Gaius Vinius somehow acquired a disassembled couch from the tassel shop. Typically, the desultory designer had always intended to use this to show off his stock, yet he never created the display. Lucilla one day heard a strange croaking sound and found Vinius in his second room, assembling the couch, whilst apparently singing. He claimed to be musical. Unmoved, Lucilla watched for a while, as he sorted a big bag of bronze fitments and systematically laid out parts in rows on the floor. ‘I snapped this up from Droopy-Tunic. He reckoned it could be bolted together by a semi-nude fan-dancer in half an afternoon.. Total tit, no wonder he’s bust. Here, hold up the frame for me. Keep it level.’
Lucilla could follow instructions. She could also spot when Vinius had missed out a necessary joint, though he ignored her warning, which delayed the finished product by an hour or so. Brought up and working among women, she had learned enough about men and their foibles to bite her tongue.
Vinius decided to run down and buy a multi-bladed tool to help as he fixed webbing; he got talking to the knife-seller, leaving Lucilla standing with the couch. When he reappeared, Lucilla had gone back to what she herself had been doing. She noticed that Vinius made no complaint. He resumed work alone. She waited long enough to make her point, then took him a pistachio biscuit and continued helping again.
Their relationship was neither warm nor cold. In eighteen months, they met at Plum Street on maybe a score of occasions. Since Vinius sometimes had had a quarrel with his wife, on those occasions he was uncommunicative. He shut himself in his bedroom, lay on his mattress and waited to calm down. Lucilla deduced what had probably upset him; he never said anything.
Other times, he brought knick-knacks or collected clothes. A stringed instrument appeared, which Lucilla heard him tuning and strumming. Once, with unusual diffidence, he asked Lucilla about the pot of ointment the doctor Themison had given him. She sniffed it, identified herbal ingredients and urged him to use it. Vinius told her, grinning cheekily, that Themison had said a woman’s touch was best, but she made him rub it in himself.
He and Lucilla would nod to one another if she had a client, or otherwise exchange the time of day blandly. They had, however, adopted their catchphrase:
‘It’s me — ’
‘- Vinius!’
If Flavia Lucilla had shown any encouragement, an entanglement might have ensued. But the last thing she wanted was to complicate her life with a married man. She liked the look of the Praetorian, she could not help it; she welcomed his steady tread and did not object to him singing when he was happy (though she never joined in). But she was self-protective. Even if she had wanted to flirt, there were other men on the periphery of her life. Some were handsomer and even seemed more pleasant, although any belief in their good nature was probably rash. Many had two eyes not one, but most clearly lacked brains.
Gaius Vinius was bright, she thought. From their first meeting she had seen him as almost dangerously clever, though she had heard enough about him to know he was hopeless with women. Who wanted that?
Generally, Lucilla understood that any affair, or even marriage, would mean she lost control of her career. Men took up your time. They resented you having other interests. They made demands, even if you could avoid bearing their children. So although her women clients regularly asked when she was going to get a love-life, Lucilla murmured obliquely that she was still looking.
The avoidance of pregnancy was a subject on which she and Lara were seen as professional consultants, an offshoot of their trade. They gave discreet advice — not that Lara ever seemed to follow it. Along with handing out pots of face cream and other cosmetics, they would dispense discreet recommendations: how honey, gum or olive oil might make men’s seeds sluggish; the usefulness of ground acacia, cedar or white lead in creams or vaginal tampons; and even the possibilities of goatskin sheaths, though these were generally seen as mythical and nobody knew how to obtain them. In disasters, they would whisper an address for the Sixth Region’s abortionist, although she operated discreetly because while it was permissible to prevent conception, killing a foetus was illegal. It denied a father his rights.
Getting pregnant could be problematical, even for women who wanted it. Others were relentlessly fertile — their main client, Flavia Domitilla, was one of those, either carrying or breastfeeding most of the time they knew her. Equally fertile was Lara herself. As the two suffered in the summer heat or risked pain and death at every birth, Lucilla saw enough to be wary of motherhood.
Lara, her closest friend and confidante, had married young but somehow avoided pregnancy for several years. Perhaps then Junius found out what she was doing and forbade such measures. He took little interest in their children but their existence proved his manhood; Lucilla thought privately, it also kept control of Lara. Her sister’s eldest son was fourteen, about seven years younger than Lucilla. Lara had borne several more children who died at birth or very young; in all there were six survivors — three boys around their teens, two little girls, a sickly baby — and that year Lara was pregnant again.
While Flavia Domitilla could take her ease at such times, looked after in every way by batteries of slaves, Lara had no such luxury. If she had not had a mother-in-law who took in her children by day, Lara would have been stuck. She worked right up until she felt her birth pangs, from necessity. She and Junius paid their rent and had food on the table; their children possessed an outfit and sandals each; Junius could drink in bars often enough. Mostly, they managed to avoid moneylenders. But Lara’s income was as important to their budget as her husband’s. She needed Domitilla, she needed all the sisters’ private clients and weddings. Any loss would have a serious financial effect. This never perturbed her, as far as Lucilla could see. Lara was an easygoing character who kept afloat by never worrying. She remained true to her personality, but her life was hard.
By contrast, Lucilla was wary and anxiety-prone. She could not risk being drained in the way Lara was. Scrimping and saving, or being dragged down by a man who could never quite be trusted, were not what Lucilla yearned for. She saw her sister’s life and feared ending up that way.
Lucilla had no real friends other than Lara. Lara taught her, shared their work, laughed with her, and gave her a home to visit for a share in family life. Lucilla generally spent birthdays and the great winter holiday of Saturnalia at Lara’s house. Lara had a deep affection for her, loving Lucilla equally with her own children. It was a devastating blow when, a couple of days after giving birth for the final time, Lara died. By the time Lucilla reached the house, the newborn baby had gone too.
Juno, what was the point of any of it?
Lucilla felt completely cast adrift again. Worse, she found tremendous pressure building for her to look after Lara’s children. For her sister’s sake she wanted to do right but the consequences, if she agreed, would be grim. Yet Lara’s children were her only blood relations.
Junius openly hoped she would move in. Just as when her mother died and Orgilius expected to inherit his lover’s daughter, Lucilla sensed that the tanner aimed to have her replace Lara in his home and bed. That would never happen, but his calculating, sordid gaze depressed her. Arrangements for her sister’s burial were mainly left to her.
It was at this point, immediately after the funeral, that the Praetorian found her sobbing.
‘It’s me — Vinius!’
Gaius had assumed Lucilla would be there, and was surprised to hear no answer to his cheery call. It was evening, when she rarely had clients. He had brought a goat-legged bronze side-table for the room where he had his couch. Dumping the furniture, he stood in the still corridor, listening.