IT IS A HEAVY,moon-rich night, cloudless and still as mown hay. Odette is well-practised at climbing from her bedroom window up onto the roof slates. There is an area where the slope is gentle enough that two bodies can stretch out beneath the stars. Cecilia has reached their refuge first, still in her chemise, which she has pulled up to her thighs to air her bare legs. Odette lets her gaze roam over the stretch of bare skin and imagines touching Cecilia there, fingertips, tongue, teeth. Perhaps she will leave a bite mark there, that only the two of them will know about.
Odette sinks down beside her, sweating already from exertion. The air is thick and humid, promising a storm.
Her mind cannot settle.
After speaking with her mother, she scrubbed at her arms with her washcloth, yanked the pins from her hair hard enough that she took strands with them. The precision and care required by the climb has taken the last of the patience from her, and so, when Cecilia knocks loose a slate and cannot seem to slip it back in place, despite how obvious a task it seems, Odette snatches it from her hand and rams it back so hard it cracks.
‘Fuck!’ She throws the broken pieces from the roof with all the strength she can muster. It is uninspiring, their arc low and flat, and they drop into the gravel of the drive all but noiselessly.
Cecilia looks at her, a little cowed, a little nervous. ‘I’m sorry.I shouldn’t have knocked it out.’
Odette presses her face into her hands, her fingertips into the hollows of her eyes. Takes a breath. ‘No. I am sorry. It is too hot, and I cannot bring my thoughts together. I am out of sorts.’
‘It is nothing.’
‘But it is notnothing,’ says Odette, and she feels it keenly. It is Cecilia, her own Cecilia, without whom she would be trapped alone with her thoughts, and to do anything to push her away is to invite her own misery. ‘I don’t want to use you as some punching bag for my own unhappiness. It is only that sometimes I feel so frustrated and confused, and I cannot articulate what is wrong or work out what I could do to change it, so it feels as though I am being prickled by brambles on all sides, like there are ants crawling all over my skin, and I would rather rip it all off and throw myself from the roof than swallow it all back down.’
She peels her palms from her face and looks sidelong at Cecilia, unsure.
Cecilia fiddles with the frill of her chemise, tugging at a ribbon that runs through the eyelets in the lace. ‘You don’t have to pretend to be happy about your aunt showing up. Not with me.’
‘Not only that. It is all very—’
‘Unexpected?’
‘Disruptive.’
‘Was Lydia that bad?’
Odette should tell Cecilia about the money, but she can hardly think on it for fear of breaking the spell. Right now, it is a beautiful idea, a sketch unrealised. Itcouldbe possible. Her mother reallymightfollow through this time.
If she says the words out loud, it will pin it down like a butterfly to paper.
Lydia is not possible to pin down.
Odette knows it too well.
But if she does not tell Cecilia, then she is no better than her parents and their dissembling.
She rearranges the drape of her nightdress, wafting the too-hot air against her skin in a futile gesture.
‘My mother said something to me earlier.’ Odette does not know how to convey the doubt and uncertainty her mother’s words bring. ‘She is thinking of selling some pieces. All the pieces she still has, in fact.’
‘What do you mean, all of them? Absolutely everything?’
‘She thinks she could do a show through a friend of Eddie’s, Mr King, and sell the lot.’
‘But whatever for?’
‘To give the money to me.’
Cecilia’s eyes widen. ‘But that’s – my God. You’d have—’
‘I have no idea what it could be, but she seems to think it would be enough that I could set myself up and not worry about – anything really.’
Cecilia clutches her hand again and squeezes it hard, an unruly grin curving her mouth. Her joy is contagious. ‘A little flat in Bloomsbury.’
‘A little flat in Bloomsbury,’ echoes Odette. ‘It could be real.’