The Patrick Melrose Novels: Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and Mother's Milk (50 page)

‘Oh good, I hate Nanny.’

‘I know, darling,’ said Bridget.

‘But why are we going to Granny’s?’

Patrick could no longer hear what they were saying as they went round the corner of the corridor.

*   *   *

Johnny Hall had been curious to meet Peter Porlock ever since Laura told him that Peter had needlessly paid for one of her abortions. When Laura introduced them, Peter wasted no time in swearing Johnny to secrecy about this ‘dreadful Cindy and Sonny thing’.

‘Of course I’ve known about it for ages,’ he began.

‘Whereas I had no idea,’ David Windfall chipped in, ‘even when Sonny asked me to bring her.’

‘That’s funny,’ said Laura, ‘I thought everybody knew.’

‘Some people may have suspected, but nobody knew the details,’ said Peter proudly.

‘Not even Sonny and Cindy,’ mocked Laura.

David, who was already apprised of Peter’s superior knowledge, drifted off and Laura followed.

Left alone with Johnny, Peter tried to correct any impression of frivolity he might have given by saying how worried he was about his ‘ailing papa’ to whom he had not bothered to address a word all evening. ‘Are your parentals still alive?’ he asked.

‘And kicking,’ said Johnny. ‘My mother would have managed to give an impression of mild disappointment if I’d become the youngest Prime Minister of England, so you can imagine what she feels about a moderately successful journalist. She reminds me of a story about Henry Miller visiting his dying mother with a pilot friend of his called Vincent. The old woman looked at her son and then at Vincent and said, “If only I could have a son like you, Vincent.”’

‘Look here, you won’t leak anything I’ve said to the press, will you?’ asked Peter.

‘Alas, the editorial pages of
The Times
aren’t yet given over entirely to love-nest scandals,’ said Johnny contemptuously.

‘Oh,
The Times
,’ murmured Peter. ‘Well, I know it’s frightfully unfashionable, but I still think one should practise filial loyalty. It’s been frightfully easy for me: my mother was a saint and my father’s the most decent chap you could hope to meet.’

Johnny smiled vaguely, wishing Laura had charged Peter double.

‘Peter!’ said a concerned Princess Margaret.

‘Oh, ma’am, I didn’t see you,’ said Peter, bowing his head briefly.

‘I think you should go to the hall. I’m afraid your father isn’t at all well, and he’s being taken off by ambulance.’

‘Good God,’ said Peter. ‘Please excuse me, ma’am, I’ll go immediately.’

The Princess, who had announced in the hall that she would tell Peter herself, and forced her lady-in-waiting to intercept other well-wishers on the same mission, was thoroughly impressed by her own goodness.

‘And who are you?’ she asked Johnny in the most gracious possible manner.

‘Johnny Hall,’ said Johnny, extending a hand.

The republican omission of ma’am, and the thrusting and unacceptable invitation to a handshake, were enough to convince the Princess that Johnny was a man of no importance.

‘It must be funny having the same name as so many other people,’ she speculated. ‘I suppose there are hundreds of John Halls up and down the country.’

‘It teaches one to look for distinction elsewhere and not to rely on an accident of birth,’ said Johnny casually.

‘That’s where people go wrong,’ said the Princess, compressing her lips, ‘there is no accident in birth.’

She swept on before Johnny had a chance to reply.

*   *   *

Patrick walked down towards the first floor, the hubbub of the party growing louder as he descended past portraits by Lely and Lawrence and even a pair, dominating the first-floor landing, by Reynolds. The prodigious complacency which the Gravesend genes had carried from generation to generation, without the usual interludes of madness, diffidence or distinction, had defied the skills of all these painters, and, despite their celebrity, none of them had been able to make anything appealing out of the drooping eyelids and idiotically arrogant expressions of their sitters.

Thinking about Belinda, Patrick started half-consciously to walk down the stairs as he had in moments of stress when he was her age, leading with one foot and bringing the other down firmly beside it on the same step. As he approached the hall he felt an overwhelming urge to cast himself forward onto the stone floor, but stopped instead and held onto the banister, intrigued by this strange impulse, which he could not immediately explain.

Yvette had told him many times about the day he had fallen down the stairs at Lacoste and cut his hand. The story of his screams and the broken glass and Yvette’s fear that he had cut a tendon had installed themselves in his picture of childhood as an accepted anecdote, but now Patrick could feel the revival of the memory itself: he could remember imagining the frames of the pictures flying down the corridor and embedding themselves in his father’s chest, and decapitating Nicholas Pratt. He could feel the despairing urge to jump down the stairs to hide his guilt at snapping the stem of the glass by squeezing it so tightly. He stood on the stairs and remembered everything.

The security guard looked at him sceptically. He’d been worried ever since he allowed Patrick and Laura to go upstairs. Laura’s coming down on her own and claiming that Patrick was still in their room had strengthened his suspicions. Now Patrick was behaving very eccentrically, trailing one leg as he came down the stairs, staring at the ground. He must be on drugs, thought the security guard angrily. If he had his way he’d arrest Patrick and all the other rich cunts who thought they were above the law.

Patrick, noticing the expression of hostility on the security guard’s face, surfaced into the present, smiled weakly, and walked down the final steps. Across the hall, through the windows on either side of the open front door, he could see a flashing blue light.

‘Are the police here?’ Patrick asked.

‘No, it’s not the police,’ said the security guard sadly. ‘Ambulance.’

‘What happened?’

‘One of the guests had a heart attack.’

‘Do you know who it was?’ said Patrick.

‘Don’t know his name, no. White-haired gentleman.’ Cold air swept into the hall through the open door. Snow was falling outside. Noticing Tom Charles standing in the doorway, Patrick went over to his side.

‘It’s George,’ said Tom. ‘I think he had a stroke. He was very weak, but he could still talk, so I hope he’ll be all right.’

‘So do I,’ said Patrick, who had known George all his life and suddenly realized that he would miss him if he died. George had always been friendly to him, and he urgently wanted to thank him. ‘Do you know which hospital they’re taking him to?’

‘Cheltenham Hospital for tonight,’ answered Tom. ‘Sonny wants to move him to a clinic, but this ambulance is from the hospital, and I guess the priority is to keep him alive rather than to get him a more expensive room.’

‘Quite,’ said Patrick. ‘Well, I hope King won’t be unpacking for him tonight,’ he added.

‘Don’t forget he’s travelling light,’ said Tom. ‘Heaven is the ideal country weekend without any luggage.’

Patrick smiled. ‘Let’s go and see him tomorrow before lunch.’

‘Good idea,’ said Tom. ‘Where are you staying?’

‘The Little Soddington House Hotel,’ said Patrick. ‘Do you want me to write it down?’

‘No,’ said Tom, ‘with a name like that I may never shake it off.’

*   *   *

‘I think it was Talleyrand,’ suggested Jacques d’Alantour, pouting a little before his favourite quotation, ‘who said,’ he paused, ‘“Doing and saying nothing are great powers, but they should not be abused.”’

‘Well, nobody could accuse you of doing and saying nothing this evening,’ said Bridget.

‘Nevertheless,’ he continued, ‘I shall speak to the Princess about this matter, which I hope will not become known as “
l’affaire Alantour
”.’ He chuckled. ‘And I hope we can get the bull out of the china shop.’

‘Do what you like,’ said Bridget. ‘I’m past caring.’

Monsieur d’Alantour, too pleased with his new plan to notice his hostess’s indifference, bowed and turned on his heels.

*   *   *

‘When the Queen’s away, I become regent and head of the Privy Council,’ Princess Margaret was explaining with satisfaction to Kitty Harrow.

‘Ma’am,’ said Monsieur d’Alantour, who after considerable thought had worked out the perfect formula for his apology.

‘Oh, are you still here,’ said the Princess.

‘As you can see…’ said the ambassador.

‘Well, shouldn’t you be setting off now? You’ve got a very long journey ahead of you.’

‘But I’m staying in the house,’ he protested.

‘In that case we shall see quite enough of each other tomorrow without spending the whole evening chattering,’ said the Princess, turning her back on him.

‘Who’s that man over there?’ she asked Kitty.

‘Ali Montague, ma’am,’ said Kitty.

‘Oh, yes, I recognize the name. You can present him to me,’ said Princess Margaret, heading off in Ali’s direction.

The ambassador stood in consternation and silence while Kitty presented Ali Montague to Princess Margaret. He was wondering whether he was facing another diplomatic incident or merely the extension of the previous diplomatic incident.

‘Oh,’ said Ali Montague boldly, ‘I love the French. They’re treacherous, cunning, two-faced – I don’t have to make an effort there, I just fit in. And further down in Italy, they’re cowards as well, so I get on even better.’

The Princess looked at him mischievously. She was in a good mood again and had decided that Ali was being amusing.

*   *   *

Alexander Politsky later sought out Ali to congratulate him on ‘handling P.M. so well’.

‘Oh, I’ve had my fair share of royalty,’ said Ali suavely. ‘Mind you, I didn’t do nearly so well with that dreadful Amanda Pratt. You know how ghastly all those people become when they’re “on the programme” and go to all those meetings. Of course, they do save people’s lives.’

Alexander sniffed and looked languidly into the middle distance. ‘I’ve been to them myself,’ he admitted.

‘But you never had a drink problem,’ protested Ali.

‘I like heroin, cocaine, nice houses, good furniture, and pretty girls,’ said Alexander, ‘and I’ve had all of them in large quantities. But you know, they never made me happy.’

‘My word, you’re hard to please, aren’t you?’

‘Frankly, when I first went along I thought I’d stick out like a pair of jeans on a Gainsborough, but I’ve found more genuine love and kindness in those meetings than I’ve seen in all the fashionable drawing rooms of London.’

‘Well, that’s not saying much,’ said Ali. ‘You could say the same thing about Billingsgate fish market.’

‘There isn’t one of them,’ said Alexander, throwing his shoulders back and closing his eyelids, ‘from the tattooed butcher upward, whom I wouldn’t drive to Inverness at three in the morning to help.’

‘To Inverness? From where?’ asked Ali.

‘London.’

‘Good God,’ exclaimed Ali. ‘Perhaps I should try one of those meetings, next time I have a spare evening. But the point is, would you ask your tattooed butcher to dinner?’

‘Of course not,’ said Alexander. ‘But only because he wouldn’t enjoy it.’

*   *   *

‘Anne!’ said Patrick. ‘I didn’t expect to see you here.’

‘I know,’ said Anne Eisen, kissing him warmly. ‘It’s not my kind of scene. I get nervous in the English countryside with everybody talking about killing animals.’

‘I’m sure there isn’t any of that sort of thing in Sonny’s part of the world,’ said Patrick.

‘You mean, there isn’t anything alive for miles around,’ said Anne. ‘I’m here because Sonny’s father was a
relatively
civilized man – he noticed that there was a library in the house as well as a boot room and a cellar. He was a sort of friend of Victor’s, and used to ask us to stay for weekends sometimes. Sonny was just a kid in those days but even then he was a pompous creep. Jesus,’ sighed Anne, surveying the room, ‘what a grim bunch. Do you think they keep them in the deep freeze at Central Casting and thaw them out for big occasions?’

‘If only,’ said Patrick. ‘Unfortunately I think they own most of the country.’

‘They’ve only just got the edge on an ant colony,’ said Anne, ‘except that they don’t do anything useful. You remember those ants in Lacoste, they were always tidying up the terrace for you. Talking of doing something useful, what are you planning to do with your life?’

‘Hmm,’ said Patrick.

‘Jesus Christ!’ said Anne. ‘You’re guilty of the worst sin of all.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Wasting time,’ she replied.

‘I know,’ said Patrick. ‘It was a terrible shock to me when I realized I was getting too old to die young anymore.’

Exasperated, Anne changed the subject. ‘Are you going to Lacoste this year?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know. The more time passes the more I dislike that place.’

‘I’ve always meant to apologize to you,’ said Anne, ‘but you used to be too stoned to appreciate it. I’ve felt guilty for years for not doing anything when you were waiting on the stairs one evening during one of your parents’ godawful dinner parties, and I said I’d get your mother for you, but I couldn’t, and I should have gone back, or stood up to David, or something. I always felt I’d failed you.’

‘Not at all,’ said Patrick. ‘On the contrary, I remember your being kind. When you’re young it makes a difference to meet people who are kind, however rarely. You’d imagine they’re buried under the routine of horror, but in fact incidents of kindness get thrown into sharp relief.’

‘Have you forgiven your father?’ asked Anne.

‘Oddly enough you’ve caught me on the right evening. A week ago I would have lied or said something dismissive, but I was just describing over dinner exactly what I had to forgive my father.’

‘And?’

‘Well,’ said Patrick, ‘over dinner I was rather against forgiveness, and I still think that it’s detachment rather than appeasement that will set me free, but if I could imagine a mercy that was purely human, and not one that rested on the Greatest Story Ever Told, I might extend it to my father for being so unhappy. I just can’t do it out of piety. I’ve had enough near-death experiences to last me a lifetime, and not
once
was I greeted by a white-robed figure at the end of a tunnel – or only once and he turned out to be an exhausted junior doctor in the emergency ward of the Charing Cross Hospital. There may be something to this idea that you have to be broken in order to be renewed, but renewal doesn’t have to consist of a lot of phoney reconciliations!’