Marilyn Todd - Second Act

Hence her idea of a zodiac theme for Saturnalia.

That she couldn’t actually afford to buy the food was neither here nor there.

‘Da zodiac vill be a real talking point,’ her cook boomed when she outlined her proposal. ‘A real talking point!’

Behind her back, Claudia carefully uncrossed her fingers. With twenty Spectaculars sprung upon him without warning, the cook had not been in the best of tempers lately. Naturally he would carry out whatever commands the mistress ordered, but far better to have the big man on her side.

‘Bugger stuffed sow udders and pickled goat wombs dat the nobility are demanding,’ he expounded in his loud Teutonic roar. ‘Give people proper food on dere plates, dat’s vot I say. Give dem things dat makes da mouth vorter.’

By the time he’d finished outlining his ideas for twelve substantial, unpretentious and wholesome dishes to correspond with the signs of the zodiac, Claudia’s mouth was already vortering and she left him rubbing his hands as he went off to plan the banquet, oblivious of any conflict in the Roman ethos that nothing divides society quite like food, even though he was enslaved himself. Going well, she thought happily. Now she’d got him hooked, it would be so much easier when he went to buy the food to find that he’d also have to negotiate credit terms.

‘How dare you barge in here like this,’ a female voice shrieked from upstairs, ‘ then have the bare-faced cheek to — ’

Taking the steps two at a time, Claudia thought, that bloody Marcellus! The old, old story no doubt. How his guilt preyed on his conscience and now he wants to make a clean breast of it, blah, blah, blah. Men! She raced along the gallery. When will they ever learn that adultery shared is not adultery halved? But when she flung wide Julia’s door, it was Flavia on the receiving end of Julia’s tongue, not Marcellus.

‘You won’t believe what this little bitch has done now,’ Julia hissed, slamming the door behind Claudia, as though no one in the house had heard her voice rattling the nails in the roof tiles.

‘I’m not ashamed of it-’ Flavia countered, but her aunt’s strident tones drowned the girl out.

‘She’s only insisting on marrying that…that gigolo of an actor!’

‘I love Skyles, so there,’ Flavia said sulkily.

‘And what about the oleiculturist?’

‘I thi nk you can forget that angle,’ Claudia interjected.

‘After all I’ve done to get you hooked up with him,’ Julia continued, ignoring her. ‘He’s handsome, rich, extremely well-connected-’

‘I don’t care if living with Skyles means living in poverty,’ Flavia said. ‘At least I’ll be happy.’

‘Happy?’ Julia, of course, had never understood the word, what chance of projecting it on to a third party? ‘For gods’ sake, the man’s old enough to be your father. He’s a sexual predator on an Olympic scale and heaven knows what unspeakable disease he spreads with his alleycat morals. Tell her, Claudia. The only reason that vile little man plays the stage is because it gives him the opportunity to screw anything with a pulse-’

‘I love him,’ Flavia screamed. ‘And I’m going with him when the troupe leaves.’

‘And what happens when he discards you? Do you really think men like Skyles like women? His type are misogynists, girl, they loathe women. That’s why they use them so freely and so cheaply. They want to defile them, exploit them-’

‘Skyles loves me, I know it, and in any case, you keep telling me I’m old enough to make my own decisions, well I’ve made one. I’m going to make my career in musical farce, and so what if it means taking my clothes off in public? Anything’s better than being stuck in this shit hole for the rest of-’

The slap was so hard, it sent both Julia and Flavia reeling with its ferocity. For two stunned seconds, Flavia could not believe that her aunt had actually struck her. Then her cheek started to burn and before Julia could stop her, she was storming out of the room, calling her aunt all the names under the sun, although ‘bitch’ figured more frequently in her tirade than most.

Julia rounded on Claudia. ‘I warned you what it would be like, inviting that vulgar tribe into your house. That beast has not only corrupted my baby, he’s manipulating the child. I tell you he’s only after her money-’

What is it with this family? Can’t any of them see past the end of their elbow? ‘Leave it with me, Julia.’

‘-the scandal won’t just taint Flavia, it will sully the whole family name and everything my dear brother worked for will be washed down the drain because of his stupid, self-centred daughter-’

‘She’s not going to marry Skyles, now calm down. I’ll sort this out.’

‘Doesn’t that girl have any concept of the word responsibility? Doesn’t she stop, just for an instant, to think what impact the scandal would have on Marcellus and me? We, who brought the poor child up, when her father wanted nothing to do with her-’

‘ Julia!’

Claudia’s tone stopped the older woman in her tracks. Julia blinked, regrouped, then poked a bony finger into Claudia’s flesh.

‘This is your fault,’ she snarled. ‘You got us into this mess, Claudia Seferius, you can bloody well sort it out.’ And in a swirl of green linen she was gone, slamming the door in her wake.

Claudia rubbed at her temples. Dear Diana. To thin k Caspar actually wrote a script for his farce.

*

All across the city, women walked the streets in fear. Official proclamations had been posted. No journey to be undertaken unless it was absolutely essential, and on those journeys, women should be accompanied wherever possible. Fine for the rich, but there remained a large sub-section of the female population who had no option, other than to risk it. And these women trembled.

Opinion on the rapist was divided. Either the wrong man had been executed last time round, or else this was a copycat. Either way, they could not afford to take chances.

The rapist might only snatch one victim a day. Then again, he might not.

Women all across the city prayed. To Jupiter, to cast his thunderbolt of justice on the rapist. To Nemesis, that retribution would be harsh.

*

Any doubts Claudia might have harboured about the Halcyon Spectaculars not hitting the professional standards she’d been hoping for were dispelled the instant Caspar appeared in full stage regalia to lead her to her seat. For the two hours building up to this dress rehearsal, there had been no activity whatsoever in the atrium, not even from the labourers. Just a loud, empty silence, reminding Claudia what it would be like when the troupe packed up and moved on, only without the gaudy canvas backdrop for company. Hell, so what?

(a) she enjoyed living alone,

(b) it afforded her all manner of freedoms unavailable to most Roman women,

(c) she was accountable to no one and nothing, and so on and so on went her list of counted blessings until she reached the letter m in the alphabet.

(m) M is for Marcus Cornelius, a little voice said, so she quickly skipped m and continued the list of reasons why alone is best, with:

(n) being that she had a wide double bed all to herself and

(o) -

(o) is for a man who smells of sandalwood with a faint hint of the rosemary in which his clothes had been rinsed, and whose baritone is as evocative as any actor’s and-and — oh,

(p) off, she told the voice.

And because Claudia comprised the entire audience for this dress rehearsal, she felt it would not do for the critic not to meet the same exacting standards required of the cast. For that reason, and not because of any Security Policemen roaming round the house, good heavens no, she took extra care in dressing. The gown of midnight blue and trimmed with gold that showed off her breasts to best advantage. The little brooch shaped like a leaping dolphin, her favourite. The gold chain round her left ankle, which led the eye towards a flash of shapely leg. Why should that be affected by tall, dark investigators on the loose?