Death of a Unicorn

‘I’d rather be with you.’

I’d been waiting for him in a new dress, flame-coloured silk, which I thought I looked specially good in. We were going to the first night of something called The Boy Friend.

‘How long will you be away?’

‘Can’t be sure. Few days. I’ve got a present for you.’

He passed me the parcel. I’d assumed it was just another exercise gadget of the sort he was always experimenting with. I took it from him with a feeling of doubt. He’d sometimes brought me things like scent, and often chocolates so that he could eat them himself, but never anything unusual. The parcel was just a box in a brown paper bag, which rattled as I turned it over. I pulled the bag off and sat looking at a picture of a tapestry, a white unicorn sitting in a fenced enclosure, the dark green ground peppered with tiny flowers, a tree in the middle to which the unicorn was chained. ‘The Thousand-piece Jigsaw,’ it said.

I put the box on the floor and stood up.

‘Is something wrong?’ I said.

‘Not too good.’

‘And you want to say goodbye.’

‘It may come to that.’

‘Can’t I come with you?’

‘No.’

‘When’s your aeroplane?’

‘Half-past ten.’

‘I could come with you that far.’

‘You’d better go to this play. I hear it might transfer.’

‘I could sit quietly here in the corner and do your jigsaw.’

‘Please, Margaret.’

He never said ‘please’. I couldn’t remember once.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘Do you want me out of the way now?’

‘Let’s have a drink.’

He gave himself a scotch twice his usual size. I put some gin in my vermouth and sat on the arm of his chair. I wanted to be close to him. Vaguely, I suppose, I was still hoping I might be able to coax him into letting me come too.

‘Do you remember,’ I said, ‘you told me you liked knowing there was one person in the world who trusted you?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s still true.’

‘So is the reverse.’

It took me a moment to work it out.

‘Of course you can,’ I said.

‘I meant more than that.’

This time I didn’t understand at all, but when he was in one of his cryptic moods it just irritated him to be asked what he meant. I tried to relax. The drink wasn’t being any help. I could sense his tension, like that feeling you sometimes get when you know something is humming near by though you can’t actually hear it.

‘Is it very bad?’ I said.

‘Moderately. The odds aren’t as friendly as I’d like. It could very well turn out all right.’

‘I wish I could help.’

He stroked the back of my hand where it lay on his forearm.

‘It’s been a pretty good year,’ he said.

‘Best in my life.’

‘I’m glad of that.’

Obviously he didn’t want a big fuss. We finished our drinks in silence. I went and changed into another dress—I’d been wearing the new one for him, and as I hung it up it struck me that I might never wear it at all. He didn’t come and watch me changing or seem to notice the difference when I came back. I switched the telephone through and picked up the jigsaw.

‘You needn’t go yet,’ he said.

‘I thought it would be less of a nuisance if I did my telephoning upstairs,’ I said. ‘I’ve got to find someone to go to this play with.’

‘Oh, yes. Leave that thing here. I don’t want you starting it till I’ve gone. The idea is to keep you out of trouble while I’m away.’

It was absolutely the wrong thing for him to be saying, common, ordinary, inept. I longed to hug him, to comfort him, to cradle his worries away.

‘All right,’ I said.

I kissed his forehead and went upstairs.

I didn’t actually try to find anyone to go to the theatre with. The last thing I felt like was watching a new musical, but I went because I’d told him I would. My taxi had one of those journeys you sometimes get, slishing through the April drizzle with all the lights green and magical gaps opening in the traffic to let you through, so I reached the theatre far too early. It was the Players, friendly and shabby. B preferred that sort of event to big Shaftesbury Avenue first nights. He liked to feel he might be in at the start of something interesting. At least it meant I didn’t feel quite so conspicuous unescorted and with an empty seat beside me.

I was pretending to read the programme and wondering whether I would see him again when the rest of my row filled up with a dozen people arriving together. A large man settled beside me.

‘Hello, Mabs,’ he said. ‘Alone?’

It was Mark Babington.

He sounded cheerful, relaxed, friendly. He told me that he’d put one per cent of the backing into the play and had brought some friends along to see that it got off to a good start. Afterwards he insisted on my joining the celebration party.

——