Peter Dickinson - Death of a Unicorn

‘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.’