The Seven Sisters Read Online Free Page A

of release, through the agency of Anthea Richards, was a delirious excitement to me. I embraced it and all its accompanying humiliations.
    There, I have written down Anthea’s name as well as Andrew’s. I am making good progress with this account.
    Henrietta and Sally, as I have said, are my Suffolk friends. I have two friends still from my schooldays at St Anne’s. Janet and Julia are the names of my schoolfriends from St Anne’s. They knew Andrew in his guise as head boy, all those years ago. He featured in their girlish dreams and in their girlish diaries. Though it has to be said that Julia always saw through Andrew. Julia was a wicked girl and now she is a wicked woman, and she is well placed to judge Andrew for what he is.
    Two Suffolk friends. And myself makes three.
    Two friends from St Anne’s. And myself makes three.
    Three daughters.
    Three and three and three.
    I am superstitious about numbers, although I know they are meaningless. It is almost an illness with me. I wonder if it is an illness with a name. Most things have names, if you inquire after them. I am lucky with numbers. One day I intend to win the Lottery, with lucky numbers. I haven’t bought a ticket yet, but when I do, I shall win. Just you wait and see. It is written that I shall win. If ever I bother to play. (I bet that form of belief has a name, too. I might look it up one day. There must be a reference book called
Common Delusions
.)
    The three girls sided with Andrew. Isobel, Ellen and Martha. Andrew alienated my three daughters. He seduced them and stole their hearts away.
    I have written enough for today. Tomorrow I will write about my friends from St Anne’s. The prospect fills me with a slightly unhealthy excitement.
    It is raining heavily, but I will brave the streets and go to my Club today. I haven’t been for days. I must try to stick to some kind of
routine, whatever the weather. If I break my routine I will die. I must measure out my days correctly, as I promised myself I would, or liberation will never be mine. Virgil has deserted me, but I shall remain faithful to his successor and his substitute and worship in his temple. Virgil’s successor is the new god of Health.
    Actually, I think Health must be a goddess rather than a god, but I don’t know her name. Hygeia, perhaps? I must look her up when I go to the library.
    I miss the reference books. I don’t have much shelf space here. Life has become sparse. I like it, in a way, this thinness. But occasionally I miss something. Like a reference book.
    She prefaces the stories of Janet and of Julia with more tales of the streets and of the Club
    Well, here I am. I’m back. I didn’t mean to go on writing tonight, but I don’t see why I shouldn’t. Nobody will know. I feel the need to continue. Though it wasn’t a very eventful evening, nothing untoward. There was a moment as I walked under the motorway, when I felt nervous. A tall black man was walking towards me, straight at me, as though he meant to collide with me. I’ve been nervous ever since I had my bag snatched. Now I don’t carry anything in my bag, except my bathing suit, and my trainers, and my Club Pass, and a fiver in case I think of something I need for supper on the way home. But he wouldn’t know I hadn’t got anything in it worth having, would he? Anyway, half the people around here look psychotic. You can’t tell the muggers from the mad. I know I shouldn’t say that, even to myself, but it’s true.
    When we were within a yard of one another, I veered to one side, trying to look as though I wasn’t doing it deliberately. I didn’t want him to think I was
avoiding
him. He might have found that provocative. But he didn’t even seem to notice. He just ploughed on in his own lone furrow, without looking, staring straight ahead. He was probably out of his mind, or high, or drunk. No, not drunk. He was walking too straight to be drunk. Mad, probably.
    No, I don’t like walking under the railway, nor