Gallus sits down again beside Beronice. He gives her a quick kiss. “This is for you,” he says, handing over a parcel. She takes it, and he looms over her, getting in the way, almost unwrapping it himself in his excitement to see her reaction.
Beronice gasps. “But it’s beautiful!” She holds it up for everyone to see. It is a cameo pendant, a tiny one, but still by far the most expensive gift anyone has produced. “Oh, I love you!” Beronice exclaims, flinging her arms around him. Then she pulls back. “And I only got you some pomade!”
Victoria is stuck, sitting beside the lovers who are now kissing noisily. She looks down, her shoulders hunched over. All that mockery, and Gallus has done more for Beronice than anyone could ever have imagined. Felix slips off the desk, crouching on the floor beside her. “For my favourite whore,” he says, handing Victoria a packet. She glances at him, eyes full of hope, then slips the contents out into her fingers. It is a string of wooden beads. Victoria gazes up at Felix, the love on her face painful to witness. She beams round at everyone, proud to have been singled out in front of them all. Amara smiles back, not wanting to ruin her happiness. Beronice catches Amara’s eye. Victoria has no idea that her friends pity her, that where she imagines love, they only see cruelty.
The day rolls on, everyone getting increasingly drunk. Everyone, that is, except Amara and Felix. It seems neither is prepared to relinquish control of themselves, not even on the Saturnalia. She is aware of him watching her and wonders if he suspects something, though he surely cannot know about Rufus or Balbina’s loan. She’s been so careful. If he were any other man, she would have said he was looking at her with lust, but she knows this is impossible.
The men insist on trying to cook the bean stew, declaring it a day off for the girls, but they make such a mess, slopping the food over the brazier, almost putting the fire out, that Telethusa shoves them aside and takes over. They laugh at her, still interfering while she tries to cook. “You ruin it!” she shrieks in annoyance. “Go away! Shoo!”
Fabia offers to help, but Telethusa gestures at her to stay sitting. “No reason we all suffer,” she says, with a pointed look at Thraso.
“I’m so happy for Beronice,” Dido says to Amara. “Gallus must really love her after all!” Amara smiles in reply, almost too tense to speak. “He won’t forget,” Dido says to her. “I know he won’t.”
Amara is aware that Felix is watching them again. She takes Dido’s hand. “I love you,” she whispers back. “I meant everything I promised.”
After their burnt, mushy stew, Felix declares it a good time to head outside and walk to the Forum. Beronice and Gallus disentangle themselves with reluctance. They have been sitting huddled in a corner, long since abandoning any pretence of joining in with the party.
“Why don’t you just stay behind and fuck her?” Felix says to Gallus in exasperation. “Join us when you’ve got it out of your system.”
They pile onto the streets, muffled up in their cloaks. The shops are shuttered for the festival, but a number of other households are out for a stroll, taking the chance to get some air before the afternoon grows too dark. Amara takes Dido’s arm as they all amble to the Forum. Everyone on the street seems in high spirits, and even Paris is escorting his mother, who looks as if this was the present she has been waiting for the entire Saturnalia. Amara remembers the way Paris carried Simo from the burning bar, as if he were helping him, all the better to slip in the knife. She shudders.
Dido squeezes her arm. “Are you cold?”
Amara shakes her head.
Crowds are milling around the Forum, drinking and laughing, watching street performers and musicians. They stop near a man juggling torches. Amara watches the flames as they rise and fall, the man catching them in his gloved hands.
“I hoped to see you today.”
His voice is a memory from home. Amara has not met Menander in months, but hearing him, it feels like yesterday since she held him. She turns. For once, he doesn’t look entirely sure of himself.
“We said we would meet at the Saturnalia. I know that was some time ago,” he adds, seeing the flustered look on her face. “I’m only here as a friend. I brought you a gift.”
He holds out an object wrapped in cloth. She takes it, unwraps it. Inside is a beautiful clay lamp with a green glaze. The figure on it is familiar. It is a likeness of Aphidnai’s Helen of Troy, the statue from her hometown, the one she loved to look at as a child, when her father pointed it out to her with such pride. Menander made this for her. She stares at the lamp, unable to speak. Then she flings her arms around his neck. “It’s beautiful,” she says. “It’s the most beautiful present anyone has ever given me.”
Dido yanks hard at her arm, and she lets go, but Menander catches hold of her hand. “I know you have a patron, Timarete, I know this,” he says. “But if I were free, if I gained my freedom, would you feel differently?”
Amara withdraws her hand, at last understanding what Dido saw behind him.
“What’s this?”
She has never known Rufus so angry. Terror almost stops her heart. She pushes Menander aside to reach her boyfriend, but he blocks her embrace. “Who is this?” For a moment she is almost afraid he will hit her.
Amara hesitates. There is no question in her mind what she should do, only whether she has the courage. “This?” She turns round to look at Menander as if she has only just noticed him. “He’s nobody! Some boy who wanted to give me a gift on the Saturnalia, because he said I had a pretty face. I don’t even know his name.” She laughs. “Why are you so angry?” she exclaims, taking Rufus’s hand. “Don’t be ridiculous! You cannot possibly imagine you have anything to be jealous about. He’s just some slave boy.” Amara is aware of Philos, standing beside his master, but she ignores him. It’s not Philos she needs to convince. “Look, I’ll prove it to you,” she says, as if humouring a child. “I can just give it back to him, let him give it to some other girl,” she inclines her head, teasing, looking at him from under lowered eyelashes. “Though I’m sorry if you think I’m not the prettiest girl at the Saturnalia, because that’s who he wanted to give it to.”
Amara is almost carried along by her own performance until she turns to face Menander again. He is staring at her as if she were a stranger. She holds the lamp out, looking into his eyes, willing him to understand. “I’m sorry but I cannot take this.” He does not move. She forces herself to take a step towards him, still holding his gift, offering it to him. Amara’s hand is trembling, and the glaze slips through her fingers. The lamp smashes at Menander’s feet.
The shock of it makes her gasp. She and Menander stare at one another. She understands, seeing his face then, that whatever affection was once between them has ended. Amara looks down at the ground. Shards of glazed clay are scattered at her feet. All that work, engraved with such love, marked with memories of home and who she used to be, gone. She remembers Cressa’s smashed pot at the necropolis, the man dying, the sacrifice Victoria made to save her life. The only choice she can ever make is to survive. “Oops, silly me,” she says, turning to Rufus, biting her lip as if it were a joke. “I seem to have broken it!”
It is perhaps her callous disregard which finally convinces him. He strides over, puts an arm around her. “Sorry, boy,” Rufus says to Menander, reaching into his purse for some coins. “My girlfriend didn’t mean to be clumsy. I hope this compensates you.”
Menander takes the money, not looking at Amara. “You’re very generous, sir,” he says.
Rufus physically turns her, back towards where Philos and Dido are standing, obviously eager to forget the whole incident. “How ridiculous I am,” he says, kissing her. “I’m sorry to have been jealous.”