Death of a Unicorn

by Peter Dickinson

  ‘Well . . .’ I said.

  I couldn’t really tell her I didn’t regard the idea as an enormous honour and responsibility, so we discussed the technical problems of a hand-over. She was chiefly anxious about her filing system which she wanted to take with her because it was full of confidential material, but at the same time she was convinced it was impossible to produce the Round without it. That was what really mattered to her, that the Round should go on. So I had to agree to a kind of consultation system under which I could ring her up and check if I was in difficulty, though I didn’t imagine I would ever want to use it, supposing I took the ghastly job on after all.

  When we’d finished she sighed and looked round the room.

  ‘So many memories,’ she said. ‘It will be strange to leave it. I shall take my photographs, of course. Oh, my dear, do you think by any chance we might try again to persuade your dear mother to autograph one, after all? I know it seems pushing of me, but, well, she’s actually one of the seven countesses I haven’t got.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ I said. ‘Shall I take it and see what I can do? She can be terribly tiresome about this sort of thing.’

  ‘Oh, would you? That would be most kind.’

  She had it ready in a drawer of her desk. A peculiarly awful picture of Mummy and Jane and me at some dance the year before, posed under a vast Constance Spry arrangement, one of her white constructions. The Milletts at their grimmest, doing their duty by the photographer. I had been wearing the sapphires, for some reason.

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ I said brightly.

  ‘You are a very sweet child. I must confess I am a wee bit anxious for you.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think you need worry. I’m as happy as a sandboy.’

  ‘Oh, my dear, if happiness were everything! Do you remember when you first came here I told you a little story about a girl called Veronica Bracken?’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘Veronica believed she was happy.’

  ‘But she was an idiot. Honestly, Mrs Clarke, I’m doing what I’m doing with my eyes wide open and I’m certain it’s absolutely worth it.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I know that, my dear. That’s always true.’

  As it was B’s bridge night I’d asked Jane to supper. I felt it was specially important to be nice to her now, as she’d taken over bearing the brunt, so I bought a bottle of good burgundy and some lamb chops. (One of the advantages of living with B was that as we almost always ate out I had his meat ration to play with as well as my own.) I also got a few bronze chrysanthemums, which filled the little room with their powdery reek, and cleared my papers and typewriter into the bedroom.

  Jane noticed at once. She stood inside the door, looking round and wrinkling her nostrils at the chrysanthemum smell.

  ‘It still feels like a hotel room,’ she said.

  ‘You are a beast. I’ve done my best.’

  She hadn’t taken any trouble. She looked the grubbiest kind of art student, totally graceless. There was a filthy bandage round the two middle fingers of her left hand.

  ‘What have you done to yourself?’ I asked.

  She looked down.

  ‘Burnt it with my blow-lamp,’ she said.

  ‘Have you shown a doctor?’

  ‘Course not. You’re worse than Mummy.’

  She flopped herself on to the sofa. She looked utterly haggard. I’d opened the bottle to let it breathe so I poured her a glass and gave it to her.

  ‘Haven’t you got any gin?’ she said.

  ‘Not up here. If you really want I’ll go down and get some.’

  ‘This’ll do.’

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘Bloody.’

  ‘Oh, darling, I’m sorry. It’s all my fault.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why isn’t she at Cheadle anyway? This time of year . . .’

  ‘I don’t know. Can’t be so bloody at a distance, I suppose.’

  ‘Look, I’ll come round and let her be bloody at me for a change. We’re supposed to be going to the ballet but I could tell B . . .’

  ‘Don’t bother. She’d only be sweet to you.’

  ‘Oh, God. What can I do?’

  ‘Nothing, short of coming home.’

  ‘Why don’t you come and live here? Really?’

  ‘Let’s talk about something else. How was the holiday?’

  I told her about the beaches and the night clubs and learning to water-ski and seeing Alan Ladd in a restaurant but she wasn’t really interested. She kept fiddling with the magazines on the table beside her chair, picking them up, glancing at a page and then tossing them down again. I ploughed on until she reached further over and took the manilla envelope with the photograph in it Mrs Clarke had given me. If Jane had been in a different mood I’d been going to ask her what she thought about tricking Mummy into signing it. The alternative would have been for Jane to forge her signature, which she could do easily. She pulled the picture out and stared.

  ‘God!’ she said. ‘The wicked stepmother and the pig princesses! If I wanted to show someone an example of what I utterly detest about the life I’ve lived so far, it would be this. What on earth have you got it here for?’

  I explained, playing it down. To my surprise Jane seemed to take to the idea with a sort of grim amusement.

  ‘Might infuriate her in a new direction for a few minutes,’ she said, stuffing the envelope into her canvas carrier. ‘Is there anything to eat?’

  She gobbled her supper without seeming to notice the trouble I’d taken. I could see from the way she held her fork that her hand must be really sore but she got angry when I tried to sympathise. Between mouthfuls she gabbled on about some internal feud at her art college, where one gang of teachers was still trying to insist on students learning to draw from the life and so on, while the other lot only wanted to help them follow their own creative impulses, which mustn’t be clogged up with learning outmoded techniques. She went through the current rumpus in detail, with all the names of these people I didn’t know from Adam, but I could sense that she wasn’t actually interested. It was just a way of stopping me asking about Mummy. After supper she jumped up and rushed off to the sink with the dirty plates.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ I said. ‘Can’t you be a bit restful?’

  ‘In this place? Sitting around like actors pretending we live here? Nobody lives here.’

  ‘You might at least wait till I’ve made the coffee. Hell! Coffee! Look, there’s some downstairs. I’ll just . . .’

  ‘Let’s go and have it down there. I might feel more real down there.’

  ‘Oh, well, I don’t . . .’

  ‘Honestly, Mabs! He isn’t Bluebeard! Is he?’

  ‘Of course not. But . . .’

  ‘I don’t want to hang on here. I think I’ll go home.’

  ‘Please, darling . . . Oh, I suppose it’ll be all right. Provided you let me bandage your hand.’

  ‘Have you got one?’

  ‘That’s the point. He’s never ill, but he’s a maniac about health. He’s a frightful coward. The slightest scratch and you have to rush for antiseptics and plasters.’

  ‘And if he comes home and catches us you can tell him . . . Oh, Mabs, he is Bluebeard!’

  She sounded much more cheerful now she’d got her way. When we got down she wandered round looking at everything while I made the coffee. I came back and found her holding a little ivory statue of a saint B had brought back from his last trip to Germany.

  ‘This is perfect,’ she said. ‘The Brancusi’s a dream, too, but this . . . He must have been in Italy.’

  ‘No. Hamburg, actually.’

  ‘Of course it’s German, you idiot. Rather early. But he must have been looking at Italian . . .’

  ‘Who must?’

  ‘The artist, for heaven’s sake. Are you blind? Look.’

  She poised the carving in her damaged hand and ran her right forefinger down the line of the arm to the hand, which held a sort of flail. The f
ace was an old man’s, contorted with pain. B I knew loved it, as Jane did, but I preferred not to look. In my mind’s ear I could hear the screams.

  ‘They probably beat him to death with that thing,’ I said.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. You know, I’m almost sure I’ve seen this in a book somewhere. Or its spit image . . .’

  ‘Your coffee’ll get cold.’

  ‘Oh, all right. I’ve found some terrific chocs.’

  ‘You haven’t!’

  ‘I’ve only eaten two so far, darling.’

  When we’d had our coffee I went off to B’s exercise-room and found a bandage, lint, and some antibiotic ointment he’d brought back from America. We settled side by side on the sofa so that I could get at Jane’s hand. Her whole mood seemed to have changed, becoming sleek and purring.

  ‘Does he love you, Mabs?’ she said.

  ‘I don’t know. He wouldn’t say. I’m fairly sure he likes me. I love him.’

  ‘Really? I mean it would be easy to persuade yourself, in the circs.’

  ‘Oh, I know. I’m having fun. And I like being told and shown. That was extra good wine I gave you, did you realise? I can tell now. Would you like some proper brandy?’

  ‘Don’t twist the knife, darling.’

  ‘Luxury is lovely.’

  ‘Is he really stupendously rich?’

  ‘Oh, no. It’s other people’s money mostly. I get the impression he’s had a pretty good year, but there’s never enough for what he wants to do. He gets very frustrated sometimes about not being able to move it around as fast as he wants. You know, exchange controls and things. He thought the Conservatives were going to sweep all that away when they got in.’

  ‘I thought that was only to stop you getting money out of England. You can be as rich as you like here. Some of these things must have set him back, Mabs. Brancusis aren’t cheap. And that little Pietà . . .’

  She pointed towards the dead grey face of Christ in the picture on the wall.

  ‘He gets them in Germany,’ I said. ‘There’s probably a lot of things just turning up still, and antique shops not knowing what they are.’

  ‘I bet I can find out what that ivory is. Ouch!’

  ‘Sorry. One more. There. Did you wash it before you put the bandage on?’

  ‘Course I did.’

  ‘It doesn’t look very nice, darling. I hope this stuff is all right. It says burns and cuts.’

  ‘Slap it on, Brown Owl. I wonder how you start getting rich.’

  ‘In our case you become a master dyer and snap up a monastery.’

  ‘But now? What about him?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. Mrs Clarke once dropped some warning hints, though.’

  ‘Sounds thrilling. Why don’t you ask him?’

  ‘Fatal.’

  ‘I think he really must be Bluebeard, darling.’

  ‘It was Sister Anne caused all the trouble, Sister Jane.’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘At least two of his exes are still alive.’

  ‘That’s a relief.’

  ‘But you’re right in a way. There is something dangerous about him. I realised that the first time I saw him, at Fenella’s party, you remember, when we had that stupid fratch about Penny’s dress. He’s sort of wild. Not tame. And there’s only one of him. Our rules don’t apply. I’d better wrap this a bit tight so that it stays tidy. If it starts to hurt badly you’ve got to promise to show it to a doctor.’

  ‘Promise. It’s a pretty civilised sort of wild, Mabs. Brancusis and things. Stamping through the forest in his jewelled collar.’

  ‘Spot on. That’s him. And he’s tame for me.’

  ‘Lucky you.’

  I wound the bandage slowly, partly to make sure of getting it neat and firm, but partly to prolong the process. The old magic of touching was having its effect, softening the scar where we had once been joined. In that mood it did seem possible, almost desirable, that Jane should move in, not upstairs but down here. B could take her to galleries, and to ballet which bored me almost as much. Nobody would know it wasn’t the same girl. And when we were alone, three who were almost two . . .

  I tied the knot and snipped the ends off but didn’t let go of her hand.

  ‘What shall we do now?’ I said. ‘Shall I wash your hair for you? You can’t do it with a bandage, and it’s high time by the look of it.’

  ‘Mummy’s trying to make me go back to having it frizzed.’

  ‘Don’t stand any nonsense.’

  She eased her hand out of mine and tucked herself into the far corner of the sofa.

  ‘You aren’t there now,’ she said.

  I had been, for more than twenty years, but there was no point in saying so.

  ‘Anyway, shan’t I wash it for you?’

  ‘No thanks. I don’t feel like it.’

  ‘All right. How’s the roof?’

  ‘Nothing happening. She’s sacked the architect again.’

  I asked B about the ivory statuette next evening.

  ‘South German,’ he said. ‘Early. A bit unusual. Got an Italian feel about it.’

  ‘Jane thought it was dreamy. I brought her down here to bandage her hand. She’d burnt it with a blow-lamp. I’m afraid she ate some of your chocs.’

  (He was bound to notice so it was sense to warn him.)

  ‘Tell her it’s only a copy,’ he said.

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘If I say so. What did you put on her hand?’

  I had to explain in detail. He seemed much more interested in that.

  IX

  He came in with a brown paper parcel under his arm and put it on the corner of his desk.

  ‘Something’s come up,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to go abroad.’

  ‘Oh. When?’

  ‘Tonight.’

  ‘Germany?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Barbados?’

  ‘That general direction.’

  ‘Can I . . .’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Is your mother all right?’

  ‘As far as I know.’

  ‘What about the theatre?’

  ‘You go. The tickets are in the telephone drawer. Take your sister.’

  ‘I’d rather be with you.’

  I’d been waiting for him in a new dress, flame-coloured silk, which I thought I looked specially good in. We were going to the first night of something called The Boy Friend.

  ‘How long will you be away?’

  ‘Can’t be sure. Few days. I’ve got a present for you.’

  He passed me the parcel. I’d assumed it was just another exercise gadget of the sort he was always experimenting with. I took it from him with a feeling of doubt. He’d sometimes brought me things like scent, and often chocolates so that he could eat them himself, but never anything unusual. The parcel was just a box in a brown paper bag, which rattled as I turned it over. I pulled the bag off and sat looking at a picture of a tapestry, a white unicorn sitting in a fenced enclosure, the dark green ground peppered with tiny flowers, a tree in the middle to which the unicorn was chained. ‘The Thousand-piece Jigsaw,’ it said.

  I put the box on the floor and stood up.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ I said.

  ‘Not too good.’

  ‘And you want to say goodbye.’

  ‘It may come to that.’

  ‘Can’t I come with you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘When’s your aeroplane?’

  ‘Half-past ten.’

  ‘I could come with you that far.’

  ‘You’d better go to this play. I hear it might transfer.’

  ‘I could sit quietly here in the corner and do your jigsaw.’

  ‘Please, Margaret.’

  He never said ‘please’. I couldn’t remember once.

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘Do you want me out of the way now?’

  ‘Let’s have a drink.’

  He gave himself a scotch twice his usual size. I put som
e gin in my vermouth and sat on the arm of his chair. I wanted to be close to him. Vaguely, I suppose, I was still hoping I might be able to coax him into letting me come too.

  ‘Do you remember,’ I said, ‘you told me you liked knowing there was one person in the world who trusted you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s still true.’

  ‘So is the reverse.’

  It took me a moment to work it out.

  ‘Of course you can,’ I said.

  ‘I meant more than that.’

  This time I didn’t understand at all, but when he was in one of his cryptic moods it just irritated him to be asked what he meant. I tried to relax. The drink wasn’t being any help. I could sense his tension, like that feeling you sometimes get when you know something is humming near by though you can’t actually hear it.

  ‘Is it very bad?’ I said.

  ‘Moderately. The odds aren’t as friendly as I’d like. It could very well turn out all right.’

  ‘I wish I could help.’

  He stroked the back of my hand where it lay on his forearm.

  ‘It’s been a pretty good year,’ he said.

  ‘Best in my life.’

  ‘I’m glad of that.’

  Obviously he didn’t want a big fuss. We finished our drinks in silence. I went and changed into another dress—I’d been wearing the new one for him, and as I hung it up it struck me that I might never wear it at all. He didn’t come and watch me changing or seem to notice the difference when I came back. I switched the telephone through and picked up the jigsaw.

  ‘You needn’t go yet,’ he said.

  ‘I thought it would be less of a nuisance if I did my telephoning upstairs,’ I said. ‘I’ve got to find someone to go to this play with.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Leave that thing here. I don’t want you starting it till I’ve gone. The idea is to keep you out of trouble while I’m away.’

  It was absolutely the wrong thing for him to be saying, common, ordinary, inept. I longed to hug him, to comfort him, to cradle his worries away.

  ‘All right,’ I said.

  I kissed his forehead and went upstairs.