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

‘Oh, yeah, that’s true,’ said Robert. ‘Well, maybe Seamus will repent.’ He adopted a thick Irish accent. ‘I can only apologize, Mary. I don’t know what came over me, trying to steal the house from you and the little ones, but I’ve come to moi senses now and I want you to know that even if you can find it in your heart to forgive me for the agony I’ve caused you, I shall never be able to forgive myself.’ He broke down sobbing.

She knew his fake sobbing was close to being real. For the first time since Thomas was born she felt that Robert was the one who needed her most. His great strength was that he was even more interested in playing with what was going on than he was in wasting his time trying to control it – although he did quite a lot of that as well. His playfulness had collapsed for a few days and been replaced entirely by wishing and longing and regretting. Now she saw it coming back. She could never quite get used to the way he pieced together impersonations out of the things he overheard. Seamus had become his latest obsession, and no wonder. She was too exhausted to do anything but give him a laborious smile and fold the swimming trunks she had unpacked for him less than a week before. Everything had happened so fast. On the day he arrived with Robert, Patrick had found a note asking if Kevin and Anette could have ‘some space’ in the house. Seamus had dropped in the next morning at breakfast to get his answer.

‘I hope I’m not interrupting,’ he called out.

‘Not at all,’ said Patrick. ‘It’s good of you to come so quickly. Would you like some coffee?’

‘I won’t, thank you, Patrick. I’ve really been abusing the caffeine lately in an attempt to get myself going with the writing, you know.’

‘Well, I hope you don’t mind if I go ahead and abuse some caffeine without you.’

‘Be my guest,’ said Seamus.

‘Is that what I am?’ asked Patrick, like a greyhound out of the slips. ‘Or are you in fact my guest during this one month of the year? That’s the crux of the matter. You know that the terms of my mother’s gift included letting us have the house for August, and we’re not going to put up with having your friends billeted on us.’

‘Well, now, “terms” is a very legalistic way of putting it,’ said Seamus. ‘There’s nothing in writing about the Foundation providing you with a free holiday. I have a genuine sympathy for the trouble you’ve had in accepting your mother’s wishes. That’s why I’ve been prepared to put up with a lot of negativity from your side.’

‘We’re not discussing the trouble I’ve had with my mother’s wishes, but the trouble you’re having with them. Let’s not stray from the subject.’

‘They’re inseparable.’

‘Everything looks inseparable to a moron.’

‘There’s no need to get personal. They’re inseparable because they both depend on knowing what Eleanor wanted.’

‘It’s obvious what she wanted. What isn’t clear is whether you can accept the part that doesn’t suit you.’

‘Well, I have a more global vision than that, Patrick. I see the problem in holistic terms. I think we all need to find a solution together, you and your family, and Kevin and Anette, and me. Perhaps we could do a ritual expressing what we bring to this community and what we expect to take from it.’

‘Oh, no, not another ritual. What is it with you people and rituals? What’s wrong with having a conversation? When I spent my teenage years in what has become your cottage, there were two bedrooms. Why don’t you put your friends up in your own spare room?’

‘That’s now my study and office space.’

‘God forbid they should invade your private space.’

Thomas wriggled down from Mary’s arms and started to explore. His desire to move made her even more aware of how paralysed the rest of them had become. She took no pleasure in seeing Patrick frozen in a kind of autumnal adolescence: dogmatic and sarcastic, resentful of his mother’s actions, still secretly thinking of Seamus’s cottage as the teenage den in which he spent half a dozen summers of semi-independence. Only Thomas, because he hadn’t been given any coordinates on this particular grid, could slip to the floor and let his mind flow wherever it wanted. Seeing him get away gave Mary a certain remoteness from the scene being played out by Patrick and Seamus, even though she could feel a sullen violence taking over from Seamus’s usual inane affability.

‘Did you know,’ said Patrick, addressing Seamus again, ‘that among the caribou herdsmen of Lapland, the top shaman gets to drink the urine of the reindeer that has eaten the magic mushrooms, and his assistant drinks the urine of the top shaman, and so on, all the way down to the lowest of the low who scramble in the snow, pleading for a splash of twelfth-generation caribou piss?’

‘I didn’t know that,’ said Seamus flatly.

‘I thought it was your special field,’ said Patrick, surprised. ‘Anyhow, the irony is that the premier cru, the first hit, is much the most toxic. Poor old top shaman is reeling and sweating, trying to get all the poison out, whereas a few damaged livers later, the urine is harmless without having lost its hallucinogenic power. Such is the human attachment to status that people will sacrifice their peace of mind and their precious time in order to pickaxe their way towards what turns out to be a thoroughly poisonous experience.’

‘That’s all very interesting,’ said Seamus, ‘but I don’t see what it has to do with our immediate problem.’

‘Only this: that out of what I admit is pride, I am not prepared to be at the bottom of the pissing hierarchy in this “community”.’

‘If you don’t want to be part of this community, you don’t have to stay,’ said Seamus quietly.

There was a pause.

‘Good,’ said Patrick. ‘Now at least we know what you really want.’

‘Why don’t you go away,’ shouted Robert. ‘Just leave us alone. This is my grandmother’s house, and we have more right to be here than you do.’

‘Let’s calm down,’ said Mary, resting a hand on Robert’s shoulder. ‘We aren’t going to leave in the middle of the children’s holidays, whether we come here next year or not. We could compromise over your friends, perhaps. If you sacrifice your office for a week, we could put them up for the last week of our stay. That seems fair enough.’

Seamus faltered between the momentum of his anger and his desire to look reasonable.

‘I’ll have to get back to you on that,’ he said. ‘To be honest with you, I’m going to have to process some of the negative feelings I’m having at the moment, before I can come to a decision.’

‘You process away,’ said Patrick, getting up to bring the conversation to an end. ‘Be my guest. Do a ritual.’

He moved round the table, and spread his arms as if to herd Seamus out of the house, but then he came to a halt.

‘By the way,’ he said, leaning close, ‘Mary tells me that you’ve dropped Eleanor now that she’s given you the house. Is that true? After all she’s done for you, you might pop in on her.’

‘I don’t need any lectures from you on the importance of my friendship with Eleanor,’ said Seamus.

‘Listen, I know she’s not great company,’ said Patrick, ‘but that’s just part of the treasure trove of things you have in common.’

‘I’ve had just about enough of your hostile attitude,’ said Seamus, his face flushing crimson. ‘I’ve tried to be patient—’

‘Patient?’ Patrick interrupted. ‘You’ve tried to billet your sidekicks on us and you’ve tossed Eleanor on the scrap heap because there’s nothing more you can screw out of her. Anyone who thinks that “patient” is the word to describe that sort of thing should be doing English as a foreign language rather than signing a book contract.’