Revisiting Muriel Spark

Daylight was appearing over London, the great city of bachelors. Half-pint bottles of milk began to be stood at the doorsteps of houses containing single apartments from Hampstead Heath to Greenwich Park, from Wanstead Flats to Putney Heath; but especially in Hampstead, especially in Kensington.
In Queens Gate, Kensington, in Harrington Road, The Boltons.... Chelsea and its backwaters, the bachelors stirred between their sheets, reached for their wound watches, and with waking intelligences noted the time; then remembering it was Saturday morning turned over on their pillows. But soon because it was Saturday, most would be out on the streets shopping for their bacon and eggs.... would set out early, before a quarter past ten, in order to avoid being jostled by the women, the legitimate shoppers.

and

It is all demonology and to do with creatures of the air, and there are others besides ourselves, he thought who lie in their beds like happy countries that have no history. Others ferment in prison; some rot, maimed; some lean over the banisters of presbyteries to see if anyone is going to answer the telephone.