Attempts to Capture and Tame a Unicorn (48): Why

Saturdays and Sundays soon became a hole I sunk into only for work to drag me back out again.   I looked to fill the weekends with something new but came up short every week.  Even began to wish I still had John.

I had gone back to work heavy hearted, feeling it was all over, that I would never have another chance.  I sat at my desk each day redundant.  Rather than let my mind wander to find the next plan, I could only reminisce of what had been before.  That planning and anticipation had been what got me through the week.  Now I sat vacant mostly.  Until events began to pull me back out.

After a couple of months whispers started to go around the office.  An e-mail had arrived at another desk explaining why I had left and what I had been doing while I was away.  How they found out I do not know.  That has always been a mystery to me.

At first it was just that, whispers.  Then there were sniggers as well as I walked by.  Then the hints and allusions that became more and more snide until the actual piss taking began.  How they laughed and joked at my expense.  Until, finally, among it came the questions.  “Why?” was an oft repeated one, prefixing many different questions.  With the men, laughter accompanied and with the women it was pity.  But always, “Why?”

*

It was a mixture of wanting to, needing to, and still being able to that got me started.  The last perhaps being the most important.

The whole madness came out of a visit to the Victoria & Albert Museum.  It is a wonderfully huge museum where I always seem to find something I haven't seen before.  One time, I remember, it was the plaster casts of Trajan's Column.  I stood at the bottom of each half staring up and getting dizzy before moving to the bridge and taking them in more properly.  I felt excited that I had probably got a better view than the pilgrims in Rome yet hungry to see the real thing standing in what is left of Trajan's Forum.

That fateful day it was the tapestry room.  I had gone in to look at the Pre-Raphaelite paintings hanging in the V&A.  I'd already been to Manchester, the gallery at Uni and the Tate to see the boys.  And I had seen the William Morris section of the V&A British Galleries on another day.  That day paintings were to be my thing.  I scanned the map and planned the route to see Jane Morris in a Day Dream and The Mill-Girls Dancing to Music by a River.

On my way I walked by a pair of big, heavy, tinted glass doors that ignited my curiosity in an instant.  I was extremely intrigued to find out what was beyond that needed such a mysterious and guarded entrance.  Although it must have said on or by the door, I went through to discover and meet my fate.

Almost immediately upon entering the darkened room a small tapestry in the far right corner caught my eye; in particular, the white area at its centre.  Maybe it was just because this piece happened to be in my line of sight.  Or perhaps because all the other tapestries were huge, faded and filled with too much action, while this, though much smaller, was quite vibrant, colourful and eye-catching.  Either way I was drawn toward this slab of colour arranged around a bright white core.

I wandered almost trance-like towards the far end ignoring all else around me until I had learned more.  The tapestry was a type called a Millefleur, a form in demand around 1500 which was covered by many different flowering plants.  This one was a square filled mainly with flowers and a few animals (birds mainly) that were brown and almost indistinguishable from all around them.  In the centre, however, a white beauty stood out, a great horn sticking out from her head.

I had not thought of unicorns for some time.  Once they had appeared in my dreams and brought warmth at a time when I felt often cold and alone.  Gladdened once more I read on and discovered my future.  I left feeling different because I now had a purpose.

The unicorn tapestry was next to one depicting the medieval myth man Roland, known to me as The Gunslinger.  As I left Room 94, I thought of him and how I was now as him, on a quest.  Not for the Dark Tower, though.  Not for a curse.  At least, that was how I felt at the time.

*

Trailing around London can drain you, leaving you on a low ebb.  Within a week I was in my local library starting the research that would take me to the enchanted forest where I found what I’ve always felt was the scene in that tapestry.  I went after the unicorn because I wanted to, because I needed to, and because I still could.  Nothing had changed.  No matter what anyone said, I simply had to go on.

First, though, I had to let things simmer down.  I extended my respite in Ireland.