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

Having worked himself up into a state of some bitterness, Patrick strode over to the bar.

‘Jack Daniel’s on the rocks,’ he said to the barman. As he drew back, Patrick checked the girl to his left. She was slightly plump, dark-haired, and marginally pretty. She looked back at him steadily, a good sign.

‘Aren’t you hot in that coat?’ she asked. ‘It is May, you know.’

‘Incredibly hot,’ Patrick admitted with a half-smile, ‘but I’d feel flayed without it.’

‘It’s like a defence mechanism,’ said the girl.

‘Yes,’ drawled Patrick, feeling that she had not captured the full subtlety and poignancy of his overcoat. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked as casually as possible.

‘Rachel.’

‘Mine’s Patrick. Can I offer you a drink?’ Christ, he sounded like a parody of someone making conversation. Everything had taken on a threatening or facetious aspect that made it harder than ever to climb down from the position of an observer. Perhaps she would experience the crushing dullness as a reassuring ritual.

‘Sure. I’d like a beer. A Dos Equis.’

‘Fine,’ said Patrick, catching the barman’s attention. ‘So what kind of work do you do?’ he went on, practically vomiting at the effort of making ordinary conversation and feigning an interest in somebody else.

‘I work in a gallery.’

‘Really?’ said Patrick, hoping he sounded impressed. He seemed to have lost all control over his voice.

‘Yeah, but I really wanna start a gallery of my own.’

Here we go again, thought Patrick. The waiter who thinks he’s an actor, the actor who thinks he’s a director, the taxi driver who thinks he’s a philosopher. All the signs are good at this point, the deal is about to happen, there’s a lot of interest from the record companies … a city full of phoney aggressive fantasists and, of course, a few genuinely unpleasant people with power.

‘Only, I need the financial backing,’ she sighed.

‘Why do you want to start out on your own?’ he asked, concerned and yet encouraging.

‘I don’t know if you’re familiar with Neo-Objective art, but I think it’s going to be really major,’ said Rachel. ‘I know a lot of the artists and I’d like to get their careers started while everybody else is still ignoring them.’

‘I’m sure that won’t be for long.’

‘That’s why I gotta move quickly.’

‘I’d love to see some Neo-Objective art,’ said Patrick earnestly.

‘I could arrange that,’ said Rachel, looking at him in a new light. Was this the financial backing she had been waiting for? His overcoat might be weird, but it looked expensive. It might be kinda cool to have an eccentric English backer who wasn’t going to breathe down her neck.

‘I do a little collecting,’ Patrick lied. ‘By the way, would you like a Quaalude?’

‘I don’t really do drugs,’ said Rachel, wrinkling her nose.

‘Neither do I,’ said Patrick. ‘I just happen to have one floating around. Somebody gave it to me ages ago.’

‘I don’t need to get high to have fun,’ said Rachel coolly.

She’s on for it, she’s definitely on for it, thought Patrick. ‘You’re so right,’ he said, ‘it spoils the magic – makes people unreal.’ His heartbeat accelerated; he’d better clinch the deal. ‘Do you want to come back to my hotel? I’m staying at the Pierre.’

The Pierre, thought Rachel; all the signs were good. ‘Sure,’ she smiled.

TWO THIRTY ACCORDING TO the clock next to the St Christopher medallion. That gave him about five hours. More than enough, more than a lifetime’s worth of conversation with Rachel. He smiled at her vaguely. What could he tell her? That his father had just died? That he was a drug addict? That he was leaving for the airport in five hours? That his girlfriend really wouldn’t mind? He certainly didn’t want to ask her any more questions about herself. Nor did he want to hear her views on Nicaragua.

‘I’m feeling kinda hungry,’ said Rachel uneasily.

‘Hungry?’

‘Yeah, I got this craving for chilli.’

‘Well, I’m sure we can get you some on room service,’ said Patrick, who knew perfectly well that there was no chilli on the Pierre’s all-night menu and would have disapproved if there had been.

‘But there’s this diner where they make like the greatest chilli in the entire world,’ said Rachel, sitting up eagerly. ‘I really wanna go there.’

‘Right,’ said Patrick patiently. ‘What’s the address?’

‘Eleventh Avenue and Thirty-eighth.’

‘I’m sorry about this,’ said Patrick to the driver, ‘we’ve changed our minds. Could we go to Eleventh Avenue and Thirty-eighth Street instead?’

‘Eleventh and Thirty-eighth?’ repeated the driver.

‘Yup.’

The diner was a ribbed silver caravan with TRY OUR FAMOUS CHILI AND TACOS in red neon outside. It was an offer that Rachel could not resist. A green neon chilli flashed cutely next to a yellow sombrero.

When the giant oval plate arrived loaded with chilli-flavoured minced meat, refried beans, guacamole, and sour cream, topped with bright orange Cheddar and accompanied by speckled ochre tortilla shells, Patrick lit a cigarette in the hope of drawing a veil of thin blue smoke over the pungent heap of spicy food. He took another sip of insipid coffee and sat back as far as possible in the corner of the red plastic bench. Rachel was clearly a nervous overeater, stuffing herself before he stuffed her, or perhaps, very persuasively, trying to put him off sex altogether by wreaking havoc on her digestive system, and saturating her breath with the torrid stench of cheese and chilli.

‘Uh-hum,’ said Rachel appreciatively, ‘I love this food.’

Patrick raised an eyebrow slightly but made no comment.

She piled the chilli into the tortilla, smeared some guacamole on top, and patted down the sour cream with the back of her fork. Finally, she took a pinch of Cheddar between her fingers and sprinkled it on top.

The tortilla flopped open and chilli flooded onto her chin. Giggling, she lifted it with her index finger and forced it back into her mouth.

‘Delicioso,’ she commented.

‘It looks disgusting,’ said Patrick sullenly.

‘You should try some.’

She stooped over the plate and found ingenious angles from which to snap at the collapsing tortilla. Patrick rubbed his eye. It was itching wildly again. He stared out of the window but was drawn back into the arena of its reflections. The tulip-red bar stools on their chrome stems, the hatch into the kitchen, the old man hunched over a cup of coffee and, of course, Rachel like a pig in a trough. It reminded him of the famous painting by whatshisname. Memory getting burned out. The terror of forgetting everything. Hooper … Hopper. Got it. Life in the old dog.

‘Finished?’ asked Patrick.

‘They make a great banana split here,’ said Rachel saucily, still chomping her last mouthful of chilli.

‘Well, don’t restrain yourself,’ said Patrick. ‘Will one be enough?’

‘Don’t you want one too?’

‘No, I do not,’ said Patrick pompously.

Soon a long glass dish arrived on which scoops of chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry ice cream were bracketed by the two halves of a banana, buried under rippling waves of whipped cream and decorated with beads of pink and green candy. Red maraschino cherries ran down the centre like a row of clown’s buttons.

Patrick’s leg twitched up and down involuntarily as he watched Rachel exhume bits of banana from the mound of brightly coloured creams.

‘I’ve given up dairy products,’ she said, ‘but I allow myself these binges sometimes.’

‘So it seems,’ said Patrick stiffly.