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

He had made a big decision. He would telephone Pierre and leave it to fate whether he scored or not. If Pierre was asleep then he would not get any smack, but if he was awake it was worth going round to get just enough for a good night’s rest. And a little for the morning so he didn’t feel sick.

The barman put a telephone down on the mahogany counter, and beside it a second marc. 5 … 5 … 5 … 1 … 7 … 2 … 6. Patrick’s heart rate increased; he suddenly felt alert.

‘I cannot come to the phone right now, but if you leave…’

Patrick slammed the phone down. It was the fucking machine. What was he doing asleep at ten in the evening? It was absolutely intolerable. He picked the phone up and dialled the number again. Should he leave a message? Something subtly coded like ‘Wake up, fuckface, I want to score.’

No, it was hopeless. Fate had spoken and he must accept its judgement.

Outside it was surprisingly warm. Nevertheless, Patrick flicked up the collar of his overcoat, scanning the street for a free cab.

He soon spotted a taxi and stepped into the street to hail it.

‘The Pierre Hotel,’ he said as he climbed inside.

WHAT INSTRUMENT COULD HE use to set himself free? Disdain? Aggression? Hatred? They were all contaminated by the influence of his father, the very thing he needed to free himself from. And the sadness he felt, if he paused for a second, had he not learned it from his father’s descent into paralysing misery?

After his divorce from Eleanor, David had remained in the south of France, only fifteen miles away from the old house in Lacoste. In his new house, which had no exterior windows, only windows looking onto a central weed-choked courtyard, he lay in bed for days on end wheezing and staring at the ceiling fixedly, without even the energy to cross the room and get the copy of Jorrocks Rides Again which had once been able to cheer him up in the most unpromising circumstances.

When Patrick, aged eight or nine, and torn between terror and unfathomable loyalty, visited his father, the enormous silences were only broken for David to express a desire to die, and to issue his final instructions.

‘I may not be alive for much longer,’ he would gasp, ‘and we may not see each other again.’

‘No, Daddy, don’t say that,’ Patrick would plead with him.

And then the old exhortations would come out: observe everything … trust nobody … despise your mother … effort is vulgar … things were better in the eighteenth century.

Impressed by the thought, year after year, that these might be his father’s last pronouncements on the world, the distillation of all his wisdom and experience, Patrick paid undue attention to this tiresome set of opinions, despite the overwhelming evidence that they had not got his father very far in the pursuit of happiness. But then that was vulgar too. The whole system worked beautifully, like so many others, after the initial leap of faith.

If his father ever managed to get out of bed, things got worse. They would walk down to the village on a shopping expedition, his father dressed in an old pair of green pyjamas, a short blue overcoat with anchors on the buttons, a pair of dark glasses now tied to a coarse string around his neck, and on his feet the heavy lace-up boots favoured by the local tractor-driving peasants. David had also grown a snow-white beard and always carried with him an orange nylon shopping bag with a tarnished gold handle. Patrick was mistaken for his grandson, and he could remember the shame and horror, as well as the defensive pride, with which he accompanied his increasingly eccentric and depressed father into the village.

‘I want to die … I want to die … I want to die,’ muttered Patrick rapidly. It was completely unacceptable. He could not be the person who had been that person. The speed was coming back and bringing with it the menace of lucidity and strong emotion.

They were approaching the hotel and Patrick had to make a quick decision. He leaned forward and said to the driver, ‘I’ve changed my mind, take me to Eighth Street between C and D.’

The Chinese driver looked doubtfully in his rear-view mirror. Avenue D was a far cry from the Pierre Hotel. What sort of man would suddenly veer from one to the other? Only a junkie or an ignorant tourist.

‘Avenue D bad place,’ he said, testing the second theory.

‘I’m relying on that,’ said Patrick. ‘Just take me there.’

The driver carried on down Fifth Avenue, past the turning for the hotel. Patrick sank back, excited and sick and guilty, but masking the feeling, as usual, with a show of languid indifference.

So what if he had changed his mind? Flexibility was an admirable quality. And nobody was more flexible when it came to giving up drugs, nobody more open to the possibility of taking them after all. He hadn’t done anything yet. He could still reverse his decision, or rather reverse his revision. He could still go back.

Plummeting from the Upper to the Lower East Side, from Le Veau Gras to the Bargain Grocery Store on Eighth Street, he could not help admiring the way he ranged freely, or perhaps the word was ‘inevitably’, between luxury and squalor.

The taxi was approaching Tompkins Square, the beginning of the fun district. It was here that Chilly Willy, his street contact for those annoying occasions on which Pierre was asleep, dragged out his life of perpetual withdrawal. Chilly could only ever get enough smack to keep him looking for more; scavenging enough bags to twitch instead of convulsing, to squeal instead of screaming, he walked in little jerky steps with one limp and nerveless arm dangling by his side, like an old flex from the draughty ceiling. With his good hand, Chilly held up the filthy baggy trousers that were always in danger of slipping down over his emaciated waist. Despite being black, he looked pale and his face was speckled with brown liver spots. His teeth, the four or five that still clung heroically to his gums, were either dark yellow or black, chipped or shattered. He was an inspiration to his community and his customers since nobody could imagine looking as ill as him, however recklessly they lived.

The cab crossed Avenue C and carried on down Eighth Street. Here he was among the filthy haunches of the city, thought Patrick contentedly.

‘Where you want?’ asked the Chinaman.

‘I want heroin,’ said Patrick.

‘Heloin,’ repeated the driver anxiously.

‘That’s right,’ said Patrick. ‘Stop here, this is good.’

Wired Puerto Ricans were pacing about pugilistically on the corner, and black guys with big hats were leaning in doorways. Patrick lowered the window of the taxi, and new friends crowded in from every side.

‘What ju wan, man? What ju looking for?’

‘Clear tape … red tape … yellow tape. What you want?’

‘Smack,’ said Patrick.

‘Shit, man, you from the police. You’re a policeman.’

‘No, I’m not. I’m an Englishman,’ Patrick protested.

‘Get out the cab, man, we don’t sell you nothin’ in the cab.’

‘Wait here,’ said Patrick to the driver. He got out of the taxi. One of the dealers took him by the arm and started to march him round the corner.

‘I’m not going any further,’ said Patrick as they were about to lose sight of the taxi.

‘How much you want?’

‘Give me four dime-bags of clear tape,’ said Patrick carefully unpeeling two twenty-dollar bills. He kept the twenties in the left trouser pocket, tens in the right trouser pocket, fives and ones in the overcoat pockets. The hundreds remained in their envelope in the inside coat pocket. This way he never tempted anybody with a show of cash.

‘I’ll give you six for fifty, man. You git one extra bag.’