sweeper's fees. There were bright pots of roses by the front entrance, which she tended too.
Aristagoras called out a greeting; I raised an arm and kept going. He was a chatterer, I could tell.
I ran lightly up the stairs to the apartment. Most days, Ma was either out, whirling about the Aventine on errands and causing annoyance, or else she was in, scrubbing away at pots or chopping like fury in her cooking area. Today I just found her sitting still in a basket armchair that my late brother Festus had once given her (I knew, though she did not, that the cheeky beggar won it in a game of draughts). She had her hands folded rather tightly in her lap. As usual, her dress and hair were scrupulously neat, though a fine aura of tragic gloom enveloped her.
I closed the door gently. Two eyes like burnt raisins bored into me. I pulled up a stool beside her and squatted on it with my elbows on my knees.
`You heard about the Aurelian Bank?'
Ma nodded. `One of the men who works for Anacrites came to see him early this morning. Is it true?'
`Afraid so. I've just been down there – all closed up. Did Anacrites manage to remove his cash?'
`He had notified the agent that he wanted to make a withdrawal, but the money has not yet been paid to him.'
`Tough.' I managed to sound neutral. I gazed at Ma. Despite her anxious stillness, her face was expressionless. `They probably knew they were in trouble, you know; they would have slowed up on shelling out. I wouldn't be too concerned about him. He may have lost a packet with the Aurelian, but he must have plenty more hoarded away in other safe places. It goes with his job.'
`I see,' said Ma.
`Anyway,' I continued gravely, `there are liquidators appointed. All Anacrites has to do is toddle along to see them, mention that he's the influential Chief Spy, and they will ensure he'll be top of the list of creditors who get paid in full. Only wise move they can make.'
`I'll tell him to do that!' Ma exclaimed, looking relieved on behalf of her protege. I ground my teeth. Telling him how to bail himself out had not really been my plan.
I waited, but Ma was still keeping her worries to herself. I felt a wrench of embarrassment, as one of her youngest children talking about her finances. For one thing, we had a long-standing tussle about whether I was ever allowed to take charge of anything. For another, she was desperately secretive.
`What about your own money, Ma?'
`Oh well, never mind that.'
`Stop fooling. You had a lot on deposit with that bank, don't pretend otherwise. Had you drawn any out recently?' `No.'
`So they had it all. Well, Anacrites is the idiot who made you put it there; you should get him to lean on them for you.' `I don't want to bother him.'
`Right. Look, I have to deal with Lucrio on another issue. I'll ask what the situation is. If there's any chance of getting your money back, I'll do what I can.'
`There is no need to go to any trouble. You don't need to worry about me,' wailed Ma pathetically. That was typical. In fact, I would never have heard the last of it if I had left her to stew in anxiety. I said politely that it was no trouble; I was a dutiful boy who loved his mother and I would happily devote my days to sorting out her affairs. Ma humphed.
This might have been the moment to mention the rumours about Anacrites growing too close as a lodger. My nerve failed.
I could hardly imagine Mother and the spy alone together. She had nursed him when he was desperately ill; that would have involved intimate personal contact – but it was surely different from having an affair. Ma and him in bed? Never! Not just because she was a lot older than him. Perhaps I just did not want to imagine my mother in bed with anyone…
`What's on your mind, son?' Ma noticed me thinking, a process she always regarded as dangerous. The traditional Roman virtues specifically exclude philosophy. Good boys don't dream. Good
mothers don't let them. She swiped at me. Out of long experience, I ducked just in time. I managed not to fall off my stool. Her hand sliced through my curls, missing my head. `Own up!'
`I've heard a few rumours lately…'
Ma bristled. `What rumours?'
`Just some nonsense.'
`What nonsense?'
`Not worth mentioning.'
`But worth thinking about until you get that silly grin!'
`Who's grinning?' I felt about three years old. The feeling was confirmed when my mother took hold of my ear, with a fierce grip that I knew too well.
`What exactly are you talking about?' demanded my mother. I wished I were fighting Bos again.
`People get the wrong idea.' I managed to writhe free. `Look, it's none of my business -' My mother's Medusa stare told me that was probably true. `I just happened to hear someone insinuate – obviously under a ridiculous misapprehension – that you might have taken up with a certain person of the male variety who sometimes frequents this place…'
Ma leapt out of her chair.
I sidestepped and hurried to the door, more than happy to leave in disgrace. With the door safely opened, I turned back and apologised.
Ma said rigidly, `I'll thank you – and I'll thank whatever busybodies have been gossiping about me – to keep their noses out of my -affairs.'
`Sorry, Ma. Of course, I never believed it -'
Her chin came up. She looked as if someone with his boots fresh from a cow-byre had dared to walk across a floor she had just washed. `If I wanted a little bit of comfort in my final years, I am surely entitled to it.'
`Oh yes, Ma.' I tried not to look shocked.
`If I did have a friend I was rather fond of,' explained Ma heavily, `assuming I dared to think I would be allowed to get away with it – then you and your high-minded sisters could rely on me to be discreet.' So she guessed it was one of my sisters spreading the story. I had better warn Junia to leave Italy.
`Sorry, Ma
`The least I could expect in return is a modicum of privacy!'
Dear gods. As a rebuttal, this was much weaker than I had hoped to hear. `Yes, Ma.'
`I am not entirely decrepit, Marcus! I have had my opportunities.'
`You are a fine woman,' I assured her, unintentionally echoing Aristagoras. `You can do what you like -' `Oh I will!' agreed my mother, with a dangerous glint.
As I retreated slowly down to street level, I was feeling tired even though I had done hardly anything that morning. In fact, I felt as if I had been sucked down a whirlpool, then spat up stark naked on some extremely pointed rocks.
The old man in the portico had managed to fix on somebody, so I slid past unobtrusively – only to hear my name called in a loud bellow by a horribly familiar voice. I turned back in horror.
`Pa!' Olympus, this was turning into a family festival.
I felt astonished. I had not seen my father in this vicinity since I was seven years old. He and Ma had never met since he bunked off. For years, Ma pretended Pa did not even exist. When they were a couple, he had used his real name, Favonius. To her, the auctioneer `Geminus' was a raffish scamp both her sons had sometimes chosen to mess about with in some masculine world she would not deign to investigate. When he wanted to communicate, even to send her money, it had to be done through an intermediary and using codes.
A mad thought struck, that when she had been talking about a new friend she might be fond of, Ma had meant that after Flora died she had made up her old fight with Pa.
No chance.
`What on earth are you doing sloping round Ma's front porch, Father? It's risking a thunderbolt.'
`Time some things were sorted.' I winced. Pa must be crazy. Interference from him was likely to bring wrath on all our heads. Junia just brought in the caupona takings. She told me the fine news that Junilla Tacita has
