The Mennyms

by Sylvia Waugh

  Vinetta looked annoyed.

  “I thought we had decided you could be ill for three weeks. Tulip hasn’t finished knitting your gloves yet. I told her there was no need to hurry. I got Appleby quite interested in your convalescence. And, goodness knows, there are not many sensible things Appleby is interested in.”

  “I don’t intend to go out yet. The gloves can wait. And I can be properly ill later on. I’ll feel exhausted and go to bed early after the visitor has gone, if we have a visitor.”

  “Very well,” sighed Vinetta. “I suppose that will have to do. I’ve tidied the hall again. Tell the twins to make less noise or to go out and play in the back garden. Soobie will tell us if anybody is coming.”

  At that moment Soobie’s plump face appeared at the lounge door. He gave both of his parents a dour look and muttered, “She’s coming.”

  “Who’s coming?” asked Vinetta in the most natural way.

  “Well it’s not the meter reader so you needn’t rush for your dark glasses.”

  “Don’t be funny,” said Vinetta sharply. “I’ll ask you again. Who’s coming?”

  “You know who’s coming. Nobody else ever pays us a visit,” replied Soobie bluntly.

  “You shouldn’t say things like that, Soobie. Anybody could come. So, who have you seen coming up the drive?”

  Just then the doorbell rang. Vinetta took a quick look at herself in the hall mirror and patted her neat black hair.

  “I wonder who that can be,” she mused pointedly.

  “It’s Miss Quigley,” hissed the blue Mennym. “You know fine well it is.”

  Vinetta ignored him and went to open the door. Joshua, having silenced the twins, fled upstairs to make himself presentable to face a very prim maiden lady.

  “Hortensia!” gushed Vinetta. “This is a surprise! How lovely of you to have come, especially on such a cold day. Do come in and sit by the fire.”

  Vinetta graciously led the way into the lounge where a leather three-piece suite was arranged round the gas fire. In front of the settee was a long low table, nicely carved round the rim and down the legs, and with a well-polished top.

  Vinetta gave a warning look at Soobie who had gone back to his chair in the window and was reading a magazine. Then, having seen that her visitor was sitting comfortably, she went out to fetch the tea. The tray was always kept set in the pantry with china tea cups, milk jug, sugar basin, and a plate of aging biscuits.

  Vinetta waited a reasonable time to allow for the boiling of a kettle and the brewing of the tea. Then, that pretend completed, she carried the tray carefully to the table before the fire.

  “How nice,” simpered Miss Quigley. “I always love that willow-pattern china. And those little pink biscuits are my favourites. You know what a sweet tooth I have!”

  Vinetta passed the plate and Miss Quigley took one old biscuit and pretended to nibble at it genteelly. She took a satisfied sip from the invisible tea Vinetta had poured. Then she put the biscuit down again and brushed a non-existent crumb from her upper lip.

  “I passed the Jarmans’ on the way here,” said Miss Quigley confidentially. “She was peeping out of her window again. I don’t know how people can be so nosy. And I just got inside the gate when Mrs England passed with her Labrador. I was pleased I missed her. She is such a gossip.”

  Miss Quigley’s wide-brimmed hat did shadow her doll’s face, but there was no way she could have spoken intimately to the neighbours without being detected. She knew that well enough, but it would have been so delightful to have stood swapping tales with people. The next best thing was a sour grapes pretend.

  “I’m so pleased you came today,” said Vinetta. “I have such a lot to tell you. You’ll never believe all the things that have been happening here. The past week has been more eventful than many a year.”

  Miss Quigley listened eagerly to the story of Joshua and the rat. She was truly horrified, but at the same time utterly fascinated. It was true. Things like that do not happen every day, or even every year.

  “How will you manage?” she asked with concern when told that Joshua had lost his job.

  “Oh, we do have some savings,” said Vinetta proudly, “and the cheque they sent was quite substantial. I still earn money from the dressmaking. Tulip has her own little business venture. And then, of course, Magnus is very well paid, though Joshua doesn’t like to depend too much on his father. He has his pride.”

  “He’ll soon get another situation,” said Miss Quigley soothingly. “They’ll be wanting a Santa Claus at Peachum’s soon. He did that a few years ago, didn’t he?”

  “Six years ago, to be precise, but they did ask him to go back the following year. They were very pleased with his work.”

  Joshua came into the lounge dressed in his new trousers and a grey turtle-necked sweater.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Quigley,” he said in as pleasant a voice as he could muster. He sat in the armchair to the left of the fire and poured himself a pretend cup of tea.

  “Vinetta will have told you about my leg,” he added.

  “Yes, indeed, Mr Mennym. It must have been a dreadful experience. I was so sorry to hear of it. I hope you are feeling better now.”

  “Improving,” said Joshua, “slowly improving, but I still need a lot of rest.”

  At that moment, Wimpey, in the playroom, landed on Park Lane where Poopie had built a hotel. Her shriek startled the grown-ups, but she must have remembered the visitor. She darted into the lounge, said sorry, and quickly darted out again.

  Vinetta passed without comment to her next piece of news.

  “There is something else I have to tell you. It is more serious than Joshua’s misfortune.”

  Miss Quigley looked suitably startled. Surely there could be nothing more serious than having one’s leg chewed to pieces by a rat and then losing one’s job in the next breath.

  Vinetta explained all about the letter from Albert Pond. Poor Miss Quigley stared wide-eyed. She lost her grip on the pretend. This Australian, whoever he was, owned the house. He owned the house! He even owned Miss Quigley’s cupboard and she felt sure that he would not stick to the rules.

  “How terrible!” she cried and fell in a heap on the floor.

  “She’s fainted,” said Soobie from his seat by the window. “That’s not a pretend.” He did not stir from his seat nor offer to help, but, having told his parents a simple fact that they might have missed, he went back to reading his magazine.

  Tulip came from the breakfast room to see what all the fuss was about. She had her knitting needles in her hand and her reading glasses perched on the end of her nose. She regarded Miss Quigley as Vinetta’s friend and usually stayed out of the way whenever she visited.

  “What’s the matter with her?” she demanded in her usual brusque voice. Without more ado, she put her needles down on the bureau and was ready to help.

  “Come on. Help her up. You can’t just leave her lying there.”

  They helped Miss Quigley onto the settee, patted her hands and her painted cheeks and tried hard to revive her. Soobie picked up her broad-brimmed hat and fanned her face vigorously. Slowly she came round, and when she was more or less herself again, she looked totally embarrassed.

  “I can’t think what came over me,” she fluttered. “It must be the heat of the fire. I’d best be going now anyway. I’m glad we don’t have Australians to worry about in Trevethick Street. It’s my own house, you know. Father left it to me. I’ll call again next week, my dear, to see how things are.”

  She left very formally by the front door after shaking hands with Joshua and kissing Vinetta lightly on the cheek. Tulip held back from any farewell greeting and looked for once very much the unapproachable Lady Mennym. It was clear that she disapproved of fainting and was offended by the silly woman’s remarks about the house in Trevethick Street.

  The door closed. Ten minutes later Miss Quigley slipped in at the back entrance and went unobserved to her own private cupboard.

&n
bsp; 8

  * * *

  Sir Magnus Calls a Meeting

  SIR MAGNUS MENNYM lay propped up on his pillows with his portable desk across his lap. The purple foot dangled nonchalantly from the counterpane. Its owner was still but not sleeping. He had just finished composing a crossword puzzle for The Times and was pausing to contemplate. (7 across: think with a pattern to study first maybe.)

  Suddenly he took the stout cane that stood at the left hand side of his pillow and knocked quite vigorously on the floor. When no one came, he knocked again but twice as hard.

  “What on earth is the matter?” cried Vinetta dashing up the stairs and into the bedroom.

  “Send for them all,” said her father-in-law impressively and ponderously.

  Vinetta was so startled she forgot about the terrible knocking that threatened the ceilings below, and just echoed Sir Magnus’s last word.

  “All?”

  “All,” he repeated. Then he reflected a little more. “All except Googles and, of course, Miss Quigley, unless she happens to be paying us a visit today.”

  “No,” said Vinetta, “she was just here on Tuesday. She said she would be coming back some day next week.”

  “Where’s Tulip? I might as well not have a wife for all I see of her!”

  “She’s in the breakfast room doing the bills. She’s always busy, you know, Magnus. And she is the only one in the house who can manage the accounts. Soobie could do it, but he won’t.”

  “Appleby could make little rings round all of you,” said her grandfather defensively. “Let her loose on the accounts . . .”

  “Let her loose on the accounts,” interrupted Vinetta realistically, “and we’d have every teenage novelty on the market and nothing in the bank. I’ll go and fetch Tulip.”

  “And Appleby and Soobie – and even the terrible twins. Tell my son he’d better come too, though goodness knows what he’ll have to contribute. We’ll all have to talk it out and make some sort of decision.”

  Vinetta did not ask any questions. She just hurried away and told all of the others to come to Granpa’s room.

  “What does he want this time?” grumbled Appleby. “I got the papers for him this morning and I’m going to the Post Office for him this afternoon.”

  “I don’t know what he wants, but I’m guessing it will be something to do with the letter from Australia.”

  “Oh that!” said Appleby, swinging her legs back and forward where she sat on the stool in front of her dressing table mirror. She was trying hard to look as if she weren’t interested, but she couldn’t quite manage it. After forty years of increasingly awkward adolescence, she still had not achieved perfect boredom.

  Poopie and Wimpey were in the playroom. Poopie was engaged in making his Action Man slide down a rope into the jungle. Wimpey, ignoring him completely, was reading, probably for the twentieth time, a very old copy of Where the Rainbow Ends. They were both pleased to be invited to a family conference. Usually they were considered to be too young for that sort of thing.

  When Tulip was summoned, she took her time putting everything neatly in its proper place. The file on her desk had compartments for every sort of account. The work basket she had ‘inherited’ from Aunt Kate was full of different coloured wools, but not a single strand was out of place, not a single skein was tangled.

  “I’ll be there in a minute,” she said, resenting all of the minutes she was going to lose, and into her canvas bag she put the cardigan she was busy making. If they must have a family conference, then at least she could do something useful whilst they all sat talking. If Magnus expected her to be the attentive and dignified Lady Mennym, then he had another think coming.

  Soobie was even more awkward.

  “I’m not coming,” he said flatly. “It will be another of his stupid pretends and I’m fed up with them. What is it this time? Is he making a will to send to his solicitor?”

  “That’s not fair,” protested Vinetta. “It is not all pretend. We are real, aren’t we?”

  “I think,” said Soobie sarcastically, “therefore it is self-evident that I am. And at least I know what I am, which is more than the rest of you do. I am a blue rag doll that, God knows how, can think and move. I do not eat or drink. I don’t know what being hungry or thirsty means. I do not mix with human beings. And I know that Miss Quigley lives in the hall cupboard.”

  Vinetta looked shocked.

  “That is very, very cruel,” she said. “I thought you were kinder than that. We may be what you said we were, but we don’t just think and move. We have feelings as well and they can be hurt.”

  Soobie looked ashamed of himself.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re right, of course. There is no need for me to take it out on others because I feel sad. It is just that I find it hard to accept being a rag doll in a world that is obviously designed for human beings.”

  “So we pretend to be human beings,” coaxed Vinetta. “I know it’s not perfect, but it helps. It has worked, more or less, for forty years. It has its benefits too. We never grow any older.”

  She glanced at her own face in the mirror above the fireplace. A middle-aged face, but quite neat and pretty, framed by black wavy hair and lit up by flecked blue button eyes into which her personality had projected lively intelligence. A caring face, with little worry lines around the mouth and a short frown between the eyebrows. It had looked exactly the same when she had first observed it forty years before.

  Soobie looked at her lovingly. He knew she was a good mother, fussy maybe, over-anxious perhaps, but good.

  “I wish I could pretend,” he tried to explain, “but I can’t. I have to look at things as they are.”

  Vinetta tried another tack.

  “I don’t think Granpa wants us for another pretend anyway. I think he wants a conference about the letter from Australia. That was real enough and it poses a real enough threat.”

  “Very well,” said Soobie reluctantly. “I’ll come.”

  He got stiffly out of the loom chair that stood at the right hand side of the bay window, facing outwards to the garden and the street beyond. He usually sat there all day and every day. At night he did go to bed in his own room because rag dolls can sleep. He also sponged himself down in the mornings to keep the dust from gathering on his face and striped suit. Sometimes he would allow Vinetta to wash his clothes completely. At such times he would stay in bed till the clothes were washed, dried and aired. In his whole life he had only twice had new sets of clothing. Then he had insisted that they must be faithful copies of the originals. Not for Soobie the fashion fads of his sister Appleby. The blue face and the blue striped suit were himself.

  9

  * * *

  The Conference

  SOOBIE AND VINETTA arrived last at Granpa’s room.

  “Took you long enough,” the old man grumbled. “You sit there, Vinetta.” He pointed to the only chair left empty in the room. “And you, Soobie, can just sit yourself on the floor. Here’s a cushion.”

  So saying, Magnus flung the cushion at Soobie with such vigour that it knocked him over and Poopie and Wimpey, sitting side by side on the ottoman, laughed nervously.

  “Serves you right,” said Granpa. “You shouldn’t have kept us waiting.”

  Joshua was sitting on a stiff-backed chair near the door. He had made up his mind to say nothing. His anxious wife and domineering father were just too much for him. The loss of his comfortable, lonely job still hung over him like a cloud.

  Appleby was leaning against the end of Granpa’s bed, sensibly away from the dangling foot, though, as the favourite grandchild, it is doubtful whether she would ever have been treated to the force of it.

  Tulip, Lady Mennym, was sitting in the big armchair studying her own, neatly written knitting pattern before resuming work on the cardigan in her lap. It was not for any member of the family. It was part of her own little business venture. Posted off to Harrods, as others had been before, it would be sold as an exc
lusive creation and make more money to pay the never-ending bills. Minor royalty and fashion models had worn the “tulipmennym” label and recommended it to those friends of theirs who could afford it.

  Granpa looked at her and gritted his moustache. She obviously was not paying attention but at least she had come.

  “Now,” said Granpa ominously, “first things first. What do you think about Albert Pond’s letter?”

  Nobody spoke.

  “Joshua?” queried the old man looking determinedly in his son’s direction.

  “Not much,” said Joshua with economy.

  “What sort of an answer’s that?” asked Magnus with growing irritation.

  Silence.

  Poopie stared hard at Granpa. His blue button eyes were very round and innocent. His straight yellow fringe touched the top of his eyebrows. His small mouth struggled as he made the effort to put a thought into words.

  “Why does he think being a Sir is so important, Granpa?” he said at last in a puzzled little voice. “Why are you a Sir?” In all of forty years he had not given this a thought.

  Sir Magnus, for once, looked uncomfortable. Truth to tell, he hadn’t the faintest idea why he was Sir. Being born aged seventy, there were many things he did not know about himself when young. The memory built into him had not included any information about his knighthood. Memory is so capriciously selective. What made it even more difficult was that Kate, or whoever was responsible, had not made him a natural liar. So to make up a story about it and tell it with conviction was more than he could manage at short notice.

  Appleby came to the rescue.

  “He’s called Sir Magnus,” she said airily, “because the Queen gave him a knighthood for his services to journalism and the reports he sent home from trouble spots in the world when he was a young man. Did you not know he was in Egypt at the time of the Suez Crisis?”