‘Gilla …’ he said at last, ‘what am I going to do?’
‘The other two models failed?’
‘They were worse than Zorra. Then I started the portrait of the Portmaster’s
wife… Fortunately I got the sketch away before she could see it. She looked
like her lapdog!’ He drank again.
‘Poor Lalo.’ Gilla shook her head. ‘It’s not your fault that all your unicorns
turned out to be rhinoceroses!’
He remembered the old fable about the rhinoceros who looked into a magic mirror
and saw there a unicorn, but it did not comfort him. ‘Is everything beautiful
only a mask for rottenness, or is it only that way in Sanctuary?’ He burst out
then, ‘Oh Gilla, I’ve failed you and the children. We’re ruined, don’t you
understand? I cannot even hope anymore!’
She turned a little, but did not touch him, as if she understood that any
attempt at comfort would be more than he could bear.
‘Lalo …’ she cleared her throat and started again. ‘It’s all right – we’ll get
by some way. And you haven’t failed … you haven’t failed our dream! You made
the right choice – don’t I know that it was me and the children in the first
place that kept you from what you were meant to do?
‘Anyhow -‘ she tried to turn her emotion to laughter, ‘if worst comes to worst
I can model for you -just for you to get the basic lines of the figures,
of course,’ she added apologetically. ‘After all these years I doubt I have
any flaws that you don’t already know…’
Lalo set down the teapot, turned and looked at her. In the light of the setting
sun Gilla’s face, into which the years had carved so many lines, was like a