Flo ran to hug me, face lit up, and when I sat down she chose my knee. Why do I feel as if she’s flesh of my flesh? I love her more and more as time goes on. Angel.

“The Glass must be very valuable if it’s a thousand years old,” I said to Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz, who had the table set with our usual luncheon fare.

“It’d probably buy me the Hotel Australia if I sold it, but no one sells a glass, princess. Especially not one that works.”

“How did you come by it?”

“Its last owner gave it to me. In her will. They get passed from one seer to another. When I go, I’ll be passing it on.”

Suddenly Flo gave a convulsive leap, flew off my lap and dived under the couch.

Not half a minute later, Harold sidled through the open door. How did Flo know he was coming? There’s nothing wrong with my ears, but I didn’t hear the softest scuff of a shoe.

Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz looked at him with a face like thunder. “What the hell are you doing here?” she growled. “It ain’t four o’clock, it’s one o’clock. You ain’t welcome, Harold, so piss off.”

His eyes were fixed on me, full of hate, but he swung them now to her and stood his ground. “Delvecchio, it is a disgrace!”

Delvecchio? Was that her Christian name?

She put the bottle of brandy down with a thump and turned her eyes to him, though I was sitting at the wrong angle to see what exactly they contained. “A disgrace?” she asked.

“Those two disgusting sexual deviates on the floor above us have stolen the money out of the gas meter in the bathroom!”

“Any proof?” she asked, her bottom lip jutting out.

“Proof? I don’t need proof! Who else in this house would do a thing like that? It was you asked me to go the rounds of the gas meters every Sunday!” His face twisted. “You’re too tall to get down that far, you said, but I’ve got duck’s disease!”

Mirth rumbled, she looked at me. “He has too, princess. You know what duck’s disease is?”

“No,” I said, wishing she wouldn’t joke at Harold’s expense.

“Arse too close to the ground.” She heaved herself to her feet. “Come on, Harold, let’s have a look.”

I knew it was pointless to try to persuade Flo to come out of her hiding place. Harold seemed likely to come back, and Flo would know that. Extra-sensory perception. I’d read somewhere that it was being investigated. Bugger Harold! This was a ploy to spoil my time with Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz. Jim and Bob, stealing pennies from a gas meter? Ridiculous.

A lot of things were telling me that this repressed and hate-filled elderly man was a maelstrom of negative emotions. Suddenly I remembered a lecture given by a psychiatrist. He’d talked of “mummy’s boys”—the single male who remained in the grasp of his mother until she died, when, doomed by his own inadequacies, he then fell into the clutches of another dominant woman. Was Harold a mummy’s boy? He fitted the picture. Only that didn’t explain the hatred for me. They were usually quite harmless people, and if one did become violent, the violence was sometimes directed at the dominant woman, more often at himself. According to the bloke who gave that lecture. Today indicated that Harold’s hatred was not purely for me. Today his targets were Jim and Bob. And Jim was another Queen of Swords.

I could hear Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz returning because she was bellowing with laughter. “Ripper-ace!” she roared as she erupted into the room, Harold behind her with a face like flint. “Oh, it’s flamin’ terrific!”

“What?” I asked dutifully.

“The buggers pinched the pennies out of the bathroom meter all right, but not by bustin’ the padlock, oh no! They used a hacksaw and cut through the hinges on the back of the penny door. Looked perfect! What really kills me is that the buggers went to so much trouble for the sake of about two bob in pennies.”

“Delvecchio, I insist that you evict those women!” Harold cried.

“Listen, ace,” said Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz through her teeth, “it ain’t Jim and Bob, it’s Chikker and Marge in the front ground floor flat. Gotta be.”

“They are respectable people,” Harold said stiffly.

“Grow up, dickhead! Don’t you hear him beatin’ the shit outta her every Fridee night after he comes home turpsed? Respectable, my arse!” Her shoulders shook. “Fancy takin’ so much trouble for a few pennies! Can’t pin it on ‘em, either. What’s more, I don’t wanta pin it on ‘em. At least they ain’t on the game, and apart from Fridee nights, they’re good tenants.”

“I must take your word for that,” said Harold, who obviously didn’t care a hoot about Chikker and Marge. “However, I insist that you get rid of that pair of Lesbians! Riding a motorcycle, indeed! They’re disgusting, and you are a fool!”

“And you,” said Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz conversationally, “couldn’t organise a free fuck in 17d! Piss off! Go on, piss off! And don’t bother comin’ back at four. I ain’t in the mood.”

His dismissal seemed to fall on deaf ears; he was too busy glaring at me. And I, uncomfortably aware that I really ought not to be listening to any of this, was staring intently into the huge crystal ball and its upside-down view of the room.

“Training another charlatan?” Harold sneered.

Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz didn’t answer. She simply picked him up by the scruff of the neck and the seat of the pants and threw him out of the door as if he weighed nothing. I heard the crash of his landing, almost jumped up to see if she’d hurt him, then subsided. If she had, he might calm down a bit.

“Piss off, you fuckin’ little turd!” she yelled into the hall, then sat down beaming in content. Then, to the couch, “Youse can come out now, Flo, Harold’s gone.”

“Why is she so frightened of him?” I asked, sipping brandy while Flo, on her mother’s lap, drank from the breast.

“I dunno, princess.”

“Can’t you persuade her to tell you?”

“She don’t want to. And I ain’t sure I wanta know.”

“He—he wouldn’t interfere with her, would he?” I asked.

“No, Harriet, he wouldn’t do that. I ain’t stupid, honest. It’s spiritual.”

“I didn’t realise anybody in The House minded Jim and Bob.”

“Harold minds everyone.”

“Is he a mummy’s boy?”

The X-ray vision flared into action. “Now ain’t you the cluey one? Yeah, as a matter of fact. She was what I call a professional invalid—lay in bed while Harold waited on her hand and foot. But when she died, he was like a chook with its head cut off, didn’t know what to do. Worse, she left everything she had to a cousin in the Old Country she hadn’t seen since they were children. The cousin sold up the house, and Harold had nowhere to go. He’d spent every penny he earned on the selfish old cow. So when he come to me askin’ for a room, I felt sorry for him. One of the other chaps what teaches at his posh private school useta be a tenant here ages ago—that’s how Harold knew about The House. I turned up the cards, and they said he had an important job to do for The House, so I took him in. Then,” she said, leering, “I found out he was an old maid in more than his manners—yep, a virgin! Take me word for it, princess, you gotta have a virgin before you die.”

I wanted desperately to tell her that I thought Harold was a very sick man, but these days my tongue tends to get me into hot water, so I bit it and said nothing, even about the way he stalked me and looked at me. Instead I said, “You’re very tired of him.”

“Fed up to the back teeth, princess.”

“Then why don’t you get rid of him?”

“Can’t. The cards still say he’s got an important job to do for The House, and they ain’t to be disobeyed.” She topped her glass up, took a bite of bread-and-eel, and said, mumbling, “So the King of Pentacles went home to Curry Land?”

“Eight days ago. I spent last weekend at Bronte.”

“Lovely lookin’ bloke! Reminded me of Mr. Delvecchio, only Mr. Delvecchio was an Eyetie, didn’t have a touch of the tarbrush like your bloke. But proud and handsome! King of the world, that was Mr. Delvecchio.” She sighed and sniffled. “I useta lie in bed and watch him strut around like a rooster.” One of her pale eyes mocked me, the other closed speculatively. “Was your first King of Pentacles a nice hairy man?”