The Bay of Angels Read online

  ‘Your main concern at the moment is your mother,’ he said.

  It seemed both a prediction and a promise.

  ‘You will see her again?’ I asked.

  ‘As I have explained to you, she is in the care of Dr Lagarde.’

  ‘But at the clinic . . . ’

  ‘The clinic is where I work. The Résidence is where Dr Lagarde works.’

  ‘Yet I should like to feel that I could call on you.’ Consult you, I should have said, but it was too late. ‘Does the clinic belong to you?’ I hurriedly asked, aware that the question was unseemly.

  ‘I have a controlling interest. The owner is Dr Thibaudet, whom I think you once knew.’

  I nodded, aware that I had not contacted the Thibaudets, as I should have done. My mother had reported one visit, which had not been repeated. This had rather surprised me, though on the whole I was relieved that they had not seen her too often in these reduced circumstances. Besides, Simon had been their friend; their hospitality had been for Simon, only incidentally for his wife.

  ‘He always asks after her,’ Dr Balbi continued. ‘He is a good man. I am glad to say that he is enjoying his retirement. One never knows.’

  ‘So the clinic belongs to you both?’

  ‘It will be mine eventually.’

  ‘Is that what you wanted, all those years ago in Marseilles?’ For I was as familiar with his childhood as I was with my own.

  ‘I believe it was, yes. Or almost. With one significant difference: I wanted to help poor people. My patients at the clinic are comfortably off. I wanted to help the sort of people I had grown up with. But I was ambitious, I suppose, so I followed a certain path.’

  ‘I might even have met you at the Thibaudets’ house,’ I remarked.

  ‘We do not mix socially. He regards me, still, as his assistant, one to whom he issues advice and directions. Our professional relationship depends on my showing respect. Which of course I do. Are you ready to leave?’

  Yes, I was ready. I was suddenly tired, a fact which Dr Balbi had registered before I had. I got up painfully, like a much older woman. He did not offer his hand, merely watched me, as if checking an earlier impression. I would have welcomed an arm to lean on, but recognized that any request would seem out of place. The walk home lost something of its charm, the charm it would have possessed if I had known that I should see him again. Nor could I invite him in; that was out of the question. I still believed that he had matters in hand, though he seemed to be regretting his earlier confidences. I could sense a new awkwardness emanating from him, a regret that he had taken leave of his habitual reserve. How did this man ever relate further to a woman? By seeking out professionals? I felt a disappointment on both sides. He too was aware of gaffes: talk of the clinic had been a mistake. It had been a mistake to mention Dr Thibaudet, for that too took me back into territory which had been closed off. I had no desire to resurrect the connection with Les Mouettes. If Simon had brought us, my mother and myself, to this place, he had also deserted us, leaving us to fend for ourselves. Of Les Mouettes nothing remained. We might have been interlopers all along.

  Brought back once more to a realization of our very real neediness, I felt a certain resentment towards Dr Balbi’s easy acceptance of the situation. This increased the distance between us, and left me feeling angrily without resource. Dr Thibaudet had not sought me out, had merely consigned my mother to this unknown man who had been professionally bound to exercise some duty of care. Then he too had discharged the obligation on to Dr Lagarde. I saw this as a form of dereliction, of indifference, where I would have welcomed anxiety, ardour, even, on my own behalf. Particularly on my own behalf. For there was no further indication that Dr Balbi had any interest in me beyond my weak connection with his professional colleagues. I was a case, but a case without a history. I was therefore of no great interest. The courtesies had been observed, as they always would be, but perhaps no more. I blushed when I considered how eagerly I had expressed my willingness to know him better. He had dealt with it expertly, having no doubt had to deal with it before. Women would respond to him precisely because he was impervious to them. And yet, as I supposed, he had come to find me on the beach.

  At my door I shook hands firmly. I did not ask him whether he would take a similar walk on a similar evening, and although I was pleased with myself for my inhabitual reticence I felt a desolation, as if I had foolishly denied myself comfort. I wanted him to give me a sign that the evening had been a pleasant one, but he was determined to give no such sign. Possibly he regretted having been seen in such a place at such a time, alone, and, as he thought, unobserved. Almost certainly he regretted my approach, though at some undisturbed depth of his own he may have wished for it. He had confessed to loneliness, but in a worldly manner which divested the condition of its real hurt. Whereas I was lonely in a quite specific sense, lonely for company. The inequality of our situation resided in the fact that whereas he could find company of a sort when he desired it, I could find none. Women are at a disadvantage in this sort of situation, for to state one’s desire for closeness, or indeed for further closeness, is to give away something that should be kept in reserve. And this is always registered as a weakness. Which, of course, it is.

  I resented my being returned to a condition I had known before. Whether I liked it or not I had gained a certain hardness from being on my own, particularly in such circumstances. I had grown to rely on myself, had not once succumbed to the temptation of throwing caution to the winds. Until now. Towards this man I now felt some of the enmity that all women feel at some time towards all men. This unequal business, as hazardous as war, divides men and women more than it unites them, so that any eventual partnership bears the scars of what might have gone wrong, nearly did go wrong, just as all failures to achieve parity leave one with a lasting feeling of shame. The politest of rejections eats into the soul, destroying the trust that might have existed, the friendship that might have survived. I saw now that I had been put in my place, or rather returned to it, and I admired the tact with which it had been done. Nothing had been stated, or even implied, and yet I knew that I had been unwise in expecting anything more than a banal and possibly accidental meeting. He had not needed to warn me; his polite noncommittal stance had done that for him. Whether or not this was an all-purpose disguise there was no way of knowing. I thanked him for the tisane. He did not wait to see me safely indoors. In the way I already recognized as characteristic he was on his way down the rue de France by the time I had shut the door behind me. I put this down to a faulty education. His mother, for all her undoubted virtues, had not taught him to care for a woman. I hesitated to acknowledge that this indifference might have been his own affair. I had had more than enough insights for one evening.

  Yet on the following day, when I visited my mother, Mme Lhomond, who was sitting with her, remarked, ‘Mademoiselle Zoé est en beauté aujourd’hui.’ Fortunately there was no need to reply to this, as she was accompanied by her daughter, also called Mme Lhomond, not because she was married to any son of the authentic Mme Lhomond, but on account of her long-standing liaison with an exceedingly wealthy man. That this was a union of some significance we had been left in no doubt, for it was boasted of by both the mother and the daughter. The other ladies also appeared to approve of it, since it represented a sort of victory for women. Virginie Lhomond always made an effort for her mother, as her appearance was ready to testify. This was regarded as honourable behaviour, and she was accorded some of the respect normally reserved for Mme de Pass’s son. Today she wore an extremely tight-fitting white crêpe suit, which bore the stamp of the Chanel boutique; this was noted by the other ladies, to whom Virginie Lhomond sent a cheery wave of her plump hand. Her powerful scent helped to vivify the atmosphere, overlaying other scents, so that the salon became a kind of salon once again. Her various outfits were closely studied, although they bore a family resemblance: all were tight, worn to flatter her opulent figure, and accompanied by the appro
priately expensive bag, the high-heeled sandals, the gold necklaces, and the useful tips she left for the maids, conveyed to her mother in a scented envelope, to be disbursed by her on the following morning.

  It was surprising how little resentment there was of her obvious wealth. This if anything created a climate of admiration, pioneered by both Mmes Lhomond. The mother appeared to think that her daughter had done extremely well for herself. As for the daughter, she pulled her weight manfully, or rather womanfully, by frequent references to the yacht in the harbour at Cannes, ready to entertain business acquaintances, or the car and chauffeur at the door. This was regarded as true filial behaviour, particularly as visits to her mother involved taking a suite at the Negresco for the weekend, something that few other offspring would have been enabled to do. What was disarming about Mme Lhomond junior, who had acceded to married dignity without altering her état-civil, was the fact that she acknowledged the craving for luxury that could rarely be expressed by the mostly middle- and upper-class inmates and satisfied it. ‘Are you expecting your daughter today?’ one of the ladies might ask of Mme Lhomond. She would swell with satisfaction, for few such inquiries came her way. She too had had an adventurous youth, my mother had told me, though little remained of it now. There was no harm in her; one had only to see her clutching her box of marrons glacés, also supplied by her daughter, and staring into space after such a visit, to register her complete absence of anything resembling character. Her love for her daughter supplied whatever moral values she possessed. Fortunately her daughter responded in kind.

  There was an almost palpable feeling of disappointment when Mme Lhomond junior announced that she was taking her mother for a drive. Only my mother abstained from this corporate sentiment, as if she would be relieved when they both left. Virginie Lhomond conducted the exit to their satisfaction; that is to say she smoothed down her skirt, patted her hair, twisted her rings, and then performed the same services for her mother. That all these gestures were vulgar gave additional pleasure. The pleasure was not entirely malicious; there were echoes here of former behaviour, though on a more muted scale. There had been an unmistakeable undertow of generosity in Virginie Lhomond’s display; she knew she was supplying an interest, and that it would be one to inspire future reflection.

  Not that these austere women would or could emulate such self-satisfaction, but they had not always chosen to be so austere: austerity had been thrust upon them and they had dealt with it as best they could. Virginie Lhomond provided the sort of entertainment they might derive from a lavish television production, in which extravagance supplied most of the plot. And she had had the sort of indifferent good will that made her a welcome presence. Though she did not remember their names—the only thing that might have been held against her—she smiled and nodded to them all in general, if not in particular. It was a visit from a local celebrity, leaving in its wake the sort of gratification that attention from a celebrity bestows. They all felt better for her visit, although their normal good manners would, unfortunately, prevent them from discussing her in any detail. Having been out of the world so long, they had no idea how much money she represented, but all privately concluded that it must have been a great deal.

  I was intrigued by this performance; not so my mother, who seemed irritated and forlorn. I think she thought that I might be offended, having in mind the obscure life she rightly imagined me to be living. It was in fact she who was offended, as if aspersions had been cast on her own virtue. Maybe she thought that virtue was paying poor dividends. She had been polite, acquiescent, a well-brought-up girl who had made no particular plan for her future. And I, in imitation, had done the same. Now we had both seen the alternative, the altogether more agreeable evidence of the wages of sin. She minded for me, but I think at that moment she minded more for herself. In contrast to the two plump Mmes Lhomond she looked older than her years.

  ‘Did you not go to the hairdresser yesterday, Mama?’

  ‘Didn’t I? I must have forgotten. Not that it matters.’

  ‘Of course it matters. You saw what a lot of care went into Virginie’s appearance.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said wryly. ‘I saw. I could hardly help seeing.’

  I was faintly shocked by her evident rancour.

  ‘But surely there was something rather splendid about her?’

  ‘I don’t mind her. It’s her mother who drives me mad. She talks all the time: and now she will talk even more . . . ’

  ‘Naturally she was pleased to see her . . . ’

  ‘. . . whereas I should be talking about my daughter, the one good thing I have achieved in my life.’

  ‘But there’s not much to say about me.’

  ‘No,’ she agreed. ‘I’m afraid you take after me in that way.’

  For a moment we contemplated our destiny, which was to live out our lives in the best possible taste. I furiously denied this possibility, but I thought it unwise to expose hurt feelings. We were both hurt. I believed that my mother preferred me as I was, a comfort and a support. I was shocked by this, an additional sadness to add to all the rest. Or was it merely a confirmation of her habitual and disastrous innocence?

  ‘Get your jacket, Mama. I am taking you out for coffee.’

  Obediently she rose. ‘I won’t be a minute, darling. I’ll just tidy my hair.’

  It was quiet on that particular Sunday. There were fewer visitors than usual, the weather being too good to sacrifice to elderly relatives. Outside the big windows of the salon the sun blazed, the late sun of high summer. There were few voices from the street; everyone had congregated in the cafés and ice-cream bars, where the tourists were spending the last of their money. The contrast between youth and age had never been so sharply defined; even Virginie Lhomond counted as young, though she must have been in her mid- to late fifties, not much younger than my mother, who was an old woman by comparison. I had no sense of my own comparative youth: I had become part of the furniture. Only the unsettling recollection of the previous evening served to remind me. But that evening had ended so inconclusively that I felt returned to a state of non-being, almost at one with the ladies of the Résidence Sainte Thérèse. They too were disappointed: there were few distractions for them on this afternoon. The smiles were tired. They could not wait now for the day to end.

  When my mother appeared, after a rather long interval, her hair was just as it had been when she had left me to go to her room.

  ‘I don’t think I want to go out, Zoë. I’m a little tired. You go, darling. I’ll see you next week.’

  ‘Are you all right, Mama?’

  ‘Yes. Go, darling. I’ll rest for a bit.’

  She sat down thankfully. With an effort she put up her face to be kissed. When I turned round at the door her eyes were closed.

  As usual I felt an immense relief when this visit was over. Maybe it was the sheer physical relief of emerging into the air; maybe it was the relief of getting away from those old people. But, shamefully, it was the relief of consigning my mother to the care of others for the space of a week. As my love for her grew more poignant and more threatened my impatience and my weariness grew. Unwittingly she had come to represent a way of life that horrified me: a faded regretful life in which one’s own desires counted for so little that they could be easily ignored. By contrast I felt myself becoming rougher, tougher, on these Sunday evenings, ready to blame, to admonish. But how to blame the blameless? My mother’s present circumstances were hardly of her choosing, and her condition, which mystified me, should surely evoke concern. Yet I felt the resentment of one whose own health was being undermined. On Sundays I felt impelled to take some violent action, yet all I could do was walk until I was tired. I rejoiced, as always, in the sun, the crowds, the blaring traffic, yet at the back of my mind was the ineffaceable image of my mother sitting back in her chair, with her eyes closed. The gratitude with which I embraced the light had something feverish about it. In many ways I felt less burdened at night, when the darknes
s would be universal, and I could count on sleep to efface the memory of the day.

  Except that I could no longer count on sleep, as I had once been able to do. Sleep had begun to evade me, so that it was easier to stay awake, to work, to go out. I was not tired. I deduced that I was being kept in this state of wakefulness for a purpose. This purpose had to do with my mother, but also with myself. On this particular Sunday I set out and walked for a couple of hours, not paying much attention to where my steps were taking me. Late at night I found myself, as I knew I should, on the beach. The air was calm, the night particularly beautiful. It would have been entirely possible for me to walk out into the sea. That I did not do so was the result of a sense of duty to myself. I wanted to know the rest of the story, however it might turn out. I turned and scanned the Promenade for the sight of a known face. But Dr Balbi was nowhere to be seen.

  15

  I liked to think that the Baie des Anges was once inhabited by angels. I could visualize their phosphorescent descent, see them performing a brief spiritual dance on the shore, before heading inland to stimulate the economy. That economy was now thriving, but at night, on the edge of the sea, it was still possible to imagine a different sort of tourist, an unearthly visitation at one with the elements. These angels would have been entrepreneurial, with an eye to expansion. Their brief vacation on the shore before shouldering their duties would have been the only trace of their otherworldly origin. Within a very short space of time they would have transformed themselves into a limited company, leaving behind only the beautiful appellation they had bestowed on a large area of pebbles. There are no angels in Nice today: their activities have passed into other hands, those of M. Cottin, of Sœur Elisabeth, even of Dr Lagarde, who was so resolutely angelic that he invited the snubs of those less finely wrought.