Three Hands In The Fountain

`You're a fool, Falco. How can you do your job while you're acting as a children's nurse?'

`I'm used to it. Marina was always parking Marcia on me.'

Marina was my late brother's girlfriend, a woman who knew how to leech. I was particularly fond of little Marcia, a fact Marina exploited with skill. After Festus died she had wrung me dry of sympathy, guilt and (her unashamed preference) cash.

`There have to be rules,' Petro continued darkly. He was sitting on my front porch with his, big feet up on the rotted handrail, blocking the stairs. In the absence of action he was eating a bowl of damsons. `I'm not, having us appear unprofessional.'

I pointed out that the main reason we looked like stray dogs in a market was that we spent our time lounging around winebars because we had failed to acquire any paying clients. `Julia's no bother. All she does is sleep.'

`And cry! How can you impress visitors with a newborn bawling on a blanket on the table? How can you interrogate a suspect while you're wiping her backside? In the name of the gods, Falco, how can you go out on discreet surveillance with a crib strapped on your back?'

`I'll cope.'

`The first time you're in a scrimmage and some thug grabs the babe as a hostage, it will be a different tale.'

I said nothing. He had got me there.

He had not yet finished, however. `How can you even enjoy a flagon and a quiet discussion at a caupona When my old friend started devising a list of grievances, he made it a ten scroll encyclopaedia.

To shut him up I suggested we went for lunch. This aspect of the freelance life cheered him up as usual and out we went, of necessity taking Julia. When it was nearly time for her to be fed we had to go home again, in order to hand her over to Helena, but a short meal-like taking water with our wine jug for once – could only be healthy, as I pointed out to Petro. He told me what I could do with my praise for the abstemious life.

Helena was not home yet, so we settled back on the porch as if we had been there ever since she left. To reinforce the fraud, we resumed the same argument too.

We could easily have continued wrangling for hours. It was like being eighteen-year old legionaries again. On our posting to, we had wasted days debating pointless issues, our only entertainment in the compulsory periods of guard duty that intruded between drinking Celtic beer until we were sick and convincing ourselves tonight would be the night we gave up our virginities to one of the cheap camp prostitutes. (We could never afford it; our pay was always in hock for the beer.)

But our doorstep symposium was to be disturbed. We watched the approaching trouble with interest. `Look at this bunch of idiots.' `Seem to be lost.'

`Lost and daft.'

`It must be you they want, then.' `No, I'd say it's you.'

There were three deadweights and a dozy lout who seemed to be their leader. They were dressed in worn tunics that even my frugal mother would have refused to use as floorcloths. Rope belts, bum-starver skirts, ragged necklines, unstitched seams, missing sleeves. When we first spotted them they were wandering around Fountain Court like stray sheep. They looked as if they had come here for something, but had forgotten what. Somebody must have sent them; this group didn't have enough gumption to have devised a plan themselves. Whoever it was may have given full directions, but he had wasted his breath.

After a time they converged on the laundry opposite.; We watched them discussing whether to venture inside until Lenia bounced out; she must have thought they were bent on stealing clothes from her drying lines so she had emerged to help them pick out something good. Well, she could see that they needed it. Their present attire was deplorable.

They all held a long conversation, after which the four dummies wandered off up the stone stairs that would lead if they persisted – to my old apartment at the top. Lenia turned towards Petro and me with a nude mime that said it was us these inept persons were seeking. We also guessed she had told them that if they failed to find us up there they would not have missed much. Typically, she had made no attempt to point out that we were both lounging over here it full, view:

Much later the four dopey characters ambled aimlessly back down again. They all hung around in the street, for while. Vague discussions took place. Then one spotter Cassius, the baker whose shop had been burned down during Lenia's ill-fated marriage rites. He now hired oven somewhere else, but ran a stall here for his old regulars. The hungry dummy begged a roll, and must have asked after us at the same time. Cassius presumably owned up. The dummy wandered back to his companions and told them the stony. They all turned round slowly and looked up at us.

Petro and I did not move. He was still on a stool with his feet up; I was lodged against the frame of the front door filing my nails.