Free The Patrick Melrose Novels by Edward St. Aubyn

said Barry, ‘take Etienne’s number anyway. That’s where I’ll be staying and maybe we can like meet up.’
    â€˜Yeah,’ said Bridget, ‘great.’
    Barry pulled out a giant Rizla rolling paper and scribbled a number on it. ‘Don’t smoke it,’ he said humorously, ‘or we’ll never get in touch.’
    Bridget gave him the Melrose number because she knew he would not use it, and that this whole meeting-up thing was not going to happen. ‘How long have you been here?’ she asked.
    â€˜Ten days roughly and the only piece of advice I can give you is don’t drink the pink. That wine is full of chemical shit and the hangover is worse than the comedown off a sulphate binge.’
    Nicholas’s voice burst in on them. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ He glared at her. ‘You’re really pushing your luck, swanning off in the middle of an airport without any warning. I’ve been dragging round these fucking cases looking for you for the last quarter of an hour.’
    â€˜You should get a trolley,’ said Barry.
    Nicholas stared straight ahead of him as if nobody had spoken. ‘Don’t ever do this again or I’ll snap you like … Ah, there’s Eleanor!’
    â€˜Nicholas, I’m so sorry. We got caught on the Ferris wheel at a funfair and instead of letting us off they sent it round a second time. Can you imagine?’
    â€˜So like you, Eleanor, always getting more fun than you bargained for.’
    â€˜Well, I’m here now.’ Eleanor greeted Nicholas and Bridget with a flat circular wave, like someone polishing a windowpane. ‘And this is Anne Moore.’
    â€˜Hi,’ said Anne.
    â€˜How do you do?’ said Nicholas, and introduced Bridget.
    Eleanor led them towards the car park and Bridget blew a kiss over her shoulder in Barry’s direction.
    â€˜ Ciao ,’ said Barry, jabbing his finger at the confident words on his T-shirt. ‘Don’t forget.’
    â€˜Who was that fascinating-looking man your girlfriend was talking to?’ asked Eleanor.
    â€˜Oh, just somebody on the plane,’ said Nicholas. He was annoyed to find Barry at the airport and for a moment he thought that Bridget might have arranged the meeting. The idea was absurd, but he could not shake it off, and as soon as they were all settled in the car, he hissed at her, ‘What were you talking to that chap about?’
    â€˜Barry isn’t a chap,’ said Bridget, ‘that’s what I like about him, but if you really want to know, he said, “Don’t drink the pink, it’s full of chemical shit and the hangover is worse than a comedown off a speed binge.”’
    Nicholas swivelled round and gave her a deadly look.
    â€˜He’s absolutely right, of course,’ said Eleanor. ‘Perhaps we should have asked him to dinner.’

 
    7
    AFTER HANGING PATRICK FROM his ears and watching him escape from the library, David shrugged, sat down at the piano, and started to improvise a fugue. His rheumatic hands protested at every key he touched. A glass of pastis, like a trapped cloud, stood on top of the piano. His body ached all day long and the pain woke him at night every time he shifted position. Nightmares often woke him as well and made him whimper and scream so loudly that his insomnia overflowed into neighbouring bedrooms. His lungs, also, were shot away and when his asthma flared up he wheezed and rattled, his face swollen by the cortisone he used to appease his constricted chest. Gasping, he would pause at the top of the stairs, unable to speak, his eyes roaming over the ground as if he were searching for the air he desperately needed.
    At the age of fifteen his musical talent had attracted the interest of the great piano teacher Shapiro, who took on only one pupil at a time. Unfortunately, within a week, David had contracted rheumatic fever and spent the