Where’s Odette?

A writing group has one empty chair in this amusing short story by Nicola Martin.

WHERE’S Odette?” I asked. “I’m not sure.” Next to me in the circle, David adjusted his glasses and glanced around as if he might have missed her entrance (not likely).

I flicked through my sheaf of papers, just to occupy my hands.

“This is the second week in a row she hasn’t shown up,” I said.

“Give her a couple more minutes, maybe?”

“Nah, let’s crack on.” Kat clicked her tongue. “She’ll be happy to stick her oar in whenever she gets here.”

She gestured to me, raising her voice.

“Meredith, I’ve got your story on top.”

The murmured conversations from the rest of the writing group quieted down.

There were six of us tonight, seated in the dusty church hall, our bottoms crammed into green plastic chairs more suited to schoolchildren.

Everyone in the circle obediently produced their annotated copies of my story, “The Gentle Carpenter”. Some were crisp-white and stapled, fresh out of the printer; others were crinkled and coffee-stained.

Kat, the youngest of our mostly grey-haired group, peered at her laptop instead.

I took a deep breath. Hearing what other people thought about a story of mine was always terrifying. It was like climbing up to the highest diving board in the local pool.

I had to admit, though, tonight’s dive off the end of the board was a lot less stressful because Odette wasn’t here.

****

Odette. I’d only known her a few weeks, but it felt like years. She had that effect on you.

Her braying voice was a bit too loud. Her jasmine perfume was a touch too strong. She lingered in your mind.

“What’s all this, then?” she asked that first evening.

Dressed in Lycra, she dabbed at the back of her neck with a bright-pink towel. “Pilates With Frederica!” was also held on Tuesdays in the church hall, the hour before our group.

Her bouncy salt-andpepper bob was streaked with sweat, but her makeup remained miraculously intact.

“We’re writers.” I gave an encouraging smile. “We talk about our work, jolly each other on.”

Discreetly, I tried to fluff up my own layered, greyblonde hair (which had never in my 61 years done anything except cling to my scalp).

I needed to start doing more exercise. Dragging our geriatric dog round the park didn’t really count, since he spent more time sniffing than walking.

“Oh, I’m a writer,” Odette said. “Just finalising my book deal. I should join your little group.”

“That would be lovely.”

I didn’t know then what I’d got myself in for.

****

“. . . all in all, it’s rather a teacup sort of melodrama, isn’t it?” Odette’s grey eyes bored into me as she reached the end of her monologue. “Saccharine. But I suppose, if that’s what you’re going for . . .”

“Um, yes, it is.” I looked away, my fingers worrying at the corner of my story print-out. “Thank you for your feedback.”

Odette aimed her brutal honesty like a water pistol. In those first few weeks I was not the only person who received a faceful of cold water.

David was a fiftysomething GP, twitchy in biscuit knitwear and smudged glasses.

He was writing a memoir about growing up as a farmer’s son in Yorkshire, and his prose earned him a lecture from Odette on

It wasn’t that we were actually missing our newest, most abrasive member. But it was still a mystery . . .

“killing your darlings”.

“The language is really rather vivid, but it’s verging on word salad.”

Odette pushed her pink cat-eye reading glasses up her nose and read.

“‘The sunrise was misty, like the smoke from a Frenchwoman’s cigarette’. What does that mean, David?”

David harrumphed and muttered something about poetic licence.

He was an affable chap – he often baked banana bread for us to eat during our meetings – but when he looked at Odette there was something close to loathing in his eyes.

Most of the group members choked down Odette’s comments like the burned edges of one of David’s banana loaves.

Kat, who’d been shorttempered even before pregnancy robbed her of the last of her tact, simply laughed when Odette declared her crime novel “rather gauche” and “filled with horrible people”.

“That’s the whole point, ducky!” she said, tossing her mane of jet-black hair over her shoulder. “When are you going to show us your novel?”

For the first time since we’d met, Odette’s perfectly made-up features looked squirrelly.

“Oh, well, it’s with my agent, so it probably wouldn’t be right to share it publicly.”

I didn’t have an agent. Or a novel. Or Odette’s bulletproof confidence.

I just had a laptop set up in the back bedroom and a determination that I’d try to write something at least once a week.

The pace of life was slower these days since our daughter, Samantha, had moved out for good.

Her heart still beat next to mine in my chest, but her physical presence had faded to once-a-week phone calls, where she jabbered on about the stresses of London and the non-stop calamity of youth.

I was semi-retired, only wrangling the phones for the council three days a week, and Steve was busy with his new hobby of carpentry.

My husband dreamed up designs and carved them out of wood. When he emerged from his shed he smelled like sawdust and beeswax.

He often came upstairs and stood behind me.

“Whatcha workin’ on today?”

He dropped a kiss on to the crown of my head and ran his callused fingers down my bare arms. His touch still sent a thrill up my spine, even after all these years.

“Nothing special,” I said.

“Short stories about family and romance; just teacup melodrama, I suppose.”

Despite Odette’s words ringing in my ears, I loved writing those simple short stories, seeing the characters flow out of my fingertips. I’d written five stories already this year.

Maybe, some day, I’d get brave enough to send one to my favourite magazine.

“I believe in you, Meri,” Steve whispered into my hair, and then ambled away, leaving me to dream.

****

For the third week in a row, Odette was missing from the writing group.

“Has anyone heard from her?” My question was met with blank expressions. “I hope she’s OK.”

There was a silence.

“She’s probably been murdered,” Kat said at last.

I must have looked shocked, because she laughed.

“I’m joking! I’m sure she just got busy with her la-di-da book deal.”

When, on the fourth week, there was still no sign of Odette, I was really starting to get concerned.

“Does anyone have her number?” I asked. “Friends with her on Facebook?”

Around the circle, people shook their heads or looked away.

“I hope she hasn’t had an accident,” David said.

Kat used her fingers to mime quote marks.

“An ‘accident’.”

David, usually so pofaced, spluttered out a laugh, which he failed to cover with a cough.

“Don’t be unkind,” I said. “I’m not. I’m just telling you my opinion.” Kat’s expression was sly. “She’s met a sticky end. I have never known anyone who screamed Murder Victim more than her.”

She rubbed her pregnant belly the way a TV detective might stroke his beard.

“It was probably one of us wot dunnit.”

David gave another splutter-laugh-cough and Kat swung her body round to face him.

“It could be the doctor. Access to pills and potions and such.”

He held up his hands. “I take the Hippocratic Oath very seriously!”

“Hmm, that’s what they all say.” Kat’s roaming gaze landed on me. “What about you, Meredith? It’s always the person you’d least expect!”

“You’re being very silly,” I said. “If we’re going to talk about murder, we should get on with discussing your chapter.”

Kat gave a grudging nod and everyone began flipping through their pages.

All joking aside, I couldn’t get Kat’s comments out of my head.

What if something horrible had happened to Odette? What if she was in trouble and no-one had bothered to check on her?

Steve always said I had an over-active imagination, but I preferred to call it “considering all the options”.

After the group had finished and I’d stacked the plastic chairs at the edge of the hall, I went into the toilets to see if I could find Kat.

Since she’d entered her sixth month of pregnancy, she could almost always be found in the loo.

Indeed, I was greeted with the roar of the hand dryer.

“All right, Meredith?” she said.

“You don’t really think she’s dead, do you?” I asked, raising my voice to be heard over the noise.

“Nah, not really.” The hand dryer cut out and Kat shook her hands dry of the last of the water droplets.

I released a breath through my nose, feeling almost disappointed.

Kat leaned across the basin, checking her appearance in the mirror.

“I know where she lives,” I said after a lapse of silence. “The street next to

Had someone really bumped off my neighbour?

mine. I remember when she moved in, because she was having building work done and her skip blocked the road for two months.” Kat snorted.

“So, anyway, I was thinking of dropping by, just to check on her.”

I hesitated, wishing Kat would make the offer I was hoping for. But she just uncapped her lipstick and began reapplying femme fatale red.

Kat was older than my daughter – in her thirties, probably – but she had the same sort of fierce confidence as my Sammy.

I couldn’t remember ever being so fearless, but maybe there was still time for me.

I screwed up my courage. “You wouldn’t come with me, would you?”

Kat turned to look at me, lifting her shoulders in a shrug.

“Sure, why not? I’ve got a midwife appointment tomorrow morning and I could go a skive before going back to work. Say about eleven?”

****

Standing on the front step of Odette’s imposing Georgian townhouse, all the confidence I’d mustered disappeared.

I felt shaky, like I had the beginnings of the flu. If I’d been on my own, I would have scurried away home.

Luckily, Kat was there beside me to yank on the old-style doorbell. We listened as the sound echoed through the house. We waited.

And waited.

Kat rang the doorbell twice more, but there was still no answer.

“Well, that’s that, then,” I said, scuttling back down the front path. “She’s probably just on holiday. Or been called away on business. Or gone on a book tour.”

Kat wasn’t listening to me.

“You know what we’d do if this were a detective novel, don’t you?”

She angled her head towards the wheelie bin, which was tastefully concealed by a wooden hideaway at the side of Odette’s front path.

“I think that’s illegal!” I said.

“Nope.”

“What if there are rodents? What if there are germs that could hurt the baby?”

“Oh, woman up, would you?”

Kat pushed up her sleeves and flipped open the wheelie bin. It was a muggy day and the smell was ripe.

Undeterred, Kat ripped open a black sack and began pawing through it. “Ooh, look, receipts.” I glanced at the black front door (still closed) and then at the street (empty of passers-by). No-one was watching us.

And what was the harm, really? It was only rubbish.

Before I could overthink it, I joined Kat at the wheelie bin and dug in.

My sidekick was still examining a long receipt.

“What kind of person spends twenty-seven pounds on cordial?” she was saying. “Maybe it’s identity theft. A cordialloving criminal’s gone rampant with her money!”

I held up a red teapot with a broken spout that I’d unearthed from beneath a clump of tissues.

“Look!” I said, feeling my eyes pop out of my skull. “Maybe someone smashed this in a rage!”

Kat’s eyes were as wide as mine.

“Yeah, maybe!”

I was so caught up, I barely heard the sound of a door opening.

“What in heaven’s name are you doing?”

I dropped the teapot. It smashed on the front path.

“Odette,” I cried. “You’re alive!”

For a moment, I’d seriously believed she’d been whacked over the head with a teapot by a cordial-loving maniac.

Beside me, Kat closed the wheelie bin lid with a thwack. She did a little jig and then summoned a huge smile.

“Oh, hi, Odette, fancy meeting you here!”

“It’s my house,” Odette said, crossing her arms.

Now that my temporary insanity had cleared enough to look at her properly, I saw that Odette appeared uncharacteristically drab.

She was wearing a lilac house coat with a stain on the front. One of her bunny slippers had lost its fluffy tail.

Her usual make-up was absent, and her salt-andpepper bob looked like it hadn’t seen a comb today.

“Odette, we were worried,” I said in a small voice.

Our murder victim, very much alive and well, drew herself up to her full height.

“You were rummaging through my detritus!”

“Mmm, yeah, funny story,” Kat said, bouncing on the spot. “Maybe we can tell it to you later. But d’you mind if I use your loo first? I’m bursting.”

Even Odette couldn’t say no to a jig-dancing pregnant woman. With a glower, she ushered us into the cool dark hallway of her home and rolled her wrist in the direction of the water closet.

Kat sprinted (or rather sprint-waddled) to the loo, leaving Odette and me alone.

The silence was excruciating.

“I’m so sorry about this,” I said at last, wringing my hands. “It all got a bit out of control, but we really were concerned. Everyone at the group, we all wanted to know you were OK.”

Odette made an irritated sound in the back of her throat, but didn’t reply. She was examining a landscape oil painting on her hallway wall as if she’d never noticed it before.

“Why haven’t you been at the writing group?” I asked.

“I’ve been very busy.” She pulled at a thread on her house coat, then huffed out a sigh.

“If you must know, I’ve given up on writing. It’s all too much of a bother.” My mouth dropped open. “But your book deal!” “I may have exaggerated a little. The publisher’s passed on the book.

“The deal turned out to be a lot of fool’s gold.” She grimaced. “And I’m the fool.”

“I’d call you a lot of names, but fool isn’t even in the top ten.” Kat came waddling back into view.

I expected Odette to start spluttering her rage, but to my surprise, she gave a long and lusty laugh.

“I’ve been a menace, haven’t I?”

“Yep,” Kat said, “but we’ll forgive you. So long as you promise not to give up on writing.”

“We all have bad days, Odette,” I said. “Bad months. Years, even. I’ve dreamed of being a writer since I was ten years old.

I’m sixty-one and just getting around to it. Please come back to the group.”

Odette let out a long, sighing breath and narrowed her eyes at me.

“I suppose if I don’t, the pair of you will start playing cat burglars and drag me out of my bed in the middle of the night.”

“You can count on it,” Kat said, looking delighted by the idea.

****

At our writing group in the weeks that followed, Odette was still a menace, but we all felt more confident in challenging her opinions.

It was true that David’s memoir was sometimes too flowery, and my short stories were sometimes too saccharine.

I tried hard to take the good advice and not let the criticism destroy me.

Odette even began sharing extracts from her literary novel, which was about a man in a lighthouse waiting for spring.

I pointed out a few instances where she might dig deeper into the main character’s emotions.

“You sentimental soul,” she muttered, but in the next chapter she asked us to read there was more emotion.

I wondered if I’d helped improve her novel, even in a very small way.

She boasted that her agent liked the story revisions and might have a lead on a new publisher.

“What about you?”

Odette said to me one evening, as she helped stack the chairs in the church hall. “When are you going to submit something to that magazine?”

“Probably next year, when I’m a little better,” I said.

“You’re already good enough.”

I was about to demur again – of course my husband said he liked my stories, of course my friends said they liked my stories; they were all just being nice – but Odette’s steely grey eyes stopped me in my tracks.

Odette wouldn’t flatter me. She would only tell me the brutal truth.

“OK,” I said, swallowing down a swell of pride. “Maybe I will submit something.”

****

It was the following spring, when Kat’s baby was a strapping lad of six months, that I showed up to the writing group with a magazine grasped in my sweaty hands.

“Look,” I said in hushed tones, pointing to my name on the page.

The baby gurgled with delight; David patted me on the back and Kat squeezed me into a hug.

And Odette . . . Odette gave a grudging smile.

“Well done,” she said.

The End.