Peter Dickinson - Death of a Unicorn

‘June suns, you cannot store them to warm December’s cold,’ he said. ‘But Cyril Ray tells me that with this device you can.’

‘What’s happened to Tom?’ I said, following a natural train of thought from the quotation. ‘He wasn’t on the mast-head last time I saw a copy.’

Ronnie put the bottle on the table and answered in jerks as he unwired it. I could see that he was already used to doing such tasks by feel rather than eyesight.

‘Not very good. Stuck Naylor for twenty years. Does the odd piece still. Bit of book-reviewing here and there. Lives with a sister in Kent. Goes around wearing an old tweed coat and skirt of hers. A peculiarly dislikable woman. Shouts at him as if he were deaf. But she sees he doesn’t starve.’

‘How dreadful. And Naylor is still editor. Who could have believed it, that evening we first met him?’

Ronnie grunted, working his thumbs round the cork to ease it up. I knew it wouldn’t do to offer to help. The pop came at last. I held my glass for him as he poured with a quivering hand. He took only a mouthful for himself, then clipped his gadget on to the bottle to seal the pressure in.

‘Cyril tells me it will keep a fortnight in the refrigerator,’ he said. ‘You can have a glass whenever the necessity strikes you.’

It was Krug, and somehow he had managed to keep it cold on the journey. I was absurdly moved that he should have understood that it would have such meaning for me.

‘Sealed in blood,’ I said as I lowered my glass.

‘You will have to explain.’

‘I nearly put you off at least three times. I’m not sure what it’s going to do to me, bringing up those old days. But I couldn’t. So much of me was longing to see you.’

‘My dear Mabs . . .’

‘I’m a bit hysterical this morning. I got a letter from my husband saying he wanted a divorce.’

‘Did you now?’

He managed to make his voice condole, but the near-blind eyes were still able to gleam.

‘No nice scandal, I’m afraid,’ I said. ‘He’s just found a pleasanter woman to live with. I’ve known it was coming for ages. But that’s not all, Ronnie. I’ve had a piece of terrific financial news.’

‘Enough to cure heartache, by the sound of it.’

‘Almost. You won’t have read a book of mine called The Gamekeeper’s Daughter.’

‘I don’t think so. But I assure you I have read some of the others. You must give a lot of people pleasure, Mabs.’

‘A tactful way to put it.’

‘Not intended as such. I count myself among them. But that one, I take it, came just after the Chatterley trial.’

‘Palest of pale blue by today’s standards. It’s being made into a film.’

‘Congratulations. But I was under the impression you’d had several.’

‘Five. This one is going to be a big one. Top stars and so on. But that isn’t the point. I’ve been fighting for years to get some of the running expenses of Cheadle allowed against my income from writing for tax purposes. The tax people have always said they were two separate businesses, but I maintain that they aren’t. They depend on each other. I integrate them as much as possible. I keep Cheadle exactly in the period I write about. Visitors who come to see it see a great Edwardian house being got ready for a big house party, and so on, but the tax people have always said I can only claim the proportion I actually use for writing, which is a couple of rooms. They think they’re being generous allowing me two per cent. My own accountants have been perfectly infuriating too. They keep saying I’ll never get away with it.’

‘I can imagine. Where does the film come in?’

‘I put a clause in the contract that it had to be shot here. I did it for the publicity, mainly, but just on the off chance I forced my accountants to argue with the tax people that it showed the two businesses weren’t separate, and believe it or not they’ve given in at last. Just like men. It wasn’t a real argument, but they’d got tired of fighting me and they only wanted an excuse for saying yes without losing face.’

‘Well done. A lesson to us all.’

‘But that’s not the best of it. I’m going to be able to claim back tax for years and years. I’ve got a huge bonanza coming. When I took over here, you see, it was absolute touch and go. If it hadn’t been for my turning out best sellers Cheadle would have gone bankrupt. I made a lot of money those days, even after tax, and the house hadn’t really begun to bring the visitors in. It still runs at a loss, of course, and these have been bad times for writers . . .’

‘Don’t I know it! I hadn’t thought of you, Mabs, as the Walter Scott of our era.’

‘Oh, but I am. “This good right hand shall do it.” And all before breakfast, too, like him. Do you know, Ronnie, it looks as though I shall be able to take a whole year off and not turn out a single word!’

‘Dangerous.’

‘But exciting. Let’s eat. I’ve got somebody coming at 2.15 but I propose to keep him hanging around for a bit.’

Pellegrini is an inconceivable nuisance in many ways, a quarreller, liar and cheat with no apparent sense of shame. It is as though all his capacity for honour has been absorbed by his cooking. He would not dream of producing even the simplest snack for some unimportant visitor without making it look and taste and smell as good as it was possible with those ingredients. My mother notices at once and complains when her meals have been prepared by someone else. I couldn’t remember Ronnie’s attitude to food. Most of my meals with him and Tom had consisted of burgundy or champagne, with a few dry and savourless sandwiches. As I put the food on to his plate it struck me that I had been babbling away about my private concerns to a man whom I really hardly knew at all. Even in the old days I had seen only one aspect of his complex existence. Tom and I had talked, and he had responded, as though his membership of the Communist Party had been an aberration of youth, retained as little more than a convenient stance from which to view the British political scene as an outsider. I only learnt from his later television appearances that his involvement at the very time I knew him had been a good deal stronger and more intricate. I had also gathered that he had been married but was separated from his wife and living with someone else. I had never met her. He had once, I remembered, asked my advice about a birthday present for his daughter, then around seventeen.

The sense of ancient intimacy renewed was an illusion. The intimacy had never been there. What had been there was a girl who was prepared to take the world on trust, and she no longer existed.

Ronnie ate with slow relish. It was I who had to suggest that we had better start talking about the purpose of the visit. He sighed. I could sense a mental squaring of shoulders.

‘I have to tell you that I am here, not exactly on false pretences,’ he said, ‘but at least on a somewhat different basis from that which seemed to be the case when I telephoned you.’

‘Yes?’

‘I have learned in the interim that you were, shall we say, somewhat better acquainted with Amos Brierley than I, at least, at the time realised.’

‘I see.’

‘What is your attitude to this? I should point out that I need not have told you that I knew.’

‘In that case I will point out that you could quite well have told me beforehand that you were going to want to talk about this.’

‘I could have. I thought you might refuse to see me.’

‘I certainly should have.’

‘Well?’

‘Oh dear . . . Just tell me one thing before I answer. When did you decide to bring the champagne? Before or after you learnt about me and Mr B, I mean?’