Venus in copper

Chapter XLII

Sometimes I feared my mother must have led a double life. I resisted the thought, because that is not what a decent Roman boy wants to suspect about the woman who gave him birth,

'Where on earth have you eaten turbot?'

'Your Uncle Fabius caught one once.' That made sense. No one in our family had the nous to present a turbot to the Emperor; anything my relations got their hands on went straight in the pot. 'It was a baby. Nowhere near as big as

'If Fabius caught it, that was predictable!' Everything about Uncle Fabius was small: a family joke.

'You don't want him bitter. I'll take out the gills for you, volunteered mother.

I let her She liked to delude herself I still needed looking after. Besides, I enjoyed the thought of my tiny, elderly mother laying into something quite that big.

Ideally I would bake him in an oven. That called for a clay pot (no time to have one made), then entrusting him to the dopey rakemen at some public bakery. I could have built my own oven, but apart from having to lug the bricks home I was frightened of the fire risk and strongly suspected that any structure big enough to contain this turbot might cause my floor to cave in..

'I decided to poach him. Flatfish only need gentle simmering I would have to find a huge pan, but for that I had had an idea In the roof space at my mother's house, where members of the family stored unattractive New Year gifts, was a huge oval shield which my late brother Festus brought home. It was made of some bronzed alloy, and Festus maintained it was a pricey Peloponnesian antique. I upset him by swearing it had to be Celtic-which meant it was just another cheap souvenir my daft brother had won in a bet or picked up on the quay at Ostia. Festus would have been even more annoyed at me turning his dusty prize into a monstrous fishkettle.

I nipped off to mother's. When I clambered up to get the shield I found a nest of mice in one end, but I tipped them out and said nothing. The handle inside had already lost one securing bolt when Festus was larking about; the other was rusted fast with verdigris but I managed to shear it off (cutting open a few knuckles). The pointed boss on the front might cause problems. I reckoned I could suspend the shield on two or three steaming pans of water over braziers and just keep the fish going if I heated his liquor first. I spent an hour burnishing the metal, washed it at a public fountain, then carried it home. It was indeed big enough for the turbot-but too shallow. I put him in, filled up with water, and found it reached the rim of the shield before it fully covered the fish. The scalding stock would swoosh about. And turning the turbot over half-way through cooking time might be difficult…

As usual my mother let me devise my own solution, then sat at home brooding how my brilliant plan would fail. While I was still staring at the half covered fish in the shield she rattled into my apartment, almost invisible under a huge copper washtub from Lenia's laundry yard. We tried not to think what might have been trampled clean in it. 'I gave it a good scrub…' The tub was shorter than the Celtic shield, but the turbot could be crammed in diagonally if I turned up his great triangular head and his tail. Ma had also brought some cabbage nets to lift him out after he turned gelatinous.

Now I was ready.

I invited my mother, my best friend Petronius and Petro's wife Silvia, with a couple of my relatives. At least my family was so large that nobody could expect me to entertain the entire tribe at once. I chose Maia, to thank her for the betting-token feat, and Junia, to repay her for the bed. I did not invite my brothers-in-law, but they came anyway.

I told the guests they could arrive early, since watching the fish cooked would be part of the fun. None of them needed encouragement. They all turned up before I had time to look out a clean tunic or go for a bathe. I let them wander about criticising my new quarters and rearranging my personal property, while I worried over the fish.

I was planning for us to eat in the room I had earmarked as my office, but they all brought their stools and crowded into the living room, where they could get in my way and clammer advice.

'What stock are you using, Marcus?'

'Just water with wine and bay leaves; I don't want to destroy the natural flavour; it's supposed to be delicate -'

'You ought to add a dash of fish pickle-Maia, shouldn't he add fish pickle?'

'I reckon he ought to cook it in the sauce -'

'No; the sauce will be handled separately -'

'You're going to regret that, Marcus! Is it Saffron or Onion?'

'Caraway.'

'Caraway? Ooh! Marcus is making Caraway Sauce -'

In the midst of this babble, I was pestling the herbs for my sauce (should have been lovage but Maia had thought I asked her to bring parsley; should have included thyme but I had left my pot at Fountain Court). Someone knocked; Petronius answered the door for me. 'Camillus Verus has sent you a reading couch-where do you want it?' Petro bawled. I wanted the couch in my office, but that was where I had laid out everything for our meal (everything that had not yet been removed again by my visitors). 'Shall we stick it in your bedroom?'

'Not enough space; try the empty one opposite -' One of my braziers flared up dangerously, so I had to leave him to it.

My mother and Junia had chosen this moment to hang up door curtains for me, so I could not see out into the corridor for their arms waving amongst folds of striped material. Both my brothers-in-law had involved themselves in banging up nails to carry the lintel string; the simple task of putting up a straight line had developed into a major surveying project. Whatever was happening in the rest of the house I could hear distressing indications of damage to both my doorframes and Petronius' good temper, but theliquor for my fish was beginning to sizzle on the sides of the washtub so I had to ignore the raised voices outside. I was red-faced from stabilising a brazier beneath the weight of the hot washcopper; I had just heaved up the turbot into my arms to introduce him to the pan when I heard Maia shriek, 'Sorry; this is a private family party; Didius Falco is not on call to clients-'

There was an uneasy lull. I turned round, fish and all, For one horrid moment I expected Severina, but it was far worse. Petronius, with desperate eyes, was shepherding someone in the doorway, someone who was a stranger to most of my family, but certainly not to me… Helena Justina.

For a moment she failed to grasp the situation. 'Marcus! I thought you must have been developing other interests, but I never expected to find you with your arms locked round a fish-'

Then the lull sank to a silence, And all the sparkle died in her eyes, as Helena absorbed the houseful of merrymaking visitors, the fabulous gift I was cooking-and the fact that I had not invited her.