Jocasta: Wife and Mother. Brian Aldiss

surrounded by those moaning mouths again?’

      ‘Is this another of your riddles?’ Jocasta asked. She placed a hand over the generous contour of her left breast, to calm a heart still beating from the encounter with the Furies. ‘Must you always be in such a flutter, dear Sphinx?’

      ‘Why should I not flutter? I should live among the stars … Am I not a captive?’

      We are all captives of something, said Jocasta to herself. Aloud she replied, ‘You are free to come and go within the palace grounds. They are more comfortable than the stars. Try to be happy with that.’

      The great creature loomed over her before sitting and scratching herself with a back leg, in a show of nonchalance.

      ‘You are never at ease with me,’ she said. ‘What is the reason? Let us be frank with one another – I have never been Oedipus’ mother.’

      Jocasta tried to laugh. ‘Then why act like it?’

      ‘I shall be a mother.’ The creature gave a great squawk before rushing on with her discourse.

      ‘Your grandmother tells me that we have to process to the coast. Will Oedipus lead me on that golden chain I hate so much? Will I have to walk? Could I not fly? How wretched is my state. Doesn’t Oedipus know I am expecting to lay an egg at any time, and cannot travel? Has he no compassion?’ Her voice was high with maternal indignation. She shook her scanty mane. As the feathers floated to the ground, they became invisible.

      ‘Of course he has compassion. Didn’t he save you from death, dear Sphinx? He has much on his mind, with Thebes suffering from famine.’

      The creature stretched herself out on the ground with her hindquarters towards Jocasta. She spoke without looking at her. ‘Why must the tyrant travel at all?’

      ‘We leave for Paralia Avidos in the morning. It’s ritual. We shall worship at the shrine of Apollo, in order to lift the weight of misery from the shoulders of Thebes. If you’re going to cause trouble, Sphinx, I’ll have to lock you up in your cage.’

      At this threat, the Sphinx turned her head to gaze piteously at Jocasta.

      Jocasta looked straight into the creature’s great hazel eyes, wherein lived something both animal and human. It prompted her to pat the feathery flank and say, ‘I love you, dear Sphinx, but you’re such a trouble.’

      ‘By the great broken blue eggshells of Cithaeron Hollow, what have I done to offend you, O Jocasta?’ The voice rose shriller still, sinking to a faint warble to ask, ‘What about ancient Semele’s griffins? They possess neither sense nor sensibility. How about locking up those wretched little animals?’

      So saying, the creature bounded over Jocasta’s head and squeezed herself into the entrance of the palace in quest of Oedipus. Jocasta stood watching a stray feather float to earth and disappear. She inhaled the fragrance of the herbs underfoot. Then with a shrug of her shoulders she went to look in on her old grandmother.

      ‘Shit!’ exclaimed Semele, pulling irritably at a braid of her tangled grey hair. ‘That wretched Sphinx! So cunning. Its shit’s invisible. Only turns visible after a while, when the damned thing’s gone.’ The old woman was either addressing her great-grandson, Polynices, or talking to herself. Certainly the half-naked boy gave no response.

      ‘Why it can’t drop a decent visible turd like everyone else I don’t know. Even the steam off it is invisible, and that’s odd … I’m sure there was nothing like this when I was young. People seem to be eating more these days, so I suppose they’re shitting more. Adonis had an idea that you could shove the shit back up your arsehole and then you wouldn’t need to eat.’

      ‘Don’t talk in that manner, Grandmother,’ said Jocasta. ‘It’s so crude. These are days of greater civility than used to be.’

      ‘Did Adonis manage it?’ asked young Polynices, without curiosity. He lay sprawling on a rug, regarding the ceiling where a bluebottle buzzed furiously in the entanglements of a spider’s web. A small spider rushed in for the kill.

      ‘Not really,’ said the old harridan. ‘It was just another theory that didn’t work.’ She shot a glance under wrinkled brows at her granddaughter. ‘What does my little mischief want?’

      Jocasta stood in the doorway, where some fresh air could still be detected.

      ‘There’s such a stink in here,’ she said, fanning a well-manicured hand in front of her face. ‘Can’t you clear this pile of excrement away, Grandmother? Must we have such filth within these four walls? We don’t put up with such things, as you used to do in your day.’

      ‘When it hardens I’ll pick it up and throw it away,’ the old woman said soothingly. ‘And my days were better days, more carefree. Why, I never wore a dress until I was sixteen.’

      The old lady lived in the half-dark, complaining of her eyesight. Her two griffins lay at the back of the chamber, growling quietly at the entry of an intruder. They were house-trained animals. They had never thought up a riddle in their lives.

      The buzzing on the ceiling ceased.

      ‘Poly, can’t you do something about it?’ asked Jocasta. ‘You know this dirt just attracts flies.’ But then she added, ‘Oh, as if I care. Live the way you must!’

      Polynices waved a hand without stirring from the horizontal position.

      ‘He likes flies,’ said Semele, faking a yawn. ‘What do you want, dear? It’s time for my snooze.’

      Jocasta stood, stately, looking down haughtily at her grandmother who sat in a tangle of bony legs and arms amid cushions on the floor.

      ‘Oedipus and I are faring to the coast tomorrow. We shall take the children, of course. But you can stay here and look after the slaves and animals, if you like.’

      ‘So you don’t want me with you?’ Semele said, with a look of cunning as she narrowed her little eyes. Regarding her, Jocasta thought that as she saw something human in the Sphinx, so she detected something animal in her grandmother. This disconcerting reflection she hurriedly put away.

      ‘I’ll lock the Sphinx in her cage,’ she promised, ‘so she won’t bother you.’

      ‘I shall be lonely. No one cares how lonely I am. Antigone must stay here with me.’

      ‘Our journey is ritual. Antigone must come with us.’

      ‘Ritual, my arse! The girl’s about to have an affair of some sort with Sersex.’

      ‘What, that slave? That stable hand? More reason why she must come with us.’ Jocasta knew Sersex, a handsome and willowy young man, only recently employed at the palace.

      ‘It’s time Antigone matured,’ said the old woman. ‘Let her be. Don’t interfere. You’re always interfering. She is twelve years old. She’s got hair round it.’

      ‘She must come with us, Grandmother. It’s ritual. You’ll stay here. You can have an affair with Sersex.’

      Semele gave a high-pitched shriek of laughter. ‘Sersex? You’re mad!’

      ‘I was only joking.’ Jocasta sighed. ‘Why do you never understand jokes?’

      ‘Don’t sulk! It’s a bad habit. We’ve all noticed how you are becoming rather sulky.’

      They heard the voice of Oedipus, calling his daughter Antigone. No longer was his voice grating, as it had been when he addressed his subjects. It took on a gentle note of coaxing, more dovelike. Semele raised an eyebrow in scorn.

      ‘Always Antigone. Never Ismene. You had better watch your husband, my girl.’

      Oedipus had put on a white robe for his hour of audience with his subjects. He wore the crown of the King of Thebes, though it was no more than a modest ring of gold, pressed down into his mop of dark hair. With the audience concluded, he tossed the crown aside. It was caught by his