~
At university, I chose to study Classics, of course: I chose as much of it as I could.
Sometimes, when I was meant to be doing something else, I would look for pictures of her in the library.
Twisted face, claws instead of hands. A certain roundness in her cheeks, her eyes heavily hooded: even then, there was a thump of recognition.
Originally, I read, the harpy was not a monster at all. She signified storms, thunder. Just bad weather, nothing more.
~
15
Instead of helping Jake get the boys ready that morning, I stayed in bed.
I’m ill, I shouted down the stairs, and it was enough. Paddy and Ted both came to the door, one by one, to wave, not to kiss, so no germs were passed on. I heard the thuds and cracks and clanging of the three of them preparing to leave the house. Jake called out a goodbye, from the bottom of the stairs, but didn’t come up. Maybe he’s forgotten, I thought. Maybe he was drunk after all. But in the middle of the morning, there was a text.
I had been numbly watching old episodes of an American sitcom on my laptop, the simplicity of screen lives taunting me, their fresh faces, the blessed closure of every episode. My stomach washed and gurgled as I moved my hand over it, an underwater world, shifting beneath my skin.
I didn’t read the text straight away. I saw Jake’s name and turned the phone over. I looked back to the laptop, to a couple in a diner, arguing over coffee. Was anything that Jake said worth reading? I had the invalid’s sense that bed was a place you could live in, that there was a possibility of permanence in this state, my body damp and receptive to itself, my mind stretched thin by boredom, light entertainment.
You can hurt me back. Three times – then we’ll be even?
Jake had always written his texts in full sentences, full words. He signed off with a single kiss: always one, never two or three. He was consistent in that way, I used to remind myself when we were first together. He didn’t – as I did – get carried away in the realm of four or five kisses. He was always himself. Now, there were no kisses, but there was something else, something that seemed better: a promise, a plan. A way to make things right.
~
As I got older, I moved closer and closer to her: BA, Masters, years of a PhD, narrowing, winnowing, until the harpy was my only subject.
I gathered the scraps I could. A man-killer. A monstrous form. Golden wings. Golden hair. Perfect body, the feet of a bird. A face made ugly by anger. Frightening. Seductive.
The more I read, the less clear I became. And yet: I needed to know everything, to work out the truth.
~
16
I got out of bed as soon as I’d read the text, pulled on some jeans and a jumper. I would go to the market, I decided. I would make something fresh and delicious for supper, something everyone would love. Recently, every meal had been boring, expected: the same thing on the same day. It used to be normal: my grandmother made fish every Friday, chops every Wednesday. But now, I knew our meals should express the world itself, be varied and fascinating, an adventure on the plate. My grandmother never liked too many herbs, or spicy food, was known to ask for a boiled egg, like a child. Her taste buds were grown in blandness, in the stodge and slurp of a childhood of over-cooked vegetables, lumpen, inexpertly made pastry.
Her mother – my great-grandmother – couldn’t cook at all. She was a suffragette. According to my mother, she set fire to a department store, then ran from the police across the rooftops of London. She barely cleaned, or cooked. She liked to read for the whole day, to lie around in her dressing gown until her children came home from school.
Lazy! my grandmother called her. Self-indulgent. In rebellion, she tried to be a perfect housewife, cooked her husband gluey meat stews and potatoes, scoured and disinfected, gave birth to child after child. When she used to comb my tangled hair, she would pull it; she would shout. She yelled and swore and banged the hairbrush on the sink in frustration, making the mirror shake.
I used to imagine her anger as a parasite that lived in her stomach, that passed through the wall of her womb to my mother, who passed it to me.
~
She became my days: all I did with my life, for years, was read about her, people rustling, light leaving the library around me.
The harpy rips out eyes, I read. She drags and burns and scrapes and mutilates. She is ordered to do these things by the gods, but she is not reluctant. She does it with gleaming eyes: cut, smother. Poison.
It should not have come as a surprise to anyone. It should not have been a shock.
~
It is the first time. I have cleaned the house, from the loft to the kitchen door. I have not dressed up, but I am wearing decent, neat clothes. I have brushed my hair.
•
I have left my bed behind: I have stripped it, put the sheets in the wash, fitted fresh linen, run my hand across the perfect plainness.
I have cooked one of Jake’s favourite meals, a pasta sauce with aubergines, reduced for a long time, until the oil shimmers, gold leaf on deep red heat.
•
The boys are calm, in a good mood; after school I did not put them in front of the television. I have played games with them, card games and word games and games of the imagination: You are a horse, Mummy, I am your daddy.
When Jake comes home, I do not meet him at the door, with slippers. That would be too much. But I am in the kitchen, smiling, stirring a pot. His sons run to the door, their faces alert, their eyes happy.
•
I would like to say that I almost do not do it. That when I serve the meal, I look at Jake, and nearly give him our sauce, not reaching for the separate pot at the back of the stove. But that would be a lie. I give Jake his portion first, spooning on a large quantity of sauce, garnishing the dish with leaves of basil.
He is unsure, I can tell, of what has happened. Of why I am smiling, wearing an apron.
Feeling better? he asks me, aware of the boys listening, his fork lifting to his mouth, and I nod.
Much better, I say, lifting my glass of wine to my lips. Jake is hungry: he takes bite after bite, barely chewing, letting the soft pasta and vegetables slide down his throat.
I feel fine now, I say, lifting my fork, beginning to eat my own meal.
17
In the morning, the nausea did not arrive, as it had on other mornings. My stomach was clear and light, my whole body in comfort, wrapped in itself. But the smell of the house was unmistakable. I found Jake in the tiny downstairs toilet, his head hanging over the bowl, groaning and spitting.
I’ve been up all night, he said. It must be— He paused here to retch, and I backed away: I have always hated to see people vomit, even the children. But he was already at the dry heaving stage, it seemed. He sat back from the toilet, his head against the wall, his long legs halfway out of the door, almost touching my feet as I held it open. The smell was intolerable now, acidic and fermented, making me put my hand over my nose.
– must be that bug you had, he finished. It’s awful. I’ve been sick about ten times.
Last year, during a particularly tedious spell of work, I had written an advice leaflet for an emetic. It had never occurred to me before that there was medicine for this. I had only ever heard the word emetic once before, in an elective literature seminar, referring to the prose style of a particular writer, a never-ceasing stream of words.