Peter Dickinson - Death of a Unicorn

‘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.