The Minivers

by Natalie Jane Prior

  ‘I’m not all right!’ Rosamund wailed. ‘This is the worst day of my life. Oh, Milly, my face! I must look like a freak.’ And indeed, there was so much eye shadow and mascara streaming down Rosamund’s cheeks that she looked as if she had two black eyes.

  ‘I said you were wearing too much make-up,’ said Millamant sternly. Rosamund choked and laughed through her sobs. Even Emily managed to smile.

  ‘Why don’t I tell everyone you’re sick? That you’ll be back in a few minutes.’

  Rosamund shook her head. ‘I can’t go back,’ she said. ‘I just can’t. Please, Emily. Don’t make me. I just want to go home.’

  Emily looked at her sister’s tear-stained face. She still did not understand what was happening, but she knew Rosamund must be really upset to have broken down in front of her fans. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll make an announcement.’

  Emily walked back to the wings. In the darkness, she unexpectedly bumped into Ron.

  ‘Tell the band to stop playing,’ Emily ordered him. ‘Then help Rosamund to the car. You’ll need to have it sent to the back entrance so no one sees.’ She straightened her shoulders. The band was still playing, but at a gesture from Ron, they stopped. The lights in the ballroom dimmed. The guests, who had been milling around, gathered in clumps at the front of the stage.

  Emily took a deep breath and walked out onto the stage. The ballroom seemed full of huge sweaty shapes, all staring at her, waiting for her to speak. Cameras flashed and news cameras zoomed in close, but Emily had been appearing on television all her life. She could not remember a time when she had not been in front of one camera or another, and it did not bother her that they were there. The band’s guitarist handed Emily a microphone. A spotlight swung down on her tiny figure and she began to speak.

  ‘Tonight is a special time for a very special person. My sister Rosamund is fourteen years old. I’m sure you’d all like to join with me in wishing her a happy birthday.’ Emily paused, and there was a warm scattering of applause. ‘Unfortunately, Rosamund has been taken ill. She has had to leave the party and will soon be going home. I know she is disappointed, but it will cheer her up if you can join with me in singing her “Happy Birthday”.’

  The band struck up. Emily sang the first phrase into her microphone and, after a ragged start, the crowd warmed up and sang along with her. As she reached the last line, Emily started walking slowly back across the stage. Suddenly, in the midst of the crowd, in front of Rosamund’s forgotten birthday cake, her eyes caught sight of Madame. Of everyone in the room, she alone was not singing. She was gazing at Emily with an expression that was almost like hunger it was so intense.

  A great fear, unlike anything she had ever felt before, took hold of Emily’s heart. The song ended, the spotlight went out. Emily fled the stage while it was still in darkness. The wind of change was in the air, but as yet she had no way of telling in which direction it was blowing.

  2

  Kidnapped

  Rosamund was very quiet on the way home. She sat on the back seat of the limousine, surrounded by unopened presents, one hand clasped limply in Emily’s. Emily glimpsed a tear on her cheek and tried to speak to her. But Rosamund merely squeezed her fingers and turned her head to stare at the rain-soaked streets.

  Lightning flashed, and there were low rumbles of thunder. In the front seats, the driver, Joe, talked about the cricket with Alastair, the duty security guard. Emily wanted to shout at them. Didn’t they realise something terrible had happened? Even Millamant, on the opposite seat, had been silent since they left the party. Emily leaned over and whispered in her ear.

  ‘Do you think Rosamund’s ill?’

  ‘Shhh.’ Millamant put a stumpy finger to her lips. Frustrated, Emily picked up a fragrant bunch of red roses, the same colour as Rosamund’s dress, and buried her face among the blooms. As she did, a tiny card fell into her lap. To Rosamund, it said, With love from Titus and the Minivers Fan Club.

  The limousine pulled into the driveway of Miniver House. As it slowed in front of the big iron gates, reporters rushed towards them, waving cameras and microphones. Several flung themselves at the car and banged on the doors and windows, while one woman, more agile than the others, landed on the bonnet. She lay spreadeagled for a moment across the windscreen, her mouth opening and closing like a fish against the tinted glass. Emily winced. Joe accelerated through the opening gates and the woman jumped off into the darkness and was left behind.

  ‘I hate it when they do that,’ said Rosamund, in a muffled voice. ‘I wish they’d leave me alone.’

  ‘She made an awful bump when she hit the bonnet,’ said Emily anxiously.

  ‘Serve her right if she was run over,’ said Millamant. ‘But I don’t think she will have been hurt, little Emmie. We were hardly moving. Don’t worry, the guards will look after her.’

  The car pulled up at the terraced front of Miniver House. It was a long, turreted building with two Miniver-sized storeys, painted soft pink and white and nestled about with trees. As soon as the car came to a halt, Rosamund jumped out and ran into the house.

  ‘Rosamund?’ Emily hurried after her. The lights were out in the hallway, but upstairs she heard Rosamund’s bedroom door slamming shut. Emily turned on the light and followed. She tapped once on Rosamund’s door – there was no lock, for they had never wanted to keep each other out – turned the handle, and walked in.

  Rosamund was lying on her white and gilt bed. Her face was even paler than normal under her raven hair, and though Millamant had wiped away the worst of the make-up smudges, Emily saw that she had been crying again. She was turning the key Papa King had given her over and over, as if she was standing in front of a door and could not make up her mind whether to open it. The expression on her face was almost more than Emily could bear. She sat down on the bed, twisted her fingers in her lap, then spoke.

  ‘Rosamund, what’s the matter?’

  Rosamund stopped playing with the key. She looked at it for a moment, put it on the coverlet and propped herself up on her elbow. ‘Emily, haven’t you ever wondered where we come from? I mean, who put me in the shoe box and you in the basket, and why?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ said Emily slowly. ‘Well, of course I have. It’d be strange if I hadn’t when we look so different to everyone else. But nobody’s ever been able to find out the answer to those questions, and if they could, I think by now they would have. Anyway, what does it matter where we come from? Isn’t it more important who we are?’

  ‘No.’ Rosamund sat up suddenly on the bed. ‘No, it isn’t. Don’t you understand, Emmie? You and I – we have no real beginning. That’s why I got so upset tonight. That girl, Fiona, was right when she said I don’t have a real birthday. Neither of us knows when we were born, or where, or even why. Ordinary people, even ones who were adopted, can find the answers to those questions. But you and me – we’re not real people at all. We’re Minivers. We just – are.’

  ‘But Minivers belong to everybody,’ said Emily. It was something Papa King had always told them, and she believed it with all her heart. ‘Minivers are for people to love.’

  ‘Are they, Emmie?’ said Rosamund. ‘Are they really? Papa King taught us that, but since his stroke, I sometimes even wonder about that.’

  The fear that had been in Emily’s heart when she had seen Madame at the party struck her now for a second time. ‘But the fans love us, Rose,’ she whispered. ‘They always have, especially you. Look at the presents and letters people send you every day. You got seventeen sacks of mail this morning just for your birthday. Isn’t that enough?’

  Rosamund shook her head. ‘You don’t understand. Not now. But you’ll know what I mean one day.’ She shifted restlessly, and the key that Papa King had given her slipped off the bed and landed on the carpet. Emily picked it up.

  ‘Don’t lose this, Rose,’ she said. ‘It might be important.’

  ‘You take care of it for me. You know how careless I am.’ Rosamund leaned over and
kissed Emily on the cheek. ‘I’m tired, I want to go to bed. Good night, Emmie. Love you.’

  ‘I love you too.’ Emily returned the kiss, and they hugged briefly. But, as she trailed out of Rosamund’s bedroom into her own adjoining room, Emily still did not entirely understand.

  ‘Minivers are for everybody.’ Emily repeated the slogan as she put Rosamund’s key in her bedside drawer. Millamant was standing by her bed, turning back the covers and plumping up the pillows. ‘Minivers are for people to love. Everybody loves the Minivers. Everybody.’ There was a loud thump on the roof and Emily started. ‘What was that?’

  ‘It sounded like a possum,’ said Millamant. She handed Emily her pyjamas. ‘Is Rosamund all right?’

  Emily shook her head. ‘She says we have no beginning. That being a Miniver isn’t enough any more. I don’t understand what’s wrong with her.’

  ‘Growing up,’ said Millamant wisely. ‘It was bound to happen, sooner or later. Don’t worry, Emmie, she’ll be herself again soon enough. Come along to bed.’ She waited while Emily put on her pyjamas and cleaned her teeth, then tucked her in and left her with a brisk and businesslike kiss.

  But Emily could not sleep. She felt stressed and confused, and the evening’s events kept running around inside her head. Again and again, she saw Rosamund fleeing across the crowded ballroom, saw Madame’s colourless grey eyes staring up at her on the stage. What did Madame mean by walking away like that? What door did Papa King’s key open and why had he given it to Rosamund? With all her heart, Emily wished that Papa King was well again. Though he had always been more like a distant grandfather than a real father to her and Rosamund, he had always watched over them and protected them from harm. Emily’s eyes filled with tears. The storm was still rumbling and the rain was thrumming on the roof. Once or twice she thought she heard the possums again, going clunk-clunk-clunk over the tiles. Then, at last, without realising how or when, she fell into a fitful doze.

  A shrill, piercing scream brought Emily wide awake in an instant. She sat up, panting and terrified. Her nightdress was twisted around her legs and the bedclothes lay in a heap on the floor. For a moment, she was not sure whether the scream had been real, or whether she had dreamed it. Then she saw something so strange, so almost impossible that for several seconds she sat round-eyed and staring, unable to believe it.

  The window was open and the soft plush pink of her bedroom carpet was marked by wet footprints. Somebody had come in through the window, walked through her room in dirty sneakers and passed through Rosamund’s door, leaving behind bits of wet leaf and mud. And the footprints were normal-sized.

  In an instant, Emily was out of bed. She shoved open Rosamund’s door and snapped on the light. If Rosamund had been there, she would have screamed and thrown a pillow at Emily’s head. But Rosamund was not there. Her Miniver-sized bed, with its gilt bedhead, was empty.

  A glass of water had been knocked off the bedside table and the bedclothes pulled from the bed. As Emily ran to the window and leaned over the sill, a security alarm suddenly went off, shrill, mocking, too late. Dark shapes were running over the lawn of Miniver House. Through the drumming rain, Emily thought she heard a distant scream.

  ‘Rosamund!’ she yelled.

  Now there really was no doubt. Emily turned and ran from the room, stopping only to grab a pair of slippers from the jumble of dresses and miniature feather boas that spilled from her sister’s dressing-room. She scurried downstairs, past pictures that showed her and Rosamund together on television, with their gold records, with Papa King. At the bottom of the stairs she bumped into Millamant.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Millamant’s blonde hair stuck out in two stiff plaits on either side of her head. She was in her nightdress and had one stumpy arm in and the other out of her dressing gown. ‘Where’s security?’

  ‘I don’t know. Milly, somebody’s kidnapping Rose! We’ve got to help!’

  ‘Emily! Emily stay here!’ shouted Millamant, but Emily had already wrenched open the door and run out into the rain. Torches were moving through the darkened garden, flickering this way and that; she heard footsteps running on wet gravel and men shouting as the security guards tried to work out which way the intruders were going.

  ‘Ron! Alastair! What’s happening?’ Emily bawled. Ignoring Millamant, who was still yelling at her from the house, she ran across the terrace and down the shallow steps. It was so hard to see anything in the rain and darkness that by the time she reached the bottom she was drenched through and confused about where to go next. Emily hurried over the driveway, her small feet wobbling and stumbling on the gravel. There was thunder in the air and the dim glimmer of lightning. Mist floated across the paths between the flowerbeds. Emily heard the distant crackle of walkie-talkies, moving around to the front of the house. Then, at the side gate, she heard a car engine starting up in the street.

  ‘Rosamund!’ Emily darted between two huge pink canna lilies. They shook and rustled over her head as she forced her way through, and she lost a slipper in the sodden mulch as she vaulted from the garden bed onto the grass. Ahead of her, beyond the rose garden, was the murraya hedge that had been planted to keep out prying eyes, and a strong gate that was always secured by a chain. As Emily ran towards it there was a flash of lightning and she saw that the gate was swinging open.

  ‘Stop!’

  Thunder exploded overhead. In the street, two dark human shapes were wrestling a struggling bundle into the back of a van.

  Emily thought she heard a muffled cry. ‘Rose, I’m coming!’ she shouted.

  The kidnappers jumped into the van. With a last desperate effort, Emily shot through the gate onto the footpath. As she reached the van, its doors slammed in her face. The driver revved the engine, and it sped off through the teeming streets and was gone.

  3

  Separation

  The morning sun was creeping around the edges of the living-room curtain when Emily was awoken by the sound of a tray being set down on a nearby table. She had been sleeping with her mouth open and it felt dry and horrible. She was tired, as if she had not had a proper night’s sleep. For a moment, Emily could not remember why she was lying there. Then she saw Millamant with a pile of newspapers and anxiously sat up.

  ‘Milly! Is there any news?’

  ‘Not yet.’ Millamant put the papers down. She looked very tired, which was not surprising. They had sat up for hours, waiting for news of Rosamund. Emily had fallen asleep on the sofa some time after dawn, but Millamant seemed not to have slept at all. ‘I’ve had the radio and TV on all morning, but there’s been nothing on the news reports. Ron says the police want to keep it secret as long as they can, in case it hampers the investigation. He’ll be coming in after breakfast to talk to you.’

  ‘Oh, Milly.’ Emily’s lip wobbled. ‘I don’t want anything to eat this morning.’

  ‘Of course you don’t,’ said Millamant. She picked up the loaded breakfast tray and placed it on Emily’s lap. ‘But I’ve gone to the trouble of cooking, and you’re going to need it. It’s going to be a difficult day.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Emily poked her fork into the middle of her scrambled egg, then put it down on the edge of the plate with a clatter. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she reached for the soggy handkerchief in her dressing gown pocket and started to howl. Millamant’s blue eyes watered too. She sat down on the sofa next to Emily and patted her on the back with a small square hand.

  ‘Don’t worry, little Emmie. We’ll get her back. Rosamund can’t be far away.’

  ‘She’ll be so frightened,’ wept Emily. ‘She might be hurt, and, oh Milly, suppose we don’t find her? Suppose something terrible has happened? What if – what if Rosamund is dead?’

  It was the first time she had uttered the word. Millamant looked stricken and had no answer, but Emily could see from her expression that she too, had thought the unthinkable. Their hands fumbled and linked, and for a moment they sat, trying to imagine a world without Rosamund in it, a
world so grey and insupportable that neither of them could believe it might exist. The moment was broken by a knock on the living-room door.

  ‘That’ll be Ron,’ said Millamant. ‘I’ll let him in.’

  Emily pushed aside the untouched tray of food and hastily wiped her eyes. Millamant got up to answer the door.

  Miniver House had been designed for Emily and Rosamund, but it had been necessary to cater for normal visitors, too. An average sized person could just about stand up inside if they were careful of things like light-fittings. Ron, the Miniver’s Chief of Security, had to stoop to get through the door, and he looked distinctly uncomfortable amongst the miniature furniture. Emily gestured politely to their biggest chair.

  ‘Ron. Please, sit down. I’m sorry, we should have held this meeting in the conference room.’

  ‘That’s all right, Miss Emily. I’m sure you’ll feel more comfortable in your own house. I might kneel, if you don’t mind; that chair looks a bit small.’ Ron crouched down and produced a videotape. ‘I’ve brought this for you to look at. It’s the edited security footage from the cameras. There’s no other news yet, but the patrols are out, and we should get fresh reports within the hour.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Emily put the tape into the video recorder. Black and white, flickering images filled the TV screen. They were so grainy she was unable to make head or tail of them. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The back roof of the house. If you watch carefully, you should see two intruders coming over the roof, here.’ Ron slowed the tape so Emily could see more clearly. ‘This next bit shows them ten minutes later, running across the south lawn – that’s probably Rosamund in the sack, over the taller one’s shoulder. The next footage comes from the camera outside the gate. You can see them driving off. Does that look like the van you saw?’