She was grateful for the offer. But Ollia, wife of Larius the painter, gazed at Mount Vesuvius as it spewed a plug of ash from the depths of the earth and sent clouds of fine material flittering all around the peak, and said no, no thank you. She had to wait here until her husband came, because he would need to know where to find them.
The first emission looked like forest fires smouldering on the side of the mountain. That continued for some time, covering the peak entirely. Ollia went out to watch occasionally as she tidied up after giving the children lunch. Then came a huge noise as if all of Campania was breaking apart, so she ran out of doors again, and witnessed the beginning of the first big eruption. Horrified, she watched a massive column of molten rock and gas climbing ever higher from the peak, desperately close to Herculaneum. The pulsating cloud was grey, with lighter and darker parts as different materials were thrown up. She noticed fires on the mountain itself, then bursts of flame amongst the rising column and flashes like lightning in the dark clouds that were reaching into the sky. The very air felt hot on her face; it seemed to reek of poison.
It was ten miles for Larius to come, even if his journey was not impeded. Logistics were not Ollia’s strength. She did not immediately grasp that to reach his family he would have to travel up the coast road through Oplontis, approaching much closer to this vigorous new volcano. Larius, who had their eldest daughter with him, would want to find safety − and, for him, that lay in the opposite direction.
Chapter 6
People begin to make their escape if they can.
The painters Hylus and Pyris, accompanied by Three Coats the plasterer, reached the harbour outside the Marine Gate. In a tight group, with plenty of attitude, they were able to push their way through the other fugitives. In the terrible gloom, people were losing each other. Friends and family called out in panic.
‘Ione!’
‘Glaucus!’
‘Bloody Greeks,’ muttered Hylus as he tripped over a young girl who seemed to be blind; grasping her by the shoulders, he set her facing the right way but then left her.
At the shore, ships owned by wealthy men had been laden, ready to transport them and their possessions to safety; they might take others on board if their crews were decent and had room. However, these vessels were all trapped, prevented from launching by a strong onshore wind. The sea was whipped up unusually. Further out, the painters could see a small number of boats heading into the coast in a rescue attempt, including one large military trireme that must have been sent from the naval base at Misenum. These were held up for another reason: when pumice from the eruption landed in the sea, it floated. Pieces started small. However, they cooled rapidly once they hit water, then welded together into large solid plates of debris. Awkward bobbing barriers crowded the shallows. Chunks of this crud blocked inbound shipping. While the men watched, even the oared trireme gave up and veered away, heading instead for Stabiae. For the crowds who had hurried to the shore in hope, escape by sea looked impossible.
Hylus and Pyris glanced at each other. After summing up the chaotic harbour scene, they did not hesitate. Others were milling about the moorings indecisively, but the painters set off on foot at once, turning south towards the River Sarno which they would cross, away from the town and its turbulent mountain. The constantly increasing layer of ash was making it difficult to walk. They were already wading through it, hot between the open toes of their work boots. The coating of fine cinders on buildings and roads was rising steadily so the two painters, with their professional knowledge of physical materials, understood their situation was highly dangerous. They needed to travel fast.
Three Coats, who like so many old workers was very severely crippled, had told them to go on ahead and leave him. If and when Larius came by in transport, the plasterer could rely on being picked up. Hylus and Pyris felt some uncertainty, but let themselves be persuaded. That was how it was that day: no time for debate. Every man for himself. In their hearts they knew that if Three Coats had been a painter they would probably have carried him, but all the prejudices of their trade worked against him now.
He had been the butt of secret jokes for a long time. Like many, years of heavy work had brought arthritis on him; his was much worse than normal wear and tear. He was bent over, hook-backed, his lower limbs twisted. He walked only with a painful hitch and roll. How he managed to do his work at all was a miracle, yet somehow he scraped together the energy and will. The other plasterers had left him with the painters to relieve themselves of the responsibility, then they went off to another job.
He was still a good plasterer, though agonisingly slow. Larius had tolerated his frailty, knowing the elderly man had no other way to make a living. His team looked sideways at Larius sometimes, wondering if the time had come for him to tell the project manager to hire a faster worker, one who would be safe on ladders. So far Larius had never broached it. Instead he carried buckets for Three Coats, sometimes even hauled the disabled old man himself up a scaffold, pretending it was horseplay.
Three Coats normally liked to pretend he was no different from anybody else. But today he knew his failings had finally caught up with him. He could not walk through the ash that lay in a deep fluid carpet like soft blizzard snow. He had to watch Hylus and Pyris set off through the knee-high sludge, in gathering murk, heading down the coast road towards the Surrentum peninsular. They would have the choice of turning inland or moving along the far side of the bay. Resigned, Three Coats stayed at the Marine Gate. There were arched tunnels, a high central entrance for vehicles with two lower ones for pedestrians. He sat down on a stone bench outside one of the pedestrian arches, waiting for Larius to come along and give him the lift he so badly needed.
Larius never came. Hindered by his physical condition, the plasterer would make it no further.
Chapter 7
Erodion, his mistress, her husband, his horse and his fate.
Larius found his neighbour from Herculaneum, Erodion, at the house where, he knew, Erodion stayed with a fruiterer’s wife if the fruiterer was away. Tending his orchards, presumably, while somebody else was gaily plundering his plums.
She was a buxom piece, that Nymphe, shameless and up for mischief. She kept her house nice and herself smart. Fashionable hair. An air of understated bossiness that feeble men like Erodion found swimmingly attractive. Popular in the neighbourhood, Nymphe had her own style and was comfortable with it. She was also, it suddenly transpired, pregnant.
This had come as a big surprise to Erodion, whose wife in Herculaneum, Salvia, had never given them children despite his vigorous attempts to fertilise her. He thought offspring would give Salvia an interest − that is (so the idiot imagined), she would then be too busy to question what he got up to on his trips, suspiciously sniffing his clothes for strange perfumes, interrogating Larius and Marciana, generally nagging in a wifely way. He was a pain, and Salvia knew it.
Erodion reckoned himself an expert in wives and their ways, due to his frequent observation of two of them. One his, one not. This allowed him to be both personally prejudiced and entirely disinterested when he discussed women. He ran the full gamut of misogynist thought. He enjoyed holding forth, imposing his opinion on others in a merciless, dolorous way. On anyone who put up with it, at least; Larius tended to give him the elbow once he started.
Erodion was a market gardener so he prospered. Campania, with its famous three or four harvests a year, had the most fertile soil and the best climate in Italy. His leeks and cabbages were stupendous, his onions exquisite, his artichokes and asparagus made eaters weep with pleasure. Whenever Erodion came to market in Pompeii – when I’m allowed out of the house, he would mutter bitterly; when the sly worm wriggles off, his wife would say – he went home afterwards with enough money to allay her curiosity, even after he had provided lavish presents for his mistress. Salvia received smaller, fewer presents than the fruiterer’s wife − except a pair of superb snake bracelets, which became hers the time Erodion accidentally
mixed up his parcels. Nymphe’s loss, that week.
Even when he came up with the right gift, it was hard to know what Nymphe saw in him, for he was a lax-bellied, big-headed, puffy-faced swine with swollen legs and a pointy nose. It could be she had her own problems. That the fruiterer, Rufius, was so often away himself suggested to Larius that he might be embroiled with someone else’s wife at Nucera or Capua, venues to which Rufius assured Nymphe he must journey frequently to dispose of his own juicy produce in their markets. Since the complex arrangement apparently kept them all happy − Erodion, Nymphe, Rufius, Salvia (well, maybe not Salvia) − Larius merely smiled over it to himself and never commented.
Larius might have laughed about it with Ollia, who of course knew Erodion and the badly neglected Salvia in Herculaneum, but he had not discussed their neighbour’s behaviour lest it gave Ollia ideas about what he, Larius, might be getting up to while he was working away in Pompeii. Why invite trouble? Domestic distrust would be all the more unfair, given that Larius never got up to anything.
Well, pretty well never. And if he did, it was not important.
He knew where Erodion’s lovenest was, so he hastened there, knocked loudly, pushed past a slave who opened up; talking tough, Larius demanded that his neighbour come out at once and hitch up the cart so they could leave town. ‘Otherwise I’ll have to pinch your horse, Erodion!’ It was a knock-kneed, foul-breathed ancient beast; Larius wished Erodion had stopped wasting his money on Nymphe and bought a better one.
But there was chaos in the fruiterer’s house. When Vesuvius blew, Erodion had offered to take Nymphe to safety, Larius discovered; but she’d refused to travel. He’d been gallantly insistent, but she’d cut him off and stated why: she was expecting. Running away from the explosion wasn’t an option.
Erodion innocently assumed the baby was his. Some men would run from such a predicament. Erodion, it turned out, was the kind of reckless sentimentalist who immediately wanted to desert his legitimate wife; he took the instant decision to acknowledge this child, unborn though it was, with Nymphe barely showing yet, and that he, she and their little one should live in bliss.
Nymphe wailed aloud at this terrible idea. Erodion beat his head in frustration that she could not see what was being offered – not merely escape but the subsequent bliss. Neither of the lovers was paying real attention to the erupting volcano, too close for comfort.
Actually, Larius, the father of five if not six, reckoned Nymphe’s condition was obvious. He was astounded Erodion had not noticed before. As for bliss, in Larius’ experience that was a myth, and not the kind of myth he could paint.
Plunged into this daft scenario, thinking fast, Larius suggested that Erodion might be wise to wait before busting up two homes − or even three, if the fruiterer also had a complicated relationship in Nucera or Capua, some fraught affair which might be altered by his dutifully taking on his wife’s baby. Also, said Larius as wisely as if he had in truth been there for the births of those twins, pregnancy involves many dangers and uncertainties; besides, he pointed out, unless Nymphe and her husband had never engaged in intercourse there was no way to be sure who had given her a child. Rufius might genuinely be the one with rights.
No use. Whether from honest good-heartedness or a paternalistic desire for possession of what he saw as his goods, Erodion was still laying claim to this foetus that, a few beats of time before, he had not known about.
‘Stop being an idiot, Erodion. Just get lost,’ said Nymphe. Clearly she was a practical woman. Nymphe had flair. Larius wondered if his neighbour wasn’t the only lover she had been stringing along when her husband went to market.
Erodion was about to burst with stress when a voice − the fruiterer, Larius assumed − was heard at the front door, loudly calling to Nymphe. He must have returned from fruit-selling and fornication (if he did that) and when he saw Vesuvius erupt, he rushed to his house to comfort his expectant wife. ‘I am here; love. You are all right now!’
He had a deep voice, that of a burly man. He sounded forceful. Larius, a veteran bar-brawler when young, judged that Erodion was about to be laid out cold.
If he had come home quietly, Rufius could well have marched in to find an agitated stranger needing to be punched in the teeth. Nymphe, however, seized the moment while Rufius (a well-trained beast domestically) was bent over on the threshhold, taking off his outdoor shoes. He had to beat the soles together to knock off cinders, which fortunately delayed him.
Nymphe opted for Rufius like a loyal wife, or at least one who knew that husbands who follow house-rules are to be treasured. She ordered Erodion to exit by the back way – and get out fast. To make sure, she kicked him from behind, while Larius pulled him from in front. She slammed the door after them and they heard her cooing, ‘O Rufius, I am so glad you’ve come, I am so frightened!’
‘Two-timing bitch!’ snarled Erodion. That was no way to speak of the mother of his child, if it was his, but Larius kept mum.
Other things were on his mind. Now he could haul his sullen neighbour away to prepare the cart for urgent travel. As they whipped up the tetchy old horse to go and collect Marciana, Larius decided to take the reins. Erodion sat sunk in gloom. His life had changed. He had lost his lover, been deprived of his unborn heir; life was brutal, fate was cruel …
‘Erodion, we have worse changes ahead! The whole bloody world’s exploding. We may be going to die today. Shut up, will you?’
‘You’re heartless. I’ve lost everything!’
‘Don’t be daft, you still have Salvia.’
Not the right answer. ‘Barren bitch.’
‘Bollocks, she’s a perfectly nice woman.’
That was debateable, for Salvia possessed a sharp tongue (she needed it), but Larius had his hands full trying to forge a passage down a narrow street against an oncoming tide of people, while the ever-descending lava fragments were darkening the world to near-impenetrable gloom. Nevertheless, since he was philosophical, he could not help reflecting.
Many a tricky situation would be exposed today. Not the duplicity of Nymphe and Erodion perhaps, though that had been close: Rufius could so easily have rushed in to find his wife, wearing fancy ear-rings that he had not bought for her, enjoying a light lunch with a strange man, who was so much at home he had brought his own comfortable house slippers. The small staff of slaves would have been disloyally hoping they could watch the post-prandial gropes. Probably the intruder would have been gulping up his egg salad from the favourite bowl of Rufius …
Narrow escape. Let’s hope we can all manage another one and get out of Pompeii.
They passed the house where Larius had been working. He jumped down, ran indoors and picked up his set of best brushes. These were British badger and squirrel hair, lovingly cleaned and cared for, each marked with his initials on the stock. Tools of his trade. The one thing you save. All over Pompeii doctors were catching up surgical instruments, surveyors were packing their measuring equipment in custom-designed satchels, priests were running away from temples with valuable objects of obscure religious design. Votive bowls were flitting mysteriously all over town.
Coming out, Larius nodded to the baker, who was standing on his doorstep looking impatient. His was the largest bread-making firm in Pompeii. He seemed to be alone now; he must have despatched his staff, slaves and freeborn, to safety. ‘Aren’t you leaving?’
‘Got a piglet and a bird half done on the cooking fire.’ The man shook himself so clouds of flour dust flew off him, mingled with fallen ash that he had acquired from standing outside among the volcanic lapilli. He coughed.
‘Madness!’ called Larius, back on the cart. ‘Forget lunch. Don’t expect us to help you eat it, not today! You need to leave.’ He had worked for this man; they had a good relationship.
There was nobody at the street bar on the corner, except his ghastly subtenant, Nonius. Nonius was working his way along all the beakers of wine that customers had abandoned half-full on the crazy-paved marble coun
ters. He was so busy emptying saucers of olives and washing them down, he did not see Larius, who made no attempt to call out.
At the widow’s house, he turned the cart with some difficulty so it would be ready for their flight, and left Erodion in charge of it.
He ran indoors, calling for his daughter and the widow, his frail landlady, whom in kindness he intended to bring along with them. He found Marciana in a state of tearful panic. ‘She won’t leave without her cats!’
‘Oh hell. She must, chuck. It’s not safe to stay.’
The timorous old woman appeared, then began wailing. Once, she had been respectable. These days, she looked like a hag in a cave from some legend: wild strands of hair, mad eyes, a dirty tunic that she never changed, hands like claws; yet ultimately pitiful. Larius agreed to have a quick look for her pets, so with a muffled curse he started searching. He felt a professional obligation; he had drawn them from life a couple of times, since cats prowling after birds were a popular motif.
The garden was filling up with deposits; lapilli were finding their way in through open windows, ash even working under closed doors. No doubt agitated by the eruption, the damned cats were nowhere to be found. Soon Larius abandoned that crazy quest, then ran outside, back to the street with his heart bumping; breathlessly, he climbed upstairs to his room to fetch an old cloak in which to wrap up his daughter to protect her from the falling missiles. On the way he noticed several sacks of goods, a candelabra sticking out of one, which he knew must be treasure stolen from houses by his unscrupulous subtenant.
While Larius was back inside the widow’s apartment, collecting Marciana and failing to persuade the old woman to flee with them, Nonius came along the street.
He was here to pick up his plunder, pondering how he could possibly transport it. When he saw the cart outside, he thanked the gods, even though they had inconsiderately left him with a problem: what to do about Erodion? Oblivious, Erodion was still perched on the driving plank, where Larius had left him. He had the reins in his limp hands, bitterly sunk in his misery at the faithlessness of Nymphe. All around him fell the endless shower of lava, now in much larger fragments.
Vesuvius by Night Page 5