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

‘Oh, wow,’ said Bridget, ‘for me?’ She got up, making sure not to look at Nicholas. Eleanor described the route to the phone, and Bridget eventually arrived at the desk under the back stairs. ‘Hello,’ she said, ‘ hello ?’ There was no answer.

By the time she returned to the drawing room Nicholas was saying, ‘Well, one evening, the Marquis and Marquise de Quelque Chose were upstairs changing for a big party they were giving, when a lampshade caught fire and their drawing room was completely gutted.’

‘How marvellous,’ said Eleanor, with not the faintest idea of what Nicholas had been talking about. Recovering from one of those blank patches in which she could not have said what was going on around her, she knew only that there had been an interval since she was last conscious. ‘Did you get through all right?’ she said to Bridget.

‘No. It’s really weird, there was no one there. He must have run out of money.’

The phone rang again, more loudly this time through all the doors that Bridget had left open. She doubled back eagerly.

‘Imagine wanting to talk to someone on the phone,’ said Eleanor. ‘I dread it.’

‘Youth,’ said Nicholas tolerantly.

‘I dreaded it even more in my youth, if that’s possible.’

Eleanor poured herself some whisky. She felt exhausted and restless at the same time. It was the feeling she knew better than any other. She returned to her usual seat, a low footstool wedged into the lampless corner beside the screen. As a child, when the screen had belonged to her mother, she had often squatted under its monkey-crowded branches pretending to be invisible.

Nicholas, who had been sitting tentatively on the edge of the Doge’s chair, rose again nervously. ‘This is David’s favourite seat, isn’t it?’

‘I guess he won’t sit in it if you’re in it already,’ said Eleanor.

‘That’s just what I’m not so sure of,’ said Nicholas. ‘You know how fond he is of having his own way.’

‘Tell me about it,’ said Eleanor flatly.

Nicholas moved to a nearby sofa and sucked another mouthful of vodka from his glass. It had taken on the taste of melted ice, which he disliked, but he rolled it around his mouth, having nothing in particular to say to Eleanor. Annoyed by Bridget’s absence and apprehensive about David’s arrival, he waited to see which would come through the door. He felt let down when Anne and Victor arrived first.

Anne had replaced her simple white dress with a simple black one and she already held a lighted cigarette. Victor had conquered his anxiety about what to wear and still had on the thick speckled sweater.

‘Hi,’ said Anne to Eleanor, and kissed her with real affection.

When the greetings were over, Nicholas could not help remarking on Victor’s appearance. ‘My dear chap, you look as if you’re about to go mackerel fishing in the Hebrides.’

‘In fact, the last time I wore this sweater,’ said Victor, turning around and handing a glass to Anne, ‘was when I had to see a student who was floundering badly with his D.Phil. It was called “Abelard, Nietzsche, Sade, and Beckett”, which gives you some idea of the difficulties he was running into.’

Does it? thought Eleanor.

‘Really, people will stop at nothing to get a doctorate these days.’ Victor was warming up for the role he felt was required of him during dinner.

‘But how did your writing go today?’ asked Eleanor. ‘I’ve been thinking all day of you taking a non-psychological approach to identity,’ she lied. ‘Have I got that right?’

‘Absolutely,’ said Victor. ‘Indeed, I was so haunted by your remark, that if anything is in the mind it’s who you are, that I was unable to think of anything else.’

Eleanor blushed. She felt she was being mocked. ‘It sounds to me as if Eleanor is quite right,’ said Nicholas gallantly. ‘How can you separate who we are from who we think we are?’

‘Oh, I dare say you can’t,’ replied Victor, ‘once you have decided to consider things in that fashion. But I’m not attempting psychoanalysis, an activity, incidentally, which will seem as quaint as medieval map-making when we have an accurate picture of how the brain works.’

‘Nothing a don likes more than bashing another chap’s discipline,’ said Nicholas, afraid that Victor was going to be a crashing bore during dinner.

‘If you can call it a discipline,’ chuckled Victor. ‘The Unconscious, which we can only discuss when it ceases to be unconscious, is another medieval instrument of enquiry which enables the analyst to treat denial as evidence of its opposite. Under these rules we hang a man who denies that he is a murderer, and congratulate him if he says he is one.’

‘Are you rejecting the idea that there is an unconscious?’ said Anne.

‘Are you rejecting the idea that there is an unconscious?’ simpered Nicholas to himself in his hysterical American female voice.

‘I am saying,’ said Victor, ‘that if we are controlled by forces we do not understand, the term for that state of affairs is ignorance. What I object to is that we turn ignorance into an inner landscape and pretend that this allegorical enterprise, which might be harmless or even charming, if it weren’t so expensive and influential, amounts to a science.’

‘But it helps people,’ said Anne.

‘Ah, the therapeutic promise,’ said Victor wisely.

Standing in the doorway, David had been observing them for some time, unnoticed by anyone, except Eleanor.

‘Oh, hello, David,’ said Victor.

‘Hi,’ said Anne.

‘My dear, so lovely to see you as always,’ David answered, turning away from her instantly and saying to Victor, ‘Do tell us more about the therapeutic promise.’

‘But why don’t you tell us?’ said Victor. ‘You’re the doctor.’

‘In my rather brief medical practice,’ said David modestly, ‘I found that people spend their whole lives imagining they are about to die. Their only consolation is that one day they’re right. All that stands between them and this mental torture is a doctor’s authority. And that is the only therapeutic promise that works.’

Nicholas was relieved to be ignored by David, whereas Anne watched with detachment the theatrical way the man set about dominating the room. Like a slave in a swamp full of bloodhounds, Eleanor longed to disappear and she cowered still closer to the screen.

David strode majestically across the room, sat in the Doge’s chair and leaned towards Anne. ‘Tell me, my dear,’ he said, giving a little tug on the stiff silk of his dark-red trousers and crossing his legs, ‘have you recovered from your quite unnecessary sacrifice, in going to the airport with Eleanor?’

‘It wasn’t a sacrifice, it was a pleasure,’ said Anne innocently. ‘And that reminds me, I’ve also had the pleasure of bringing back The Twelve Caesars. What I mean is that I had the pleasure of reading it and now you have the pleasure of getting it back.’

‘So much pleasure in one day,’ said David, letting one of the yellow slippers dangle from his foot.

‘Right,’ said Anne. ‘Our cup overfloweth.’

‘I’ve had a delightful day as well,’ said David, ‘there must be magic in the air.’

Nicholas glimpsed an opportunity to join the conversation without provoking David. ‘So what did you think of The Twelve Caesars ?’ he asked Anne.

‘Together they would have made a great jury,’ said Anne, ‘if you like your trials fast.’ She turned her thumb towards the floor.

David let out an abrupt, ‘Ha,’ which showed he was amused. ‘They’d have to take turns,’ he said, pointing his thumbs down too.

‘Absolutely,’ said Anne. ‘Imagine what would happen if they tried to choose a foreman.’