Hunting Unicorns

by Bella Pollen

  ‘And you?’

  ‘And me what?’

  ‘What’s your passion? Bevan?’

  ‘God,’ he said heavily, ‘not really. Buildings, yes, graveyards, monuments, sites, stones, bones, anything old, crumbling, decaying.’

  ‘But still, you gave up something you loved doing to keep this going?’ I looked around the room. ‘Why? For your father?’

  ‘Don’t sound so horrified. Have you never given up anything for somebody you loved?’

  Jay had been married once. His wife was beautiful but highly strung. She loathed his job. For five years Jay followed her map, redrew his. It had broken up their marriage. Jay believed that if you loved someone, you shouldn’t force them to give up something they were passionate about. Never make a career choice for someone else’s reasons.

  ‘Why would you ever put anyone in that position?’ I said, but the words had sounded a lot more convincing coming out of Jay’s mouth.

  ‘Because love is selfish, Maggie. Love is Top of the Pops, number one emotion on the selfish chart. Love is a messy and inherently sad emotion, which is why so many people live in mortal terror of it.’

  ‘So the one thing you’re dedicating your life to preserving is the one thing that will prevent you from being happy?’

  ‘Maybe, I don’t know. All I do know is that I haven’t done the thing yet that I’m most proud of.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Who knows. Could be anything. Maybe I’ll write a great song or save a kitten from drowning, maybe I will just preserve Bevan for my father … Look, I’m not sure I could possibly make you understand.’

  ‘I sort of understand, I do. I think it’s kind of noble … nutty but noble.’

  ‘Which is, ironically, also our family motto.’

  ‘It’s not so bad – where I come from you’d be a real catch.’

  ‘Where you come from any male who’s single, can sit up and take nourishment is a real catch.’

  I laughed. ‘Well I hope at least you get an enormously important title as compensation.’

  ‘Oh sure. Right up there between Master of the Horse and Companion to the Bath.’

  ‘Oh boy.’ I sighed.

  ‘Oh boy, sir, to you.’ He tipped me onto my stomach and slid down the bed.

  * * *

  Later he said, ‘Surely it’s unethical to sleep with your victims?’

  ‘I consider it a perk. Anyway you’re not my victim.’

  ‘I am closely related to him.’

  ‘I could always sleep with your father if that makes you more comfortable.’ Classical music was coming from somewhere. I strained to hear it better.

  ‘Don’t be disgusting.’ He pushed his leg between mine. Now, from somewhere else in the house, a telephone had begun ringing. ‘Oh Christ,’ Rory said resignedly. ‘It’s bound to be for me, Nanny will answer it, she’ll come in, see I have an erection and there’ll be hell to pay.’

  I burst out laughing. ‘The thirty-eight-year-old baby.’

  ‘I don’t think you’ll find many babies with one of these,’ he muttered, lowering himself on top of me.

  ‘Does Nanny think you’re not old enough to have sex?’

  ‘Nanny believes you are never old enough to have sex.’

  ‘Well she’s not going to know you’re in here.’

  ‘Nanny knows everything,’ he said darkly.

  I assumed he was joking but as he said it, there was a sharp rapping on the door. I looked at him disbelievingly. He yanked the covers over our heads as I dissolved into helpless giggles. ‘Quiet, wench,’ he hissed. The door opened and small neat footsteps crossed the room. Rory clamped his hand firmly over my mouth.

  ‘Your cousin Benjamin called with your office messages, Robert,’ Nanny said. Rory inched his fingers up my thigh. I stifled a gasp. ‘I’ve written them on a piece of paper,’ Nanny continued, her tone of voice implying that young Benjamin had left a small dog poop in her hand rather than a note.

  Rory’s shoulders were heaving with silent laughter.

  ‘Rory!’ Nanny said warningly.

  Rory stuck his hand out from under the bedclothes. ‘Thank you, Nanny,’ he said meekly.

  daniel

  Rory lies in bed, catatonic with goodwill towards the world. Next door Maggie is running a bath. The immersion heater flares on and off as she vainly adjusts the hot and cold taps. He’s about to warn her about the scalding temperature of the water when there’s a squeal. He nearly laughs out loud until he remembers it was at this point Leona started packing, remembers how he saw escape reflected in her eyes long before the train drew into Skimpton station.

  ‘You know something,’ Maggie shouts from the bathroom, ‘I guess England’s not so bad after all. I mean, two inches of hot water is really quite a luxury when you think about it.’

  Rory stretches out contentedly. Benj’s note scratches against his foot. He attempts to retrieve it with his toes, but it drops to the floor. He feels around under the bed but his fingertips brush against something else. Whatever it is, it doesn’t have the putrid consistency of your average Neolithic Bevan lost property item so instead of recoiling in horror he closes his hand around it and finds himself pulling Wolf’s camera onto the bed.

  ‘So Nanny never married?’ Maggie shouts from the bathroom. ‘No steamy affairs with the local priest?’

  ‘She was in love with a soldier. He died in the war.’

  ‘Poor thing.’

  Rory fiddles absent-mindedly with the controls. He powers on the camera and presses the rewind button. ‘What did you say you got on film yesterday?’ he asks and at the same time wishes he hadn’t. In the bathroom, Maggie sits bolt upright. ‘I told you,’ she says warily, ‘just background stuff.’

  But Rory has already pressed the play button. There is no sound but the images are more than enough. As he fast-forwards and backtracks through footage from the last twenty-four hours, the viewfinder presents him with the all-too-familiar scenes from the Bevan comedy drama.

  ‘Not even my grandfather?’ he asks, watching Grandpa’s puppet show with the Chinese figurines. Anger starts boiling in his head as he watches Alistair showing off the breathalyser he’s preparing to wrap, Audrey sucking whisky through her curly-wurly straw and then finally there is Grandpa again, turning the knife over in his hand. As Rory stares, realization building, the camera zooms in close until there is nothing in the frame but Grandpa’s thumb smoothing over and over the swastika embossed on the knife’s handle and Rory’s anger turns to cold hard fury.

  ‘Rory.’ Maggie stands in the doorway, she’s thrown on her clothes without drying herself and water seeps through the thin cotton of her T-shirt like blood from an exit wound.

  maggie

  ‘God damn you to hell, Maggie,’ he said softly. ‘God damm you.’ I walked over and took the camera out of his hands.

  I gave a sort of helpless shrug, but he was having none of it. He grabbed me at the elbow and propelled me towards the door. I struggled, but his grip only tightened. The music we’d heard earlier became louder as Rory marched me along the corridor, down the stairs and into his grandfather’s bedroom. The old man was sitting in his armchair, eyes shut despite the ear-splitting volume of the music. On his lap a photograph book was open and resting on top of a tartan blanket.

  ‘Rory, please don’t do this.’

  ‘What do you see here, Maggie?’ he demanded.

  ‘It’s not—’

  ‘What little pigeonhole best fits your prejudice today. Lunatic? Worthless peer? Nazi collaborator?’

  ‘It’s not like that—’

  ‘You’re damn right it’s not like that. How dare you think by filming you have any understanding?’

  ‘Is that you, Alistair?’ the old man yelled above the din.

  I rubbed my forearm where Rory had held it. He turned down the volume on the stereo and kissed his grandfather on the forehead. The Marquess’s eyes flickered open. He felt for the book on his lap. Rory bent down
to pick up a photograph that had fallen to the floor.

  ‘Not lunch yet, is it?’ the Marquess asked.

  Rory shook his head. He tried to manoeuvre the photograph back into its mount but the Marquess took it from his hand.

  ‘Know who this is, Rory?’ The photo showed a young man in uniform standing erect and smiling.

  ‘Cavendish,’ Rory said gently.

  ‘Yes,’ the Marquess traced his finger across the browning image, ‘Cavendish.’

  He closed his eyes. I thought he had drifted off, but he started speaking. ‘Knew he’d been shot because there was a hole in his head. There were brains coming out of the hole so I pushed them back inside.’ He looked at Rory, ‘Somehow I thought that might help, do you see?’

  ‘I know,’ Rory put his hand on the old man’s shoulder.

  ‘Carried him for ten miles,’ the Marquess said, ‘I suppose I knew he was dead, but I had to do something.’ He touched the photograph dreamily, ‘He was my friend, do you see?’ He felt down the side of his chair and pulled out a pair of headphones.

  Rory turned on me, ‘As soon as war was declared, he fought, he was the first to realize he’d made a terrible mistake…’

  ‘Rory. I was following a legitimate story,’ I pleaded.

  ‘Legitimate,’ he practically spat the word. ‘Christ, do you people realize or even care about the damage you do in your self-righteous pursuit of the truth? It would be hugely upsetting to my family, they would be hounded by the press. What is the point, just before he dies?’

  ‘Rory you have to believe me, when I came here, I had no idea it was your family.’

  He slammed his fist into the side of the chair. ‘Don’t you get it – it’s always somebody’s family. God, what an idiot I’ve been. I, of all people should have known better. In fact, what am I talking about?’ He looked at me scathingly. ‘I did know better.’

  ‘Maybe you did,’ I said, ‘but I didn’t, I really didn’t, things have changed now—’

  ‘Now what?’ he said bitterly. ‘Now that you screwed every member of the family?’

  ‘Rory, that’s not fair.’

  ‘Oh don’t tell me, last night you had an epiphany. How sweet.’

  ‘You’re not listening,’ I said angrily.

  He put his hands up, ‘Spare me the bullshit, Maggie.’

  ‘It isn’t bullshit. It’s the truth.’

  ‘Well if that’s the case, you should have no problem giving me the film.’

  I stared at him. ‘I can’t,’ I stammered.

  ‘Won’t you mean,’ he stated flatly. ‘Besides, you can’t use it without the release forms.’

  ‘Rory you can trust me.’ I didn’t know what else to say. I needed time and the tapes were my only hostages. ‘You have to trust me.’

  ‘Trust you!’ he said and the scorn in his voice nearly made me walk. I wanted to get as far away from him, as far away from myself as possible. Rory made a visible effort to keep a hold on his temper.

  ‘I won’t sign the release forms, Maggie.’

  And I thought, Just when you think it can’t get any worse.

  He was waiting for me to say something, to be the person he now knew I was. I badly wanted to disappoint him but it seems I couldn’t.

  ‘Your father signed them yesterday.’

  He looked at me then like I was someone he didn’t want to know any more.

  ‘At the time my grandfather was acting out of a fierce sense of family, tradition and loyalty, three things you know absolutely nothing about, Maggie.’

  It was like my brain had its eyes wide open but refused to let my mouth speak.

  ‘I see,’ he said. ‘Well in that case, I suggest you take the money and run. Go on, get out.’

  ‘I’m already gone.’ I turned. Got to the door. Saw how easy it would be to walk straight through it. Turned back.

  ‘Rory, I don’t want to run, I always run.’

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  ‘I’m telling you this because, because if you were to ask me to stay…’ My voice was so low I could barely hear it, ‘… I would stay.’

  He looked at me steadily.

  ‘Turn the bloody music thingy up would you, Robert,’ Grandpa shouted from his chair. His headphones were still clamped over his ears.

  ‘Maggie,’ Rory said helplessly, ‘every time I think I know who you are, you turn out to be someone else.’

  ‘Please try to understand.’

  He shook his head sadly but there was no softness left in his eyes. ‘I really don’t think that’s possible,’ he said.

  daniel

  If it were me, still lobbing pebbles into that waste-paper basket two hours after she’d left, I’d get off my arse and go after her, because what does it really matter? Why is it we’re so good at allowing every petty, mean-spirited emotion to stand in the way of the bigger picture? Paper covers stone, stone blunts scissors, scissors cut paper. Round and round it goes. If I’ve learnt anything, it’s that life really is too short – it wasn’t just a tired old cliché after all. Too many times the things we get side-tracked by are no more than false trails. In the final reckoning the only emotions that truly hold water are the incontestable ones. So I will Rory to snap out of it, because let me tell you something: you can live in a broken home, you can play with a broken toy, but you cannot love with a broken heart.

  And amazingly enough he does snap out of it. He stuffs his clothes into a suitcase, jumps in his car and I think, Good God, this has a chance of ending well after all.

  * * *

  Rory drives like Toad of Toad Hall, all horns and swerves and brakes. As he pulls up opposite the Cadogan Hotel, it occurs to him that in the last couple of hours he cannot remember turning right, left, on or off the motorway and wonders how the hell he got here. Now he wonders what the hell to do next. The narrow road he must cross to walk through that hotel entrance widens into a six-lane motorway. Maggie’s film has held a mirror up to his own attitude and to confront her means he must first confront himself. He doesn’t recognize any of this yet but I hope he will before too long, in the meantime he’s stymied by indecision.

  He knows one thing for sure, that when the moment comes he will not let her go.

  Then the moment is upon him. And anybody who says God does not have perfect timing should watch this space because Maggie is walking down the steps of the hotel. She’s pale and her hair is caught up in a rough ponytail. She tips the doorman, who touches his cap and smiles. A porter wheels a trolley full of luggage down the ramp. Rory’s out of the Rover, hand raised, mouth open to shout, when a tall man with a shock of grey hair lollops down the steps and catches up with her. He squeezes her arm, says something, teasing maybe, certainly flirtatious, because when she replies he laughs and kisses her – an easy kiss of possession.

  Oh Rory. I see the look on his face, watch his arm drop, watch him shrink, climb back into himself, then into his car and drive off without a backward glance. And my heart aches for him.

  Why was he born so beautiful?

  Why was he born at all?

  He’s no bloody use to anyone,

  He’s no bloody use at all.

  – Anonymous

  maggie

  Jay was tired. He fell asleep as soon as the plane took off and didn’t wake until the pilot announced we were flying over New Jersey. I sat in the airless vacuum of my seat and stared blindly at the miniature screen in front of me.

  Jay stirred only once. I looked at him. He was breathing with his mouth open and the deep worry crease between his eyes was even deeper than ever.

  In the cab home I feigned a stomach bug.

  ‘How about some treatment at the renowned Alder clinic?’ Jay asked. I shook my head and he didn’t push it. ‘I’ve got to go to Washington for a few days,’ he said, ‘but when I get back let’s try to grab a little time together.’

  I nodded. ‘That would be nice.’

  When we got to the Bowery, Jay carried my suitca
se into my building. I looked around at the industrial grey paint and graffiti. I was home. The last few weeks seemed surreal, only twenty-four hours earlier I had been in the middle of the English countryside telling a man I barely knew that I would stay if he wanted me to. What was surreal was that I had meant it.

  ‘Talk to me, Maggie,’ Jay said. ‘Ever since Paris you’ve had this expression on your face.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like I’ve been auditioning for a part that you don’t know how to tell me I haven’t got.’

  ‘Jay, can I ask you a question?’

  ‘Is it multiple choice?’

  ‘Why did you start seeing me, do you think?’

  ‘Let me see now,’ he started ticking off an imaginary checklist on his fingers.

  ‘Jay, I’m serious.’

  He pressed his knuckles into the crease of his frown. ‘So we’re going to have this discussion now.’

  ‘I think so.’

  He paid off the cab and we sat on the steps of the building. He took my hand and began separating the fingers.

  ‘We believe in the same things, we want the same things from each other, you’re independent, entirely low maintenance—’

  ‘You make me sound like a package.’

  ‘Didn’t you just ask me to gift-wrap you?’ he said lightly.

  ‘The thing is, I don’t think I can be a package any more.’

  ‘Not even if you can have satin ribbon and hand-turned edges?’

  He was hedging and we both knew it. These were the discussions we had agreed not to have. Our anti-nuptial contract.

  ‘Was it because you didn’t need me to need anything from you?’

  He took off his glasses. ‘It was because I didn’t want to take more from you than you could give,’ he corrected gently.

  ‘How does anyone know how much they’re capable of giving?’

  ‘Where is this coming from, Maggie, what’s making you unhappy?’

  ‘What if I wanted to give you everything.’