Now I had studied Helena so closely, I could see in her father’s face physical similarities another man would miss. That stiff bush of hair was all his own, but the direct expression, the tilt of the cheekbones, the slight crease at the corners of the mouth in response to irony, were hers; sometimes, too, she shared inflexions from his voice. He was watching me with the glint of sharp amusement that I had always liked. I felt glad that I liked her father, grateful to remember I had liked him from the start.

“High standards,” repeated Decimus Camillus Verus, apparently inspecting me. He sighed, almost imperceptibly. “Well, Helena always seems to know what she wants!”

He was worried about his daughter; I suppose he was worried about me.

There are some things a common citizen cannot say to the parents of a highborn, respectable lady. If I declared to a senator that any ground his daughter stood upon became for me a consecrated place, he would not (I could see) feel reassured.

Luckily then the Man from Tarsus approached us with a towel on his arm. I made Decimus have the first massage, hoping his large tip would leave the Tarsan giant kinder towards me. It didn’t work; it only fuelled him with a greater energy.

LI

My mother came back that afternoon to tell me I was expected to preside over the huge family party which was going to hog a scaffold at Vespasian’s Triumph next day. This promised a real feast of sunstroke, sisters backbiting, and tired children screaming with illogical rage; my favourite sort of day. Ma herself was decamping to share a quiet balcony with three ancient crones she knew. Still, she had brought me a great golden-headed Imperial bream to soften the blow.

“You tidied your room!” she sniffed. “Growing up at last?”

“Might get a visitor I want to impress.”

The visitor I wanted never came.

As she passed the bench behind me, my mother ruffled up the hair on the back of my head, then smoothed it down. I couldn’t help it if she despaired of me; I was in a state of high old despair myself.

Sitting out on the balcony pretending to philosophize, I recognized a light step outside the door. Someone knocked, then came in without waiting. Rigid with anticipation, I was on my feet. In this way, through the folding door, I observed my wonderful mother apprehending a young woman in my room.

It was not the confrontation ma was accustomed to have. She expected mock coral anklets and girlish confusion, not soft drapes in muted colours and those serious eyes.