“You should have given one to my wife,” he says, pulling Dido closer to kiss her when the song is finished. “For all the children she’s given me.” It should be a compliment, but Amara can sense an unpleasant edge to his tone.
“You have a fine son,” a woman replies from another couch, her voice querulous. She is younger than Cornelius and painfully thin. Even the brightly coloured dress she wears, bunched in fat folds of expensive fabric, cannot hide how tiny she is underneath. Lying beside her is another woman, a little older, scowling ferociously. A friend, or perhaps even her mother. Amara still finds it difficult to understand the Roman custom of respectable women attending mixed dinner parties. Her own father would never have insulted his family by insisting they join him.
“Thank you, Calpurnia. Yes, one son after an abundance of girls.”
“And delightful girls they are too,” another man declares. “A credit to you both.”
“Women have their uses,” Cornelius replies, letting go of Dido. “Will you sing another song, little dryad?”
“Would you like a story?” Dido asks, glancing over her shoulder at him as she walks back towards Amara. “We can tell you the tale of Crocus and his love for Smilax.”
“And we will sing of the goddess Flora who gave the unhappy lovers new life,” Amara adds, finally breaking away from Quintus whose wandering hands have made her fearful for her expensive clothes.
Dido heads towards the fountain and Amara follows. In the lamplight, their figures must blend with the marble nymphs, she thinks, the hint of nakedness, the sparkle of gold on their bodies. She begins to play and, as always, watches Dido’s transformation with wonder. The way she stands, so unlike herself, is both comic and somehow sinister. She could almost be one of their customers at the brothel, singing the role of the mortal Crocus in a parody of thwarted masculine lust.
Amara is Smilax, her voice deliberately shrill in rejection. Nobody is meant to have sympathy for the nymph, after all. She exaggerates the comedy, at times pausing her playing and holding up the lyre between them as a physical barrier. The guests laugh as Dido chases her, the song becoming more and more ridiculous, until they shift into another tune, allowing Flora to transform Crocus into a beautiful flower and Smilax into ugly bindweed. Dido sings the last notes, lifting her arms up like petals to the sun, until she stops, as still as the statues behind them.
The guests cheer, and Amara feels a flood of relief. She looks round at the unfamiliar faces, shining with wine and enjoyment. She smiles, bowing low. Egnatius is beside her when she straightens up, whispering that they must join the diners for a while. He leads them both, leaving Amara at one couch and taking Dido on to another.
“I always say Greek girls are the best,” declares one of the two men she is now sitting between. He reminds her of an overfilled wineskin, not quite contained in the tight folds of his clothes.
“I like a bit of Gallic passion myself,” replies the other, sipping his drink. His thick beard is curled, the black shot through with grey and ginger. “Though that was a lovely little number you sang just now. Not heard those words before.”
“It’s from a Greek poem,” Amara replies. “The tune is local to Campania.”
“Fuscus will like that,” the first man says, nodding at his companion. “Always interested in poetry. More time to enjoy it now his stint as duumvir is finished.” Amara turns to Fuscus and smiles, trying not to make her sudden interest in an influential man too obvious. The duoviri are the town’s most powerful elected officials. Fuscus has a mildness to his face, she thinks. Perhaps he will be kind. Surely that’s more important than the fact his hair is thinning? “Can’t say I know so much poetry myself,” the larger man continues. “I’m Umbricius,” he adds, as if expecting her to be able to identify him by name alone.
“Forgive me,” Amara replies in her thickest Greek accent. “I only just arrived in Pompeii.”
“Oldest fish sauce business in town,” Umbricius says. “And the best.” He picks up a small jug from the side table and pours it liberally onto the plate of meat in front of them. Then he tears a strip off and holds it out for her on his knife. “Tell me what you think.”
Amara takes it, eating the unknown food smothered in fish sauce as daintily as she can. It tastes like fermented anchovies left out too long in the sun. “Delicious!” she exclaims.
“What other Greek poems will you be singing?” Fuscus asks.
He is watching her lick the last of the sauce from her fingers. “Sappho,” she says, leaning closer.
“Not very original.” Fuscus stares through the transparent fabric of her dress. “But still a goddess among poets.”
“What about some Latin?” Umbricius sniffs, clearly irritated at being overlooked.
“We will be performing a few lines by our host.”
The two men laugh. “Oh, you poor girls,” Fuscus says. “Do you have to?”
Amara knows it is one thing for Cornelius’s friends to mock him, quite something else for her to join them. “It is always a pleasure to honour our host.”
“Yes, yes, of course, of course,” Fuscus says, rolling his eyes. “Well, I shall look forward to Sappho, at any rate.” He takes her hand, rubbing his thumb over her fingers in an insistent, circular motion. “And perhaps you will join me again, afterwards.”
The atmosphere of the evening shifts as the hours pass and the wine flows. After every song, the guests become freer with her and Dido, their comments lewder. Fuscus exchanges words – or perhaps money – with Egnatius, who makes it clear that she is now the duumvir’s special ‘guest’. As the men become louder, the small group of wives play less and less of a role, retreating into their own self-contained gathering across two couches. Not that this assuages Cornelius’s bitterness towards his wife. He contradicts everything she says – if she enjoys the honey-glazed dormouse, he finds it too sweet, her hopes of sunshine tomorrow are scorned. Even when she is silent, he cannot leave her alone, finding reason to mock her posture, her spinning, the way she holds her glass.
Already small, she seems to shrink further with every comment. Amara notices that her hand, when she raises the wine to her lips, is shaking. “I find I am exhausted,” Calpurnia says at last. “I am sorry to leave you all.”
Cornelius says nothing, as if she hasn’t spoken. Thin and pale, his wife slips from her own dining room, looking more like a servant than the hostess.
“I don’t know why he doesn’t just divorce the poor girl,” Fuscus says to Umbricius. “Put her out of her misery.”
“Severus would ask for the whole dowry back if he had to take his daughter home. He’s told me so himself.” Changing his focus, Umbricius nods towards the older scowling woman who was sharing Calpurnia’s couch and is now stabbing at the fruit on her plate with vicious determination. “My wife dotes on Calpurnia. I’ll be getting a fucking earful after this, I can tell you. She’ll be nagging me all night to talk to Cornelius. I’ve told her it makes him worse. But women never listen.”
“That’s why I left mine at home,” Fuscus replies, his arm draped round Amara.
“You’ll be staying then?” There’s more than a hint of envy in Umbricius’s voice.
“Oh, I think so, don’t you?” Fuscus replies, drawing Amara a little closer. “I think so.”
She smiles at him, hoping to convey how irresistible she finds the idea. Behind his head, she can see Dido sitting with Quintus and Marcus. The three of them are laughing together, like a pastoral scene of young lovers. She feels a pang of envy then reminds herself what a powerful friend Fuscus may prove to be. Neither of the Vinalia boys have shown much promise as regular patrons.