Death of a Unicorn

Jane saw what had happened. Her eyes stretched. Her nostrils widened into piggy pits. Sharp red blotches appeared on her cheeks. I knew that I must be wearing exactly the same hideous mask, but I couldn’t do anything about it. The men stared.

‘What the hell do you think you’re up to?’ I snapped.

Jane produced a grimace that was meant to be a smile.

‘I’m afraid Jane can be pretty stupid,’ she said to the man with the notebook.

The man looked embarrassed, but eager and inquisitive too. His ratty little eyes flicked from face to face. I started to screech. I don’t know what I said.

When something like that happens in the middle of a noisy crush there’s a funny effect of silence spreading away from the centre where the rumpus is, as more and more people realise that something’s up. This had just begun to happen. I was fighting to get back into sanity, but all I could see was Jane’s face, working like a spell, turning me against my will into a screeching pig. I was just about to ruin my own party. Jane’s face was framed against the back of a man with a large, pink, bald dome and yellow-grey hair trailing down over sticky-out red ears—one of Jack Todd’s mangy lions. He became aware of the pool of silence spreading over him and turned to see what the fuss was, but somebody shoved him aside and barged through. It was Mummy.

The screech stuck. She came forward wearing the smile she uses when there are guests and everyone has just heard a pile of plates go down outside the pantry.

‘There you are, darling,’ she said. ‘What an interesting lot of people. Please introduce me to your friends.’

‘You’ll have to ask Jane,’ I said.

Jane looked in the other direction. The pig-mask was melting away.

‘Your daughters are fantastically alike, Lady Er,’ said the man with the notebook. ‘Can anyone tell them apart?’

‘So people say,’ she said. ‘I think they’re quite different. This is darling clever Mabs, and this is darling clever Janey.’

She put her arms round us and drew us close, uniting us in love on the maternal b.

‘I wonder if you could tell me, Lady Er, if your family always talk about, what was it, traddling?’

‘Traddling?’

‘And a brace of potato?’

Mummy laughed.

‘Oh, dear no. That was only old Major Ackers. He was a bit . . .’

The man twitched his notebook up.

‘A bit what?’ he said.

Mummy stared at him.

‘Aposiopesis,’ I said.

‘Oh, Ar, Eff,’ said Jane at the same moment.

‘You mustn’t tease the poor man,’ said Mummy.

I thought journalists were supposed to have thick skins. With real satisfaction I watched the sweatbeads glisten on his cheek. The unity of Family is extraordinary. My fury with Jane was still grinding away inside me and I was tense with Mummy’s touch, but for the moment the three of us were like some tribe who have caught an intruder on their sacred ground and are now dancing round him while he roasts alive. This was my ground, my party, my triumphant celebration of freedom from the thraldom of Cheadle; but suddenly here we were, the three of us, as if we’d been putting on our hats for church outside the Morning Room and agreeing without saying so that we were going to have to keep at arm’s length that pushy new family who’d just moved into the Old Rectory.

The man put his notebook away. He was going to vote Labour for life, I could see, and what’s more he was going to write the cattiest story about me that he could get past his Features Editor. (I was wrong. It turned out an absolutely grovelling piece, as if he’d really loved what we’d done to him.)

Mummy let go of Jane but not me and by swinging a few inches round managed to split us off completely from the others.

‘I hope you’ll introduce me to your friend, darling,’ she said.

‘Tom? He’s in the other room.’

‘The one who settles your account at Harrods.’

She smiled at me, the-witch-who-will-find-you-in-the-end. Ever since I could remember she’d been able to do this. The trick had two parts. The first was finding your secret, and the second was choosing the moment to tell you. There was a tone and look for it, a sad little voice, a sad little smile, eyes bright as glass beads. No anger, only contemptuous pity that you should think you could hide from her, ever, anywhere. Of course she never told you how she found out.[2] The punishment was usually fair and came with a great swoop of relief.