Ovid

19

We didn't have dinner. We made love instead. She cried out when I entered her, and I was so surprised that I drew back; but she pulled me closer and we finished it. It was only afterwards when our hearts slowed and we talked before the next time that I realised that it had been a cry of pain and that Perilla had been a virgin.

'I wouldn't let him touch me,' she whispered, and her eyes were wet against the hollow of my shoulder. 'Not even on the first night. Not knowing what I knew, why he wanted me.' I kissed the tears, saying nothing, and my lips tasted salt. 'So you see, Marcus, in the end he got nothing at all, apart from hatred.'

'Why didn't he divorce you?'

'Pride, maybe. Maybe hope. Greed certainly. With mother dead or declared insane the estate would come to me, and he was my husband. He had certain rights.'

Something tickled at the back of my mind. I reached for it but it was gone.

'Can't you divorce him?'

'I might. Now.' I felt her smile against my skin, her lips pluck against me. 'Do you want me to?'

I swallowed. 'Yes.'

'All right. Then I will. There was no reason before, and he's a friend of the emperor.'

'Not of the emperor. He's Germanicus's friend, not Tiberius's.'

'Germanicus is the emperor's son.'

'Adopted, not natural. There's a difference.' The mental itch was back. There was something… I was close, so close! As if I were looking down at a ruined section of mosaic flooring and held all the missing pieces in my hands. It was only a matter of where each piece fitted…

'Marcus?'

'Hmmm?'

'What are you thinking about?'

'Nothing. Nothing important.'

She moved under me. We were still locked together. I felt myself stiffen as she guided me back into the wet warmth between her thighs. We took it more slowly the second time around, as if each of us were already matching our rhythms to suit the other person. Her sharp little teeth nipped my shoulder once, and then her head was moving from side to side and she was making faint mewing noises like a blind kitten. This time she came first, in a sudden, shuddering spasm, straightening her whole upper body, gripping me hard with her arms twined round my back and the inside of her thighs clenched about my hips.

We lay quiet when I'd finished. Then I rolled to one side and lifted her head into the hollow of my shoulder. Her hair had the scent of wildflower honey as I buried my face in it.

'You learn pretty quickly for a beginner,' I said.

'I'll improve with practice.'

I kissed her. 'Good.'

She smiled and snuggled closer. I lay still for a long time, staring at the inlaid panelling above the bed.

'Will you do something for me?' she said at last.

'Yes.'

'No ifs or buts?'

'No ifs or buts. Only if you want a repeat performance you'll have to wait.'

This time she didn't smile.

'Okay. So what is it? A first edition of Homer? Cleopatra's best necklace? One of the Wart's boils set in rock crystal? Just ask me and you've got it.'

'Make your peace with your father.'

Whatever I'd been expecting it wasn't that. I raised myself on one elbow and stared down at her. She was looking at me very seriously.

'I don't mean like him,' she said. 'Let alone be like him. You couldn't do that even if you wanted to. But admit he's a person too, with as much right to his opinions as you have. You're different people but that doesn't mean you have to be enemies.'

I remembered the conversation I'd had with my father a few days before. Different people…

'It isn't as easy as that,' I said.

'Why not? What's so very difficult?'

'It's…what he did. To my mother.'

She waited: no questions, no comments. I was having difficulty breathing. I'd never told this to anyone and the words didn't come easily.

'It happened three years ago. My mother was pregnant — a late pregnancy. No one expected it, no one even thought the child would come to term. My parents had been talking about a separation before that, before my mother knew; but the pregnancy didn't make a blind bit of difference. Dad wanted the divorce, and he got it.'

'Why?'

'It was a political marriage, of course. Not like yours, not for money. Our kind don't marry for money, it's not considered proper.' The word felt sour on my tongue. 'Family connections now, that's different. That's respectable. My mother was fourteen at the time and her daddy was Agrippa's nephew. Marrying her gave father an in with the new ruling families, or so he thought, with Agrippa being Augustus's right-hand man. But then it all went wrong. A year after the wedding Agrippa died, Augustus forced Tiberius to divorce the old man's daughter and Dad realised his own marriage was a blind alley. Then, twenty-seven years further down the line — twenty-seven years, Perilla! — when Tiberius became emperor he finally cut his losses, divorced her and took a new wife. One more "politically relevant". End of marriage, end of story.'

By this time Perilla was sitting up. Her hair spilled across her breasts like liquid gold.

'What happened to the child?' she said.

'He was born dead a month later. The only brother I ever had. Am ever likely to have.'

'And your mother?'

'She survived, but the birth nearly killed her. She married again last year. A senator called Priscus. He's okay. His first wife died of a stroke.'

'Is she happy?'

'Yeah, I think so. I don't see her very often, but yes, I think she's happy.'

'Then it was all for the best in the end, wasn't it? Despite the mess.'

When I didn't answer she kissed me gently and laid her head on my chest.

'Is there all that much difference between your parents and us, Marcus?' she asked quietly. 'I have a husband, too, remember. We don't get on either. How can divorce be wrong for your mother yet right for me? Or do you think adultery's more "proper"?'

'You were a virgin. You don't have a husband, not really. Let alone children.'

She raised her head.

'Don't play with words! You know what I mean!'

'I'm not playing with words. You don't just dislike Rufus, you hate his guts and always have done. You said so yourself.'

'And does that make your role any more respectable?'

The question had come back sharp as a bee-sting. We were heading for our first quarrel. I knew that, but there wasn't anything I could do about it because despite my anger I could see that she was right. For a moment I was tempted to get out of bed, get dressed and walk out of her life forever. Only for a moment. That was something I knew I could never do, whatever she said, however angry I was. I'm not that much of an egotist, and I'm not that kind of bastard either. Besides, Perilla was part of me. I could no more walk out on her than cut my own arm off.

I took a deep breath and held it. 'I'm sorry. Yeah, okay, maybe there isn't all that much of a difference.'

'You'll try to understand your father, then? To make it up with him? Please, Marcus!'

I was silent for a long time. I thought of my father, of his pompous way of speaking, his political hypocrisy and the cold way he'd put my mother aside. Then I thought back to earlier years, when we'd been much closer. Little things. How he'd taught me to swim when I was six years old. Summer at our villa in the Alban Hills. His attempts even when we hardly spoke to each other any more to smooth out a career for me. Sure, maybe he'd done it partly for the sake of the family name, but the fact remained that he'd tried his best according to his lights. As Perilla said if my mother was happy enough with the situation then what did it matter? And wasn't I just as much of a hypocrite as my father? Not politically, but where Perilla was concerned?

Maybe we weren't such different people after all. Or at least in ways that were really important.

'Okay,' I said. 'Okay. I'll try. It won't be easy but I'll try.'

She kissed my cheek and snuggled down against me; and when we made love again later I felt strangely peaceful.