Mennyms Alive

by Sylvia Waugh

  “They’re opening another new restaurant just by the Dean Bridge,” she said. “This area’s going up in the world. Over a hundred years ago it was quite posh, then it took a slide into slumminess when the wealthy merchants moved away from the centre of the town. Now it’s on its way up again.”

  Then there was the weather. That was always good for a word or two.

  “This heat’s no good to me,” she said one day when late June produced an unusual spell of very hot weather. “I don’t like the cold, mind, but when it’s too hot it gets too hard to work. I don’t suppose it makes much difference to you?”

  She looked at them as if expecting an answer which she knew would not come. The pact she had made with the dolls was by now so well-established. Her glances were always to the left or the right of a face. She was careful never to look any of them straight in the eye. She talked to them like an actor talking down a telephone, pausing for replies from a dead line.

  It was just such casual conversation that made them all feel easy, but they knew the rules and they abided by them. Never, ever would they startle their new friend by springing to life in front of her! They all knew it was imperative that the line should stay dead.

  Daisy always went to the nursery and visited Miss Quigley and Googles. It was as well that she was prepared to turn a blind eye to change. Hortensia very soon stopped worrying about everyone and everything being in the ‘right’ place. Sometimes it could be a case of hunt-the-baby. Googles might be in her cot, her bath, her playpen, or just frozen in the act of crawling across the floor. “Play dead,” her nanny would say as soon as the doorbell rang. Then she would sit herself on the nearest seat, nursing or not nursing the baby.

  Daisy found the second flight of stairs very difficult. So visits to the rooms above were less frequent. Nevertheless, Tulip was always back in her chair beside her husband’s bed before midday on Wednesdays, whatever she might be doing the rest of the week. Sir Magnus had no need to prepare for the visitor. He still remained in bed all day and every day. Soon he ceased to consider Daisy at all. She rarely saw him, and when she did it was for only a very short time.

  Poopie knew that he had to be found sitting with his back to his bed, ‘playing’ with his soldiers. Sometimes he had to sprint to his room at the last minute.

  And love grew. Only Daisy’s regard for the rules she had made kept her from visiting more frequently. In time, these Wednesdays came to be the highlight of her week, the happiest days in her life.

  It was by no means a one-sided business. The Mennyms began to look forward to Wednesdays, despite, or perhaps because of, plans they had that would one day bring an end to this routine. They soon learned to return Daisy’s love.

  “She’s a good woman,” said Joshua.

  “And a clever one,” said Vinetta who saw how well Daisy dealt with her business papers and who appreciated all the snippets of knowledge embedded in the lightest of conversations.

  Appleby looked surprised. She liked Daisy, but it hadn’t occurred to her that anyone might think she was clever.

  “I don’t see what’s so clever about talking to us and not wanting us to answer back,” she said. “Sometimes I think she’s not quite right in the head.”

  “She’s lonely,” said Soobie, in a voice full of disapproval, “and she’s very gentle. But that’s something you wouldn’t appreciate.”

  “She copes,” said Vinetta. “She copes with everything in her own way – even us.”

  “We cope too,” said Tulip “We always have and we always will.”

  CHAPTER 24

  The Rest of the Week

  THE REST OF the week was governed by the opening hours of the shop. As soon as Daisy stepped from her taxi, a different set of rules came into play. Every movement had to be well thought out to avoid making any noise that would be heard on the floor below. Voices were kept down. Family squabbles had to be conducted sotto voce. Even Appleby in a rage with Poopie had to hiss venom through half-closed lips! It was very, very frustrating.

  Sunday became the day of freedom. The younger twins could romp all over the house if they wanted to. Googles could cry and throw things out of her playpen. Doors and drawers could be opened and closed without such extreme care about the noise they might make. Everyone could breathe more easily on Sundays.

  And it was on a Sunday that Appleby and Pilbeam first overcame Vinetta’s reluctance to allow them to leave the flat.

  “It’s easy,” said Appleby. “We use the back door. That’s why she left us the key. We can sneak out, go up the lane and cut through onto the quayside just past the Low Bridge. There are things we need to buy and, thanks to Granny, we have the money to buy them. If it weren’t for Granny we would be in a real fix, but she’s managed everything brilliantly. We can buy new clothes, new sunglasses, umbrellas, anything. And we can enjoy just walking about in the open air.”

  Granny Tulip was pleased to have her expertise so fulsomely acknowledged. So she stayed out of the argument, and her silence was taken as consent. Vinetta was swayed by the plea to be allowed to walk about in the open air.

  “If you are very cautious,” she said, “I suppose there’s no harm. Take notice of Pilbeam and mind nobody sees you going out of the back gate or coming in.”

  “Not much risk of that!” said Appleby. “This place is dead through the week and double dead on Sundays.”

  They took their hooded anoraks from the wardrobe, and their gloves. It was the second week in June, but the weather was not at all summery. Their autumn clothes would not be especially remarkable. Another week might plunge them into summer, but for now it was weather to wail about, unless you really wanted to wrap up well!

  Appleby was right about the sunglasses. They had none. Daisy must either have sold them or they might be part of the jumble still left in Ted Smith’s warehouse. So the first trip out was not as easy as it might have been.

  “We’ll just have to keep our hoods well down,” said Appleby. “And my hair nearly covers my eyes anyway. You’re always telling me to push it back. I’ll go closest to the stall, buy the first pairs of sunglasses I can lay hands on, and it’ll be a cinch after that.”

  When they were ready to go, Vinetta went with them into the kitchen. There was a flight of six lino-covered wooden stairs leading to the outer door. Vinetta went down them, drew back the bolts top and bottom, then turned the key in the lock. Finally, she lifted the latch and the door swung outwards to reveal a dozen stone steps going down to the backyard.

  Vinetta stepped back to allow her daughters to pass. It was eleven o’clock in the morning. The backyard was in deep shadow. There were clouds in the sky and the air was chilly.

  “At least it’s dry,” said Vinetta, “but goodness knows for how long.”

  “We’ll buy some umbrellas,” said Appleby. “Even if it doesn’t rain today, we might need them next time we go out.”

  The quayside market sprawled out along the riverside, a longer, slimmer version of the town market that Appleby most frequented. It was not the first time the girls had been there. They knew where most of the things they wanted would be sold.

  It was noisy and crowded. Hawkers’ voices competed for attention. Many of the things being sold were of no interest to the girls at all – fruit and vegetables, crockery and cutlery, pots and pans. What they sought first were the stalls that had a jumble of jewelry and purses and odds and ends. Among these they found the sunglasses, hardly top sellers on a dreary day, but there all the same.

  “Off to the south of France then, darling?” said the stall holder as he handed them over. Appleby passed him the money with gloved fingers, hooded head well down, and said in her most sultry tones, “But of course. Where else? Perhaps you would like to join us. There’s plenty of room on Daddy’s yacht,” then giggled as she moved away.

  “I wish you would be more careful,” said Pilbeam as she took the glasses from her. “That young man might have thought you were flirting with him. He might decide to foll
ow you. Then what would we do?”

  “Don’t be silly,” said Appleby. “Of course he thought I was flirting with him. I was flirting with him. But there’s nothing he can do about it – he’s stuck with minding his stall, isn’t he?”

  “All right,” said Pilbeam, “all right. But don’t do it again!”

  Pilbeam, feeling reasonably safe now that she was wearing dark glasses, bought a watch from another vendor and put it right by the church clock. It was a quarter to one. They had both done their fair share of buying.

  “I think we should go now,” she said.

  “Already?” said Appleby.

  “We’ve got everything we came for, so I think we should go,” insisted Pilbeam.

  “We’ll be home far too soon,” said Appleby.

  “There’s no such thing as too soon,” said Pilbeam. “Too late is what matters. If we are home by a quarter to two, Mum won’t have time to get worried. That might not matter to you, but it does matter to me.”

  “Can we go the long way round?” said Appleby. “Up the Dog Leap Stairs and down the other side? It’s better than going straight back to the flat. It’s a bit of fun.”

  A rapid calculation told Pilbeam that this request would not make them late and so she agreed. They ran up winding stone stairs between high grim walls, along a path that skirted the ruined warehouse, and down another steep flight of stairs to the lane behind North Shore Road. By the time they got there, they were laughing and breathless.

  “Isn’t it wonderful, wonderful, wonderful to go out!” shouted Appleby as they turned for home. “I hate being cooped up in a cage.”

  At that very moment, as if in cruel mockery of all she had ever said about the uneventfulness of life in North Shore Road, a car turned into the lane at the far end and was driven at speed in their direction. The steering was erratic and the car mounted the narrow pavement and scraped against the yard walls before veering to the other side of the lane. Its klaxon was playing a jarring series of notes like a primitive war-cry.

  Appleby looked towards the noise and then stood frozen to the spot, just watching, mesmerised, as the car came closer and closer. She and Pilbeam were on the wrong side of the lane and their back door was not even directly opposite. The steps they had descended were yards away. Behind them was a scrubby grass slope, steep enough to deter efforts to scramble up it.

  “Come on! Come on!” yelled Pilbeam, grabbing her sister’s arm. “Run!”

  They made a dash across the lane and managed to get into their own yard just before the car reached them. They stood breathless with their backs against the inside of the gate. Its wooden frame rattled as the ‘joy-riders’ mounted the pavement again. For a second it seemed as if the gate might cave in. But the car zoomed on past.

  Stillness followed, and a surge of relief!

  “There’s something to be said for cages!” said Pilbeam shakily. In her arms she was clutching a carrier bag and an umbrella. It was all she could do not to drop them.

  Appleby took a deep breath and glared at Pilbeam.

  “Something,” she said tersely, “but not a lot. Don’t you dare mention that car to them! It was a one-off. But you know what Mum’s like. She would think it was going to happen every time we left the house and we’d never get out again.”

  Pilbeam looked dazed. Reaction had set in, producing a state of shock . . .

  “Pull yourself together,” said Appleby sharply. “Give me your bag. You can bolt the gate.”

  She took Pilbeam’s shopping and her own and ran up the steps into the house.

  Wimpey was in the kitchen waiting eagerly for their return.

  “Have you brought anything for me?” she said and was delighted to be given a musical clown.

  That was the beginning of a life that was more tolerable. Within strict limitations, it was almost like living at Brocklehurst Grove. It would never be as comfortable or as easy, but gradually they all made the best of things.

  Soobie jogged at night as he had always done. Appleby and Pilbeam sneaked down the back stairs even when the shop was open and went into town. Joshua went out after dark. One night he walked as far as Sydenham’s and returned disconsolate, never to know what had happened to his job. Vinetta took the younger twins for a walk along the riverside. She also made outings alone, headscarfed and bespectacled, to the shops she knew well.

  Miss Quigley could not find the courage to go out yet. It was doubtful whether she ever would. Her confidence had been shaken too many times. She never even ventured upstairs after the conference. Her area was confined to the first floor of the flat. It was, after all, better than living in a cupboard!

  Magnus frequently complained of stress, but in his case stress was intensified by boredom. Daisy had provided him with only one book. His own notes, sheaves of them representing forty years of work, had been thrown out with the rubbish, so absolute was his belief that their end had come. Appleby bought him stationery and writing materials, but he had no heart to start anything, not even a crossword puzzle for the Times.

  As for Granny Tulip, she stayed indoors till she felt the time was ripe, needing to be completely sure of the pattern of every day of every week before she could embark on all the schemes she had in mind. How carefully she listened to everything Daisy said! How earnestly she read the newspapers Joshua brought home each night! Nothing happened in the shop or in the street below that was not recorded for future use.

  She knew that the shop never opened before ten o’clock, that the postman came at nine and then again at eleven-thirty, and that the street was usually empty mid-morning and mid-afternoon. She sent for catalogues, ordered whatever she wanted and when goods were delivered she opened the door carefully, standing in its shadow to take them in, reaching out a lace-gloved hand to sign for them. Black lace gloves were clearly eccentric, but – and this was something Tulip knew well – they indicated nothing other than eccentricity.

  By the middle of July, she was ready to embark upon a greater, more exciting and more perilous venture. But the theory of the black lace gloves would see her through. Of that she felt quite sure.

  CHAPTER 25

  Tulip Makes Plans

  “SHE SHOULD’VE GONE when she had the chance,” said Magnus, his voice full of resentment. The two grandparents were alone in the big front bedroom, Magnus sitting upright in his bed, Tulip seated rigidly on a high-backed chair.

  “Who?” said Tulip, glaring at him so stony-faced that her features looked more carved than moulded. “Dare to say who! Just dare!”

  Magnus returned the gaze with one just as fierce, but he did not answer. To talk too much of Kate Penshaw was to enter a forbidden zone. In the weeks since their return to life, Magnus had considered how such a thing could happen. He came to the conclusion that the culprit must be Kate herself. If her spirit had truly left them, they would not be under the stress of living again, and of coming to terms with a different set of rules.

  Tulip had reached the same conclusion, but she thrived on stress and was simply glad to be alive.

  “We’re in as bad a mess as ever,” said Magnus, “worse if anything.”

  “Not worse,” said Tulip. “Our leaving Brocklehurst Grove was inevitable. That was an ending. Now we are at a real beginning, better even than the first. There is something truly wonderful that we can do now!”

  “And what might that be?” said Magnus scornfully.

  “I will tell you later – when the wheels are in motion. To tell you anything at the moment is pointless. You are obviously neither ready nor willing to listen to me.”

  “Hello. Hello? Lady Mennym here. Lady Tulip Mennym. I’d like to speak to Mr Dobb.”

  It was three o’clock on a sunny afternoon in mid-July. Tulip, hatted and veiled, was in the telephone box on North Shore Road. She had rung the number of their solicitors, Rothwell and Ramshaw. This long-established firm had served Kate Penshaw first and had subsequently been used by the Mennyms on various occasions. For some years their de
alings had been with Mr Dobb, the senior clerk and the partnership’s oldest and most revered employee.

  “Lady Mennym!” said Mr Dobb in a delighted voice when he came to the phone. “How nice to hear from you again! I thought we might, but one is never sure.”

  “It is a pleasure to speak to you, Mr Dobb,” said Tulip warmly, “a real pleasure.”

  Mr Dobb had known Tulip’s voice for so many years that he could have sworn that they must have met face to face at some time in the past.

  “What can we do for you?” he said.

  “The second part of my letter,” said Tulip. “The contingency for putting all our financial arrangements into reverse. To put it briefly, the scheme we planned for simple living, making our way in this world without the trappings of wealth, has not proved satisfactory. It never had my approval in the first place, as you may imagine, but now the whole family has come round to my way of thinking. We are back in this country and we propose to start afresh, using all the resources that remain to us.”

  “You have no further claim on the house in Brocklehurst Grove,” Mr Dobb warned her hastily. “You surrendered that when Sir Magnus and Mr Joshua failed to sign the certificate of tenancy.”

  “I know that,” said Tulip impatiently. “All we require at the moment is that you will, as arranged, retrieve unopened the letters left by me at the bank and at the building societies. I have sent written instructions to them giving your name as temporary trustee with a full mandate to act on my behalf. You will return the letters to me, still unopened, at Number 39 North Shore Road, which is where I am staying at present. The rest of the family are lodged elsewhere till I manage to make proper arrangements for them.”

  “I see,” said Mr Dobb. By this time a junior had been signalled to extract the Mennym letter from its file and the senior clerk had found the place, on page six, where the ‘contingency arrangements’ began. “And after that . . .?”