Angel. Colleen McCullough

laundry because my blue-birded toilet is too high for Granny to get up on by herself. I apologised for the state of the toilet and bathroom, explained that when I had the time I was going to do everything out in bicycle enamel so it would look absolutely spiffy. Cobalt blue, white and a scarlet bathtub, I rattled feverishly. Most of the conversation fell to me.

      When I asked if anyone had seen Merle, Mum told me that she was convinced I didn’t want to have anything to do with her now I had moved. She wouldn’t believe that Queens refused to let its staff take personal phone calls. Mum spoke in the gentle tones mothers use when they think their children are going to be bitterly disappointed, but I just shrugged. Goodbye, Merle.

      They had more news about David than about Merle, though he hadn’t visited them—didn’t dare, was my guess, until that wacko shiner I’d given him faded.

      “He’s got a new girl,” Mum remarked casually.

      “I hope she’s a Catholic,” I remarked casually.

      “Yes, she is. And she’s all of seventeen.”

      “That fits,” I said, breathing a sigh of relief. No more David Murchison! He’s found a new bit of female clay to mould.

      After I’d cleared the uneaten gateau away and made a pot of tea, Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz and Flo materialised. Oh, dear. The family didn’t know what to make of them! One didn’t talk, the other’s grammar wasn’t the best, and the most that could be said for their unironed dresses was that they were clean. Flo, barefoot as always, was clad in the usual snuff-brown pinny, while her mother sported orange daisies on a bright mauve background.