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

‘I’m not blathering,’ said Robin. ‘It’s not fair on Poussin, that’s all,’ he added with unexpected passion.

‘What’s Poussin got to do with it?’ thundered Sonny.

‘Nothing, that’s just what I object to.’

‘I suppose you want more money.’

‘You’re wrong,’ said Robin. ‘I just want some part of my life not to be compromised.’ He held out his hand for the certificate of authentication.

Furious, Sonny took a key out of his pocket and opened the top drawer of his desk, and tossed the letter over to Robin. Robin thanked him and left the room.

‘Tiresome little man,’ muttered Sonny. It really wasn’t his day. He’d lost his wife, his mistress, and his Poussin. Buck up, old boy, he thought to himself, but he had to admit that he felt decidedly wobbly.

* * *

Virginia was sitting on a frail gold chair by the drawing-room door, waiting anxiously for her daughter and granddaughter to come downstairs and start the long drive back to Kent. Kent was ever such a long way, but she completely understood Bridget’s wanting to get out of this bad atmosphere, and she’d encouraged her to bring Belinda along. She couldn’t hide from herself, although she felt a little guilty about it, that she quite liked being needed , and having Bridget close to her again, even if it took a crisis like this one. She’d already got her overcoat and her essentials; it didn’t matter about her suitcase, Bridget had said they could send for that later. She didn’t want to draw attention to herself: the overcoat was suspicious enough.

The party was thinning out and it was important to leave before there were too few people, or Sonny might start badgering Bridget. Bridget’s nerves had never been strong, she’d always been a little frightened as a girl, never wanted to put her head under water, that sort of thing, things only a mother could know. Bridget might be intimidated and lose her resolve if Sonny was there booming at her, but she knew that what her daughter needed, after this Cindy Smith affair, was a good rest and a good think. She’d already asked Bridget if she wanted her old room back – it was a marvel how the human mind worked, as Roddy had been fond of remarking – but it had only seemed to annoy Bridget, who’d said, ‘Honestly, Mummy, I don’t know, we’ll think about that later.’ On reflection, it was probably better to give that room to Belinda, and put Bridget in the nice spare room with the bathroom en suite. There was plenty of room now that she was alone.

Sometimes a crisis was good for a marriage, not all the time of course, or it wouldn’t really be a crisis. There’d been that one time with Roddy. She hadn’t said anything, but Roddy had known she knew, and she’d known he knew she knew, and that had been enough to end it. He’d bought her that ring and said it was their second engagement ring. He was such an old softie, really. Oh dear, there was a man bearing down on her. She had no idea who he was but he was obviously going to talk to her. That was the last thing she needed.

Jacques d’Alantour was too tormented to go to sleep and, although Jacqueline had warned him that he’d had enough to drink, too melancholy to resist another glass of champagne.

Charm was his speciality, everyone knew that, but since ‘ l’affaire Alantour ’, as he now called it, he had entered a diplomatic labyrinth which seemed to require more charm and tact than it was reasonable to ask of a single human being. Virginia, who was, after all, his hostess’s mother, played a relatively clear role in the campaign he was launching to regain Princess Margaret’s favour.

‘Good evening, dear lady,’ he said with a deep bow.

Foreign manners, thought Virginia. What Roddy used to call ‘a hand-kissing sell-your-own-mother type’.

‘Am I right in assuming that you are the mother of our charming hostess?’

‘Yes,’ said Virginia.

‘I am Jacques d’Alantour.’

‘Oh, hello,’ said Virginia.

‘May I get you a glass of champagne?’ asked the ambassador.

‘No, thank you, I don’t like to have more than two. Anyway, I’m on a diet.’

‘A diet?’ asked Monsieur d’Alantour, seeing an opportunity to prove to the world that his diplomatic skills were not dead. ‘A diet?’ he repeated with bewilderment and incredulity. ‘But w-h-y?’ he lingered on the word, to emphasize his astonishment.

‘The same reason as everyone else, I suppose,’ said Virginia drily.

Monsieur d’Alantour sat down next to her, grateful to get the weight off his legs. Jacqueline was right, he’d drunk too much champagne. But the campaign must continue!

‘When a lady tells me she is on a diet,’ he said, his gallantry a little slurred, but his fluency, from years of making the same speech (which had been a great success with the German Ambassador’s wife in Paris) undiminished, ‘I always clasp her breast so,’ he held his cupped hand threateningly close to Virginia’s alarmed bosom, ‘and say, “But now I think you are exactly the right weight!” If I were to do this to you,’ he continued, ‘you would not be shocked, would you?’

‘Shocked,’ gulped Virginia, ‘isn’t the word. I’d be—’

‘You see,’ Monsieur d’Alantour interrupted, ‘it’s the most natural thing in the world!’

‘Oh, goodness,’ said Virginia, ‘there’s my daughter.’

‘Come on, Mummy,’ said Bridget, ‘Belinda’s already in the car, and I’d rather not run into Sonny.’

‘I know, darling, I’m just coming. I can’t say it’s been a pleasure,’ she said to the ambassador stiffly, hurrying after her daughter.

Monsieur d’Alantour was too slow to catch up with the hastening women, but stood mumbling, ‘I can’t express sufficiently … my deepest sentiments … a most distinguished gathering.’

Bridget moved so much faster than her guests that they had no time to compliment her or waylay her. Some thought that she was following George Watford to hospital, everyone could tell that she was on important business.

When she got into the car, a four-wheel-drive Subaru that Caroline Porlock had persuaded her to buy, and saw Belinda asleep and seatbelted in the back, and her mother sitting beside her with a warm and reassuring smile, Bridget felt a wave of relief and remorse.

‘I’ve treated you dreadfully sometimes,’ she suddenly said to her mother. ‘Snobbishly.’

‘Oh no, darling, I understand,’ said her mother, moved but practical.

‘I don’t know what came over me sending you to dinner with those dreadful people. Everything gets turned upside down. I’ve been so anxious to fit in with Sonny’s stupid, pompous life that everything else got squeezed out. Anyway, I’m glad the three of us are together.’

Virginia glanced back at Belinda to make sure she was asleep.

‘We can have a good long talk tomorrow,’ she said, squeezing Bridget’s hand, ‘but we should probably get started now, we’ve got a long way to go.’

‘You’re right,’ said Bridget who suddenly felt like crying but busied herself with starting the car and joining the queue of departing guests who choked up her drive.

* * *

There was still a gentle snowfall as Patrick left the house behind him, steaming breath twisting around the upturned collar of his overcoat. Footprints crisscrossed his path, and the gravel’s black and brown chips shone wetly among the bright patches of snow. Patrick’s ears rang from the noise of the party and his eyes, bloodshot from smoke and tiredness, watered in the cold air, but when he reached his car he wanted to go on walking a little longer, and so he climbed over a nearby gate and jumped into a field of unbroken snow. A pewter-coloured ornamental lake lay at the end of the field, its far bank lost in a thick fog.