The Patrick Melrose Novels by Edward St. Aubyn Read Free Book Online

wife?’
    It was no use. She felt stupid again. She always felt stupid with David and his friends, even when she knew it was they who were being stupid. ‘She’s not his wife,’ she said. ‘He’s left Georgina who was number three, but he hasn’t married this one yet. She’s called Bridget. I think we met in London, but she didn’t make a very strong impression on me.’ Anne came downstairs wearing a white cotton dress almost indistinguishable from the white cotton nightgown she had taken off. Victor reflected with satisfaction that she still looked young enough to get away with such a girlish dress. White dresses deepened the deceptive serenity which her wide face and high cheekbones and calm black eyes already gave to her appearance. She stepped lightly into the room. By contrast, Eleanor made Victor think of Lady Wishfort’s remark, ‘Why I am arrantly flayed; I look like an old peeled wall.’
    â€˜OK,’ said Anne, ‘I guess we can leave whenever you like.
    â€˜Will you be all right for lunch?’ she asked Victor.
    â€˜You know what philosophers are like, we don’t notice that kind of thing. And I can always go down to the Cauquière for a rack of lamb with sauce Béarnaise. ’
    â€˜ Béarnaise? With lamb?’ said Anne.
    â€˜Of course. The dish which left the poor Due de Guermantes so famished that he had no time to chat with the dying Swann’s dubious daughter before hurrying off to dinner.’
    Anne smiled at Eleanor and asked, ‘Do you get Proust for breakfast round at your house?’
    â€˜No, but we get him for dinner fairly often,’ Eleanor replied.
    After the two women had said goodbye, Victor turned towards the refrigerator. He had the whole day free to get on with his work and suddenly felt tremendously hungry.

 
    4
    â€˜ GOD , I FEEL AWFUL ,’ groaned Nicholas, switching on his bedside table lamp.
    â€˜Poor squirrel,’ said Bridget sleepily.
    â€˜What are we doing today? I can’t remember.’
    â€˜Going to the South of France.’
    â€˜Oh yes. What a nightmare. What time’s the plane?’
    â€˜Twelve something. It arrives at three something. I think there’s an hour difference, or something.’
    â€˜For Christ sake, stop saying “something”.’
    â€˜Sorry.’
    â€˜God knows why we stayed so late last night. That woman on my right was utterly appalling. I suppose somebody told her long ago that she had a pretty chin, and so she decided to get another one, and another, and another. You know, she used to be married to George Watford.’
    â€˜To who?’ asked Bridget.
    â€˜The one you saw in Peter’s photograph album last weekend with a face like a crème brûlée after the first blow of the spoon, all covered in little cracks.’
    â€˜Not everyone can have a lover who’s rich and beautiful,’ said Bridget, sliding through the sheets towards him.
    â€˜Oaw, give over, luv, give over,’ said Nicholas in what he imagined to be a Geordie accent. He rolled out of bed and, moaning, ‘Death and destruction,’ crawled histrionically across the crimson carpet towards the open door of the bathroom.
    Bridget looked critically at Nicholas’s body as he clambered to his feet. He had got a lot fatter in the past year. Maybe older men were not the answer. Twenty-three years was a big difference and at twenty, Bridget had not yet caught the marriage fever that tormented the older Watson-Scott sisters as they galloped towards the thirtieth year of their scatterbrained lives. All Nicholas’s friends were such wrinklies and some of them were a real yawn. You couldn’t exactly drop acid with Nicholas. Well, you could; in fact, she had, but it wasn’t the same as with Barry. Nicholas didn’t have the right music, the right clothes, the right attitude. She felt quite bad about Barry, but a girl had to