The Patrick Melrose Novels: Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and Mother's Milk (38 page)

‘One always hates one’s own parties,’ said Laura sympathetically, rolling onto her back and stifling a yawn.

‘But you really did like it,’ pleaded China. ‘Promise.’

‘Promise,’ said Laura, crossing her fingers, her legs, and finally her eyes. Suddenly convulsed with silent giggles, she raised her feet in the air and rocked on the bed.

Johnny watched, amazed by her childishness, faintly contemptuous of the mocking conspiracy into which he was being drawn, but charmed by the contortions of her naked body. He sank back against the pillows, scanning the details which might explain, but only confirmed the mystery of his obsession: the small dark mole on the inner slope of her hip bone, the surprisingly thick golden hair on her forearm, the high arch of her pale feet.

‘Is Angus with you?’ sighed China.

‘No, he’s going straight from Scotland to the party. I have to collect him in Cheltenham. It’s such a bore, I don’t see why he can’t get a taxi.’

‘Save, save, save,’ said China.

‘He looked so good on paper,’ said Laura, ‘but when it comes down to it, he’s completely obsessed with whether a cheap-day return is refundable if you don’t use the second half, and other fascinating problems of that kind. It makes one long for an extravagant lover.’ She allowed one of her knees to flop sideways on the bed.

Johnny took a long drag on his cigarette and smiled at her.

China hesitated and then, spurred on by the thought that Laura’s praise of her party might not have been entirely sincere, she said, ‘You know there’s a rumour going around that you’re having an affair with Patrick Melrose.’

‘Patrick Melrose,’ said Laura, as if she were repeating the name of a fatal disease, ‘you must be joking.’ She raised her eyebrows at Johnny and putting her hand over the mouthpiece whispered, ‘Apparently I’m having an affair with Patrick.’

He flicked up one of his eyebrows and stubbed out his cigarette.

‘Who on earth told you that?’ she asked China.

‘I shouldn’t really tell you, but it was Alexander Politsky.’

‘Him, I don’t even know him.’

‘Well, he thinks he knows about you.’

‘How pathetic,’ said Laura. ‘He just wants to get in with you by pretending he knows all about your friends.’ Johnny knelt in front of Laura and, catching both her feet, eased her legs apart.

‘He said he found out from Ali Montague,’ China insisted.

Laura drew in her breath sharply. ‘Well, that just proves it’s a lie,’ she sighed. ‘Anyway, I don’t even fancy Patrick Melrose,’ she added, digging her nails into Johnny’s arms.

‘Oh, well, you know better than me whether you’re having an affair with him or not,’ China concluded. ‘I’m glad you’re not, because personally I find him really tricky…’

Laura held the phone in the air so Johnny could hear. ‘And,’ continued China, ‘I can’t stand the way he treated Debbie.’

Laura put the phone back to her ear. ‘It was disgusting, wasn’t it?’ she said, grinning at Johnny, who leaned down to bite her neck. ‘But who are you going to the party with?’ she asked, knowing that China was going alone.

‘I’m not going with anybody, but there’s someone called Morgan Ballantine,’ China put on an unconvincing American accent to pronounce his name, ‘who is going to be there, and I’m quite keen on him. He’s supposed to have just inherited two hundred and forty million dollars and an amazing gun collection,’ she added casually, ‘but that’s not really the point, I mean, he’s
really
sweet.’

‘He may be worth two hundred and forty million dollars, but is he going to spend it?’ asked Laura, who had bitter experience of how misleading these figures could be. ‘That’s the real question,’ she said, propping herself up on one elbow and effortlessly ignoring the caresses she had found so breathtaking moments before. Johnny stopped and leaned over, partly from curiosity, but also to disguise the fact that his sexual efforts could not compete with the mention of such a large sum of money.

‘He did say something rather sinister the other day,’ China admitted.

‘What?’ asked Laura eagerly.

‘Well, he said, “I’m too rich to lend money.” A friend of his had gone bankrupt, or something.’

‘Don’t touch him,’ said Laura, in her special serious voice. ‘That’s the kind of thing Angus says. You think it’s all going to be private planes, and the next thing you know he’s asking for a doggy bag in a restaurant, or implying that
you
ought to be doing the cooking. It’s a complete nightmare.’

‘That reminds me,’ said China, rather annoyed that she had given so much away. ‘We played a wonderful game after you left last night. Everybody had to think of the things people were least likely to say, and someone came up with one for Angus: “Are you sure you won’t have the lobster?”’

‘Very funny,’ said Laura drily.

‘By the way, where are you staying?’ asked China.

‘With some people called Bossington-Lane.’

‘Me too,’ exclaimed China. ‘Can I have a lift?’

‘Of course. Come here about twelve thirty and we can go out to lunch.’

‘Perfect,’ said China. ‘See you later.’

‘Bye, darling,’ Laura trilled. ‘Stupid cow,’ she said, putting the phone down.

*   *   *

All her life men had rushed around Cindy, like the citizens of Lilliput with their balls of string, trying to tie her down so she wouldn’t wreck their little lives, but now she was thinking of tying herself down voluntarily.

‘Hello?’ she purred in her soft Californian accent. ‘Can I speak with David Windfall, please?’

‘Speaking,’ said David.

‘Hi there, I’m Cindy Smith. I guess Sonny already talked to you about tonight.’

‘He certainly did,’ said David, flushing to a deeper shade of raspberry than usual.

‘I hope you’ve got your Sonny and Bridget invitation, ’cause I sure don’t have one,’ said Cindy with disarming candour.

‘I’ve got mine in the bank,’ said David. ‘One can’t be too careful.’

‘I know,’ said Cindy, ‘that’s a valuable item.’

‘You realize you’ll have to pretend to be my wife,’ said David.

‘How far am I meant to go?’

David, quivering, sweating, and blushing at the same time, took refuge in the bluffness for which he was well known. ‘Only until we get past the security people,’ he said.

‘Anything you say,’ Cindy replied meekly. ‘You’re the boss.’

‘Where shall we meet?’ asked David.

‘I’ve got a suite in the Little Soddington House Hotel. That’s in Gloucestershire, right?’

‘I certainly hope so, unless it’s moved,’ said David, more pompously than he’d intended.

Cindy giggled. ‘Sonny didn’t tell me you were so funny,’ she said. ‘We could have dinner together at my hotel, if you’d like.’

‘Splendid,’ said David, already scheming to get out of the dinner party Bridget had put him in. ‘About eight?’

*   *   *

Tom Charles had ordered a car to take him down to the country. It was extravagant, but he was too old to fool around with trains and suitcases. He was staying at Claridge’s, as usual, and one of the nicest things about it was the wood fire that was subsiding brightly in the grate while he finished his frugal breakfast of tea and grapefruit juice.

He was on his way to stay with Harold Greene, an old friend from the IMF days. Harold had said to bring a dinner jacket because they were going to a neighbour’s birthday party. He’d got the low-down on the neighbour, but all Tom could remember was that he was one of those Englishmen with plenty of ‘background’ and not a hell of a lot going on in the foreground. If you weren’t unduly impressed by these ‘background’ types they said you were ‘chippy’, but in fact nothing could make you feel less ‘chippy’ than contemplating a lifetime wasted in gossip, booze, and sexual intrigue.

Harold was not like that at all; he was a mover and shaker. He was on the Christmas-card lists of grateful presidents and friendly senators – as was Tom – but like everybody else on this rainy island he liked the ‘background’ types too much.

Tom picked up the phone to ring Anne Eisen. Anne was an old friend and he was looking forward to driving down with her to Harold’s, but he had to know what time to send the car to collect her. Her number was engaged and so Tom hung up crisply and continued reading the pile of English and American newspapers he’d ordered with his breakfast.

3

TONY
FOWLES WAS WHAT
Bridget called an ‘absolute genius’ when it came to colours and fabrics. He confessed to ‘having a crush on ash colours at the moment,’ and she had agreed to have the interior of the tent done in grey. Her initial misgivings about this bold idea were swept aside by Tony’s remark that Jacqueline d’Alantour, the French Ambassador’s wife, was ‘so correct that she’s never really
right
’.

Bridget wondered how far one could be incorrect without being wrong, and it was in this grey area that Tony had become her guide, increasing her dependency on him until she could hardly light a cigarette without his assistance, and had already had a row with Sonny about wanting to have him at her side during dinner.

‘That appalling little man shouldn’t be coming at all,’ said Sonny, ‘let alone sitting next to you. I need hardly remind you that we’re having Princess Margaret for dinner and that every one of the men has a better claim to be by your side than that…’ Sonny spluttered, ‘that popinjay.’

What was a popinjay anyway? Whatever it was, it was so unfair, because Tony was her guru and her jester. People who knew how funny he was – and one only had to hear his story about hurrying through the streets of Lima clutching bolts of fabric during a bread riot to practically die laughing – didn’t perhaps realize how wise he was also.

But where was Tony? He was supposed to meet her at eleven o’clock. One could worship him for all sorts of things, but punctuality wasn’t one of them. Bridget looked around at the wastes of grey velvet that lined the inside of the tent; without Tony, her confidence faltered. One end of the tent was dominated by a hideous white stage on which a forty-piece band, flown over from America, would later play the ‘traditional New Orleans jazz’ favoured by Sonny. The industrial heaters that roared in every corner still left the atmosphere numbingly cold.

‘Obviously, I’d rather that my birthday was in June instead of gloomy old February,’ Sonny was fond of saying, ‘but one can’t choose when one’s born.’

The shock of not having planned his own birth had given Sonny a fanatical desire to plan everything else. Bridget had tried to keep him out of the tent on the grounds that it should be a ‘surprise’, but since this word was for him roughly equivalent to ‘terrorist outrage’, she had failed. She had, on the other hand, managed to keep secret the astonishing cost of the velvet, communicated to her by a honking Sloane with a laugh like a death rattle, who had said that it came to ‘forty thousand, plus the dreaded’. Bridget had thought ‘the dreaded’ was a technical decorating term until Tony explained that it was VAT.

He had also said that the orange lilies would make a ‘riot of colour’ against the soft grey background, but now that they were being arranged by a team of busy ladies in chequered blue overalls, Bridget could not help thinking they looked more like dying embers in a huge heap of ash.

Just as this heretical thought was entering her mind, Tony swept into the tent dressed in a baggy earth, ash, and grape sweater, a pair of beautifully ironed jeans, white socks, and brown moccasins with surprisingly thick soles. He had wrapped a white silk scarf around his throat after he felt, or thought he felt, a tickle. ‘Tony! At last,’ Bridget dared to point out.

‘I’m sorry,’ croaked Tony, laying his hand on his chest and frowning pathetically. ‘I think I’m coming down with something.’

‘Oh, dear,’ said Bridget, ‘I hope you won’t be too ill for tonight.’

‘Even if they had to wheel me in on a life-support machine,’ he replied, ‘I wouldn’t miss it for the world. I know the artist is supposed to stand outside his creation, paring his fingernails,’ he said, looking down at his fingernails with affected indifference, ‘but I don’t feel my creation is finished until it’s filled with living fabric.’

He paused and stared at Bridget with hypnotic intensity, like Rasputin about to inform the Tsarina of his latest inspiration. ‘Now, I know what you’re thinking,’ he assured her. ‘Not enough colour!’

Bridget felt a searchlight shining into the recesses of her soul. ‘The flowers haven’t changed it as much as I thought they would,’ she confessed.

‘And that’s why I’ve brought you these,’ said Tony, pointing to a group of assistants who had been waiting meekly until they were called forward. They were surrounded by large cardboard boxes.

‘What are they?’ asked Bridget, apprehensive.

The assistants started to open the tops of the boxes. ‘I thought tents, I thought poles, I thought ribbons,’ said Tony, who was always ready to explain his imaginative processes. ‘And so I had these specially made. It’s a sort of regimental-maypole theme,’ he explained, no longer able to contain his excitement. ‘It’ll look stunning against the pearly texture of the ash.’

Bridget knew that ‘specially made’ meant extremely expensive. ‘They look like ties,’ she said, peering into a box.

‘Exactly,’ said Tony triumphantly. ‘I saw Sonny wearing a rather thrilling green and orange tie. He told me it was a regimental tie and I thought, that’s it: the orange will pick up the lilies and lift the whole room.’ Tony’s hands flowed upward and outward. ‘We’ll tie the ribbons to the top of the pole and bring them over to the sides of the tent.’ This time his hands flowed outwards and downward.

These graceful balletic gestures were enough to convince Bridget that she had no choice.

‘It sounds wonderful,’ she said. ‘But put them up quickly, we haven’t much time.’

‘Leave it to me,’ said Tony serenely.

A maid came to tell Bridget that there was a phone call for her. Bridget waved goodbye to Tony, and hurried out of the tent through the red-carpeted tunnel that led back to the house. Smiling florists arranged wreaths of ivy around the green metal hoops that supported the canvas.