The Seven Sisters Read Free Page A

got the money for that kind of thing nowadays. Andrew has, but I haven’t. I’m told there’s not much left of Carthage, but I’d like to see it just the same. And I’d like to see the cave of the Sibyl at Cumae. That’s probably not very nice either. But I’d like to see it, with my own eyes. They say that the wizened remains of the deathless Sibyl hung there for centuries in a basket, and the only thing that she
would say, when questioned, was, ‘I wish to die.’ In a hollow voice like an echo she would utter these words. When the village children asked her what she wished, she said, ‘I wish to die.’ Or so they say. I’d like to hear her say that to me.
    Andrew and I went to Delphi once. On a coach trip from Athens. That’s a long time ago. We were on reasonably good terms in those days, or so I thought. The oracle there didn’t warn me of Andrew’s intentions. Or, if it did, I wasn’t paying attention.
    The Health Club opened before it was quite ready. The lifts hadn’t been installed, and we had to use a bare concrete stairway. There was builders’ rubble everywhere, the showers were temperamental, and the whirlpool kept going wrong. But the staff were very friendly. They welcomed me in. It was a new world in there, an amazing new world. I would never have dared to enter it had I not had a passport from the old world of Virgil. I would not have felt that I had the right. I am not very bold.
    She tells the sad story of her marriage
    I see I have mentioned Andrew three times already in this diary. I think that means that I should try to give some account of him and of my marriage to him. I am not sure that I will be able to tell the truth. I am not sure if I know the truth. I will try not to whine and bleat too much.
    Let me try to describe him. He is a very good-looking Englishman. He is correct in every way. He is six feet tall, and he has neat, regular Anglo-Saxon features, and clear blue eyes – a little faded now, but still a vivid blue – and a fair if crinkled northern skin. His hair was once a strikingly rich yellow. It is now a bright silver white, but it is still thick and springing, and it still catches the eye. He shows no sign of growing bald. His hair does not recede. He is very clean, indeed almost ostentatiously clean. He is a very visible man, though he is not what one would call showy. He is in good taste. His face is lined now, but attractively, with little laugh-lines around the eyes. His skin is pleasantly weathered, for he likes his outdoor pursuits. He looks wholesome and healthy. He has a quizzical, friendly and entirely reliable expression. He is neither solemn nor dull, but he is known to be a good man. He sits on many committees and he does
good works. He is good with both men and women. Most children like him, and the parents doted upon him and on public occasions vied for his attention. He exudes reliability, good nature, good humour, common sense, kindness. He is good, good, good. I have come to hate him. I think it is hate that I feel for him now. I hate him, of course, because he betrayed me. That is what other people think. They think it is as simple as that. I doubt it, but I suppose it may be so. I would not be a good judge of that, would I?
    We were a happy couple when we were young. People probably thought I was lucky to catch him, though I too was pretty enough when I was a girl.
I
thought I was lucky, but that’s because I was lacking in self-esteem. Also, in those days I loved him, and one tends to overestimate the value of a loved object.
    I haven’t aged well. People say women don’t. That’s not always true, but it has been true in my case. I too was fair, and blue-eyed, and I had a delicate English complexion and as good a figure as any girl in our year at St Anne’s. I wouldn’t say I was one of the belles of the school, because that would imply a certain art of presentation which I have always been anxious to avoid. I was brought up in a religious