Hunting Unicorns

by Bella Pollen

  The man looked faintly embarrassed. ‘I’m His Grace’s agent Glenville,’ he returned Dwight’s enthusiastic handshake limply. ‘His Grace has asked me to put myself at your disposal.’

  Behind me Wolf sighed.

  * * *

  ‘See, the way we work,’ I told Glenville, ‘there’s no preparation, no set-up, it’s all purely observational, behavioural, fly-on-the-wall if you like.’ We were moving through one imposing room to another. All around us servants busied themselves with chores. In the State dining room, a line of men stood shoeless on a long table, polishing its surface, feet bound in soft chamois leather. In the Green drawing room another man at the top of a ladder was painstakingly cleaning dust from the cut crystal of a chandelier with a toothbrush.

  Truth is, it was frustrating. Visually these were great scenes but Glenville wouldn’t allow us to film. One excuse followed another. There was a problem with the insurance, the lighting might damage ancient tapestries, His Grace had not sanctioned that the staff be questioned. Finally Wolf was allowed to set up the camera in a never-ending corridor of family portraits. Glenville, all blushes and unnatural hand movements, began narrating in a stiff museum guide voice. ‘The first Duke of Roxmere married the eldest daughter of the Beaufort family whose ancestors of course were descended from the—’

  We needn’t have wasted the film. It was hopelessly dull footage but I didn’t want to risk offending him.

  ‘Am I going too fast for you?’ Glenville said.

  God forbid. ‘No, no, you’re doing great.’ Then I noticed something. To our left was a door to the wing of the house we’d been informed was private. ‘Are you getting this, Wolf?’ I shot him a look with a subliminal order attached.

  ‘Now you mention it, I could use re-shooting the portraits from the beginning,’ he said, eyes skimming over the no entry sign.

  * * *

  We had only a day and a half at Roxmere – fine if you’re shooting a documentary, say, and have set up shots on a previous visit but with Newsline you shoot and scout simultaneously so you can’t afford to get stuck with dead wood in front of the camera. As the only member of the crew without a proper job, as Wolf was fond of telling me, it fell to me to charm, waylay and flatter the dead wood so that those real villains, sound and visuals, could go about their work of finding something interesting to film.

  I managed to get Glenville all the way to the Duke’s library before he noticed the crew were still absent without leave. He looked anxiously to the door. ‘I fear your colleagues may have got lost.’

  I was happily sure of it.

  ‘They’re probably sneaking a beer break,’ I said and Glenville looked reassured. The Duke’s private library was a small square room lined in bookshelves. Glenville moved aside a pair of library steps and took down a slim volume.

  ‘This might interest you. Dates back to the Magna Carta. Been in the family for generations.’

  The door opened behind us and the butler walked in carrying the squirming terrier. ‘Message for you, sir.’ He released the dog which scampered off to its basket under a low table.

  Glenville folded the note. ‘I’ll be back shortly, if you don’t mind waiting here. Though if I could possibly draw your attention to…’ He gestured to a discreet no smoking sign propped against the mantelpiece.

  ‘And could I please impress on madam the importance of not, under any circumstances, letting the dog out,’ the butler added. ‘Little Timmy does tend to hunt.’

  * * *

  The dog glared from its basket, resentful of my role as temporary jailer, but it was no bad prison even for a dog. On a writing desk stood an eclectic array of objects: iron statues of political figures; a freakish miniature chihuahua in a bell jar; a dried hand on a stand, property of, its plaque informed, the Marquis de Sade. The dog soon settled into a routine of rasping snores and atomic smells. I turned my attention back to the bookcase. A volume of A Midsummer Night’s Dream caught my eye. I took it down. Illustrated by Arthur Rackham, each plate was covered in delicate tissue paper. I carried it to a chair and opening the window for my cigarette smoke, settled down, soon too engrossed in goblins and fairies to worry about what the boys were up to.

  Not that they lost much time in telling me later. After splitting off, Dwight and Wolf had found themselves in a vast ballroom. Though empty of furniture, Chinese urns, over-sized candlesticks and decorative dragon vases had been arranged slalom-style on the floor and the skinny girl I’d seen earlier was Rollerblading round them, a look of determination on her pale features. When I studied the footage later, I noticed that there was something else Wolf had caught on film, an expression of a freedom but a freedom tinged with wistfulness – almost as if she suspected fate was hunched right around the corner waiting to kick the wings from her heels.

  She turned and glided towards the camera. ‘I’m Artemis,’ she said. ‘Who are you?’

  The crew introduced themselves.

  ‘You don’t look like a Wolf, do you eat girls?’

  ‘Only ones dressed in red,’ Wolf said.

  She pointed her chin thoughtfully at her red skirt then back towards camera. ‘Methinks you’re an NQOSD.’ She took a crushed packet of cigarettes from her pocket and placed one languidly in her mouth.

  ‘A what?’ Wolf said.

  ‘Not Quite Our Sort Dear,’ she cocked her head to one side. ‘Or maybe you’re an LMCM.’

  ‘Is that a good thing?’

  ‘Good heavens, no. It means Lower Middle-Class Monster.’

  ‘How can you be lower and middle at the same time?’

  The little girl looked thoughtful, then, puzzled herself, did a figure of eight backwards and pirouetted off still holding the unlit cigarette.

  daniel

  ‘Learn to cook. Catch a crook. Win a war then write a book about it … I could paint a Mona Lisa…’ Benj sings tunelessly as Rory, reeling under his weight, pushes him up the staircase. He roots around in the hem of Benj’s overcoat. Benj’s keys are attached to a plastic model of Kitchener’s head which barks, ‘YOUR FRONT DOOR NEEDS YOU’ as Rory inserts them into the lock.

  ‘I could be another Caesar. Compose an oratorio that was sublime…’

  ‘Alternately you could just try turning up for a full day’s work for a change,’ Rory says sarcastically.

  ‘The world’s not shut, on my genius butt … I just don’t have … the time.’

  ‘Work,’ Rory struggles to turn the key, ‘surely you remember – that strenuous activity where you go to the office … sometimes for as long as five whole days consecutively?’

  ‘Nope.’ Benj tries to focus, ‘Sorry, doesn’t ring a bell.’

  Rory kicks the door open.

  Pimlico is a dead-end residential spot of London at the best of times but Benj’s flat, inherited from a great-aunt, is in one of those Victorian mansion blocks that old people invest in when they get fussed about being mugged at night. The small windows make it dark enough but the addition of floor-to-ceiling wood panelling transforms it to suicidally depressing.

  Rory brews up strong coffee and forces it down Benj’s throat. Shortly afterwards Benj makes a dash for the bathroom. On the ledge of the bath five Action Men in camouflage gear sit watching him in affable silence as he vomits. Rory watches him from the safer distance of the doorway. Rory feels like an alcoholic by proxy, Alistair and Audrey, myself, now Benj. We’re the generation that can kick it. Today he’s less sure. He wants to shake Benj till his nose bleeds. Go on! Puke your guts out, hope it hurts, hope it lasts for hours. In this moment he hates Benj. Selfish little prick. Why is it his responsibility anyway? He toys with walking away, but he won’t – not just because Benj is family and Rory loves him but because in the complicated debit and credit system he uses for measuring his own guilt, Rory still believes he owes big time.

  maggie

  While the boys were filming Artemis, I continued reading until the clock on the table chimed loudly. I closed the book quickly. Where the hel
l were Dwight and Wolf? Then my eyes dropped to the basket under the table. Empty. ‘Little Timmy’ was gone. But how? The door was still shut.

  I ran to the open window. Cloud had settled low over the valley. It was dusk but across the lawn and next to an elaborate Victorian monument, I could just make out a bush shaking violently. I stuck my fingers in my mouth and gave it all I had. My screeching whistle brought the dog crawling out from under the bush. It streaked towards the window but before I could snatch it up, veered sharply away and disappeared.

  Moments later there was a scratching against the door. I wrenched it open. The terrier stood on the threshold wagging its tail. In its mouth was a muddy object which it dropped at my feet.

  Gross. A dead rabbit. I peered closer then froze. Around the rabbit’s neck and under layers of drying blood was a pink collar with a silver heart-shaped tag.

  ‘Oh no,’ I said faintly. ‘Please, God, no.’

  * * *

  ‘What the hell?’ Wolf said, walking into my bathroom.

  ‘Don’t say a word.’ I squeezed another dollop of the shampoo onto the bloodied fur.

  ‘Jesus, Maggie are you insane? What are you some kind of animal psycho?’

  ‘I was supposed to stop the dog hunting, but it escaped.’ I scrubbed at the fur with the ivory-handled nailbrush. ‘I panicked.’

  ‘So what? It’s not like you chased the bunny and killed it yourself,’ he said.

  I switched on the hairdryer.

  ‘Unless you did.’

  ‘Did what?’ I shouted.

  ‘Chase it and kill it yourself.’

  ‘For pity’s sake, Wolf, this isn’t a joke.’ I switched the hairdryer off. ‘You know we were specifically told to be nice to the pets.’ I thrust the bunny into his hands and fixed the collar around its neck. ‘There,’ I brushed the fur flat with the hairbrush.

  ‘Looks much better now.’

  Then I caught his eye and we both collapsed in helpless giggles. Wolf recovered first.

  ‘So where’s the rabbit hutch?’

  ‘Oh god.’ I wiped tears from my eyes. ‘The what?’

  ‘It’s apartment … you know, its place of residence before it was murdered?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well you can’t just leave it lying around.’

  ‘Maybe they’ll think it died of a heart attack.’

  ‘Then let itself out of its cage and came up to the house for tea? I don’t think so. C’mon’, he grabbed my hand, ‘let’s get moving.’

  * * *

  The hutch consisted of two cages, one empty, the other locked. Inside the locked cage a brown and white rabbit hopped around, pathetically grateful at its companions return. I propped the dead bunny against the straw. ‘Kind of cute, no?’ I said.

  ‘Tail’s missing, Maggie.’

  I turned the rabbit and positioned its back against the cage. ‘There, looks quite life-like, don’t you think?’

  ‘Notwithstanding rigor mortis,’ Wolf said supportively.

  * * *

  ‘Truly beautiful place you have here.’ Next to the Duchess, Dwight perched on the edge of his upholstered stool in the drawing room and sipped his tea, little finger crooked expertly. ‘Did I mention that I love chintz?’ he continued, ‘Joan, my wife, also loves chintz, we have drapes very similar to these ones in Brooklyn. My mother was a big floral fan, quite the anglophile, would you believe. I myself was nearly named after one of your kings.’

  ‘Tell me, my dear,’ the priest said to me, ‘did you see that splendid winter flowering cherry in the garden?’

  I couldn’t answer. Rooted to my own chair. Somewhere in the house a child was sobbing.

  ‘As I was saying,’ Dwight persevered with our hostess, ‘there’s a department store right round the corner from us, sells beautiful florals – could be they do mail order.’ He leant forward conspiratorially. ‘You know something, Duchess? I think you and I have the same taste.’ He winked.

  The Duchess’s social smile barely shifted. She rang the small bell on the tea trolley summoning the old butler. ‘What is Artemis doing, Simmonds?’

  ‘She’s a little upset, Your Grace.’

  I could hardly bring myself to look at Wolf.

  ‘Do tell her to pull herself together and come into tea.’

  Artemis sloped in and sat on the fireguard snivelling furiously.

  ‘Artemis?’

  The girl turned her back on her mother. Her thin chest heaved with sobs.

  ‘What is the matter with her, Simmonds?’ The Duchess looked helplessly at the girl. I felt sick. I’d never had a proper pet, but boy, do I remember wanting one. The rabbit had been this child’s only friend, the one bit of warmth and affection she’d known –

  ‘I do believe, Your Grace,’ said Simmonds, ‘that Master Beckham and his wife Miss Posh are rumoured to be parting company.’

  Artemis burst into fresh wails.

  ‘Artemis, darling,’ the Duchess tried valiantly, ‘it is awfully sad, of course, but I do believe … er … Oasis will be a much stronger group because of it.’ Artemis threw her a withering look and retreated to the fireplace.

  As I allowed myself to breathe again the door opened and a tall patrician man with a hooked nose and defined cheekbones padded into the room wearing scarlet knee-high socks.

  ‘Ah, Hereward, here you—’

  ‘Quite extraordinary,’ the Duke interrupted his wife. ‘My dear I must tell you. Dear Flopsy, who as you know expired the day before yesterday and was laid to rest,’ he glanced at Artemis, ‘with all due ceremony of course, has now been found back in her hutch and, what’s more,’ the Duke continued agitatedly, ‘she’s clean as a bloody whistle. Clean as a bloody whistle!’

  Into the very long silence that followed somebody eventually spoke.

  ‘A rabbit resurrection,’ said the vicar. ‘Heavens above, how very unusual.’

  daniel

  In the sitting room, Benj struggles to lever himself onto the sofa, but misjudging the distance lands flat on his back instead.

  ‘I am a drunk,’ he says mournfully.

  ‘I had noticed.’ Rory lies on the floor next to Benj and both stare vacantly up at the ceiling.

  ‘You know something, Rory,’ Benj says eventually. ‘You’ve simply got to get a grip.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Because whilst I, at least, am a happy and on the whole amusing drunk, you, my friend, have become a boring frustrated son of a bitch.’

  ‘You’re right.’ Rory sighs. Above him is a glass chandelier that Benj inherited along with the flat. Were it to fall right now, Rory wonders, would he be quick enough to roll to safety? Just how good were his reflexes these days? He moves out of range.

  ‘For goodness sake get a job you like,’ Benj says.

  ‘Had one, if you remember.’

  ‘Well get it back.’

  ‘And my parents?’

  ‘They can look after themselves, they’re grown-ups for goodness sake.’

  ‘As you very well know,’ Rory says grimly, ‘they are not.’

  Benj grunts at this.

  ‘You’re lucky,’ Rory says, ‘your parents are cold, unemotional, uptight … reasonably normal in fact.’

  ‘And they spoke to me for the first time ever when I was twelve.’

  ‘Well, my mother has an extremely large quadruped.’

  ‘You know,’ Benj says, ‘recently I asked my mother if I was breast-fed as a child.’

  ‘And were you?’

  ‘I don’t know. She told me to mind my own business.’

  Benj’s childhood. So superficially perfect. So seriously sick. Benj’s mother had not touched him as a boy, not even as a baby. I’d been shocked when he’d admitted it. ‘I don’t think it ever occurred to my mother to kiss me,’ he’d said. ‘She did hug me once – although she’d just tripped over the carpet divider, so that might have been an accident.’ Benj’s mother disliked physical contact of any kind. His father disliked
emotional contact of any kind. It was a winning combination for an only child.

  ‘I take it you haven’t introduced your father to the notion of selling Bevan then,’ Benj changes tack.

  It’s Rory’s turn to grunt. Idly he scans Benj’s bookshelves. All the C.S. Lewis books, three copies of Sword in the Stone, hardback editions of Mungo and Zulu Dawn. It strikes him that Benj has got lost trying to find a childhood that never even existed.

  ‘He’s simply got to be practical,’ Benj says. ‘Can’t you make him understand?’

  ‘Inflicting any kind of self-knowledge on my father at his age is tantamount to abuse of the elderly,’ Rory says, ‘and besides, Daniel would never have given up Bevan.’

  This gets a sharp look from Benj. ‘Well if you’re opting for a life sentence at Bevan, at least make sure it’s not solitary. Find a girl you like.’

  ‘Had one.’

  ‘Find another.’

  ‘Aren’t any.’

  ‘Aren’t any left you mean.’

  ‘Don’t think for a single second I’m going to take a lecture on women from you lying down.’ Rory puts his hands under his head.

  ‘Strikes me you’ve taken precious little lying down since Daniel died.’

  ‘Coming from you, Casanova.’

  ‘True, but then at least I have a good excuse.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Which is, women absolutely terrify me,’ Benj says simply. He sits up and hunts in his pockets for cigarettes, retrieving the lighter from under the carpet. ‘God, but we’re a pair of fuck-ups aren’t we.’

  ‘Yes, that we are.’ Rory sits up as well and leans against the sofa. ‘Why are we by the way?’ His mobile is ringing for the umpteenth time and finally he answers it. Alison, beside herself with joy at finding a legitimate excuse for calling him after work hours, has already left four messages.

  As Rory listens to them, a resigned look on his face, Benj draws thoughtfully on his cigarette. ‘Well in my case my father was a fuck-up, his father before him was a fuck-up, my grandfather’s father was also a bit of a fuck-up. You know, you just inherit it, along with the death duties and the ugly furniture.’