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carefully over a polystyrene head.
    Father’s study door was shut with his ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on it, though if anyone was already disturbed it was Father.
    There was no sign of the Treacle Tart, and the children must be at school, but the sound of hoovering was still audible from above, where Gloria Mundi was singing Gilbert and Sullivan in a falsetto.
    She was the very model of a modern major-general.
    I found Em eventually in the sitting room, the curtains half drawn, which is why I was well into the room before I saw that she had company.
    ‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘I didn’t know you were entertaining, Em. I was just going to tell you I was off to the garden centre.’
    ‘That’s OK – you know Xanthe, don’t you?’
    Xanthe nodded graciously at me; she did look vaguely familiar from her days as Father’s Flavour of the Month.
    ‘And this is Lilith Tupman and Freya Frogget.’
    Lilith looked like she’d been blanched under a pot. Freya was large and clad in billowing white, like over-exuberant ectoplasm.
    ‘I’ll leave you to it, but let me open the curtains first,’ I offered, taking hold of the heavy velvet drapes.
    There was a gasp from Lilith, who held her hands to her temples and exclaimed hysterically, ‘No! No! The light must not touch my face!’
    I hastily unloosed the curtains. ‘Sorry.’
    Maybe she was a vampire? But then, how had she got here?
    ‘Would you like me to make you some coffee or something before I go?’ I offered in atonement.
    ‘Thanks, Charlie,’ Em said. ‘There’s a tray ready in the kitchen – just fill the pot with boiling water and bring it in, will you?’
    ‘You could join us,’ said Lilith, recovering. ‘If you wished?’
    ‘No, no, her aura is
blue
!’ Xanthe cried. ‘I cannot have blue near me … it drains my psychic energy.’
    If Father hadn’t managed to drain her powers, I couldn’t see how my blue aura would.
    ‘Ice, I must have ice!’ gasped Freya, in a parched voice.
    ‘A bowl of ice from the freezer, too, please,’ said Em. ‘Do you want a hand?’
    What, the Hand of Death? The Hand Of Glory? The Hand of the Baskerv—
    ‘No, that’s OK,’ I assured her, backing out, and starting to puzzle over the ice. Still, Em’s friends all appeared to be women of a certain age: Freya might be having a hot flush of mega proportions.
    I brought the tray, which contained all sorts of home-baked goodies, plus a pot of some disgusting-smelling herbal brew reminiscent of Gloria’s best, then left them to it.
    Flossie was now snuggled up to Frost, the hussy, and showed no interest in accompanying me, to the garden centre or anywhere else.
    Tips for Southern Visitors, No. 1
    It is possible to have any variety of Northern accent in conjunction with an intellect.
    At dinner it emerged that Father had also inadvertently crashed Em’s tea party, barely escaping without being ravished by Freya, Lilith and Xanthe (well, that was
his
version, anyway).
    ‘Congratulations, Em,’ he said through a mouthful of home-made chicken pie. ‘Not one of your friends is normal.’
    ‘Speaking of normal,’ Em said coolly, ‘your son is coming home tomorrow for a rest.’
    Jessica helped herself to a lettuce leaf, looked at it doubtfully, and put half back again in the bowl. ‘I haven’t met Branwell yet,’ she said. ‘Is he as dishy as you, darling?’
    The two little girls, who were doing full justice to the despised stodge, giggled.
    ‘He’s nothing like me,’ Father said tersely. ‘Charlie’s nothing like me, either.’
    ‘I’m like Mother, though, and I expect Bran takes after his.’
    ‘Your mother’s very famous, isn’t she?’ Jessica asked. ‘Big in America. But I do think all this writing books and talking about feminism does more harm than good, don’t you?’
    ‘Someone’s got to speak out, especially when men are trying to claim great works of women’s fiction as their own,’ Em commented pointedly, but Father refused to rise to the