The Bay of Angels Read Online Free PDF Page B

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