The Bay of Angels Read online

  Dr Balbi, at least, did not seem to object to my intemperate entrance. He was seated behind his desk with a folder of notes in front of him: my mother’s, I presumed. It was the first sign of clinical activity that I had ever seen in that place. He looked up briefly and signalled me to sit down.

  ‘Your mother had a slight episode last night,’ he said. ‘This was successfully controlled, but we shall keep her under close observation for a day or two.’

  ‘A slight episode of what?’

  ‘Her heart is not strong. There may have been one or two episodes in the past.’

  ‘You mean she had a heart attack?’

  ‘No, no. An irregular beat, nothing more.’ He looked at me more carefully. ‘You did not know of this?’

  ‘I knew simply that she liked to live quietly.’

  ‘She will have had some awareness of her condition. Did she not consult a doctor in England?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  I assumed that it was possible. I knew little of my mother’s daily life, and of her recent life in France nothing at all. Yet it seemed logical that her extreme passivity was an act of self-protection, and her quietness an attempt to palliate any form of aggression from her body. I doubted whether Simon had known any of this, for she would have wished to protect him as well as herself. That protection extended even to me; her silence was the safeguard of my liberty. Now I saw her as the vulnerable creature she had always been, vulnerable not through loneliness, though that is vulnerability enough, but through an awareness of her own fragility. The only sign of delicacy was her rest in the afternoons. But then women of her kind did rest, in shadowy bedrooms, whereas women of my generation, instructed to assume their independence and to enjoy it, took little rest and despised those who did. Ladylike behaviour had long been renounced in favour of a more militant stance; we were at the cutting edge, fighting for equality. We had no time to rest from our labours, for we owed it both to ourselves and to others of our kind to carry on the fight.

  Suddenly I felt very tired of the struggle. My mother had chosen her way of life, one that was certainly anachronistic, and had taken full responsibility for it. I saw her as an heroic figure, isolated, certainly, but with resources of her own which I had not suspected.

  ‘Is she very ill?’ I asked fearfully.

  ‘No, no. Hearts can recover quite successfully with the correct regime. But she will require care. Please do not cry. She has you, though you are young, and it may seem a little unfair . . . ’

  ‘Yes, it is unfair, but I will do what I have to. My mother is innocent . . . ’

  He smiled. ‘Ah, yes, the innocent place an unfair burden on the rest of us. I know how you must feel. I too had the care of my mother. I loved her dearly, but she took away all my hopes.’

  ‘Yet, here you are, a doctor . . . ’

  ‘That was her wish for me. Not mine, not originally. But she made so many sacrifices for me, and would have made more.’

  ‘You rewarded her.’

  ‘Yes, I did. It was important for me to do so. You have found somewhere to live?’

  ‘For myself, yes. A room which I quite like, but which could never be regarded as anything but provisional, until I can get my mother back to London. She will have to go to an hotel, I suppose, until she is stronger.’

  I blotted my eyes. I felt unattractive; my feet were sore from all the walking, and my hair needed washing. And he was being kind; he had broken that severe silence which had reduced me to tears. I did not want to earn this man’s disapproval, for he too had performed heroic acts. It was easy to imagine him as a poor student, in a temporary room, with no home comforts, and always the memory of that sacrificial mother to spur him on to greater efforts. He spoke with a slight accent, that of Marseilles, although I did not doubt that most of it had been ironed out in the course of his career. Now he was the finished product, a successful doctor, even though he had none of the confidence, even the ebullience, that one sometimes encounters in those conscious of worldly success. There was, if anything, a hint of reserve, even of melancholy, in his manner. His looks were nondescript; he was not an impressive figure. And he was watching me carefully, as if in doing so he might prohibit any weakness of my own from manifesting itself.

  ‘An hotel would not be suitable,’ he said. ‘And I doubt if you would find one willing to take your mother at this time of the year. Hotels prefer people who come to Nice for pleasure, not for convalescence.’

  I looked at him helplessly. He was a man; let him make the decisions. I now craved the strength of another; I felt that without Dr Balbi’s resourcefulness I might as well give up straight away.

  ‘Can she not stay here for a while?’ I begged.

  ‘That would not be suitable either. Long-term patients become institutionalized, have difficulty in adapting once they are back in the world. You would have a much heavier burden on your hands if we were to keep her here much longer.’

  ‘Then where is she to go? What is to become of her?’

  ‘In such cases I usually recommend the Résidence Sainte Thérèse. It is a place for those who need a certain amount of care and attention.’

  ‘A nursing-home?’

  ‘No, it is what it says it is: a residence, run by lay sisters. Excellent women. There are only twenty ladies there at any one time. Naturally a vacancy occurs when one of them . . . leaves. I believe there is such a vacancy at the present time. She will be quite comfortable; she will have her own room, although the residents are encouraged to mingle in the downstairs salon, and of course the dining-room. You will be able to visit, and she will have company. There is no need to look so shocked. My own mother spent her last years in such a place, and was, I think, contented.’ A shadow crossed his face. ‘But then she had had such a hard life that any kind of rest would have signified contentment. But she took pleasure in the friendships she formed. One particular lady took her under her wing, saw to it that she visited the hairdresser, and so on. Your mother will come to terms with such an arrangement. She is relatively young: she will adjust, though she might find it a little strange at first.’

  ‘Will she be in there for life? If so, it’s not possible. I mean to take her home with me.’

  ‘Of course you will make your own decisions, though she will need to make a full recovery. I see no reason why she should not go home eventually. You will no doubt be able to look after her yourself then.’

  There was no note of interrogation in his voice. I had received my orders. Not only that, he expected nothing less of me. He knew all about obedient sons and daughters, and no doubt also about their sorrows.

  ‘Was your mother very old when she died?’

  ‘Not very, no. But old for one who had never been really young. A widow, with two children. I have a sister, older than myself.’

  ‘My mother too is a widow.’

  ‘I doubt if you have known the same hardship. We lived in a very poor part of Marseilles’—I was right—‘but when I went to study, in Montpellier, she rented a little room for me so that I should feel like the other students. I never did, of course. And I was lonely. We were both lonely. And when I went home there was little to say. That is why the residential home was such a relief to us both, as it will be to you and your mother. And of course I shall look in from time to time.’ He stood up. ‘If you agree to this I will make the arrangements.’

  ‘What should I tell my mother?’

  ‘As little as possible. You will find that she accepts the change quite well.’

  ‘And when . . . ?’

  ‘We shall keep her here for one more week. After that she will be ready to leave.’

  Standing, he looked more severe than he had done when seated. I was to accept his ruling or he would do nothing more for me. I felt inclined to accept it anyway, so grateful was I to have our fate decided for us. In due course I should take my mother home, and we would live together, as it seemed to me now more likely that we should have to. We should live in my flat,
or in another flat, and I should care for her. I had not made good use of my time, or my youth, and now had little to show for either. Yet as I stood up and shook Dr Balbi’s outstretched hand, I almost wished he would entrust me with more confidences, in another setting, so that neither of us need ever speak with more restraint.

  11

  ‘Dis bonjour à Mémé.’

  ‘J’veux pas,’ said the child, twisting away from the lovingly held-out arms of the lady with the crooked face.

  ‘Voyons, Jean-Claude,’ said his mother. ‘Il est fatigué,’ she explained to the attentive circle of ladies who scrutinized every visitor on those longed-for Sundays, when the outside world was allowed into the Résidence Sainte Thérèse for a brief opportunity to monitor the progress of those too frail or too diminished to venture out.

  ‘C’est normal,’ said the lady with the crooked face, Mme Levasseur, but the light went out of her eyes. My mother laid a consoling hand on the hand which was slowly replaced on the arm of the chair, as Mme Levasseur recovered her composure, which was considerable. So practised was this composure that she was able to summon a smile and to look indulgently on the recalcitrant Jean-Claude, who was sent off to draw at one of the small tables which, together with a selection of unmatched chairs, furnished the salon. The ladies sat expectantly, waiting for their visitors, for any visitors, for the sight of a man, a son, a nephew, even if such a man belonged to another. All would be discussed in the long days and evenings to come, until another weekend arrived to break the monotony of their lives. On Saturdays, in preparation for these visits, those ladies who could still get out went to the hairdresser. For those who were housebound Mlle Jacqueline came in and performed a similar service. There was a clear division between those who had had their hair done professionally, and those who had made do with Mlle Jacqueline, a goodhearted but unfortunately unskilled assistant who undertook this chore as part of her Christian duty. My mother, who was some twenty, even thirty years younger than the other inmates, went to M. Hervé every Saturday morning, although she could have gone on any other day of the week. Consciously or unconsciously, she followed the pattern laid down for the others. Her hair was now quite grey.

  The Résidence Sainte Thérèse occupied a once dignified town house in the rue Droite, near the church of Sainte Rita, in the oldest part of the city. It was a pleasant walk from the rue de France, down the Cours Saleya, past the market, to the rue Droite. I had taken this walk anxiously, eagerly, every day, until told that Sunday was visiting day, or, in exceptional circumstances, Saturday. I too had conformed to the prevailing pattern, and, like the reluctant Jean-Claude, had developed a resistance to the evidence of deterioration that was hard to overlook. And yet it was a good place; even I, trying to ignore the smells of cooking and of age, was obliged to concede that it provided a community of sorts for those who, through no fault of their own, had to live with strangers. On Sundays the visitors, particularly the male visitors, manifested every kind of good will, tried not to notice the freckled hands, the swollen feet of those who had once cared for them, complimented those whose hair denoted particular effort, and made the obligatory round of greetings and farewells to those ladies left unattended. In that way a kind of harmony was maintained which had everything to do with gallantry, very little with natural inclination.

  The ladies were in fact ladies, or perhaps had been ladies before being struck down by one infirmity or another. They were members of a recognizable class, although they may have lost the distinguishing marks of that class: hauteur, good posture, careful appearance, a desire to uphold status. Now they were like girls again, in a way they could barely understand. They were cared for by a staff of lay sisters, who wore short blue uniforms, like celestial factory workers, and by the maids, Agathe and Julie, whom they loved. It was these two girls who provided what gaiety there was on those endless weekdays, particularly on Mondays, when they reported their activities with husbands or boyfriends, to the delight of those whose memories could still entertain such accounts. The activities of the girls were eagerly discussed; a certain precedence was formed among those who had received one confidence more than those so generously shared with others. The love of everything young brought smiles to faces which had lost the memory of youth, in the same way that uneasy sons and sombre grandsons held the secret of the opposite sex, so far out of reach now that widowhood was the only condition that many of them understood. They evaluated long legs, jaws rough from hasty shaving, as badges of what was still desirable, even at an age and in a context when such matters were an affair of the distant past; they responded, still, to the sound of a male voice. And the very young, in particular, awoke responses which had once been habitual: the desire to embrace, to kiss, to cherish. The return to normality, when the visitors had left, was the low point of the week.

  My mother, after her initial terror, was strangely content, no doubt recognizing the regime as benevolent, as indeed it was. She had a small room of her own, and a cabinet de toilette; above her bed hung a black wooden crucifix. I think she would have retreated there, had Sœur Elisabeth not bustled her downstairs shortly after her arrival and introduced her to two of the younger residents, Mme Levasseur and Mme de Pass, both in their late seventies. Out of politeness she had responded to their questions and thus unknowingly passed the test of acceptability. They sympathized with her on the death of her husband, for this was a routine subject of conversation, and if they did not understand how she came to be in their midst did indeed understand that she was recovering from a debilitating illness exacerbated by shock. This was entirely respectable. Of the nature of that death—‘an accident’—and of that illness little was said. Though they would have liked to know more, Mme Levasseur and Mme de Pass were tactful enough to desist from further inquiries. Confidences were voluntary; there was to be nothing so vulgar as interrogation. Thus my mother was permitted to be comfortable with the story that she had perfected for herself, or that I had perfected for her. Conditions had somehow to be met and respected. I was, in spite of myself, shocked at the ease with which she had come to terms with those conditions. It was as if she had been returned to some part of her girlhood, her schooldays perhaps, when the company of those of the same sex was entirely natural. All the women seemed to share this attitude. Only those male accoutrements on the Sunday visitors stimulated some sort of reminiscence. Then eyes would recover their sharpness, hands go up to touch the snow-white coiffures. Men, whether as sons or lovers, would be suddenly, succinctly, remembered.

  But the residents were not encouraged to brood. Those who could go out were permitted to do so, preferably in twos or threes, for the streets were steep in this part of town, and excursions were limited. Coffee might be taken at the café on the corner, before the slow walk back for lunch. Sometimes a son or a nephew would propose a short drive in the car, but not often. The Sunday visit, once concluded, no doubt with a sigh of regret and relief, was as much as anyone could endure. The residents, too, were almost glad when they were left undisturbed once more, were tired by the unaccustomed company, and always disappointed by that confrontation with a world which had ceased to be theirs. My mother, who knew only myself, was less affected. I provided continuity of the sort she could understand, and she was able to count on my presence. Her conversation, on those Sunday afternoons, almost entirely excluded me. I was told how Mme de Pass’s son was unavoidably detained in New York: this was my cue to have a few words with Mme de Pass. I was told how Mme Levasseur was very disappointed by the way Jean-Claude was being brought up by his mother: this was my signal to send a wave of the hand to Mme Levasseur. The same inquiries had to be made every week, without actually naming the malady that had brought these women to this place. A bad back, to which reference could be made, was the recognized metaphor for any ailment of a chronic or painful nature. It was a matter of dignity, of survival, even, never to refer to parts of the body. My mother never mentioned the stroke that had twisted Mme Levasseur’s face. No one mentioned i
t. Yet it was brought forcibly to mind when Jean-Claude jerked away from the kiss she was longing to give him. Sometimes he relented, but only under pressure.

  ‘Donne-moi un bisou,’ she would plead, and the child would plant a noisy kiss on her good cheek.

  ‘Encore un,’ she would plead again, but this was too much to expect.

  ‘J’en ai plus,’ he habitually flung over his shoulder before preceding his mother out of the door.

  Those who had watched this exchange with their usual intentness handsomely pretended to think the child adorable, and congratulated Mme Levasseur on having such spirited progeny. All knew better, of course, had recognized that hatred of the wilted flesh which they knew for themselves, were willing to excuse the child who had squirmed away out of the sheer instinct of his youth. I too felt that hatred, as I shook hands prior to departure. Outside the sun was still bright; the beautiful day denied the existence of age and of decline. It would get dark, but then the streets would be filled with another kind of light; cars would flash by, strains of music would be heard, young people would be released from the duties of Sunday, Mass in the morning, the visit to the relative in the afternoon, and would once again celebrate their freedom from bodily ills before the working week began on the following day. As I emerged from the Old Town I would welcome the brash sights and sounds of the tourist-filled centre, embrace the sheer philistinism of the traffic and the hotels, prolong my wanderings for as long as I could before turning into the rue de France. Then I too would say goodbye to Sunday for another week. The most insistent memories were of those poor hands patting their newly coiffed hair, in the expectation of a compliment which was not, could not be, genuine.

  It was a relief to return to my landlord, M. Cottin, who was also old but who seemed to have aged in a superior manner, possibly because he was still working. Every morning he surveyed the rue de France from the threshold of his shop, before going back inside to scan the deaths column in Le Figaro. If death were on his mind he did not talk about it, at least to myself, apart from referring to his late wife, which he did frequently. The day after her funeral, he told me, in an unusual moment of confidence, he had got up, gone down to the shop, opened up, and carried on as usual. This he had done ever since, wearing what seemed to be the same shirt and beret. From my upstairs window I could see his sparse figure on the pavement, among the postcards. His other confidence, in which he somehow thought we had a common interest, was his modest research into the history of his own family. Since I was so fond of my mother he thought this might be a way of indicating solidarity. The Cottins, he told me, were originally from Lyons. I, being something of a scholar (for to this excellent man all students were scholars), would appreciate how absorbing such intellectual work could be. Yet every morning he would arrange his stock on the pavement in apparently perfect contentment. I believe he was a modestly happy man. I paid the rent regularly and faithfully, as the months advanced and became less strange. The cost of my mother’s room and board was somehow met. I did not see how our stay in Nice could last indefinitely. I should be sorry to say goodbye to M. Cottin, but I was conscious of having too little to do in Nice, apart from my weekly visits to my mother. I began to long for a return to normality.