Edward Aubyn - The Patrick Melrose Novels - Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and Mother's Milk

‘But I don’t understand why this counts as a charity. People pay to come here, don’t they?’ said Julia.

‘They do, they do,’ said Seamus, ‘but we recycle the profits, you see, so as to give scholarships to students like Kevin and Anette who are learning the shamanic work. And they’ve started to bring groups of inner-city kids from the estates in Dublin. We let them attend the courses for free, you know, and it’s a wonderful thing to see the transformations. They love the trance music and the drumming. They come up to me and say, “Seamus, this is incredible, it’s like tripping without the drugs,” and they take that message back to the inner city and start up shamanic groups of their own.’

‘Do we need a charity for tripping?’ asked his father. ‘Of all the ills in the world, the fact that there are a few people who are not tripping seems a wild hole to plug. Besides, if people want to trip, why not give them a strong dose of acid, instead of messing about with drums?’

‘You can tell he’s a barrister,’ said Seamus amiably.

‘I’m all for people having hobbies,’ said his father. ‘I just think they should explore them in the comfort of their own homes.’

‘Sadly, Patrick,’ said Seamus, ‘some homes are not that comfortable.’

‘I know the feeling,’ said his father. ‘Which reminds me, do you think we could clear out some of those books, advertisements, brochures, bric-a-brac’

‘Surely,’ said Seamus, ‘surely.’

His father and Seamus got up to leave and Robert realized that he was going to be left alone with Julia.

‘I’ll help,’ he said, following them round the terrace. His father led the way into the hall and stopped almost immediately.

‘These fluttering leaflets,’ he said, ‘advertising other centres, other institutes, healing circles, advanced drumming courses – they’re really wasted on us. In fact, this whole noticeboard,’ he continued, unhooking it from the wall, ‘despite its attractive cork surface and its multicoloured drawing pins, might as well not be here.’

‘No problem,’ said Seamus, embracing the notice-board.

Although his father’s manner remained supremely controlled, Robert could feel that he was intoxicated with rage and contempt. Seamus clouded over when Robert tried to make out what he was feeling, but eventually he groped his way to the terrible conclusion that Seamus pitied his father. Knowing that he was in charge, Seamus could afford to indulge the fury of a betrayed child. His repulsive pity saved him from feeling the impact of Patrick’s fury, but Robert found himself caught between the punchbag and the punch and, feeling frightened and useless, he slipped out of the front door, while his father marched Seamus on to the next offence.

Outside, the shadow of the house was spreading to the flower beds on the edge of the terrace, indicating to some effortless part of his mind that the middle of the afternoon had arrived. The cicadas scratched on. He could see without looking, hear without listening; he was aware that he was not thinking. His attention, which usually bounced from one thing to another, was still. He pushed to test its resistance but he didn’t push too hard, knowing that he could probably make himself pinball around again if he tried. His mind was glazed over, like a pond drowsily repeating the pattern of the sky.

The funny thing was that by imagining a pond he had started disturbing the trance it was being compared to. Now he wanted to go to the pond at the top of the steps, a stone semicircle of water at the end of the drive, where the goldfish would be hiding under a shield of reflection. That was right; he didn’t want to go round the house with his father and Seamus, he wanted to scatter bread on the water to see if he could make that slippery Catherine wheel of orange fish break the surface. He ran into the kitchen and grabbed a piece of old bread before sprinting up the steps to the pond.

His father had told him that in winter the source gushed out of the pipe and thundered down among the darting fish; it overflowed into the lower ponds and eventually into the stream that ran along the crease of the valley. He wished he could see that one day. By August the pond was only half full. The algae-bearded pipe dripped into greenish water. Wasps and hornets and dragonflies crowded its warm dusty surface, resting on the water-lily pads for a safer drink. The goldfish were invisible unless tempted by food. The best method was to rub two pieces of stale bread together until they disintegrated into fine dry crumbs. Pellets of bread just sank, but the crumbs were held on the surface like dust. The most beautiful fish, the one he really wanted to see, had red and white patches on its skin. The others were all shades of orange, apart from a few small black ones which must either turn orange later on, or die out, because there were no big black ones.

He broke the bread and grated the two halves, watching a rain of light crumbs land on the water and spread out. Nothing happened.

The truth was that he had only seen the swirling frenzy of fish once, and since then either nothing had happened or a solitary fish fed lazily under the wobbling sinking crumbs.

‘Fish! Fish! Fish! Come on! Fish! Fish! Fish!’

‘Are you calling to your power animal?’ said a voice behind him.

He stopped abruptly and swung round. Seamus was standing there, smiling at him benevolently, his tropical shirt blazing in the sun.

‘Fish! Fish! Fish!’ Seamus called.

‘I was just feeding them,’ mumbled Robert.

‘Do you feel you have a special connection with fish?’ Seamus asked him, leaning in closer. ‘That’s what a power animal is, you know. It helps you on your journey through life.’

‘I just like them being fish,’ said Robert. ‘They don’t have to do anything for me.’

‘Now fish, for instance, bring us messages from the depths, from under the surface of things.’ Seamus wriggled his hand through the air. ‘Ah, it’s a magical land here,’ said Seamus, pushing his elbows back and twisting his neck from side to side with his eyes closed. ‘My own personal power point, you know, is up there in the little wood, by the bird bath. Do you know the spot? It was your grandmother first pointed it out to me, it was a special place for her too. The first time I did a journey here, that’s where I connected with the non-ordinary reality.’

Robert suddenly realized, and as he realized it he also saw its inevitability, that he loathed Seamus.

Seamus cupped his hands around his mouth and howled, ‘Fish! Fish! Fish!’

Robert wanted to kill him. If he had a car he would run him over. If he had an axe he would cut him down.

He heard the upper door of the house being opened, and then the mosquito door squeaking open as well and out came his mother, holding Thomas in her arms.

‘Oh, it’s you. Hello, Seamus,’ said his mother politely. ‘We were half asleep, and I couldn’t work out why a travelling fishmonger was bellowing outside the window.’

‘We were, you know, invoking the fish,’ said Seamus.

Robert ran over to his mother. She sat down with him on the low wall around the edge of the pond, away from where Seamus was standing, and tilted Thomas so he could see the water. Robert really hoped the fish didn’t come to the surface now, or Seamus would probably think he had made it happen with his special powers. Poor Thomas, he might never see the orange swirl, he might never see the big fish with red and white patches. Seamus was taking away the pond and the wood and the bird bath and the whole landscape from him. In fact, when you thought about it, Thomas had been attacked by his own grandmother from the moment he was born. She wasn’t a grandmother at all; more like a stepmother in a fairy tale, cursing him in his cot. How could she have shown Seamus the bird bath in the wood? He patted Thomas’s head protectively. Thomas started to laugh, his surprisingly deep gurgling laugh, and Robert realized that his brother didn’t really know about these things that were driving Robert crazy, and that he needn’t know, unless Robert told him.