Peter Dickinson - Death of a Unicorn

One was about forty, scruffily shaved, balding, stooped. Thick spectacles. Hairy tweeds. The other was a few years younger and very dapper. Pale brown suit and yellow waistcoat. Small hooky nose, cheeks flushed and pudgy, dark eyes. As they reached the top of the stairs he laid his hand on his friend’s arm to draw attention to me.

‘Good afternoon,’ he said.

I muttered back.

‘Are you here for a purpose, other than the enhancement of the scenery? A sufficient purpose in itself, mark you.’

He swayed, deliberately I thought, to show he was a bit tight and so to be excused.

‘I came for an interview,’ I said.

‘Shorthand and typing too!’

‘No shorthand. Two fingers. And I can spell “accommodation”.’

‘Do they know you’re here?’ said the other man. He gave the last word a funny hooting emphasis, as though the problem was that they thought I was somewhere else.

‘I’ve been sent to wait in the corridor while Nanny has an argument with the master,’ I said.

The younger man laughed vaguely. The other man moved aside so that he could peer through the open door of Mr Todd’s room. He frowned.

‘I’m Tom Duggan,’ said the younger man. ‘And Ronnie Smith here.’

‘I’m Margaret Millett.’

‘And your genius is about to burst upon the world through our poor pages?’

‘I came to see Mr Todd about giving me a job.’

‘Did you, indeed? Come and inspect the conditions of work, Miss Millett.’

He pushed at the door beside Mr Todd’s and held it for me. A large, cream-coloured room with a long-used look to all its furniture. Three roll-top desks, bookshelves along the side walls and a set of high, broad tables running the full length of the inner wall. Above the tables was a long baize-covered board with a row of pages pinned to it, some blank, some roughly scribbled on, and some with type and cartoons pasted to them.

‘Sit you down,’ said Mr Duggan, ‘and explain how Jack got hold of you. Can there be a crack beginning in the great monolith of his uxoriousness?’

The chairs were the same large, leather-covered sort as in Mr Todd’s office but even more worn and sat into shape. I couldn’t risk getting that low in my skirt so I perched on a creaking arm.

‘Somebody called Brierley arranged it,’ I said.

‘Oh, God!’ said Mr Smith.

He’d been fumbling with a packet of Craven A, apparently screwing himself up to offer me one. But now he swung away and retreated to a window where he lit his cigarette and stood staring at the building opposite.

‘Somebody called Brierley?’ said Mr Duggan. ‘There is an unlikely innocence to the phrase.’

He sounded much soberer.

‘It’s the thin end of the wedge,’ said Mr Smith, without turning round.

‘I don’t really know him,’ I said. ‘I met him at a dance.’

‘Oh, God!’ shouted Mr Smith. He glared at me and strode out.

‘I’m terribly sorry,’ I said.

Mr Duggan studied me.

‘Your friend Brierley bought the magazine last week,’ he said. ‘No doubt he has plans for it, but we have not been told. Naturally we are somewhat on edge. Your arrival upon such credentials appears a dubious omen.’

‘Don’t worry. The idea seems to have been for me to help with “The Social Round”. Only Mrs Darke, or is she Miss Darke . . .’

‘Mrs Dorothy Clarke. Yes?’

‘She doesn’t seem too keen. Mr Todd asked me to write a specimen paragraph and I did a silly little bit which he said was all right but when he showed it to her . . .’

‘Ronnie!’ shouted Mr Duggan. ‘Ronnie, come and listen!’

He smiled at me, less sober again, but friendlier.

‘A very English phenomenon,’ he said. ‘The radical ego and the conservative id. Long ago at some Bolshevik panchayet Ronnie saw an American delegate smearing treacle over his bacon and eggs. Get Ronnie on to some theme such as the capitalist conspiracy and the world-wide tentacles of the Wall Street octopus and you will hear him utter phrases winged with red lightning and impetuous rage. Ronnie! Come back! Just remember that he’s thinking of the treacle. He does not appreciate any change in the superficial order of things. He is naturally deeply suspicious of a new proprietor whose first act is to attempt to introduce on to the staff a pretty girl he met at a dance.’

‘I told you he needn’t worry. Mr Todd tried to fob me off on Mrs Clarke and Mrs Clarke is putting her foot down. It doesn’t look as if I’m going to pollute your lives either way.’

Mr Smith had come back while I was speaking and stood glowering inside the door. Neither of them seemed to notice the bitchiness of my tone. Mr Duggan explained what I’d said. Mr Smith blew out a contemptuous smoke cloud.

‘Of course Brierley has told Jack what he wanted,’ he said. ‘Jack wouldn’t take Dorothy on without his backing. She lost her majority on the board when Colonel Stackhouse’s executors sold out, but she’s still got thirty-eight per cent. No. Jack’s persuaded Brierley that the first thing is to do something about the Round. Interesting.’

He sounded thoroughly excited. His eyes glistened behind his thick lenses and his breathy hoot of emphasis—usually on improbable syllables—had become much more marked.

‘I only met him late last night,’ I said.

Mr Duggan laughed.

‘And were at once swept up into portentous events,’ he said. ‘The end of an era, to coin a phrase.’

‘Did Mrs Clarke own Night and Day?’ I said.

‘She had an effective veto,’ said Mr Smith. ‘The paper was founded in 1936 by a gang of literary adventurers with the idea of imitating The New Yorker and doing Punch down, but it ran on to the rocks after six months. There was a libel case and other difficulties. It was then rescued by one Cyrus Clarke, a paper manufacturer with some publishing interests, in particular a society magazine called The Social Round, which was edited by his wife. Neither paper prospered, and shortly before the war he amalgamated them.’

‘Most of the staff left in protest,’ said Mr Duggan. ‘That was when Jack Todd came in.’

‘The point is that on Clarke’s death Mrs Clarke inherited his shareholding, and with the backing of another major shareholder was able to insist on total independence. That chap died a few months ago. Next thing we hear, only last week, is that a totally unknown financier has acquired a majority shareholding. A. J. Brierley, Esquire.’

‘It makes it difficult to concentrate on the nuances of humour for next week’s issue,’ said Mr Duggan. ‘But if it means something’s going to be done about the Round . . .’

‘Is he really a mystery man?’ I said. ‘He sounds like one when you talk to him, but I’ve always assumed that people who talk like that are really utterly boring when you get to know them.’

‘He is a man of some mystery, but not total,’ said Mr Smith. ‘Naturally we have asked around. He appears to have been on the Control Commission in Germany. Two years ago he acquired a number of small companies specialising in the by-products of the sugar-refining industry, reorganised them into a group and sold them at a considerable profit. He is unmarried, but . . .’

He was interrupted by a bellow from along the corridor, only slightly muffled by the swing doors.

‘The laceration of laughter at what ceases to amuse,’ said Mr Duggan.

He waited for the sound of footsteps and then called, ‘In here, Jack, if you’re looking for Miss Millett.’

Mr Todd came shambling in, holding my paragraph at arm’s length in front of him, like a reprieve from the scaffold.

‘Get that set, Tom,’ he said. ‘Type as for Round, but a couple of ems less. I want it in a box, fancy rules, so readers learn to pick it out. Give it a lead in, make it clear it’s not by Cynthia Darke but is part of the Round. Right? And the girl’s got to have a name. Be with you in a second, Lady Margaret.’