Mennyms Alone Read online

  Jennifer looked exasperated.

  “You do know what he’s really saying, don’t you? He’s saying I had a cheek to ask. He is being very polite, but that’s what he means. We should never have asked about the birth certificates in the first place. It amounts to harassment. It makes me seem like a vulture sitting on the fence waiting to peck their bones.”

  “Mother!” said Robert laughing. “You do choose your words!”

  “Forget it,” said Jennifer, snatching the letter back from him. “You are totally insensitive. You haven’t the faintest idea what I am talking about. It’s no laughing matter to me.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Robert. “I do see what you mean, but you seem to be getting things out of proportion. I don’t suppose the solicitor will give it another thought. And the Mennyms will probably forget all about it.”

  After Robert eventually left for his ‘morning’ lecture, Jennifer made a perfunctory effort to tidy up. Then she put some washing into the machine. But her activities were hampered by niggling thoughts about the letter. She heated some soup and grilled a couple of chops for Anna’s lunch. I’ll write the Mennyms a letter, she thought. I’ll write and apologise. The chops began to sizzle rather loudly.

  “I’m home, Mum,” called Anna as she came in the back door. She was in her last year at the junior school. Next year, even she would be away all day. She sat down at the kitchen table to eat whilst her mother washed up the pots and pans.

  “We’re having our photos taken this afternoon, Mum,” she said. “I’ll have to put on a clean blouse.”

  The blouse she was wearing was still absolutely spotless. Anna was always immaculately dressed. Already, at eleven, she thought that grooming was very important.

  Jennifer made no remark at all about the photographs. She was busy at the sink, washing out the grill pan. Anna looked up at her.

  “You’re not listening to me,” she said. “Is something wrong?”

  “Nothing,” said Jennifer. “Nothing much.”

  Anna gave her a shrewd look.

  “Is Lorna coming today?” she asked.

  Jennifer flushed.

  “I think so,” she said. “It’s her afternoon off and Albert’s down in Leeds for some sort of conference. She said she might come here after tea.”

  “I see,” said Anna. She was very perceptive. When her mother was flustered it was usually because Lorna was being bossy about something.

  At teatime, Anna was the first home. She feasted on scones, biscuits and a large glass of milk. After enquiring about dinner, she went up to her bedroom to do her homework. Keith arrived half-an-hour later, didn’t bother with tea and went straight to his room.

  Jennifer, peeling potatoes, looked anxiously at her watch. Four-thirty! She went on preparing the vegetables but listening intently for the next arrival. She was relieved to hear a car draw up and shortly afterwards the key turned in the latch of the front door. It was Tom. Lorna always came to the back door and usually arrived on foot, having travelled by bus from Durham.

  “Lorna’s not here yet,” were her first words as Tom came through to the kitchen. “I’ve had a letter from those solicitors. Read it and see what you think.”

  She checked the joint of ham that was roasting in the oven. Then she stopped to make Tom a cup of tea. He put the letter down on the table.

  “Well, that’s that,” he said. “Looks to me as if you’ll hear no more from them.”

  “They must’ve been annoyed,” said Jennifer. “They had every right to be. I’m thinking seriously about writing an apology.”

  “You can’t do that!” said Tom, smiling up at her as she fussed with the plates. “It would only make things worse. Just leave it. If you don’t bother any more, I don’t think they will. I can’t see anybody taking the trouble to send to Denmark for birth certificates unless we pester them.”

  “Which we won’t,” said Jennifer. “We definitely won’t. No matter what Lorna might say.”

  She looked at Tom doubtfully.

  “You try to explain to her,” she said. “She never listens to me.”

  “Jennifer Gladstone,” said her husband, “when will you learn to stand up for yourself? It’s your letter and it’s your decision. She can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do. What did your mother say?”

  “I didn’t ask her,” said Jennifer. “I’ve never mentioned it. I’ll be ringing her tonight, but I won’t be saying anything about it. She’s as bad as Lorna.”

  “Yes?” said Lorna as she stepped in the door behind her mother’s back. “Who’s as bad as Lorna?”

  Tom intervened.

  “Your mother is upset about a letter she had today from the solicitor. You read it.”

  He passed the letter across the table to his daughter.

  “What a nerve!” she said when she had read it. “I don’t believe a word of it. Birth certificates from Denmark! And it’ll take a year to get them! They haven’t heard the last of this!”

  “Yes they have,” said Tom. “That is what your mother has decided. And it is her business first and foremost.”

  Jennifer smiled apologetically at Lorna.

  “Sit down,” she said. “I’ll make you a cup of tea. You will be staying for dinner, won’t you?”

  CHAPTER 7

  Pilbeam

  “WHAT ARE YOU doing?” asked Pilbeam. She had just come into the lounge, shaking raindrops from her long black hair and grasping her hands to warm them.

  Soobie was sitting at the round table in the corner, not his usual spot, but a convenient place to write on a large sheet of paper. He gave a start and shuffled one paper on top of another.

  “I thought you had gone out,” he said, looking embarrassed.

  “I went out,” said Pilbeam, “but I came straight back in again. It came on to rain before I got to the end of the street. I hadn’t taken my umbrella. So I changed my mind.”

  Soobie looked out of the little side window. It was raining very heavily by now, rivulets of water streaming down the glass pane. Not good weather for rag dolls, with or without an umbrella.

  “There’ll be no more going out today,” said Soobie, thinking rapidly. “Let’s have a game of chess. It’s ages since we played.”

  He stood up and lifted the chessboard from its shelf, preparing to use it to cover his papers. But Pilbeam was not so easily sidetracked. She had asked a question and received no answer.

  “What are you writing?” she said, moving the top sheet to reveal the one underneath. Pilbeam was very civilised, but she had never quite learnt how to respect her twin’s right to privacy. Her black button eyes read swiftly down the list she was not meant to see.

  “What on earth is that about?” she asked. “It looks like something Granny Tulip might write . . . solicitors, gas bills . . .”

  Soobie snatched up the sheet. He was annoyed but he said only, “It’s a list of all of our contacts with the outside world, so far as I am able to make out.”

  “What would you want to know that for?” said Pilbeam. “You’ve missed out Bloomingdale’s anyway. Granny had a letter from them just yesterday. And the Water Board. What’s it all about?”

  Soobie thought quickly.

  “It’s a simple precaution. You’ll remember that those solicitors asked for Granpa’s and Father’s birth certificates?”

  “Yes,” said Pilbeam. That was something she had been told. So far, Soobie had managed to stick to his resolve to tell her nothing of the premonitions.

  “Well,” said Soobie, “I looked carefully into the possibility of forging certificates. I even thought about using Miss Quigley’s artistic talents, but it is really a non-starter. There is no way we could produce anything that would convince a solicitor.”

  “I could have told you that,” said Pilbeam. “But you still haven’t explained the list.”

  When Pilbeam really wanted an answer, she was like a dog with a bone.

  Soobie persevered.

  “My guess
is that we will hear no more about the business. A year is a long time. It will be forgotten. If we are asked again, we’ll just have to claim that copies are unobtainable. Pretending that they had to come from Denmark was quite a good ploy, I think. But if it comes to a real crisis, if the Gladstones insist upon knowing more about us, we may be forced to leave this house. And if we do, we will have to tie up all the loose ends.”

  Pilbeam gave him a fierce look. She interrupted whatever he was about to say next and asked sharply, “Where could we go? It’s impossible, inconceivable. We can’t have human help, we all know that now, and we certainly couldn’t manage on our own. I’m not used to you telling lies, Soobie, but you are not telling me the full truth now. What does this list mean?”

  She took the list from his fingers and looked at it again. Soobie gave a sigh. Pilbeam sat down at the table opposite him and waited for an answer.

  “I didn’t want to worry you,” he said. “It’s probably something about nothing. And these lists are just a sort of parlour game.”

  “But?” said Pilbeam.

  Soobie saw nothing for it but to explain all about his grandfather’s premonitions. Pilbeam listened in thoughtful silence. She recalled how withdrawn and subdued her grandfather had become. Letters out, once so important, were rare these days. He had taken the newspapers from her without even reading the headlines. She had put it down to grief for Appleby, but it would have to be a delayed grief. All summer he had been nearly cheerful, as if he had accepted his favourite granddaughter’s death and was determined to go on living a normal, hopeful life. The change had come, she recollected, about two months ago. The change must have been brought on by these mysterious warnings prophesying doom.

  “So,” she said slowly when Soobie had finished, “if grandfather’s vision is true, the spirit will leave us on the first day of October next year.”

  Soobie nodded, reluctant to say more.

  “Then we shall all become as Appleby is now,” said Pilbeam.

  She looked thoughtful.

  “Why did you not tell me?” she went on. “I had a right to know.”

  Outside the rain was falling even more heavily and lashing at the windows. The afternoon was growing darker. Pilbeam was sitting where she had sat that day, nearly two years ago, when Albert Pond had read a poem to her and she had longed for some magic to take her from her world safely into his. It was a bitter-sweet moment to remember.

  Soobie, looking across at her, was visited with the same sad memory. So he answered quickly, “I chose not to tell you, deliberately chose not to tell you, because it seemed to me that you had known too little of life. Most of the time I don’t believe in Granpa’s premonitions. They are will-o’-the-wisps. Why should I trouble you with them? Why should I subject you to unnecessary fears?”

  Pilbeam leant forward and switched on the table lamp. In its circle of light the blue face, so serious, and the pale face, so serious, were clearly brother and sister, twin spirits, looking for meanings and fearful of what they might find. They sat in silence.

  Then Pilbeam said, with a shiver, “I think I believe him.”

  “Sometimes, at twilight, on a grey autumn evening such as this, so do I,” said Soobie in a voice as low as a whisper.

  Suddenly the room was flooded with light. Granny Tulip stood in the doorway.

  “Close the curtains,” she said. “It looks as if it will rain all night. The daylight’s just about gone.”

  Pilbeam obeyed her, still looking at Soobie.

  “There is one thing we can do,” he said. “We can try and make this the best year of our lives.”

  Tulip frowned. She said nothing, but she knew exactly what he meant. So he had told Pilbeam now, and this was the only consolation he could offer! Did he really believe in all that nonsense about premonitions? And whether he did or he didn’t, why had he told Pilbeam? Or had she guessed? No one was quicker than Granny Tulip at reading between the lines.

  CHAPTER 8

  Real Cake

  AT THE END of November, Vinetta’s thoughts turned to Christmas cake. Every year she mixed invisible ingredients in her largest earthenware bowl, whisking them round with a long wooden spoon. She always put in just the right amount of effort, as if the mix of flour, fruit and fat were really offering resistance. Then, when she was satisfied that she had stirred it thoroughly, she would tip the bowl and pour the make-believe mixture into a tin lined with real greaseproof paper. The cake went into the oven and was left to ‘cook’ for at least two and a half hours before Vinetta carefully drew it out again, wearing her strong oven gloves, to check its progress. The oven, of course, was never really lit. A few days later, Vinetta would produce a well-dusted cardboard cake from the kitchen cupboard, place it on a real turntable, and mime to perfection the icing of it.

  Every year so far, that was how it had been done.

  Every year so far . . .

  Every year till now!

  This year Vinetta decided to make a real cake with real flour, real fruit, real butter and sugar, and half a dozen real fresh eggs. The recipe was there, handwritten, in an old cookery book that had belonged to Aunt Kate. And the first thing to do was to acquire all of the ingredients, down to the last drop of almond essence.

  With a headscarf pulled well over her brow, unbecoming but functional, and wearing her blue tinted spectacles, Vinetta went to Marco’s, the town’s largest, busiest supermarket where no one ever had time to look at anybody else. It is quite likely that had Vinetta gone there totally undisguised no one would have noticed her, but it is always better to err on the side of caution. That the currants she lifted from the shelf had been placed there that very morning by Jennifer Gladstone’s son was just one of those bizarre unknowables that happen every day to someone somewhere.

  It was ten-thirty by the kitchen clock when Vinetta reached home with her purchases. There was no one around but Wimpey, who followed her into the kitchen and waited to see what was in the shopping bag. Vinetta tipped the bag onto the kitchen table and set her purchases in order. Wimpey, standing by her, looked puzzled. She fingered the carton of cherries.

  “What are you going to do, Mum?” she said. “People eat cherries, real people. We aren’t people yet, are we?”

  Wimpey cherished the idea that some day they might turn into real human beings, just as frogs become princes. Fairytales are beautiful but very confusing.

  Vinetta smiled down at Wimpey, her own little Goldilocks, golden curls tied in bunches with blue satin ribbon.

  “We pretend things,” she said. “But we do real things too. So this year I thought we could have a real cake.”

  “But,” said Wimpey with her usual persistence, “what will we do with it?”

  “We’ll pretend to eat it, of course. What else? Now that’s enough questions. If you are really good, you can sit here and watch me work.”

  Wimpey watched her mother put on her large work apron. Vinetta then took the box of matches from the mantelpiece, went to the cooker, opened the oven door and lit the gas. It was the first time she had done so since cooking a frozen turkey dinner for Albert Pond, two Christmases ago. Next she got out the scales to weigh the ingredients, paying very careful attention to the recipe book.

  Wimpey had been sitting thinking.

  “Can I ask just one more question?” she said. “Just a little one?”

  Vinetta looked up from her work, her cloth face alive with the joy of working, flecked blue button eyes gleaming, gloved hands already powdered white with flour.

  “Just one then,” she said. “Then no more because I’ll have to concentrate. It is not the same as pretending, or even remembering. It can go wrong if I’m not careful.”

  “It is going to be a real cake,” began Wimpey. “So who’ll eat it? I mean really eat it, after we’ve finished pretending?”

  A sadness came over Vinetta, a shuddering sadness. She did not speak.

  “Will Albert come and eat it?” asked Wimpey.

  “No,�
�� said Vinetta wistfully. “No.”

  She gazed out of the window with a faraway look, suddenly drained of the joy she had felt just moments before. From the bare branches of a tree, winter birds were looking for comfort on a cold day.

  “The robins can have it,” she said, “and the sparrows. It can be their Christmas feast.”

  Wimpey said no more. Vinetta, determined to recapture her happy mood, set about mixing the cake. Some things she learnt for the first time. Creaming butter and sugar was much harder than she had ever imagined. Breaking the eggs one by one into the mixture, taking care to make sure they did not curdle, was great fun.

  Wimpey would have loved to crack just one egg and let it slide out of its shell into the basin, but she hesitated to ask. Vinetta, usually so aware of what her children were thinking, and so ready to give in to their whims, was too engrossed to notice the look of longing on her daughter’s face.

  When the big bowl was filled with all the ingredients, Vinetta held it in the crook of her arm and vigorously stirred the mixture. She was surprised how difficult it was. It felt like churning cement. But she resisted the temptation to add more liquid. She was following the recipe to the letter and determined to do it exactly right.

  At long last the mixture was ready to pour into the cake-tin. Wimpey, large-eyed, watched every movement. Her mother noticed her at last.

  “There’s too much here for this tin,” she said. “If you fetch the little one from the cupboard, you can line it with greaseproof paper and tip what’s left over into it. Then it will be your very own cake.”

  Wimpey joyfully did as she was told and, with Vinetta guiding her, she held the earthenware bowl, gave a final stir to the remaining mixture, and poured it into the little tin. Then together they put their cakes into the hot oven and shut the door.

  “Thank you, Mum,” said Wimpey. “Oh, thank you!”

  “Now you go and play whilst I wash up these dishes,” said her mother. “We mustn’t open the oven again for two and a half hours.”