“No. He was more like an ivory sculpture.”

“Pity. Mr. Delvecchio was smothered in hair. I useta comb his chest, and as for the you-know-where”—she laughed hugely—”tangles ‘n’ snarls, princess, tangles ‘n’ snarls! A regular jungle. I useta love prowlin’ through it! Combed it with me tongue.”

Somehow I kept my face straight. “How long ago was that?”

“Oh, seems like a hundred years! About thirty, really. But, aaaah, I remember him like it was yesterday! Youse always does remember your men like that, you’ll find as they start addin’ up. Yeah, like yesterday. That’s what keeps youse young.”

“There were no children?” I asked.

“Nah. Ain’t that peculiar? A nice hairy man like that, and no children. I’d say it was me. Flo come on that hormone stuff.”

“What happened to Mr. Delvecchio?”

She shrugged. “Dunno. He just up and left one day. Never even packed a port. I waited a few days, but he never come back. So I turned up the cards and they said he’d gone for good. The Tower. The Lovers reversed. The Hanged Man. The Nine of Swords. The Four of Wands reversed. Ruin of the house, y’know. But the Queen of Swords—me—was well placed, so I got over it. I saw him in the Glass once, a long time after. He looked real well and happy, and he was surrounded by kids. When we was first together, he gave me a blue bunny rug for the son we never had. Oh, well!”

The story moved me unbearably, though she didn’t tell it with a shred of regret or self-pity. “I’m so sorry!” I said.

“No need, princess. There’s a time for things to be over, is all. You know that after your week with the ivory statue.”

“Yes, I suppose I do.”

“Is your heart broken?”

“Not even dented.”

“So there youse are. The sea is chocka with fish, me young Harriet Purcell. Youse ain’t the sort to get a broken heart, you’re the sort will break ‘em. Youse ain’t like me, but that bit is. Life’s just too good and the sea’s too chocka with fish for the likes of us, young Harriet Purcell. We’re unbreakable.”

Willie’s tipple had long ceased to taste revolting, but the truth is that the more of it I drink, the better I like it. So I was well enough away by this to go on asking questions. “Did you and Mr. Delvecchio divorce?”

“Wasn’t necessary.”

“You weren’t officially married, you mean?”

“That’s as good a way of puttin’ it as any.” Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz refilled our glasses.

“But you and Mr. Schwartz were married.”

“Yeah. Funny, ain’t it? And in plenty of time for Flo. I was at that age. Y’know, you’re gettin’ on in years and suddenly feel a bit chilly without a husband to warm the feet.”

“Was Mr. Schwartz like Mr. Delvecchio?”

“Total opposite, princess, total opposite. That’s the way it oughta be. Never repeat your mistakes! Never pick the same sorta bloke twice. Variety is the spice of life.”

“Was Mr. Schwartz handsome?”

“Yeah, in a poetic sorta way. Dark eyes but real fair hair. A nice face, fresh and young. Flo looks sorta like her daddy.”

A deliciously muzzy feeling was crawling inside me, and perhaps because of it, as I squinted at Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz I suddenly saw how she must have looked thirty or forty years ago. Not beautiful, not pretty, but very attractive. Men must have felt like Sir Edmund Hillary on top of Mount Everest when they scaled her heights.

“You were extremely fond of Mr. Schwartz,” I said.

“Yep. You always are of the ones what won’t make old bones,” she said tenderly. “Mr. Schwartz didn’t make old bones. He was twenty-five years younger’n me. A lovely Jewish gentleman.”

I gaped. “And he died?”

“Yep. Just never woke up one morning. A real grouse way to go, princess. A dicky heart, they said at the inquest. Maybe it was. But the cards said if it hadn’t been that, it woulda been something else. A bus or a bee sting. Youse can’t escape the old gent with the scythe when it’s your time to go.”

I pushed my glass away. “If I don’t go now, Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz, I’ll start wuddling my merds.” Then I thought of one more question. “Harold called you Delvecchio. But that’s not your Christian name. What is, if I may ask?”

“Seems a funny way to describe a first name when most of the world ain’t Christian,” she said, grinning. “I dropped me first name donkey’s years ago. Me magic’s in Delvecchio Schwartz.”

“Is my magic in Harriet Purcell?” I asked.

She pinched my cheek. “Dunno yet, princess.” A stretch. “Oh, what a relief! No fuckin’ Harold this arvo!”

I went downstairs, fell on my bed and slept for two hours. When I woke a while ago, I felt wonderful. Today I learned heaps about my landlady. Flo? Hormone stuff? Darn! I didn’t ask.

Wednesday,

May 11th, 1960

A poor old boy came in late this afternoon with crush injuries to both legs from just below the pelvis. One of those insanely freaky accidents that aren’t even supposed to happen at all. He’d been walking along minding his own business when a block of concrete fell off an elderly factory’s cornice. If it had hit him, there wouldn’t have been enough of him left to scrape up, but what hit him was the sheet of iron attached to it just far enough from the ground when it met it to squash his legs flat, and then, rebounding, to release him, let the ambulancemen rush him to Queens. There was no hope for him, of course, not at his age. Eighty.

I was returning from the female staff room to my own domain when Sister Herbert, on evening shift, grabbed me and asked me if I was busy. I said no.

“Look, the place is a shambles and I’ve got more nurses coming any minute, but I need someone trained to see what’s bothering my poor old boy in Seven. He’s terribly distressed, he won’t settle, and I don’t want him pegging out unhappy. We’ve done what we can—he’s going to meet his Maker tonight for sure, but he keeps crying for someone called Marceline. I can’t bear the thought that we’re not making his last moments what they should be, but I can’t spare anybody to talk to him. He insists he’s got no family or kin—oh, he’s fully conscious, it’s that sort of shock. Could you talk to him for me?” Off she dashed—the place really was a shambles.

He was so sweet, the poor old boy, and scrupulously clean. They’d taken his false teeth, so he smiled at me gummily, clasped my hand. The drips, the cradle, the monitors didn’t seem to impinge on him. All he could think about was Marceline. His cat.

“I won’t be home to feed her,” he said. “Marceline! Who will look after my angel?”

The words hit me like a ton of bricks. His angel.

My heart always aches for the old and forgotten—there are so many of them around the inner city, living in those dreary, neglected terraced houses between Royal Queens and the Cross. BOARD AND LODGING, MEN ONLY the hand-lettered cardboard signs say, and men like my poor old boy eke out an existence in a tiny room a thousand times over. Subsisting on dignity and the smell of an oil rag, or else sodden with drink. Eating in the soup kitchens, resigned to their solitude. And here was this one, dying before my eyes, with no one to care for his angel.

A fourth-year nurse arrived not five minutes after me, and between us we managed to convince him that I would feed his cat, care for her until he came home. Once he believed us, he closed his eyes and drifted contentedly away.

I borrowed Chris’s canvas shopping bag and a supply of safety pins, walked up to Flinders Street, found the house, knocked. When no one answered I pushed the front door open and started knocking on every door inside. Absentee landlord because no one in authority challenged me. An old boy with a bad case of the shakes and enough alcohol on his breath to make my head spin pointed toward the backyard, such as it was. A mean little rectangle full of junk. And there, sitting on the skeleton of a gas stove, was my poor old boy’s angel. A skinny tortoiseshell cat which stood up and mewed at me plaintively.