The Bay of Angels Read Online Free PDF Page A

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