Ode To A Banker Read Online Free Page B

that would have been with Cloelia. Cloelia was now eight.

    Petro had been surprised when he met Maia, for some reason; he asked why I had never mentioned her. I might have felt worried by his interest, but Maia was obviously a decent young mother and the next thing I knew, he was marrying Silvia. At least we had avoided the awkward situation where little sister falls for elder brother's handsome friend. Who is never interested, of course.

    For Maia to set herself up with Famia had seemed a desperate act, even before he really took to the drink. Still, girls have to find a way to leave home too. Always vibrant and attractive, she had been dangerously self-willed. Maia was the kind of young woman who seems to offer something special - special and mature. She was intelligent and though virtuous, she always seemed to know what good fun was. The kind that even experienced men can fall for very heavily and yearn for obsessively. Marriage and motherhood had seemed a good safe option to those of us who felt responsible for Maia.

    Petronius thought her a strange woman, did he? That was rich, if he really did once flirt, or worse, with Victorina. Maia and she had been exact opposites.

    While I was musing, Petronius had fallen silent, despite the glorious opportunity to rib me about the Auditorium of Maecenas last night. He must be tired after his shift. He never talked about his work much, but I knew how grim it could be.

    Helena had her eyes shut, letting the sun soak into her as she tried to blot out the distant, wearing tantrum from Julia. The screams soared in volume.
    'What can we do?' Helena asked Petro. He had three daughters, taken away by his wife to live with her boyfriend in Ostia; his children were all past the hysterical phase. He had lived through that, then lost them.

    'It will pass. If not, you'll bloody soon get hardened to it.' His face had closed. He loved his girls. It did not help that he knew losing them had been his own fault. 'Probably a tooth.' Like all parents, he regarded himself as the expert and those of us who were new to the business as incompetent idiots.

    'It's earache,' I lied. There was no visible reason for Julia to be going mad. Well, no, there was a reason. She had been a well-behaved child for far too long; we had gloated and thought parenting too easy. Now this was our punishment.

    Petronius shrugged and rose to leave. Apparently he had forgotten about telling me his views on my poetry. I had no intention of reminding him.

    'Go and see your client,' muttered Helena to me, knowing the client was non- existent and working herself up to be furious about being left to cope alone. She heaved herself from her stool, ready to attend to our offspring before neighbours issued writs.

    'No need.' I was frowning down the street. 'I think he's found me of his own accord.'

    You can usually spot them.

    Fountain Court, the dirty alley where we lived, was a typical minor backstreet where deadbeats festered in dank lock-up shops. The buildings were six stories high. It managed to be gloomy right down to street level, yet even on a hot day like this the dirty tenements never provided enough shade. Between the crumbling walls surged the unpleasant smells of ink-making and over-warm corpses at the funeral parlour, while light gusts of smoke from various commercial sources (some legal) vied with humid updraughts of steam from Lenia's laundry opposite.

    People walked through, about their morning business. The huge rope-twister, a man I never spoke to, had lurched past looking as if he had just come home after a long night in some oily jug. Customers visited the stall where Cassius sold slightly stale bread rolls along with even older gossip. A water-carrier slopped his way into one of the buildings; a chicken in fear of the plucker set up a racket by the poultry pens; it was the school holidays so children were out and about looking for trouble. And trouble of some other sort was looking for me.

    He was a