Venus in copper

Chapter XXII

I had had enough excitement. I could never have found the energy to struggle to the Pincian and report to my clients, even if I had wanted a further brush with feminine iniquity. I also decided not to irritate Helena by sporting around the Capena Gate the bruises another woman had given me. That left one attractive prospect: home to my new bed.

As I carefully scaled the three flights to my apartment, more grateful than ever that it was not the six gruelling sets of climbers at Fountain Court, I ran into Cossus.

'Falco! You look worse for wear-'

'Overenergetic girlfriend. What brings you here; collecting back rent?'

'Oh no; our clients all pay up prompt.' I schooled my face not to reveal he might be in for a shock later. 'The widow on the fourth floor has made a complaint; some idiot keeps disturbing the peace at midnight-singing raucous songs and crashing about. Know anything about it?'

'I've heard nothing.' I lowered my voice. 'Sometimes these old biddies who live alone imagine things.' Naturally Cossus was more prepared to believe the widow might be batty than that some other tenant-one who might thump him if criticised-had antisocial tendencies. 'I have heard the widow banging walls,' I grumbled. 'I would have mentioned it but I'm a tolerant type… By the way,' I said, changing the subject smoothly, 'Doesn't the rent in a place like this normally include a porter to carry up water and keep the steps swept?',

I expected him to quibble. 'Of course,' agreed the agent, however.'A lot of the apartments are empty, as you know. But organising a porter is the next thing on my list…'

He sounded so obliging I even tipped him for his trouble as he left.

My front door was open. No need to rush in with cries of outrage; familiar noises informed me of the cause. Mico, my unreliable brother-in-law, must have given away my address.

I leaned round the doorframe. A broomful of grit shot over my feet and stuck under my bootstraps. 'Good morning, madam; is this where the distinguished Marcus Didius Falco lives?'

'Judging by the dust!' She whisked the besom twigs across my toes, making me hop.

'Hello Ma. You found me then?'

'I suppose you intended to tell me where you were?'

'What do you think of my billet?'

'None of our family ever lived in Piscina Publica.'

'Time we moved up, Ma!' My mother sniffed.

I tried to walk as if I had just sprained myself slightly during a pleasant morning's exercise at the gym. It failed; Ma leaned on her broom. 'What happened to you this time?'

The enthusiastic girlfriend joke seemed a bad idea. 'Some people with rough manners caught me by surprise. It won't happen again.'

'Oh won't it?' This was not the first time she had seen me sooner than I wanted after a bearing I preferred to hide. 'At least in prison you were in one piece!'

'Being gnawed by a big rat, Ma! I was lucky to be fetched out of it-' She gave me a whack with the besom that told me she saw through that as easily as all my other lies.

Once I was home my mother decamped. Having me there grinning on a stool stopped her looking for evidence of my immoral life; she preferred to upset herself in solitude so she could make more of the occasion. Before she flounced off, she made me some hot wine from ingredients she had brought to stock my larder in case anyone respectable came to call. Consoled, I went to bed.

About halfway through the afternoon I woke, thoroughly chilled, since I had never acquired a bedcover for Junia's bed. After three days I was needing clean clothes too, and missing various treasures I normally kept around me wherever I called home. So, as if today had not been lively enough already, I decided to exert myself with an expedition to Fountain Court.

The shops were still shuttered as I hopped over the Aventine. In my old street everything looked quiet. My landlord's plug-uglies Rodan and Asiacus were treating the neighbourhood to a day of peace. There was no sign of the Chief Spy's dog-eared minions. It was siesta at the laundry. I reckoned it was safe to go in.

I crept upstairs slowly, and slipped into my apartment. There I equipped myself with my favourite tunics, a useful hat, my festival toga, a pillow, two cooking pots which were more or less sound despite five years of wear, the waxed tablet where I wrote sentimental poetry, spare boots, and my favourite possessions: ten bronze spoons, a gift from Helena. I corded all these in a blanket I had brought home from the army, then set off back to ground level humping my bundle like any burglar leaving with his swag.

A burglar would have got away with it. Real thieves can strip a mansion of ten cartloads of antique marble, a score of bronze statues, all the vintage Falernian and the beautiful teenage daughter of the house-while nobody in the neighbourhood notices a thing. I emerged legitimately-only to have some gross female sausageseller whom I had never even seen before spot me and assume the worst. Even then, most robbers would have strolled on their way safely while the witness winked her eye. I met the only interfering citizen this side of the Aventine. The minute she spied me sauntering off, she hoiked up her coarse woollen skirts, let out a shriek they must have heard on Tiber Island, and scuttled after me.

Panic-and annoyance-lubricated my stiffened limbs. I hared off up the lane… just as Anacrites' two spies popped out from the barber's where they were having the top half-inch scraped off their beards. Next thing I was brought up short howling, with my left boot trapped inextricably under one of the monstrous feet.

I swung my bundle at the other spy. From inside it my biggest iron skillet must have caught the brute right across the throat; he flew backwards with a croak it hurt to hear. The owner of the feet was too close for me to swipe him, but his idea of overpowering a helpless victim was simply to yell for assistance from passers-by. Most of those knew me, so when they stopped guffawing at my plight they jeered at him. They were also bemused by the sight of the sausageseller-who was all of three feet high-laying into us ferociously with her salami tray. I managed to angle myself so that coracle-feet caught the worst of it, including a violent thwack with a giant smoked phallus which must have put him off peppered pork for life.

But he still had his massive flipper planted on my toes. I was hampered by the need to cling onto my bundle, for I knew if I once let go some Thirteenth Sector layabout would run off with my chattels and have them auctioned on a street corner before I could blink. So Footsie and I leaned against one another madly, like partners in some tribal wrestling match, while I tried to dance myself free.

I could see his fellow spy reviving. Just then Lenia rushed out of the laundry to investigate the racket, carrying a vast metal basin on her hip. She recognised me with a scornful look, then upended her cauldron over the man I had hit with my skillet; not his day with ironmongery. As his skull took the weight and his legs buckled, I managed to get enough purchase with my trapped foot to slew my other knee inwards; I aimed it angrily at a section of the spy which was much less developed than his feet. His girlfriend would curse me. His toes curled in agony; I hopped free. Lenia was treating the sausageseller to some irreligious language. I finished off Footsie with a wack from my luggage, and did not stay to apologise.

Home again.

After the havoc in the Aventine it seemed ridiculously quiet. I livened things up by whistling a rude Gallic ditty, until the queer widow on the floor above began banging again. She had no idea of keeping time, so I drew my recitation to a close.

Exhausted, I hid Helena's spoons in my mattress, then rolled myself up in my moth-eaten blanket and collapsed on the bed.

Snoring away whole afternoons is an enjoyable pastime; one which private informers carry out with practised ease.