Adèle Geras
A Letter From Helen Of Troy
Menelaus, darling
I do think this is all a bit excessive!
I can see you from the walls, you know
don’t think I can’t,
beseiging away like mad, down on the plain.
Ye Gods, I thought, watch out, the gang’s all here:
Hector and Agamemnon and Achilles
and that young man of his whose name escapes me,
the old bore, Nestor, even Ulysses.
I know why he’s around. It’s her, of course,
Penelope. Bloody needlework all day long.
He needs an outlet for his energy.
I do sympathise,
but still ...
I’ve heard the gossip.
Yes, even up here in good old Topless Towers
it reaches us,
don’t think it doesn’t.
That dreadful business with Iphigenia.
Well, wind you asked for then
and wind you’ve got
and serve you right
and all for what?
I fancied Paris.
I would have got over it.
I’ve fancied other men before
(you know that. I don’t have to tell you)
I think it was his thighs
like well-turned wood ...
but there you go ....
you cannot build
relationships on rippling flesh.
I’ve learned.
I’d have come back.
But you’ve overreacted as usual.
Now it’s busy, busy, busy
hammering wood together all day long.
And what with that
and Cassandra moaning
and Hecuba criticising
and Priam losing his memory
and Paris going off me
on account of the fighting,
I’m bored to tears.
The rumour said a thousand ships.
I think war turns you on, Menelaus,
you and all the men.
It isn’t about me at all.
Is it?
Page(s) 42-43
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