Death of a Unicorn

He said it without thinking, a casual comment on a side-issue to the main business, but it was a fantastic relief to hear. I put my head on his shoulder and leaned against him. Both our bodies were chilly with the night air, but as the warmth came back between us I persuaded myself I could feel him beginning to relax.

‘It might be a possibility,’ he said at last. I’ll have to sort it out. Would your mother stay bought?’

‘Oh, I think so. Provided she didn’t find out where the money really came from. She isn’t a complete crook.’

VIII

Sergeant Sawyer was scowling in his booth as usual, the lift juddered up in the same old way, and there was the regular pile of Monday manuscripts waiting to be read on my desk. Rather than face them I went off to the middle room to say hello. When Tom looked up to ask if I’d had a good holiday he sounded perfectly normal—only slightly guarded when I asked how things were going. We arranged to have luncheon at El Vino’s and I assumed he would tell me then.

The first real sign that I got that things were different was from Nellie. I’d skimmed through a dozen manuscripts, even direr than usual because writers who’d stopped trying, convinced that Jack Todd had a personal vendetta against them, were having another go—many of them actually said so in their covering letters. Depression had already set in when Nellie came through the swing doors.

‘The Editor would like to see you, Mabs,’ she said.

She spoke as though she hardly knew me. She didn’t ask about my holiday. She sounded as though she was struggling through a miserable dream.

‘Oh, Nellie, I’m sorry,’ I said.

‘I dare say we shall get used to things.’

I had to give the door a shove to force it over the pile of the new carpet. Elephant grey, I saw. And yes, white walls, Swedish chairs, stainless steel floor-lamps; linen curtains. No Buffets on the walls, though, but cartoons, new ones, including several blondes-in-bed-with-rich-old-men. Mr Naylor was sitting behind a huge, flat-topped, fake-antique partner’s desk, reading next Thursday’s magazine.

‘Sit down,’ he said and went on reading. He kept me waiting five minutes, at least. Some pages he merely glanced at, others he read for a while before turning on with an impatient flick I wondered if he’d asked me in to say he had no more use for me. He put the paper down as if he’d found what he was looking for and stared at me through his beady little spectacles.

‘I’m told you come from a posh kind of home,’ he said.

‘I suppose . . . well, yes.’

‘What do you make of this?’

He smacked the magazine with the back of his hand. I had to stand to see where he’d got it open. The Round, of course.

‘It’s surprising how many people read it,’ I said.

‘Your kind of people?’

‘And ones who like to think they are. I used to, when I could. You’re a bit ashamed, but it’s sort of addictive.’

‘You didn’t find it totally balls-aching?’

‘I’m not actually equipped . . .’

He slammed the desk with his palm to stop me.

‘Having ink slung at me I can take,’ he said. ‘Being picked up on the way I talk I can’t.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean . . .’

‘This is my magazine. It has to be the way I want it. I’ve got to be able to tell my staff what I want in my own language, uncensored, right? If I start trying to mince along like you and Duggan I’ll end up running a magazine full of masturbating little articles about getting the lawn-mower to start.’

‘Yes, I see.’

‘I’m glad you see, Margaret.’

That was the first time he’d used his flat stage voice. Till then he’d had a neutral sort of accent, with only a slight nasal whine in it, and had sounded lively in a rather aggressive way. He’d really let me see he was angry, when he was. I assumed that this was the real Brian Naylor and the stage voice and personality were a defensive system. His behaviour with Jane hadn’t suggested that he really expected women to be attracted to him. And that business with the ink—he’d seemed quite likeable then, playing the butt and fall-guy.

‘That’s what I used to think about the paper before I came,’ I said.

‘And then you were converted? On your way to Damascus-on-Thames?’

‘Only partly. When we get it wrong it can be dreary. And sometimes it’s clever without being interesting.’

‘All right. What would you do with this?’

He smacked his hand on the Round again.

‘Have we got to keep it?’

‘I have got to keep it. You look at the advertising pages sometimes, Margaret?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then you will have noticed that forty per cent of our income derives from selling various forms of kitsch, and snob-appeal tobacco and perfume and corsets and shoes to a pathetic bunch of social climbers. Until I can build up a less repulsive class of advertiser I have to stick with this shit. So?’