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

‘Stop! Stop!’ sobbed Patrick. ‘It’s all true.’

‘That would imply a certain quality of early care,’ Johnny went on, ‘different from the kind of omnipotent fantasy world that Eleanor wants to perpetuate with her “non-ordinary reality” and her “power animals”. We are always “the veils that veil us from ourselves”, but looking into infancy, with no memories and no established sense of self, it’s all veils . If the privation is bad enough, there’s nobody there to have the insights. It’s a question of reinforcing the best false self you can lay your hands on – the authenticity project is not an option. But that’s not your case. I think you can afford to lose control, to go into the free fall. If the past was going to destroy you it already would have.’

‘Not necessarily. It might have been waiting for just the right moment. The past has all the time in the world. It’s only the future which is running out.’

He emptied the wine bottle into his glass.

‘And the wine,’ he added.

‘So,’ said Johnny, ‘you’re going to try to “do better” tonight?’

‘Yes. My conscience isn’t rebelling in quite the way I expected. I’m not trying to punish Mary by going to bed with Julia – I’m just looking for a little tenderness. I think Mary would almost be relieved if she knew. It’s a burden to someone like her not being able to give me what I need.’

‘You’re really doing her a favour,’ said Johnny.

‘Yes,’ said Patrick, ‘I don’t like to boast about it, but I’m helping her out. She won’t need to feel guilty about abandoning me.’

‘If only more people had your sense of generosity,’ said Johnny.

‘I think quite a lot of people do,’ said Patrick. ‘Anyway, these philanthropic impulses run in my family.’

‘All I feel like saying,’ said Johnny, ‘is that there’s no point to your free fall unless it produces some insight. This is the time for Thomas to develop secure attachment. If you can make it through to his third birthday without destroying your marriage or making Mary feel depressed, that would be a great achievement. I think Robert is already well grounded. Anyway, he has that amazing talent for mimicry which he uses to play with whatever weighs on his mind.’

Before Patrick had time to respond, he heard the screen door swing open and snap back again on its magnetic strip. Both men fell silent and waited to see who was coming out of the house.

‘Julia,’ said Patrick, as she came into view, swishing across the grey grass, ‘come and join us.’

‘We’ve all been wondering what you’re up to,’ said Julia. ‘Are you baying at the moon, or working out the meaning of life?’

‘Neither,’ said Patrick, ‘there’s too much baying in this valley already, and we worked out the meaning of life years ago: “Walk tall and spit on the graves of your enemies”. Wasn’t that it?’

‘No, no,’ said Johnny. ‘It was “love thy neighbour as thyself”.’

‘Oh, well, given how much I love myself, it amounts to pretty much the same thing.’

‘Oh, darling,’ said Julia, resting her hands on Patrick’s shoulders, ‘are you your own worst enemy?’

‘I certainly hope so,’ said Patrick. ‘I dread to think what would happen if somebody else turned out to be better at it than me.’

Johnny ground his crackling, splitting cigar into the ashtray.

‘I might head for bed,’ he said, ‘while you decide whose grave to spit on.’

‘Eenee, meenee, minee, mo,’ said Patrick.

‘Do you know, Lucy’s generation don’t say, “Catch a nigger by the toe” any more; they say, “Catch a tiger by the toe”. Isn’t it sweet?’

‘Have they rewritten “Rock a bye, Baby” as well? Or is the cradle still allowed to fall?’ asked Patrick. ‘God,’ he added, looking at Johnny, ‘it must be difficult for you hearing a person’s unconscious breaking through every sentence.’

‘I try not to hear it,’ said Johnny, ‘when I’m on holiday.’

‘But you don’t succeed.’

‘I don’t succeed,’ smiled Johnny.

‘Has everyone gone to bed?’ asked Patrick.

‘Everyone except Kettle,’ Julia replied. ‘She wanted to have a little heart-to-heart; I think she’s in love with Seamus. She’s been to tea in his cottage for the last two afternoons.’

‘She what ?’ said Patrick.

‘She’s stopped talking about Queen Mary’s widowhood and started talking about “opening up to one’s full potential”.’

‘That bastard. He’s going to try to get Mary disinherited as well,’ said Patrick. ‘I’m going to have to kill him.’

‘Wouldn’t it be more efficient to kill Kettle before she changes her will?’ asked Julia.

‘Good thinking,’ said Patrick. ‘My judgement was clouded by emotion.’

‘What is this?’ said Johnny. ‘An evening with the Macbeths? What about just letting her open to her full potential?’

‘Jesus,’ said Patrick, ‘who have you been reading recently? I thought you were a realist, not a human-potential moron who claims to see El Dorados of creativity in every flower arrangement. Even in the hands of a psychotherapeutic genius, Kettle’s peak would be joining a tango class in Cheltenham, but with Seamus her “full potential” is to be fully ripped off.’

‘The potential which Kettle hasn’t realized – and she’s not alone,’ said Johnny, ‘has nothing to do with hobbies, or even achievements, it’s to do with being able to enjoy anything at all.’

‘Oh, that potential,’ said Patrick. ‘You’re right, of course, we all need to work on that.’

Julia grazed his thigh discreetly with her fingernails. Patrick felt a half-erection creep its way into the most inconvenient possible position among the folds of his underwear. Not particularly wanting to struggle with his trousers in front of Johnny, he waited confidently for the problem to disappear. He didn’t have to wait long.

Johnny got to his feet and said good night to Patrick and Julia.

‘Sleep well,’ he added, starting out towards the house.

‘One may be too busy opening up to one’s full potential,’ said Patrick in a racy version of his Kettle voice.

As soon as they heard Johnny entering the house, Julia climbed astride Patrick’s lap, facing him with her hands dangling lightly over his shoulders.

‘Does he know?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Is that a good idea?’

‘He won’t tell anyone.’

‘Maybe, but now it’s too late for us not to tell anyone. I can’t believe we’re already into who knows what, that’s all. We’ve only just been to bed together and it’s already a problem of knowledge.’

‘It’s always a problem of knowledge.’

‘Why?’

‘Because there was this garden, right? And this apple tree…’

‘Oh, honestly, that has nothing to do with it. That’s a different kind of knowledge.’

‘They came together. In the absence of God, we have the omniscience of gossip to keep us preoccupied with who knows what.’

‘I’m not in fact preoccupied with who knows what, I’m preoccupied with how we feel for each other. I think you want it to be about knowledge because you’re more at home in your head than in your heart. Anyhow, you didn’t have to tell Johnny.’

‘Whatever,’ said Patrick, suddenly drained of all desire to prove a point or win an argument. ‘I often think there should be a superhero called Whateverman. Not an action hero like Superman or Spiderman, but an inaction hero, a hero of resignation.’

‘Is there a comma between “Whatever” and “Man”?’

‘Only when he can be bothered to speak, which, believe me, isn’t often. When someone screams, “There’s a meteor headed straight for us! It’s the end of all life on Earth!”, he says, “Whatever, man,” with a comma in between. But when he is invoked, during an episode of ethnic cleansing, or paranoid schizophrenia, as in, “This is a job for Whateverman”, it’s all in one word.’