Death of a Unicorn

I was nine again, reading Mumfie under the bed in King William’s Room when I was supposed to be helping Samson weed the Bowling Green path. Sick-mess in my throat and all my skin a layer of chilly rubber. I discovered that beneath my recent happiness and exultation—part of it, adding to its excitement—had been the certainty that this was going to happen. Of course I’d sometimes wondered what I’d do or say if she found out, but that’s not what I mean. The rhythms of my life decreed that she had got to find out. In dreams of escape you glance back along your secret path and see that at the entrance you have left your pullover, caught on a blackthorn, a huge and obvious clue for the lion-faced people to find. You left it there on purpose, though you didn’t know, because that is the logic of the dream.

I refused to meet her look. She still had her arm half round me, resting on my shoulder. Straight in front of me was Mrs Clarke, talking to a tall thin stooping man I didn’t recognise. Ronnie came up to them with a fresh-mixed jug of Petronella.

‘I do think I’d better talk to him, don’t you?’ said Mummy.

I put my hand up and lifted hers off my shoulder. She didn’t resist, but let it fall.

‘He isn’t here yet, as far as I know,’ I said. ‘I don’t know if he’s coming.’

‘But when he does?’

‘If he does.’

‘Don’t forget, Mabs.’

No punishment. None at all.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘Come and meet this new cousin I’ve found.’

I introduced her to Ronnie and Mrs Clarke, and the three of them hived off leaving me with the tall stooping man. He turned out to be the head of the firm which was nominally publishing Uncle Tosh, though we’d done all the real editing and so on in the office. I’d only met a couple of his underlings—Uncle Tosh must have seemed very small beer to a man used to publishing two-volume biographies of Rilke. He was an edger-up, but in a different dimension from Bruce Fischer. He used his height to crane over you and then came smiling down, like a rook eyeing turf for leather-jackets. Luckily my frock had a high collar. He told me that now the subscriptions were in he’d decided on a reprint. When something good happens in publishing, it is always the doing of whoever tells you about it; something bad is always the fault of the system, incurable. I tried to look starry-eyed with gratification. Mercifully one of the mangy lions came maundering up, with suggestions for an autobiography. Any other time I would have hung around to see how the publisher fought him off, but I edged away.

Jane wasn’t even polite to the man she’d been pretending to talk to. She swung round and grabbed my wrist.

‘What was that fratch for?’ she said. ‘I was having fun.’

‘Sorry. You couldn’t have known. I tried not to.’

‘They didn’t know anything. I could have got away with . . .’

‘Careful, darling. It’s coming back.’

‘Oh, all right. You might have warned me when I rang up about the frock.’

‘Didn’t think of it. There’s such a lot of my own life . . .’

‘Who’s Mummy talking to?’

The man with the jug is Ronnie Smith. He’s a sort of fourth cousin. A Communist. Works here. I like him.’

‘Mummy doesn’t. She’s in a filthy mood about something, Mabs.’

‘She’s found out about me and B.’

‘She hasn’t! How?’

‘No idea.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Nothing. I suppose she might try and have me declared insane, or something, or break the Trust in your favour, but I don’t think she’d get away with it.’

‘Anyway it’s you she wants, Mabs. You’ve always been the one. Is he here?’

‘Haven’t seen him. He may not come. He wasn’t sure. She says she wants to talk to him.’

‘What on earth about? Oh, if it were anyone else, Mabs, wouldn’t it be bliss to eavesdrop?’

‘She’ll tell him to give me back and he’ll say no. I don’t think she’s met anyone like him before. Listen, darling, suppose she reacts by making life hell for you . . .’

‘Why should she?’

‘She’ll have to take it out on someone. Anyway, you could come and live at my flat if you wanted. I’d have to ask B, of course.’

‘I don’t think . . .’

Close by my shoulder I was aware of one of those minor jostlings you get when somebody tries to head for another part of a crowded room. It was my publisher, escaping the autobiographical lion. Jane and I had been standing at an angle so that we could mutter into each other’s ears, isolated by clamour. This stirring forced us to turn and I found myself face to face with Mrs Clarke, apparently waiting to come through between us. I’d last seen her in quite the other direction, talking to Mummy and Ronnie. She had a photograph in her hand.

‘Oh, Lady Margaret,’ she said. ‘Do you think your dear mother would be kind enough to sign a picture for my collection? I’ve been looking through the file for a good one.’

She spoke perfectly naturally, as if she hadn’t overheard a thing. She’d had a lot of practice, of course, but I didn’t think she could have. Mummy was sure to say something unspeakable to her about the photograph. I tried to head her off.