ODE TO A BANKER

He faced up to the limp wet puppy, holding it between both hands, one dirty thumb propping up its flopping head and two fingers opening its pale mouth. To our astonishment, he blew air from his own lungs into it. After a moment of passive resistance, the pup could no longer bear the reek of garlic on his breath. It choked and glugged and tried to escape. It was handed to my nephew who was told to wrap it up and rub it vigorously to make it breathe by itself. I gave the vet the price of several drinks, mainly for preventing heartache for Marius; he sloped off, then when the pup had warmed up, we placed it beside Nux.

At first, she just wagged her tail at us. Noticing the bedraggled creature, she sniffed it, wearing the bemused look she had whenever Helena mentioned that Nux had let out a fart. Then her offspring moved; Nux pawed it – and decided she might as well clean it and allow it to take over her life.

`She knows she's his mother.' I felt thrilled. `Look, he's starting to suckle. Helena, come and look at this!'

Marius tugged at my tunic. `Come away, Uncle Marcus. We have to leave her quiet now. She must not be disturbed, or she might reject him. There must be no parade of nosy sightseers, and I think your baby had best stay in another room.' Marius, an intellectual at heart, had gone into this. I knew Helena had lent him a compendium of animal husbandry. Flushed with knowledge and ownership, he refused to entrust his precious pet to amateurs. `I'll feed Nux for you when it is needed. You two,' he told Helena and me balefully, `are rather too excitable, if you don't mind my saying so. By the way, Nuxie seems to have given you a problem…'

How right he was. Despite all my efforts to find her an attractive basket in a dark nook where she could have her grotesquely oversized pup in privacy, Nux had chosen her own spot: on my toga, in the middle of our bed.

`Let us hope,' said Helena, fairly gently, `you are not required at any formal dress functions in the next few days, Marcus.' Well, at least that was unlikely; August has some advantages.

XXXIV

H

ELENA AND I had to make up a bed that night on my old reading couch. This, it has to be said, was so much of a squash for two of us that we did start behaving like infants and were without doubt what Marius would pompously call too excitable.

`Does Nux having a puppy make you want another baby of your own?' I giggled.

`You want an invitation to do something about it?'

`Is that an offer?'

That was when Helena told me she was expecting for the second time – and when we both grew still and a good deal quieter.

All the time Helena had been pregnant with Julia, she had been terrified the birth would be difficult. It had been. They both nearly died. Now neither of us was able to talk about our fears for the next baby.

The following day Marius spent most of his time with us. Sitting cross-legged near his puppy, anyway. The presence of Helena and me was irrelevant to him.

I was at home, writing up records for the vigiles of the debtors Aelianus had interviewed. As a senator's `son, documentation was beneath him; if he continued to work with me, I would have to teach him better habits. He expected me to provide a cohort of secretaries to make sense of his notes.

Well, I would give him advice. If he ignored it, then some day when he was in court with a client (some client I did not care for; there were plenty of those), a barrister would demand written evidence and the noble Aelianus would come sadly adrift.

In the afternoon Marius disappeared, but he was back again that evening, this time carrying a rolled blanket and his personal foodbowl.

`Joining us as a lodger? Does your mother know?'

`I told her. The puppy has to stay with Nux for several weeks.'

`Nux and the puppy are fine, Marius. You can come and see them whenever you want. You don't need to guard them all night long.' 'Arctos.'

`Who's that?'

`I'm going to call him Arctos. The Great Bear. He doesn't want a stupid name like "Nux".'

`It sounds as if you don't trust us with little Arctos,' Helena said. `Nux will take care of him very well, Marius.'

`Oh, this is just an excuse,' Marius replied offhandedly. Helena and I were taken aback. 'I prefer to be at your house. It is such a bore going home after a long day's heavy work in the warehouse' – I knew from Pa that Marius only did light duties, and he only turned up when it suited him. As he moaned about his labours, I could hear his late father in him, different though he and Famia were – only to find that man Anacrites is always there.'

`Oh yes?' I said, stiffening. `What does "always" mean?' `Most evenings,' Marius confirmed glumly. `Is that all?'

'He doesn't stay the night. It has not come to "This is your nice new father" yet,' my nephew assured me, with the astounding selfconfidence Maia's children had always possessed. For nine, he was quite a person of the world. A fatherless boy has to grow up fast, but this was frightening. `Cloelia and I would do our best to put a stop to that.'