Praxis

When she produced two girls, and not the son he waited for, he knew that he was right: she was a tainted Christian and his guilt had found him out. She was, after all, second best. He had gone out sexual slumming, and found Lucy.

Praxis, meaning turning-point, culmination, action; orgasm; some said the Goddess herself.

Hypatia, a learned woman: stoned to death by an irate crowd for teaching mathematics when she should have stayed modestly at home.

Of course, said their mother, apologetically, Hypatia is the artistic one, and very sensitive. Praxis is the pretty one. She clearly valued sensitivity above prettiness.

She would cry for Mary’s baby, moan with horror in the night because of what she had done, but something proud and implacable remained. She had been right.

And now it was done, and over. And along with the relief, consoling her, was the visionary notion that the act of killing had not been petty, sordid, ordinary and mad, but that she had been the instrument of some higher will. Praxis could, and would rationalise the deed away: she would say that logically there was no difference between contraception and abortion: that the termination of pregnancy at any stage, whether the foetus was minus nine months, six months, three months or plus one day, must be the mother’s decision. That pregnant women must somehow be relieved of the fear they felt, now that one baby in every twenty was born with some defect or other; and so on, and so on: and half believe it, and half know that all this was irrelevant

raped girls, vicious virgins, underpaid shop assistants, frustrated captains of industry, violent schoolgirls, women exploited and exploiting; but all turning away from their inner preoccupations and wretchedness, to regard the outside world and see that it could be changed, if not for themselves, it being too late for themselves, then at least for others.

Those whom she had privately regarded as rejected, humiliated, obsessive, angry and ridiculous, she began to see as brave, noble, and attempting, at any rate, to live their lives by principle rather than by convenience. All kinds of women – young and old, clever, slow, pretty, plain; the halt and the lame, the sexually confused, or fulfilled, or indifferent, battered wives,

Wherever she went she saw women betrayed, exploited and oppressed. She saw that women were the cleaners, the fetchers, the carriers, the humble of the earth, and that they were truly blessed.

She saw that men’s lives were without importance and that only the lives of women were significant. She lost her belief in the man-made myths of history – great civilisations, great art, great empire. The male version of events.

She remembered, or thought she remembered, Hilda dancing naked in front of Willy in the night. In the same way she remembered lying with her father in Elaine’s summer house. But perhaps these things had not happened at all: perhaps they were fantasies, manifestations of inner fears and desires, which came to her with the strength of memories? How was she to know? And why should she want to know? There was no obligation, after all, to know the truth, let alone face it. And if Benjamin had not appeared by chance, but had come looking for his daughter in Raffles Esplanade Dive in response to a letter from Hilda, what did it matter now?

Did they really believe that she would be a convert? That she could ever be as they were, ever think or act, let alone dress, as they did? They were the women she pitied: the women without men: the rejects. They should keep their voices low and not draw attention to themselves. Lucy without Benjamin: mad: retiring into her own head for ever and ever.