Death of a Unicorn

In fact when I got back to my desk I found a note on it in Mrs Clarke’s purple ink, asking me to come to her room. I found her standing at her commode with the top drawer open, walking her fingers along a row of filing-cards. She picked one out before turning to me and smiling as if nothing had changed.

‘I hope you had a pleasant holiday,’ she said.

‘Beautiful, thanks.’

‘I always enjoy Barbados, but I do not think I would choose to begin there.’

I hadn’t told anyone I was going to Barbados. I’d let people think it was Bermuda.

‘I was expecting something a bit junglier,’ I said.

‘I find the social life there a little peculiar. They have their own ideas about things.’

This was certainly true of Mrs Halper, though perhaps not in the way Mrs Clarke meant. I made an agreeing sort of mumble.

‘I think I shall spend more time in the islands now,’ she said. ‘Have you been told that I am leaving the magazine?’

‘Yes. I’m terribly sorry, Mrs Clarke . . .’

‘My dear, I wish I could say that I do not blame you at all.’

‘Honestly, I think everything would have happened exactly the way it has if I’d never set foot in this place.’

‘In my opinion you have allowed yourself to become an instrument in the hands of a wicked and odious man.’

‘I don’t think he’s odious right through,’ I began. Then I realised she wasn’t talking about Mr Naylor. She glanced down at the card she was holding. It was covered in her curious code of symbols on both sides. It had come from near the left-hand side of the top drawer of the commode, roughly where the ‘B’s must be.

‘A man who is prepared to betray his country and to defraud his own mother . . .’ she said.

‘Please, Mrs Clarke,’ I interrupted. ‘I think you’re wrong. I met . . .  but that isn’t the point. I just can’t talk to you or to anyone here about it. It’s a completely separate part of my life. I promise you I never talk to him about anything that happens in here. Never. So I’m afraid that if that’s why you asked me to come and see you I shall have to go away.’

I was just managing not to shout. Mrs Clarke looked at me for a moment, turned and put the card away.

‘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.