The Patrick Melrose Novels: Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and Mother's Milk by Edward St. Aubyn Page A

‘Eleanor,’ she said in the same tone, as if her request should be granted as a reward for finding children sweet, ‘could you tell me which room I’m in because I’d quite like to go up and have a bath and unpack.’

    ‘Of course. Let me show you,’ said Eleanor.

    Eleanor led Bridget into the house.

    ‘Your girlfriend is very, I believe the word is “vivacious”,’ said David.

    ‘Oh, she’ll do for now,’ said Nicholas.

    ‘No need to apologize, she’s absolutely charming. Shall we have a real drink?’

    ‘Good idea.’

    ‘Champagne?’

    ‘Perfect.’

    David fetched the champagne and reappeared tearing the golden lead from the neck of a clear bottle.

    ‘Cristal,’ said Nicholas dutifully.

    ‘Nothing but the best, or go without,’ said David.

    ‘It reminds me of Charles Pewsey,’ said Nicholas. ‘We were drinking a bottle of that stuff at Wilton’s last week and I asked him if he remembered Gunter, Jonathan Croyden’s unspeakable amanuensis. And Charles roared – you know how deaf he is – “Amanuensis? Bumboy, you mean: unspeakable bumboy. ” Everyone turned round and stared at us.’

    ‘They always do when one’s with Charles.’ David grinned. It was so typical of Charles, one had to know Charles to appreciate how funny it was.

    The bedroom Bridget had been put in was all flowery chintz, with engravings of Roman ruins on every wall. Beside the bed was a copy of Lady Mosley’s A Life of Contrasts , on top of which Bridget had thrown Valley of the Dolls , her current reading. She sat by the window smoking a joint, and watched the smoke drift through the tiny holes in the mosquito net. From below, she could hear Nicholas shout ‘ unspeakable bumboy ’. They must be reminiscing about their school days. Boys will be boys.

    Bridget lifted one foot onto the windowsill. She still held the joint in her left hand, although it would burn her fingers with the next toke. She slipped her right hand between her legs and started to masturbate.

    ‘It just goes to show that being an amanuensis doesn’t matter as long as you have the butler on your side,’ said Nicholas.

    David picked up his cue. ‘It’s always the same thing in life,’ he chanted. ‘It’s not what you do, it’s who you know.’

    To find such a ludicrous example of this important maxim made the two men laugh.

    Bridget moved over to the bed and spread herself out face down on the yellow bedcover. As she closed her eyes and resumed masturbating, the thought of David flashed over her like a static shock, but she forced herself to focus loyally on the memory of Barry’s stirring presence.

     

    9

    WHEN VICTOR WAS IN trouble with his writing he had a nervous habit of flicking open his pocket watch and clicking it closed again. Distracted by the noise of other human activities he found it helpful to make a noise of his own. During the contemplative passages of his daydreams he flicked and clicked more slowly, but as he pressed up against his sense of frustration the pace increased.

    Dressed this morning in the flecked and bulky sweater he had hunted down ruthlessly for an occasion on which clothes simply didn’t matter, he fully intended to begin his essay on the necessary and sufficient conditions of personal identity. He sat at a slightly wobbly wooden table under a yellowing plane tree in front of the house, and as the temperature rose he stripped down to his shirtsleeves. By lunchtime he had recorded only one thought, ‘I have written books which I have had to write, but I have not yet written a book which others have to read.’ He punished himself by improvising a sandwich for lunch, instead of walking down to La Coquière and eating three courses in the garden, under the blue and red and yellow parasol of the Ricard Pastis company.

    Despite himself he kept thinking of Eleanor’s puzzled little contribution that morning, ‘Gosh, I mean, if anything is in the mind, it’s who you are.’ If anything is