Lying in bed is never entirely wasted. Somewhere in that void between convincing yourself you are awake and then ages later rousing yourself, I devised a plan for picking up the trail on Pertinax. I dug out a tunic I used to like; it had been mauve once but was now unappealingly light grey. I went to the barber's for a really good shearing. Then, merging anonymously into the throng, I set off.
At the magic hour just before dinner I crossed the Tiber on the Aurelian Bridge. I was alone. No one knew where I was going, or would notice if I failed to return. None of the people who might once have cared to do so would be bothering to remember me tonight. So far, curing a headache had been the most productive aspect of my day.
Days change. In my case, usually for the worse.
Smoke from a thousand bath-house furnaces drifted across the city. It caught my throat, calling to life the unhappy rasp that was already lurking there. By now, Helena Justina would know I was back in Rome, aware of her plight. Her father was bound to have told her how deeply hurt I felt. As I expected, she made no attempt to contact me. Not even though I had made it easy for her by spending most of the day at home in bed.
Crossing the river, I listened to the ripple of refined applause from a performance in Pompey's theatre-not the ripe jollity of a satyr play or even the gasps and cheers that greet arthritic monkeys on tightropes. Tonight it must be something old, possibly Greek, probably tragic, and definitely reverent. I was glad. It suited my mood to think of other people suffering: three hours of sombre stuff from the chorus, a tight little speech or two from a principal actor fresh out of elocution class, and then, just as you get to the good bit with the blood, your honeyed dates fall down into the row in front, so you have to bend forwards to grab them again before some shopkeeper with enormous buttocks sits back and squashes them-and as you lean down to get them you miss the only excitement in the play…
Tough. If you want entertainment, stay in and pick fleas off a cat.