Edward Aubyn - At Last

‘The sophisticated cherish their “syndromes”,’ he continued, ‘and even the most simple-minded fool feels entitled to a “complex”. As if it weren’t ludicrous enough for every child to be “gifted”, they now have to be ill as well: a touch of Asperger’s, a little autism; dyslexia stalks the playground; the poor little gifted things have been “bullied” at school; if they can’t confess to being abused, they must confess to being abusive. Well, my dear woman,’ Nicholas laughed threateningly, ‘— I call you “my dear” from what is no doubt known as Sincerity Deficit Disorder , unless some ambitious quack, landing on the scalding, sarcastic beaches of the great continent of irony, has claimed the inversion of surface meaning as Potter’s Disease or Jones’s Jaundice — no, my dear woman, I have not suffered from the slightest taint of mental illness. The modern passion for pathology is a landslide that has been forced to come to a halt at some distance from my eminently sane feet. I have only to walk towards that heap of refuse for it to part, making way for the impossible man, the man who is entirely well; psychotherapists scatter in my presence, ashamed of their sham profession!’

‘You’re completely off your rocker,’ said Fleur, discerningly. ‘I thought as much. I’ve developed what I call “my little radar” over the years. Put me in a room full of people and I can tell straight away who has had that sort of problem.’

Nicholas experienced a moment of despair as he realized that his withering eloquence had made no impact, but like an expert tango dancer who turns abruptly on the very edge of the dance floor, he changed his approach and shouted, ‘Bugger off!’ at the top of his voice.

Fleur looked at him with deepening insight.

‘A month in the Priory would get you back on your feet,’ she concluded, ‘re-clothe you in your rightful mind, as the hymn says. Do you know it?’ Fleur closed her eyes and started to sing rapturously, ‘“Dear Lord and Father of mankind / Forgive our foolish ways / Re-clothe us in our rightful minds…” Marvellous stuff. I’ll have a word with Dr Pagazzi, he’s quite the best. He can be rather severe at times, but only for one’s own good. Look at me: I was mad as a hatter and now I’m on top of the world.’

She leant forward to whisper confidentially to Nicholas.

‘I feel very, very well, you see.’

There were professional reasons for Johnny not to engage with Nicholas Pratt, whose daughter had been a patient of his, but the sight of that monstrous man bellowing at a dishevelled old woman pushed his restraint beyond the limits he had imposed on himself until now. He approached Fleur and, with his back turned to Nicholas, asked her quietly if she was all right.

‘All right?’ laughed Fleur. ‘I’m extremely well, better than ever.’ She struggled to express her sense of abundance. ‘If there were such a thing as being too well, I’d be it. I was just trying to help this poor man who’s had more than his fair share of mental-health problems.’

Reassured that she was unharmed, Johnny smiled at Fleur and started to withdraw tactfully, but Nicholas was by now too enraged to let such an opportunity pass.

‘Ah,’ he said, ‘here he is! Like an exhibit in a courtroom drama, brought on at the perfect moment: a practising witch-doctor, a purveyor of psycho- paralysis , a guide to the catacombs, a guide to the sewers; he promises to turn your dreams into nightmares and he keeps his promises religiously,’ snarled Nicholas, his face flushed and the corners of his mouth flecked with tired saliva. ‘The ferryman of Hell’s second river won’t accept a simple coin, like his proletarian colleague on the Styx. You’ll need a fat cheque to cross the Lethe into that forgotten under-world of dangerous gibberish where toothless infants rip the nipples from their mothers’ milkless breasts.’

Nicholas seemed to be labouring for breath, as he unrolled his vituperative sentences.

‘No fantasy that you invent,’ he struggled on, ‘could be as repulsive as the fantasy on which his sinister art is based, polluting the human imagination with murderous babies and incestuous children…’

Nicholas suddenly stopped speaking, his mouth working to take in enough air. He rocked sideways on his walking stick before staggering backwards a couple of steps and crashing down against the table and onto the floor. He caught the tablecloth as he fell and dragged half a dozen glasses after him. A bottle of red wine toppled sideways and its contents gurgled over the edge of the table and splashed onto his black suit. The waitress lunged forward and caught the bucket of half-melted ice that was sliding towards Nicholas’s supine body.

‘Oh, dear,’ said Fleur, ‘he got himself too worked up. “Hoisted by his own petard”, as the saying goes. This is what happens to people who won’t ask for help,’ she said, as if discussing the case with Dr. Pagazzi.

Mary leant over to the waitress, her mobile phone already open.

‘I’m going to call an ambulance,’ she said.

‘Thanks,’ said the waitress. ‘I’ll go downstairs and warn reception.’

Everyone in the room gathered around the fallen figure and looked on with a mixture of curiosity and alarm.

Patrick knelt down beside Nicholas and started to loosen his tie. Long after it could have been helpful, he continued to loosen the knot until he had removed the tie altogether. Only then did he undo the top button of Nicholas’s shirt. Nicholas tried to say something but winced from the effort and closed his eyes instead, disgusted by his own vulnerability.

Johnny acknowledged a feeling of satisfaction at having played no active part in Nicholas’s collapse. And then he looked down at his fallen opponent, sprawled heavily on the carpet, and somehow the sight of his old neck, no longer festooned with an expensive black silk tie, but wrinkled and sagging and open at the throat, as if waiting for the final dagger thrust, filled him with pity and renewed his respect for the conservative powers of an ego that would rather kill its owner than allow him to change.

‘Johnny?’ said Robert.

‘Yes,’ said Johnny, seeing Robert and Thomas looking up at him with great interest.

‘Why was that man so angry with you?’

‘It’s a long story,’ said Johnny, ‘and one that I’m not really allowed to tell.’

‘Has he got psycho-paralysis?’ said Thomas. ‘Because paralysis means you can’t move.’

Johnny couldn’t help laughing, despite the solemn murmur surrounding Nicholas’s collapse.

‘Well, personally, I think that would be a brilliant diagnosis; but Nicholas Pratt invented that word in order to make fun of psychoanalysis, which is what I do for a job.’

‘What’s that?’ said Thomas.

‘It’s a way of getting access to hidden truths about your feelings,’ said Johnny.

‘Like hide and seek?’ said Thomas.

‘Exactly,’ said Johnny, ‘but instead of hiding in cupboards and behind curtains and under beds, this kind of truth hides in symptoms and dreams and habits.’

‘Can we play?’ said Thomas.

‘Can we stop playing?’ said Johnny, more to himself than to Thomas and Robert.

Julia came up and interrupted Johnny’s conversation with the children.

‘Is this the end?’ she said. ‘It’s enough to put one off having a temper tantrum. Oh, God, that religious fanatic is cradling his head. That would definitely finish me off.’

Annette was sitting on her heels next to Nicholas, with her hands cupped around his head, her eyes closed and her lips moving very slightly.

‘Is she praying?’ said Julia, flabbergasted.

‘That’s nice of her,’ said Thomas.