with it?’ asked Alexander. ‘They never existed, did they?’
His father pressed a thumb to the furrow between his eyebrows; he drew a long breath and let it go. ‘No, that’s right. They never existed.’
‘The unicorn is for fantasy, Alexander,’ said his mother. ‘Imagination, playfulness, that sort of thing.’
‘Think of Denis Compton,’ said his father, and with an imaginary bat he clipped an imaginary ball up to the ceiling. ‘Éclat, élan, vim, panache, et cetera, et cetera.’
‘What?’
‘Or Noël Coward,’ said his mother.
Alexander trailed his parents out of the pavilion, ruminating on the mythical Briton, whose qualities were combined in nobody he knew. Sheltering under the eaves of the Dome, he watched the row of fountains in front of the Skylon as they wriggled like a squad of restless giants.
‘This is definitely the right place?’ his father asked his mother, hooking his cuff clear of his wrist.
‘Well, how many domes can you see, Graham?’ replied his mother. ‘The dome at eleven,’ she assured him, and no sooner had she said the words than Megan and Mrs Beckwith arrived, under a big black umbrella.
‘We late, Irene?’ asked Mrs Beckwith, picking at the net that held her hair bunched at the back of her head. ‘Problems choosing young madam’s wardrobe. Us girls always have to look our best, you know. A lesson you’ll learn soon enough, Alexander,’ she said, and she kissed him on his forehead.
Megan stood behind her, twirling her pleated tartan skirt. Her hair was held back above her ears by plastic clips that matched her eyes. ‘Hello, Mrs MacIndoe,’ said Megan, stepping out to the side. ‘Hello, Mr MacIndoe. Hello, Eck. What are we going to do?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Alexander, and he looked to his mother.
‘Can I decide then?’ Megan asked.
‘Bossy child,’ said Mrs Beckwith, and she nudged Megan towards Alexander.
Megan looked over his shoulder at the Skylon. ‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ she said to Alexander. Her eyes followed the tower’s curve up into space.
‘No visible means of support,’ observed his father. ‘Just like the country.’
‘Cynicism is inappropriate here, Graham,’ chided his mother. ‘For domestic consumption only.’
Tapping a cigarette on the lid of the steel case she had taken from her handbag, Mrs Beckwith nodded in the direction of the river. Two boys were kicking each other’s shins underneath the Skylon. ‘The male of the species,’ she commented drily, then accepted the match that Alexander’s father held out to her.
‘Boys will be boys,’ agreed his mother.
Megan’s fingers appeared on Alexander’s sleeve, and she said the only words that he would always be able to retrieve from his memory of that morning. ‘But you’re different, Eck,’ she said, as if placating him. ‘You’re almost a girl.’
‘Beg pardon?’ exclaimed Mrs Beckwith.
‘Whatever do you mean, young lady?’ his father asked Megan, putting his hands on her shoulders from behind and looking down onto her face.
‘I was being nice, Mr MacIndoe, that’s all. Eck’s gentle, like a girl, that’s all I meant.’
Alexander’s father frowned at Megan but he was more amused by her than he ever was by him, it seemed to Alexander, and it seemed throughout that morning that he preferred her company to his son’s. ‘That’s called the regulator,’ his father said to her, putting a finger close to a photograph in which a trio of iron spheres whirled on thick iron arms above a huge steam engine. Crouching between Alexander and Megan, he explained how the apparatus worked, but it was to Megan that he was speaking. ‘They rise up, and the steam escapes here, and so the pressure drops and they fall again,’ he said.
‘Ingenious,’ Megan commented, as if Alexander’s father were the inventor and she was congratulating him.
‘Ingenious indeed,’ his father agreed, smiling to himself.
‘Too technical for us,’ commented his mother, pulling a face for Alexander, though he understood the machine well enough. She put a hand out to steer him to the next exhibit; he shrugged his shoulder away and followed his father.
‘Now this,’ said his father, in front of another photograph, ‘was invented by a man who used to live not very far from here. Sir Henry Bessemer. He lived in Herne Hill. Do you know where Herne Hill is?’
‘No,’ said Megan, before Alexander could say ‘Near Camberwell.’
‘Between Camberwell and Dulwich,’ his father said.
Side by side the three of them looked at the picture of a huge bucket from which a burning liquid flowed.
‘What is it?’ Megan asked, and his father explained how steel was manufactured.
At every picture they stopped and listened as his father talked to them like a schoolteacher. They were standing in front of a photograph of a shipyard when Alexander heard Mrs Beckwith, standing a couple of yards behind him, say to his mother: ‘Sun’s coming out, Irene.’ Through a window Alexander saw a glow rise quickly on a wet concrete wall, turning it to the colour of chalk. The last raindrops of the exhausted shower sparkled against the dark gaberdine raincoat of a woman who stood with her back to him, her hand on the catch of her half-lowered umbrella.
‘Shame to squander it,’ said his mother, raising her voice slightly.
‘Right enough,’ agreed Mrs Beckwith.
‘We can’t leave yet,’ moaned Megan. ‘We haven’t seen half of it.’
‘You can’t see everything here,’ said Mrs Beckwith.
‘Why not?’ Megan demanded, with an eagerness that seemed overdone to Alexander and annoyed him.
‘Well, let’s work it out,’ said Alexander’s father. ‘How long have we been looking at this one?’
‘Half a minute,’ replied Megan.
‘More than that,’ Alexander interjected.
‘Let’s say half a minute,’ said his father, ticking off the first stage of the calculation on a little finger for Megan’s benefit. ‘There are twenty-five thousand photos here, it says. That’s twelve and a half thousand minutes. That’s more than two hundred hours. That’s more than a week. And we have less than one day.’
Disgruntled by this proof, Megan appealed to her aunt. ‘A bit longer?’
Mrs Beckwith looked at his father; his father smiled at Megan and rubbed his palms together as if limbering up for a tug-of-war.
‘The wives are playing truant, then,’ said his mother. ‘Outside in an hour?’
Megan and his father walked away, and Alexander followed his
