Death of a Unicorn

He nodded and went on reading and/or listening. A big man with the look of a horse which guesses it’s on its way to the knackers. Bloodshot brown eyes, skin loose over coarse bones, like a sofa whose stuffing has come adrift, huge quivering hands, cigarette smouldering between yellow fingers. Office a clutter, roll-top desk, shabby leather armchairs, newspapers on floor, originals of cartoons on walls.

‘Fine,’ he said, interrupting the quack of the telephone. ‘Get it on paper and bung it in, old boy. No, on spec, I’m afraid. I’ve got a new proprietor and I haven’t broken him in yet. No, don’t talk about it any more or it will die on you. Got a meeting now, but let’s have lunch—where the hell’s my diary? Bugger. You’ll have to ring Miss Walsh and fix a date. It’ll be good to see you.’

He put the telephone down and shook his head.

‘Poor sod,’ he said. ‘Never be any use again.’

He picked up another telephone.

‘Nellie? Fellow called Gerald Astley will ring and say I told him to fix a lunch. Fend him . . . Did I? Oh God, how awful! All right, I’ll see it through this time. Somewhere not too pricey. Oh, he’ll ring all right. Geralds never get the message.’

He put the telephone down, looked me in the eye and brought out that ghastly laugh. Then he tilted his chair back and re-read what I’d written, dragging at his cigarette. I felt shy and nervous. Although I’d written it to show him what I thought of the job he seemed to be going to offer me, I felt it had come out really funny. I wanted him to like it, after all. Considering how he’d dealt with the man on the telephone he seemed to be taking a surprising amount of time. Perhaps, I realised, what he was really doing was thinking of a way of getting rid of me without offending Mr Brierley. Rather slowly he heaved himself to his feet and stood, still looking down at the paper.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Let’s see how far her ladyship’s jaw drops.’

He rushed past me with a shambling Groucho stride. I hobbled behind and found him out in the corridor holding a swing door open. There was more corridor beyond, but quite different. The change was almost as sudden as the one when you went through the little door in the corner of the Banqueting Hall at Cheadle and found yourself in Wheatstone’s pantry. Mr Todd’s side of the swing doors had a battered, clubby, male feeling. Here there was a receptionist’s desk, unoccupied except for a bowl of tulips. White telephone. Photograph of Queen Mary, signed. Lime-green carpet. My stupid skirt and high heels belonged this side, in a way they didn’t on the other. Mr Todd knocked at a door with a painted porcelain handle and fingerplate, put his head into the room, said something, then held the door for me.

The same, only more so. Smell of pot-pourri, pale pink walls, thick cream carpet, silk lampshades, little gilt chairs covered in ivory watered satin, painted escritoire—you couldn’t call it a desk, that would be rude—and commode. Signed photographs on every ledge and shelf. A woman rose from the escritoire and came forward to greet me. I had seen her hundreds of times, at dances and weddings and Henleys and Fourths of Junes and Ascots, but I’d never known who she was. Small and plump but ultra-stately, blue rinse, flat face heavily powdered.

‘Lady Margaret,’ she said, holding out her hand. ‘How well I remember your parents’ wedding. Such a happy occasion. How is your dear mother?’

‘Firing on all cylinders,’ I said. ‘I had a colossal row about coming here at all.’

I don’t know why I said that. It wasn’t true, because actually I hadn’t risked telling Mummy, though there really would have been a row if I had—I’ll explain about that in a moment. Anyway, the woman looked blank and glanced at Mr Todd in a manner that told me no one had asked her whether she needed a new assistant.

‘Something I want to show you,’ said Mr Todd and passed her my paragraph.

She took the eye-glasses that hung on a silk cord round her neck and held them to her face. Her eyebrows went up almost an inch. She only read a couple of lines before letting the glasses fall and staring at Mr Todd.

‘Oh, no,’ she murmured. ‘Quite impossible.’

‘Nice and lively, I thought,’ said Mr Todd.

She turned her stare on me, stony-blue.

‘If you wouldn’t mind, Lady Margaret.’

‘I did a grown-up version too.’

‘I like this,’ said Mr Todd. ‘It’s a fresh note.’

He didn’t sound at all sure of himself.

‘If you don’t mind, Lady Margaret,’ said the woman again.