Mennyms Under Siege

by Sylvia Waugh

  The Davidsons had lived at Number 8 for seven years. They kept themselves apart from strangers and were happy in their own community. Bernie Davidson had attended the protest meetings at Number 9, but it had been difficult. He was an unworldly man, a student of history, with a long sad history of his own. With his wife and children, he had watched from the window as Miss Fryer climbed up to tie the triumphant banner to the chimney of Number 9. The scene to them was incredible. But funny. Bernie smiled a slow smile.

  “Well, Becky,” he said to his wife, “now I think we have seen everything!”

  So seven households could be expected safely to ignore the residents of Number 5. But Anthea Fryer, the sharp-eyed tenant of Number 9, more than made up for the rest.

  17

  In the Nursery

  “WE MUSTN’T TELL any of the others, Hortensia,” said Vinetta when she and Miss Quigley had settled on the long sofa in the day nursery. Googles was in her cot watching a fleet of mobile teddy bears turning in the air above her. It was the day after Hortensia’s encounter with Anthea Fryer. Mid-afternoon sun streamed through the window which looked out onto the front garden.

  “We will be watchful, of course,” Vinetta went on, “and Googles will have to be kept indoors. But apart from that, things can go on as they are.”

  This decision had not been lightly reached. The day before, when Hortensia had come in, hysterical and almost incoherent, Vinetta had put Googles into the cot and had made her nanny go straight to her room to lie down.

  “Say nothing,” she had said to Hortensia, “not yet. I need time to think.”

  She had broken the habit of years and not even confided in Joshua.

  “If Magnus were to find out,” she explained to Hortensia, “it would be back to the siege again, and neither of us wants that! So we keep it to ourselves.”

  “Won’t the others wonder why I never take the baby out?” said Hortensia, trying to make sure that nothing had been overlooked.

  “I don’t suppose they will even notice,” said Vinetta. “But if they do, so what? It is none of their business.”

  The two women had deliberately withdrawn to the day nursery for their discussion because it was one of the few places in the house where they could hope to sit undisturbed.

  “I’m still a bit worried about the lie I told,” said Hortensia. “It might have repercussions. Whooping cough is an infectious disease. People get worried about it.”

  “Where’s your mother got herself to now?” Granny Tulip asked Soobie who was in his usual seat at the lounge window.

  He looked up from his book and said, “I think she went into the day nursery with Miss Quigley.”

  Tulip rarely visited the nursery, but she had a sixth sense for something-going-on-that-she-didn’t-know-about.

  “Well,” she said as she came in, “what’s been happening today?”

  Miss Quigley looked uncomfortable.

  Vinetta, totally in control, said, “Pretty much the same as happens every day. Is something wrong?”

  “Not as far as I know,” said Tulip, looking at Vinetta over the gold rims of her little spectacles. “I just have this feeling that someone’s up to something.”

  “Well, it’s not me,” said Vinetta with a smile, “and it’s certainly not Hortensia.”

  At that moment, Googles unfortunately decided to demonstrate her newly discovered talent. She gave a horrendous cough that ended in a very alarming whoop.

  “What on earth . .?” said Tulip. “That child sounds as if she has whooping cough.”

  Vinetta took the offensive.

  “Don’t get carried away, Tulip. Don’t forget what we are. It is another of the perks – Mennyms don’t get whooping cough, or any other cough for that matter. We have natural immunity!”

  Tulip looked at her suspiciously. Her daughter-in-law had become increasingly independent in her thinking over the past year or two. The family’s enforced trip to the country, traumatic for Sir Magnus, had made subtle differences to all of them.

  “Why did Googles cough then?” said Tulip, determined to stick to the point.

  “It’s a pretend,” said Vinetta. Hortensia looked on anxiously.

  The afternoon sun slanted in through the window and Googles reached for the shadows of the teddy bears as they moved round the panelled side of her cot. Another whoop seemed appropriate, so she made it.

  “Where did she get the pretend from?” Tulip insisted. “She’s much too young to have thought it up for herself. Something must have put the idea into her head.”

  Vinetta felt angry. What right had Tulip to pry so?

  “I don’t know where she got it from,” said Vinetta sharply, “and, what is more, I don’t care. It is a pretend and in all fairness we must go along with it. My daughter is a very lively baby with a vivid imagination. She has as much right to a pretend as anyone else in the family.”

  Quarrels in the Mennym household were like movements in music. Vinetta’s crescendo was answered by a quiet, contained, but somehow superior lull.

  “You are right, of course,” said Tulip in an icy little voice that made the opposite sound true. “The hundred days cough, as I believe the Chinese call it. Shall we have a hundred days of baby being ill?”

  The sarcasm did not matter. To both Vinetta and Hortensia, the idea sounded utterly brilliant. It was the perfect pretend, the cover they needed to explain their decision to keep Googles safely out of sight.

  “And naturally,” said Miss Quigley in her best nanny tones, “there will have to be a period of quarantine. We don’t want any of the other children catching it.”

  Tulip, still uneasy, said no more about it.

  “It’s a lovely day,” she said, looking out of the window. “A pity to be stuck indoors. I think I’ll take my knitting out into the back garden.”

  A very tall woman with short, wiry grey hair was striding past the front gate. Tulip noticed her briefly, but without any interest. She was just a stranger passing quickly by. No one in the Mennym household would have recognised Sarah Benson, the health visitor.

  18

  Intruders

  SARAH CALLED IN at Number 9 to see her friend, Connie Witherton. They had been at school together and had been overjoyed at their reunion when the Fryers moved into Brocklehurst Grove nearly five years ago.

  “My feet are killing me,” said Sarah as she sat down in one of Connie’s deep armchairs. “I must’ve walked miles today.”

  “I’ve been hoping you’d drop in,” said Connie.

  “Drop’s the word for it,” said Sarah as she settled down.

  Over the usual coffee cups, Connie told Sarah about Anthea’s concern that the baby at Number 5 had whooping cough and might not be receiving proper care and attention.

  “I don’t suppose there’s anything to worry about really, but once Anthea gets a bee in her bonnet it’s very hard to budge. I thought things might have been better now she’s planning to marry, but old habits evidently die hard.”

  Sarah did not look unduly worried. From a professional viewpoint, it seemed a small matter. Only friendship would make her give it a second thought.

  “People round here tend to be very careful of their offspring,” she said, “but I’ll see what I can find out, just in case. What’s their name?”

  “Mennym,” said Connie, and then spelt it out. The name, with its curious spelling, had only become known to her at the time of the petition to save Brocklehurst Grove from the planners.

  Back at the office, the computer drew a blank when Sarah enquired about patients by the name of Mennym. Early next afternoon, she called and told Connie. Anthea joined them.

  “There’s definitely something suspicious about that family,” she said. “I’ve known there was from the day we moved here.”

  That was not strictly true, but at that moment Anthea thought it was.

  “We mustn’t jump to conclusions,” said Sarah. “They may be registered with some doctor out of the area. Or the
baby’s name might not be Mennym.”

  Anthea looked stubborn.

  “You don’t know them the way we do,” she said. “There’s something very odd about the whole family.”

  “I’ll tell you what,” said Sarah, “if it’ll make you any happier, I’ll go along and introduce myself and make a few polite enquiries. That’s the most I can do.”

  So Sarah, feeling more self-conscious about a visit than she had done for years, found herself walking up the path to the front door of Number 5. She rang the bell. Inside, the unwanted-visitor routine was already in progress.

  Soobie had seen the stranger coming through the gate, an official-looking stranger dressed in sober navy that looked almost like a uniform. He rose quickly from his chair and went to the kitchen to find his mother.

  “There’s a woman coming to the front door,” he said. “You’d better get ready to answer.”

  They had a strategy that had been effective for years and years. Social callers were unknown, but officials who came to the house, such as meter-readers, had to be admitted sometimes and it was always necessary to follow a strict procedure. Reduce visibility, avoid contact, and try to fade into the woodwork. Vinetta put on her tinted spectacles and carefully closed all the doors leading onto the hall. Soobie, on his way to his bedroom, lowered the blind on the landing window. The hall was shrouded in gloom.

  The doorbell rang.

  Sarah stood on the doorstep waiting, looking curiously to left and right. Like every other house in the street, it looked prosperous, well-cared for, and inviolable. Sarah was about to turn away when the door opened a fraction and a voice said, “Yes?”

  Sarah, feeling very wrong-footed, peered in at the doorway. A woman of medium height and build, with dark hair and wearing spectacles, was standing in the shadows, one hand firmly clasped on the front door, her whole attitude saying very clearly, thus far and no further.

  “My name’s Sarah Benson,” said the visitor in a friendly voice. “I am a health visitor in this area. I believe your baby has whooping cough. If there is any help or advice I can offer, please don’t hesitate to ask. I know how worrying it can be, especially when the child is so young.”

  Vinetta gasped. Then panic made her blurt out a desperate denial.

  “I don’t have a baby,” she said. “There are no babies in this house.”

  It was the last thing Sarah had expected to hear. The existence of a baby at Number 5, suffering from whooping cough, was a well-attested fact as far as she was concerned. Had Vinetta said that Doctor So-and-so was seeing to it and that no further assistance was needed, Sarah would have been completely satisfied. As it was, she was flummoxed.

  It was Vinetta who regained her composure first.

  “You must be thinking of my sister’s child. They were here for a few days and, yes, the baby did have a very bad cough. It was so bad that they cut short their visit and went home.”

  “Are there any other children in the house?” asked Sarah, her professional interest aroused. “Whooping cough is an infectious disease, you know.”

  “No other children,” said Vinetta. “And I don’t know that it was whooping cough anyway. We just thought it might be. They will be checking with their own doctor, I’ve no doubt. Now, if you will excuse me, I’ll have to go. The telephone’s ringing.”

  With those words, she shut the door.

  “She was lying,” said Anthea. “I am sure she was lying. There are children there all the time. And teenagers. I’ve seen them. Why should she want to tell you lies?”

  Sarah Benson had had years of experience visiting people in all sorts of places.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “The house looks above reproach. The woman sounds competent. Even if she is telling lies, that’s her prerogative. She saw me as an unwanted intruder and she turned me away. And, if you think about it, I had very little right to go there in the first place.”

  Connie agreed. Anthea gave the two older women a look of irritation. They were much too easily satisfied. People, she thought, should not get away with telling lies. People, she thought, never did tell lies unless they had something to hide.

  After Sarah left, Anthea went to the upstairs sitting-room and sat at the window gazing across at Number 5, the house of mystery.

  It was three o’clock in the afternoon. No one was coming or going at any house in the street. Anthea’s thoughts prowled round looking for prey. Then came inspiration. Meet fire with fire, lies with lies. She picked up the telephone.

  “Hello,” she said. “Is that Mr Mennym?”

  “Sir Magnus Mennym speaking,” said the voice at the other end of the line. “Is it my son you wish to speak to?”

  The voice was overbearing, ponderous, intimidating.

  Anthea cleared her throat and said, “This is Castledean Education Department. I am Miss Brown. We are conducting a survey to assess the need for school places in the town over the next ten years. Could you please give me details of all children in the house of, or under, school age and which educational establishment, if any, they are . . .”

  Sir Magnus interrupted.

  “No,” he said. Very loudly. And he slammed down the receiver.

  Anthea looked appalled. Connie, who had come into the room in the middle of all this, also looked appalled, but not for the same reason.

  “Anthea Fryer! How can you stoop so low! You dare to criticise other people for telling lies! And don’t pretend to be genuinely concerned. We’ve lived here for five years and in all that time we hardly noticed the neighbours till last year’s crisis. What they do or don’t do is none of our business. You could get yourself into serious trouble pretending to be a council official. It’s against the law, apart from any other consideration.”

  Anthea looked at Connie’s stern face and felt both ashamed and embarrassed. Feet first again! She bit her lip. Part of her was still stuck in the Fourth Form, and Connie bore a fair resemblance to Miss Fenwick of whom one went in fear and trembling.

  “I didn’t think,” she said. “It seemed a good idea. I just didn’t think. Oh, Connie, why do I do such stupid things?”

  Connie sighed, but in a friendly way.

  “You’ll grow up some day,” she said.

  “I am grown up,” said Anthea, angry with herself. “I’m as grown up as I will ever be!”

  “Of course you’re not,” said Connie. “Maturity takes a long time. I once read somewhere that the Ancient Greeks went to school till they were thirty-five.”

  Anthea smiled.

  “Now,” said Connie, “from this moment on, you just think about your own life. There’s the wedding to prepare for. And we’ll all be moving before the year’s out. Let’s forget all about the Mennyms. They are no concern of ours.”

  But the residents of Number 5 did not know how trivial the threat to their safety had really been. As far as they were concerned, officialdom had become interested in them. They believed, more than ever they believed, that the alien outside world was about to invade.

  19

  Back to Square One

  JOSHUA WAS ON his way to work that Friday evening when he saw the notice pinned on the inside of the front door. In the most ornate of copperplates, surrounded by a border of twirls and flourishes, it read:

  No one is to leave this house

  till further notice.

  This door must remain closed.

  There was no signature, but the style and the hand were sufficient in themselves to identify the writer.

  Joshua read it, took a deep breath. And opened the door anyway.

  That can’t refer to me, he decided. I have to go out. How else would I go to work?

  At that time in the evening, no other member of the household had any thought of going out. When, some hours later, Soobie took his late-night jog, he did not see the interdict. The lobby was dark, and that was as it had to be for the house door to open and close without the risk of his departure being observed.

  Tulip, of co
urse, knew all about the notice. Under orders from Magnus, it was she who had pinned it there.

  Vinetta first saw it next morning as she checked to see if the postman had been. Every nuance of its meaning was quite clear to her. Tulip must have told Magnus of the health visitor’s interest in the family, and he was signalling panic-stations. Perhaps, she thought uneasily, this time he could be right. Vinetta did not know anything about the telephone call from the Education Department.

  “So what happens next?” she asked Tulip, guessing that the notice was simply an opening flourish. “I see Magnus is putting up the barricades again.”

  Tulip was barely speaking to Vinetta by this time. She, of course, knew all about the phone call Magnus had taken, and she had guessed that her daughter-in-law was holding something back over that whooping cough business. There had to be a connection.

  It was seven-thirty in the morning. Very soon Joshua would be returning home from work. Tulip already knew that he had ignored the notice pinned to the door. Another reason to be disgruntled!

  She gave Vinetta a very prim look before replying.

  “There is to be a meeting this evening,” she said. “Everyone is to attend. It is vitally important.”

  So once again Joshua’s Saturday at home was ruined. The whole family were summoned to take their places in Granpa’s room at seven o’clock precisely. They sat themselves down on chairs and cushions, then watched in wary silence the angry old man sitting bolt upright in his bed. The purple foot was stretched out stiff and rigid. Uneasy minutes were spent waiting for Sir Magnus to give utterance as if he were some ancient oracle.

  Tulip sat in the armchair looking round very severely. She had not even brought her knitting to this meeting.