Vesuvius by Night

Chapter 3

The painter’s name was Larius. Larius Lollius.

Everything had begun for him twenty-three years before, in an upstairs room high over a forlorn back alley on the Aventine Hill in Rome. He was born the first child of hopeless parents, who claimed they had wanted him, but never sounded persuasive. His mother, Galla, was a floppy, washed-out woman, exhausted by life even before she produced too many offspring; his squint-eyed father, Lollius, was a Tiber water-boatman, a feckless predator on such as she, yet a man who would never resolve his family’s distress by decently abandoning them. He vanished whenever things got tough, but always returned to cause more upset and land Galla with yet another child. Off again when the bills came in. Rollicking home once more, just when his children were learning to prefer the peace of his absence.

Galla belonged to a large family and when Larius was fourteen, better-off relatives had kindly brought him on holiday to the Bay of Neapolis. It was the most beautiful spot in the Empire, perhaps the best in the world. That huge bowl of enclosed water, surrounded by cliffs and mountains, bewitched him. The call of ships and the sea turned his young brain, until his entrancement took the form of falling in love. First love. His first mistake in life. The fatal one.

At the same time, he had seen local fresco-makers at work and realised he wanted to be a painter. This at least was no mistake – o gratitude, all you wondrous gods – but what he had been born for. His family reckoned he was ‘going through a difficult phase’, by which they meant he was an adolescent boy who read poetry and had high ideals. Ideals were no use to working people in Rome. Poetry made them fear they could no longer control him. But his choosing a career in art was useful. Having a ‘career’ at all was a hilarious novelty, which meant they could stop wondering what to do with him.

When his relatives went home, he stayed. His parents would be furious, but he knew they lacked the energy or resources to come and fetch him. He was free. He had taken charge of himself. He was having a good time, too.

He stayed in Campania with his true love, Ollia, who had been a nursemaid to some children in the holiday group he came with. A podgy, acne-ridden lump, she was a year older and a little dimmer than Larius realised. She was his first girlfriend; somehow he’d wrested her from a brawny local fisherboy, who had caught her eye by throwing nets around attractively. He never caught much.

That boy’s family had hoped he would get Ollia pregnant. They thought that insisting on marriage would allow their lad to adopt a better life in Rome when Ollia went home. Everyone in Rome did well – everyone else knew that. Relatives might gain material advantages from the fisherboy’s lucky transferral to this city of magical prosperity; they might even follow as hangers-on…

Eight years had passed. They were still waiting for it to happen. Even though Ollia lived with Larius, they thought the marriage would come to nothing. One day fate would work for the fishing folk. Slow people, but bizarrely trusting.

Larius and Ollia still saw them occasionally, when they wanted a day by the sea and a fish supper. The lad, Vitalis, hung around; hanging around had always seemed to be his main activity.

For Ollia, marriage turned out dismally. She now knew that she was permanently stuck right here with Larius or, worse, without him. Even if he left her, she would never get away from the life they had foolishly chosen in their teens.

So Ollia was still the painter’s wife and, unless she died in labour, he accepted that she always would be. Their children were Marciana, Ollius and Lolliana, Galliana and Varius. Ollia had named them. Larius would never have foisted ‘Ollius Lollius’ on anyone. She had to do the naming because after their first, which scared the boots off him, Larius managed never to be with her for the births. The last four comprised two sets of twins. He could not even begin to think how ghastly those labours must have been. It was almost enough to put you off sex. Almost.

Marciana, the eldest, was Larius’ favourite. Now eight, she even wanted to paint. She had talent and he was teaching her; it was theoretically impossible for a girl to do this professionally, but if it was what she wanted he would let her work with him. She was in Pompeii now, already able to bind a tint for him, or speak knowledgeably of Egyptian Blue and how a pinch of it sneakily added to chalk white would make the white brighter.

Marciana was regularly driven from Herculaneum in a neighbour’s rackety cart, when the neighbour came to the Saturday market. She brought her father clean laundry, food and news of the family. She would then remain in Pompeii for a few days while the neighbour consorted with his mistress; Marciana stayed with Larius’ landlady, not one of Pompeii’s grand entrepreneurs but a timid widow who lived in her own space on the ground floor, just across a courtyard from where Larius and Nonius slept upstairs.

His room was a dump so drab that Larius told his daughter she was not allowed there. For him it was merely a place to sleep, but if Ollia found out how bad it was, there would be ructions. Marciana understood. She never gave him away to her mother. The child bunked down with the widow, close enough for Larius to keep an eye on her; instinctively, even though she knew all about Nonius, she kept out of his sight. Marciana fed the old woman’s cats, sometimes fed the old lady, who was growing pathetic, then came to the site where she mixed paints and watched her father working. Learning, learning. When their neighbour from Herculaneum, Erodion, had had enough of screwing his secret ladylove, or when the bamboozled husband inconsiderately reappeared, Erodion jumped in his cart, returned to his own wife, and took the painter’s child back to her mother.

Marciana had a battered old basket that she carried to and fro with her. Her dolls poked out of it, a mixed collection made from terracotta, wood and rolled up rags; the rag doll had an arm missing, the wooden one was whittled for her by the other painter, Hylus. She hankered for a fully articulated ivory beauty, styled in the latest fashion; she knew such things existed, although they were too expensive. Every birthday and Saturnalia she hoped. A bright child, she knew it would never happen. Larius, who thought his children were heading for enough disappointments, was wise enough never to be drawn into a promise.

Marciana always had the cranky dolls tucked under an old, moth-eaten napkin in the basket as if they were lined up in bed. While travelling home in the neighbour’s cart, she kept the basket on her lap, solemnly talking to her dollies. Larius had been told their names often, though he forgot. It was hard enough remembering those of his own brood. Well, he knew, though not necessarily which name went with which child. Tough little tykes, they scoffed at him, accepting his vagueness yet perhaps storing up future resentment. You never loved me, you’re a terrible father, you couldn’t even be bothered to remember what my name was!

Hidden under her dolls in the basket were the wages Marciana took home for her family, after carefully deducting an allowance for her father. Nobody ever robbed her. Nonius, the dreadful sub-tenant, had no idea this gap-toothed little girl even existed, so that was how they thwarted him.

Marciana, very observant, had Nonius figured out as soon as she first saw him. ‘You’ll have to make sure that person doesn’t steal all your money, Father.’

‘Right!’

‘I shall take charge of it.’

Larius knew that the women in his family (except for his woefully useless mother) tended to take this line – though not normally at eight years old. He followed orders.

She was a good daughter. It was always a surprise to Larius that he, who could not be called a good father any more than his own was, somehow acquired this sensible, warm-hearted, talented, highly likeable child. And that she loved him.

He knew he did not deserve it. He could be too much like his own father. For instance, there was a gap of some years after Marciana and the first twins, before the second set. It happened when Larius accepted a call for trades to go overseas for a large prestigious building project in faraway Britannia. He was eighteen. At the time, they already had Marciana, and Ollia had just found out from the local wise woman that she was probably expecting a multiple birth next. Larius had matured, enough to see how he had trapped himself in misery, yet not enough to deal with it. Strife and fear for the future darkened his marriage. Good money was promised for the British adventure and he was feeling desperate. He had been working in the huge holiday villas of the very rich that lined the cliffs above Stabiae, fantasy palaces which only emphasised the squalor of his own life.

By then he knew his art. A good artist, who saw his talent, had trained him. Generously gave him chances. Pushed him forward to be noticed by clients. After four years, Larius was no longer an apprentice but an independent painter, specialising in exquisite miniature details. His pictures that would sit in the middle of panelled walls to draw the eye and stop the heart. On the strength of his skills, he was accepted for the fancy British job, which was financed by the new Emperor, Vespasian. He didn’t tell Ollia he was going. He just left a note.

‘How lucky I can read!’ she said grimly.

Larius claimed he needed to earn extra; in truth, he was going on the run from his wife, who knew it. Ollia feared he would never come back. It was a reasonable fear, because he himself dreamed of escape.

He worked abroad for a couple of years, telling himself he had got away. But the climate and provincial limitations of Britannia eventually made him homesick. The palace of King Togidubnus at Noviomagus was nearing completion so he was about to be laid off, then Larius had failed to organise himself to slip anyone the right bribes to obtain contracts on the new public buildings up in Londinium, the only other place in Britain offering work for an artist of his calibre. The south coast, his stamping ground, was becoming a tight spot for him. He had too many feuds with men he had drunkenly beaten up. Various women were after him. He came back to Italy.

He could have gone to Rome.

He should have done.

It was the terror of Ollia’s life that Larius would one day slide away to Rome, without her. Although they both had family there, neither kept up contact. Since they married he had never been back to his birthplace, because he knew that Ollia’s fears were correct; if he returned home, he would be permanently sucked in. Lovely Campania would see the last of him. He would never send for his wife and children; they would become ghosts to him. Larius would be subsumed into the hard drinking and hard living that made his father so repulsive, swamped by the demands of his extended family, taken over by the easy deceits and the fast bright hum of city life.

He was a loner here. It suited him.

On leaving Britain, the allure of the sea and the sunlit skies on this perfect bay drew him. Warmth, colour – and rich patrons wanting top quality décor. He returned to Ollia. It surprised them both. He stayed with her. Which was even more strange.

There were regular quarrels but even so, Larius suspected yet another birth was imminent. He had made things easier by installing his wife in rooms in Herculaneum, a town which was small and select and could be passed off as a good place to bring up children. He normally took jobs elsewhere. Close, but not too close. It stopped the squabbles. Since his return, he’d sobered up as far as he thought reasonable, took a grip on his life as far as he could be bothered. He accepted that what he wanted to do, all he wanted, was to paint.

The rest sometimes felt like a nightmare, but Larius conceded that the nightmare affected Ollia too. He was not blind to her situation. He was contrite, if not excessively. They got by. She believed he loved the children, which she thought must make him happy; ultimately true to her and to the infants they had foisted on the world, he himself never analysed his emotions. Happiness was a mental conceit; he dealt in spatial excellence. He loved the execution of his work and his power to provide pleasure even to strangers; that gave him an easy nonchalance. Within himself he was stable, relaxed, more or less content. Certainly he applied himself.

Horace.

Horace again – maybe a bit fanciful to someone who actually produced pictures.

Larius knew other poets but had absorbed a lot of Horace. For instance, that quote his filthy subtenant Nonius would choose:

Larius had grown up, but he still read. Ollia no longer did. During their adolescent courtship, they had bonded through endless discussions of elegiac love poems. The intellectual aspect of Larius was what attracted her, so much that it enabled him to supplant Vitalis the fisherboy, at Oplontis, even though he could show off a fine naked chest, toned muscles, a slick shoelace moustache; he was a virile hunk who obviously knew what to do with his body – which Larius in those days, being fourteen and painfully shy, did not. However, Larius liked reading and thinking; Ollia had thought him so very sophisticated and romantic.

Now, Ollia said she had no time for poems. Presumably it saved her many bitter feelings.

For such a fine artist there would always be employment. At the moment, Larius had this contract for a big building complex close to Pompeii’s main street. Work had been going on here for several years. The residential spaces were empty, with the garden currently in use as a materials store, though a busy street restaurant still operated on one corner and a large integral bakery remained in operation – a positive bread factory, with four querns trundled round and round by half a dozen mules, at least when the querns were working. They were currently idle due to earthquake damage.

The decoration scheme was to be modern yet not completely ludicrous. Larius understood clients. These would not want the most traditional style, which merely consisted of representing in paint other materials, mainly marble; nor would they take to the over-the-top fantastic grotesquery popularised by Nero. ‘But Larius Lollius, what is this supposed to be?…’

Larius himself loved swirling and smearing colours to create mock-marble, but his designs had to meet the desires and prejudices of the persons who paid. Fair enough. His task was to win them over. Make them believe they chose what in fact he had chosen to give them. So he kept faux marbling for a private hobby, nor did he try to force-feed customers the very latest ideas, the kind of crazy perspectives that drove critics to apoplexy.

Larius, who enjoyed a bit of theory when he had time, did his research; he had chortled over that curmudgeonly old architect Vitruvius letting off steam:

Let it out, Vitruvius old man! Try not to burst a blood vessel.

When in doubt, centre a panel with a finch, pecking at a fig. Just too cute. ‘Oh Larius Lollius, the little bird’s adorable!’

There you are. No self-respecting craftsman listened to an architect. Painters and the other trades had all been treated to far too much waffle and nonsense, told too many times to rip out good work on a whim, denigrated in front of a client, blamed for faults that the fancy-arsed arrogant twerp with the note-boards had brought about through his own ignorance. How much better any site would run with a project manager who understood logistics: install a clean latrine, supply beakers of hot mulsum, voice respect for proper skill and experience, pay wages in full and on time – then let your painters do their stuff.

Simplicity, legate.

In the current house, he and his team were now working on a grand reception hall. Pompeii was overrun with guilds, religious cults and political schemers who wanted to control the place. Campanians were diligent plotters. All the best homes had a large, formal reception space where ambitious owners could hold court. A meeting place for the funeral club to get tipsy. A super setting for tasteful soirées where civic votes were rigged.

This saloon would be an impressive one. Other reception rooms had already been painted in white, Larius’ favourite colour-scheme, divided up into panels by the kind of dainty candelabra and ditsy flower garlands that made Vitruvius and others shit splenetic bricks. Each tapestry of elegant sections contained one dramatic black panel at the centre, within which was a scene of polychrome fine art. Larius painted those himself, small pictures of historical scenes, architecture or rocky country views. He was famous for his seascapes. He based them on what he saw here in the Bay. Figures were never problematic for him either.

The team had already had fun on this project. Next door in the bakery, they had turned out conventional still-lives of fish, floating figures with spears or flowers, and couples lightly intertwined as they danced on air. There were scenes of people glimpsed through doorways. Clients always liked fake doorways, with their hints of mystery. Hylus had painted a superb brightly-coloured cockerel pecking at a half-devoured pomegranate beneath a shelf of untouched fruit. Hylus was really shaping up these days; he must have a good career ahead of him.

Their best effort was a dining-room. Larius had taken the lead on that. Stuck awkwardly between a stable and the flour mills, the bakers hired out the room commercially to bring in extra cash. In keeping with its purpose, it now held witty scenes of banqueting. The women had been made to look as if they were hired-in professionals, though in one scene these caterers were not professional enough; a serving maid was tottering and having to be supported, drunk. Meanwhile one of the young male guests had collapsed on his couch. In another picture all the girls looked as sloshed as their men; one seemed unaware she was upending her winecup, though in fairness, although one of the males was raising a drinking horn with panache, his crony had fallen back on the couch with one arm dangling. He was very, very far out of it, assuming he could feel anything at this point of the night…

‘Wishful thinking!’ Pyris had chortled. The wide-eyed young trainee, a gullible boy, was in constant awe of the lives he believed his elders enjoyed, based on their wild boasts. He ought to have known better: he went around with them, so had seen for himself that the whole team had fairly restrained habits. After a hard day, they were too tired for debauchery. It was the plasterers who drank themselves silly and went at it like rabbits with as many women as they could get their hands on. Plasterers, according to painters, were utterly notorious.

Painters, according to plasterers, were worse.

‘All based on intensive research!’ Larius had answered Pyris, with an exaggerated wink. He deliberately made much of figuring in a nipple on one of the party-boys’ courtesans. Then Marciana brought him lunch, so he quickly had to pretend he was only touching up the goodtime girl’s diagonal garland.

Today the big room they were working on, being more formal, had lush red and gold panels rather than white, alternated with dramatic black. Half finished, the work was on schedule. They had reached Larius’s favourite task, the pictures; he loved this stage, beautifying a room as if it were hung with framed art. He was ready for the significant scene – a nice bit of mythology. Always proper in a public room.

He was all set up. He had lightly scribed a basic scheme, measured out with compasses. He had positioned his brushes. On the floor and on a scaffold for the higher work, he had stationed pigment pots of various sizes, each small enough to be held conveniently in the hand while he worked; the pigments were ready, with spatulas, water, and eggs and oil for binding. Marciana would come in and help him with that. He would work rapidly but thoughtfully, changing pots unhurriedly, then painting with fast, sure brush strokes.

He had been about to start when his daughter called him.

As soon as he saw what was happening to the mountain, he thought dryly that the mythical painting was done for. Myth was occurring here. No one alive had experience of such natural force, so Larius could not have predicted that the biggest event in Campania for a thousand years was about to happen. But he was bright, and sensitive to what he saw. Foreboding struck him at once.

Jupiter. Jupiter and all the gods in the Pantheon.

A column of debris was being pushed up into the sky above Vesuvius, higher and higher, at enormous speed. Incalculable to those on the ground, masses of it hurtled up for miles. Eventually the dense pillar broadened out at the top, disseminating like the branches of a stone pine or the cap of a gigantic mushroom. Pulsating clouds of fiery material writhed like the steaming entrails of some huge beast when its belly was slashed open in the arena.

All that crud is going to come down on us, thought Larius.

He lifted his face. The wind was blowing this way. Pompeii was what, five miles from Vesuvius? The choking clouds would land here.

He tugged Marciana’s hand. ‘We have to leave, chuck. We must get away.’ She looked up at him, verifying his decision. ‘Trust me,’ he said. Trust Father. Even though he’s terrified.

She nodded. ‘How can we go?’

‘I’ll find Erodion and his cart.’

Then, before he could stop her, Marciana snatched her hand from his grasp and was off up the street. ‘Dollies!’

‘Stay at the widow’s. I’ll come and get you!’ yelled Larius. It would take time to rootle out their lugubrious neighbour from his Pompeian mistress’ bower, in order to persuade him to produce the cart unscheduled. Erodion was not known for rallying in emergencies. His wife handled any crises.

Larius strode back indoors. Standing in consternation, the lads looked to him to say what was up; they had heard the stunning explosion but were scared to go and look.

‘Drop everything. Just leave it. Shit on a stick; this is a big one.’

Conscientious, they still stood, unsure. Hylus could not help letting his eyes go to the main panel, gauging the state of the plaster. Young Pyris quavered, ‘What about the client?’

‘Let me square it with the client. Don’t bother with your stuff. Get going; save yourselves, lads, before it’s too late.’

Their stuff was here; they slept on site. Larius telling them to abandon their things made them jump to. This was serious. They put down their pots and brushes. Even Three Coats began struggling down from the scaffold; his joints were swollen and crippled, so he had to take it gingerly. He knocked a whole bucket of slopping wet plaster all down the newly painted wall but Larius, who would normally have been enraged, gestured to forget it and just get moving.

They could run for the port. A boat would take them off, assuming there were any boats. Hylus grabbed money for fares or bribes. Or they could head out of town, inland, putting distance between themselves and the coming catastrophe. It would be all right. They had enough time. Even if Larius couldn’t find Erodion and the cart, so had to travel with his daughter at her little legs’ pace, all of them at that moment still had time to escape.