Ariadne(68)

I racked my brains for the source of my coldness. The only baby I had known up close was that monstrosity that my mother had birthed. Only Ariadne had been brave enough to go back to Pasiphae’s quarters, again and again, swallowing down her repulsion and treating it as though it was a baby like any other. Ariadne, my gentle sister, alive and not dead after all, but still not at my side. If she were here, if she could see me, then she would know in an instant what I felt and she would be horrified by me. It was better that she was not here, I told myself, better that she did not know the emptiness of her little sister’s heart.

But the Minotaur had been an aberration, I told myself. I forced myself to look at my son’s little face and I tried to feel, deep in my heart, the connection that should exist between mother and child. He had been born of me, after all. Why did I look at him and see a stranger? He was no product of an unspeakable deed. He was not a hideous half-being; my baby was human at least. Why then did it feel so difficult to love him? I did not know.

It seemed that I swam through those early months of my son’s life, submerged in a sea of fatigue. I felt wrong-footed and clumsy, and intensely alone. I had stiffened my resolve on the ship that had brought me here years ago – believing that my sister was dead – traded for peace by my brother like a stack of gold ingots or a herd of prize cattle. I knew it was foolish to trust, so I had cherished the independence of my spirit. I had thrived in the company of others, exchanging witty jests and merry conversations but never cultivating the closeness of a friendship. Until now, I had loved my opportunities for solitude, the quiet moments that presented themselves away from court and between guests, when I could gather my own thoughts. But my thoughts had never frightened me then. Now, the empty moments were terrifying. When I could escape the tedium of my baby and seize a respite, I might take a walk by the city walls, wondering if I could muster the energy to fling myself from their height on to the rocky slopes below.

I was leaning over one of them, thinking exactly that, when I felt Theseus’ hands close around my shoulders. I spun round, startled, knowing his touch at once. He had been away from the city for some time – I did not know how long, for the weeks succeeded one another in a colourless haze – and I was surprised to feel a flutter of something within my chest at the sight of his familiar face. He was bronzed by the sun, lit with vitality, flushed with the glow of someone who had been adventuring at sea, and he seemed happy.

I flung my arms around his neck. I could feel his surprise; I had never been this effusive. I could smell the salt on his skin and I shut my eyes, breathing it in. In that moment, he had everything that I wanted – freedom, excitement, escape. I felt him try to step back, but I pressed myself against him more closely.

He laughed, pleased with this show of affection, believing it to be for him. I breathed in deeper, inhaling the scent of the sea and all the possibilities that lay across the waves.

‘How is our son?’ he asked. He was jovial, happy, eager for news of home.

For once, I actually wanted the stories of his travels and I felt myself sag back from him, disappointed.

‘He grows older,’ I answered, peevish and tired once more.

‘Nearly a year,’ Theseus said. I could hear pride infusing his voice at the continued health and growth of his child.

‘He may fear you and cry when he sees you,’ I warned. He cried enough when he saw me, although I did everything that a good mother was supposed to do. I never breathed a word of my misery in those infant ears. Still, my melancholy must have infected him somehow.

‘He will get used to me,’ Theseus declared. ‘Where is he? Let me see him now.’

When I brought him to the baby, Demophon actually squealed with joy and bestowed a rare smile upon his father. Watching them together, I felt a cold hand clutch my insides. The little boy smiled just like Theseus; it was Theseus’ face reflected back at him in miniature.

I had clung to Theseus by the city walls, despite the resentment I nurtured against him, despite my frank disbelief in his story of a vision, a divine dream that had made him leave my sister to die on Naxos – making him a murderer, even if he had failed. Now I recoiled again. I had seen myself as a monster, unable to love an innocent child. But there Demophon was, a tiny version of his father. He might be a baby now, but he was his father’s son, and who could tell what lies might fall from his lips so effortlessly one day and how easily he might hold a woman’s life in his fist and crush it to dust? I shuddered and turned away from them both. For a brief moment, I had thought I might find some comfort in Theseus’ presence but I knew with a deep, cold certainty that any affection I might have had for him had been strangled long ago.

I was simply so tired. I felt like I no longer knew who I was. The competent queen who had juggled the needs of the city so expertly was now a slave to the relentless wailing from the crib. My only comfort was the thought that as he grew older, my son would need me less and perhaps I could start to reassemble the fragments of my life.

He began to walk, and I rejoiced in his every step away from me. The numbness that smothered my heart began at last to recede and I felt the first stirrings of something that could almost be love – or interest at least. He no longer seemed so angry with the world and instead of the imperious yells that would rouse me most mornings, I sometimes found him contented and gurgling. One morning, when he saw my face above him, he smiled at me and a tiny shard of ice within me melted as he reached his plump little arms out to wrap them around my neck.