Death of a Unicorn

VIII

Sergeant Sawyer was scowling in his booth as usual, the lift juddered up in the same old way, and there was the regular pile of Monday manuscripts waiting to be read on my desk. Rather than face them I went off to the middle room to say hello. When Tom looked up to ask if I’d had a good holiday he sounded perfectly normal—only slightly guarded when I asked how things were going. We arranged to have luncheon at El Vino’s and I assumed he would tell me then.

The first real sign that I got that things were different was from Nellie. I’d skimmed through a dozen manuscripts, even direr than usual because writers who’d stopped trying, convinced that Jack Todd had a personal vendetta against them, were having another go—many of them actually said so in their covering letters. Depression had already set in when Nellie came through the swing doors.

‘The Editor would like to see you, Mabs,’ she said.

She spoke as though she hardly knew me. She didn’t ask about my holiday. She sounded as though she was struggling through a miserable dream.

‘Oh, Nellie, I’m sorry,’ I said.

‘I dare say we shall get used to things.’

I had to give the door a shove to force it over the pile of the new carpet. Elephant grey, I saw. And yes, white walls, Swedish chairs, stainless steel floor-lamps; linen curtains. No Buffets on the walls, though, but cartoons, new ones, including several blondes-in-bed-with-rich-old-men. Mr Naylor was sitting behind a huge, flat-topped, fake-antique partner’s desk, reading next Thursday’s magazine.

‘Sit down,’ he said and went on reading. He kept me waiting five minutes, at least. Some pages he merely glanced at, others he read for a while before turning on with an impatient flick I wondered if he’d asked me in to say he had no more use for me. He put the paper down as if he’d found what he was looking for and stared at me through his beady little spectacles.

‘I’m told you come from a posh kind of home,’ he said.

‘I suppose . . . well, yes.’

‘What do you make of this?’

He smacked the magazine with the back of his hand. I had to stand to see where he’d got it open. The Round, of course.

‘It’s surprising how many people read it,’ I said.

‘Your kind of people?’

‘And ones who like to think they are. I used to, when I could. You’re a bit ashamed, but it’s sort of addictive.’

‘You didn’t find it totally balls-aching?’

‘I’m not actually equipped . . .’

He slammed the desk with his palm to stop me.

‘Having ink slung at me I can take,’ he said. ‘Being picked up on the way I talk I can’t.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean . . .’

‘This is my magazine. It has to be the way I want it. I’ve got to be able to tell my staff what I want in my own language, uncensored, right? If I start trying to mince along like you and Duggan I’ll end up running a magazine full of masturbating little articles about getting the lawn-mower to start.’

‘Yes, I see.’

‘I’m glad you see, Margaret.’

That was the first time he’d used his flat stage voice. Till then he’d had a neutral sort of accent, with only a slight nasal whine in it, and had sounded lively in a rather aggressive way. He’d really let me see he was angry, when he was. I assumed that this was the real Brian Naylor and the stage voice and personality were a defensive system. His behaviour with Jane hadn’t suggested that he really expected women to be attracted to him. And that business with the ink—he’d seemed quite likeable then, playing the butt and fall-guy.

‘That’s what I used to think about the paper before I came,’ I said.

‘And then you were converted? On your way to Damascus-on-Thames?’

‘Only partly. When we get it wrong it can be dreary. And sometimes it’s clever without being interesting.’

‘All right. What would you do with this?’

He smacked his hand on the Round again.

‘Have we got to keep it?’

‘I have got to keep it. You look at the advertising pages sometimes, Margaret?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then you will have noticed that forty per cent of our income derives from selling various forms of kitsch, and snob-appeal tobacco and perfume and corsets and shoes to a pathetic bunch of social climbers. Until I can build up a less repulsive class of advertiser I have to stick with this shit. So?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I’ve thought about it, of courser I used to think you could just do what Mrs Clarke does but write it rather better, but you couldn’t. It’s really only lists of names, with a few adjectives. You could think up new adjectives, but they’d get dreary too after a few weeks. You couldn’t do what I’ve done with Petronella because that depends on the existence of this. The only other possibility I can see is to turn it into the other sort of gossip-column, lots of names still, but bitchy stories about them. That would be quite expensive. You’d need extra staff, and money to pay your informants. People don’t give dirt away when they can sell it. Remember, even doing it the way she does, Mrs Clarke has spent years building up her filing system. Honestly, I don’t see a solution.’

‘You’re going to have to see a solution, because you’re taking it over.’

‘Oh.’

‘Oh, Margaret ?’

‘I mean no thank you, I suppose. I’d rather not, please.’

‘Why?’

‘I’d hate to do it the way it is. The reason why people do read it is that somehow they feel Mrs Clarke loves it, and that comes through in spite of everything. Besides, I want to do other things. And on top of that Dorothy—Mrs Clarke—has been terribly nice to me. She hates what I write, but she couldn’t have been kinder.’

Mr Naylor sighed, tilted his chair back and gazed at the ceiling.

‘Are you there, God?’ he said. ‘Dear God, sweet God in heaven, couldn’t you have sent me one teeny little professional to work with, instead of a load of whining amateurs? It’s not asking much, God, is it?’

He hung balanced, listening for an answer, before letting the swing of the chair flip him forwards to stare at me through his silly little spectacles.

‘If you can’t do what I want, girlie, you’re no use to me,’ he said.

‘Don’t be stupid.’

‘So I’m stupid.’

‘If I tried to do what you want it would come out boring because I’d be bored with it. There are other reasons, but that’s what matters. I dare say there are things I don’t know I can do, but . . .’

‘How old are you, Margaret?’

‘Twenty-one, but . . .’

‘Just twenty-one, and so clever!’

‘Do you want me to resign?’

‘Oh, crap! This is just conversation. What you’re going to do now is sit down and get some ideas together about what to do with the Round. Give your manuscripts to Nellie and tell her to put rejection slips on the lot of them. Oh, and don’t waste time trying to tell me how la Clarke could jazz up what she’s doing. She’s out. Finished. Got that?’

He snatched up the magazine and started to read another page. I left and went into the middle room. Ronnie was in, sorting through the review books. Tom looked up with raised eyebrows, somehow aware that I had news.

‘I’ve just offered to resign,’ I said.

I got it wrong. It was meant to come out dry and whimsical, but a shake crept in.

‘Soon we’ll be able to start a rival rag,’ said Ronnie. ‘You, Dorothy, me. All we need is a backer. Coming, Tom?’

‘Ronnie, you’re not . . .’ I said.

‘No option. You know, there is a certain stimulus about getting the sack. New opportunities shimmer. Mirages, no doubt, but it gives one the illusion of being young and starting out afresh.’

‘But why on earth?’

‘Political incompatibility. I am a red under the bed.’

‘But we’re not a political magazine!’

‘My dear Mabs, Knitwear Weekly is a political magazine. And Mr Naylor appears to be something of a Cold Warrior. I should be very interested to know whether any of Mr Amos Brierley’s funds come originally from Washington.’

‘What an extraordinary idea! You mean the American secret service, whatever it’s called, paying for Bruce to draw this week’s blonde-in-bed?’

‘With Ronnie under it,’ said Tom. ‘You haven’t made it clear, Mabs, whether you are actually staying?’

‘Are you?’

‘I appear indeed to be chained to this rock.’

‘So do I, I suppose.’

‘You Andromeda, me Prometheus.’

‘I don’t think they were chained to the same rock.’

‘Not as normally depicted. An opportunity missed, in my opinion. Andromeda, of course, was only required to expose her outer surface, with a wisp of gauze by way of parsley, whereas Prometheus displayed his inward parts, as if for haruspication. It gives a new meaning to the phrase “according to my lights”.’

He was juggling with language as usual, but only from habit. He sounded desperately gloomy, whereas Ronnie, by contrast, had seemed decidedly cheerful. I would have liked to ask Ronnie more about his theory that B might be getting funds from the American government, but I always felt I had to be very careful about even mentioning B in the office in case I let something slip. It was funny that Mrs Clarke had said something a bit along the same lines, as though it was a mystery in the City where B’s original money had come from. I wasn’t looking forward to meeting her, though really I knew there was nothing to be afraid of.

In fact when I got back to my desk I found a note on it in Mrs Clarke’s purple ink, asking me to come to her room. I found her standing at her commode with the top drawer open, walking her fingers along a row of filing-cards. She picked one out before turning to me and smiling as if nothing had changed.

‘I hope you had a pleasant holiday,’ she said.

‘Beautiful, thanks.’

‘I always enjoy Barbados, but I do not think I would choose to begin there.’

I hadn’t told anyone I was going to Barbados. I’d let people think it was Bermuda.

‘I was expecting something a bit junglier,’ I said.

‘I find the social life there a little peculiar. They have their own ideas about things.’

This was certainly true of Mrs Halper, though perhaps not in the way Mrs Clarke meant. I made an agreeing sort of mumble.

‘I think I shall spend more time in the islands now,’ she said. ‘Have you been told that I am leaving the magazine?’

‘Yes. I’m terribly sorry, Mrs Clarke . . .’

‘My dear, I wish I could say that I do not blame you at all.’

‘Honestly, I think everything would have happened exactly the way it has if I’d never set foot in this place.’

‘In my opinion you have allowed yourself to become an instrument in the hands of a wicked and odious man.’

‘I don’t think he’s odious right through,’ I began. Then I realised she wasn’t talking about Mr Naylor. She glanced down at the card she was holding. It was covered in her curious code of symbols on both sides. It had come from near the left-hand side of the top drawer of the commode, roughly where the ‘B’s must be.

‘A man who is prepared to betray his country and to defraud his own mother . . .’ she said.

‘Please, Mrs Clarke,’ I interrupted. ‘I think you’re wrong. I met . . . but that isn’t the point. I just can’t talk to you or to anyone here about it. It’s a completely separate part of my life. I promise you I never talk to him about anything that happens in here. Never. So I’m afraid that if that’s why you asked me to come and see you I shall have to go away.’

I was just managing not to shout. Mrs Clarke looked at me for a moment, turned and put the card away.

‘I must tell you that I believe you to be very sadly deceived,’ she said, ‘and that you will live to regret it. But I will respect what you say. No, I wanted to talk to you about the future of the Social Round. I understand that you are to take it over from now on.’

‘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 face 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.