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Edward St. Aubyn

At Last

For Bo

1

‘Surprised to see me?’ said Nicholas Pratt, planting his walking stick on the crematorium carpet and fixing Patrick with a look of slightly aimless defiance, a habit no longer useful but too late to change. ‘I’ve become rather a memorial-creeper. One’s bound to at my age. It’s no use sitting at home guffawing over the ignorant mistakes of juvenile obituarists, or giving in to the rather monotonous pleasure of counting the daily quota of extinct contemporaries. No! One has to “celebrate the life”: there goes the school tart. They say he had a good war, but I know better! — that sort of thing, put the whole achievement in perspective. Mind you, I’m not saying it isn’t all very moving. There’s a sort of swelling orchestra effect to these last days. And plenty of horror, of course. Padding about on my daily rounds from hospital bed to memorial pew and back again, I’m reminded of those oil tankers that used to dash themselves onto the rocks every other week and the flocks of birds dying on the beaches with their wings stuck together and their bewildered yellow eyes blinking. ’

Nicholas glanced into the room. ‘Thinly attended,’ he murmured, as if preparing a description for someone else. ‘Are those people your mother’s religious friends? Too extraordinary. What colour would you call that suit? Aubergine? Aubergine à la crème d’oursin? I must go to Huntsman and get one knocked up. What do you mean, you have no Aubergine? Everyone was wearing it at Eleanor Melrose’s. Order a mile of it straight away!

‘I suppose your aunt will be here soon. She’ll be an all too familiar face amidst the Aubergines.

I saw her last week in New York and I’m pleased to say I was the first to tell her the tragic news about your mother. She burst into tears and ordered a croque monsieur to swallow with her second helping of diet pills. I felt sorry for her and got her asked to dinner with the Blands. Do you know Freddie Bland? He’s the smallest billionaire alive. His parents were practically dwarfs, into the room with a tremendous fanfare and then like General and Mrs. Tom Thumb. They used to come disappear under a console table. Baby Bland has taken to being serious, the way some people do in their senile twilight. She’s decided to write a book about Cubism, of all ridiculous subjects. I think it’s really part of her being a perfect wife. She knows what a state Freddie used to get into over her birthday, but thanks to her new hobby, all he has to do now is get Sotheby’s to wrap up a revolting painting of a woman with a face like a slice of watermelon by that arch fake Picasso, and he knows she’ll be over the moon. Do you know what Baby said to me? At breakfast, if you please, when I was almost defenceless. ’ Nicholas put on a simpering voice:

‘“Those divine birds in late Braque are really just an excuse for the sky. ”

‘“Such a good excuse,” I said, choking on my first sip of coffee, “so much better than a lawn mower or a pair of clogs. It shows he was in complete control of his material. ”