‘Don’t you know? Old friend of their father, are you not their jovial Uncle Tiberius, always spoiling the darlings?’
‘No!’ Faustus moved suddenly, adjusting position on the bench as if I had made him uncomfortable with my questions.
‘Sorry.’
‘It is your work. You can’t help it … But, Albia, when you start prodding, I automatically fear you have a problem in mind.’
‘No.’
‘Well, good … Two rumbustious little tots, last time I saw them – which was not all that long ago,’ Faustus insisted defensively. ‘I do visit them. Sextus and Julia simply like being private.’ He paused, then suggested awkwardly, ‘Well, you know, sometimes a married couple don’t issue many invitations to a friend who is single.’
‘I see.’
‘Inevitably we have less in common.’
‘Right.’
‘Their social life tends to concentrate around similar young families.’
‘So true. And a bachelor will not seek out occasions where all the talk is of running a family home and educating children?’ I spoke gently, touched by his hint of loneliness.
‘I can endure family chatter.’
‘Yes, if you have to, but I said you don’t seek it.’
‘I don’t avoid it,’ he persisted. After a moment he suddenly added, ‘There must have been a third child. I once heard Julia in discussion about an older daughter. I never asked, in case it’s a tragedy. Anyway,’ Faustus concluded, ‘I am seeing enough of Sextus now. He turned to me for help with his campaign, after all. We work together on a daily basis.’
He unrolled the scroll again, an act of punctuation: a full stop firmly positioned in my nagging interrogation.
New paragraph. I can take a hint.
For some while we talked, as he ran a finger down the endless list of names. This was discussion as he and I practised the art: with serious purpose, balanced, highly productive of ideas. We contributed equally, both intent.
I fetched out the waxed tablet that I always carried, making notes for him. Since I had run out of leads on Strongbox Man, I offered to be available tomorrow to take Faustus first to see the Camilli, then to consult the retired Secretary of Petitions, Claudius Laeta, with whom Father used to work. ‘Or work against, I should say – the man was an intrepid manipulator. Always so subtle we could never deduce his real objectives.’
‘So it will be all straight answers!’
The aedile’s humour was interrupted by his slave, as Dromo shouted, ‘Master! I’m supposed to yell out when you have to go off to dinner!’
‘No, Dromo, you are supposed to approach discreetly and whisper in my ear … Sorry, Albia.’ Faustus smiled a rueful apology, although in truth I had no claim on his time. ‘He is right. I have to go. More necessary socialising. Dinner, probably lousy, with one of the possible senators …’
‘Time I let you leave.’ I made it sound as if I was happy to be rid of him. My true feelings were probably visible. ‘Is your Sextus going too?’
‘Yes, he will be on display. That is the purpose of it.’
‘Will his wife accompany him?’
‘I am not sure.’
‘Salvius Gratus, your coalition colleague?’
Amusement crinkled around the aedile’s grey eyes. ‘Yes – and before you ask, Laia Gratiana will drag herself along as well, to demonstrate her support for her brother.’ I applied an uncaring expression. Faustus gazed at me. ‘Would you like to come as my guest, Albia?’
Gulp.
I said taking along their informer might not assist Sextus Vibius. Ours is a despised profession. I heard myself add that it would look as if Faustus had brought along his mistress, which was only useful if the mistress had a great deal of political influence and was publicly known to have slept with very famous men.
Faustus reckoned it depended on the senator: some, he claimed, would find me very interesting. I laughed drily. Then he sensibly accepted my refusal.
I walked with him to the gatehouse. He touched my hand lightly. I watched him march off down Fountain Court, Dromo lolloping in his wake, like a disabled rabbit. The way Dromo fell over his feet reminded me of the slave who worked for Fundanus, the pyre-builder, struggling in a dead man’s stolen boots.
I recrossed the empty courtyard and resumed my bench. Pleasant early-evening sunlight warmed the spot where the aedile had positioned it, bringing me a sense of well-being.
My new seat aroused lively interest among the other apartment-dwellers. They were fewer than they once had been: my father was intending to sell the decrepit Eagle Building for redevelopment. It was one of those drawn-out sales that take several years, with a sluggish buyer who keeps you guessing; everybody knew it was planned, but his tenants would scream with indignation when the buyer suddenly came good and Father had to evict them.
Most lacked balconies but managed to lean out of windows, calling, ‘Ooh, get you, Flavia Albia!’ By tradition, any people who lived here were appalling.
I already felt this bench was a crucial acquisition. One of those items that become central in your daily life, the one crazy possession you make sure to save if a fire breaks out … Silly: it was in a courtyard and made of stone. All I had to do was keep burglars away from it, especially strong ones.
I was an informer. I lived alone in squalor here. I had done so for years, never expecting change. Yet Manlius Faustus had planted the idea that I might begin to strive for a better life.
Still, he was a political campaigner. That is what they always say. All lies. It never happens.
16
We rendezvoused next day at my uncle’s house. Since Faustus had met the Camilli before, I let him make his own way there. I could have suggested breakfast first at the Stargazer, but as he had spent the previous evening in his ex-wife’s company, I felt cool towards him.
We had to wait. My uncle, the most noble Quintus Camillus Justinus, was in the midst of dealing with a child, one of six he had fathered. The infant must have behaved so dreadfully that for once even Quintus and his wife Claudia felt that playing the heavy paterfamilias was required. Quintus had probably had to look up how to do it. An efficient mother, his wife was bound to possess a child-education manual.
Claudia was somewhere else in the house, trying to stop their five other little fiends giggling. Nearby, we overheard a small boy shrieking defiance, then heartbroken sobs and muffled contrition. Silence fell.
Faustus winced, though I could not tell whether he was sympathetic to the boy or to my uncle. To cover the hiatus, I did ask about the dinner, to which he replied that the swinish senator had promised his favours but was obviously wriggling and that, yes, Laia Gratiana had been present but, no, he had not spoken to her. ‘Thoughtful hostess. Did not put me next to her.’ A hostess who knew their story, then.
‘I didn’t ask.’
‘But you were dying to know.’ He sounded scratchy, so I wondered if he had a hangover.
Quintus joined us, looking ruffled. At the same time my other uncle, the equally noble Aulus Camillus Aelianus, appeared from his own house next door, making smug comments about children who misbehaved, goading Quintus. These squabbling brothers were supposed to be acting as Romans of influence, greeting clients at their morning levée. For us they were not in their togas but casual white tunics. Neither appeared to have combed his hair that morning, though in other respects they were turned out neatly.
To me, who had known them from my teens, they were still the boyish relatives I had first met when I was about fourteen and they were in their twenties. Both had been despondent and unsettled then, due to career setbacks even when Vespasian was emperor; I had thought them glamorous, though now I saw they had both caused their parents great anxiety before they settled down.
We got them into the Senate at the same time, about ten years ago. They were just shy of forty now, and typical of second-generation senators who tried to act well yet felt increasingly hampered by the current regime. Domitian distrusted the Senate, working against it where he could; he had killed or exiled many of its members, some of them prominent. My uncles had sought to join this body out of ambition, a sense of duty and, in both cases, a genuine love of law and law-making. They found the Curia frustrating and unsafe. They could not leave. Nobody resigned. Domitian weeded out people, but his way of doing so was deadly.