Peter Dickinson - Death of a Unicorn

‘Brian Naylor, Tom Duggan, Margaret Millett,’ he said. ‘They’re on the literary side.’

Mr Naylor was a round-faced, stupid-looking man with short gingery hair and small gold-rimmed spectacles. On stage he used a monotonous flat voice with drawling vowels—Midland, somebody had told me. His main joke was to apply this oafish-seeming approach to touchy subjects. For instance he’d done a monologue about how he didn’t mind his Jewish dentist poking around among his molars but he was disgusted by the idea of letting him hack divots out of his favourite golf-course. Part of his technique was not to smile at all. It all seemed such an act that I was surprised to hear him speak now in exactly the same voice.

‘This is a typical press day, I suppose,’ he said.

Tom was looking greyish but answered in a normal voice.

‘It’s a party to celebrate the publication of Mabs’s book.’

‘So you’ve written a book, Margaret?’

‘Only a little one,’ I said. Wrong answer. Wrong tone. I felt totally bewildered.

‘A vade-mecum to the upper reaches of the class system,’ said Tom. ‘No social climber should be without it.’

‘Is there anything to drink?’ said Mr Naylor. ‘Scotch, for preference.’

‘Find Mr Naylor some scotch, Duggan, and introduce him to the rest of the staff,’ said B.

He turned to me.

‘Congratulations,’ he said.

‘Thank you. It’s going very well.’

He was actually about to move off when I stopped him. He was furious. Nobody else would have known, but I did. He thought I was going to say something about Brian Naylor.

‘Mummy’s here,’ I muttered. ‘She wants to meet you.’ His eyes opened very slightly.

‘I don’t know how,’ I said. ‘Something to do with my account at Harrods.’

He nodded. He still wasn’t pleased, but it was better than if I’d tried to use our affair to interfere with office matters.

‘Look after me,’ I whispered. ‘Please.’

‘Out here, then.’

She was near the door in Mrs Clarke’s room and had obviously been watching for me. As soon as I appeared she came forward. She had a horrid look of triumph.

‘Some woman has just asked me to sign a photograph, darling,’ she said.

‘Oh dear. I hope you were nice to her.’

‘I made it clear that I would do no such thing.’

‘A lot of your friends have. She’s got a whole collection.’

‘I am not a stamp. Are there any more of your interesting friends you’d like me to meet, darling?’

‘One more,’ I said.

I led her back between the swing doors.

‘Is that him?’ she whispered. ‘Oh, darling, how could you?’

‘Very easily, if you want to know.’

I introduced them formally and let them get on with it.

[1] About three years later, when that U and Non-U business got going in Encounter, people remembered my book and asked me where the word ‘ponsy’ came from. I used to tell them that it was really ‘poncy’ but Petronella had spelt it wrong, and if they then said it didn’t mean that I explained that my great-great-uncle applied the word to anything he disapproved of, being a man of limited vocabulary, and that we’d picked it up and used it without knowing what a ponce was. The bit about my great-great-uncle was true, but in fact we’d adapted the word to fit poor Miss Pons, who had come to us as a governess and fully lived up to her superb references, except for insisting that we used a vocabulary my mother had absolutely forbidden. Many people assume that ‘real’ aristocrats are not snobs. This is rubbish in my experience. The truth is that they guard their exclusiveness ruthlessly, but in obscure ways. Though Miss Pons was much the nicest governess we were ever likely to get, all four of us agreed that my mother had done right to dismiss her. I couldn’t explain about Miss Pons in 1956 (was it?) because she was probably still alive.

[2] I worked it out years later. It had been my fault for being too pig-headed about the nature of my relationship with B to give a false name for my accounts. My mother had one at Harrods but used it so seldom that I’d forgotten. Hers was in the name of Countess Millett, but she always referred to herself as Lady Millett and had done so when she’d ordered an emergency wedding present for someone; so the item had got on to my account, which B had settled without question. When my mother had telephoned to ask why she hadn’t had the bill the confusion had persisted long enough for somebody to try and clear things up by telling her who had signed the cheque.

I have just been down to wake her up and give her her pill. It was one of the mornings when she doesn’t know me, except that she took it. If anyone else had tried to give it her, other than Fiona, she would have spat it out. Even so only about half the water I give her to wash it down with goes in. It struck me while I was mopping up that in all our lives together there had been two special rituals which had bound us to each other—when I was young, the witch-ritual; now the pill-ritual. Coming back to finish my stint I re-read the paragraph to which this footnote is attached and felt it to be almost extraordinary, a measure of my then freedom, that I had been able to write it in the past tense.

VI

Tom had been right about the hangovers. It was worse because the next day, Friday, was press day and there were proofs to read. We hung around and waited for them to arrive from the printers. Brian Naylor seemed to have made a bad impression on everyone, even Bruce Fischer, whom I’d stupidly assumed to be rather the same kind of person because they came from the same sort of provincial lower-middle-class background. Then Ronnie found a review of Uncle Tosh in the Spectator and I took it away to my desk outside Mrs Clarke’s room to read and re-read. It was only six lines at the end of a much longer review of Stephen Potter’s One-Upmanship but I didn’t mind. The man said it had made him laugh. I thought it was such a silly little book (no I didn’t, but I assumed everyone else would) that it was terrific to have it reviewed at all.

When Mrs Clarke came through I jumped up and started to try and apologise for Mummy being foul to her about the photograph. She looked puzzled.

‘I am quite used to people being a little eccentric, my dear,’ she said. ‘It’s their privilege, I always say. I thought it was a very lively party. Isn’t it surprising what a mixture will go, sometimes? Did you meet this Mr Naylor?’

‘A bit of a skeleton at the feast, I thought.’

‘Oh, I do so agree.’

‘None of us are what you might call enthusiastic.’

‘Such a pity. I wonder if it mightn’t be possible for someone to explain to Mr Brierley what a mistake he’s making.’

‘Oh. It would be difficult. Once he’s made up his mind. I imagine.’

She didn’t seem to notice my stammerings.

‘Such a pity,’ she said. ‘Quite the wrong person.’

‘Perhaps he’ll learn.’

‘Let us hope so. But oh, my dear, I’m so pleased for you that your book has turned out so popular.’

‘Isn’t it lovely? Absolutely super, in fact. Would you like a signed copy?’

‘That would be very touching, if you can spare one.’

‘You can keep it in the loo to show people what you think of it.’

‘I shall keep it among my proudest possessions.’

Being an author was turning out an expensive affair. You get six free copies, and at least twenty people seem to expect you to give them one. So you keep having to buy your own book to give away. We smiled at each other through our hangovers and I felt I’d partly made up for Mummy’s beastliness about the photograph. Actually I doubt if Mrs Clarke had a hangover—she was far too experienced a party-goer—but she didn’t look well. She was wearing her powder like snowfall on the Pennines, deep drifts softening the ridges and wrinkles, but they were still much more obviously there than usual. If I hadn’t been so preoccupied with my own inner weather I might have realised that she’d had a bad night, or something, and so was less in control than usual. She half turned as if to go on to her room, but then faced me again.