‘Is everything OK, sir?’ asked one of the waiters, mistaking Patrick’s mutterings for an attempt to order.
‘Yes, yes,’ said Patrick. Well, not absolutely everything, he thought, you can’t seriously expect anyone to agree to that. In fact the idea of everything being OK made him feel dangerously indignant. Affirmation was too rare a commodity to waste on such a ludicrous statement. He felt like calling the waiter back to correct any false impression of happiness he might have created. But here was another waiter – would they never leave him alone? Could he bear it if they did? – bringing his Steak Tartare. He wanted it spicy, very spicy.
A couple of minutes later, his mouth seared with Tabasco and cayenne pepper, Patrick had already devoured the mound of raw meat and pommes allumettes on his plate.
‘That’s right, dear,’ he said in his Nanny voice, ‘you get something solid inside you.’
‘Yes, Nanny,’ he replied obediently. ‘Like a bullet, or a needle, eh, Nanny?’
‘A bullet, indeed,’ he huffed and puffed, ‘a needle! Whatever next? You always were a strange boy. No good’ll come of it, you mark my words, young man.’
Oh, God, it was starting. The endless voices. The solitary dialogues. The dreadful jabbering that poured out uncontrollably. He gulped down an entire glass of red wine with an eagerness worthy of Lawrence of Arabia, as interpreted by Peter O’Toole, polishing off his glass of lemonade after a thirsty desert crossing. ‘We’ve taken Aqaba,’ he said, staring madly into space and twitching his eyebrows expertly.
‘Would you care for a dessert, sir?’
At last, a real person with a real question, albeit a rather bizarre question. How was he supposed to ‘care for’ a dessert? Did he have to visit it on Sundays? Send it a Christmas card? Did he have to feed it?
‘Yeah,’ said Patrick, smiling wildly, ‘I’ll have a crème brûlée.’
Patrick stared at his glass. The red wine was definitely beginning to unfold. Pity he had already drunk it all. Yes, it had been beginning to unfold, like a fist opening slowly. And in its palm … In its palm, what? A ruby? A grape? A stone? Perhaps similes just shunted the same idea back and forth, lightly disguised, to give the impression of a fruitful trade. Sir Sampson Legend was the only honest suitor who ever sang the praises of a woman. ‘Give me your hand, Odd, let me kiss it; ’tis as warm and as soft – as what? Odd, as t’other hand.’ Now there was an accurate simile. The tragic limitations of comparison. The lead in the heart of the skylark. The disappointing curvature of space. The doom of time.
Christ, he was really quite drunk. Not drunk enough, though. He poured the stuff in, but it didn’t reach the root-confusions, the accident by the roadside, still trapped in the buckling metal after all these years. He sighed loudly, ending in a kind of grunt, and bowing his head hopelessly.
The crème brûlée arrived and he gobbled it down with the same desperate impatience he showed towards all food, but now edged with weariness and oppression. His violent way of eating always left him in a state of speechless sadness at the end of a meal. After several minutes during which he could only stare at the foot of his glass, he summoned enough passion to order some marc de Bourgogne and the bill.
Patrick closed his eyes and let the cigarette smoke drift out of his mouth and up into his nose and out through his mouth again. This was recycling at its best. Of course he could still go to the party Anne had invited him to, but he knew that he wouldn’t. Why did he always refuse? Refuse to participate. Refuse to agree. Refuse to forgive. Once it was too late he would long to have gone to this party. He glanced at his watch. Only nine thirty. The time had not yet come, but the moment it did, refusal would turn into regret. He could even imagine loving a woman if he had lost her first.
With reading it was the same thing. As soon as he was deprived of books, his longing to read became insatiable, whereas if he took the precaution of carrying a book with him, as he had this evening, slipping The Myth of Sisyphus yet again into his overcoat pocket, then he could be sure that he would not be troubled by a desire for literature.
Before The Myth of Sisyphus he had carried round The Unnamable and Nightwood for at least a year, and for two years before that the ultimate overcoat book, Heart of Darkness. Sometimes, driven on by horror at his own ignorance and a determination to conquer a difficult book, or even a seminal text, he would take a copy of something like Seven Types of Ambiguity or The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire out of his bookshelves only to find that its opening pages were already covered in spidery and obscure annotations in his own handwriting. These traces of an earlier civilization would have reassured him if he had any recollection at all of the things he had obviously once read, but this forgetfulness made him panic instead. What was the point of an experience if it eluded him so thoroughly? His past seemed to turn to water in his cupped hands and to slip irretrievably through his nervous fingers.
Patrick heaved himself up and walked across the thick red carpet of the restaurant, his head thrown back precariously and his eyes so nearly closed that the tables were dark blurs through the mesh of his eyelashes.
He had made a big decision. He would telephone Pierre and leave it to fate whether he scored or not. If Pierre was asleep then he would not get any smack, but if he was awake it was worth going round to get just enough for a good night’s rest. And a little for the morning so he didn’t feel sick.
The barman put a telephone down on the mahogany counter, and beside it a second marc. 5 … 5 … 5 … 1 … 7 … 2 … 6. Patrick’s heart rate increased; he suddenly felt alert.
‘I cannot come to the phone right now, but if you leave…’
Patrick slammed the phone down. It was the fucking machine. What was he doing asleep at ten in the evening? It was absolutely intolerable. He picked the phone up and dialled the number again. Should he leave a message? Something subtly coded like ‘Wake up, fuckface, I want to score.’
No, it was hopeless. Fate had spoken and he must accept its judgement.
Outside it was surprisingly warm. Nevertheless, Patrick flicked up the collar of his overcoat, scanning the street for a free cab.
He soon spotted a taxi and stepped into the street to hail it.
‘The Pierre Hotel,’ he said as he climbed inside.
5
WHAT INSTRUMENT COULD HE use to set himself free? Disdain? Aggression? Hatred? They were all contaminated by the influence of his father, the very thing he needed to free himself from. And the sadness he felt, if he paused for a second, had he not learned it from his father’s descent into paralysing misery?
After his divorce from Eleanor, David had remained in the south of France, only fifteen miles away from the old house in Lacoste. In his new house, which had no exterior windows, only windows looking onto a central weed-choked courtyard, he lay in bed for days on end wheezing and staring at the ceiling fixedly, without even the energy to cross the room and get the copy of Jorrocks Rides Again which had once been able to cheer him up in the most unpromising circumstances.
When Patrick, aged eight or nine, and torn between terror and unfathomable loyalty, visited his father, the enormous silences were only broken for David to express a desire to die, and to issue his final instructions.
‘I may not be alive for much longer,’ he would gasp, ‘and we may not see each other again.’
‘No, Daddy, don’t say that,’ Patrick would plead with him.
And then the old exhortations would come out: observe everything … trust nobody … despise your mother … effort is vulgar … things were better in the eighteenth century.
Impressed by the thought, year after year, that these might be his father’s last pronouncements on the world, the distillation of all his wisdom and experience, Patrick paid undue attention to this tiresome set of opinions, despite the overwhelming evidence that they had not got his father very far in the pursuit of happiness. But then that was vulgar too. The whole system worked beautifully, like so many others, after the initial leap of fai
th.
If his father ever managed to get out of bed, things got worse. They would walk down to the village on a shopping expedition, his father dressed in an old pair of green pyjamas, a short blue overcoat with anchors on the buttons, a pair of dark glasses now tied to a coarse string around his neck, and on his feet the heavy lace-up boots favoured by the local tractor-driving peasants. David had also grown a snow-white beard and always carried with him an orange nylon shopping bag with a tarnished gold handle. Patrick was mistaken for his grandson, and he could remember the shame and horror, as well as the defensive pride, with which he accompanied his increasingly eccentric and depressed father into the village.
‘I want to die … I want to die … I want to die,’ muttered Patrick rapidly. It was completely unacceptable. He could not be the person who had been that person. The speed was coming back and bringing with it the menace of lucidity and strong emotion.
They were approaching the hotel and Patrick had to make a quick decision. He leaned forward and said to the driver, ‘I’ve changed my mind, take me to Eighth Street between C and D.’
The Chinese driver looked doubtfully in his rear-view mirror. Avenue D was a far cry from the Pierre Hotel. What sort of man would suddenly veer from one to the other? Only a junkie or an ignorant tourist.
‘Avenue D bad place,’ he said, testing the second theory.
‘I’m relying on that,’ said Patrick. ‘Just take me there.’
The driver carried on down Fifth Avenue, past the turning for the hotel. Patrick sank back, excited and sick and guilty, but masking the feeling, as usual, with a show of languid indifference.
So what if he had changed his mind? Flexibility was an admirable quality. And nobody was more flexible when it came to giving up drugs, nobody more open to the possibility of taking them after all. He hadn’t done anything yet. He could still reverse his decision, or rather reverse his revision. He could still go back.
Plummeting from the Upper to the Lower East Side, from Le Veau Gras to the Bargain Grocery Store on Eighth Street, he could not help admiring the way he ranged freely, or perhaps the word was ‘inevitably’, between luxury and squalor.
The taxi was approaching Tompkins Square, the beginning of the fun district. It was here that Chilly Willy, his street contact for those annoying occasions on which Pierre was asleep, dragged out his life of perpetual withdrawal. Chilly could only ever get enough smack to keep him looking for more; scavenging enough bags to twitch instead of convulsing, to squeal instead of screaming, he walked in little jerky steps with one limp and nerveless arm dangling by his side, like an old flex from the draughty ceiling. With his good hand, Chilly held up the filthy baggy trousers that were always in danger of slipping down over his emaciated waist. Despite being black, he looked pale and his face was speckled with brown liver spots. His teeth, the four or five that still clung heroically to his gums, were either dark yellow or black, chipped or shattered. He was an inspiration to his community and his customers since nobody could imagine looking as ill as him, however recklessly they lived.
The cab crossed Avenue C and carried on down Eighth Street. Here he was among the filthy haunches of the city, thought Patrick contentedly.
‘Where you want?’ asked the Chinaman.
‘I want heroin,’ said Patrick.
‘Heloin,’ repeated the driver anxiously.
‘That’s right,’ said Patrick. ‘Stop here, this is good.’
Wired Puerto Ricans were pacing about pugilistically on the corner, and black guys with big hats were leaning in doorways. Patrick lowered the window of the taxi, and new friends crowded in from every side.
‘What ju wan, man? What ju looking for?’
‘Clear tape … red tape … yellow tape. What you want?’
‘Smack,’ said Patrick.
‘Shit, man, you from the police. You’re a policeman.’
‘No, I’m not. I’m an Englishman,’ Patrick protested.
‘Get out the cab, man, we don’t sell you nothin’ in the cab.’
‘Wait here,’ said Patrick to the driver. He got out of the taxi. One of the dealers took him by the arm and started to march him round the corner.
‘I’m not going any further,’ said Patrick as they were about to lose sight of the taxi.
‘How much you want?’
‘Give me four dime-bags of clear tape,’ said Patrick carefully unpeeling two twenty-dollar bills. He kept the twenties in the left trouser pocket, tens in the right trouser pocket, fives and ones in the overcoat pockets. The hundreds remained in their envelope in the inside coat pocket. This way he never tempted anybody with a show of cash.
‘I’ll give you six for fifty, man. You git one extra bag.’
‘No, four is fine.’
Patrick pocketed the four little bags of greaseproof paper, turned around and climbed back into the cab.
‘We go hotel now,’ said the Chinaman eagerly.
‘No, just drive me round the block for a bit. Take me to Sixth and B.’
‘What you go lound block for?’ The driver mumbled a Chinese curse, but moved off in the right direction.
Patrick had to test the smack he had just bought before he left the area altogether. He tore open one of the bags and poured the powder into the hollow formed in the back of his hand by the tendon of his raised thumb. He raised the tiny quantity of white powder to his nose and sniffed it up.
Oh, God! It was vile. Patrick clutched his stinging nose. Fuck, wank, blast, shit, damn.
It was a hideous cocktail of Vim and barbs. The scouring powder gave that touch of genuine bitterness to the mix, and the barbiturates provided a small thud of sedation. There were some advantages, of course. You could take ten of these bags a day and never become a junkie. You could be arrested with them and not be charged with possession of heroin. Thank God he hadn’t shot it up, the Vim afterburn would have scorched his veins. What was he doing scoring off the street? He must be mad. He should have tried to get hold of Chilly Willy and sent him round to Loretta’s. At least there were some traces of heroin in her little greaseproof packages.
Still, he wouldn’t throw away this rubbish until he knew he could get something better. The cab had arrived at Sixth and C.
‘Stop here,’ said Patrick.
‘I no wai’ here,’ shouted the driver in a sudden burst of vexation.
‘Oh, well, fuck off then,’ said Patrick, tossing a ten-dollar bill into the passenger seat and getting out of the cab. He slammed the door and stalked off towards Seventh Street. The taxi screeched away from the kerb. When it had gone, Patrick was conscious of a hush in which his footsteps seemed to ring loudly on the pavement. He was alone. But not for long. On the next corner, a group of about a dozen dealers were standing around outside the Bargain Grocery Store.
Patrick slowed down, and one of the men, spotting him first, detached himself from the group and sauntered across the street with a buoyant and muscular gait. An exceptionally tall black man, he wore a shiny red jacket.
‘How you doing?’ he asked Patrick. His face was completely smooth, his cheekbones high, and his wide eyes seemingly saturated with indolence.
‘Fine,’ said Patrick. ‘How about you?’
‘I’m good. What you looking for?’
‘Can you take me to Loretta’s?’
‘Loretta,’ said the black man lazily.
‘Sure.’ Patrick was frustrated by his slowness and, feeling the book in his overcoat pocket, he imagined whipping it out like a pistol and gunning the dealer down with its ambitious first sentence, ‘There is only one really serious philosophical problem: it is suicide.’
‘How much you lookin’ for?’ asked the dealer, reaching nonchalantly behind his back.
‘Just fifty dollars’ worth,’ said Patrick.
There was a sudden commotion on the other side of the street and he saw a half-familiar figure hobbling towards them in an agitated way.
‘Don’t stick him, don’t stick him,’ the new ch
aracter shouted.
Patrick recognized him now: it was Chilly, clutching his trousers. He arrived, stumbling and out of breath. ‘Don’t stick him,’ he repeated, ‘he’s my man.’
The tall black man smiled as if this was a truly hilarious incident. ‘I was going to stick you,’ he said, proudly showing Patrick a small knife. ‘I didn’t know yuz knew Chilly!’
‘What a small world,’ said Patrick wearily. He felt totally detached from the threat that this man claimed to represent, and impatient to get on with his business.
‘That’s right,’ said the tall man, ever more ebullient. He offered his hand to Patrick, after removing the knife. ‘My name’s Mark,’ he said. ‘You ever need anything, ask for Mark.’
Patrick shook his hand and smiled at him faintly. ‘Hello, Chilly,’ he said.
‘Where you been?’ asked Chilly reproachfully.
‘Oh, over to England. Let’s go to Loretta’s.’
Mark waved goodbye and lolloped back across the street. Patrick and Chilly headed downtown.
‘Extraordinary man,’ drawled Patrick. ‘Does he always stab people when he first meets them?’
‘He’s a bad man,’ said Chilly. ‘You don’t wanna hang around him. Why din’t you ask for me?’
‘I did,’ Patrick lied, ‘but of course he said you weren’t around. I guess he wanted a free hand to stab me.’
‘Yeah, he’s a bad man,’ repeated Chilly.
The two men turned the corner of Sixth Street and Chilly almost immediately led Patrick down a short flight of steps into the basement of a dilapidated brownstone building. Patrick was quietly pleased that Chilly was taking him to Loretta’s, instead of leaving him to wait on a street corner.
There was only one door in the basement, reinforced with steel and equipped with a brass flap and a small spyglass. Chilly rang the bell and soon after a voice called out suspiciously, ‘Who’s that?’
‘It’s Chilly.’
‘How much you want?’
Patrick handed Chilly fifty dollars. Chilly counted the money, opened the brass flap and stuffed it inside. The flap retracted quickly and remained closed for what seemed like a long time.
The Patrick Melrose Novels Page 17