Each gave me an upsettingly limp hand.
'We've been admiring the collection.' My father liked to slaver.
'What do you think?' Carus asked me, probably sensing more reserve. He was like a cat that jumps straight on the lap of the only visitor who sneezes at fur.
In my role as the auctioneer's respectful son I said, 'I have never seen better quality.'
'You will admire our Aphrodite.' His slow, light, slightly pedantic voice made this virtually an instruction. Carus led the way for us to view the wonder, which they kept until last in the collection, in a separate courtyard garden. 'We had the water put in specially.'
Another Aphrodite. First the painter's special, now an even more suggestive little madam. I was becoming a connoisseur.
The Carus model was a Hellenistic marble whose sensuality stopped the breath. This goddess was too nearly indecent to be displayed in a temple. She stood in the middle of a circular pool, half undressed, turning to gaze back over one lithe shoulder as she admired the reflection of her own superlative rear. Light from the still water suffused her, setting up a gorgeous contrast between her nakedness and the rigid pleating of the chiton she had half removed.
'Very nice,' said my father. The Aphrodite looked even more satisfied.
Carus consulted me.
'Sheer beauty. Isn't she a copy of that very striking Venus on the great lake at Nero's Golden House?'
'Oh yes. Nero believed he had the original!' Carus said 'believed' with a flick of contemptuous malice, then he smiled. He glanced at his wife. Servia smiled too. I gathered Nero thought wrongly.
Putting one over on another collector gave them even more pleasure than possessing their incomparable piece. This was bad news. They would enjoy putting one over on us.
It was time to tackle business.
My father walked away around the path, drawing Carus with him while I murmured about nothing much to Servia. We had planned this. When two members of the Didius family go visiting there is always some fraught plan-usually an interminable dispute about what time we are going to leave the house we have not even arrived at. On this occasion Pa had suggested we should each try our wheedling skills on both parties, then we could adopt whichever approach seemed best. Not this variation, anyway. I was getting nowhere with the woman. It was like plumping a cushion that had lost half its feathers. I could see Pa going rather red, too, as he and Carus conversed.
After a while Geminus brought Carus back round the remaining half of the circle. Adroitly changing partners, he imposed what was left of his famous attraction for women on the woman of the house, while I attacked her spindly spouse. I watched Pa oozing masculine civility over Servia as she waddled at his side. She hardly seemed to notice his efforts, which made me smile.
Carus and I moved to stone benches, where we could admire the pride of the collection.
'So what do you know about marbles, young man?' He spoke as if I was eighteen and had never before seen a goddess undressing.
I had stared at more nude femininity than he owned in his whole gallery, and mine was alive, but I was a man of the world, not some boasting barbarian, so I let it pass.
In our introductory message, I had been described as a junior partner at the auction-house. So I played gauche and offered, 'I know the biggest market is in copies. We cannot shift originals these days even if we bundle them in fives and throw in a set of fish skillets.'
Carus laughed. He knew I was not referring to anything so important as a Phidias original. Anyone could shift that. Somebody probably had.
My father despaired of entrancing Servia even more quickly than I had, so they both rejoined us. These preliminaries had established the rules. Nobody wanted to be charmed. There would be no easy release from our debt. Now Pa and I sat side by side, waiting for our limpid hosts to put the pressure on us.
'Well, that's a sign of modern life,' I carried on. 'Only fakes count!' By now I knew that in chasing after Festus I was destined to expose another one.
'Nothing wrong with a decently done fake,' Pa opined. He looked calm, but I knew he was miserable. 'Some of the best current reproductions will become antiques in their own right.'
I grinned desperately. 'I'll make a note to invest in a good Roman Praxiteles, if ever I have the cash and the storage-room!' As a hint of our family poverty this was not impressing our creditors.
'A Lysippus is what you want!' Geminus advised me, tapping his nose.
'Yes, I saw the fine Alexander in the gallery here!' I turned to our hosts confidentially: 'You can always tell an auctioneer. Apart from a wandering look in his eye from taking bids off the wall-inventing non-existent calls, you know-he's the one whose ugly snout bends like a carrot that's hit a stone, after years of giving collectors his dubious investment tips:' We were getting nowhere. I dropped the act. 'Pa, Carus and Servia know what they want to invest in. They want a Poseidon, and they want it by Phidias.'
Cassius Carus inspected me coldly in his fussy way. But it was Servia, their financier, who smoothed down the thick white folds of her mantle and broke in. 'Oh no, it's not a future investment. That piece already belongs to us!'
XLIII
I saw my father grip his hands.
Rejecting the humble role that had been imposed on me, I hardened my attitude. 'I came to this tale rather late. Do you mind if we just run over the facts? Am I right in my understanding? My elder brother Didius Festus is said to have acquired from Greece a modest statue, alleged to be a Poseidon and thought to be by Phidias?'
'Known to be bought by us,' responded Carus, obviously thinking he had put me down wittily.
'Pardon me if I'm churlish, but do you have a receipt?'
'Naturally,' said Servia. She must have dealt with my family before.
'I have been shown it, Marcus,' murmured Pa. I ignored him.
'It was made out to you by Festus?' Carus nodded. 'Festus is dead. So what has this to do with us?'
'My point exactly!' stated Pa. He drew himself up. 'I made my son Festus independent of parental authority when he joined the armed forces.' This was probably a lie, but no outsider could refute it. It sounded straight, though I could not imagine why Pa and Festus would have gone through such a formality. Acquiring emancipation from the power of his father is something that only troubles a son who feels bound by his father's power in the first place. In the Didius family this had never applied. Any pleb on the Aventine would probably grin widely and say the same.
Carus refused to accept any disclaimer. 'I expect a parent to take responsibility for his son's debts.'
I felt a strong need for irony. 'Nice to see that some people still believe in the family as an indissoluble unit, Father!'
'Bull's testicles!' Maybe Carus and Servia took this as a reference to the mystical rites of an Eastern religious cult.
Maybe not.
'My papa's upset,' I excused him to the couple. 'When somebody says he owes them half a million, he loses his grip.'
Carus and Servia gazed at me as if what I said was incomprehensible. Their indifference to our problem astonished me. It also made me shiver.
I had been in many places where the atmosphere was more sinister. Toughs armed with knives or staves have a vivid effect; there were none of those here. Yet the mood was sour and in its way just as intimidating. The message reaching us was uncompromising. We would pay up, or we would suffer; suffer until we gave in.