“Sister Toppingham, I quit!” I declared. “Today is Wednesday and I’m not here. I’ll work tomorrow and Friday, then I’m gone!”

Gobble, gobble, gobble. “I require two weeks’ notice from you, Miss Purcell.”

“Hard cack, ace, you’re not getting it. On Friday afternoon, I am goney-gone.”

Gobble, gobble, gobble. “You are impertinent!”

“Impertinence,” I said, “increases both exponentially and synchronously with financial independence.” I blew her a kiss and blew out of there. Goodbye, Sister Agatha!

Then it was off to Bronte in another taxi to break the news to my very worried family.

I’d chosen my hour deliberately. Dad and the Bros were at the shop, only Mum and Granny would be home. What a pity Granny isn’t Dad’s mother. Then we’d get the truth. But Dad’s parents Passed Over—I’m catching the disease—before I was born. The patch of Potty grass, I noticed on my way in through the back door, is poisonously green and lush. Willie was taking in the sun.

“Da daaaa! You are looking at someone so rolling in riches that she doesn’t need to work!” I announced as I walked in.

Mum and Granny were sitting having lunch. Bread, butter, a tin of IXL apricot jam and the teapot. Both of them looked oh so glum—debating events at 17c Victoria Street for the umpteenth time, I guessed. Love affairs with married bone surgeons, murder and suicide, missing children, a daughter gone gaga—not any parent’s or grandparent’s idea of heaven.

When I trumpeted that, they sat up in a hurry.

“A cup of tea, dear?” Mum asked.

“Ta, but no,” I said, went to the sauce cupboard and dug Willie’s bottle of three-star out from behind the Worcestershire, P.M.U., tomato and Camp Essence of Coffee and Chicory. “I’ll have a snort of this. Brandy,” I went on as I glugged some into Stuart crystal, “is good for the soul. Ask Willie. You know, Mum, you ought to save the old Kraft cheese spread glasses, they’re indestructible and they don’t look too bad with those tulipy things painted on them.” I sat down and tilted the posh glass at them. “Bottoms up, as the bishop said to the choir boys.”

“Harriet!” Granny squawked.

Mum’s shrewd. She relaxed. “It’s all sorted out,” she said.

“That it is,” I answered, and told them the whole story.

“Harriet Purcell!” Mum breathed at the end of it. “I wonder if she is Roger’s sister? It would account for a lot.”

“If she is, then neither Dad nor Auntie Joan and Auntie Ida know,” I said, “but feel free to speculate. Maybe one of them will remember an unfathomable remark their parents made yonks ago. Or mysterious absences from the family fold occasionally to visit some place spoken of in whispers. Ask Auntie Ida—she’s got a memory like an elephant and she’s into gossip—typical old maid.”

“Won’t you be sorry to give up X-ray?” Mum asked.

Poor Mum, she would have loved to have had a job of work aside from domesticity, but it didn’t happen in those days. I believe she did once apply to train as a nurse at R.P.A. in about 1920, but Granny put the kybosh on that quick-smart. Mum’s a lot younger than Dad. Maybe that’s why I like older men? Pappy would say so, certainly, but then, Pappy can find something Freudian in a hole piped in cream on top of a jammy cake.

“Mum, I’ve had it up to the back teeth with gainful employment,” I said. “The work itself is terrific, but the people in charge are straight off the Ark. Believe me, I don’t intend to be idle. I’m going to have a lot to do, between supervising the unruly tenants, trying to work out a way of communicating with Flo, and getting the best return from Flo’s money.”

“Well,” Mum sighed, “it’s not difficult to see that you’re on top of the world, dear, and so am I for your sake.” She coughed delicately and went a little pink. “Um, what about Dr. Forsythe?”

“What about him?” I asked, very offhand.

Her courage failed her. “Um, nothing, I suppose.”

On the way out, I went down to where Willie’s cage was sitting in a sunny corner. From his crusted breast feathers, still on the porridge-and-brandy. Discriminating bird.

“Hello, my gorgeous chap,” I cooed.

He opened one eye and looked at me. “Get stuffed!” he said.

“Watch it, ace!” I said.

I was three paces away when he replied. “Watch it yourself, princess!”

When I spun around, stunned, he was dozing.

I laid on a feast in my living room—smoked eel, potato salad, coleslaw, shaved ham, crusty French baguettes, butter neither too hard nor too soft, about a ton of Greek rice pudding, and all the three-star we could drink, given that everybody has to work tomorrow. Lerner Chusovich was visiting Klaus, so he came, and I’d phoned Martin to bring Lady Richard, who arrived in subtle lilac alleviated by a red wig. Martin, much to our relief, has finally given in and been fitted for dentures at the Sydney Dental Hospital, where they cost nothing because the patients are guinea pigs for the students. The mouthful of teeth has made a great difference to his career, as he is colossally handsome, as graceful as a weeping willow, and as charming as George Sanders when handling the ladies who are now flocking to have him take their portraits. Move over, Annigoni! I also invited Joe the Q.C. and her friend Bert, and later Joe Dwyer arrived from the Piccadilly with two bottles of Dom Perignon. I had debated whether to ask the Mesdames, but decided that they could stew for a few more days. Chastity Wiggins just invited herself after she heard the screams of joy from her window, so I made her promise that she’d keep the news to herself.

“The first thing I’m going to do,” I announced to the assembled mob, “is make a few changes to The House. A bathroom and toilet on every floor, fresh coats of paint, decent lights, new linoleum and some rugs, new fridges and stoves, a couple of washing machines for the laundry plus a Hills Hoist clothes line, and no gas meters! I’m going to have a decorating scheme that makes Flo’s scribbles look deliberate—avant garde ultramodern. I may be in loco parentis for Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz, but we operate in different ways. My way is comfort, modernity and nice surroundings.”

“It will be difficult,” said Jim, frowning. “The Council is not very co-operative about renovations.”

“As I don’t intend to inform the Council, Jim, it’s irrelevant what the Council thinks. I’ll do everything under the lap.”

“The Werner brothers!” said Klaus and Pappy together.

“They can do everything you want, Harriet,” Klaus explained. “They smuggle the bits and pieces in after dark.”

So there you are. Fritz and Otto Werner have surfaced. Dear Mr. Hush will be pleased!

“What about the empty flats?” Bob asked.

“We’ll wait until they’ve been done up, then I’ll handpick the new tenants,” I said, and lifted my glass of bubbly. “Here’s to Flo, to Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz, and to The House.”

As the noise settled down and people began to clump, Toby joined me on the floor in the corner.

“I’m surprised you didn’t invite Norm and Merv,” he said.

“Norm and Merv belong in the Fugue and Toccata category, Toby. I’ll tell them when I’m good and ready.” I drained my glass—bubbly isn’t really a patch on three-star—and put it down. “Are you going to forgive me for taking Flo on?” I asked.

Gone red with love, his eyes caressed me. “How can I not? She’s your own flesh and blood, it seems, and that I understand. Besides, you’re not going to suffer because of her. The old girl came good in the end. What a place to hide a will!”

I nestled against him, my hand on his upper arm discovering nicely bulging muscles. “You’d have liked to hear me telling Mr. Hush that I found it concealed in her favourite ornament.”

“I’ll give you this, Harriet, for such a rambunctious, noisy sort of woman, you’re mighty close when you want.”

“What Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz did for a crust is no one’s business except The House’s.”