The Triple Goddess (180 page)

For example, when an Aristotle meets a Threep and says, “How are you this fine morn, Cousin Threep?”, the answer is always in the negative: “Ba-ad, ba-ad, ba-ad”; even though Cousin Threep believes that he or she is responding by saying, “Quite well, thank you. Three-minus-two”…instead of “one” meaning “I”, Threeps say “three-minus-two”…“continue to be a martyr to sciatica. But other than a slight indisposition last week caused by the high pollen count, and the resultant effect upon three-minus-two’s sinuses, three-minus-two is in remarkably fine fettle. Thanks for asking.”

And if a teenage Aristotle was to ask his friend, “Cousin Threep, would you mind helping me with the answer to question four of tonight’s maths homework? Fourteen times twelve, I can’t do it.”; the answer that comes back, “Ba-a, ba-a, ba-a,” is intended to mean, “Why certainly, Cousin Aristotle: the answer to question three-plus-one is three hundred minus two hundred, plus sixty-eight; which is an unpleasantly three-less value that I can hardly bring myself to utter. Nonetheless I can do the sum in my head as easily as I can tell you that eighteen-point-two-five is the square root of three hundred and thirty-three, to three-minus-two decimal places.

“Which, while not as ideal a result as three-point-three-three recurring, or even the imperfect pi—which disappoints after showing initial promise, as three point da-da-da—is gratifyingly threeful.” [“Imperfect” except to the young Aristotle, who already knows all there is to know about perfect pie in recurring helpings, but is not familiar with the letter pi, or Π or
π
, the sixteenth letter of the Greek alphabet, as would later be used in mathematics to express the ratio of the circumference or periphery of a circle to its diameter; as if anyone cared what it was.]

While some of the Threeps’ “Ba-a, ba-a, ba-a”s are more drawn out than other “Ba-a”s, and therefore more emphatic, as in “Ba-aaa-aa”, there is no disputing that their language, which at its most sophisticated comprises no more than a trio, triad, triality, trilogy, or triplicity of identical syllables, is lexicographically limited and falls short of the linguistical gamut of other species.

Though the Aristotles understand what their cousins are saying, they consider privately that the diverse vocabulary and nuances of expression of the Aristotle tongue—which derives from the environment they live in, of wind and water and air, and the sound those elements make amongst the trees and flowers and grass—deserve wider application than merely supplying the first, second, and third, etcetera, words that one uses when putting a note out the night before for the milkman, asking for three, six, nine, and so on pints of Gold Top (Red Top and Silver Top, having a respectively lesser cream content, are held to be inferior products).

Not that Aristotles have anything against milk, and its bi-products of cream and butter; on the contrary, they are staples of the Aristotle diet, to be neither sneezed at nor into. Scones and bread would be nothing without them, nor would tea and coffee; nor milk pudding, obviously. But attempting to subsist on lactic products alone was not held by them to be consistent with a balanced diet.

Threeps are born as identical triplets. As a result there are a lot of them, and confusions arise even within Threep families in trying to tell Threeplets apart, and remembering three names at once, and how many glasses of milk each of them has had, and whose nappy was changed last.

The Threep Elders, fortunately, recognize the problem, and issue helpful pamphlets suggesting triadic names that parents can use as a mnemonic; and identity labels that adhere to each child by static electricity, which is an invisible sort of Velcro. Examples of sets of brothers and sisters are: Delirious, Hilarious, and Serious; Atomic, Comic, and Dominic; Come-to-Me, Wait-and-See, and What’s-for-Tea?...a rhetorical name…Dummy, Rummy, and Tummy; Beery, Leery, and Weary; Ruskin, Buskin, and Pigskin; Alec, Derek, and Pain, short for Pain-in-the-Neck; Model, Twaddle, and Waddle; and Hump, Jump, Rump, and Thump-in-Brackets.

Thump-in-Brackets isn’t a quadruplet, or rather a three-plus-onelet, but a fourth who was adopted as an honorary triplet. The Threeps do their best to keep like names in the family: for instance, Hump, Jump, Rump, and Thump-in-Brackets’ father is Lump, and Mr Lump has three brothers named Bump, Plump, and Chump. Bump’s children are Grump, Mump, and Stump; and Plump’s Clump, Dump, and Trump.

Chump has no children; he professes to be a minimalist in thought, word, and deed; never carries more than one thing in his head at once; and is monosyllabic in speech. He doesn’t go out very much. Mr Lump doesn’t talk about his father, Whump, because he’s the black sheep of the family, and doesn’t set a good example at family gatherings. He rolls coltsfoot—
Tussilago farfara—
cigarettes, and smokes them at the milk counter that Threeps use as a dining-table; passes his hip flask of Olde Sheep-Dippe amongst the youngsters when their parents aren’t looking, pinches Mrs Lump’s bottom, and tells off-colour jokes.

Threeps come to resemble their names in the way that dog owners do their pets; or is it the other way round? Delirious’s eyes roll in opposite directions, as if he’s mad or has a fever; Hilarious has the frizzy wool of one who had trouble pulling free from a hawthorn bush, or stuck her hoof in a lamp socket, which is something that one should never ever try to do, or any other part of the body; Serious’s wool is tightly curled and prim, and her legs look like blue stockings.

Atomic bounces off all four feet when he’s running, Comic is a clown, Model is glamorous with long eyelashes, Twaddle talks drivel, Waddle waddles, and Dominic looks like...well, a Dominic.

The three-ness of the Threeps doesn’t end with the way they communicate. When they leave Threepfold, where they live, to visit the Aristotles, they split up and approach the Village from three different directions.

They do this because there are three things on any given day that can prevent them from coming in by road, and a one-in-three chance that they won’t arrive at all. “Three minus two-ly,” they say, meaning firstly, the road could be undergoing repair, or a tree might have fallen and blocked it. Why the Threeps should think this, when the Aristotles wouldn’t consider expending a joule of energy fixing the road, however “ba-ad” its state, or hauling a tree trunk and branches, the Wind has no idea; but the Threeps won’t discount the possibility.

“Three minus one-ly,” the lower part of the bostal down from the hill may be so muddy, or the wind so fierce, that it’s impossible to arrive in a presentable condition.

Thirdly
[of course], after torrential rain the fields through which the footpath runs may be a quagmire.

Should any of these three things happen, and the Threeps reckon that there’s a three-minus-two in three chance that it will, at least the precaution will ensure that three minus one of them make it.

Because they can’t float in the air like Aristotles, before leaving Threepfold the Threeps divide into threes, each group of which draws from three straws to decide who will walk along the road, who will take the hill, and who the field route.

Not only do they arrive from various points, but instead of walking the Threeps twirl as if they are dancing a waltz. This is made easier by their having only three feet, like a milking stool, comprising two forelegs and hind leg; or two hind legs and a foreleg, if you prefer to think of it that way. To anyone observing them from a distance, they look like spinning-tops, whirling Dervishes, or mini-tornadoes...you may take your pick from the three.

When the Aristotles entertain the Threeps, it involves three times more work on the Aristotles’ part than if anyone else were coming to see them. They are very busy from the moment they turn up—contrary to Threep expectation all of them always do—because they have to say, “Good morning” to each of them, and shake hands three times, and give each of them three cups of milk. If an Aristotle tries to save time, or milk, by shaking hands only twice, or pouring only one cup and talking fast about the weather in the hope that the Threep won’t notice, it doesn’t work. Cousin Threep says, “Bad, bad, ba-ad,” and the ritual begins again.

The process is made even more wearing by the Threeps’ habit of telling the Aristotles, without meaning to be rude but being so anyway, how their houses in Threepfold, to which the Aristotles are never invited by way of returning their hospitality, are three times the size of their cousins’, with three times as many interesting features within, and three times as many acres of land without.

The Aristotles do not doubt what they are told, for none of them has more than a postage-stamp cottage garden at the front, and a pocket-handkerchief vegetable and flower patch at the back. This is all one could want, or need, given that one has all of the downs and the air above one to roam over, with no upkeep involved.

The Threeps boast about everything from the three holidays a year they take, to how their cups have three handles so that they can pick them up whichever way they put them down, without having to turn them around or use the wrong foot. When they sit down for tea, instead of curling half a hoof away from the cup like the Aristotle aunts and uncles—which is not easy to do unless one doesn’t know that one is doing it—they fold one of their three legs underneath their bottoms on the chair.

The Aristotles are grateful that, although the Threeps get through a great deal of milk, they’re not putting away three times as much food as the Aristotles. For if they were, not only would the Aristotles be eaten out of house and home, but Mr Stedman at the Bakehouse, whose nerves aren’t steady at the best of times, even though he was able to walk a tightrope blindfolded as a child, would have a breakdown; and then what would they do?

Despite their differences, however, the Aristotles are fond of their cousins, and share with them a love of stories. Although they don’t believe every Threep word—one in three would be closer to the mark, and the other two they take with a handful of sugar—it’s of no consequence, because whatever happens in a story is true after it’s told.

But the most enjoyable part of every Threep visit is the dancing that takes place when tea is over, to music that one of them plays on a violin with three strings.

Threeps are natural hoofers in waltzes, courantes, galliards, mazurkas, minuets, passepieds, and sarabandes, because the music they are danced to is in triple time, with three beats to the bar. But they tie themselves in knots when, after a glass of dandelion wine, they try an allemande, bourrée, cakewalk, galop, gavotte, gigue, march, musette, paso doble, pavan, polka, quadrille or cotillion, rumba, schottische, or tango; or after two glasses, a reel or strathspey...never a fox-trot, for Threeps and foxes don’t get along...because those dances are in duple, or “common”—“very common”, the Threeps say—time with two or four beats in each measure.

In classical dancing, the Threeps’ artistry is a wonder to behold. Their
placement
, or posture, is impeccable. Their body positions of arabesque and attitude, and their elevation and extension and standing on pointe, are exemplary. Their execution of the steps and movements of
glissade
and
glissé, chassé, développé
,
passé
,
brisé
and
battement
, is immaculate. In the
assemblé
,
jeté
,
plié,
piqué
,
relevé,
cabriole
, and
saut de Basque
, they are not to be faulted. Their
rondes de jambe
, and triple
tours
en l’air
, and their
pirouettes
leave nothing to be desired.

And they can spin so fast on the spot that they look like big pieces of cotton wool, with hooves sticking out all heepledy-sheepledy like drumsticks.

Any ballet aficionado would thrill to the elegance of Threep dancing. Dame Alicia Markova, if she had seen all the Threeps together doing thirty-three
fouettés en tournant
, which is one more than the legendary Pierina Legnani was the first to execute, in the ballet
Swan Lake
, as choreographed by Lev Ivanov, Enrico Cecchetti, and Marius Petipa, would have given up her dream of becoming a
prima ballerina assoluta
, kept the family name of Marks, and trained as a secretary instead.

And their performances of the
pas de trois
can only be marvelled at.

The Aristotles, who have no Terpsichorean ability whatever, prefer to sit the dances out and watch their cousins’ artistry. But when they’ve seen as many
entrechats
with three leg-crossings as they can take until the next visit, they’ve a problem, because the Threeps dance three times longer than the most devoted balletomane could wish, with their eyes closed in blissful concentration.

The Aristotles used to try everything they could think of to hint that, perhaps, their cousins should be moseying home. They coughed and yawned and talked loudly; if they had mobile phones they would have called each other on them, using the most annoying ring tone on the menu, set to high volume: not
The Blue Danube
by Johann Strauss, had it yet been written, because that is a waltz, and it would only encourage the Threeps to keep going; but something like the theme of Rossini’s overture to his interminable opera
William Tell
, which is in two-four time.

None of this had any effect, because the Threeps could not be distracted. The Aristotles considered taking themselves off to bed without saying good night; but, as the Threeps’ relatives and hosts, they discounted the idea as unworthy of them.