kissing me, how much I wanted more than that-'
I could have kissed her then. Her dark eyes were soft and inviting; she was willing me to do it. But it was more fun to lean back so I could see her, and just think about it while she smiled at me.
No year of my life would ever bring me so much change. No trick of fate would ever give me anything so precious.
I put out the light so I could forget our dismal surroundings; then I ignored all the debts and disasters that were oppressing me. A man must have some comfort in his life. I said, 'I love you. I should have told you that right at the start a year ago-and this is what I should have done about it straight away:'
Then I let my thirty-first birthday begin with a celebration in the noblest Roman style.
LV
Our carriage-horse was still lame, so we hired a couple of litters, went across to the coast and took a ship home from Puteoli. I will pass over it briskly, though the journey seemed interminable. I spent most of it lying under a leather sail. The only times I poked my head out were when I needed to be ill.
That was often enough.
I believe the others found the weather fair, the sea air invigorating, and their various fellow passengers an enthralling mixture of types. Helena and my father got to know each other better, while they had the tact to keep the cheating sculptor and his blowzy mistress well away from me.
Even though I knew my taxes had paid for it, no sight was ever so welcome to me as the great lighthouse at Portus, the new complex at Ostia, unless it was the colossal statue of Neptune. When we sailed under Neptune's knees I knew our ship was inside the basin, and about to berth. We had to wait about before disembarking while the usual nautical business took precedence over passengers' eagerness to land. I managed to send a message ashore to the customs post, so the first sight that greeted us when our feet hit the quay was Gaius Baebius, my brother-in-law.
'You might have spared us!' muttered Father under his breath.
'I'm hoping to cadge a free ride home in official transport if we tag along with him.'
'Oh smart boy! Gaius Baebius! Just the man we were hoping to see:'
My brother-in-law was full of something-something and nothing, needless to say. He was reticent in front of strangers-and even before Helena, since a customs-clerks supervisor's attitude to women tends to be traditional, and Gaius Baebius had had seventeen years of living with my sister Junia to teach him to keep his mouth shut. Junia had the strong-willed woman's traditional attitude to men: she thought we were there to be told we were idiots and made to keep quiet.
Leaving Helena disconsolately guarding the baggage (which was our idea of what women were for), Father and I got Gaius on his own in a wine bar and set about grilling him. Freed from female supervision, out it poured: 'Listen, listen, I've had some luck!'
'Won at the races, Gaius?' Pa chivvied. 'Don't tell the wife then! Junia will whip it out of your hand before you can take breath.'
'Olympus, Marcus, he's worse than you for looking on the dark side: No. I've found something you were looking for-'
'Not a trace of the Hypericon?'
'No, not that. I'm sure she really sank.'
'Don't you keep a list of lost vessels?' Pa demanded.
'Why should we?' Gaius Baebius gave him a scornful look. 'There's no money for the state in seaweed and silt.'
'That's a pity,' Father carried on. 'I'd like to know for certain that the Pride of Perga really hit bottom-'
'So what have you discovered, Gaius?' I insisted, as patiently as I could while I was tossed between this squabbling pair.
'Festus!'
I felt a sickly qualm. I was not yet ready to talk to any member of the family on that subject. Even Pa fell silent.
Gaius Baebius noticed I had lost my appetite; he lunged eagerly to grab my bowl.
'Give!' urged my father, trying not to sound subdued. 'What about Festus?' His eyes had fallen on a second spoon, with which he fought Gaius Baebius for what was left of my food.
'I found-' Gaius had his damned mouth too full of my snack to talk. We waited for him to masticate with the ponderous thoroughness that characterised his life. I could have kicked him. Rather than have to endure his pained reproach if I attacked him, I restrained myself, though the restraint was precarious. 'I found,' he let out meticulously after a long wait, 'the note of what Festus paid in excise dues when he came ashore.'
'When? On his last leave?'
'Exactly!'
My father's eyebrows, which had retained more blackness than his rampant hair, shot up his brow. He looked down that long, straight nose of his. 'Festus came home on a stretcher in a military supply ship!'
'Yes, he came home on a stretcher, but he damned soon hopped off it!' Gaius Baebius risked a slightly critical note. All my sisters' husbands had looked askance at my brother, as in fact they still did at me. Gaius Baebius would be full of himself if he ever found out that Festus had thrown himself into his heroic death in order to escape some bullying creditors-not to mention the messy detail that unknown to my brother the creditors were criminally fraudulent.
Having to face people like my brothers-in-law with this depressing tale was the main trial ahead.
'So Festus, despite being wounded, managed to bring something home with him on which duty was payable?' I sounded as pedantic as Gaius himself; it was the only way to squeeze sense from him.
'You're with me!' cried Gaius triumphantly. 'You're not so dumb!' The man was unbearable.
Father rescued me before I exploded. 'Come on, Gaius! Don't keep us in suspense. What was he importing?'
'Ballast,' said Gaius Baebius.
He sat back, satisfied that he had baffled us.
'Hardly seems to rate paying duty,' I commented.
'No. The tax was a small debit.'
'Sounds to me as if Festus may have made a payment to somebody at the customs post in order to get his item described as valueless!'
'That's a slur on the service!' said Gaius.
'But it makes sense,' answered Pa.
My father had a way of sounding sure of himself that could be intensely irritating. I only endured it because I thought he must be holding out on Gaius Baebius, who annoyed me even more. 'Father, we can't even guess what this import was-'
'I think we know.'
I assumed Geminus was bluffing, but he looked too calm. 'Pa, you've lost me-and Gaius Baebius is a thousand miles behind!'
'If this 'ballast' is what I reckon it might be, then you've seen the stuff, Marcus.'
'I take it we don't mean a load of fancy gravel for rich people's garden paths?'
'Bigger,' said Father.
Another mystery that had long been lying at the back of my memory found its moment to rush to the fore. 'Not those blocks of stone I was shown in the store by drippy Uncle Junius?'
'I guess so.'
'Have you seen old Junius? How is he?' flapped Gaius Baebius, with his normal fine grasp of priorities.
'So what are these blocks?' I asked my father, ignoring the interruption.
