Mennyms Under Siege Read online

  His fingers touched . . . cloth?

  “You’re wearing gloves,” said Tony in surprise. “I never noticed.”

  He had already wondered why she kept on her mirror sunglasses but had been too polite to ask. Maybe it was just the fashion. Appleby’s own style, whatever. Anyone who knew Appleby accepted everything she did as the norm for her. But the gloves were surprising. They looked just like hands. Well, as near as one could see in disco lights.

  Appleby was startled. She was not wearing gloves. She had drawn away her hand as soon as Tony had touched it, but that might be too late. What on earth could she say? A false hand, lost my hand in America when I was a baby, bitten off by an alligator. Rubbish! Play for time. Yes, of course I am wearing gloves. I always wear gloves. Why am I wearing gloves? Play for time . . .

  “I could tell you a whole string of lies,” began Appleby, clasping her hands together cautiously on the table in front of her, but in such a way that the shadow of her head concealed them, “– like how my eyes and my hands are photosensitive and have to be protected from the light – and how it’s even worse with the dry ice in here. The truth is simpler.” And suddenly the simpler story became the truth, or at least the acceptable lie. “I have to take special care of my hands because I am employed by a model agency to advertise creams and lotions. My hands have appeared on TV. The gloves are a thin, transparent covering. I wouldn’t dare be without them in a place like this.”

  “And what about the specs?” asked Tony, not believing a word of it but amused by the lies and encouraged to ask more. If a lie is funny enough the truth ceases to matter.

  “I,” said Appleby with exaggerated slowness, “am a woman of mystery. That is my style.”

  Tony grinned.

  The sentimental tune ended and a livelier one began.

  “Come on then, my woman of mystery, let’s give them another demonstration of what dancing should be!”

  They got up to return to the floor.

  Appleby felt the weight and the warmth of Tony’s hand on her shoulder as he steered her forward, and she knew it was time to retreat. A much simpler lie this time, simpler and safer.

  “I have to go somewhere. I’ll not be a minute,” she said and whipped off into the crowd. Tony waited. The tune ended but Appleby did not return. Cinderella did not even leave her slipper behind.

  The coloured lights brightened. The group began to play again. Their lead singer belted out defiant words.

  I’m shooting off to

  Wherever I want to, wherever I want to, wherever I want

  To . . . GO, GO, GO!

  Think you can catch me? ’Course you can’t catch me. No-one can catch

  Me . . . NO, NO, NO!

  Tony stood alone in the crowd listening, not knowing how true were the words of the song.

  It was a quarter to eleven when Appleby arrived home. Pilbeam was waiting to let her secretly in at the back door. She was not panicking, not yet. She knew Appleby too well to expect her to be spot on time. As for ten minutes early! Fifteen minutes late was certainly not bad.

  “Let’s go straight to my room and you can tell me all about it,” said Pilbeam. So they went quietly up the stairs, pleased to note that the breakfast-room door was closed.

  “So you got home safely,” said Pilbeam when the two of them were settled in her room.

  Appleby did not look as happy as she should have done. She seemed flustered.

  “It was wonderful,” she said in a tone that firmly contradicted the look on her face. “I’ve never had such a marvellous time. It was magic.”

  But she couldn’t keep it up. She choked on the words and began to sob.

  “Oh, Pilbeam,” she said when she was able to speak again, “it was awful. I was having the best time of my life when suddenly being a rag doll mattered. I could stay there no longer without being found out. So I ran away. And I felt so confused I went down the wrong street coming home and almost managed to get lost. I don’t like being a rag doll, Pilbeam. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it.”

  Pilbeam put her arm round Appleby’s shoulders.

  “Hush,” she said. “You don’t want the others to hear. Listen to me. I can’t change the facts but I can, maybe, teach you to live with them. We are rag dolls. That sets us aside from other thinking beings. But, you could say, it makes us very special. Our life is wonderful because it should not exist at all. You are wonderful, Appleby Mennym. You are magic. My real time with you has been so short, no matter what my fictional imagination might supply as a past. And in that real time I have learnt not only to love you but to admire your verve and your zest for life. You are a very important member of this family. We would be the poorer without you. Accept what you are, Appleby, and go on being as you are.”

  She stroked Appleby’s hair, her head being bent to hide her face. They sat silent for some minutes. Then Appleby told Pilbeam everything, all about the letters in the wall and the truth about the disco ticket.

  Pilbeam was shocked but managed not to show it. She listened to the whole story and tried to understand.

  “It was a terrible risk to take,” she said when Appleby had finished, “but it’s over now. You might have been found out, but you weren’t. What we must do now is gather up the pieces. One more note to be left in the wall, a final farewell. I’m sorry that’s how it has to be but time heals and we have more time than most.”

  Appleby looked up and said, “Oh, Pilbeam, what would I do without you? But, it still hurts to think about it. If I were not – not as I am – I could have loved him. His eyes were blue, deep, deep blue and his smile was warm and friendly. And, and, oh, he was fun to be with.”

  “I know,” said Pilbeam. “I know.”

  And she did.

  In the calm that followed, they prepared a note to be left in the wall, a sensible, quiet little note in which Appleby said she was sorry for leaving the disco in such haste (my brother arrived unexpectedly to take me home and I was unable to find you) and added that her family had decided, to send her abroad for a year. (So when next you return from Harrogate, I won’t be here.)

  They went together to put the note in the cleft in the wall.

  Next evening, Appleby sat in the lounge from seven till midnight, watching for Tony to come and look for a message in the wall. Soobie was puzzled at the sadness in his sister’s face, but said nothing. When he left the lounge, Appleby moved from the high-backed seat into his armchair. As the long twilight turned to darkness, she became more and more miserable. It was all very well to talk bravely about acceptance. But being brave merely hides the hurt. It does not heal it.

  Tony did not appear. He would be returning to Harrogate next morning. Appleby knew that. Would he ever know about the note? Would he care?

  Left alone at the disco that evening, Tony had at first felt puzzled, then annoyed. He had returned to the pinball table near the bar, thinking that the sensible thing to do. Then he had walked round the edge of the hall, looking over the chrome rails, just as Appleby had once done. But he could see no sign of his partner. He thought of his own awkward dancing and of her brilliance. Then, remembering all the obvious lies she had ever told him, he realised that he did not really know her at all. She was a stupid girl playing stupid games. That, he thought, as he kicked at a can that lay in his path on the way back home, is the end of it. Let her fool with some other fellow!

  But his anger hid the pain of love rejected. Rag dolls are not the only ones who can be hurt.

  15

  A Trip to the Park

  THE BIG GREEN perambulator was twenty years old. Vinetta had bought it out of one of Tulip’s many catalogues. For the first seventeen years of its life it had been taken no further than the back garden. Vinetta would not have dared to take Googles out into the street in it. Indeed, she had never taken Googles out into the street at all. She had known from the start that babies attract attention even in the most sedate of neighbourhoods. It was only after Miss Quigley took over as nanny that t
he real visits to the real park had begun. For Miss Quigley had perfect faith that her own aura of anonymity, in most conceivable situations, would extend to the baby in the pram.

  When Miss Quigley resumed her duties as nanny, one of the first things she did was to set out on a bright May morning to take Googles for a trip to the park. Under the sun canopy, Googles lay propped up against pink silk pillows smiling joyfully and rattling her favourite plastic bear.

  Miss Quigley pushed the pram out of the Grove in the opposite direction to the park, a necessary detour if the visit was to be a complete success. She crossed the main road and made her way down the side street that led to the open air Market, which, it being Thursday, bustled with people. Miss Quigley did not go into the Market itself. The perambulator would have been truly conspicuous if any attempt had been made to push it up and down the aisles. The only stall in which Miss Quigley had any interest was a small baker’s, on the edge of the complex, where she bought a flat cake of bread. Then, mission accomplished, she headed for the park.

  The warmth and the sunshine were enough to attract a few extra visitors, but it was a school day and so there were no schoolchildren. Miss Quigley pushed the pram down the broad path towards the lake. She passed the playground where a few young mothers were concentrating on their own babies and toddlers, pushing swings and turning roundabouts. Next she came to the boathouse where the rowing boats were tied. Beyond that was an enclosure where two goats looked hopefully over a wire fence. Miss Quigley propped Googles up so that she could watch. Then she broke bits off the bread and fed the goats. Googles rocked forward and clapped her hands.

  Next they went round to the far side of the lake. It was the turn of the ducks and swans to receive Miss Quigley’s benison. Googles, growing braver, stretched over the edge of the pram to watch. Miss Quigley gave her a piece of the bread and helped her to throw it.

  “Just look at that greedy one,” she said, pointing out a militant mallard that was edging the other birds out of the way to secure the lion’s share of the crumbs.

  When all the bread was gone, they went on past the tennis courts and through the stone arch that led to the green around the bandstand. Googles, growing tired, lay back and fell asleep. This was the quietest part of the park. Miss Quigley put the brake on the pram, sat down on a sheltered bench, and took out an old paper-backed edition of Rasselas. Things were back to normal. Happy days!

  At half past eleven precisely, Miss Quigley closed her book and set off for home. She took the long way home, out through the side gate and along the quiet, tree-lined avenue. It was so peaceful that it was hard to believe that the town was less than half a mile away.

  But as Miss Quigley approached Brocklehurst Grove and there were more people about, she felt suddenly uneasy, as if she might be noticed after all. It was an unusual, unnerving feeling. In her time as nanny, she had never felt like this before. She walked more quickly and gripped the pram handle more tightly. When she came to Number 5, she took the precaution of entering the gate backwards so that the pram hood and the canopy would protect Googles from any curious eyes. Two wheels of the pram were inside the gate, the other two were still on the pavement, when Googles woke up and in a sudden swift movement flung her pink plastic bear to the ground.

  “The baby’s dropped its rattle,” said Anthea Fryer, appearing from nowhere. A startled Miss Quigley reached out a gloved hand, grabbed the bear and said, “Thank you.”

  “How old is she?” asked Anthea, guessing that the pink canopy hid a baby girl. She came closer, ready to peep under the hood.

  Miss Quigley said urgently, “I think you should stay away, dear. Baby has whooping cough.”

  Googles, fully awake now, heard the words “whooping cough”. They triggered off a reaction, awakening a pretend that had lain dormant for over forty years. Googles held her breath for a second, and then gave a very realistic cough culminating in an undeniable whoop. She was not to know that her coughing supported her nanny’s urgent lie.

  “Poor little thing,” said Anthea. “I hope she’ll be better soon.” Then she hurried away and said no more. That was all there was to it. But that was more than enough.

  Miss Quigley entered the house in a state of terror. Only her presence of mind had saved them from inevitable disclosure. But she had told a lie that could backfire and she recognised the danger almost as soon as the words were out of her mouth.

  “I thought I was invisible,” she said to Vinetta. “Up till today, I genuinely believed that no one ever noticed me.”

  “The baby at Number 5 has whooping cough,” said Anthea to Connie Witherton. “It seems odd that she is being taken out in the street. They are peculiar people. It wouldn’t surprise me if they haven’t even called the doctor in.”

  “They must have,” said Connie. “It is a notifiable disease. But I don’t think that means they have to keep the child indoors. And it is a lovely day. Still, I’ll check with my friend Sarah next time she drops in.”

  Sarah, besides being Connie’s friend, was also the local health visitor.

  Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive.

  16

  The Neighbours

  HOW DID THEY manage it? All those years, undetected, living as if they were a totally ordinary family?

  It is not so hard to understand with regard to the world beyond the Grove. Human beings are much too busy with their own affairs to pay much regard to people they don’t know. The exceptions are those who, either on purpose or by accident, draw attention to themselves or, in the words of Sir Magnus, raise their heads above the parapet. The Mennyms were past-masters at keeping their heads down.

  In the Trevethick Street of Miss Quigley’s imagining, neighbours gossiped with each other and kept a more or less friendly eye on the folks next door. But Brocklehurst Grove was at the upper end of the suburban market. The people who lived there were as various as the people who lived anywhere else, but there was a general ambience of uppishness, of feeling that it was not quite proper to hobnob with the neighbours. Last year’s fight to save Brocklehurst Grove had been a real culture shock. Meetings at Number 9 had been attended reluctantly, and support had never reached the hundred per cent level.

  Jane and Eliza Proud, who lived at Number 1, had sent their nephew, Bobby, along to every meeting, but had shown no interest whatsoever in what was said there.

  “We’re too old for all this,” they said. “I don’t know why we can’t be left in peace.”

  The Richardsons at Number 2 had been more forthcoming because they were more worried. They had moved in only two years before and, even after help from both their families, were paying out on a heavy mortgage. They were a very unusual, quietly idealistic couple – in their mid-twenties, but hoping to spend the next forty years in Brocklehurst Grove, raising a family, giving love to the next generation and the generation after that. They too were relieved when it was all over and they could go back to being on no more than nodding terms with the neighbours. They were not so much unfriendly as genuinely shy, thinking that everyone else in the street was richer and more glamorous and more important than they were.

  The owner of Number 3 did not even appear at the meetings. Ebenezer Paris Dingle was a very, very important man, much too important to join in any local activity. His expensive automobile was one of the things that confirmed the Richardsons in their youthful feelings of inferiority. Moving on would present no problem to Ebenezer Paris Dingle. He did not care whether the Grove was demolished or not. He had spent most of his adult life moving on in this shrinking world.

  At Number 4 lived the Jarmans. They had resided in the street far longer than any of the others, nearly thirty years in fact. When they had first moved in the postman had put a letter for Sir Magnus Mennym in the wrong door. It seemed an opportunity for the very nice Jarmans to get to know their neighbours. They sent their son, Oswald, to make the delivery. The boy was not really happy about going, but he rang the doorbell, hoping no one w
ould answer. No one did. The letter was put through the Mennym letterbox and Oswald went home.

  The Mennyms were not ex-directory. Inertia had given them an entry below Menning and above Menown. Next day, Mrs Jarman found their number and rang them.

  “Yes?” said Sir Magnus who had picked up the phone at his bedside.

  “Hello,” said Mrs Jarman. “I am your new neighbour, Millie Jarman. I wonder if you could tell me which day the binmen come? We’ve such a lot of packaging to get rid of. You know how it is . . .”

  Sir Magnus ignored the question, to which he did not in any case know the answer.

  “I hope you’ll be happy in your new home,” he said. “It is a quiet street. No one will trouble you. We all keep ourselves very much to ourselves. That is the best way. Good fences, as they say, make good neighbours.”

  He put the phone down noisily and that was that. Mrs Jarman felt rebuffed and embarrassed. She troubled no one else in the street for the next twenty years.

  Then the Englands moved into Number 6. Once again a letter was put into the wrong door.

  “Yes?” said Mrs Jarman when she picked up the phone.

  “Hello,” said little Mrs England in a flutter. “I’m afraid we’ve got one of your letters. The postman put it in here by mistake. And I’m awfully sorry but the dog picked it up. It’s not destroyed or anything. It’s just a bit marked, if you know what I mean.”

  Mrs Jarman, who after all these years was still a very nice woman, smiled into the mouthpiece.

  “You didn’t say your name,” she said.

  “Gosh, no, I didn’t, did I? I’m Wendy, Wendy England. We’ve just moved into Number 6. Shall I bring your letter round? I’d have put it straight in your box, but I felt I had to explain the marks.”

  “Come round now if you like,” said Mrs Jarman. “Come and have coffee with me. We’ll get to know each other.”

  And that was how their friendship began.

  Number 7 had been home to a succession of tenants, employees of a large company that liked their staff to be mobile. The company owned the house. The tenants were always ready to be moved onwards and upwards. Nigel and Dorcas Butterfield had lived there for over a year without exchanging a word with anyone in the neighbourhood. They occasionally held barbecues in their back garden, but none of the neighbours was ever invited.