Hunting Unicorns
Page 26
‘A little bumpy,’ I said, ‘otherwise … a damn good bit of flying.’
He pulled me close. I could feel his heart pounding.
‘Look,’ I said. ‘I just want to get one thing straight.’
‘Yes?’ His eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘And what might that be?’
‘I’m not going to be one of those weird little women who make cucumber sandwiches and wear flowery hats. I’m not going to join the Women’s Institute, or eat bread sauce, I won’t share bath water with anyone except you and I will never and I mean never ever live in a house without adequate central heating.’
‘Anything else?’ he said mildly.
‘Yes. I also want to point out … well … don’t think that just because I’ve come here, I’m here for good or anything like that. It’s like … I mean you do realize I have a job, or well I’m looking for a new job because it’s not like I’m going to give up my work or…’
‘Or your what?’ he demanded.
‘Well, my work…’
Rory broke into a grin and it was like I’d been waiting my whole life for someone to grin like that at me, ‘Well that’s a relief,’ he said. ‘Because following in a long-standing and proud family tradition, I am destined to remain seriously broke.’
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The new owners of Bevan are businessmen. Developers with their eye on commuters from Stockton on Tees. Though not averse to the idea, they utterly fail to understand why Rory, having sold them the house and land, is spending no small percentage of the purchase price planting a wood for them. Needless to say they put it down to eccentricity.
I, of course, know better.
There are fifty shovels in the back of the tractor. The clearing teems with people. Rory has gathered them all together; everyone who has ever worked at Bevan, their families and grandchildren; the Skimpton cricket and darts team, Rosie from the local 7—11, even Doctor Banks from the village. Over the last few weeks most of Rory’s clients from Stately Locations have also made the pilgrimage, the Bancrofts, the Harcourts, the Roxmeres, Benj, Alison, my mother, my father, Maggie. Rory methodically ticks them off a list, his list that has been appendaged to my map. They take their trees, carefully labelled in Latin and English, and one by one they plant my wood, and I am proud. I am really proud. Here’s what I think, for what it’s worth. The land does not belong to the new owners, just as it didn’t belong to my father. The land does not belong to the ramblers, the twitchers, picnickers, prospectors, city weekenders, gypsies, Estate owners or farmers, it belongs to those who work it and are passionate about it.
It belongs to those who are prepared to put their soul into it.
Rory has moved off some way from the crowd. Overhead the air darkens, the weather changes fast and furious. Clouds hurtle through the sky. Rory stands in the clearing looking down the valley towards the house. He takes off his boots and the soil feels damp between his toes. He can smell the seed, smell the honeysuckle lifting off the breeze. He sees the woods, the park, the great oak tree bowed in the fox cover. He hears the sound the wind makes as it blows through the flowers of the horse chestnut. He feels the current in the earth, the rain on his skin. He sinks to his knees until the water has seeped through his clothes then he turns his face skywards and I see he’s understood.
* * *
When Rory drives down the drive of Bevan for the last time, he will have Maggie in his car and the moose head strapped to the roof. God only knows where they think they’re going but at least together they might have some fun getting there. As for me … well who knows? Bob Dylan said, ‘I’ll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours,’ and I think that’s a pretty good trade off. I still don’t know where I am, but my hope is I’m only passing through. Meanwhile, finally, jealously, gratefully, tearfully, I can and damn well will raise an imaginary glass to my brother.
To say that the English aristocracy is a spent force is undeniable, but to say it is no longer of value is not necessarily the case. In the end it’s family that counts. Our story, depending on who’s telling it, is one of irreversible decline or, as I prefer to see it … a story of survival against the odds.
– Earl of Bevan
Acknowledgements
Hunting Unicorns originally began life as a screenplay embarked upon by my sister Susie and me as a way of threading together some of the humiliating fates suffered by those to whom the more staid traditions and values of the English are a complete anathema.
My thanks, therefore, to all those people who on hearing of the project flooded us with urban myths, embarrassing anecdotes and deliciously weird stories.
Apart from it being a revelation to discover just how many people had an Alistair or Audrey Bevan somewhere in their family tree, I loved all these stories because they really made me laugh – no bad thing when you find yourself locked into a room with an obstreperous computer. Those urban myths that found their way into Hunting Unicorns, namely the bunny, the basin, and the wallpaper, are silly enough but, believe me, fall way short of being the silliest.
My eternal thanks to all those friends who for one reason or another stopped me toppling over the edge whilst writing this book: Nan and Andy for Brooklyn and bagels. John and Emily for their tower of flies. Susie for tuna sandwiches. Carole for her wisdom and breakfasts at Balthazar, Sarah and Clare for their google wizardry and Mr Kipling’s almond slices. Nanda for her tortillas and above all, Dave for the Barn.
Thanks also to the following for their invaluable help: Molly Dineen, Rebecca Frayn, Catherine Bailey, the London office of Médecins Sans Frontières, Charles Kidd of Debrett’s Peerage.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
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THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.
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HUNTING UNICORNS. Copyright © 2003 by Bella Pollen. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
The publishers gratefully acknowledge permission to reproduce copyright material from:
The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy, David Cannadine, Picador (1990)
“The Stately Homes of England,” Noël Coward—refrain, Operette (musical, 1938). The Columbia World of Quotations. Copyright © 1996 Columbia University Press
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First published in Great Britain by Macmillan, an imprint of Pan Macmillan Ltd.
First U.S. Edition: July 2004
eISBN 9781466863507
First eBook edition: January 2014