I tried not to get too interested in the artefacts; they were astonishing, but I knew they were now doomed. As Pa walked ahead of me, sometimes glancing at a piece as he passed it, I had the impression he was secure, in a way I did not remember from when he lived with us. He knew where everything was. Everything was here because he wanted it-which extended to the scarfmaker, presumably.
He brought me to a room that could be either his private den or where he sat with his woman conversing. (He had bills and invoices scattered about and a dismantled lamp he was mending, but I noticed a small spindle poking out from under a cushion.) Thick woollen rugs rumpled underfoot. There were two couches, side-tables, various quaint bronze miniatures, lamps and log baskets. On the wall hung a set of theatrical masks-possibly not my father’s choice. On a shelf stood an extremely good blue-glass cameo vase, over which he did sigh briefly.
‘Losing that one is going to hurt! Wine?’ He produced the inevitable flagon from a shelf near his couch. Alongside the couch he had an elegant yard-high gilded fawn, positioned so he could pat its head like a pet.
‘No thanks. I’ll go on tending the hangover.’
He stayed his hand, without pouring for himself. For a moment he gazed at me. ‘You don’t give an inch, do you?’ I understood, and glared back silently. ‘I’ve managed to get you inside the door-but you’re as friendly as a bailiff. Less,’ he added. ‘I never knew a bailiff refuse a cup of wine.’
I said nothing. It would be a striking irony if I set out to find my dead brother, only to end up making friends with my father instead. I don’t believe in that kind of irony. We had had a good day getting ourselves into all sorts of trouble-and that was the end of it.
My father put down the flagon and his empty cup.
‘Come and see my garden, then!’ he ordered me.
We walked back through all the rooms until we reached the stairs. To my surprise, he led me up another flight; I assumed I was about to partake in some perverse joke. But we came to a low arch, closed by an oak door. Pa shot open the bolts, and stood back for me to duck my head and step out first.
It was a roof-garden. It had troughs filled with plants, bulbs, even small trees. Shaped trellises were curtained with roses and ivy. At the parapet more roses were trained along chains like garlands. There, between tubs of box trees, stood two lion-ended seats, providing a vista right across the water to Caesar’s Gardens, the Transtiberina, the whale-backed ridge of the Ianiculan.
‘Oh this is not fair,’ I managed to grin feebly.
‘Got you!’ he scoffed. He must have known I had inherited a deep love of greenery from Ma’s side of the family.
He made to steer me to a seat, but I was already at the parapet drinking in the panorama. ‘Oh you lucky old bastard! So who does the garden?’
‘I planned it. I had to have the roof strengthened. Now you know why I keep so many slaves; it’s no joke carrying water and soil up three flights in buckets. I spend a lot of my spare time up here…’
He would. I would have done the same.
We took a bench each. It was companionable, yet we remained distinct. I could cope with that.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Capua!’
‘I’ll go.’
‘I’m coming with you.’
‘Don’t bother. I can rough up a sculptor, however devious. At least we know that he’s devious before I start.’
‘Sculptors are all devious! There are a lot of them in Capua. You don’t even know what he looks like. I’m coming, so don’t argue. I know Orontes, and what’s more, I know Capua.’ Of course, he had lived there for years.
‘I can find my way round some two-mule Campanian village,’ I snarled disparagingly.
‘Oh no. Helena Justina doesn’t want you being robbed by every low-season pickpocket and picking up floozies-‘
I was about to ask if that was what had happened when he went there, but of course when Pa ran off to Capua, he took his own floozie.
‘What about leaving the business?’
‘Mine is a well-run outfit, thanks; it can stand a few days without me. Besides,’ he said, ‘madam can make decisions if any snags arise.’
I was surprised to learn the scarfmaker commanded so much trust, or even that she involved herself. For some reason I had always viewed her as a negative figure. My father seemed the type whose views on women’s social role were stiff and traditional. Still, it did not follow that the scarfmaker agreed with him.
We heard the door open behind us. Thinking about Father’s redhead, I looked round quickly, afraid I should see her. A slave edged out with a large tray, no doubt as a result of Pa’s talk with his steward. The tray went on to a bird-bath, creating a makeshift table. ‘Have some lunch, Marcus.’
It was mid-afternoon, but we had missed other refreshment. Pa helped himself. He left me to make my own decision, so on that basis I conceded the issue and tucked in.
It was nothing elaborate, just a snack someone had thrown together for the master when he came home unexpectedly. But as snacks go, it was tasty. ‘What’s the fish?’
‘Smoked eel.’
‘Very nice.’
‘Try it with a drop of damson sauce.’
‘Is this what they call Alexandrine?’
‘Probably. I just call it bloody good. Am I winning you round?’ my father asked evilly.
‘No, but pass the rolls, will you.’
There were two strips of eel left; we jabbed at them with our knives, like children fighting over titbits.
‘A man called Hirrius had an eel-farm,’ Pa began obliquely, though somehow I knew he would be working around to discussing our own precarious position. ‘Hirrius sold his eel-farm for four million sesterces. It was a famous sale; I wish I had handled it! Now you and I could do with just one pool like that.’
I breathed slowly, licking sauce from my fingers. ‘Half a million… I’ll come in with you, but that’s not much of an offer. I’ve been trying to raise four hundred thousand. I suppose I may have collected ten per cent so far.’ That was optimistic. ‘I refrained from pricing up your lovely chattels, but the picture’s bleak for both of us.’
‘True.’ My father seemed surprisingly unworried, however.
‘Don’t you care? You have obviously assembled a wealth of good things here-yet you told Carus and Servia you would sell.’
‘Selling things is my trade,’ he answered tersely. Then he confirmed, ‘You’re right. To cover the debt means stripping the house. Most of the stuff at the Saepta belongs to other people; selling for customers is what auctioneering is about.’
‘Your personal investment is all in this house?’
‘Yes. The house itself is freehold. That cost me-and I’m not intending to mortgage it now. I don’t keep much cash with bankers; it’s vulnerable.’
‘So how healthy are you on the sesterces front?’
‘Not as healthy as you think. ‘ If he could seriously talk of finding half a million, he was filthy rich by my standards. Like all men who don’t have to worry, he liked grousing. ‘There are plenty of demands. Bribes and easements required at the Saepta; I pay my whack to the Guild for our dinners and the funeral fund. Since the store was raided, I’ve some big losses to cover, not to mention compensating the people whose auction was knocked apart that time you were there.’ He could have added, I still give your mother an annuity. I knew he did. I also knew she spent his money on her grandchildren; I paid her rent myself. ‘I’ll have a bare house when I finish with Carus,’ he sighed. ‘But I’ve had that before. I’ll come back.’
‘You’re too old to have to start again.’ He must be too old to feel sure he could manage it. By rights, he should now have been able to retire to some country farm. ‘Why are you doing it? For big brother’s reputation?’
‘My own, more likely. I’d rather sneer at a stick like Carus than let Carus sneer at me. What about you?’ he challenged.
‘I was the hero’s executor.’
‘Well I was his p
artner.’
‘In this?’
‘No, but does it matter, Marcus? If he’d asked me to come in on a Phidias I would have leapt at it. Let me handle the debt. I’ve had my life. You don’t need to ruin your chance of making things legal with your senator’s daughter.’
‘Maybe I never had any chance,’ I admitted dismally.
Another of the discreet house slaves paddled up, this time bringing us a steaming jug of honey and wine. He poured for us both without asking, so I accepted the cup. The drink was headily laced with Indian spikenard. My father had come a long way from the days when all we drank at home was old wine lees, well watered down, with the odd vervain leaf to disguise the taste.
Light clung to the distant sky with a fragile grip as the afternoon drew in. In the grey haze across the river I could just see the Ianiculan Hill running away to the right. There was a house over there which I once dreamed of owning, a house where I had wanted to live with Helena.
‘Will she leave you?’ Pa must have read my thoughts.
‘She should.’
‘I didn’t ask what she ought to do!’
I smiled. ‘She won’t ask it either, knowing her.’
He sat quiet for a time. He liked Helena, I knew that.
Suddenly I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees, cradling my cup. Something had struck me. ‘What did Festus do with the money?’
‘The half-million?’ Pa rubbed his nose. He had the same nose as me: straight down from the forehead without a bump between the eyebrows. ‘Olympus knows!’
‘I never found it.’
‘And I never saw it either.’
‘So what did he tell you about it when he was mentioning the Phidias?’
‘Festus,’ drawled my father, with some exasperation, ‘never gave me any idea the Phidias had been paid for by the collectors! That I only learned from Carus and Servia well afterwards.’
I sat back again. ‘They really did pay him? Is there any chance this receipt of theirs is forged?’
Pa sighed. ‘I wanted to think so. I looked at it very hard, believe me. It was convincing. Go and see it-‘
I shook my head. I hate to pile up misery.
I could think up no new queries. Now Orontes Mediolanus was our only lead.
We spent some time (it felt about two hours) arguing about arrangements for getting to Capua. By Didius standards this was fairly refined. Even so, all my sensible plans for lessening the agony of a long, tiring journey were overturned. I wanted to ride down there at the fastest speed possible, do the business, then pelt home. Pa insisted his old bones were no longer able to endure a horse. He decided to arrange a carriage, from some stable he vaguely specified as a meeting-place. We came near to agreeing terms for sharing expenses. There was some discussion about a departure time, though this remained unclear. The Didius family hates to upset itself by settling practicalities.
Yet another servant appeared, on the excuse of collecting the tray. He and Pa exchanged a glance that could have been a signal. ‘You’ll be wanting to leave soon,’ hinted my father.
Nobody mentioned the woman he lived with, but her presence in the house had become tangible.
He was right. If she was there, I wanted to disappear. He took me downstairs. I pulled on my cloak and boots hurriedly, then fled.
Luck was against me as usual. The last thing I felt able to cope with happened: not two streets from Father’s house, while still feeling like a traitor, I ran into Ma.
XLVII
Guilt settled on me like an extra cloak.
‘Where are you sneaking from?’
We stood on a corner. Every passer-by must have been able to tell I was a son in deep trouble. Every lax villain on the Aventine would be chuckling all the way to the next drinking-house, glad it was not him.
Honesty pays, people tell you. ‘I’ve been enjoying the entertainments of my father’s smart town house.’
‘I thought you looked sick!’ sniffed Ma. ‘I brought you up to avoid places where you might catch a disease!’
‘It was clean,’ I said wearily.
‘What about the little job I asked you to help sort out for me?’ From the way she spoke, I was thought to have forgotten it.
‘Your “little job” was what got me arrested the other day-Helena, too. I’m working on it. That’s why I had to go to Pa’s. I’ve been running around on your commission all today, and tomorrow I have to go to Capua-‘
‘Why Capua?’ she demanded. For obvious reasons Capua had long been a dirty word in our circle. That pleasant town was a byword for immorality and deceit, though apart from having once played host to my absconding father, all Capua ever did was to overcharge holidaying tourists on their way to Oplontis and Baiae, and grow lettuce.
‘A sculptor lives there. He was involved with Festus. I’m going to talk to him about that business deal.’
‘On your own?’
‘No. Pa insists on coming with me,’ I admitted. Ma let out a terrible wail. ‘Mother, I cannot help it if your estranged husband starts claiming his paternal rights belatedly.’
‘So you’re going together!’ She made it sound like the deepest treachery. ‘I would have thought you’d want to avoid that!’
I wanted to avoid the whole journey. ‘At least he can identify the sculptor. The man is now our only hope of sorting out this business-which I warn you, is likely to prove expensive in every way.’
‘I can lend you a few sesterces-‘
‘A few sesterces are nowhere near enough. The price of extracting our family from this problem is about half a million.’
‘Oh Marcus, you always did exaggerate!’
‘Fact, Ma.’ She was trembling. I would be trembling myself if I said ‘half a million’ too many more times. ‘Don’t worry. This is men’s business. Geminus and I will deal with it-but you have to accept the consequences. Finding so much to clear up my brother’s problem puts paid to any hope in Hades that I can marry Helena. Just so you know. I don’t want any nagging on the subject. It’s out of my hands-and we have our beloved Festus to blame for everything.’
‘You never liked your poor brother!’
‘I loved him, Ma-but I certainly don’t like what he has done to me now.’
I saw my mother lift her chin. ‘Perhaps the whole business would be better left alone…’
‘Ma, that is impossible.’ I felt tired and cold. ‘Other people will not let us forget it. Look, I’m going home. I need to see Helena.’
‘If you’re going to Capua with that man,’ advised my mother, ‘take Helena to look after you!’
‘Helena’s just returned from one long journey; the last thing she wants is a trip to deepest Campania.’ Not, anyway, with a raddled old auctioneer and a hangdog informer who had never in his life been so depressed.
My mother reached up and tidied my hair. ‘Helena will manage. She won’t want you on your own in bad company.’ I wanted to say, ‘Ma, I’m thirty, not five years old!’ but arguing never got me anywhere with Mother.
Most people would think that a senator’s daughter who abandoned herself to a low-life informer was bad company.
But the thought of taking Helena on one last fling before I was bankrupt did cheer me up.
At home, Helena Justina was waiting for me. Dinner was eel again. A vast consignment must have wriggled into market that morning. The whole of Rome was sitting down to the same menu.
Dinner was normally my province. Since I reckoned my beloved had been brought up merely to behave chastely and look decorative, I had laid down a rule that I would buy and cook our food. Helena accepted the rule, but sometimes when she knew I was busy and was afraid of not getting fed that night, out she would rush to provide us with an unscheduled treat. My ramshackle kitchen made her nervous, but she was perfectly competent at following the recipes she had once read out to her servants. Tonight she had poached her offering in a saffron sauce. It was delicious. I munched it down gallantly while she watched me eat every
mouthful, searching for signs of approval.
I sat back and surveyed her. She was beautiful. I was going to lose her. Somehow I had to tell her the news.
‘How was your day with your father?’
‘Wonderful! We played about with some collecting snobs, had fun picking on some artists, and now we’re planning a bad boys’ outing. Would you like to go to Capua?’
‘I may not like it, but I’ll tag along.’
‘I warn you, Pa and I are established as the fabulous Didius muckers-a rough pair whose very name can clear a street. You’ll be coming to impose some sobriety.’
‘That’s a pity,’ Helena told me, with a glint in her eye. ‘I was hoping I could be a loose woman who keeps a gold piece down her cleavage and swears horrendously at ferrymen.’
‘Maybe I like that idea better,’ I grinned.
False jollity gave me away. Seeing I needed consolation she sat on my lap and tickled my chin. In the hope of this kind of mistreatment, I had been barbered in Fountain Court before I came up. ‘What’s the matter, Marcus?’
I told her.
Helena said she could dispense with being middle-class and married. I suppose that meant she had never expected it to happen anyway.
I said I was sorry.
She said she could see that.
I held her tight, knowing that I ought to send her back to her father, and knowing I was glad that she would never agree to go.
‘I’ll wait for you, Marcus.’
‘You’ll wait for ever then.’
‘Ah well!’ She amused herself making small plaits in my hair. ‘Tell me what happened today?’
‘Oh… my father and I just proved that if different members of the Didius family combine efforts to solve a problem-‘
Helena Justina was already laughing. ‘What?’
‘Two of us can make even more of a mess of it than one!’
XLVIII
Horace once took a journey down the Via Appia. He describes it as a farrago of crooked landlords, potholes, house fires, gritty bread and infected eyes; of being packed into a ferry to cross the Pontine Marshes, then without explanation being left motionless for hours; of staying awake half the night all keyed up for an assignation with a girl who never bothered to turn up…
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