Peter Dickinson - Death of a Unicorn

‘Policemen eat out of my hand.’

This was part of the game. B enjoyed fending off imaginary attacks on his power-bases, though he was incapable of producing the mildest leap of fantasy in response to my flights. We might have gone on for some time if a car hadn’t drawn up behind us and blared its hooter. B drove forward, found a turning-place and reversed into it. As the other car came by I saw that the driver was the boring property developer, Henry van Something, with whom I’d had to put up all through an endless dinner party a couple of evenings before. He waved to us and drove on.

‘Are you selling it to him?’ I said. ‘I couldn’t stand that.’

‘There’s a syndicate. It’s quite a big deal.’

‘Worse still.’

I woke in the middle of the night and knew without reaching out to feel that B wasn’t there. Normally he willed himself asleep in two minutes and slept all night, turning once as if he was a chop being fried. I lay for a while, listening to the distant whisper of the sea, then got up and went out on to the balcony. He was leaning on the rail in his pyjamas, staring out towards America. There was no moon, but lots of stars above and fireflies in the garden. Apart from them sea and land were pitch black and it was nothing like as warm as you’d expect a tropic night to be. I slid my arm up under his pyjama top and ran my fingers over the knotty muscles below his shoulder-blades. He seemed not to notice.

‘What’s the matter?’ I said. ‘Just money?’

‘No. There’s enough of that. Or there would be. It’s in the wrong place.’

‘Can’t you move it?’

‘I thought I could. Been setting it up for years. But now . . .’

‘Because of Mummy?’

‘Partly.’

‘Can’t you just buy her off?’

‘Why should I?’

‘I had an idea. It came to me in my sleep. Would you mind if I bought her off?’

‘A hundred and twenty thousand pounds?’

‘But would you let me?’

‘Up to you. But I’m not going to lend you the money.’

‘I know. But I could sell my sapphires.’

He grunted.

‘They’re insured for two hundred and fifty thousand,’ I said. ‘I know you don’t get as much as that, and just as sapphires they aren’t worth it. It’s Mary’s stone makes the difference. But I thought if you helped me find someone to buy them we might get enough. We could make it a condition they didn’t tell anyone for a couple of years. I can go on wearing the replica if I have to. Would it help? Would it make any difference?’

He was silent so long I thought he’d stopped listening.

‘You’re certain they’re yours to sell?’ he said.

‘Daddy left them to me outright. They’re not entailed or part of the Trust or anything.’

‘Odd.’

‘I’ve always thought he wanted me to feel I had something of my own which I could do what I liked with. I wasn’t a complete slave to the house.’

‘I suppose it’s a possibility. I told you it was only part of the deal your mother proposed?’

‘You don’t have to explain. Jane told me. That’s nonsense. We may look alike but we’re not swaps. Jane thinks so too.’

‘So do I.’

He said it without thinking, a casual comment on a side-issue to the main business, but it was a fantastic relief to hear. I put my head on his shoulder and leaned against him. Both our bodies were chilly with the night air, but as the warmth came back between us I persuaded myself I could feel him beginning to relax.

‘It might be a possibility,’ he said at last. I’ll have to sort it out. Would your mother stay bought?’

‘Oh, I think so. Provided she didn’t find out where the money really came from. She isn’t a complete crook.’

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?’