Poseidon_s Gold

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!'