Wolf Whistle

‘Jovi!’ Horror of horrors, he was buck-naked in the fountain playing with what had, until recently, been a very elegant potted fern. ‘Out,’ she hissed. ‘Right now!’

‘I’ve given old Passi the slip,’ he said, rubbing soil into his hair. ‘She thinks I’m in the bog with the guts-ache.’

‘And so you will be when I’m finished with you. Out of there, this instant!’

Would anyone notice the colour of the water if she scattered petals on the top? From the upper galleries floated down the sounds of womenfolk preparing for an evening, the scrape of clothes chests, barked instructions, the sickly mix of unguents, creams and perfumes. Sweet Juno, please let the old crabs be perfectionists. Please don’t let them come down yet. As Claudia lunged for the boy, he darted out of the way, crashing the flat of his hands on the water. To some extent she sympathized. Previously, when he’d encountered the stuff, it had always come in a pail. After five attempts, however, Claudia was ready to negotiate.

‘If you come out of the pool, I’ll let you play there all day tomorrow and we’ll even heat the water for you, how does that sound?’

‘Can I keep the plant?’

Call that a plant? ‘Yours for ever, Jovi. Only come here, please.’

‘Do I get a hug, too?’

Anything, anything, just name your price. I’ll give you the sun, the moon and the stars, only please, please climb out of the pool before those wretched aunts find ‘Larentia. Julia. How nice.’

Too late now for explanations, anything she said would seem like a cover-up. Imagine it from Larentia’s viewpoint. She walks in to be confronted by her son’s widow and a small boy in his birthday suit, cuddled up so tight they’re both dripping wet and covered with mud. Could one paint a cosier picture of domesticity? Jovi jumped down and began to prattle about everything and nothing to his new audience, and Claudia decided her only recourse was to silence. Even when Jovi told them proudly he had no idea who his father was and Larentia snapped ‘I’ll bet you don’t, boy’, Claudia merely clamped her teeth tighter together. When that dessicated old bag learned the truth, there would not be a plate large enough on which to serve her humble pie. In the meantime, it was reward enough watching her frosty-faced sister-in-law turn puce when Jovi, quite without guile, took it upon himself to show Julia his willie.

After a mortified Cypassis had rounded up the runaway, Larentia crossed one hand over the other on her stomach and turned to face her daughter-in-law. ‘I think,’ she said, spitting out one word at a time, ‘this might be as good a time as any to discuss finance, so let us begin with my granddaughter’s dowry.’

Well done, Larentia. Just when I thought we were only ever going to eat the bloody thing, you finally start talking turkey.

The dowry, of course, was a sensitive issue. Legally the girl was Claudia’s stepdaughter, but from birth, Gaius had foisted his unwanted daughter on to his frigid, childless sister, Julia. If for nothing else, Claudia had loved him for that, because in the five years that Claudia had known her, the girl had proved awkward and sulky and dull, traits which in children can be overlooked, forgiven even, but not when she was entering womanhood and a competitive marriage market. Even in an arranged marriage, a man needs to feel some attraction for his wife. Claudia’s stepdaughter had all the sex appeal of a plucked goose.

‘Or would you,’ snapped Larentia, ‘prefer we start with Julia’s endowment?’

Claudia carefully examined her nails. The lyre player she had hired for the evening began to warm up in the banqueting hall. ‘Since when, pray, did Julia have an endowment?’ she asked quietly. Gaius had left Claudia the lot.

The old woman’s eyes narrowed. Clearly she had been expecting blackmail to be an easier path. ‘Morally-’ she began.

‘Morally?’ Claudia evicted soil from under her thumbnail. ‘A strange word to use, when you and I both know, Larentia, any money I bestow on Julia would be swallowed up by her wastrel of a husband-’

‘What?’ squawked Julia. ‘How dare you call my-’

‘-who has already “borrowed” his foster child’s generous annuity.’

As Julia fought to grasp the issues, it occurred to her that both women were talking as though she wasn’t here. She’d expected that gold-digging whore to cold-shoulder her, but Mother?

‘It’s quite beyond belief,’ continued Claudia, raising her voice to override Julia’s shrill protests, ‘how an architect can run short of money when the Emperor is undertaking the restoration of over eighty public buildings and temples, not to mention flood defences, bridges, aqueducts and parks.’

Larentia waved that aside. ‘Everyone knows my son-in-law’s a prat-’ She broke off and turned to Julia. ‘For gods’ sakes, woman, if you have nothing sensible to say, go away. Go on. Shoo.’