Cast Not the Day (13 page)

I asked him why, this being so, he was any different.

He paused at this, and I saw his face darken.

‘Because,’ he said, ‘of my father.’

His home had stood beside a quick-flowing river prone to flood, and his father had forced him to swim as soon as he could walk; not, he told me, by gentle easy lessons as he was doing, but by tossing him headlong into the icy torrent, then sending the slave to fish him out before he drowned.

I shuddered at the thought, and said his father sounded a harsh man.

‘So he was. But I learned fast, and knowledge of swimming has saved me more than once. I suppose you could say I have him to thank, though I should choke on the words before I told him.’

We were together on the grassy bank, drying off in the sun. The hot air smelled of river mud and the faint animal scent of Durano’s body lying beside me.

‘Where is he now?’ I asked.

‘At home in Gaul, for all I know.’

‘You don’t see him?’

‘No.’

And then, as if this had been too abrupt, he said, ‘I never pleased him; it’s easier not to go. Anyway, he has a new, young wife. She doesn’t care for me.’ He glanced up, and the sun caught his blue eyes. ‘Or maybe,’ he added with a wry laugh, ‘she cares too much.’

He fell silent and frowned out at the flat wooded islet in the middle of the river. We had spent the afternoon swimming out to it and back. Absently, he reached out and touched my side, and traced the contours of my ribs with his finger. He was always doing such things.

‘What of your own father?’ he said presently. ‘Was he a good man?’

At first I did not answer. Instead, I drew back my arm and skimmed a pebble at the water, and watched it hop away. I had told him this and that about myself, when he had asked; but I was uneasy speaking of the past. There was too much pain in it.

‘So it is said,’ I answered with a shrug. ‘But I hardly knew him.’

He nodded and frowned. Before he could speak again I stood and with a wide swing threw another stone – too hard, so that it did not skim, but sliced under the surface and vanished.

For a moment I watched the place where it had gone.

‘It’s warm,’ I said. ‘I’m going back in the water.’ And I went splashing off through the shallows.

I did not look back.

But I knew his eyes were watching me.

The time of Midsummer festival came.

The Christians, who are patient in their schemes, have tried to usurp it, as they have with all the old high days, knowing the people will continue to celebrate it no matter what they say.

My aunt and uncle and Albinus went off to some banquet of the bishop’s. Most citizens, though, were out under the warm evening sky, garlanding the streets with sprays of lilac and broom and honeysuckle, and laying up bonfires in preparation for nightfall.

I waited till the house was empty, then slipped off to see my friends.

We had arranged to meet at a tavern in the old quarter. When I arrived, Tascus, Romulus and Equitius were already there, boisterous and loud from wine. Durano came soon after, dressed in a tunic of dark red, with a flower-garland on his head. I had never seen him look so fine.

He shoved the others along the bench and sat beside me. All around us people were talking and laughing. A great charcoal fire glowed in an open grate, and above it a pig was turning on a spit, filling the air with the smell of roasting meat.

Durano filled my cup, and then his own, and raising it said, ‘To you! You too should celebrate tonight.’

Laughing I asked him why.

‘Because if you were one of my recruits you’d be ready to pass out, that’s why. There’s not much more I can teach you; the rest you’ll get by yourself – from practice, and from being in battle. So drink and be happy. You deserve it.’

I threw my arm over his shoulder. ‘Then we should both be celebrating, you and I, for I have learned only what you taught me.’

‘To happiness then!’ he cried. We crashed our bronze wine-cups together and drained them, and refilled them from the jar, and drank again.

Tascus, Romulus and Equitius, meanwhile, were discussing at the top of their voices where to go next. Tascus favoured old Phason’s place, up by the theatre; Equitius was for taking a turn by the river before the crowds gathered, to decide on a vantage place to watch the bonfires. So we argued, and drank, and laughed, and drank again. Even in that crowded rowdy tavern we were the loudest, shouting out to one another, banging down our cups when they were empty, and bawling out for the serving-boy.

Romulus had heard there was music and dancing in the forum, and so, in the end, we decided to go there. By then Hesperus was risen, shining like a beacon low in the pale dusk sky, and when we reached the forum the torches were flaring high in their cressets along the wall of the long colonnade. There were pipes and flutes and tambourines. Someone pulled me into the throng of dancing people, and for a while, reeling and leaping, I lost sight of the others. But then I felt a hand on my shoulder, gently urging me away.

I turned. ‘Come,’ said Durano, his face lit by wine and firelight, ‘let’s walk awhile.’

We edged out of the press, our arms slung around one another, and at length came to the city wall. Then we climbed the foot-worn ragstone steps to the high walkway. From the top Durano pointed, saying, ‘See there.’

I looked out. I had forgotten the bonfires. They had been kindled in the age-old tradition, and were blazing up into the star-flecked sky, yellow flame and rising red-glowing embers, dotted across the dark land, with tiny hopping figures dancing around them.

‘A fine sight,’ said Durano, drawing me close.

I agreed, and for a while gazed out in silence.

Perhaps it was no more than an effect of the wine – for I had drunk a good deal – but, as I stood looking out from the walls, a surge of joy ran through me, clear and pure, like a note of music. I felt my soul straining against the tether of my body, like something shining and entire. Wishing in some manner to share what I felt, I leaned to Durano and kissed his cheek. He smiled; and after a short pause he returned it.

We stayed for some time, alone in the warm night, until eventually a crowd of drunken revellers came stumbling and shouting along the walkway, and the perfect thread was broken.

‘Come on,’ said Durano, frowning at their noise, ‘let’s go and look for the others.’

We found them in the thick of the dancing still, reeling and stumbling and laughing – and very drunk. Seeing us they pulled us in. I do not know how long we remained, leaping about and falling; but by the time we moved on, my head was spinning and everything was warm and hazy and amusing.

Burly, ugly Tascus led us on, pressing ahead through the crowded streets towards the quarter behind the theatre, shouting out that the time had come for better things than dancing.

I knew from my own private investigations this warren of alleyways and courtyards – and its reputation too. To be sure, there are taverns in abundance. But it is not for drinking that the area is known.

We pushed and stumbled our way along the street. For some reason Durano was reluctant: but we all urged him on with the usual lewd jokes, and soon we came to a garlanded two-storey house, painted with curling vine-stalks, and lit outside with flaring torches.

‘Oh, by the Mother, not Phason’s,’ cried Durano.

‘Come on!’ yelled Tascus and I together, pulling him in.

We entered a low smoky crowded room. There were tables, each with its own little lamp, shaded with a cover of fretted earthenware – the kind of thing one sees in eating-houses, when they want to give themselves an air of something special.

I had never been inside Phason’s before, but Tascus and Romulus were clearly well known, and as we pushed in among the tables they shouted greetings to friends, and slapped shoulders, and grabbed proffered hands. Some of the patrons were busy at dice or knucklebones; but for most it was the girls that were the attraction.

Phason himself came bustling from the back. He was a large Syrian with a black bush of beard and jangling bracelets. With a good deal of elaborate greeting he conducted us to a free table, and clapped his fat hands for the serving-slave. The wine came quickly, and with it the girls, wearing low-cut dresses of see-through orange silk, open at the sides. One squeezed in between Tascus and Romulus. The other pushed Durano along the bench, then edged in next to me.

‘Hello,’ she said, reaching across me to fill her wine-cup and mine. ‘My name’s Brica. What’s yours?’

I told her. She was emaciated and grey-skinned, with red-painted lips, and cheeks smudged with carmine. She looked as if she were sickening with a fever.

As she wriggled in beside me, her tiny dress rode up. I noticed she had a large yellow bruise on her thigh, high up near the groin. She reached out and began toying with Durano’s close-cut fuzz of hair, plucking and smoothing the little soft tufts, saying it was like a puppy’s. Durano flinched. He seemed not to like this; after a moment, when she did not cease, he removed her hand.

Then, pouting, she turned back to me.

‘That’s a nice name,’ she said, making eyes at someone across the room. From her hot body came the odour of cheap perfume, and female sweat.

I made some answer and drank. Across from me, Romulus was laughing like a man possessed, though no one had said anything funny; and Tascus’s thick face was a mask of concentration as the girl beside him jabbered some nonsense about her earrings. His thick, hairy hand, I noticed, had slipped beneath the table, and was moving slowly in her lap.

I rubbed my eyes. My head was spinning from the wine. Now that I had sat down, I could feel a vague rising sickness in the pit of my stomach. I asked myself why I could see nothing beautiful in these women, when the other men clearly saw so much.

The girl had hooked her calf around mine. I could feel her sharp toenails scratch my skin. She kept giggling and pulling faces at her friend opposite. I glanced at Durano, wishing he would talk to me. But his head was down and he was looking glumly into his wine-cup.

Over the weeks I had known them, along with all the other jokes, there had been the usual banter about women. Tascus and Romulus were the worst. Durano, at such times, said little, though once I heard him say, when Tascus was holding forth, that he was all talk and no action. As for me, I had my own reasons for silence, never having mentioned – not even to Durano, with whom I was closest – that I had never been with a woman.

It was not that I had not thought about such matters. Once I had even ventured alone to one of the city’s many whorehouses, to test myself against what was to be found there. But, after a cup of rancid wine, Albinus’s prurient fantasies had come swimming into my head, and even before the girls came to join me I had got up and walked out, tossing a coin onto the table as I left.

Afterwards I told myself I had other things to think about than women; and this was true, or partly true.

The girl Brica kept filling my cup and urging me to drink. And I drank, for it took the edge off my uneasiness. I cannot recall how I ended up upstairs. I remember seeing Tascus, lolling drunkenly in the dim-lit passageway, with a girl on each arm; I remember the smoky corridor, hot and noisy and crowded. And then I was in a lightless room.

I looked around, blinking. In the corner a tiny lamp glowed under a shade of blue glass. The air was heavy with the smell of sweet incense. I shook my head to stop it spinning, and as I turned I saw a movement. A slender figure had stopped in front of the lamp; I realized I was not alone.

I shivered, though it was not cold. I think I spoke out; but the touch of a hand in mine silenced me, and drew me down to a shadowy, tousled bed.

I reached out and felt an arm and naked shoulder. A mouth came up to mine, and a little darting tongue forced itself between my lips. Then a hand rested on my thigh, and began gently, expertly pushing up under my tunic. I closed my eyes, and felt my reeling senses start to respond.

I do not know how long it was before I opened my eyes again. Only a few moments. I saw the blue lamp and a three-legged bedside table; and then, slumped in the corner, its dead painted face staring up at me, a child’s doll. It came into my clouded consciousness that the girl had offspring. Well, I thought, no surprise there. Yet it troubled me all the same, and I pushed the thought from my mind.

The girl shifted, touching my body, pulling herself up, intending, I think, to position herself on my lap.

The shock of realization, when it came, hit me so hard I gasped out loud. It was all I could do not to strike her away; but forcing myself to be gentle I eased her off me and stared. Between my strong hands she was trembling, like a small bird when you cup it in your palms.

‘What is wrong?’ she said, the first words she had spoken.

Then I knew.

Pointing to the corner I managed to say, ‘Whose is that?’

‘Oh,’ she said brightly, ‘that’s Poppaea. She’s mine. Do you like her?’

‘
Yours
?’ My voice was shaking.

She returned her hand to my groin, grasping and impatient, eager to complete what she had started. I leapt back as if scalded.

‘What is it?’ she cried, and there was a new harshness to her voice, ‘am I not pleasing?’