House of Names by Colm Toibin

Author:Colm Toibin
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
ISBN: 9781760551421
Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia

Electra

There is a set of winding steps some distance from the palace that leads to a sunken space that was once a garden. Some of the steps are broken, one or two have been almost completely chipped away by time or by the lizards that make their home in the gaps in the stone. Below, stunted trees do battle for space with bushes grown wild. When my sister was alive, we would go there if we needed to speak and wished to be sure that no one could hear us. As the light faded, the birdsong became intense, almost fierce. Perhaps the noise they made was a way for the birds to defy the weasels that seemed to have infested the place. We were certain then that even if someone were hiding in the shadows they would not be able to hear us.

My sister is not alive now. She will not come to this garden again.

Instead, my mother goes there. She moves out of the palace with two or three guards following her at a distance. Some days I walk with her, but we do not speak much, and often when I leave her she barely nods.

This sunken garden is where she will die. Someone will murder her here. She will lie in her own blood among the gnarled bushes.

I smile sometimes as I watch her descend the steps, her guards alert as they lean over the stone balustrade in case she falls on the broken masonry.

It might be easy to think that in my mother’s absence, and in the absence of her guards, Aegisthus is more alone and vulnerable, and that now might be a good time for someone to sneak into the room where he works, move quickly towards him and stick a knife in his chest or edge towards him as if to ask him for a favour and then, without warning, pull his head back by the hair and cut his throat as well.

It would be wrong, however, to believe that my mother’s lover would be so easy to murder. He is filled with strategies, and one of them, perhaps the most important, is his own survival. He is watchful. And there are men in his pay, or under his control, who are watchful too.

Aegisthus is like an animal that has come indoors for comfort and safety. He has learned to smile instead of snarl, but he is still all instinct, all nails and teeth. He can sniff out danger. He will attack first. He will arch his back and pounce at the slightest hint of a threat.

It is not a mistake to be afraid of him. I have reason to be afraid of him.

*

That day when my father returned from the war, as he greeted the elders outside, my mother ordered two of Aegisthus’ friends to find me. They dragged me from the dining room, ignoring my screams and shocked protests. They pulled me struggling down the winding stairs to the floor below and they

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