Time To Depart

XIII

FOUNTAIN COURT ON a quiet October evening had its usual soiled and sultry charm. A faint pall of black smoke from the lampblack ovens drifted languidly five feet above the lane looking for passers-by with clean togas or tunics to smudge. Amidst its acrid tang lingered scents of sulphur from the laundry and rancid fat frying. Cassius the baker had been making veal pies earlier with too much juniper by the smell. Above us people had hung bedding over their balconies, or sat there airing their fat backsides over a parapet while they shouted abuse at members of their family hidden indoors. Some idiot was hammering madly. A weary young girl staggered past us, almost unable to walk under the weight of the long garlands of flowers she had spent all day weaving for dinner parties in louche, wealthy homes.

A thin scruffy dog sat outside Lenia's, waiting for someone soft-hearted it could follow home.

`Don't look,' I commanded Helena. I took her hand as we crossed the dusty street to ask Cassius to give us the key to the empty apartment.

Cassius was a genial fellow, though he had never deigned to notice that Helena Justina was attached to me. He sold her loaves, at more or less reasonable prices; he chucked me the occasional stale roll while we swapped gossip. But even when Helena appeared in his shop with her noble fist grasped in mine, Cassius gave no acknowledgement that he was addressing a couple. He must regard us, as unsuitable; well, he was not alone. I thought we were unsuitable myself – not that that would stop me.

`Ho, Falco!'

`Got the key for upstairs?'

`What idiot wants that?'

`Well, I'll have a look -'

'Hah!' chipped Cassius, as if I had dared to suggest one of his whole grain crescent baps had a spot of mould.

Refusing to be put off, we made him go for the key, which had been abandoned for so long he had lost it somewhere behind a mountain of sacks in his flour store. While we waited for him to track down the nail he had hung it on, I hunted for interesting crumbs in the bread roll display baskets, and grinned at Helena.

`It's right, you know. You looked quite at home that time I saw you with Aelia Camilla's little girl. A natural!'

'Flavia was not my child,' said Helena, in a cold voice.

Cassius came back, armed with an iron key the size of a ratchet on some dockyard winding gear. Being nosy, he made sure he kept hold of it and came with us up the dilapidated stone steps beside his shop. Not many of the treads were completely broken away; if you kept near the wall it was almost safe. Using both hands, Cassius struggled to turn the key in a rusted lock. Failing, we discovered the easiest way in was to push open the back edge of the door and squeeze through the matted spiderwebs that had been acting as hinges.

It was very dark. Cassius boldly crossed to a window and threw back a shutter; it dropped off in his hand. He cursed as the heavy wood crashed to the floor, leaving splinters in his fingers and grazing his leg on the way.

`Frankly,' Helena decided at once, `this seems a bit too elegant for us!'

It was out of the question. Deeply depressed, I insisted on seeing everything.

`Who lives upstairs, Cassius?'

`No one. The other apartments are even worse than this. Mind you, I saw some old bag woman poking round this afternoon.'

Disaster. The last thing we needed was vagrants for close neighbours. I was trying to become more respectable.

Huge sheets of plaster hung away from the wall slats, which themselves bowed inwards alarmingly. The floors dipped several inches every time we trod the boards, which we did very delicately. The joists must have gone. Since the floor joists should have been tying the whole building together, this was serious. All the internal doors were missing. So, as Lenia had warned me, was the floor in the back rooms.

`What's that down there?'

`My log store,' said Cassius. True. We could see the logs through

his ceiling. Presumably when Cassius was loading his oven,

sometime before dawn, anyone upstairs would hear him rolling

the logs about.

The place was derelict. We would not be asking for a lease from

Smaractus. Cassius lost interest and left to tend his leg, which was

now bleeding badly. `Is this your dog down here, Falco?' `Certainly not. Chuck a rock at him.' `It's a girl.'

`She still not mine – and she's not going to be!'

Helena and I stayed, too dispirited to shift. She gazed at me. She

knew exactly why I was looking at property, but unless she acknowledged being pregnant, she could not discuss my project.

For once, I had the upper hand.

`Sorry,' I said.

`Why? Nothing's lost.'

`I was convinced this dump had been on the market so long I could walk in and pay Smaractus in old nuts.'

`Oh, he'd be delighted to find a tenant!' Helena laughed. `Can we mend it? You're very practical, Marcus-. '

`Jupiter! This needs major building work – it's far beyond my scope.'

`I thought you liked a challenge?'

`Thanks for the faith! This whole block should be torn down. I don't know why Cassius sticks it. He's risking his life every day.'

Like much of Rome.

`At least we could get fresh bread,' Helena pretended to muse.

`We could reach down through the floor for it without getting out of be…'

`No, we can't live above a bakery. Apart from the fire risk -' `The oven is separate, in the street.'

`So are the mills, with a damned donkey braying and the endless rumble of grinding querns! Don't fool about, lady. Think of the cooking smells. Bread's fine, but when Cassius has baked his loaves he uses the ovens to heat offal pies in nasty gravy for the entire street. I shoul have thought of that.'

Helena had wandered to the window. She stood on tiptoe, leaning out for the view, while she changed the subject: `I don't like this trouble between you and Petronius.' `There's no trouble.'

`There's going to be.'

`I've known Petro a long time.'

`And it's a long time since you worked together. When you did, it was back in the army and you were both taking orders from somebody else.'

`I can take orders. I take them from you all the time.'

She chortled seditiously. I joined her at the window and caused a diversion, trying to nudge her off balance. She slipped an arm around me to save herself, then kept it there in a friendly fashion while we both looked out.

This side of Fountain Court was lower down the hillside than where we lived, so we were almost opposite the familiar streetside row of lockups: the stationery supplier, the barber, the funeral parlour, small pavement businesses in a gloomy colonnade below five storeys of identical apartments, some overpaid architect's notion of thoughtful design. Few architects permit themselves to live in their own tenements.

`Is that our block?'

`No, the one next door.'

`There's a letting notice, Marcus.'

`I think it's for one of the shops on the ground floor.'

Helena's sharp eyes had spotted the kind of street graffiti you usually ignore. I walked her downstairs and across the road to check up. The chalked advertisement was for a workshop. It called itself `well-set-out artisan premises with advantageous living accommodation, but it was a damp booth with an impossible stairway to a disgusting loft. It's true there was a small domestic apartment attached, but the two-room tenancy was for five years. Who could say how many offspring I might have accidentally fathered by that time, and how much space I should be needing to house them all?

Shivering, I let Helena lead me out to Fountain Court. The scruffy dog had found us again, and was staring at me hopefully. She must have worked out who was the soft one.

Since the barber had no customers we dumped ourselves pessimistically on two of his stools. He grumbled briefly, then went indoors for a lie-down, his favourite occupation anyway.

`You know we can live anywhere,' Helena said quietly. `I have money -',

`No. I'll pay the rent.'

As a senator's daughter she owned far less than her two brothers, but if she allied herself with anyone respectable there was a large dowry still kicking around from her previous failed marriage, plus various legacies from female relations who had spotted her special character. I had never let myself discover the exact extent of Helena's wealth. I didn't want to upset myself. And I never wanted to find myself a kept man.

`So what are we looking for?' She was being tactful now. Refraining from comment on my proud self-respect. Naturally I found it maddening.

`That's obvious. Somewhere we don't risk scum breaking in. Where perverts who come to see me about business won't make trouble for you. And more space.'

`Space for a cradle, and seats for all your sisters when they come cooing over the item in it?' Helena's voice was dry. She knew how to soften me up.

`More seats would be useful.' I smiled. `I like to entertain.'

`You like to get me annoyed!'

`I like you in any mood.' I ran one finger down her neck, just tickling the skin beneath the braid on her gown. She lowered her chin suddenly, trapping my finger. I thought about pulling her closer and kissing her, but I was too depressed. To provide a public spectacle you need to be feeling confident.

From her position with her head tucked down, Helena was looking across Fountain Court. I felt her interest shift. Gazing at the sky, I warned the gods: `Watch out, you loafers on Olympus. Somebody's just had a bright idea!'

Then Helena asked in the curious tone that had so often led to trouble, `Who lives above the basket shop?'

The basket-weaver occupied a lockup two along from Cassius the baker. He shared his frontage with a cereal-seller – another quiet trade, and fairly free of smelly nuisances. Above them rose a typical tenement, similar to ours and with the same kind of underpaid, overworked occupants. There was no letting sign, but the shutters on the first-floor apartment were closed, as they always had been to my knowledge. I had never seen anybody going in.

`Well spotted!' I murmured thoughtfully.

Right there, opposite Lenia's laundry, we could have found our next home.