When we took the stairs, it soon became clear that Julia was safe and now had plenty of company. Women's voices conversed indoors at what seemed a normal pace. We exchanged a glance that can only be called thoughtful, then we sauntered in looking as if in our honest opinion nothing untoward had happened.
One of the women was Helena Justina, who was now feeding the baby. She said nothing. But her eyes met mine with the degree of scorching heat that must have melted the wings off Icarus when he flew too near the sun.
The other was an even fiercer proposition: Petro's estranged wife Arria Silvia.
FIFTEEN
`Don't bother looking. I haven't brought the children.' Silvia wasted no time. She was a tiny spark, as neat as a doll. Petronius used to laugh at her as if she just had a vigorous character; I thought her completely unreasonable. Gripping her hands together tightly she mouthed, `In an area like this you don't know what types they might meet.' Silvia had never minded being rude.
`They are my children too.' Petronius was the paterfamilias. Since he had acknowledged the three girls at birth they belonged to him legally if he wanted to be difficult he could insist they lived with him. Still, we were plebs. He had no means of looking after them, as Silvia knew.
`That's why you abandoned them?'
`I left because you' ordered me to.'
Petro's very quietness was working Silvia into a rage. He knew exactly how to drive her wild with restraint. `And is that a surprise, you bastard?'
Silvia's rage was increasing his stubbornness. He folded his arms. `We'll sort it out.'
`That's your answer to everything!'
Helena and I had carefully stayed neutral. I would have kept it that way, but since there was a lull Helena inserted sombrely, `I'm sorry to see you two like this.'
Silvia tossed her head. She went in for the untamed mare attitude. Unfortunately for Petro it took more than a handful of carrots to calm her down. `Don't interfere, Helena.'
Helena assumed her reasonable expression, which meant she wanted to hurl a bowl of fruit at Silvia. `I'm just stating a fact. Marcus and I always used to envy your loving family life.'
Arria Silvia stood up. She had a secretive smile that Petronius had probably once; thought enthralling; today she was using it as a bitter weapon. `Well, now you see what a fraud it was.' The fight died in her, in a manner I found worrying. She was leaving. Petronius happened to be standing in her way. `Excuse me.'
`I would like to see my daughters.'
`Your daughters would, like to see a father, who doesn't pick up every broken blossom that drops in his path.'
Petronius did not trouble to argue. He stepped aside and let, her pass.
Petro hung around just long enough to be sure he would not run into Arria Silvia when he went back out to the street. Then he too left, with nothing more said.
Helena finished patting up Julia's wind. A new toy, which Silvia must have brought as a gift for the baby, lay on the table. We ignored it, knowing both of us would always find. its presence uncomfortable now. Helena laid the baby down in her cradle. Sometimes I was allowed that privilege, but not today.
`It won't happen again,' I promised, not needing to specify what.
`It won't,' she agreed.
`I'm not making excuses.'
`No doubt you were called away to something extremely important.'
'Nothing is more important than her safety.'
`That's what I think.'
We stood on opposite sides of the room.' We were talking in low voices, as if to avoid waking the baby. The tone was strangely light, cautious, with neither Helena's warning nor my apology stressed as they might have been. The searing quarrel between our two old friends had affected us too heavily for us to want or to risk a fight ourselves.
`We shall have to have a nurse,' Helena said.
The reasonable statement involved major consequences. Either I had to give in and borrow a woman from the Camilli (already offered by them, and proudly refused by me), or I had to purchase a slave myself. That would be an innovation for which I was hardly prepared having no money to buy, feed or clothe her, no inclination to expand my, household while we lived in such cramped conditions, and no hope of improving those conditions in the near future.
`Of course,' I replied.
Helena made no response. The soft material of her dark red dress clung slightly to the rocker of the cradle at her feet. I could not see the baby, yet I knew exactly how she would look and smell and snuffle and squint if I went over and peered in at her. Just as I knew the lift of Helena's own breathing, the surge of her annoyance that I had left the child unprotected, and the tightening muscle at the corner of her sweet mouth as she fought her conflicting feelings about me. Maybe I could win her round with a cheeky grin… But she mattered too much for me to try it.
Presumably Petro had once felt about his wife and family as I did about mine. Neither he nor Silvia had changed fundamentally., Yet it seemed that somehow he had stopped caring whether his indiscretions were apparent, while she had stopped. believing he was perfect. They had lost the domestic toleration that makes life with another person possible.
Helena must have been wondering whether one day the same thing would happen to us. Yet perhaps she read the sadness in my face because when I held out my hands she came to me. I wrapped her in my arms and just held her. She was warm and her hair smelt, of rosemary. As always our bodies seemed to come together in a perfect fit. `Oh, fruit, I'm sorry. I'm a disaster. What made you. choose me?'
'Error of judgement. What made you choose me?'
`I thought you were beautiful.'
`A trick of the light.'
I pulled back slightly, studying her face. Pale, tired perhaps, and yet still calm and capable. She could, handle me. Still holding her hip' to hip, I dropped a light kiss on her forehead, a greeting after being apart. I believed in daily ceremonial.
I- asked after her orphans' school, and she reported her day to me speaking formally but without -wrangling. Then she
asked what had been so important as to drag me from home, and I told her about Anacrites. `So he's pinched our puzzle from under our noses. It's a dead end anyway, so I suppose we should be glad to let him take over.'
`You're not going to give up, Marcus?'
`You think I should go on?'
`You were waiting for me to say it,' she smiled. After a moment she added, watching me, `What does Petro want to do?'
`Haven't asked him.' I too waited a moment then said wryly, `When I'm brooding I talk to you. That won't ever change, you know.'
`You and he have a partnership.'
`In work. You're my partner in life.' I had noticed that even though Petro and I were now in harness I still wanted to chew over debatable issues with Helena. 'It's part of the definition, my love. When a man takes a wife it's to share his confidence. However' close a friend may be, there remains one last modicum of reserve. Especially if the friend himself is behaving in ways that seem senseless.'
`You'll support Petronius absolutely
`Oh, yes. Then I'll come home and tell you what a fool he is.' Helena looked as if she was about to kiss me in a more than fleeting manner, but to my annoyance she was interrupted. Our front door was being repeatedly
