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

‘Why are you still up, darling?’ asked Bridget.

‘I couldn’t sleep,’ said Belinda. ‘I was lonely because everyone else is down here.’

‘But this is a dinner for grown-ups.’

‘Which one’s Princess Margaret?’ asked Belinda, ignoring her mother’s explanation.

‘Why don’t you get your mother to present you to her?’ suggested Nicholas suavely. ‘And then you can go to bed like a good little girl.’

‘OK,’ said Belinda. ‘Can someone read me a story?’

‘Not tonight, darling,’ said her mother. ‘But I’ll introduce you to Princess Margaret.’ She got up and walked the length of the table to Princess Margaret’s side. Leaning over a little, she asked if she could present her daughter.

‘No, not now, I don’t think it’s right,’ said the Princess. ‘She ought to be in bed, and she’ll just get overexcited.’

‘You’re quite right, of course,’ said Sonny. ‘Honestly, darling, you must scold Nanny for letting her escape.’

‘I’ll take her upstairs myself,’ said Bridget coldly.

‘Good girl,’ said Sonny, extremely angry that Nanny, who after all cost one an absolute bomb, should have shown him up in front of the Princess.

‘I’m very pleased to hear that you’ve got the Bishop of Cheltenham for us tomorrow,’ said the Princess, grinning at her host, once the door was firmly closed on his wife and daughter.

‘Yes,’ said Sonny. ‘He seemed very nice on the phone.’

‘Do you mean you don’t know him?’ asked the Princess.

‘Not as well as I’d like to,’ said Sonny, reeling from the prospect of more royal disapproval.

‘He’s a saint,’ said the Princess warmly. ‘I really think he’s a saint. And a wonderful scholar: I’m told he’s happier speaking in Greek than in English. Isn’t it marvellous?’

‘I’m afraid my Greek’s a bit rusty for that sort of thing,’ said Sonny.

‘Don’t worry,’ said the Princess, ‘he’s the most modest man in the world, he wouldn’t dream of showing you up; he just gets into these Greek trances. In his mind, you see, he’s still chatting away to the apostles, and it takes him a while to notice his surroundings. Isn’t it fascinating?’

‘Extraordinary,’ murmured Sonny.

‘There won’t be any hymns, of course,’ said the Princess.

‘But we can have some if you like,’ protested Sonny.

‘It’s Holy Communion, silly. Otherwise I’d have you all singing hymns to see which ones I liked best. People always seem to enjoy it, it gives one something to do after dinner on Saturday.’

‘We couldn’t have managed that tonight in any case,’ said Sonny.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said the Princess, ‘we might have gone off to the library in a small group.’ She beamed at Sonny, conscious of the honour she was bestowing on him by this suggestion of deeper intimacy. There was no doubt about it: when she put her mind to it she could be the most charming woman in the world.

‘One had such fun practising hymns with Noël,’ she went on. ‘He would make up new words and one would die laughing. Yes, it might have been rather cosy in the library. I do so hate big parties.’

PATRICK SLAMMED THE CAR door and glanced up at the stars, gleaming through a break in the clouds like fresh track marks in the dark blue limbs of the night. It was a humbling experience, he thought, making one’s own medical problems seem so insignificant.

An avenue of candles, planted on either side of the drive, marked the way from the car park to the wide circle of gravel in front of the house. Its grey porticoed facade was theatrically flattened by floodlights, and looked like wet cardboard, stained by the sleet that had fallen earlier in the afternoon.

In the denuded drawing room, the fireplace was loaded with crackling wood. The champagne being poured by a flushed barman surged over the sides of glasses and subsided again to a drop. As Patrick headed down the hooped canvas tunnel that led to the tent, he heard the swell of voices rising, and sometimes laughter, like the top of a wave caught by the wind, splashing over the whole room. A room, he decided, full of uncertain fools, waiting for an amorous complication or a practical joke to release them from their awkward wanderings. Walking into the tent, he saw George Watford sitting on a chair immediately to the right of the entrance.

‘George!’

‘My dear, what a nice surprise,’ said George, wincing as he clambered to his feet. ‘I’m sitting here because I can’t hear anything these days when there’s a lot of noise about.’

‘I thought people were supposed to lead lives of quiet desperation,’ Patrick shouted.

‘Not quiet enough,’ George shouted back with a wan smile.

‘Oh, look there’s Nicholas Pratt,’ said Patrick, sitting down next to George.

‘So it is,’ said George. ‘With him one has to take the smooth with the smooth. I must say I never really shared your father’s enthusiasm for him. I miss your father, you know, Patrick. He was a very brilliant man, but never happy, I think.’

‘I hardly ever think of him these days,’ said Patrick.

‘Have you found something you enjoy doing?’ asked George.

‘Yes, but nothing one could make a career out of,’ said Patrick.

‘One really has to try to make a contribution,’ said George. ‘I can look back with reasonable satisfaction on one or two pieces of legislation that I helped steer through the House of Lords. I’ve also helped to keep Richfield going for the next generation. Those are the sorts of things one is left hanging on to when all the fun and games have slipped away. No man is an island – although one’s known a surprising number who own one. Really a surprising number, and not just in Scotland. But one really must try to make a contribution.’

‘Of course you’re right,’ sighed Patrick. He was rather intimidated by George’s sincerity. It reminded him of the disconcerting occasion when his father had clasped his arm, and said to him, apparently without any hostile intention, ‘If you have a talent, use it. Or you’ll be miserable all your life.’

‘Oh, look, it’s Tom Charles, over there taking a drink from the waiter. He has a jolly nice island in Maine. Tom!’ George called out. ‘I wonder if he’s spotted us. He was head of the IMF at one time, made the best of a frightfully hard job.’

‘I met him in New York,’ said Patrick. ‘You introduced us at that club we went to after my father died.’

‘Oh, yes. We all rather wondered what had happened to you,’ said George. ‘You left us in the lurch with that frightful bore Ballantine Morgan.’

‘I was overwhelmed with emotion,’ said Patrick.

‘I should think it was dread at having to listen to another of Ballantine’s stories. His son is here tonight. I’m afraid he’s a chip off the old block, as they say. Tom!’ George called out again.

Tom Charles looked around, uncertain whether he’d heard his name being called. George waved at him again. Tom spotted them, and the three men greeted each other. Patrick recognized Tom’s bloodhound features. He had one of those faces that ages prematurely but then goes on looking the same forever. He might even look young in another twenty years.

‘I heard about your dinner,’ said Tom. ‘It sounds like quite something.’

‘Yes,’ said George. ‘I think it demonstrates again that the junior members of the royal family should pull their socks up and we should all be praying for the Queen during these difficult times.’

Patrick realized he was not joking.

‘How was your dinner at Harold’s?’ asked George. ‘Harold Greene was born in Germany,’ he went on to explain to Patrick. ‘As a boy he wanted to join the Hitler Youth – smashing windows and wearing all those thrilling uniforms: it’s any boy’s dream – but his father told him he couldn’t because he was Jewish. Harold never got over the disappointment, and he’s really an anti-Semite with a veneer of Zionism.’