Ode to a Banker

XXIX

I slept in all morning. I was alone when I woke.

Reminded of being a bachelor, in the days when I operated as a one-man informer from my dingy sixth-floor apartment on the other side of Fountain Court, I indulged in a loner's toilet. I fell out of bed, pulled off my top tunic, shook the grit and debris out of it, then put the same garment on again. I smeared my face with cold water, wiped it dry on my sleeve, found a comb, then decided not to bother with my hair. I licked my teeth: disgusting. I bared them and polished them on my other sleeve. By now, Nux was taking an interest. This was a way of life she had never been allowed to see before; though sluggish and rotund with impending motherhood, she seemed to like the idea. She was a scruff at heart.

'Ah, sweetheart, you should have known me in my wild days!'

Nux came and lolled against my left leg, puffing slightly. Rome was too hot for a pregnant dog. I gave her a bowl of clean water, then got another for myself. She lapped messily; I did the same. After a search, I managed to find a hard bread roll where Helena had carefully hidden it in order to cause me problems.

Everything in the apartment had been left extremely neat. Helena by her absence was showing the forbearance that meant she was furious. I could remember crawling home, smelling of cinders from the esparto mat; she had squealed with disgust as I fell into bed beside her, chilled and obviously stiff after a fracas of some sort. While we worked at the patrol-house Fusculus had fetched in an offensive array of sausages and cold pies, so I probably reeked of those too. I could not help groaning as my bruises swelled. Helena had not mentioned that I had promised to refrain from fights. She had not said anything, in fact, and I was too weary to attempt to communicate. But now she was ostentatiously not here.

'We're in trouble.'

Nux looked up and licked my leg. We had tidied her up since she agreed to abandon the street life and adopt us, but her fur was not exactly washed in rosewater. She had never been a lapdog for the refmed.

'Where is she, Nux?'

Nux lay down and went to sleep.

I ate my roll. Outside, I could hear Rome going about its midday business while I was the lonely late riser, proud of his relaxed style – and missing everything. Nostalgic for freedom, I pretended to be enjoying the emptiness.

Beyond the shutters, mules brayed and vegetable pallets crashed. Some considerate neighbour was smashing up used amphorae rather than wash them clean; it made a resounding racket. Far above the alley, swifts persistently screamed after midges. I could sense the heat; the sun had been burning for hours. No visitors called. I was the forgotten man. That was the bachelor's main occupation; suddenly I remembered how dreary it felt.

Eventually the silence and stillness indoors became too much for me. I put Nux on a lead, took myself to a local bathhouse, neatened up, had a decent shave, climbed into a clean white tunic, and went to look for my wife and child.

They were at Ma's house. Instinct took me straight there.

Ma had been looking after Junia's little son, so Marcus Baebius and Julia were sitting on the floor together drawing on wax tablets. Marcus, at three or whatever he was, seemed content to wield the stylus sensibly, though he did insist on running to Ma to have the wax smoothed for him every time he completed a big funny face. Julia preferred scraping up wax in wodges and sticking it to the floorboards. When they wanted to communicate they managed it by private grunts or by wildly billing each other; Marcus had the excuse of his deafness, but I fear it was my daughter who was the more violent.

Ma and Helena were sewing. That's always a way for women to look preoccupied and superior.

'Greetings, dear females of my family circle.' They surveyed their work at arm's length and waited for me to amuse them by grovelling. 'How pleasant to find you so chastely engaged in the duties of devoted wives.'

'Look who it is,' sniffed Ma. And don't call me a devoted wife!'

'Yes, I know; I'm a disgrace – sorry.'

'Guilt, Falco?' Helena was being reasonable, to make me feel worse. I tipped up her chin on one finger and kissed her lightly. She shuddered. 'Do I detect breath pastilles?'

'I am always perfumed with violets.' Not to mention recent applications of tooth powder, skin toner, hair slick and body oils. A man can live well in Rome.

'You stink like an apothecary!' commented my mother.

Helena was looking particularly fresh and tidy, a dutiful matron plying the bronze needle as she helped Ma neaten tunic hems. Whoever taught her to sew? As a senator's daughter it cannot have been in her regular training. She probably asked Ma to give her a rapid lesson this morning just to make me feel bad.

Her eyes danced slightly with mockery as I inspected her. Neatly pinned gown in demure pale blue; particularly modest brooches holding together the sleeves; only a hint of gold neck chain; no finger rings, except for the silver band I once gave her as a love token. Hair in a simple bundle, with a plain republican centre parting.

'I see you're acting the injured party.'

'I don't know what you mean, Falco.'

She always knew exactly what I had in mind.

'I hope we're not quarrelling '

'We never quarrel,' Helena said, sounding as if she meant it too.

We did, of course. Rampaging over nothing was how we acted out the daily domestic round. We both tussled for ascendancy. We both enjoyed surrendering too.

I explained quietly all that had occurred last night at the patrol-house, and was allowed to retrieve my usual status as an unsatisfactory stop-out who was probably hiding a secret life. 'Back to normal then.'

'Romancing again,' said Helena, throwing her eyes up.

Then I said I was going out to interview a suspect in the Chrysippus case. And since Julia seemed perfectly happy feeding wax to Marcus Baebius, Helena said she would leave the baby for a while and come with me. Obviously, I could not object.

Outside my mother's apartment Helena penned me in a corner of the stairwell and subjected me to a body search. I stood still and patiently let it happen. She examined each arm, scanned my legs, pulled up parts of my tunic, turned me round, twisted my head each way, and looked behind my ears.

'Caught anything with lots of legs?'

'I'm sniffing you over like Nux does.' Nux in fact was looking at her own tail in a bored manner.

'I told you where I've been.'

'And I'm making sure,' Helena said.

She touched various bruises one by one, as if counting them up. No army doctor could have been more thorough. Eventually I passed the fitness test. Then she put her arms round me and held me close. I hugged her back like a good boy, meanwhile seeing how much of the smooth republican bun I could demolish before she sensed what I was playing at and felt the hairpins being pulled out.

Good relations re-established, we set off together to find Urbanus Trypho, the playwright Chrysippus had supported, that sneak who thought he could lie low and avoid being interviewed.