‘Do we need a charity for tripping?’ asked his father. ‘Of all the ills in the world, the fact that there are a few people who are not tripping seems a wild hole to plug. Besides, if people want to trip, why not give them a strong dose of acid, instead of messing about with drums?’
‘You can tell he’s a barrister,’ said Seamus amiably.
‘I’m all for people having hobbies,’ said his father. ‘I just think they should explore them in the comfort of their own homes.’
‘Sadly, Patrick,’ said Seamus, ‘some homes are not that comfortable.’
‘I know the feeling,’ said his father. ‘Which reminds me, do you think we could clear out some of those books, advertisements, brochures, bric-a-brac’
‘Surely,’ said Seamus, ‘surely.’
His father and Seamus got up to leave and Robert realized that he was going to be left alone with Julia.
‘I’ll help,’ he said, following them round the terrace. His father led the way into the hall and stopped almost immediately.
‘These fluttering leaflets,’ he said, ‘advertising other centres, other institutes, healing circles, advanced drumming courses – they’re really wasted on us. In fact, this whole noticeboard,’ he continued, unhooking it from the wall, ‘despite its attractive cork surface and its multicoloured drawing pins, might as well not be here.’
‘No problem,’ said Seamus, embracing the notice-board.
Although his father’s manner remained supremely controlled, Robert could feel that he was intoxicated with rage and contempt. Seamus clouded over when Robert tried to make out what he was feeling, but eventually he groped his way to the terrible conclusion that Seamus pitied his father. Knowing that he was in charge, Seamus could afford to indulge the fury of a betrayed child. His repulsive pity saved him from feeling the impact of Patrick’s fury, but Robert found himself caught between the punchbag and the punch and, feeling frightened and useless, he slipped out of the front door, while his father marched Seamus on to the next offence.
Outside, the shadow of the house was spreading to the flower beds on the edge of the terrace, indicating to some effortless part of his mind that the middle of the afternoon had arrived. The cicadas scratched on. He could see without looking, hear without listening; he was aware that he was not thinking. His attention, which usually bounced from one thing to another, was still. He pushed to test its resistance but he didn’t push too hard, knowing that he could probably make himself pinball around again if he tried. His mind was glazed over, like a pond drowsily repeating the pattern of the sky.
The funny thing was that by imagining a pond he had started disturbing the trance it was being compared to. Now he wanted to go to the pond at the top of the steps, a stone semicircle of water at the end of the drive, where the goldfish would be hiding under a shield of reflection. That was right; he didn’t want to go round the house with his father and Seamus, he wanted to scatter bread on the water to see if he could make that slippery Catherine wheel of orange fish break the surface. He ran into the kitchen and grabbed a piece of old bread before sprinting up the steps to the pond.
His father had told him that in winter the source gushed out of the pipe and thundered down among the darting fish; it overflowed into the lower ponds and eventually into the stream that ran along the crease of the valley. He wished he could see that one day. By August the pond was only half full. The algae-bearded pipe dripped into greenish water. Wasps and hornets and dragonflies crowded its warm dusty surface, resting on the water-lily pads for a safer drink. The goldfish were invisible unless tempted by food. The best method was to rub two pieces of stale bread together until they disintegrated into fine dry crumbs. Pellets of bread just sank, but the crumbs were held on the surface like dust. The most beautiful fish, the one he really wanted to see, had red and white patches on its skin. The others were all shades of orange, apart from a few small black ones which must either turn orange later on, or die out, because there were no big black ones.
He broke the bread and grated the two halves, watching a rain of light crumbs land on the water and spread out. Nothing happened.
The truth was that he had only seen the swirling frenzy of fish once, and since then either nothing had happened or a solitary fish fed lazily under the wobbling sinking crumbs.
‘Fish! Fish! Fish! Come on! Fish! Fish! Fish!’
‘Are you calling to your power animal?’ said a voice behind him.
He stopped abruptly and swung round. Seamus was standing there, smiling at him benevolently, his tropical shirt blazing in the sun.
‘Fish! Fish! Fish!’ Seamus called.
‘I was just feeding them,’ mumbled Robert.
‘Do you feel you have a special connection with fish?’ Seamus asked him, leaning in closer. ‘That’s what a power animal is, you know. It helps you on your journey through life.’
‘I just like them being fish,’ said Robert. ‘They don’t have to do anything for me.’
‘Now fish, for instance, bring us messages from the depths, from under the surface of things.’ Seamus wriggled his hand through the air. ‘Ah, it’s a magical land here,’ said Seamus, pushing his elbows back and twisting his neck from side to side with his eyes closed. ‘My own personal power point, you know, is up there in the little wood, by the bird bath. Do you know the spot? It was your grandmother first pointed it out to me, it was a special place for her too. The first time I did a journey here, that’s where I connected with the non-ordinary reality.’
Robert suddenly realized, and as he realized it he also saw its inevitability, that he loathed Seamus.
Seamus cupped his hands around his mouth and howled, ‘Fish! Fish! Fish!’
Robert wanted to kill him. If he had a car he would run him over. If he had an axe he would cut him down.
He heard the upper door of the house being opened, and then the mosquito door squeaking open as well and out came his mother, holding Thomas in her arms.
‘Oh, it’s you. Hello, Seamus,’ said his mother politely. ‘We were half asleep, and I couldn’t work out why a travelling fishmonger was bellowing outside the window.’
‘We were, you know, invoking the fish,’ said Seamus.
Robert ran over to his mother. She sat down with him on the low wall around the edge of the pond, away from where Seamus was standing, and tilted Thomas so he could see the water. Robert really hoped the fish didn’t come to the surface now, or Seamus would probably think he had made it happen with his special powers. Poor Thomas, he might never see the orange swirl, he might never see the big fish with red and white patches. Seamus was taking away the pond and the wood and the bird bath and the whole landscape from him. In fact, when you thought about it, Thomas had been attacked by his own grandmother from the moment he was born. She wasn’t a grandmother at all; more like a stepmother in a fairy tale, cursing him in his cot. How could she have shown Seamus the bird bath in the wood? He patted Thomas’s head protectively. Thomas started to laugh, his surprisingly deep gurgling laugh, and Robert realized that his brother didn’t really know about these things that were driving Robert crazy, and that he needn’t know, unless Robert told him.
4
JOSH PACKER WAS A boy in Robert’s class at school. He had decided (all on his own) that they were best friends. Nobody else could understand why they were inseparable, least of all Robert. If he could have broken away from Josh for long enough he would definitely have made another best friend, but Josh followed Robert round the playground, copied out his spelling tests, and dragged him back to his house for tea. All Josh did outside school was watch television. He had sixty-five channels, whereas Robert only had the free ones. Josh’s parents were very rich, so he often had amazing new toys before anyone else had even heard of them. For his last birthday he had been given a real electric jeep, with a DVD player and a miniature television. He drove it round the garden, squashing the flowers and trying to run over Arnie, his dog. Eventually, he crashed into a bush and he and Robert s
at in the rain watching the miniature television. When he came round to Robert’s flat he said how pathetic the toys were and complained that he was bored. Robert tried to make up games with him but he didn’t know how to make things up. He just pretended to be a television character for about three seconds, and then fell over and shouted, ‘I’m dead.’
Jilly, Josh’s mother, had telephoned the day before to say that she and Jim had rented a fabulous house in Saint-Tropez for the whole of August, and why didn’t Robert’s family come over for a day of fun and games. His parents said it would be good for him to spend a day with someone of his own age. They said it would be an adventure for them as well, because they had only met Josh’s parents once, at the school sports day. Even then Jim and Jilly were too busy making rival movies of Josh’s races to talk much. Jilly showed them how her videocam could make the whole thing go in slow motion, which wasn’t really necessary as Josh came in last anyway.
Now that they were actually on their way, Robert’s father was ranting at the wheel of the car. He seemed to be much grumpier since Julia had left. He couldn’t believe that they were spending a day of their precious holiday in a traffic jam, in a heatwave, crawling into this ‘world-famous joke of a town’.
Robert was sitting next to Thomas, who was in his old baby chair facing the wrong way, with only the stained fabric of the back seat to entertain him. Robert made barking noises as he climbed Thomas’s leg with a small toy dog. Thomas couldn’t have been less interested. Why should he be? thought Robert. He hasn’t seen a real dog yet. Mind you, if he was only curious about things he’d seen before, he’d still be trapped in a whirlpool of birth-room lights.
When they finally found the right street, Robert was the one who spotted the tilted script of ‘Les Mimosas’ scrawled across a rustic tile. They thrummed down the ribbed concrete to a parking lot already congested with Jim’s private motor show: a black Range Rover, a red Ferrari and an old cream convertible with cracked leather seats and bulbous chrome fenders. His father found a space for their Peugeot next to a giant cactus, its serrated tongues sticking out in every direction.
‘A neo-Roman villa decorated by a disciple of Gauguin’s syphilitic twilight,’ said his father. ‘What more could one ask?’ He slipped into his golden advertising voice, ‘Situated in St Tro-pay’s most prestigious gated community, only six hours’ drive from Brigitte Bardot’s legendary pet cemetery—’
‘Sweetheart,’ interrupted his mother.
There was a tap on the window.
‘Jim!’ said his father warmly, as he wound down the window.
‘We’re just off to buy some inflatables for the pool,’ said Jim, lowering the videocam with which he’d been filming their arrival. ‘Does Robert want to come along?’
Robert glanced at Josh slumped in the back of the Range Rover. He could tell that he was playing with his GameBoy.
‘No, thanks,’ he said. ‘I’ll help unpack the car.’
‘You’ve got him well trained, haven’t you?’ said Jim. ‘Jilly’s poolside, catching some rays. Just follow the garden path.’
They walked through a whitewashed colonnade daubed with Pacific murals, and down a spongy lawn towards the pool, perfectly concealed under a flotilla of inflatable giraffes, fire engines, footballs, racing cars, hamburgers, Mickeys, Minnies and Goofys, his father lopsided by the baby chair in which Thomas still slept, and his mother like a mule, her sides bulging with bags. Jilly lay stunned on a white and yellow sunbed, flanked by two glistening strangers, all three of them in wigs of Walkman and mobile-phone wires. His father’s shadow roused Jilly as it fell across her baking face.
‘Hi, there!’ she said, unhooking her headphones. ‘I’m sorry, I was in a world of my own.’
She got up to greet her guests, but was soon staggering backwards, staring at Thomas, a hand sprawled over her heart.
‘Oh, my God,’ she gasped, ‘your new one is beautiful. I’m sorry, Robert,’ she dug her long shiny nails into his shoulders to help steady him, ‘I don’t want to fan the flames of sibling rivalry, but your little brother is something really special. Aren’t you a special one?’ she said, swooping down towards Thomas. ‘He’s going to make you dead jealous,’ she warned his mother, ‘with all the girls throwing themselves at his feet. Look at those eyelashes! Are you going to have another one? If mine looked like that, I’d have at least six. I sound greedy, don’t I? But I can’t help it, he’s so love-ly. He’s made me forget myself, I haven’t introduced you to Christine and Roger yet. As if they cared. Look at them, they’re in a world of their own. Go on, wake up!’ She pretended to kick Roger. ‘Roger’s a business partner of Jim’s,’ she filled them in, ‘and Christine’s from Australia. She’s four months pregnant.’
She shook Christine awake.
‘Oh, hi,’ said Christine, ‘have they arrived?’
Jilly introduced everybody.
‘I was just telling them about the pregnancy,’ she explained to Christine.
‘Oh, yeah. Actually, I think we’re in major denial about it,’ said Christine. ‘I just feel a little heavier, that’s all, as if I’d drunk four litres of Evian, or something. I mean, I don’t even feel sick in the mornings. The other day Roger said, “Do you wanna go skiing in January? I’ve got to be in Switzerland on business anyway,” and I said, “Sure, why not?” We’d both forgotten that that’s the week I’m supposed to be giving birth!’
Jilly hooted with laughter and rolled her eyes skywards.
‘I mean, is that absent-minded, or what?’ said Christine. ‘Mind you, pregnancy really does your brain in.’
‘Look at them,’ said Jilly, pointing to Robert’s mother and father, ‘they’re absolutely gobsmacked – they’re loving parents.’
‘So are we,’ protested Christine. ‘You know how we are with Megan. Megan’s our two-year-old,’ she explained to the guests. ‘We’ve left her with Roger’s mother. She’s just discovered rage – you know the way they discover emotions and then work them for all they’re worth, until they get on to the next one.’
‘How interesting,’ said Robert’s father, ‘so you don’t think emotions have anything to do with how a child is feeling – they’re just layers in an archaeological dig. When do they discover joy?’
‘When you take them to Legoland,’ said Christine.
Roger woke up groggily, clasping his earpiece.
‘Oh, hi. Sorry, I’ve got a call.’
He got up and started to pace the lawn.
‘Have you brought your nanny?’ asked Jilly.
‘We haven’t got one,’ said Robert’s mother.
‘That’s brave,’ said Jilly. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without Jo. She’s only been with us a week and she’s already part of the family. You can dump your lot on her, she’s marvellous.’
‘We quite like looking after them ourselves,’ said his mother.
‘Jo!’ shouted Jilly. ‘Jo-o-euh!’
‘Tell them it’s a mixed leisure portfolio,’ said Roger. ‘Don’t give them any more details at this stage.’
‘Jo!’ Jilly called again. ‘Lazy bitch. She spends the whole day gawping at Hello! magazine and eating Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. A bit like her employer, you might say, hem-hem, but it’s costing me a fortune, whereas she’s getting paid.’
‘I don’t care what they told Nigel,’ said Roger, ‘it’s none of their bloody business. They can keep their noses out of it.’
Jim came striding down the lawn, glowing with successful shopping. Tubby Josh followed behind, a tangle of dragging feet. Jim got out a foot-pump and unfolded the plastic skin of another inflatable on the flagstones next to the pool.
‘What did you get him?’ asked Jilly, staring furiously at the house.
‘You know he had his heart set on the ice-cream cone,’ said Jim, pumping up a strawberry Cornetto. ‘And I got him the Lion King.’
‘And the machine gun,’ said Josh pedantically.
‘Inland Revenue,’ said Jim to Robert’s f
ather, jerking his chin towards Roger, ‘breathing down his neck. He may want some legal advice over lunch.’
‘I don’t work when I’m on holiday,’ said his father.
‘You don’t work much when you’re not on holiday,’ said Robert’s mother.
‘Oh dear, do I detect marital conflict?’ said Jim, filming the strawberry Cornetto as it unwrinkled on the ground.
‘Jo!’ screamed Jilly.
‘I’m here,’ called a big freckly girl in khaki shorts emerging from the house. The words ‘Up For It’ danced on the front of her T-shirt as she bobbed down the lawn.
Thomas woke up screaming. Who could blame him? The last thing he knew he had been in the car with his lovely family, and now he was surrounded by shouting strangers with blacked-out eyes; a nervous herd of monsters jostling brightly in the chlorinated air, another one swelling at his feet. Robert couldn’t stand it either.
‘Who’s a hungry young man?’ said Jo, leaning in on Thomas. ‘Oh, he’s beautiful, isn’t he?’ she said to Robert’s mother. ‘He’s an old soul, you can tell.’
‘Get these two parked in front of a video,’ said Jilly, ‘so we can have a bit of peace and quiet. And send Gaston down with a bottle of rosé. You’ll love Gaston,’ she told Robert’s mother. ‘He’s a genius. A real old-fashioned French chef. I’ve put on about three stone since we arrived, and that was only a week ago. Never mind. We’ve got Heinrich coming to the rescue this afternoon – he’s the personal trainer, great big German hunk, gives you a proper old workout. You should join me, help to get your figure back after the pregnancy. Not that you don’t look great.’
The Patrick Melrose Novels Page 44
