ODE TO A BANKER

`Isn't it just a question of falling on him in his grief, and pointing out that you would like to be his heirs?' I was too tired to be careful. `Come off it, Marcus,' muttered Gaius, roused to defend the specimen of womanhood he had chosen as his prickly wife.

I had had enough. `What do you want, Junia?' `I came to keep you informed.' `Of what?'

`I have volunteered to help our Father. I shall be running his caupona for him.'

It was at that moment that the party increased in numbers and the tension rose rapidly too: Maia stormed in.

She had Marius with her – her nine-year-old elder boy, whom I had recommended as a spare hand for the auction house. Maia clutched him to her skirts, with her hand tangled in his tunic as if he was in some trouble. He must have been present when Junia tackled Pa, and had let slip to his mother what he had heard. He winced at me. I mimed back a cringe.

`So!' exclaimed Maia. She definitely knew then. It was going to be rough. Ajax sprang up and was about to jump all over her, but Maia snarled herself and sent him slinking into a comer, completely cowed.

`Hello, Maia, you poor darling,' cooed Junia. They had never got on. Junia stepped over her own prone child (who had stopped holding his breath since he could see it was not working) and grappled Maia for, sympathetic kissing. Maia broke free, with a shudder. I waved frantically to tell my outraged younger sister not to press charges over the caupona scam.

Ever quick, Maia belted in her wrath. She and I had always been conspiratorial, and usually allied against our elder siblings. That left Junia looking for a quarrel which failed to materialise. She assumed an expression of slight puzzlement. With years of practice, Maia and I could make her feel threatened without revealing how.

`How are you bearing up to widowhood, Maia??

'Oh, don't you worry about me.'

`And here's poor little Marius!'

Marius sidled free of both my sisters and huddled against me where I gave him a surreptitious hug. Knowing that Maia hated her children being showered with treats, Junia insisted on donating him an as to buy sweetmeats. Marius accepted the coin as if it were coated with poison, deliberately forgetting to say thanks. Junia pulled him up on that, while Maia seethed.

Junia then made sure she told Maia of her own scheme to run Flora's.

'Oh really?' said Maia indifferently – then she and I set about making fun of the idea that stiff and stately Junia might ever work behind a foodshop bar.

`A caupona is hard work,' Helena joined in.

`You're all being ridiculous,' Junia assured us. `I shall only supervise from a distance. The place is worked by waiting staff'

We laughed openly at that. I knew Apollonius, the sole waiter, much better than she did, and I could not see him putting up with her. Anyway, Junia had a long history of quarrelling with minions. `I don't know why you want to take on such a burden,' said Helena. Her voice was deceptively gentle. `I thought your role in life was as Gaius' companionable partner – true Roman marriage: keeping the home, nurturing your child, and sharing your husband's intimate confidences.'

Junia looked at Helena with deep suspicion; all my wicked lass had left out of the idyllic myth was `working your loom in the atrium', though that really would have given the game away. Not a flicker of a smile betrayed Helena.

Junia always was an independent woman,' Gaius oozed. `She is so capable we can't waste her talents. She will enjoy a little project of her own.

`It will be the first time I ever remember our Junia holding down a job,' I scoffed. As far as I knew, she had lined up Gaius as a respectable prospect when she was about fourteen. She had sniffed out that he happened to be an orphan, left with his own apartment. He was older than Junia and already in work in the customs service – his only career. Gaius was a one job lifer; his employer could treat him like a slave, yet his loyalty would never fade. Equally, being snaffled by my sister had been a relief to him. I doubt if he would ever have had a romantic experience otherwise. He and Junia had started saving up for ghastly furniture and an eight-bowl dinner set the minute they first held hands on a garden bench.

`Better send word to the Valerian that they'll be getting a lot of new customers from over the road,' Maia jibed acidly.

`What's the Valerian? Junia had clearly not surveyed the market before rushing in to claim this enterprise. We told her. She still rejected all suggestions that her venture might fail due to unsuitability and inexperience. `I just think people should rally around Pa,' she boasted. We congratulated her on her piety, making it sound as insincere as possible. She and her family left not long afterwards.

Immediately I told Maia about the Emperor's ban on hot takeaways. `Trust me, girl. I'm quick to find you opportunities – and even quicker to get you out of mistakes.' She thought about the commercial implications, then simmered down.