Venus in copper

'That's the problem-I just don't know. Falco, what would you say if I asked to hire you myself?'

I'd call for help, probably. 'Frankly the last thing I want is a commission from a professional bride-especially when she's midway between husbands, and tends to react unpredictably-'

'You mean what nearly happened last night?' Severina coloured.

'We can both forget last night.' My voice sounded lower than I had intended. I noticed that she started slightly, so her shawl slipped back, revealing her flame-coloured hair. 'We were drunk.' Severina gave me a straighter look that I liked.

'Will you work for me?' she insisted.

'I'll think about it.'

'That means no.'

'It means I'll think about it!'

At that moment I was ready to throw the gold-digger downstairs. (In fact I was in two minds whether to give up my career altogether, hire a booth and take up chair mending ...)

There was a knock; Severina must have left my outer door ajar, and before I could answer it was pushed open. A man staggered in, gasping. His predicament was clear.

He had just struggled up two flights of stairs-to deliver the biggest fish I ever saw.

Chapter XLI

I stood up. Very slowly.

'Where do you want him, legate?' He was a small man. As he lurched in from the corridor he was holding my present up by its mouth because he could not get his arms round it: the fish looked almost as long as its deliverer was tall. It was wider than he was.

'Slap him down here ...'

The man groaned, leaned back, then launched the fish sideways so it landed across the small table I used to lean my elbows on sometimes. Then, being a game trier, he jumped up and down, each time hauling my slippery present further on. Severina bobbed upright, daunted by a tailfin the size of an ostrich feather fan, which stuck over the edge of the table a foot from her nose.

There was no smell. He was in beautiful condition.

The delivery man seemed to take sufficient pleasure from the drama his arrival had caused-but I decided for once to squeeze out the half-aureus I kept in my tunic for really serious gratuities.

'Thanks, legate! Enjoy your party...' He left, with a much lighter step than when he came.

'Party?' hinted Severina, looking coy. 'Are you going to invite me?'

I felt so weak I might have let her persuade me. it would have created a Mount Olympus of complications for myself.

Then the door swung open a second time, to admit someone who never reckoned to knock if there was half a chance of interrupting something scandalous, 'Hello Mother!' I cried valiantly.

Ma raked Severina Zotica with the look she reserved for unpleasant squashy things found at the back of dark kitchen shelves. Then she glanced at my extravagant present. 'That fishmonger of yours needs a talking-to! When did you start buying by the yard?'

'Must be a mix-up: all I ordered was a cuttlefish.'

'That's you all over. Palace ideas on pigsty money...

You'll want a big plate!'

I sighed. 'I can't keep this, Ma. I'd better send him as a gift to Camillus Verus; do myself some good that way-'

'It's one way to show your respect for the Senator ...

Pity. I could have made a good stock from the bones.' My mother was still blocking Severina out of the conversation,but letting her know that I had influential friends. Redheads always upset my mother. And she generally disapproved of my female clients.

Ma made herself scarce so I could rid us of this inconvenience. 'Severina, I'll have to think about your offer.'

'Will you have to ask your mother?' she sniped.

'No; I have to consult my barber, look up the "black days" on my calendar, sacrifice a beautiful virgin, and peruse the internal organs of a sheep with twisted horns ... I know where I can get the sheep, but virgins are harder to come by and my barber's out of town. Give me twenty-four hours.' She wanted to argue, but I gestured at the turbot so she could see that I was serious about having things to organise.

My mother promptly reappeared, stepping out of Severina's way with insulting delicacy. Severina retaliated by giving me a much sweeter smile than usual before she closed the door behind her.

'Watch that one!' muttered Ma.

Via and I gazed sadly at the giant fish.

I'm bound to regret giving him away.'

'You'll never get another!'

'I'm itching to keep him-but how could I cook him?'

'Oh I dare say we can improvise ...'

'Camillus Verus is never going to approve of me, anyway -'

'No,' agreed Ma, obliquely. 'You could invite him to eat me of it.'

'Not here!'.

'Invite Helena then.'

'Helena won't come.'

'She never will if nobody asks her? Have you upset her?'

'Why do you assume it's my fault? We had a few words.'

'You never change!... So that's settled,' decided my mother, 'Just a family party. Mind you,' she added, in case this news had somehow cheered me up,'I always reckon turbot is a tasteless fish.'

Chapter XLII

Sometimes I feared my mother must have led a double life. I resisted the thought, because that is not what a decent Roman boy wants to suspect about the woman who gave him birth,

'Where on earth have you eaten turbot?'

'Your Uncle Fabius caught one once.' That made sense. No one in our family had the nous to present a turbot to the Emperor; anything my relations got their hands on went straight in the pot. 'It was a baby. Nowhere near as big as

'If Fabius caught it, that was predictable!' Everything about Uncle Fabius was small: a family joke.

'You don't want him bitter. I'll take out the gills for you, volunteered mother.

I let her She liked to delude herself I still needed looking after. Besides, I enjoyed the thought of my tiny, elderly mother laying into something quite that big.

Ideally I would bake him in an oven. That called for a clay pot (no time to have one made), then entrusting him to the dopey rakemen at some public bakery. I could have built my own oven, but apart from having to lug the bricks home I was frightened of the fire risk and strongly suspected that any structure big enough to contain this turbot might cause my floor to cave in. .

'I decided to poach him. Flatfish only need gentle simmering I would have to find a huge pan, but for that I had had an idea In the roof space at my mother's house, where members of the family stored unattractive New Year gifts, was a huge oval shield which my late brother Festus brought home. It was made of some bronzed alloy, and Festus maintained it was a pricey Pelopo

I nipped off to mother's. When I clambered up to get the shield I found a nest of mice in one end, but I tipped them out and said nothing. The handle inside had already lost one securing bolt when Festus was larking about; the other was rusted fast with verdigris but I managed to shear it off (cutting open a few knuckles). The pointed boss on the front might cause problems. I reckoned I could suspend the shield on two or three steaming pans of water over braziers and just keep the fish going if I heated his liquor first. I spent an hour burnishing the metal, washed it at a public fountain, then carried it home. It was indeed big enough for the turbot-but too shallow. I put him in, filled up with water, and found it reached the rim of the shield before it fully covered the fish. The scalding stock would swoosh about. And turning the turbot over half-way through cooking time might be difficult.. .