Dion: His Life and Mine by Sarah Cate Anstey

I confessed.
    “Well, now you can.” Ma Six said. “You need something for yourself, Ariadne. You’ll end up bored stiff if all you do is listen to Dion making music all day. Believe me – even a god-given talent can become wearing after you’ve heard it for the fiftieth time! The correspondence degree would be perfect for you. You could even do it while you’re on the road with Dion and you can take up to six years to complete it.” I listened to her wax lyrical about the course. Her enthusiasm was infectious and my heart panged for Bris. I agreed to look through any brochures she sent me.
                  “You might as well fill out an application now, while you’re here and it’s quiet.” Ma Six insisted and pointed out. “You can always turn it down, or postpone it, if you get an offer.” She said, giving me a sideways glance. So that afternoon, whilst Dion took himself off with his guitar and wrote “Flowers” for Tria , I sat down at the Mas’ table to complete an application form. Ma Six also suggested I wrote an assignment about the properties of the herbs I knew, to strengthen the submission.  When I had finished, she called Ma Four in and they scrutinised it.
    “Yes, you’ll definitely benefit from the course.” Ma Four said. I wasn’t sure how to take it until Ma Six told me it was a compliment.
    “Ma Four is a harsh marker.” She whispered.
    “I heard that.” Ma Four said.
    “Which modules do you teach Ma Four?” I asked, winking at Ma Six.
    “The most interesting ones,” Ma Four told me.
    “She also teaches on the Agricultural course. You can take some modules from that too.”
    “I think I’ll stick to the Horticultural one for now and see how I go.” I said, staring at the paper Ma Four handed back to me, which looked like it’d had a run in with a red pen and come off the worst.
     
    “Has Dion heard anything from his mother’s family since you married?” ‘Ma Four asked me, the following morning, as we gathered catmint, burdock and mistletoe. I told her about the statement Kadmus had made and also tentatively suggested that I couldn’t understand why it mattered so much to Dion, when he had more of a family on that mountain than I’d had on Crete.
    “Ah, but you had a family for good or ill; you were accepted, no question.”  I thought about Aster. Maybe my beautiful husband and deformed brother weren’t all that different; but then Aster was accepted, he had Andro, Phaedra and me.
    Pentheus had been wrong to suggest that Dion didn’t have any male influences. The Mas had all been folk singers in their younger years and during Dion’s childhood were visited by fellow singers, including Silenus. Although, to be fair to Pentheus, Silenus’s influence over Dion wasn’t something I always felt comfortable with and I know all of the Mas felt the same way, come the end. When I met him, Silenus was balding, with a round red face and a large paunch, but Mas Two, Four and Six assured me that he had been a very handsome young man. The twinkle in their eyes, when they told me, was confirmation enough.
    Growing up, Dion had idolised Silenus, who told him about the exotic places he had visited on tour. During the month Silenus visited, the mountain was filled with music and singing. It was Silenus who discovered Dion’s musical talents.
    “From that day forward, you couldn’t stop Dion from playing. He was obsessive.” Ma One told me.
    Ma Seven agreed, “He’d miss meals in order to play. And when he did it was trance-like, as if, as …” She hesitated.
                  “Go on.” I encouraged her, “as if what?”
    “As if he was communicating.”
    “With whom?” I asked her.
    “With his parents.” She told me, simply. Then, when I didn’t greet her reply with ridicule she added in a whisper, “I believe his talent was his father’s gift to him, as well as his curse.”
     
    When Dion was about ten, he was looking for Silenus from