The Patrick Melrose Novels: Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and Mother's Milk (25 page)

‘It’s the strongest smack in the world,’ said Pierre simply.

‘Ya,’ drawled Patrick, ‘it’s such a bore, one can hardly ever get it in England.’

‘You should come and live here.’

‘Good idea,’ said Patrick amiably. ‘By the way, what’s the time?’

‘One forty-seven.’

‘Gosh, I’d better go to bed,’ said Patrick, putting the syringes carefully into his inside pocket. ‘It’s been lovely seeing you again. I’ll be in touch very soon.’

‘OK,’ said Pierre. ‘I’m awake tonight, tomorrow, and tomorrow night.’

‘Perfect,’ said Patrick nodding.

He put on his jacket and overcoat. Pierre got up, undid the four security locks, opened the door, and let him out.

7

PATRICK SLUMPED BACK IN
the chair. The tension was deleted from his chest. For a moment he fell quiet. But soon a new character installed itself in his body, forcing his shoulders back and his stomach out, and launching him into another bout of compulsive mimicry.

The Fat Man (pushing back the chair to accommodate his huge stomach): ‘I feel compelled to speak, sir, indeed I do. Compelled, sir, is a mild description of the obligation under which I am placed in this matter. My story is a simple one, the story of a man who loved not wisely but too well.’ (Wipes a tear from the corner of his eye.) ‘A man who ate not from greed, but from passion. Eating, sir – I do not attempt to disguise it – has been my life. Couched in the ruins of this old body are the traces of some of the most exquisite dishes ever cooked. When horses have collapsed beneath my bulk, their legs shattered or their lungs, flooded with their own blood, or I have been forced to renounce the fruitless struggle to intervene between the seat and the steering wheel of a motor car, I have consoled myself with the reflection that my weight has been won, and not merely “put on”. Naturally, I have dined in Les Bains and Les Baux, but I have also dined in Quito and Khartoum. And when the ferocious Yanomami offered me a dish of human flesh, I did not allow prudishness to prevent me from requesting a third helping. Indeed I did not, sir.’ (Smiles wistfully.)

Nanny (huffing and puffing): ‘Human flesh indeed! Whatever next? You always were a strange boy.’

‘Oh, shut up,’ screamed Patrick silently, as he paced across the faded green carpet and turned around abruptly.

Gary (raising his eyes to heaven with a charming little sigh): ‘My name’s Gary, I’ll be your waiter tonight. Today’s specials include a Dish of Human Flesh, and a sodium-free Frisson of Colombian Cocaine nestling on a bed of “Wild Baby” Chinese White Heroin.’

Pete Bloke: ‘Haven’t you got any Hovis, then?’

Mrs Bloke: ‘Yeah, we want Hovis.’

Hovis Voice-over (theme music from
Coronation Street
): ‘It were grand when I were young. I’d go round t’ dealer’s, buy ’alf an ounce o’ coke and four grams o’ smack, order round a case o’ champagne from Berry Bros., take wench out ta Mirabelle, and still ’ave change from a farthing. Them were the days.’

He was dangerously out of control. Every thought or hint of a thought took on a personality stronger than his own. ‘Please, please, please make it stop,’ muttered Patrick, getting up and pacing about the room.

Mocking Echo: ‘Please, please, please make it stop.’

Nanny: ‘I know about the aristocracy and their filthy ways.’

Humpo Languid (laughing disarmingly): ‘What filthy ways, Nanny?’

Nanny: ‘Oh, no, you won’t find Nanny telling tales out of school. My lips are sealed. Whatever would Lady Deadwood think? Rolling stones gather no moss. You mark my words. You always were a strange boy.’

Mrs Garsington: ‘Who is in charge here? I wish to speak to the manager immediately.’

Dr McCoy: ‘It’s life, Jim, but not as we know it.’

Captain Kirk (flicking open his communicator): ‘Beam us up, Scotty.’

Patrick opened the packet of heroin and, in too much of a hurry to make another fix, simply tipped some of it onto the glass which protected the surface of the table.

Indignant Eric (knowingly): ‘Oh, typical, faced with a problem: take more heroin. Basically, the ultimate self-perpetuating system.’

Pulling a banknote out of his pocket, Patrick sat down and stooped over the table.

Captain Languid: ‘I say, Sergeant, shut those fellows up, will you?’

Sergeant: ‘Don’t worry, sir, we’ll bring them under control. They’re nothing but a bunch of fuzzywuzzies, black-souled bastards, sir, never seen a Gatling in their miserable, godless lives, sir.’

Captain Languid: ‘Well done, Sergeant.’

Patrick sniffed up the powder, threw his head back, and inhaled deeply through his nose.

Sergeant: ‘Allow me to take the brunt of the impact, sir.’ (Groans, a spear lodged in his chest.)

Captain Languid: ‘Oh, thank you … um…’

Sergeant: ‘Wilson, sir.’

Captain Languid: ‘Yes, of course. Well done, Wilson.’

Sergeant: ‘Only wish I could do the same again, sir. But I’m sorry to say I’ve been fatally wounded, sir.’

Captain Languid: ‘Oh, dear. Well, get that wound seen to, Sergeant.’

Sergeant: ‘Thank you, sir, very kind of you. What a wonderful gentleman!’

Captain Languid: ‘And if the worst should happen, I’m sure we can get you some sort of posthumous gong. My uncle is the chap in charge of that sort of thing.’

Sergeant (sitting up and saluting, shouts): ‘Sir!’ (Sinking back.) ‘It’ll mean a lot to Mrs Wilson and the toddlers, poor little fatherless mites.’ (Groans.) ‘What … a … wonderful gentleman.’

George the Barman (polishing a glass meditatively): ‘Oh, yes, that Captain Languid, I remember him well. Used to come in here and always ask for nine oysters. Not half a dozen or a dozen, but nine. What a gentleman! They don’t make ’em like that anymore. I remember the Fat Man as well. Oh yes, not likely to forget him. We couldn’t have him in the bar towards the end, literally couldn’t fit him in. What a gentleman, though! One of the old school, didn’t go in for all this dieting, dear me, no.’

The Fat Man (standing in an especially enlarged dock at the Old Bailey): ‘It has indeed been my misfortune, sir, to live in an age of diets and regimens.’ (Wipes a tear from the corner of his eye.) ‘They call me the Fat Man, and I am fat enough to flatter myself that the epithet requires no explanation. I stand accused of unnatural appetites and an unnatural degree of appetite. Can I be blamed, sir, if I have filled my cup to the brim, if I have piled the plate of my life high with the
Moules au Menthe Fraîches
of experience (a dish to wake the dead, sir, a dish to charm a king!)? I have not been one of those timid waifs of modern life, I have not been a poor guest at the Feast. Dead men, sir, do not accept the challenge of the Menu Gastronomique at the Lapin Vert when they have scarcely swallowed the last mouthful of the Petit Déjeuner Médiéval at the Château de l’Enterrement. They do not then have themselves driven by ambulance (the natural transport of the bon viveur, sir, the carriage of a king!) to the Sac d’Argent to launch themselves with grim abandon down the Cresta Run of their Carte Royale.’ (The violinist from the Café Florian plays in the background.) ‘My last days, last days, sir, for I fear that my liver – oh, it has done me valiant service, but now it has grown tired and I have grown tired too; but enough of that – my last days have been clouded with calumny.’ (Sound of muffled sobbing in the court.) ‘But I do not regret the course, or rather the courses’ (sad little laugh) ‘I have taken in life, indeed I don’t.’ (Gathers all his dignity.) ‘I have eaten, and I have eaten bravely.’

Judge (with thunderous indignation): ‘This case is dismissed. It is a grave miscarriage of justice that it was ever brought to trial and, in recognition of that fact, the court awards the Fat Man a dinner for one at the Pig and Whistle.’

Contented Populace: ‘Hooray! Hooray!’

Patrick felt limitless dread. The rotten floorboards of his thoughts gave way one after another until the ground itself seemed no fitter than sodden paper to catch his fall. Maybe it would never stop. ‘I’m so tired, so tired,’ he said, sitting down on the edge of the bed, but immediately getting up again.

Mocking Echo: ‘I’m so tired, I’m so tired.’

Greta Garbo (screaming hysterically): ‘I don’t want to be alone. I’m sick of being alone.’

Patrick slid down the wall. ‘I’m so fucking tired,’ he wailed.

Mrs Mop: ‘You have a nice fix of coke, dear, perk yourself up a bit.’

Dr Death (taking out a syringe): ‘I have just the thing for you. We always use it in cases of bereavement.’

Cleopatra: ‘Oh, yes.’ (Pouting girlishly.) ‘My bluest veins to kiss.’

Mrs Mop: ‘Go on, dear, do yourself a favour.’

Cleopatra (hoarsely): ‘Go on, you bastard, fuck me.’

This time Patrick had to use his tie. He wound it around his bicep several times and gripped it in his teeth, baring his gums like a snarling dog.

Gift o’ the Gab O’Connor (draining a glass of Jameson): ‘She took to the leech with rowdy Saxon abandon crying, “I’ve always wanted to be in two places at once.”’

Courtier (excitedly): ‘A hit, a palpable hit.’

Captain Kirk: ‘Warp factor ten, Mr Sulu.’

Attila the Hun (basso profundo): ‘I play football with the heads of my enemies. I ride under triumphal arches, my horse’s hooves striking sparks from the cobblestones, the slaves of Rome strewing flowers in my path.’

Patrick fell off the chair and curled up on the floor. The brutality of the rush left him winded and amazed. He shook from the violence of his own heartbeat, like a man cowering under the spinning blades of a helicopter. His limbs were paralysed with tension and he imagined his veins, as thin and brittle as the stems of champagne glasses, snapping if he tried to unbend his arms. Without heroin he would die of a heart attack. ‘Just fuck off, the lot of you,’ he murmured.

Honest John (shaking his head): ‘What a vicious bastard, eh, that Attila. Dear, oh dear. “Wot you staring at?” he said. “Nothing,” I said. “Well, don’t fucking do it, all right?” he said.’ (Shakes his head.) ‘Vicious!’

Nanny: ‘Nanny says if you don’t stop talking in silly voices, the wind will change, and you won’t be able to stop.’

Boy (desperately): ‘But I want to stop, Nanny.’

Nanny: ‘“I want” gets nowhere.’

Sergeant: ‘Get a grip on yourself, laddie.’ (Screaming): ‘Quick march! Left, right. Left, right.’

Patrick’s legs slid back and forth across the carpet, like a tipped-over wind-up doll.

Short notice in
The Times
’ Death Column: ‘
MELROSE.
On 25 May, peacefully, after a happy day in the Pierre Hotel. Patrick, aged 22, loving son of David and Eleanor, will be sadly missed by Attila the Hun, Mrs Mop, Indignant Eric, and his many friends, too numerous to enumerate.’

Gift o’ the Gab O’Connor: ‘A poor unfortunate soul. If he was not twitching like the severed leg of a galvanized frog, it was only because the mood lay heavy on him, like pennies on the eyelids of the dead.’ (Drains a tumbler of Jameson.)

Nanny (older now, her memory no longer what it was): ‘I can’t get used to it, he was such a lovely little boy. Always called him “my precious pet”, I remember. Always said, “Don’t forget that Nanny loves you.”’

Gift o’ the Gab O’Connor (tears rolling down his cheeks): ‘And his poor unfortunate arms fit to make a strong man weep. Covered in wounds they were, like the mouths of hungry goldfish crying out for the only thing that would purchase a little peace for his poor troubled heart.’ (Drains a tumbler of Jameson.)

Captain Languid: ‘He was the sort of chap who stayed in his room a good deal. Nothing wrong with that, of course, except that he paced about the whole time. As I like to say, if one’s going to be idle, one should be thoroughly idle.’ (Smiles charmingly.)

Gift o’ the Gab O’Connor (drinking straight from the bottle now, knee deep in tears, his speech grown more slurred): ‘And he was troubled in his mind also. Maybe it was the worry of the freedom killed him? In every situation – and he was always getting himself into situations – he saw the choices stretching out crazily, like the broken blood vessels of tired eyes. And with every action he heard the death cry of all the things he had not done. And he saw the chance to get the vertigo, even in a sky-catching puddle, or the gleaming of a drain on the corner of Little Britain Street. Maddened he was by the terror of forgetting and losing the trail of who he was, and turning in circles, like a foxy bloody foxhound in the middle of the bloody wood.’

Honest John: ‘What a prannit, eh? Never did an honest day’s work in his life. When did you ever see him help an old lady across the road, or buy a bag of sweets for some deprived kiddies? Never. You gotta be honest.’

The Fat Man: ‘He was a man, sir, who did not eat enough, a man who picked at his food, who turned from the cornucopia to the pharmacopoeia of life. In short, sir, the worst kind of scoundrel.’

Gift o’ the Gab O’Connor (occasionally surfacing above a lake of tears): ‘And the sight of him…’ (glug, glug, glug) ‘… those torn lips that had never learned to love…’ (glug, glug, glug) ‘… Those lips that had spoken wild and bitter words…’ (glug, glug, glug) ‘… torn open by the fury of it, and the knowledge that death was upon him’ (glug).

Debbie (stammering): ‘I wonder what I’m meant to say?’

Kay: ‘I saw him the day it happened.’

‘Let me not go mad,’ shouted Patrick in a voice that started like his own, but became more like John Gielgud’s with the last two words.

The Vicar (looking down soothingly from the pulpit): ‘Some of us remember David Melrose as a paedophile, an alcoholic, a liar, a rapist, a sadist, and a “thoroughly nasty piece of work”. But, you know, in a situation like that, what Christ asks us to say, and what he would have said himself in his own words is’ (pausing) ‘“But that’s not the whole story, is it?”’

Honest John: ‘Yes it is.’

The Vicar: ‘And that “whole story” idea is one of the most exciting things about Christianity. When we read a book by one of our favourite authors, be he Richard Bach or Peter Mayle, we don’t just want to know that it’s about a very special seagull, or that it’s set in the lovely
campagne
, to use a French word, of Provence; we want the satisfaction of reading all the way to the end.’