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

Judge (with thunderous indignation): ‘This case is dismissed. It is a grave miscarriage of justice that it was ever brought to trial and, in recognition of that fact, the court awards the Fat Man a dinner for one at the Pig and Whistle.’

Contented Populace: ‘Hooray! Hooray!’

Patrick felt limitless dread. The rotten floorboards of his thoughts gave way one after another until the ground itself seemed no fitter than sodden paper to catch his fall. Maybe it would never stop. ‘I’m so tired, so tired,’ he said, sitting down on the edge of the bed, but immediately getting up again.

Mocking Echo: ‘I’m so tired, I’m so tired.’

Greta Garbo (screaming hysterically): ‘I don’t want to be alone. I’m sick of being alone.’

Patrick slid down the wall. ‘I’m so fucking tired,’ he wailed.

Mrs Mop: ‘You have a nice fix of coke, dear, perk yourself up a bit.’

Dr Death (taking out a syringe): ‘I have just the thing for you. We always use it in cases of bereavement.’

Cleopatra: ‘Oh, yes.’ (Pouting girlishly.) ‘My bluest veins to kiss.’

Mrs Mop: ‘Go on, dear, do yourself a favour.’

Cleopatra (hoarsely): ‘Go on, you bastard, fuck me.’

This time Patrick had to use his tie. He wound it around his bicep several times and gripped it in his teeth, baring his gums like a snarling dog.

Gift o’ the Gab O’Connor (draining a glass of Jameson): ‘She took to the leech with rowdy Saxon abandon crying, “I’ve always wanted to be in two places at once.”’

Courtier (excitedly): ‘A hit, a palpable hit.’

Captain Kirk: ‘Warp factor ten, Mr Sulu.’

Attila the Hun (basso profundo): ‘I play football with the heads of my enemies. I ride under triumphal arches, my horse’s hooves striking sparks from the cobblestones, the slaves of Rome strewing flowers in my path.’

Patrick fell off the chair and curled up on the floor. The brutality of the rush left him winded and amazed. He shook from the violence of his own heartbeat, like a man cowering under the spinning blades of a helicopter. His limbs were paralysed with tension and he imagined his veins, as thin and brittle as the stems of champagne glasses, snapping if he tried to unbend his arms. Without heroin he would die of a heart attack. ‘Just fuck off, the lot of you,’ he murmured.

Honest John (shaking his head): ‘What a vicious bastard, eh, that Attila. Dear, oh dear. “Wot you staring at?” he said. “Nothing,” I said. “Well, don’t fucking do it, all right?” he said.’ (Shakes his head.) ‘Vicious!’

Nanny: ‘Nanny says if you don’t stop talking in silly voices, the wind will change, and you won’t be able to stop.’

Boy (desperately): ‘But I want to stop, Nanny.’

Nanny: ‘“I want” gets nowhere.’

Sergeant: ‘Get a grip on yourself, laddie.’ (Screaming): ‘Quick march! Left, right. Left, right.’

Patrick’s legs slid back and forth across the carpet, like a tipped-over wind-up doll.

Short notice in The Times ’ Death Column: ‘MELROSE. On 25 May, peacefully, after a happy day in the Pierre Hotel. Patrick, aged 22, loving son of David and Eleanor, will be sadly missed by Attila the Hun, Mrs Mop, Indignant Eric, and his many friends, too numerous to enumerate.’

Gift o’ the Gab O’Connor: ‘A poor unfortunate soul. If he was not twitching like the severed leg of a galvanized frog, it was only because the mood lay heavy on him, like pennies on the eyelids of the dead.’ (Drains a tumbler of Jameson.)

Nanny (older now, her memory no longer what it was): ‘I can’t get used to it, he was such a lovely little boy. Always called him “my precious pet”, I remember. Always said, “Don’t forget that Nanny loves you.”’

Gift o’ the Gab O’Connor (tears rolling down his cheeks): ‘And his poor unfortunate arms fit to make a strong man weep. Covered in wounds they were, like the mouths of hungry goldfish crying out for the only thing that would purchase a little peace for his poor troubled heart.’ (Drains a tumbler of Jameson.)

Captain Languid: ‘He was the sort of chap who stayed in his room a good deal. Nothing wrong with that, of course, except that he paced about the whole time. As I like to say, if one’s going to be idle, one should be thoroughly idle.’ (Smiles charmingly.)

Gift o’ the Gab O’Connor (drinking straight from the bottle now, knee deep in tears, his speech grown more slurred): ‘And he was troubled in his mind also. Maybe it was the worry of the freedom killed him? In every situation – and he was always getting himself into situations – he saw the choices stretching out crazily, like the broken blood vessels of tired eyes. And with every action he heard the death cry of all the things he had not done. And he saw the chance to get the vertigo, even in a sky-catching puddle, or the gleaming of a drain on the corner of Little Britain Street. Maddened he was by the terror of forgetting and losing the trail of who he was, and turning in circles, like a foxy bloody foxhound in the middle of the bloody wood.’

Honest John: ‘What a prannit, eh? Never did an honest day’s work in his life. When did you ever see him help an old lady across the road, or buy a bag of sweets for some deprived kiddies? Never. You gotta be honest.’

The Fat Man: ‘He was a man, sir, who did not eat enough, a man who picked at his food, who turned from the cornucopia to the pharmacopoeia of life. In short, sir, the worst kind of scoundrel.’

Gift o’ the Gab O’Connor (occasionally surfacing above a lake of tears): ‘And the sight of him…’ (glug, glug, glug) ‘… those torn lips that had never learned to love…’ (glug, glug, glug) ‘… Those lips that had spoken wild and bitter words…’ (glug, glug, glug) ‘… torn open by the fury of it, and the knowledge that death was upon him’ (glug).

Debbie (stammering): ‘I wonder what I’m meant to say?’

Kay: ‘I saw him the day it happened.’

‘Let me not go mad,’ shouted Patrick in a voice that started like his own, but became more like John Gielgud’s with the last two words.

The Vicar (looking down soothingly from the pulpit): ‘Some of us remember David Melrose as a paedophile, an alcoholic, a liar, a rapist, a sadist, and a “thoroughly nasty piece of work”. But, you know, in a situation like that, what Christ asks us to say, and what he would have said himself in his own words is’ (pausing) ‘“But that’s not the whole story, is it?”’

Honest John: ‘Yes it is.’

The Vicar: ‘And that “whole story” idea is one of the most exciting things about Christianity. When we read a book by one of our favourite authors, be he Richard Bach or Peter Mayle, we don’t just want to know that it’s about a very special seagull, or that it’s set in the lovely campagne , to use a French word, of Provence; we want the satisfaction of reading all the way to the end.’

Honest John: ‘Speak for yourself.’

The Vicar: ‘And in very much the same spirit, when we make judgements about other people (and which one of us doesn’t?) we have to make sure that we have the “whole story” spread out before us.’

Attila the Hun (basso profundo): ‘Die, Christian dog!’ (Decapitates the Vicar.)

Vicar’s Severed Head (pausing thoughtfully): ‘You know, the other day, my young granddaughter came to me and said, “Grandfather, I like Christianity.” And I said to her (thoroughly puzzled), “Why?” And do you know what she said?’

Honest John: ‘Of course we don’t, you prannit.’

Vicar’s Severed Head: ‘She said, “Because it’s such a comfort.”’ (Pauses, and then more slowly and emphatically): ‘“Because it’s such a comfort.”’