The Patrick Melrose Novels by Edward St. Aubyn

delicious?’ said Nicholas quickly.
    Bridget poured the tea, while David went to sit on a low wall, a few feet away from Nicholas. As he tapped his cigar gently and let the ash fall at his feet, he noticed a trail of ants working their way along the side of the wall and into their nest in the corner.
    Bridget carried cups of tea over to the two men, and as she turned to fetch her own cup, David held the burning tip of his cigar close to the ants and ran it along in both directions as far as he could conveniently reach. The ants twisted, excruciated by the heat, and dropped down onto the terrace. Some, before they fell, reared up, their stitching legs trying helplessly to repair their ruined bodies.
    â€˜What a civilized life you have here,’ Bridget sang out as she sank back into a dark-blue deckchair. Nicholas rolled his eyeballs and wondered why the hell he had told her to make light conversation. To cover the silence he remarked to David that he had been to Jonathan Croyden’s memorial service the day before.
    â€˜Do you find that you go to more memorial services, or more weddings these days?’ David asked.
    â€˜I still get more wedding invitations, but I find I enjoy the memorials more.’
    â€˜Because you don’t have to bring a present?’
    â€˜Well, that helps a great deal, but mainly because one gets a better crowd when someone really distinguished dies.’
    â€˜Unless all his friends have died before him.’
    â€˜That, of course, is intolerable,’ said Nicholas categorically.
    â€˜Ruins the party.’
    â€˜Absolutely.’
    â€˜I’m afraid I don’t approve of memorial services,’ said David, taking another puff on his cigar. ‘Not merely because I cannot imagine anything in most men’s lives that deserves to be celebrated, but also because the delay between the funeral and the memorial service is usually so long that, far from rekindling the spirit of a lost friend, it only shows how easily one can live without him.’ David blew on the tip of his cigar and it glowed brightly. The opium made him feel that he was listening to another man speak.
    â€˜The dead are dead,’ he went on, ‘and the truth is that one forgets about people when they stop coming to dinner. There are exceptions, of course – namely, the people one forgets during dinner.’
    With his cigar he caught a stray ant which was escaping with singed antennae from his last incendiary raid. ‘If you really miss someone, you are better off doing something you both enjoyed doing together, which is unlikely to mean, except in the most bizarre cases, standing around in a draughty church, wearing a black overcoat and singing hymns.’
    The ant ran away with astonishing speed and was about to reach the far side of the wall when David, stretching a little, touched it lightly with a surgeon’s precision. Its skin blistered and it squirmed violently as it died.
    â€˜One should only go to an enemy’s memorial service. Quite apart from the pleasure of outlasting him, it is an opportunity for a truce. Forgiveness is so important, don’t you think?’
    â€˜Gosh, yes,’ said Bridget, ‘especially getting other people to forgive you.’
    David smiled at her encouragingly, until he saw Eleanor step through the doorway.
    â€˜Ah, Eleanor,’ grinned Nicholas with exaggerated pleasure, ‘we were just talking about Jonathan Croyden’s memorial.’
    â€˜I guess it’s the end of an era,’ said Eleanor.
    â€˜He was the last man alive to have gone to one of Evelyn Waugh’s parties in drag,’ said Nicholas. ‘He was said to dress much better as a woman than as a man. He was an inspiration to a whole generation of Englishmen. Which reminds me, after the memorial I met a very tiresome, smarmy Indian who claimed to have visited you just before staying with Jonathan at Cap Ferrat.’
    â€˜It must have been