‘Goodbye, dears,’ sang Millie. ‘Bon voyage! We’ll take you home, Zoë. Unless you’d like to come back with us? Yes, that might be best.’
But no, I had said. I’d been invited out. This was untrue. I wanted to see how I would fare on my own, promising myself a hot bath, my dressing-gown, routine comforts. This would be my first experience of what might be a tremendous ordeal, as I knew it to be for others, neighbours of ours who turned out bravely for unnecessary errands, aware all the time of their return to an empty house. On this particular evening I was too tired to feel anything but gratitude for the quiet street, for the dark flat, even for the sound of a recalcitrant tap dripping in the kitchen. My mother had seemed to think that I needed comforting: perhaps I did. Even a happy ending cannot always banish a sense of longing.
3
All this changed during my first summer in France, the last of my school years, before I was due to begin university in the autumn. Truth to tell I was initially alienated by Simon’s house, Les Mouettes, a white stucco villa with a flat roof and a protruding central feature which was midway between a conservatory and a glassed-in terrace. The absence of a skyline disconcerted me: the vogue for Art Deco had not yet got under way. I believe it was photographed for a magazine in the early eighties, by which time it was no longer ours and had long ceased to be. Nor was it, as Simon had said, a few miles outside Nice: it was a few miles from the centre of Nice, but still on the outskirts of a recognizable suburb. I did not even much like Nice, with its roaring traffic along the coast road, but I went into town every day on the bus and wandered about rather uncertainly until I found a place I thought I could call my own, the small garden of the Musée Masséna, frequented by children parked there by their Swedish or Danish au pairs. I looked out for them both, the children and the nannies; both became my friends. The au pairs, seeing me as a safe pair of hands, could leave their charges with me and decamp to a café on the front. One such child showed a touching confidence in me. Like most French babies he looked overworked, even careworn, and in moments of low spirits he would sit beside me and lean his head against my arm. At such times he looked older than his age; he was, I was told, just three, having recently celebrated his birthday, which may have explained his air of exhaustion. The girls were equally accommodating; they introduced me to their boyfriends, when I met them later in town. In this way I was able to enjoy one or two adventures, which was a great relief to me. I was allowed total freedom to come and go as I pleased, and took to spending the day on my own, away from the house, knowing that Simon and my mother trusted me, even when I returned late, sometimes arriving only for the evening meal, and going out again soon after that.
France seemed to me a country of various liberties. I admired the way all the men seemed to be able to work with a cigarette in their mouths; I admired Mme Delgado’s dashing speed on her moped, on which she arrived every morning at seven to make our coffee. She sped off again in the late afternoon, having taken care of the rudiments of our dinner. And if I was never quite at home in Nice I was at home with the fierce light, a revelation after the gloomy, shadowy surroundings of my earliest years. The sun is God, said the painter. I accepted the truth of this as I wandered in the pitiless afternoon glare, disdaining the long rest I was advised to take. When Simon and my mother retired to their room I slipped out of the house into the glorious cloudless blaze, took the bus into Nice, was momentarily glad of the shade and silence of the Musée Masséna garden, and sat there with my book until Honoré, my particular three-year-old friend, greeted me before going off to play. This little community delighted me: the girls were friendly, easy-going, emancipated, and I practised being the same. For a time my efforts were rewarded, and I saw myself in a new light, as someone with the same manners as the young people around me. My appearance improved, as did my clothes. I could see what I must become, and did not have to struggle very hard to be that person. Though I was never taken for French, I no longer looked like the obedient schoolgirl daughter I had been until that moment.
Simon was kindness itself, although with my new sharpness of vision I saw him for the old man he truly was. His place at table was surrounded by remedies, mysterious French pills prescribed by Dr Thibaudet, his neighbour, who looked in sometimes in the early evening for a glass of wine on his way home. The formality of this arrangement amused me; there was a Mme Thibaudet, but she stayed behind unless summoned to dine with her husband. Thibaudet and Simon would vanish into another part of the house for a spot check on Simon’s blood pressure, while my mother made desultory conversation with Armelle, Mme Thibaudet, a placid sweet-faced woman of no great pretensions but able to put on a massive dinner when we were invited back in our turn. I did not know my abstemious mother amid all this catering; I was merely glad to see her looking so well. I never told her much of what I did during my free time (but all my time was free), though I think she was reassured when I mentioned the little children in the garden, as was Simon. ‘And how was Honoré today?’ he would ask, and I had no trouble entertaining them in a way they found entirely acceptable.
My mother seemed unchanged to me, or perhaps I merely wanted to see her that way. She was quiet, but she had always been quiet: she said little but watched Simon tenderly as he took his pills. Both seemed in excellent health. I believe she settled down cautiously into married life, although I found it difficult to believe her entirely comfortable in that light, a light that searched out imperfections, the wrinkle of a collapsed neck, a slightly drooping mouth, both of which were visible in her husband. If she had hoped for a more romantic lover she gave no sign of disappointment, though I think she feared turning into Mme Thibaudet, who acted as a nurse and guardian to her own husband, and who had indeed once been a nurse in the clinic in Nice of which he was the director. The only thing I noticed about my mother that gave me pause was that she too liked to be out of the house. As my afternoons were spent some distance away I was for a time unaware that she sometimes went off on her own, much as I did. I assumed that she spent her time in a famous garden near by, sitting quietly, as she had always done. But as she was always there when I returned I did not see anything untoward in this. She had always preferred her own company—and mine, of course—to that of women friends. Whatever the age difference between Simon and herself, I think she was grateful to him just for being a man.
That first summer was the happiest time of my life. As well as the familiarity of my mother’s presence I enjoyed a form of social acceptance, even popularity, that I had never known before. At home I was used mainly as a confidante by more adventurous friends. In France I was learning the attractions of carelessness, of frankness. I was something of a success with the young men who joined the girls and myself for an apéritif before we made our way home. Everyone was, or seemed to be, intelligent, purposeful. I was at ease, whether chatting to Mme Delgado in the kitchen or soothing Honoré through one of his frequent crises of disenchantment. Nice still seemed to me a blatant charmless sort of place, but I was part of a group, persuaded that love and friendship were common currency and that one need never be without either. The cars still streamed past the café where we met for our apéro but I had got so used to the noise that I hardly noticed it. I took it for granted that everyone moved quickly: no wayfarers here. Somehow I had put all those fantasies behind me; they remained in London, in Edith Grove. Here I was driven out of my earlier self by the power of the light. Even when I made my way back to the house in the early evening I retained an after-image of the blaze. By the time I was due to go home, alone this time, for Simon and my mother were staying on, I saw that I should never forget that first summer, and that I would return, was indeed expected to return, until, with all my meagre experience and my new-found enthusiasm, I was accepted as part of the landscape.
4
I hesitate, even now, to assign to the gods of antiquity full responsibility for the mismanagement of human affairs, or for human misapprehension. Such fatalism goes against my earlier belief in a m
ore benign mythological providence, which, if fallacious, or at least misleading, is no more misleading than other mythologies, which promise much, but deliver little.
I took a last walk down Edith Grove very early one dark Sunday morning in February. In truth it was to be a walk I had taken a year earlier when the lease on our flat had expired. I had managed to negotiate a further year’s grace by dint of paying an increased rent, but clearly I could not continue to do this. The estate agent had proved surprisingly conciliatory, especially when I told him that I could move out at very short notice: the flat that Simon had bought for me was ready and waiting. ‘Oh, you’ll like it there,’ the agent had said. ‘Quite a Mediterranean feel to it.’ He was presumably alluding to the fact that the flat was situated in a courtyard and had wooden floors. I knew better, remembering my holidays in the sun.
I disliked the new flat, was reluctant to leave the old one. That I was able to be so careless in this matter owed everything to Simon’s generosity. He had decided that he and my mother were to live in France, and had sold his property in Onslow Square, saying that they could always rent a house if and when they returned to London. In the event they never did. On the conclusion of the sale he had opened accounts at his bank for both my mother and myself, so that as far as I was aware I had no anxiety with regard to money.
This gave me a feeling of great freedom, as well it might. I did not question the sources of his income, for he gave such an impression of wealth and ease that I had accepted from the start that he was a very rich man. I saw no reason to doubt this, or to question his decision to live in France, which seemed to me eminently sensible. Besides, I had grown used to being on my own and to arranging my own affairs. I had graduated to independence and was finally relieved. I was also quite glad to have them at something of a distance, for I doubted that my mother would quite approve of my new friends, of one in particular, with whom I spent most of my time. Indeed my cavalier attitude to both my flats proceeded from the fact that I was rarely in either. I had finally arranged for my furniture—our furniture—to be moved on the following day, and even this did not seem momentous. I was acting with a speed and a certainty I had come to accept, though it was not really in my character to do so. Something of those holidays in Nice, which were now regular occurrences, and particularly the first one, had left me lighthearted. I see that this was the ideal basis on which to conduct a love affair, which was why my own was going so well.
On this particularly gloomy Sunday, which I knew would be my very last in this quiet place, I patrolled the street, trying in vain to revive the affection I had always felt for it. But it was dispiritingly dark, silent, even forlorn. There was nobody about. I imagined a thousand dusky bedrooms, a thousand supine bodies entwined in musty duvets. I did not blame these sleepers, but I disapproved of them. The working week should not lead to this abject collapse, which was accepted as some sort of entitlement. Later, much later, cups of tea would be made, and taken back to bed. Waking would come slowly, rising even more slowly. Then there would be the reading of the newspapers, another ritual, until, perhaps in the afternoon or early evening, the morose desire to go for a walk, or perhaps to visit a parent, an obligation shouldered reluctantly but undertaken with a remnant of filial obedience. By the evening spirits would be low. After Sunday, Monday morning, though held to be a nightmare, was in fact something of a relief.
In Edith Grove the air was not enticing, having about it something of the staleness of the previous night. The only signs of life were the motorbike parked in the forecourt of the strange church opposite our flat and the light I could see dimly shining from its interior. This building had always intrigued me, its extreme ugliness seeming to defeat its purpose, which I took to be encouragement, uplift, harmony. Yet it was well attended, even in that secular decade, and we had seen large ladies and even the odd unaccompanied man making their way in on Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings for a celebration of what was announced as fellowship. These were truly valiant souls, willing to spend their free time in that flat-faced redbrick building, which had something rather too democratic about it, as if it intended to defuse both mystical feeling and any expectations of a transforming experience which the congregation might have entertained. Indeed so downbeat was it, yet so determinedly cheerful were its female congregants, that we had decided, my mother and I, that we were disbarred from receiving its particular message by some quirk of character which others could discern at a glance. We warmed to the ladies, but not to the incumbent or celebrant, who would appear briefly on the threshold in ordinary working clothes, and looking as if he had just got out of bed himself. The motorbike was presumably his. When my mother passed him in the street he would nod his head very briefly, as if noting her reservations. No word was offered; he consigned her to her fate. Her salvation was not his concern.
In this terrible Sunday-morning gloom our building retained a modest air of Edwardian decency. I supposed that I should look in on the new flat to which I had the keys, had had them for some time. I was reluctant to take possession: I had not chosen the flat and did not like it. The Mediterranean feel that the estate agent had described did not extend beyond the windows, which let in very little light, and that of poor quality, owing to the courtyard effect, which had been designed not for the tenants’ amenity but so as to cram as many flats as possible into a restricted space. In order to see the street I was obliged to imagine the intervening buildings out of the way. At the same time it was noisy. When I had looked in one evening I could hear the light being switched on in the bedroom on the other side of the wall. I had not met any of my new neighbours, had not yet said goodbye to any of the old ones. They were used to seeing me going in and out, but would not worry unduly if I no longer did so. ‘You’re young,’ one woman had said to me enviously. ‘It’s easy for you. Here today, gone tomorrow. When you get to my age it’s a different matter, as you’ll find out.’ I did not want to hear this, for nothing surely could deprive me of my freedom, my lightness of touch. My expectations.
My clothes were packed, and my suitcases were in the bedroom of which I had seen so little recently, for most nights were spent in a large dilapidated house in Langton Street which was owned, or partly owned, by the man of whom my mother would not approve, Adam Crowhurst. She would not approve of him because she was of the wrong generation to understand so extremely uninhibited a personality. Middle-aged women, those who did not succumb to his outrageous charm, looked askance at his conquests and consoled themselves with their hard-won dignity and the knowledge that they were safe. I was an unlikely partner for him, since I was docile, and, I thought, uninteresting. But I had managed to win his friendship, which presumably other women scorned as a consolation prize for the total possession which he withheld. Prince Charming must have had the same effect on those whom the slipper did not fit. Was it possible that some part of me, the most archaic, the most unreconstructed part, still remained faithful to that schema, to that belief? If so I am ashamed to this day of my touching credulity. The gods, with whom at that time I was barely acquainted, were ready with their punishing gifts of caprice, of unaccountability. Their behaviour was in all cases unforgivable, yet those in my situation were persuaded of their power, since all depended on their favour. Thus two opposing interpretations fought for precedence, not only in my situation but in the world of quite sensible men and women, women in particular, hoping for a successful outcome to hopeless love affairs, convinced that there must be—must be—a reward for virtue, yet seeing all around them evidence of expectations unfulfilled, and worse, their own bewilderment turned into a joke that others might enjoy.
I had no idea what to do with my day. The evening, fortunately, was taken care of: I was to dine at Adam’s house, together with an elderly couple who were friends of his parents, up in London for a week of theatres and sale-rooms. I thought this auspicious: I hoped they would take away with them a good report of my suitability. Adam had asked me to supply a few items, avocado pears, o
lives, nuts. He was an excellent cook, would take care of the main part of the meal. I had done my shopping the previous day, and stowed the bags in what remained of my kitchen. I added some of my mother’s dishes, for it pleased me to blend my effects with his. All was ready for the evening, which merely left the rest of the day to fill.
In this curious February half-light it would be difficult to see where the day ended and the evening began. I felt tired. Perhaps I was not as prepared as I thought for any sort of change. Indeed I felt so tired that I abandoned any thought of further exercise, sat down in my mother’s old chair, which, on the following day, would take its place in the removal van, and fell into a doze, predictably waking with a start when a light went on in the house opposite. I thus found that I had slept in this manner for a good part of the afternoon.
I now see that this was prophetic. At the time I merely went into the bathroom and washed my hair, regretting that I had not done so earlier. There was just time to make a cup of tea and to change. I set out with my carrier bags for Langton Street—no distance from Edith Grove—and as luck would have it the lowering sky dissolved into a heavy shower of rain. My hands were not free; in any event I had no umbrella. My still-damp hair was thoroughly wet, but no real harm was done: Adam would lend me a towel and I would repair the damage. I did not think I had to make a glamorous impression on his parents’ elderly friends, but simply to behave naturally, in accordance with my mother’s precepts and example. Apart from the knowledge that I was not looking my best, and remembering that the removal men were due in Edith Grove at eight o’clock the following morning, I was not too concerned. My faith would move mountains, though at that stage I was unaware that there were mountains to be moved.
The Bay of Angels Page 3
