some children and their children

Mentor: I think I know the allusion.

Man: You would of course. Anyway, more on Eveline anon. Finally there's Zelda's third child, Christopher, the last of the brace of three from her first marriage. When I moved in, Zelda had not long returned from a cheapie trip to Europe - to get away from her family, as she described it. I'm not sure what the arrangement was with Lola, who would've been rather young to be left alone. I didn't want to inquire too deeply into all that. Now, I'm sorry to introduce so many names here, but there are more. Zelda not only had four kids but also two grandkids when I first met her, to which have been added an extra five since my advent. Esther, the Christian, had a six year old child, Andrew, out of a disastrous relationship. The father chose to deny paternity, and when it was proven in the usual way, he disappeared, never to be seen again. When I arrived on the scene, Esther was in a relationship with an odd handsome wannabe writer, excruciatingly untalented. He'd had a book self-published at some expense, and its awfulness made him a laughing-stock. As someone about to have my own book published, in more traditional and 'legitimate' fashion, I naturally kept him at arm's length, which was easy enough given my solitary disposition. Their relationship was very volatile, due to both characters' characters. No doubt it would've died the death, but Esther fell pregnant again. Actually, this may have been the event that doomed the relationship or brought it to a quicker conclusion, for the handsome bad writer insisted that Esther had deliberately fallen pregnant [and others in the family, most notably Eveline, had their strong suspicions]. I tell you all this as a taste of the dramas I’d dropped myself into, through Zelda, the mother hen as she called herself. It was all very fascinating. I tried to keep out of the various controversies, but with the Esther case, yes I had my own suspicions, as Esther was the traditionalist of the family, after getting over her youthful flights. Christianity was clearly part of that tradition which also involved marriage, family, home ownership, the whole shebang. She was very much into catching her man. It might have seemed manipulative, but it was also sad in its desperation. In any case, if she'd wanted to entrap, it didn't work, and Esther was soon left, single and struggling, with a hyperactive seven-year-old and a baby girl, and a perennially precarious housing situation. 

And then there was Eveline, also a single mum when I arrived, with a daughter of six or seven months. This little girl, Sophie, was the product of a liaison between Eveline and a Greek medical student who turned out to have severe psychological problems. The relationship had already foundered by the time I came along, though they still used each other for sex on a semi-regular basis. Eveline worked casually as a nurse, struggling to make ends meet, and like her older sister, moving from house to house in the rental market. 

Mentor: But she wasn't a Christian.