Mennyms in the Wilderness

by Sylvia Waugh

  The pram on the moor was her next objective. She carried Googles over to it, smoothed out one of the covers and laid her down on it. She righted the pram and gave a stern, warning look at a sheep that was straying too near. Next she put the pillows and covers in their proper place, but was puzzled to find that the righted pram had a decided tilt. Investigation proved that the wheel under one side of the hood had fallen off. Hortensia was dismayed but not defeated. She soon found that the wheel would not go back on. So she hooked it onto the handle beside her handbag. It never occurred to her to leave the pram in the field. That would have been disgracefully improvident. But to take a three-wheeled pram up the steep track, especially for someone wearing shoes with a broken heel, would be asking for trouble.

  Hortensia viewed the house, standing there against the sky, high as an eagle’s nest. A short way down the road was the white wooden gate leading to the hundred steps. And Hortensia knew what had to be done.

  She lifted Googles up off the cover and tucked her carefully into the pram. Then she wheeled the vehicle awkwardly along the road to the gate, opened it, and set herself to tackle the herculean task of climbing backwards up the steps pulling the pram, on its two good wheels, up after her. She counted every step.

  “My goodness! Whatever have you done to yourself?” exclaimed Vinetta when she saw her friend emerging onto the top lawn looking distraught and bedraggled. Hortensia explained badly and all in a rush, but Vinetta understood and was very sympathetic.

  Between them, the two women settled the baby down and put the pram away.

  “I’m so sorry,” said Hortensia, “and so ashamed. It was shocking. It should never have happened. I am a stupid woman. How can you ever trust me again?”

  Vinetta put her arm round Hortensia’s narrow shoulders.

  “I trust you, Hortensia Quigley, more than anyone on this earth. It was an accident. It was an emergency, but you coped. That was what really mattered.”

  They were sitting on the sofa in the drawing room. Outside the sun was still shining. Inside the gloom that never left the house belied the time of day.

  “I don’t know how you managed to climb those hundred steps pulling that monstrous pram,” said Vinetta.

  “There weren’t a hundred,” said Hortensia. “Only fifty-eight. A hundred is an exaggeration. But fifty-eight was quite enough. We are prisoners here, Vinetta. We’ll never be able to go out again.”

  21

  The Night Rider

  SOOBIE APPEARED TO settle well enough in his new surroundings. It was hard to tell. Soobie rarely looked happy in any circumstances. He had a solemn, sensible, very blue face with silver eyes full of hidden wisdom and maybe hidden hurt. He played chess with Albert and showed some quiet enjoyment in beating him, though it was never an entirely one-sided game. Albert was good. Soobie was better. Some games lasted for more than one visit. Between times, Soobie mostly sat in the library and read. This was truly the quiet part of the house, in the north-west corner, well away from all of the other lived-in rooms. And when the door was shut nobody, not even Albert, intruded.

  Soobie would stretch out on the sofa and either read or look disconsolately out at the landscape. Appearances are deceptive. Soobie had not settled into his new environment at all. The blue-striped suit he wore was his one-and-only. In forty years it had been renewed twice and each new suit had been a faithful copy of the one before. So with the view from his window. The bay window at Brocklehurst Grove, the wrought-iron gates, the square with its statue of Matthew James, and the busy road beyond – these were what Soobie wanted, for no other reason than that they had always been his. The view from Comus House of the distant hills and wide, wild stretches of moorland was unendurably empty and lonely and unfamiliar.

  Worse still, the one ride on the scooter, whizzing round the stableyard, had reached something deep in Soobie’s soul that he had never suspected was there. It went completely contrary to his wish for sameness. Part of him wanted to get on that bike and ride over hill and down dale. His hatred of change and his paradoxical yearning for adventure had this in common – they both made him miserable.

  One afternoon in September, Soobie prowled round the house like a cat in search of a comfortable corner. The view from the library was getting on his nerves. His bedroom was full of unfriendly furniture that had belonged to strangers. Nowhere in that house was right. He caught sight of his sisters out in the front garden, looking more at home than he ever could. (But appearances are deceptive!) He could hear his mother and grandmother quietly arguing in the breakfast-room. Miss Quigley and her charge were in the drawing-room. Hortensia was very earnestly engaged in painting a miniature on an oval piece of glass.

  Soobie went along the narrow passage that led to the back door. He went out into the yard and crossed to the stables, passing Poopie who was building a camp on top of the well.

  “Do you want a game?” asked Poopie hopefully. It was not a stupid question. Soobie could be quite kind about playing with his younger brother. And the best of playing with Soobie was that he took it all very seriously, regarding the game of soldiers more as a mathematical problem than a silly pretend. But not today.

  “No,” said Soobie, “not today. Some other time.”

  Poopie said no more and went back to his army. Soobie went into the stable and sat astride the scooter. Without thinking, he took the helmet and put it on his head. Without any real idea of what he intended to do, he checked the petrol, got up and added more from the can Albert had used. Then he wheeled the scooter out into the path.

  It was at that point that the demon took over. The yearning for adventure came bubbling to the surface and Soobie free-wheeled down to the road and then started the engine. He did not know where he was going or why. But he was off and away. Not too fast, and never reckless, but feeling an amazing joy as he travelled the country roads.

  At a remote garage he stopped and bought more fuel. The woman in the kiosk gave him a funny look. Helmet and goggles covered his blue face. Gloves hid his blue hands. But his suit resembled a pair of pyjamas more than anything else. Still, she thought, takes all sorts to make a world.

  It was dusk when Soobie stopped, propped the scooter against a tree, and sat down to rest. Odd, creaky, squeaky noises disturbed him. A fox shot off across the road in front of him. Soobie looked at the sky which was a luminous purple-grey and becoming darker by the minute. It was no use. Whatever the questions were that his peculiar soul kept asking, a scooter ride along country lanes was not going to provide any answers. Why am I here? Because I’m not there.

  He thought of trying to find his way back to Brocklehurst Grove. Not impossible. There was a map in the saddlebag. Roads have sign posts. He still had enough money to buy more petrol. Yet there was something wrong with that idea.

  He thought of his mother back at Comus House, counting her sheep and finding one missing. It was unfair. She had suffered once before, when Appleby had run away from home. He would not, could not, cause her suffering like that again. She might already have missed him. She might already be worried. He would not prolong her agony.

  So, with a sigh and a groan, he pulled himself up off the damp earth, mounted the scooter and set off for Comus House. It was some miles away, and there were many twists and turns in the road, but Soobie did not need the map. He was observant and careful and he knew the way he had come.

  He was almost within sight of home and had no more than two miles to cover when the accident happened. It was not his fault. A farm truck pulled suddenly out of a gateway. Its driver was less careful than usual. It was after nine o’clock at night in a very quiet spot. He had not expected there to be any other vehicle on that stretch of road.

  Soobie saw him just in time to swerve madly. To keep full control of the bike was impossible. It keeled over and Soobie sprawled in the road. The driver of the truck stopped and jumped out.

  “Where the hell did you come from?” he yelled, panicking in case he had hurt the bike-rider and anx
ious to avoid being blamed.

  A dazed Soobie pulled himself hastily to his feet and picked up the scooter.

  “I’m all right,” he said wildly. “Perfectly all right. No harm done.”

  “Are you sure?” asked the man, showing decent concern now that he knew he was not being held responsible.

  Soobie wheeled the scooter forward into the road, ready to depart. The headlamps of the truck shone on his blue suit. The left trouser leg was ripped and his blue limb was clearly visible. So what did the man see? A very odd character wearing helmet and goggles, large driving gloves, and a pair of tattered, striped pyjamas over what looked like long dark-blue underwear.

  “Blimey!” said the man, laughing nervously. “You do see some sights! Does your mother know you’re out, sonny?”

  Soobie looked down at his blue leg and felt unbearably embarrassed. He jumped onto the scooter and rode away as fast as he could.

  He had not been missed at Comus House. Vinetta did not count her sheep as meticulously as all that! But he was spotted returning.

  Tulip had gone to check that the children had shut the back door. They were in bed by then and Tulip was about to settle down for the night, whether to sleep or knit depended on the state of her insomnia. Every night she checked the doors. This was, after all, the country. There were mice behind the wainscots in Comus House. She knew that already. It was important that no other members of the animal kingdom should be allowed to invade.

  The door was shut, but Tulip decided to have one last look out at the night. One of the stable doors was flapping open. With a tut, Tulip made her way across the yard to close it. It was then that she saw Soobie pushing the bike up the path.

  “Where have you been with that?” she asked.

  “Nowhere,” said Soobie crossly. It was perfectly true. He had been nowhere.

  Tulip looked at him more closely.

  “What on earth has happened to your trouser leg?”

  “It’s torn,” said Soobie.

  “How?” asked his grandmother.

  “Mind your own business,” said Soobie in a surly voice. It was not his normal way of speaking to anybody, let alone his grandmother. But he was angry, and she was there.

  Tulip was amazed, infuriated, and for a moment completely winded, gasping for something to say.

  “How dare you talk like that to me!” she said at last. “You forget who I am! I don’t know what your mother will say when she sees the state you are in. You won’t be telling her to mind her own business when you want those trousers cleaned and mended.”

  “I’ll mend them myself,” said Soobie, becoming entrenched in his anger. “I don’t need anybody to do anything for me.”

  He put the scooter away, then slammed the garage door and went off into the house without another word or a look. To say that Tulip was livid would be an understatement.

  Vinetta would have understood him. Tulip, set in her ways, bound by old rules, did not.

  22

  Humiliation

  THE NEXT DAY Soobie was still angry with everything and everybody. Most of all he was angry with himself. It became a matter of pride to mend his own trouser leg and dust off as much of the dirt as he could. Whenever he felt confused as to whose fault it was that he was a misfit in a marvellous world he always tried to contain his misery by concentrating on something immediate and doable. It was a trick he had learnt long ago.

  There was no one in the drawing-room. That was to be expected in the mornings. Soobie found his mother’s small workbox on the sideboard where she usually kept it now. From it he took a needle and a bobbin of blue thread. Then he went to the armchair by the window. It had its back to the room and when seated in it one could stay there undetected.

  Soobie had no regard for Tulip’s often quoted old wives’ tale about “sewing sorrow to oneself”. He bent over his knee and, holding the cloth away from his leg as much as he could, began painstakingly to sew the tear in his trousers. It was not easy and he was not neat. Tulip would have called it “dog’s tooth” stitching.

  After about twenty minutes, Pilbeam came into the room and picked up a magazine she had left on the sofa. Soobie was aware of her coming and going, but he gave no sign and she did not realise he was there.

  Another ten minutes went by before Vinetta came in and sat by the fire. Tulip joined her. She had already complained bitterly to her daughter-in-law about Soobie’s rudeness of the night before. It was not a subject she was going to let drop.

  “Are you going to speak to him?” she demanded of Vinetta.

  “Yes,” said Vinetta. “I will. I have already told you I will.”

  “When?”

  “Some time today. I’ll go along to the library and have a quiet word.”

  “That’s more than he had with me,” said Tulip. “A word, yes, but far from quiet. And very, very rude. Do you think I’d have allowed Joshua to talk to me like that when he was his age? You have no control over those children, Vinetta. Nobody has. And it’s your fault. You’ve spoilt them.”

  Soobie was sitting all this while overhearing all that was said. He did not want to be a listener but he did not want to join in either. So he shrank down and looked at the mend in his trousers. Beauty, as Sir Magnus was wont to say, is in the eye of the beholder. Soobie thought he had made a reasonably good job of that repair.

  Vinetta winced at Tulip’s words but she held back her anger.

  “They have to control themselves,” she said. “What they say or do is their responsibility.”

  “And where they go and what they wear,” said Tulip, working herself up. “Soobie wouldn’t be allowed across the doors if he were my son. He is alien to us, never mind outsiders. It would help if you could persuade him to wear clothes like other people. What does he look like going around day in day out in what you could best describe as a pair of crumpled striped pyjamas? He’s a freak. He’s nothing but a freak.”

  Vinetta felt crushed and angry.

  “What about yourself?” she snapped. “You’re never seen without a pinny.”

  “It is not always the same pinny,” said Tulip haughtily, “and it is never other than crisp and clean. But I see how it is. You are sticking up for them as usual. And much thanks you get! You are a doormat as far as your children are concerned. You’ll never learn.”

  Vinetta managed to remain outwardly calm.

  “If I am a doormat,” she said, “at least I am useful.”

  Then suddenly they were gone their separate ways and the room was empty.

  Empty except for Soobie, hidden in the armchair. Soobie the freak, in his badly-mended trousers, nursing a broken heart.

  He went along the dark, winding passage to the library and lay down on the sofa to die.

  23

  Poopie

  POOPIE MENNYM HAD the innate ability to make himself at home anywhere. And the stable-garage was not just anywhere. It was a huge enclosed space where battles could be fought and won. Hector, his favourite Action Man, could hide with his troops under the wooden staircase that led up to the loft. Basil, the enemy leader, a vicious character who had lost half of his left arm in some old war, would unwittingly lead his men into an ambush. Ignorant armies clashed by night! Tanks and jeeps zoomed across the concrete part of the floor till they bumped into the flagstones at the rear.

  It startled the rabbit.

  All that noise and commotion and there in the back of the stables was a young rabbit with a limp, injured front paw, just longing for peace and quiet. It cowered back into the corner. The first Poopie knew of its existence was when a shaft of light coming through one of the shutters caught just a glimpse of movement and the flicker of a frightened eye.

  Poopie went cautiously to investigate. He remembered the rat that had once gnawed his father’s leg in the warehouse where he worked.

  “It’s a rabbit!” he exclaimed with a mixture of feelings of which the strongest was delight. He was born knowing what a rabbit was. Everybody is!

/>   He stooped down and gingerly touched the little rabbit’s head. It was warm and furry and bony. Poopie could feel the bones in its little skull. The rabbit froze. It made no attempt to escape. Very soon it must have come to the conclusion that the cloth hand was friendly, or at least harmless. It looked up hopefully into Poopie’s bright blue eyes, wide with wonder under the yellow fringe.

  “I won’t hurt you,” said Poopie gently. “You are my rabbit. I’m going to look after you.”

  He sneaked into the house and brought out an old tracksuit top. He filled a soup plate with water from the kitchen tap. From the side-garden he took some lettuce leaves.

  “There,” he said, settling the rabbit on the tracksuit top and putting the plate of water in front of it. “Now you can be comfortable.”

  He sat on the floor beside his new pet and nervously, held out a piece of lettuce leaf. The little animal bit on it immediately and Poopie hastily drew back his hand.

  It was wonderful. It was even better than watching Albert eat. The leaf disappeared like magic and the rabbit was ready for more.

  “I’ll call you Andy Black,” said Poopie. “You can be my friend. I’ll let you play with me. You can have a ride on the tank.”

  That never happened. First, Poopie was still too cautious to lift Andy Black right out of the corner. Secondly, Wimpey came looking for her brother and spotted something he had missed.

  “What you doing in there?” demanded Wimpey from the open doorway. She had her skipping-rope in her hand. Outside, the sun was shining.

  “Come on in,” said Poopie eagerly. “Come and see Andy Black. But don’t tell any of the others. It’s a secret.”

  Wimpey ran across the concrete floor onto the flagstones. The stable was very gloomy. Wimpey’s eyes adjusted to the change in light and she looked down wonderingly at the rabbit.

  “He’s not black,” she said. “He’s brown.”

  “I never said he was black,” said Poopie loftily. “His name is Andy Black. Black is a name as well as a colour. You could be Wimpey Black, if you weren’t Wimpey Mennym.”