‘Driana’s nice though,’ Perseus added. ‘You’d like her.’
Nice. I wondered if anyone would ever describe me as ‘nice’, and whether I’d even want them to. I tried to imagine a universe in which it might be possible that I would like Driana, but I’m afraid I was too petty to manage it. Driana had had Perseus’s hand in hers, his mouth on hers! Days, drifting together – in olive groves, probably, under a gentle sun, not in baking heat like on my barren island. I pictured them taking an early dinner at some excellent Seriphosian establishment, whispering to each other over the candlelit table of bread, their gazes a connecting thread for them alone, sure in the security of each other’s hearts.
I wanted it for myself. And even now, even after everything that had happened to me, I wanted to ask him one question: Is she pretty?
Ugh, she was probably as lovely as Aphrodite.
I despised myself. Come on, Medusa, don’t ask such a stupid question. ‘I’m sure we’d get on,’ I said, my voice tight.
‘About a year ago,’ Perseus said, ‘something changed.’
‘Between you and Driana?’
‘No. King Polydectes wanted my mother for his wife. But my mother wanted to be as far away from that creep as possible.’
As he spoke, Perseus’s boyhood vanished from his voice like dawn vapour on the foothills.
I closed my eyes. So Dana? had double the rage then: escaping one king only to fall into the hands of another. I wanted to reach out across the ocean, to hold her hands and say, I know how that feels! Was it Dana?’s anger that made Zeus and Polydectes ‘notice’ her? Was it her desire for the world outside, bursting from her heart? Was it her loneliness, was it her beauty?
I suspected that it was nothing Dana? did at all.
‘My mother loathes Polydectes,’ said Perseus. ‘So do I. He’s boring and rude but he thinks he’s so interesting. He interrupts her any time she speaks. And he stinks. Why does he never use cologne?’ He shouted this suddenly to the sky, as if it might have the answer.
I thought the lack of cologne was the least of Dana?’s worries, but rage will work itself out in strange ways, so I said nothing.
‘She tried to make light of it, said it was safer that way. Pretended it was a joke. Said we should throw peaches at him, then at least he’d smell better,’ Perseus went on. ‘But we never dared, of course. We never did. And as the weeks went by, his attentions grew worse. Polydectes cornered her at court all the time, for a “chat”. You’re poor, I’m rich, Polydectes would say. I’m a king. You know marrying me makes sense.’
‘He sounds awful. And stupid.’
‘He’s a monster.’
‘Right,’ I said, wishing Perseus wouldn’t use that word.
‘Mum refused Polydectes’s demands for marriage, but it didn’t seem to make any difference. She was hounded, but it merely made Polydectes’s desire for her stronger. He said she was playing hard to get. He said his desperation was her fault for ignoring him.’
‘See?’ I said. ‘You can’t just ignore these men. They don’t like it when you ignore them.’
‘I know,’ said Perseus. ‘She stopped going out, but he kept sending messengers. Then she lost her appetite. I didn’t know what to do.’
I didn’t need to imagine how Dana? had felt. Her own space, the little patch of land beneath her feet that belonged to her, invaded inch by inch by a man like Polydectes. I knew it too well.
‘I tried to help,’ Perseus said. ‘But Mum didn’t want me involved. She said it was her problem. But of course it was mine too.’
‘Strictly speaking, Perseus, it was King Polydectes’s problem.’
‘True. But he wasn’t going anywhere. So I told her I was going to solve it. Mum said she’d seen too well how the world worked, and she wanted me to hold on to the last of my childhood. She told me to keep out of it.’
‘She sounds wonderful.’
‘She is. I miss her.’
‘Then you must go back and see her, Perseus.’
‘Merina, I can’t! That’s the problem.’ I could hear distress tightening Perseus’s voice. ‘I can’t go back until I do this … thing.’
‘What thing?’
‘I’m getting to that. So: Polydectes was right about Mum having no money. We’d washed up in a wooden chest seventeen years ago, and still barely had a penny. Money would have been the only shield a woman in her circumstance could hope for. If she’d had money, she could have paid for a bodyguard, or moved out of court. But we were broke.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘Eventually Mum accepted that she had another currency: me. She knew I wanted to help, and after a particularly, um … uncomfortable message from Polydectes, she got desperate. She agreed that I could speak to him.’
Perseus’s voice thickened. I knew this wasn’t going to end well. ‘And … did you speak to him?’ I asked.
‘Not immediately. I thought I had to look the part. So I started lifting weights.’
‘Oh, Perseus.’
‘Listen, Merina, you’re not the only one who had to be one person in private, and another in a public show. My mother said that to deal with a brute, I would have to put on the mask of a brutish man. So I put on some muscles. And when I did, when I wandered around looking strong, it was like a world opened up to me. A world I didn’t even know was there.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Everyone almost expected me to behave like a strong man, like a hero already half written. They started to give way to me.’
‘See, that’s what I meant! Life’s different when you’re a man—’
‘Yes, I know, but I stood in front of Mum like a bolted door. She hated it, I hated it. But my show carried weight, quite literally. I started to act the part. I was short with servants; no one minded. I boasted about all kinds of prowess, of violence; everyone believed me, even respected me. I’d never been in battle, I’d never killed a man, but people thought I was telling the truth, everyone thought I was a force to be reckoned with. But I was just a boy made of smoke and mirrors. I danced with all the court ladies but I – I was …’
‘You … ?’
‘I was still a virgin.’
I thought of Driana. Maybe there weren’t so many candlelit suppers by olive groves, after all. Inexplicably, this made me rather sad. ‘There’s nothing wrong with being a virgin,’ I said.
‘I know that, Merina,’ he said. ‘And that’s not the point of my story.’
Touché.
‘It was all a lie. I was a lie.’ Perseus stopped. ‘By Hades, I can’t believe I’m telling you this. I’ve never, ever spoken about it before.’
‘I’m glad you are,’ I said. ‘And I understand. When I’m with you, I feel like I … like I can be nearer to who I really am.’
I wanted to jump round that rock and – and what then, Medusa? Woe betide … I pinned myself against the rock instead, and closed my eyes, imagining Perseus, a newly minted man, grinning through his mask at the Seriphosian ladies. ‘So did it work?’ I said. ‘Did you get Polydectes to leave your mother alone?’
‘In a way. The day of confrontation eventually came. Polydectes tried to push me to one side, but I told him that if he touched a hair on my mother’s head, I’d kill him. I made a threat to a king that was punishable by death.’
‘That’s brave.’
‘Or stupid. But the thing is, I’d do anything for my mum. And to my surprise the threat worked. Polydectes stepped away. He actually looked terrified. And I discovered the secret that my mother had already known. Polydectes would never accept her own refusals of herself, but he would when they were told him by a man. Even if that particular man still felt like a trembling boy.’
He fell silent. Above our heads, the gulls were coming in. We’d been talking for hours. The dusk was drawing in, the sky was lavender, and I felt so close to Perseus in that moment, sensing how hard it had been for him to tell this story. I felt so lucky to be his confessor.
‘You’ll have to stop for a while,’ I said. ‘I’m so sorry. My sisters.’
‘But I haven’t explained why I’m—’
‘It’s sunset, Perseus.’
‘So?’