Stone Blind(42)

‘Would I mind?’ said the golden nymph. ‘No, I don’t think I’d mind. But you see, it was all wet from the water, just like you. So we fished it out and stretched it over the rock here, to dry it for you. We thought you’d be happy.’

She turned her face downwards a little and gazed at him through long lashes. Perseus found himself terrified that he had upset her and she was about to cry.

‘I am,’ he said. ‘I’m very happy. Happy and grateful. It’s just that I don’t have anything else to wear, so . . .’

‘You aren’t cold?’ asked another nymph. At least, he thought it was another. She was certainly sitting on a different rock. But she too had huge limpid eyes that looked ready to fill with tears. ‘Our garden has been admired by the immortal gods and goddesses for almost as long as time itself. And you find it cold?’

‘No, no, not at all.’ Perseus stumbled on a rock as he tried to move closer while covering some of his nakedness by hiding under large leaves that hung over the water from trees growing on the bank. ‘I’m certainly not cold, your garden is perfect in every way.’

‘What do you like about it most?’ asked another nymph.

Perseus really wanted to be less exposed before he answered this. Not least because he seemed to upset them so easily. ‘I like . . .’ He paused to think of the honest answer. ‘I like the birds, I’ve never seen so many kinds or heard so many different songs.’

‘He doesn’t like the flowers.’ One nymph put her arm around her sister’s shoulders. ‘I don’t know what more you could have done.’

‘No, I do like them!’ Perseus said.

‘The fruit trees don’t interest him at all,’ said another. ‘Though Hera herself keeps her apple tree here.’

‘No, they do!’ Perseus didn’t know how he was getting everything so wrong. ‘I admired them the moment I saw them. I wasn’t sure what fruits they were, because I have never seen a golden apple tree before, but I was very interested in them in spite of that.’ Seeing another nymph’s face fall, he corrected himself. ‘Not in spite of it. Because of it, really.’

‘I suppose it’s too much to hope that you noticed the beautiful soft grasses you lay on?’ said another, and Perseus could no longer tell if she had addressed him before or if he was affronting a different nymph each time.

‘I liked those too,’ he said. ‘Beautiful and comfortable.’

‘But you aren’t enjoying the lake?’ said the one who was now sitting on his tunic.

‘I am,’ he said. ‘I would just feel like I was addressing you more respectfully if I was on the shore alongside you and, you know, wearing clothes.’

‘Oh, I see,’ said another and he turned to try and keep track of her this time. ‘You’d be happier if we were all in the same position, as it were.’

‘Yes,’ he said, just before realizing that he would actually feel a great deal less comfortable if they were suddenly naked and in the water beside him. He wondered if it was possible to die of embarrassment. The sound of an unspecified number of inhumanly beautiful women giggling at him was almost as upsetting as the sound of the Graiai quarrelling with one another. He tried to reach up to the rock and grab his tunic but now it was suddenly in the hands of a nymph who was using it to dry herself. Perseus wondered if they would keep laughing at him if he burst into tears and concluded that they certainly would.

‘Please let me have my tunic,’ he said. ‘My mother made it for me and I might never see her again.’

‘Oh, the poor boy,’ said one. ‘Losing his mother, so young.’

‘When did we last see our mother?’ asked her sister.

Fat tears flowed down the first nymph’s face. Perseus wanted to comfort her but feared that if he left the water now, his intentions might be misconstrued.

‘You’ve upset her,’ said another of the Hesperides.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘If I could just have my tunic—’

But none of the nymphs was listening. They flocked to their sister, embracing her. Not knowing what else to do, Perseus climbed onto the bank, discovered his cloak near where he had left it, and wrapped that around himself. When one of the Hesperides noticed, she too burst into tears, and had to be comforted by the others. Perseus wondered if he should ask again for his tunic, but he feared the response. He decided to try a different strategy.

‘I am sorry to have caused so much distress,’ he said. Sniggering broke out again. He knew he sounded pompous and foolish – if anything, he sounded like Polydectes – but he didn’t know how to address the Hesperides. They were powerful but also beautiful; immortal but emotional. They had nothing whatsoever in common with the girls he had grown up with in the fishing village.

The Hesperides, meanwhile, were beginning to tire of their diversion. It had all been very entertaining, seeing this mortal man who Athene and Hermes had decided to bring to them. It had been fun hiding from him, more fun stealing his clothes and teasing him. But there was something so monotonous about mortals, which was one of many reasons why they usually kept their distance. The boy wanted something, and he would ask for it and they would either reward or deny him. But what did they get from the encounter?

They had quite enjoyed seeing him naked, but was he really more delightful than the creatures that lived in their garden? Aegle seemed to think so (she was always the most emotional one: this was how she could cry at will). But Arethusa would not have minded if he had drowned in the lake, so long as he gave the fish something to nibble on. Erytheia, meanwhile, preferred the snakes that twisted their muscular bodies around the golden apple trees, though she was enjoying wearing the man’s shoes. Hesperie had not even bothered to come down to meet him: she would have to remove her lovely hairband if they were all to appear the same. And after going to all the trouble of acquiring it, and choosing one with such a beautiful chequered pattern, she was hardly likely to take it off just to play a trick on some trivial man. It had taken her the longest time to tie it just right, under her hair. Chrysothemis asked if she didn’t want the mortal to see it and admire her, but what did she care if he admired her hair or not? He would be dead soon, either way. Lipara, meanwhile, was sure that the man had broken a twig off her favourite laurel tree as he blundered through their garden. She was sitting beside Arethusa on the tunic, wondering if they should push him back into the water and hold him under. Neither of them could completely remember if this was fatal to mortals, but so much was dangerous for them that it might be worth the attempt. But then there was Antheia, standing beside the olive trees, gazing at the man with frank hunger. If he were to ask for an apple (generally, when anyone approached the Hesperides, it had something to do with the apples), she would have handed over a whole tree.