ODE TO A BANKER

He was named after me. That did not make him easier to handle. Junia and Gaius, with no children of their own, had adopted this scrap after his own parents abandoned him once they realised he was deaf. As I fended off his attentions, Junia grabbed him. She turned him round to face her, seized his wrist – her method of gaining his attention – then gripped him either side of his little face, squeezing his cheeks so his mouth moved to follow her saying, 'Un-cle Mar-cus!' The child calmed down very slightly, repeating her words approximately. He was a pretty boy, now showing some intelligence, and he watched Junia carefully. If anyone could do it, my sister would one day make him talk.

`She spends hours like that with him,' Gaius Baebius informed us admiringly. He had settled himself in my favourite place, holding my best beaker between both his hands. `At home we draw pictures as well. He's learning things slowly, and he's a good little artist too.' He loved the boy (he even loved my sister, which was just as well because nobody else would); however, I guessed that as a parent he was little use. He and Junia were made for each other: narrow-minded, furiously ambitious mediocrities. That said, Junia had brains and sticking power. In fact, if she had been rather less brainy, I might have found her more bearable. She was three years older than me. She had always regarded me like a filthy blot staining a newly-scrubbed floor.

Ajax, their mad dog, now leapt on me. He was black and white,

with a long snout, ferocious teeth that did occasionally sink into strangers, and a long feathered tail. He made Nux, who was a vagabond, seem well-disciplined. Just as I got a grip on him, he leapt off again. Then he kept barking and running in circles, trying to rush into the bedroom, where I guessed Helena had penned in Nux.

`You are ragging him,' Junia accused me. `He'll never quieten down now.'

`I'm going to tie him up in the porch. Nux is expecting puppies and I don't want her to be harassed.'

`Time you thought of having another one too, Helena!' Junia knew instinctively just how to enrage Helena.

You are turning into Ma,' I said.

And that's another thing -' Apparently some complaint had been voiced before I arrived. `I blame you for introducing that dreadful man to Mother.'

`If you mean Anacrites, he was dying at the time. I wish he had been finished, but that's a spy for you. When he looks as if somebody has caved half his head in and he can't last the night, he suddenly reveals that he has an iron constitution and was just fooling – then he stabs you in the back.'

`It's disgusting!' snapped Junia. Her black Cleopatra ringlets quivered and what she possessed in the way of a bosom swelled with indignation beneath the shiny material of her over-laundered gown.

`He pays Ma the rent. Stop worrying. One quiet lodger is not too much for her. Ma loves having someone to fuss over. Since Anacrites went to live with her she's looked really quite spruce.'

`You have no idea!' raged my sister. She threw an angry glance at Helena. But after the offspring hint Helena merely smiled frostily, refusing to join in Junia's rant.

I decided not to refer to Anacrites' apparent yen for Maia. Maia had enough problems. I was squinting into various' bowls and jugs that were set on the table, though Gaius Baebius, who was always stolidly ravenous, seemed to have cleared out everything snackable. He saw me looking, with his usual complacence. He was a customs clerk, so I hated him even before I noticed the empty nutshell pile at his elbow and the trace of olive oil gleaming on his chin.

Little Marcus Baebius was growing frustrated. Junia wanted to berate me, so she had stopped paying attention to him. Gaius tried taking him from Junia, but this produced only paroxysms of fury. In the end, the anguished tot hurled himself face down, beating his head on the floorboards while he yelled and wept in a spectacular fashion.

Julia Junilla, our daughter, sat on Helena's lap behaving perfectly for a change. She was staring at her cousin, obviously taking tantrum lessons. I could see she was impressed.

`Ignore him,' mouthed Junia. That was rather hard to do. It was a small room, overcrowded with four adults and two children.

`I think it's time you took him home, Junia.' `I have to talk to you.' `Can't it wait?'

`No; it's about Father.'

`Pa as well! You seem to be wearing yourself out on family duties -' `We saw him today, Marcus.'

Ignored, Marcus Baebius had stopped wailing and was playing dead. Junia would shriek when she noticed. Ajax went and sat on him, slobbering aimlessly. In the silence, I could now hear desperate whining from Nux in the other room.

`Leave it, Junia. Pa is in a mess, but he will sort himself out once he thinks up some new way to annoy people.'

`Well, if you lack a sense of duty, brother, I know I don't.'