Read Online Angel by Colleen McCullough - Free Book Online

the Cross. But as I went through the front hall, there was Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz sweeping it. To little effect. She used the broom so hard and fast that the dust just rose in clouds and then crusted on the floor behind her. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask if she’d ever thought of sprinkling wet tea leaves before she swept, but I wasn’t game.
    “Ripperace!” she said, beaming. “Come upstairs and have a wee snort of brandy.”
    “I haven’t seen hide nor hair of you since I moved in,” I said as I followed her up the stairs.
    “Never intrude on people when they’re busy, princess,” she said, flopping down on her chair on the balcony and glugging brandy into two Kraft cheese spread glasses. Flo had been clinging to her skirts throughout, but now she scrambled onto my lap and lay looking up at me with those tragic amber eyes, yet smiling.
    I sipped at the revolting stuff, but I couldn’t like it. “I never hear Flo,” I said. “Does she talk?”
    “All the time, princess,” said Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz.
    She was handling a pack of over-sized cards, then she fixed her X-ray eyes on me and put the cards down. “What’s bothering you?” she asked.
    “Pappy says she sleeps with a lot of men.” “Yep, that she does.”
    “What do you think about it? I always thought that landladies evicted girls who have men in their flats, and I know you do when it’s the front ground floor flat.”
    “It ain’t right to make real good women think they’re wicked just because they like a bit of nooky,” she said, drinking deeply. “Nooky’s as normal and natural as pissin’ and shittin’. As for Pappy, what’s there to think about? Sex is her way of voyaging.” Another X-ray glare at me. “It ain’t your way, but, is it?”
    I felt inadequate and squirmed. “Not so far, anyway,” I said, and sipped again. Willie’s tipple was beginning to taste better.
    “You and Pappy are the opposite ends of women’s life,” said Mrs.
    Delvecchio Schwartz. “To Pappy, no touch means no love. She’s a Libran Queen of Swords, and that ain’t strong. Her Mars, mostly. Very poorly aspected. So’s her Jupiter. Moon in Gemini squared to Saturn.”
    I think I’ve remembered that correctly. “What am I?” I asked.
    “Dunno ‘til you tell me when you was born, princess.” “November the eleventh, nineteen thirty-eight,” I said. “Ah! Knew it! Scorpio woman! Very strong! Where?” “Vinnie’s Hospital.”
    “Right next door to the Cross! What time?”
    I racked my brains. “A minute past eleven in the morning.”
    “Eleven, eleven, eleven. Oh, bonza! Ripperace!” She huffed and creaked her chair, leaned back in it and closed her eyes. “Um, lessee … You rise in Aquariuswell, well!” The next minute she was on her hands and knees at a little cupboard to bring out a book so well worn it was falling to pieces, a few sheets of paper, and a cheap little plastic protractor. One of the sheets of paper, blank, was thrown to me together with a pencil.
    “Write it all down as I tell youse,” she said, and looked at Flo. “Angel puss, gimme some of your crayons.” Flo slid off my lap and trotted into the living room, returned bearing a handful in blue, green, red, purple and brown.
    “I do it all in me head-oughta be able to, after all these years,” said Mrs.
    Delvecchio Schwartz, consulting her ratty book and making mysterious marks on a sheet already drawn up like a pie separated into twelve equal slices. “Yep, yep, real interesting. Write, Harriet, write! Three oppositions, all potent-Sun to Uranus, Mars to Saturn, Uranus to Midheaven. Most of the tension is removed by squares-lucky, eh?”
    As she spoke at normal pace, I had to do a Flo and scribble to get all this down.
    “Jupiter in the first house in Aquarius, your rising sign-very powerful!
    You’re gunna have a fortunate life, Harriet Purcell. Sun’s in the tenth house, means you’re gunna make your career your whole life.”
    That