The Green Knight Read Free Page A

‘Moy’. The other girls had more trouble finding their true names. Alethea, not tolerating ‘Thea’, decided at first for ‘Alpha’, but as this sounded presumptuous, opted finally for ‘Aleph’, the Hebrew name of the first letter of the alphabet, which retained the connection with the Ancient World, and a mysterious bond with her original name. Sophia, who abominated ‘Sophie’, worked even harder, but came up at last with ‘Sefton’. How she discovered ‘Sefton’ she never explained. Aleph (nineteen) and Sefton (eighteen) were bookish, destined for the university. Moy, who was not academic ‘but clever as a little mouse’ in other ways, was preparing for art school. The girls worked hard, loved their mother, loved one another, were quiet and happy and lived at peace. Sometimes they seemed almost too contented with their lot. To look at, Sefton and Moy were not unattractive. But Aleph was voted to be very beautiful.
    â€˜Exams. How time flies! Cambridge, like Dad?’
    â€˜They hope for Oxford, but they have other choices.’
    â€˜It’ll do them good to get away from home. They are altogether too sedate, there is an atmosphere . And still no television! You deserve to have poltergeists with three demure teenage girls about the place, they’re just the kind to attract them. Those girls are like a drawn bow, they compose a field of force – that’s Clement’s imagery incidentally – it’s time for violence, it’s time for them to fly apart – ’
    â€˜Clement said that?’
    â€˜Do they still sing, and cry?’
    â€˜Yes – ’
    â€˜They are perfectly safe and lovingly looked after – now when I was their age – ’
    â€˜You said you were having fun.’
    â€˜Well, yes and no, strictly speaking I was in hell. Perhaps I have always been there. One can have fun in hell. But why the tears, are they in love? Moy is, isn’t she? She’s in love with Clement, always has been!’
    â€˜She’s also in love with the “Polish Rider”.’
    â€˜Who’s he?’
    â€˜A picture by Rembrandt.’
    â€˜Oh yes. I always found that picture a bit soppy. Isn’t he supposed to be a woman? And anyway now they say it isn’t by Rembrandt. But seriously, are they in love?’
    â€˜No. They’ve always had that gift of tears. They cry over books, not just novels, Sefton cries over history books, Moy cries over things – ’
    â€˜I remember, like stones. She thinks things have rights. And she was always rescuing insects.’
    â€˜Insects of course, and they all cry over animals. But they laugh a lot too.’
    â€˜The all-singing all-laughing all-crying show. You call it a gift. I sometimes wish that I could cry more easily. Men don’t cry. That’s one of the many proofs of their superiority over us. It’s all that caring. I suppose the girls are still vegetarians and saving whales and saving the planet and so on. Moy will die of her own sensibility, she identifies with everything. Save hedgehogs, save the black-footed ferret, abolish plastic bags. Of course Sefton is a swot, a brown-stocking. I see her as a sober bespectacled schoolteacher. Does Moy still eat that orange-flavoured milk chocolate? No wonder she’s such a dear little roly-poly, she’s the plump little woman who makes everything nice. I think she’ll be a cook, or perhaps she’ll live in the country and have a herb garden.’
    Louise did not like these descriptions of her children. ‘Moy draws very well, she will be an artist. Aleph will do English at the university, she wants to be a writer.’
    â€˜Oh, Aleph! With her beauty she can have anything, she can marry anybody. When you let her out she’ll be surrounded . But she won’t be in a hurry. That girl has her wits about her. She won’t marry some penniless student.