Read Online Killing a Unicorn by Marjorie Eccles - Free Book Online

melded together on a background of beautiful or interesting fabric after all, weren’t they? Interspersed with the embroidery Fran has found, to her own bemusement, she can do easily and well. This last takes some accepting, even by her. Fran, the girl in the needlework class at school with ten thumbs, doing old-lady embroidery!
    All the same, she can see Alyssa’s point of view: even to her, it’s inexplicable what people will shell out for something like this, and Alyssa’s opinion of them pretty much coincides with Fran’s own, anyway. Their appeal has to be transitory, she tells herself, nothing more than a fad of the moment, a craze that won’t last, but still, if people are well off enough — or mad enough — to throw their money away, there seems no reason why she shouldn’t get what she can for them while the mood lasts. Mark disagrees, he thinks they’re worth their price and says he’s shocked by her
cynicism, but is it all that far removed from the way he regards his own work, she asks, rather sharply? So far, he’s sidestepped that issue.
    There had, however, once been a time when she’d seriously considered giving up her work at O.S.O.T. and making a full-time job of this sort of work; she’d thought it could prove to be a useful income supplement when she eventually did have a family. But since the subject of children has become an issue — or non-issue — between her and Mark, she’s dropped the idea, convincing herself it wasn’t a very practical suggestion in the first place. She hadn’t taken into account the fact that the hangings take her ages to do. Despite what they’re sold for, if she were paid by the hour, she’d soon be into penalty time. And for another — the hassle of travelling up to the city every day is a bind, sure, something she could turn her back on without regret, but abandon her regular job? The truth is, she loves her work at the agency, and she’s achieved a satisfying status, as Art Director. It’s what she’s become, what she’s made of herself, what she wants to be. Her job is, moreover, well paid, and she likes the people she works with, the easy-going, larky atmosphere, the Irish bull. And if she did resign from the agency, gave them the push, how would they live? Precariously, is the answer. Mark’s income is an uncertain, wavering concept at the best of times, dependent upon the haphazard arrival of commissions which he might, or might not, feel disposed to accept.
    â€˜Of course, you wouldn’t have to face all that commuting if we found ourselves somewhere to live in London,’ he’d thrown out a couple of weeks ago. The thin end of the wedge? He loves cities, the bustle, all life being there. Fran loves them too, but more moderately. For the present, working in London, living here, is like having your cake and eating it.
    This moonscape she is currently working on is unlike her usual vibrant, glowing work. It’s all silvery, neutral colours, with pearl beads sewn in and pieces of mirror
glass and lengths of decorative silver chain incorporated into it, stitched on to a background of gunmetal tussore silk, backed by canvas. And too gloomy by half, she thinks, inspecting it critically. In the jumble sale tin, she’s found treasure trove: some antique, iridescent buttons, shimmering like opalescent Lalique glass, which might lighten it somewhat. They run through her fingers like rain, and one falls into the saucer of French chalk she uses to pounce designs through pinpricked holes on to dark cloth. Picking it out, she feels the chalk’s slightly greasy texture, like that of the residue the owl left on the looking glass. With a shudder, she drops the button, rubs her fingers and pushes back her chair, goes to the window. The glass as she rests her forehead against it is cool. She pushes it open wider and leans out into the warm evening. The sky is dark