In the year following her mother's death, Angel slowly realized that she had lost her father, as well. Gone was the gruff man who had joked and teased with her; in his place a ghost wandered about the flat, eating the meals she prepared for him in silence, sitting vacantly in front of the television.
At first she made every effort to get his attention, talking to him, asking questions, begging for stories. But gradually she learned to exist in silence, as he did, and they moved through their days as if in two parallel but unconnected universes. So it was that when she came home from school one January afternoon to find him sitting motionless in his chair, it was half an hour before she realized he was dead.
A stroke, the doctor said, shaking his head and clucking in dismay. But as soon as he'd notified the undertaker, he had taken his bag and gone on to the more rewarding job of ministering to the living.
Mrs. Thomas offered to help with the funeral arrangements, while Betty and Ronnie, stunned by another death, avoided her eyes. 'It's not contagious, you know,' Angel hissed at them, but she soon learned that their behavior was the least of her worries.
'You'll have to know how much you can afford before we talk to the funeral director,' Mrs. Thomas advised her. 'You had better see the bank manager, first.'
Angel knew the bank manager from the days when her father had frequented the Polish cafe. A heavy man given to perspiring and wiping his bald scalp with a handkerchief, there was none of the jollity Angel remembered in his manner. He, too, shook his head and clucked, making her want to scream, but she merely sat quietly and waited.
'Your father was not the best with financial matters, Miss Wolowski,' the bank manager told her reluctantly. 'Especially since your mother's death. Whatever savings he had, he spent on her treatment, and I'm afraid that this past year he's brought little in.'
This didn't come as a great surprise, as Angel had become accustomed over the past few months to the coldness of the flat and the scarcity of the money her father had given her to buy food. Nor had he spent much time trading at his stall in the market. 'But surely there must be something?'
'Perhaps enough to settle a few minor accounts. The butcher, the greengrocer. But that's all. And I'm afraid your landlord has a reputation for moving quickly on these things, so you'll need to vacate as soon as possible.'
'Vacate?'
'I'm afraid so.'
'But I have nowhere to go.'
'Your father must have appointed a guardian of some sort for you?'
'No.'
The bank manager looked distressed, whether on her behalf or his own for having to deal with her, she couldn't tell. 'Well, how old are you, my dear?'
'Sixteen.'
'You're of school-leaving age, then,' he said with apparent relief. 'I suppose you'll have to find work of some sort. I'll be more than happy to give you a reference. And there is one other thing. At the time of your mother's death, your father bought the adjoining plot at Kensal Green for himself, so that's one expense you needn't worry about.'
'A burial, then, but no marker?' Angel said to Mrs. Thomas as they walked back to Westbourne Park.
'No. They're quite expensive, even the plain ones,' Mrs. Thomas agreed. 'But you can always add something later.' Her dark eyes shone with concern. 'Angel, I want you to know you're welcome to stay with us as long as you need. I'm sure your father never meant to leave you like this.'
'I'll be all right, thanks. I'll find somewhere close by.' It was not only that she still felt the hurt from last winter's rejection, but that things had changed and she no longer felt so at home at the Thomases'. Betty, having inherited her mother's skill with a needle, had left school to take a job with a milliner in Kensington Church Street. With the job had come new friends, a new life that did not include Angel. And Ronnie had little time for either of them. When he wasn't working at his job as a photographer's assistant, shooting weddings and family portraits, he roamed the streets with his camera, developing the black-and-white prints in the flat's bathroom and ignoring his family's complaints about the chemical odors. Angel found the Notting Hill street scenes and portraits fascinating, but felt the distance he had put between them too keenly to tell him so.
The day of her father's funeral, unlike that of her mother's, dawned clear and unseasonably mild. There was a hint of softness in the air, as if spring might be hiding round the corner, but Angel knew it for a false promise. This time she and the Thomases were the only mourners. She had made no announcement of the service because she could not afford to entertain anyone afterwards. When Ronnie took her arm as the coffin descended, she felt an unexpectedly dizzying rush of pleasure.
Within the next few weeks, with the help of the bank manager's recommendation, she found a job as a cashier at the grocer's on Portobello Road. She also found a cheap and shabby bedsit in Colville Terrace, hoping her meager wage would cover the rent.
Carefully, she sorted through the flat, knowing she could not take much with her. Her own small bed, the best armchair, her mother's antique bureau, the television, a few kitchen utensils. The rest she arranged for one of her father's friends to sell in the market, but she didn't expect the things to fetch much. She could not, however, bring herself to sell the few bits of antique jewelry left in her father's stall at the arcade, whatever their cash value. The heart-shaped silver locket she fastened round her neck; the rest she put carefully away in the bureau.
When the day came, Ronnie offered to borrow his father's van to help her move the larger items the few blocks south to Colville Terrace. They rode amicably in the front seat, arguing the merits of a new band from Tottenham that had temporarily displaced the Beatles from their number one spot on the charts.
'The Dave Clark Five?' Ronnie said contemptuously. 'What sort of name is that? I'm telling you, six months from now you won't remember what they were called. The Beatles, now, they've got some potential as musicians.'
That he deigned to approve of any pop band surprised her: he usually extolled only the virtues of jazz artists like Thelonious Monk and Chet Baker. 'What about the Rolling Stones, then?' she suggested, aiming for a sophistication she didn't feel.
Ronnie's face lit up. 'Now they've studied the old blues masters- they know their stuff,' he said enthusiastically, and the relaxed atmosphere between them lasted the few minutes until they reached their destination.
'Here?' he asked incredulously as he pulled the van up in front of the new flat. By the time he had followed her up to the top-floor room, he was livid with anger.
'Angel, what you thinking of? This is a pit, a hole. A West Indian family right off the boat wouldn't be desperate enough to take this-'
'It's all I can afford, Ronnie, so just leave it-'
'Don't you know this is one of Peter Rachman's properties? He'll send his frighteners round if you don't pay your rent on time. And his dogs. And if your water goes out, or your heat, he's not known for taking care of his tenants-'
'I'll be fine,' Angel insisted, fighting back tears.
'Those patches on the walls are damp, did you know that? And there's only a paraffin heater, for God's sake. You'll be lucky you don't set yourself alight-'
'Ronnie, either you can help me move this furniture, or I'll do it myself. But there's no point in you standing there criticizing me, because I've no choice.'
Their glowering match lasted a full minute, then Ronnie shrugged. 'All right. It's your funeral.'
But by the time they had humped her things up the stairs, his anger seemed to have evaporated. He sat on the edge of the newly positioned chair, rotating his cap in his hands. 'Look, Angel. I'm sorry for what I said a moment ago. It was… considering your father… anyway, I didn't mean it. I just don't understand why you
