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

Margaret tossed her head and strutted about the kitchen, a downpour of crumbs tickling Robert’s face. His mother said nothing, but Margaret rumbled on.

‘I don’t think it’s fair on the baby, apart from anything else – they like to have their own little cot. Of course, I’m used to having sole charge. It’s usually me has them during the night.’

His father came into the room and kissed Robert on the forehead.

‘Good morning, Margaret,’ he said. ‘I hope you got some sleep, because none of the rest of us did.’

‘Yes, thank you, your sofa’s quite comfortable, actually; not that I shall be complaining when I have a room of my own at your mother’s.’

‘I should hope not,’ said his father. ‘Are you all packed and ready to go? Our taxi is coming any minute now.’

‘Well, I haven’t exactly had time to un pack, have I? Except for my sun hat. I got that out in case it’s blazing at the other end.’

‘It’s always blazing at the other end. My mother wouldn’t stand for anything less than catastrophic global warming.’

‘Hmmm, we could do with a bit of global warming in Botley.’

‘I wouldn’t make that sort of remark if you want a good room at the Foundation.’

‘What’s that, dear?’

‘Oh, my mother’s made a “Transpersonal Foundation”.’

‘Is the house not going to be yours, then?’

‘No.’

‘Do you hear that?’ said Margaret, her waxen pallor looming over Robert and spraying shortbread in his face with renewed vigour.

Robert could sense his father’s irritation.

‘He’s far too cool to be worried about all that,’ said his mother.

Everyone started to move about at the same time. Margaret, wearing her sun hat, took the lead, Robert’s parents struggling behind with the luggage. They were taking him outside, where the light came from. He was amazed. The world was a birth room screaming with ambitious life. Branches climbing, leaves flickering, cumulonimbus mountains drifting, their melting edges curling in the light-flooded sky. He could feel his mother’s thoughts, he could feel his father’s thoughts, he could feel Margaret’s thoughts.

‘He loves the clouds,’ said his mother.

‘He can’t see the clouds, dear,’ said Margaret. ‘They can’t focus at his age.’

‘He might still be looking at them without seeing them as we do,’ said his father.

Margaret grunted as she got into the humming taxi.

He was lying still in his mother’s lap, but the land and sky were slipping by outside the window. If he got involved in the moving scene he thought he was moving too. Light flashed on the windowpanes of passing houses, vibrations washed over him from all directions, and then the canyon of buildings broke open and a wedge of sunlight drifted across his face, turning his eyelids orange-pink.

They were on their way to his grandmother’s house, the same house they were staying in now, a week after his brother’s birth.

ROBERT WAS SITTING IN the window sill of his bedroom, playing with the beads he had collected on the beach. He had been arranging them in every possible combination. Beyond his mosquito net (with its bandaged cut) was a mass of ripe leaves belonging to the big plane tree on the terrace. When the wind moved through the leaves it made a sound like lips smacking. If a fire broke out, he could climb out of the window and down those convenient branches. On the other hand, a kidnapper could climb up them. He never used to think about the other hand; now he thought about it all the time. His mother had told him that when he was a baby he loved lying under that plane tree in his cot. Thomas was lying there now, bracketed by his parents.

Margaret was leaving the next day – thank God, as his father said. His parents had given her an extra day off, but she was already back from the village, bearing down on them with a deadly bulletin. Robert waddled across the room pretending to be Margaret and circled back to the window. Everyone said he did amazing imitations; his headmaster went further and said that it was a ‘thoroughly sinister talent which I hope he will learn to channel constructively.’ It was true that once he was intrigued by a situation, as he was by Margaret being back with his family, he could absorb everything he wanted. He pressed against the mosquito net to get a better view.

‘Ooh, it’s that hot,’ said Margaret, fanning herself with a knitting magazine. ‘I couldn’t find any of the cottage cheese in Bandol. They didn’t speak a word of English in the supermarket. “Cottage cheese,” I said, pointing to the house on the other side of the street, “cottage, you know, as in house, only smaller,” but they still couldn’t make head or tail of what I was saying.’

‘They sound incredibly stupid,’ said his father, ‘with so many helpful clues.’

‘Hmmm. I had to get some of the French cheeses in the end,’ said Margaret, sitting down on the low wall with a sigh. ‘How’s the baby?’

‘He seems very tired,’ said his mother.

‘I’m not surprised in this heat,’ said Margaret. ‘I think I must have got sunstroke on that boat, frankly. I’m done to a crisp. Give him plenty of water, dear. It’s the only way to cool them down. They can’t sweat at that age.’

‘Another amazing oversight,’ said his father. ‘Can’t sweat, can’t walk, can’t talk, can’t read, can’t drive, can’t sign a cheque. Foals are standing a few hours after they’re born. If horses went in for banking, they’d have a credit line by the end of the week.’

‘Horses don’t have any use for banking,’ said Margaret.

‘No,’ said his father, exhausted.

In a moment of ecstatic song the cicadas drowned out Margaret’s voice, and Robert felt he could remember exactly what it was like being in that cot, lying under the plane trees in a cool green shade, listening to the wall of cicada song collapse to a solitary call and escalate again to a dry frenzy. He let things rest where they fell, the sounds, the sights, the impressions. Things resolved themselves in that cool green shade, not because he knew how they worked, but because he knew his own thoughts and feelings without needing to explain them. And if he wanted to play with his thoughts, nobody could stop him. Just lying there in his cot, they couldn’t tell whether he was doing anything dangerous. Sometimes he imagined he was the thing he was looking at, sometimes he imagined he was in the space in between, but the best was when he was just looking, without being anyone in particular or looking at anything in particular, and then he floated in the looking, like the breeze blowing without needing cheeks to blow or having anywhere particular to go.

His brother was probably floating right now in Robert’s old cot. The grown-ups didn’t know what to make of floating. That was the trouble with grown-ups: they always wanted to be the centre of attention, with their battering rams of food, and their sleep routines and their obsession with making you learn what they knew and forget what they had forgotten. Robert dreaded sleep. He might miss something: a beach of yellow beads, or grasshopper wings like sparks flying from his feet as he crunched through the dry grass.

He loved it down here at his grandmother’s house. His family only came once a year, but they had been every year since he was born. Her house was a Transpersonal Foundation. He didn’t really know what that was, and nobody else seemed to know either, even Seamus Dourke, who ran it.

‘Your grandmother is a wonderful woman,’ he had told Robert, looking at him with his dim twinkly eyes. ‘She’s helped a lot of people to connect.’

‘With what?’ asked Robert.