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covered with slime. Never even knew I was up the duff until she popped outlucky I didn’t drown youse in the dunny, ain’t that right, angel puss?” This last was said to Flo, who was fiddling with a button. “How old is she?” I asked.
    “Just turned four. A Capricorn who ain’t a Capricorn,” said Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz, casually unbuttoning her dress. Out flopped a breast which looked like an old stocking with its toe stuffed with beans, and she stuck its huge, horny nipple in Flo’s mouth. Flo shut her eyes ecstatically, leaned back into her mother’s arm and began to suck away with long, horribly audible slurps. I sat there with my mouth catching flies, unable to think of a thing to say. The X-ray vision lifted to focus on me.
    “Loves her mother’s milk, does Flo,” she said chattily. “I know she’s four, yeah, but what’s age got to do with it, princess? Best tucker of all, mother’s milk. Only thing is, her teeth are all in, so she hurts like hell.”
    I went on sitting there with my mouth catching flies until Pappy said, quite suddenly, “Well, Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz, what do you think?”
    “I think The House needs Miss Harriet Purcell,” said Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz with a nod and a wink. Then she looked at me and asked, “Ever think of movin’ outta home, princess? Like into a nice little flat of your own?”
    My mouth shut with a snap, I shook my head. “I can’t afford it,” I answered.
    “I’m saving to go to England on a two-year working holiday, you see.”
    “Do youse pay board at home?” she asked. I said I paid five pounds a week.
    “Well, I got a real nice little flat out in the backyard, two big rooms, four quid a week, electricity included. There’s a bath and dunny inside the laundry that only you and Pappy’d use. Janice Harvey, me tenant, is movin’ out. It’s got a double bed,” she added with a leer. “Hate them piddly-arse little single beds.”
    Four pounds! Two rooms for four pounds? A Sydney miracle!
    “You stand a better chance of getting rid of David living here than at home,”
    said Pappy persuasively. She shrugged. “After all, you’re on a male award, you could still save for your trip.”
    I remember swallowing, hunting desperately for a polite way to say no, but suddenly I was saying yes! I don’t know where that yes came from-1 certainly wasn’t thinking yes.
    “Ripperace, princess!” boomed Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz, flipped the nipple out of Flo’s mouth and lumbered to her feet.
    As my eyes met Flo’s, I knew why I’d said yes. Flo put 24
    the word into my mind. Flo wanted me here, and I was putty. She came over to me and hugged my legs, smiling up at me with milky lips.
    “Will youse look at that?” Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz exclaimed, grinning at Pappy. “Be honoured, Harriet. Flo don’t usually take to people, do you, angel puss?”
    So here I am, trying to write it all down before the edges blur, wondering how on earth I’m going to break it to my family that, very shortly, I am moving into two big rooms at Kings Cross, home to alcoholics, prostitutes, homosexuals, satanic artists, glue-sniffers, hashishsmokers and God knows what else. Except that what I saw of it in the rainy dark I liked, and that Flo wants me in The House.
    I’d said to Pappy that perhaps I could say that The House was in Potts Point, not Kings Cross, but Pappy only laughed.
    “Potts Point is a euphemism, Harriet,” she said. “The Royal Australian Navy owns Potts Point whole and entire.”
    Tonight’s wish: That the parents don’t have a stroke.

Sunday
January 10th, 1960
    I haven’t told them yet. Still getting up the courage. When I went to bed last night-Granny was snoring a treat-I was sure that when I woke up this morning, I
    would change my mind. But I haven’t. The first thing I saw was Granny squatting over Potty, and the iron entered my soul. That’s such a good phrase! I never realised until I started writing this that I seem to have