The Patrick Melrose Novels

by Edward St. Aubyn

  A voice on the television spoke excitedly about a complete set of prestigious carving knives, accompanied by an incredible wok, a beautiful set of salad bowls, a book of mouth-watering recipes and, as if this wasn’t enough, a machine for cutting vegetables into different shapes. Patrick glazed over as he stared at carrots being sliced, diced, shredded, and cubed.

  The mound of shaved ice in which his orange juice had arrived turned out to be completely melted and Patrick, suddenly frustrated, kicked the breakfast trolley and sent it thudding into the wall. He was overwhelmed with despair at the prospect of having no ice in his drink. What was the point of going on? Everything was wrong, everything was hopelessly fucked up. He sat down, defenceless and defeated, on the edge of the bed, the bottle of bourbon held loosely in one hand. He had imagined an icy glass of bourbon resting steamily on the side of the bath, had wagered all his hope on it, but finding that the plan was compromised, nothing stood between him and utter bankruptcy. He drank a gulp straight from the bottle and put it down on the bedside table. It stung his throat and made him shudder.

  The clock showed eleven twenty. He must get into action and prepare himself for the business of the day. Now was the time for speed and alcohol. He must leave the coke behind, or he would spend the whole of lunch shooting up in the loo, as usual.

  He got up from the bed and suddenly punched the lampshade, sending the lamp crashing to the carpet. With the bottle of bourbon in his hand, he walked back into the bathroom, where he found the water gently overflowing from the side of the bath and flooding the floor. Refusing to panic or show any surprise, he slowly turned off the water and pushed the sodden bathmat around with his foot, spreading the water into the corners it had not yet reached. He undressed, getting his trousers wet, and tossed his clothes through the open door.

  The bath was absurdly hot and Patrick had to pull the plug out and run the cold water before he could climb in. Once he was lying in it, it seemed too cold again. He reached for the bottle of bourbon he had put on the floor beside the bath, and for no reason that he could make out he poured the bourbon from the air and sucked it in as it splashed and trickled over his face.

  The bottle was soon empty and he held it under the water, watching the bubbles run out of the neck and then moving it around the bottom of the bath like a submarine stalking enemy ships.

  Looking down, he caught sight of his arms and drew in his breath sharply and involuntarily. Among the fading yellow bruises, and the pink threads of old scars, a fresh set of purple wounds clustered around his main veins and at odd points along his arm. At the centre of this unhealthy canvas was the black bulge produced by the missed shot of the night before. The thought that this was his own arm ambushed Patrick quite suddenly, and made him want to cry. He closed his eyes and sank under the surface of the water, breathing out violently from his nose. It didn’t bear thinking about.

  As he surged out of the water, flicking his head from side to side, Patrick was surprised to hear the phone ring again.

  He got out of the bath, and picked up the phone beside the loo. These bathroom phones were really quite useful – perhaps it was China asking him to dinner, begging him to reconsider.

  ‘Yes?’ he drawled.

  ‘Hey, Patrick?’ said an unmistakable voice on the other end.

  ‘Marianne! How sweet of you to ring.’

  ‘I’m so sorry to hear about your father,’ said Marianne in a voice that was hesitating but deeply self-assured, whispering but husky. It seemed not to be projected from her body into the world, but to draw the world inside her body; she did not speak so much as swallow articulately. Anyone who listened to her was forced to imagine her long smooth throat, and the elegant S of her body, exaggerated by the extraordinary curve of her spine that made her breasts swell further forward and her bottom further back.

  Why had he never been to bed with her? The fact that she had never shown any signs of desire for him had played an unhelpful role, but that might be attributed to her friendship with Debbie. How could she resist him after all, thought Patrick, glancing in the mirror.

  Fucking hell. He was going to have to rely on her pity.

  ‘Well, you know how it is,’ he drawled sarcastically. ‘Death, where is thy sting?’

  ‘Of all the evils in the world which are reproached with an evil character, death is the most innocent of its accusation.’

  ‘Bang on in this case,’ said Patrick. ‘Who said that anyhow?’

  ‘Bishop Taylor in The Correct Rules for Holy Dying,’ Marianne disclosed.

  ‘Your favourite book?’

  ‘It’s so great,’ she gasped hoarsely; ‘I swear to God, it’s the most beautiful prose I’ve ever read.’

  She was clever too. It was really intolerable; he had to have her.

  ‘Will you have dinner with me?’ Patrick asked.

  ‘Oh, God, I wish…’ gasped Marianne, ‘but I’ve got to have dinner with my parents. Do you want to come along?’

  ‘That would be wonderful,’ said Patrick, annoyed not to have her to himself.

  ‘Good. I’ll let my parents know,’ she purred. ‘Come on over to their apartment around seven o’clock.’

  ‘Perfect,’ said Patrick, and then, unguardedly, ‘I adore you.’

  ‘Hey!’ said Marianne ambiguously. ‘See you later.’

  Patrick hung up the phone. He had to have her, he definitely had to have her. She was not merely the latest object on which his greedy desire to be saved had fixed itself; no, she was the woman who was going to save him. The woman whose fine intelligence and deep sympathy and divine body, yes, whose divine body would successfully deflect his attention from the gloomy well shaft of his feelings and the contemplation of his past.

  If he got her he would give up drugs forever, or at least have someone really attractive to take them with. He giggled wildly, wrapping a towel around himself and striding back into his bedroom with renewed vigour.

  He looked like shit, it was true, but everybody knew that what women really valued, apart from a great deal of money, was gentleness and humour. Gentleness was not his speciality, and he wasn’t feeling especially funny, but this was a case of destiny: he had to have her or he would die.

  It was time to get practical, to take a Black Beauty and lock the coke in his suitcase. He fished a capsule out of his jacket and swallowed it with impressive efficiency. As he tidied away the coke he could see no reason not to have one last fix. After all, he hadn’t had one for almost forty minutes and he would not be having another for a couple of hours. Too lazy to go through the entire ritual, he stuck the needle into an easily accessible vein in the back of his hand and administered the injection.

  The effects were certainly growing weaker, he noted, still able to walk around, if a little shakily, with his shoulders hunched high up beside his ears, and his jaw tightly clenched.

  It was really unbearable to contemplate being separated from the coke for so long, but he couldn’t control himself if he carried supplies with him. The sensible thing to do was to prepare a couple of fixes, one in the rather tired old syringe he had been using all night, its rubber plunger now tending to stick to the sides of the barrel, and the other in the precious untouched syringe. Just as some men wore a handkerchief in their breast pockets to cope with the emergency of a woman’s tears, or a sneeze, he often tucked away a couple of syringes into the same pocket to cope with the endlessly renewed emptiness that invaded him. Pip! Pip! Be prepared!

  Suffering from yet another aural hallucination, Patrick overheard a conversation between a policeman and a member of the hotel staff.

  ‘Was this guy a regular?’

  ‘Na, he was the holiday-of-a-lifetime type.’

  ‘Ya, ya,’ muttered Patrick impatiently. He wasn’t that easily intimidated.

  He put on a clean white shirt, slipped into his second suit, a dark grey herringbone, stepping into his shoes at the same time as he did up his gold cufflinks. His silver and black tie, unfortunately the only
one he had, was flecked with blood, but he managed, by tying it rather too short, to disguise the fact, although he had to tuck the longer strip into his shirt, a practice he despised.

  Less easily solved was the problem of his left eye, which had now completely closed, except for an occasional nervous fluttering. He could, with great effort, open it up but only by raising his eyebrows to a position of high indignation. On his way to the Key Club, he would have to go to the pharmacy and get himself an eyepatch.

  His breast pocket was deep enough to conceal the raised plungers of the two syringes, and the bag of smack fitted neatly into the ticket pocket of his jacket. Everything was completely under control, except that he was sweating like a stuck pig and couldn’t shake off the sense that he had forgotten something crucial.

  Patrick took the chain off the door and glanced back nostalgically at the fetid dark chaos he was leaving behind. The curtains were still closed, the bed unmade, pillows and clothes on the floor, the lamp overturned, the trolley of food rotting in the warm atmosphere, the bathroom flooded and the television, where a man was shouting, ‘Come to Crazy Eddie’s! The prices are insane,’ still flickering.

  Stepping out into the corridor, Patrick could not help noticing a policeman standing outside the next-door room.

  His overcoat! That was what he had forgotten. But if he doubled back wouldn’t it look guilty?

  He hovered in the doorway, and then muttered loudly, ‘Oh yes, I must…’ drawing the policeman’s attention to himself as he strode back appalled into his room. What were the police doing there? Could they tell what he’d been doing?

  His overcoat felt heavy and less reassuring than usual. He mustn’t take too long or they would wonder what he was up to.

  ‘You’re gonna fry in that coat,’ said the policeman with a smile.

  ‘It’s not a crime, is it?’ asked Patrick, more aggressively than he’d intended.

  ‘Normally,’ said the policeman with mock seriousness, ‘we’d have to arrest ya, but we got our hands full,’ he added with a resigned shrug.

  ‘What happened here?’ asked Patrick in his MP-with-the-constituent manner.

  ‘Guy died of a heart attack.’

  ‘The party’s over,’ said Patrick with a private sense of pleasure.

  ‘There was a party here last night?’ The policeman was suddenly curious.

  ‘No, no, I just meant…’ Patrick felt he was coming from too many directions at once.

  ‘You heard no noises, cries, nothing unusual?’

  ‘No, I heard nothing.’

  The policeman relaxed, and ran his hand over his largely bald scalp. ‘You’re from England, right?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘I could tell from the accent.’

  ‘They’ll make you a detective soon,’ said Patrick boisterously. He waved as he set off down the long carpet of gushing pink and green flower-laden urns, with the policeman’s imagined eyebeams burning into his back.

  10

  PATRICK SPRANG UP THE steps of the Key Club with unaccustomed eagerness, his nerves squirming like a bed of maggots whose protective stone has been flicked aside, exposing them to the assault of the open sky. Wearing an eyepatch, he hurried gratefully into the gloomy hall of the club, his shirt clinging to his sweating back.

  The hall porter took his overcoat in silent surprise and led him down a narrow corridor, its walls covered with memorials to remarkable dogs, horses, and servants, and one or two cartoons bearing witness to the feeble and long-forgotten eccentricities of certain dead members. It really was a temple of English virtues as George had promised.

  Ushered into a large panelled room full of green and brown leather armchairs of Victorian design, and huge glossy paintings of dogs holding birds in their obedient mouths, Patrick saw George in the corner, already in conversation with another man.

  ‘Patrick, my dear, how are you?’

  ‘Hello, George.’

  ‘Is there something wrong with your eye?’

  ‘Just a little inflammation.’

  ‘Oh, dear, well, I hope it clears up,’ said George sincerely. ‘Do you know Ballantine Morgan?’ he asked, turning to a small man with weak blue eyes, neat white hair, and a well-trimmed moustache.

  ‘Hello, Patrick,’ said Ballantine, giving him a firm handshake. Patrick noticed that he was wearing a black silk tie and wondered if he was in mourning for some reason.

  ‘I was very sorry to hear about your father,’ said Ballantine. ‘I didn’t know him personally, but from everything George tells me it sounds like he was a great English gentleman.’

  Jesus Christ, thought Patrick.

  ‘What have you been telling him?’ he asked George reproachfully.

  ‘Only what an exceptional man your father was.’

  ‘Yes, I’m pleased to say that he was exceptional,’ said Patrick. ‘I’ve never met anybody quite like him.’

  ‘He refused to compromise,’ drawled George. ‘What was it he used to say? “Nothing but the best, or go without.”’

  ‘Always felt the same way myself,’ said Ballantine fatuously.

  ‘Would you like a drink?’ asked George.

  ‘I’ll have one of those Bullshots you spoke about so passionately this morning.’

  ‘Passionately,’ guffawed Ballantine.

  ‘Well, there are some things one feels passionately about,’ smiled George, looking at the barman and briefly raising his index finger. ‘I shall feel quite bereft without your father,’ he continued. ‘Oddly enough, it was here that we were supposed to be having lunch on the day that he died. The last time I met him we went to a perfectly extraordinary place that has an arrangement of some sort – I can’t believe that it’s reciprocal – with the Travellers in Paris. The portraits were at least four times life size – we laughed about that a good deal – he was on very good form, although, of course, there was always an undercurrent of disappointment with your father. I think he really enjoyed himself on this last visit. You must never forget, Patrick, that he was very proud of you. I’m sure you know that. Really proud.’

  Patrick felt sick.

  Ballantine looked bored, as people do when someone they don’t know is being discussed. He had a very natural desire to talk about himself, but felt that a little pause was in order.

  ‘Yes,’ said George to the waiter. ‘We’d like two Bullshots and…’ He leaned enquiringly towards Ballantine.

  ‘I’ll have another martini,’ said Ballantine. There was a short silence.

  ‘What a lot of faithful gundogs,’ said Patrick wearily, glancing around the room.

  ‘I suppose a lot of the members are keen shots,’ said George. ‘Ballantine is one of the best shots in the world.’

  ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa,’ protested Ballantine, ‘used to be the best shot in the world.’ He held out his hand to arrest the flow of self-congratulation, but was no more effective than King Canute in the face of another great force of nature. ‘What I haven’t lost,’ he couldn’t help pointing out, ‘is a gun collection which is probably the greatest in the world.’

  The waiter returned with the drinks.

  ‘Would you bring me the book called The Morgan Gun Collection?’ Ballantine asked him.

  ‘Yes, Mr Morgan,’ said the waiter in a voice that suggested he had dealt with this request before.

  Patrick tasted the Bullshot and found himself smiling irresistibly. He drank half of it in one gulp, put it down for a moment, picked it up again, and said to George, ‘You were right about these Bullshots,’ drinking the rest.

  ‘Would you like another one?’ asked George.

  ‘I think I will, they’re so delicious.’

  The waiter weaved his way back to the table with an enormous white volume. On the front cover, visible from some way off, was a photograph of two silver-inlaid pistols.

  ‘Here you are, Mr Morgan,’ said the waiter.

  ‘Ahh-aa,’ said Ballantine, taking the book.

  ‘And another Bulls
hot, would you?’ said George.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Ballantine tried to suppress a grin of pride. ‘These guns right here,’ he said, tapping the front cover of the book, ‘are a pair of Spanish seventeenth-century duelling pistols which are the most valuable firearms in the world. If I tell you that the triggers cost over a million dollars to replace, you’ll have some idea of what I mean.’

  ‘It’s enough to make you wonder if it’s worth fighting a duel,’ said Patrick.

  ‘The original cleaning brushes alone are worth over a quarter of a million dollars,’ chuckled Ballantine, ‘so you wouldn’t want to fire the pistols too often.’

  George looked pained and distant, but Ballantine in his role as the Triumph of Life, performing the valuable task of distracting Patrick from his terrible grief, was unstoppable. He put on a pair of tortoiseshell half-moon spectacles, pushed his head back, and looked condescendingly at his book, while he allowed the pages to flicker past.

  ‘This here,’ he said, stopping the flow of pages and holding the book open towards Patrick, ‘this is the first Winchester repeating rifle ever manufactured.’

  ‘Amazing,’ sighed Patrick.

  ‘When I was shooting in Africa, I brought down a lion with this gun,’ admitted Ballantine. ‘It took a number of shots – it doesn’t have the calibre of a modern weapon.’

  ‘You must have been all the more grateful for the repeating mechanism,’ Patrick suggested.

  ‘Oh, I was covered by a couple of reliable hunters,’ said Ballantine complacently. ‘I describe the incident in the book I wrote about my African hunting trips.’

  The waiter returned with Patrick’s second Bullshot, and another large book under his arm.

  ‘Harry thought you might want this as well, Mr Morgan.’

  ‘Well, I’ll be darned,’ said Ballantine with a colloquial twang, craning back in his chair and beaming at the barman. ‘I mentioned the book and it falls in my lap. Now that’s what I call service!’