi teased her gently.
‘As swan you fly, but drink lake. I prefer to walk and drink this!’ She let out a peal of laughter, which broke off in a feathery hiccup. ‘Mitzi, you eat here always?’
‘No, no – just sometimes on special occasions. Usually I cook at home.’
‘So is special occasion tonight? You are kind, wonderful friend.’ The girl grasped Mitzi’s hands across the table. ‘I not enjoy anything so much since I meet prince.’
‘Prince?’
Odette’s eyes filled. ‘You see, Mitzi, this is only way to break spell. When man swears he will love me forever, and he keeps his vow, I am free. Until then, not. And I meet prince. He finds me in forest, many years ago, he says he loves me and will break spell. Baron cheats him so I cannot escape. He makes his daughter to look like me. Prince does not know and becomes betrothed to magic girl and because is daylight, I am swan, I cannot tell him is not me.’
Mitzi felt the urging of a heated memory. ‘There’s a ballet… with music by Tchaikovsky… I think I saw it once on TV.’ A childhood image of an old screen and a ballerina in a white tutu flooded into her mind. ‘But—’ Her head spun as she calculated the timing. ‘That ballet is over a hundred years old.’
‘What year is now?’ enquired Odette.
‘Two thousand and eighteen.’
‘Two-oh-one eight? This means—’ The horror in Odette’s face shattered into a fit of laughter. ‘This means I am one hundred and eighty-five years old! Me! I nineteen!’
‘Hush,’ gasped Mitzi, noticing curious glances from other diners.
‘How old are you, Mitzi?’
‘Thirty. Here comes our food.’
‘But me, I nineteen always. I one hundred and fifty-five years older than you and eleven years younger, together!’
‘Thank you,’ said Mitzi loudly as the waitress, bringing two laden and steaming plates, looked on, bemused. ‘Enchilada there, burrito here, please.’
Odette seemed to be enjoying the unsubtle aroma of spicy beans and guacamole. ‘This very interesting.’
‘Something more to drink, ladies?’ asked the waitress. Before Mitzi could say anything, Odette answered, ‘Oh, yes, drink like this!’
‘Tap water, please,’ said Mitzi.
Odette took a mouthful of enchilada. ‘Hot!’
‘You don’t like it?’
‘Is wonderful, but so hot.’
‘Take it slowly.’
Mitzi was finding it difficult to swallow, trying to absorb Odette’s latest tranche of information. Odette, though, was tucking in with joy. The waitress, arriving with the second Pina Colada, grinned at her rapt expression as she placed the glass ceremoniously in front of her. By then Mitzi was wondering whether she had given Odette the treat of her life or made a terrible mistake.
‘Are you serious?’ she ventured. ‘That a man has to vow to love you forever, and that will break your spell?’
Odette nodded, her straw in her mouth.
‘So when the prince let you down – that must have been horrific.’
‘Yes, but under spell,’ said Odette. ‘Both of us under spells.’
‘I’m sure that was a very convenient excuse for him.’
‘But love is obvious.’
Mitzi stared at her.
‘Is difficult, because to break spell I must be loved,’ Odette explained. ‘But now my prince is dead more than hundred years. In hundred years, nobody else like him. There has been no other love like this love.’
Mitzi put down her fork.
‘I think you know too?’ Odette leaned forward. Mitzi saw her own features reflected in the swan girl’s dark irises.
‘There was someone I loved very much,’ she said. ‘The standard’s set, and no one lives up to it.’
‘Was long ago?’
‘Not very.’
‘He died?’
‘He married someone else – the person he left me for – and now they’re having a baby.’ Mitzi fought the lump in her throat.
‘But you not have spell, so what happened?’
‘It’s a long story,’ said Mitzi. ‘Because of other things – my father became very ill and then he died – I can’t have been much fun, and all my attention was going to my dad. So then he met this woman, at work…’
‘But if you both love, is not that biggest thing?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Love is most important thing of life,’ Odette stated. ‘Why other things get in way? Your father dying is terrible, and man should know: if he loves you, is most important thing and so he must help you.’
‘You make it sound very simple.’
‘Should be simple, yes? If he does not do this, he does not love you.’
Mitzi, to her horror, felt something warm and wet forming in her eyes.
‘Oh no! Please forgive, Mitzi, I not mean you to cry!’
‘It’s OK,’ said Mitzi, who never cried and couldn’t stand the idea of doing so. ‘But I still spend half my life wondering where all that love went.’
‘I know so well. But for you, someone else is coming, sooner or later…’
‘What about you? Can you look at other people?’
‘Spell means I must, or I remain swan always. But if there are men in forests at home, they are often dangerous, I hide from them. They have guns, sometimes, and dogs. The animals, Mitzi, you would not believe the animals. I must hide from dogs, wolves, bears and very dangerous big cats with ears like—’ She gestured.
‘Lynx?’
‘Yes, lynx. And tigers. There were many tigers, long ago. Not so many now.’
‘Is it really true that someone has to swear to be faithful to you?’ Mitzi challenged, with caution. ‘Because, to me – to anyone now – it sounds completely crazy. Sure, we all want to find love, but nowadays you don’t have to do that in order to have a good life.’
Odette shrugged. ‘Yes, is true. If I find another like my prince, one who swears to be faithful, but betrays me, then all is lost and I become swan forever.’
Mitzi was silent, weighing up words to no avail. How can you alter a spell that was cast according to the values of… If Odette was nineteen when she was bewitched, and she was born 185 years ago, that meant… her spell – her kidnap, one might say – was in 1852? The 1852, moreover, of a Siberian wonderland by Lake Baikal where the powers of nature encompassed everything. Mitzi kicked her own ankle under the table. Spells that turned women into swans would be no more logical in nineteenth-century Russia than they were here and now, in—
‘Mitzi, what is this town called?’
‘Cygnford.’
Odette repeated the name. ‘But this is famous city. It’s old?’
‘Very old, parts of it. It’s famous for its university.’
‘But the scientists my father knew, some of them travelled here to study! Some from Cygnford come to Siberia to meet him and see his library.’ Odette’s eyes were brilliant in the candlelight. ‘Here I find my love, I know. I feel it here.’ She wrapped her arms around her solar plexus.
‘So that’s our aim for you in Cygnford?’ Mitzi said. ‘To break your spell?’
‘My aim is always to break my spell.’ Odette beamed. ‘Here, perhaps it happens.’
‘Right…’ said Mitzi. ‘Look, do you want something else to eat? Something sweet?’
‘I think no space,’ Odette laughed. ‘Oh, this feels funny – I eat people food for first time in years, it is greatest, greatest joy, and I have no space!’ Three women at the next table glanced, smiling, at the laughing girl. Mitzi caught the waitress’s eye and asked for the bill. She admired Odette’s confidence that Cygnford might provide her with the right man, willing to swear eternal love. Her own experience suggested this quest was not so easy to fulfil.
By the time the waitress arrived with a chip-and-pin machine, Odette had fallen silent. She was holding her forehead with one hand. ‘The room, it revolves.’
‘I told
you not to have that second drink.’
‘Is not me, is room.’
‘Is not room, is you. When did you last have alcohol? ’
Odette gave a hiccup.
‘All right,’ Mitzi soothed. ‘We’re going soon, I just have to pay.’ She handed a credit card to the waitress.
Odette rose to her feet, then sat down again. ‘The room, it goes fast.’
Taxi home, thought Mitzi, smiling at the waitress and taking the receipt. Odette held her arm and they made for the door. Idiot, Mitzi castigated herself. She’d wanted to make Odette’s first experience of modern restaurants exciting and enjoyable – but how stupid to feed someone used to weeds and lakewater a hot Mexican meal and two cocktails. Odette began to sing quietly, in Russian. Mitzi speeded up their exit.
Outside, Odette leaned against a wall and gulped in the icy air, her eyes closed in some strange ecstasy. Flashing Christmas lights above them lit up her tipped-back forehead with alternating patches of ruby, amber, jade and sapphire.
‘Swan,’ sang Odette, ‘I am not swan! Oh, Mitzi, I feel so happy. I live as real girl, not swan. I feel never like this before. So beautiful, this night, this city! And here I’ll find my love and break my spell.’
The road opposite the Lansdale Centre was hardly Mitzi’s idea of beautiful Cygnford – but overhead, beyond the brash decorations, winter stars were glistening on a dark satin sky and a new moon cast a benevolent sliver of light. Odette was singing a Russian folk song. Mitzi was surprised that her voice was so strong and expressive. She wondered, with a pang of confusion, when exactly Odette would last have seen or spoken to another human being. She took her arm and walked her towards the next street where, to her relief, the taxi rank held a waiting car. Odette protested, wanting to stroll under the stars, but Mitzi pointed out that were she to pass out halfway home, they’d be in trouble.
‘But I never feel so good,’ insisted Odette.
Mitzi opened the taxi door. ‘Richardson Road, please…’
Odette gazed out at the passing town: low, terraced, pale brick houses, a parade of shops along a side street bedecked with strings of flashing lights, the new blocks that housed the university computer laboratories, then the darkened market square and distant towers of Duke’s College.
‘You’ve seen cars before, haven’t you?’ Mitzi asked, under her breath.
‘Seen yes, not ride in.’ Odette turned to her, eyes glowing. ‘It go fast. Is like flying but on ground!’
‘Where you from, then, love?’ asked the driver.
‘She’s on holiday from Russia,’ Mitzi said, before Odette could respond. The driver was glancing at their reflections in his mirror.
‘No cars?’ he said. ‘Just goes to show, dunnit, can’t believe a word you hear on the bloomin’ news. All fake nowadays, innit. Now, you take that Mr Putin, for example…’
Mitzi listened to the driver rattling on while Odette sat back, eyes shut, the engine tone mingling with her gentle humming. Luckily the ride was short. Mitzi thrust a ten-pound note into the cabbie’s hand and hauled Odette out after her.
‘Tomorrow,’ Odette murmured, as much to herself as to Mitzi, ‘tomorrow I fly away.’ She was climbing the stairs to the front door one at a time, pulling herself along the banister.
‘I thought you were going to meet the man of your dreams right here in sunny Cygnford,’ Mitzi reminded her. To the right, she glimpsed the sheen of Professor Maggie’s bottle-blonde ponytail as she peered at them through a gap between curtain and window frame.
‘Yes, but I must fly, I must fly away.’ Odette half-sang her words. ‘I love to fly, I love to be free. Sometimes, you know, to be a swan is not so bad. You are wonderful, Mitzi, but I must not disturb you more, and I must go.’
‘Hush.’ Mitzi ushered her in. Upstairs, she unlocked the door of the flat. Odette wandered ahead and flopped onto the sofa.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Thank you for all, my wonderful friend.’
‘So, er, what happens in the morning?’ Mitzi felt awkward.
‘I must leave,’ said Odette. ‘You will let me fly out of window?’
Mitzi couldn’t name the emotion, part relief, part a slam of rejection, that struck her as she nodded her agreement. ‘It’s been lovely having you here.’ She meant every word. ‘Are you sleepy?’
‘I am happy never to sleep again!’ Odette threw her head back and laughed. ‘I am so happy.’
And if she left in the morning, if she were gone… Mitzi settled onto the green leather armchair and said to Odette: ‘All right, then. Don’t sleep, not yet. Come on, tell me everything. There’s so much I want to know…’
Odette breathed for a minute. ‘Where shall I start?’
In the morning, after a scant few hours’ sleep, her head still humming with images from Odette’s multiple revelations – stone and wood, sky and sea, building alone by moonlight, flight across the spreading woodland, mountains, steppes and archipelagos – Mitzi came back to the living room to find a white swan slumbering on the sofa under the blanket. Its wounds had almost healed, though she could barely imagine what kind of a hangover it might have. Clothes and shoes lay askew on the floor. As Mitzi moved around the kitchen, clearing up, making coffee, the swan stirred, then rustled across to her, large body swaying over short legs. It pressed its head softly against Mitzi’s arm and clattered its beak in the direction of the shiny new window.
Mitzi opened it as wide as possible; in the flow of cold air, she hoisted the swan onto the sill. It glanced at her, then faced forwards and sprang. She watched as it soared up over the river and the green; and the steady swish of its wings faded away into the sky.
7
Saturday in Cygnford, just before Christmas, and Mitzi had to brave the town centre. A muddle of cars oozed along the one-way systems; families with buggies and scooters jostled among students and trundling tourists wielding selfie-sticks, on precarious pavements from which they could not spill onto the road for fear of speeding cyclists.
Mitzi forced herself onto her bike to join the throng, touring the market for good mozzarella. She’d cook pizza for her brother; it would probably be the one decent meal he’d eat all week. Harry and his housemates, Chris and Stuart, lived more on drink than food; what there was of the latter usually came from the chippie or the burger bar. The market was swirling with the mingled scents of mulled wine, stale cigarettes, garlicky olives and musky incense from the New Age stall, and every stand seemed to be pumping out a different saccharine Christmas album. Mitzi heard slivers of singing, American twangs, distant strings and guitars: crooned-out dreams of snowy surroundings mingled with hearts given away and admonitions not to cry or else.
Frantic the place might be, but what a relief to escape the flat and the white-feathered vestiges of these past days. At noon, she headed for the health food café where she and Lara had arranged to have lunch. Enjoying stir-fried vegetables and tofu with her down-to-earth friend, Mitzi found it strange to be chatting about work, Lara’s forthcoming wedding or new films as if nothing unusual had happened, as if she had not spent the last two days with someone who was half swan and half crazy teenager, partly naïve, deluded stranger and partly the wisest person she’d ever met. Someone who kept track of days by speaking English on Tuesdays and French on Fridays to trees and wild creatures, wandering by moonlight through billows of deep pink bagulnik flowers in the vast forests of the Taiga. Someone strong enough to build a hut from logs with her bare hands, and quick enough to escape danger by climbing the highest pine or running the longest path; civilised enough to play the most demanding piano pieces, be coached by the greatest of composers, and devour the literature of Victor Hugo and Pushkin, yet without hope of breaking her spell…
‘You’re a bit peaky,’ Lara remarked, munching salad. ‘It didn’t work out with your financial man?’
‘Who? Oh – him. Sorry, I’ve been a bit out of it the last few days.’
‘Why, what happened?’
‘Not a l
ot.’
‘You don’t look like not a lot. You look like a force ten hangover, a wasps’ nest in your roof and seventeen articles by this afternoon.’
‘Not quite – but a swan crashed through my window, and I had to sort it out.’
‘God, Mitzi, that’s not “nothing”. What did you do?’
‘Well, it broke the glass and knocked itself out…’ It would sound so matter-of-fact: a swan crashed into my flat, turned into a young woman and got drunk on two Pina Coladas… ‘It was still quite dopey when it came to, so I got it over the road to the river and off it went,’ she lied. ‘And the window’s been mended, but please, don’t ever, ever tell my landlord.’
Mitzi, cycling home, made a mental list. Phone Mum, do laundry, cook pizza. Odette’s guttural accent lingered in her mind’s ear, describing the continuity of forests and seasons. Frozen air, frozen ground, frozen lake. Long winter nights on the island in which her human self endured for extra hours of darkness, or in a chilly spring or autumn in her home forest, building fires sparked by striking flint, or huddling for warmth under a bear pelt she had skinned on her own from an animal’s corpse. Sometimes on the migration she flew with other swans, but every night she would have to leave them, hiding in the places she had learned to find shelter, year after petrified year.
The flat felt much larger, empty and silent without Odette’s laughter ringing out, or any white feathery heap in the cardboard box. Mitzi found herself glancing out of the window for a glimpse of a swan winging over Solstice Common – but today, there was none. Nor were there swans on the river, only some mallard ducks and a few coots.
Her flat was silent but for the patter of Professor Maggie’s radio downstairs, some politician blustering on the news about the sunny uplands that would welcome the country once it left the European Union. ‘Rubbish,’ chimed in another commentator. ‘You’re talking fairy tales, unicorns, baloney…’ The swan’s box was upended beside the bin. In the bare branches of the chestnut tree, Mitzi glimpsed something moving. She peered out for a closer look: surely the rotund body and globe-like head that she’d thought she saw could only belong to an owl?
Odette Page 7
