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

‘No, four is fine.’

Patrick pocketed the four little bags of greaseproof paper, turned around and climbed back into the cab.

‘We go hotel now,’ said the Chinaman eagerly.

‘No, just drive me round the block for a bit. Take me to Sixth and B.’

‘What you go lound block for?’ The driver mumbled a Chinese curse, but moved off in the right direction.

Patrick had to test the smack he had just bought before he left the area altogether. He tore open one of the bags and poured the powder into the hollow formed in the back of his hand by the tendon of his raised thumb. He raised the tiny quantity of white powder to his nose and sniffed it up.

Oh, God! It was vile. Patrick clutched his stinging nose. Fuck, wank, blast, shit, damn.

It was a hideous cocktail of Vim and barbs. The scouring powder gave that touch of genuine bitterness to the mix, and the barbiturates provided a small thud of sedation. There were some advantages, of course. You could take ten of these bags a day and never become a junkie. You could be arrested with them and not be charged with possession of heroin. Thank God he hadn’t shot it up, the Vim afterburn would have scorched his veins. What was he doing scoring off the street? He must be mad. He should have tried to get hold of Chilly Willy and sent him round to Loretta’s. At least there were some traces of heroin in her little greaseproof packages.

Still, he wouldn’t throw away this rubbish until he knew he could get something better. The cab had arrived at Sixth and C.

‘Stop here,’ said Patrick.

‘I no wai’ here,’ shouted the driver in a sudden burst of vexation.

‘Oh, well, fuck off then,’ said Patrick, tossing a ten-dollar bill into the passenger seat and getting out of the cab. He slammed the door and stalked off towards Seventh Street. The taxi screeched away from the kerb. When it had gone, Patrick was conscious of a hush in which his footsteps seemed to ring loudly on the pavement. He was alone. But not for long. On the next corner, a group of about a dozen dealers were standing around outside the Bargain Grocery Store.

Patrick slowed down, and one of the men, spotting him first, detached himself from the group and sauntered across the street with a buoyant and muscular gait. An exceptionally tall black man, he wore a shiny red jacket.

‘How you doing?’ he asked Patrick. His face was completely smooth, his cheekbones high, and his wide eyes seemingly saturated with indolence.

‘Fine,’ said Patrick. ‘How about you?’

‘I’m good. What you looking for?’

‘Can you take me to Loretta’s?’

‘Loretta,’ said the black man lazily.

‘Sure.’ Patrick was frustrated by his slowness and, feeling the book in his overcoat pocket, he imagined whipping it out like a pistol and gunning the dealer down with its ambitious first sentence, ‘There is only one really serious philosophical problem: it is suicide.’

‘How much you lookin’ for?’ asked the dealer, reaching nonchalantly behind his back.

‘Just fifty dollars’ worth,’ said Patrick.

There was a sudden commotion on the other side of the street and he saw a half-familiar figure hobbling towards them in an agitated way.

‘Don’t stick him, don’t stick him,’ the new character shouted.

Patrick recognized him now: it was Chilly, clutching his trousers. He arrived, stumbling and out of breath. ‘Don’t stick him,’ he repeated, ‘he’s my man.’

The tall black man smiled as if this was a truly hilarious incident. ‘I was going to stick you,’ he said, proudly showing Patrick a small knife. ‘I didn’t know yuz knew Chilly!’

‘What a small world,’ said Patrick wearily. He felt totally detached from the threat that this man claimed to represent, and impatient to get on with his business.

‘That’s right,’ said the tall man, ever more ebullient. He offered his hand to Patrick, after removing the knife. ‘My name’s Mark,’ he said. ‘You ever need anything, ask for Mark.’

Patrick shook his hand and smiled at him faintly. ‘Hello, Chilly,’ he said.

‘Where you been?’ asked Chilly reproachfully.

‘Oh, over to England. Let’s go to Loretta’s.’

Mark waved goodbye and lolloped back across the street. Patrick and Chilly headed downtown.

‘Extraordinary man,’ drawled Patrick. ‘Does he always stab people when he first meets them?’

‘He’s a bad man,’ said Chilly. ‘You don’t wanna hang around him. Why din’t you ask for me?’

‘I did,’ Patrick lied, ‘but of course he said you weren’t around. I guess he wanted a free hand to stab me.’

‘Yeah, he’s a bad man,’ repeated Chilly.

The two men turned the corner of Sixth Street and Chilly almost immediately led Patrick down a short flight of steps into the basement of a dilapidated brownstone building. Patrick was quietly pleased that Chilly was taking him to Loretta’s, instead of leaving him to wait on a street corner.

There was only one door in the basement, reinforced with steel and equipped with a brass flap and a small spyglass. Chilly rang the bell and soon after a voice called out suspiciously, ‘Who’s that?’

‘It’s Chilly.’

‘How much you want?’

Patrick handed Chilly fifty dollars. Chilly counted the money, opened the brass flap and stuffed it inside. The flap retracted quickly and remained closed for what seemed like a long time.

‘You got a bag for me?’ asked Chilly, shifting from leg to leg.

‘Of course,’ replied Patrick magnificently, taking a ten-dollar bill out of his trouser pocket.

‘Thanks, man.’

The flap reopened and Patrick clawed out the five little bags. Chilly got one for himself, and the two men left the building with a sense of achievement, counterbalanced by desire.

‘Have you got any clean works?’ asked Patrick.

‘My ole lady got some. You wanna come back to my place?’

‘Thanks,’ said Patrick, flattered by these multiplying signs of trust and intimacy.

Chilly’s place was a room on the second floor of a fire-gutted building. Its walls were blackened by smoke, and the unreliable staircase littered with empty matchbooks, liquor bottles, brown-paper bags, heaps of cornered dust, and balls of old hair. The room itself, only contained one piece of furniture, a mustard-coloured armchair covered in burns, with a spring bursting from the centre of the seat, like an obscene tongue.

Mrs Chilly Willy – if that was her correct title, mused Patrick – was sitting on the arm of this chair when the two men came in. She was a large woman, more masculine in build than her skeletal husband.

‘Hi, Chilly,’ she said dozily, obviously further from withdrawal than he was.

‘Hi,’ he said, ‘you know my man.’

‘Hi, honey.’

‘Hello,’ beamed Patrick charmingly. ‘Chilly said you might have a spare syringe.’

‘I might,’ she said playfully.

‘Is it new?’

‘Well, it ain’t exactly noo, but I boiled it and everythin’.’

Patrick raised one eyebrow with deadly scepticism. ‘Is it very blunt?’ he asked.

She fished a bundle of loo paper out of her voluminous bra and carefully unwrapped the precious package. At its centre was a threateningly large syringe which a zookeeper would have hesitated to use on a sick elephant.

‘That’s not a needle, it’s a bicycle pump,’ Patrick protested, holding out his hand.

Intended for intramuscular use, the spike was worryingly thick, and when Patrick detached the green plastic head that held it he could not help noticing a ring of old blood inside. ‘Oh, all right,’ he said. ‘How much do you want for it?’

‘Gimme two bags,’ urged Mrs Chilly, wrinkling up her nose endearingly.