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

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Mary. ‘I was rather hoping to get the first two on their own.’

‘Ah, but what is prosperity?’ said Seamus, walking with her towards the car. ‘Ultimately, it’s having something to eat when you’re hungry. That’s the prosperity that was denied to Ireland, for instance, during the 1840s, and that’s still denied to millions of people around the world.’

‘Gosh,’ said Mary. ‘There’s not a lot I can do about the Irish in the 1840s. But I could give Thomas his “ultimate prosperity” – or can I go on calling it “lunch”?’

Seamus threw back his head and let out a guffaw of wholesome laughter.

‘I think that would be simpler,’ he said, giving Mary’s back an unwelcome rub.

She opened the door and took Thomas out of his car seat.

‘How is the little man?’ said Seamus.

‘He’s very well,’ said Mary. ‘He has a lovely time here.’

‘Well, I’m sure that’s down to your excellent mothering,’ said Seamus, his hand by now burning a hole in the back of her T-shirt. ‘But I’d also say that with the soul work, it’s very important to create a safe environment. That’s what we do here. Now, maybe Thomas is picking that up, you know, at some level.’

‘I expect he is,’ said Mary, reluctant to deny Thomas a compliment, even when it was really intended by Seamus for himself. ‘He’s very good at picking things up.’

She managed to stand out of Seamus’s range, holding Thomas in her arms.

‘Ah,’ said Seamus, framing the two of them with a large parenthetical gesture, ‘the mother-and-child archetype. It makes me think of my own mother. She had the eight of us to look after. At the time I think I was preoccupied with little ways of getting more than my fair share of the attention.’ He chuckled indulgently at the memory of this younger, less enlightened self. ‘That was definitely a big dynamic in my family; but looking back from where I’m standing now, what amazes me is how she went on giving and giving. And you know, Mary, I’ve come to the conclusion that she was tapping into a universal source, into that archetypal mother-and-child energy. Do you know what I mean? I want to put something about that in my book. It all ties in with the shamanic work – at some level. It’s just getting it down. I’d welcome any thoughts about that: moments when you’ve felt supported by something beyond the level of, you know, personal sacrifice.’

‘Let me think about it,’ said Mary, suddenly realizing where Seamus had learned his little ways of getting mothers to hand over their resources to him. ‘In the meantime, I really must make Thomas some lunch.’

‘Of course, of course,’ said Seamus. ‘Well, it’s been grand talking to you, Mary. I really feel that we’ve connected.’

‘I feel I’ve learned a lot as well,’ said Mary.

She now knew, for instance, that his feeble promise to ‘try to visit Eleanor in the next few days’ meant that he would not visit her today, or tomorrow, or the next day. Why would he waste his ‘little ways’ on a woman who only had a couple of fake Boudins to her name?

* * *

She carried Thomas into the kitchen and put him down on the counter. He took his thumb out of his mouth and looked at her with a subtle expression which hovered between seriousness and laughter.

‘Seamus is a very funny man, Mama,’ he said.

Mary burst out laughing.

‘He certainly is,’ she said, kissing him on the forehead.

‘He certainly is a very funny man!’ said Thomas, catching her laughter. He scrunched up his eyes in order to laugh more seriously.

* * *

No wonder she was tired after seeing Eleanor and Seamus on the same day, no wonder it was difficult to extort any more vigilance from her aching body and her blanched mind. Something had happened today; she hadn’t quite got the measure of it, but it was one of those sudden dam bursts which were the only way she ever ended a long period of conflict. She had no time to work it out while Thomas was still bouncing naked in the middle of the bed.

‘That was a very big jump,’ said Thomas, climbing to his feet again. ‘You certainly are impressed, Mama.’

‘Yes, darling. What would you like to read tonight?’

Thomas stopped in order to concentrate on a difficult task.

‘Let’s talk reasonably about lollipops,’ he said, retrieving a phrase from an old book of Patrick’s which had got stuck down in Saint-Nazaire.

‘Dr Upping and Dr Downing?’

‘No, Mama, I don’t want to read that.’

Mary took Babar and Professor Grifiton from the shelf and climbed over the guard onto the bed. They had a ritual of reviewing the day, and Mary threw out the usual question, ‘What did we do today?’ Thomas stopped bouncing as she had hoped.

Thomas lowered his voice and shook his head solemnly.

‘Peter Rabbit has been eating my grapes,’ he said.

‘No!’ said Mary, shocked.

‘Mr McGregor will be very angry with Seamus.’

‘Why Seamus? I thought it was Peter Rabbit who took the grapes.’

‘No, Mama, it was Seamus.’

Whatever it was that Thomas was ‘picking up’, it wasn’t the sense of a ‘safe environment’ that Seamus had boasted about creating for ‘the soul work’. It was the atmosphere of theft. If Seamus was prepared to treat Eleanor with so little ceremony, when she had set off the prosperity chime in his life with such a resounding tinkle, why would he bother to honour her promises to his defeated rivals? His imagination was teeming with competing siblings, and he had adopted Patrick and Mary for the purposes of triumphing over them in an archaic contest for which neither of them had received his commando training. What was the point of an old woman who couldn’t even buy him a sensory-deprivation tank? And what was the point of her descendants cluttering up his Foundation during August?

‘BUT I DON’T UNDERSTAND, said Robert, watching Mary pack. ‘Why do we have to leave?’

‘You know why,’ said Mary.

He sat on the edge of the bed, his shoulders rounded and his hands wedged under his thighs. If there had been time, she would have sat beside him and hugged him and let him cry again, but she had to get on with the packing while Thomas was sleeping.

Mary hadn’t slept for the last two days, equally tormented by the atmosphere of loss and the longing to leave. Houses, paintings, trees, Eleanor’s teeth, Patrick’s childhood and her children’s holidays: to her tired mind they all seemed to be piled up like the wreckage from a flood. She had spent the last seven years watching Patrick’s childhood like a rope inching through his clenched hands. Now she wanted to get the hell out. It was already too late to stop Robert from identifying with Patrick’s sense of injustice, but she could still save Thomas from getting tangled in the drama of disinheritance. The family was being split in half and it could only come back together if they left.

Patrick had gone to say goodbye to Eleanor. He had promised not to make any irrevocably bitter speeches in case he never saw her again. If he had enough warning of her death, he would doubtless fly down to hold her hand, but it was unrealistic to think that the rest of them would be checking into the Grand Hôtel des Bains to mount a deathbed vigil in the nursing home. Mary had to admit that she looked forward to Eleanor dropping out of their lives altogether.

‘Would we get the house if we killed Seamus?’ asked Robert.

‘No,’ said Mary, ‘it would go to the next director of the Foundation.’

‘That’s so unfair,’ said Robert. ‘Unless I became the director. Yes! I’m a genius!’

‘Except that you would have to direct the Foundation.’