Mennyms Alive
Page 11
“What I shall ask you to do after that is perhaps above and beyond the call of duty, as they say, but everything will be paid for at whatever rate you consider appropriate. The Mennyms never expect to have something for nothing.”
Mr Dobb wondered anxiously what might be coming next. He had had some strange clients in his time, but Lady Mennym was one of his dearest eccentrics. Her letter alone had placed her at the top of his list.
“Whatever service we can give,” said Mr Dobb. “. . . if it is within our power . . .”
“It will be,” said Tulip crisply. “You may find it unusual, but I feel sure it is not impossible and probably not without precedent.”
She’s being cagey, thought Mr Dobb.
Then the phone went dead.
Tulip was born knowing how to use a public telephone, just as all of the Mennyms were, but she did not realise just how much change the box could swallow in a short time. So she was obliged to go back to the flat for more.
The shop below the flat was open, of course, but Tulip did not have to pass it. She crossed the road from the telephone box, walked along the pavement close to the wall, and let herself into Number 39 with the front door key.
“Well,” said Vinetta, “how did it go?”
“It didn’t yet,” said Tulip wryly, “but it will. I’ll have to put more money in the box. Goodness knows what Mr Dobb will be thinking of me!”
On the next visit to the telephone box, Tulip succeeded in outlining to Mr Dobb precisely what help the Mennyms would need in re-establishing themselves. She came away well pleased with herself and content that an important step forward had been made.
Wimpey eyed her grandmother with curiosity. To see Granny Tulip dress up in her outdoor clothes and go to the telephone box was very, very interesting.
“What’s happening, Granny?” she said. “What have you been doing?”
“Making plans,” said Tulip, drawing her granddaughter down onto her knee. “Making beautiful plans for all of us.”
CHAPTER 26
Househunting
“THIS IS MORE like it,” said Appleby as she and Pilbeam went down the back stairs keeping themselves well tucked-in against the high yard wall. She had on her long green sweat shirt that reached almost to her knees, a pair of printed summer trousers, and the purple-framed sunglasses purchased at the stall on the quayside. A large denim bag was slung over her shoulder. Pilbeam, following her, was dressed more soberly but was also equipped with dark glasses that made her eyes less visible. She smiled to herself but said nothing till the yard door was closed behind them and they were setting off along the empty lane.
“What is more like it?” she said as they turned the corner into the street that led up to the town.
“You know what I mean, Pilbeam. Don’t be niggly. Things are beginning to happen again. She’s sent us to get some papers,” said Appleby impatiently. She looked round at the dingy back street which compared so unfavourably with the place she still thought of as home. Sneaking down the back stairs had been fun at first, but now it was merely an irritating reminder of their situation. In shop hours, only Granny Tulip was allowed to use the front door, and that but rarely.
“Granny has asked us to pick up the property papers from outside the estate agents,” said Pilbeam. “That is hardly a mammoth step forward. Looking at houses is a long way from buying one. If you want my opinion, she’s in for a shock.”
“What do you mean?” said Appleby.
“She has never bought a house before. She probably doesn’t know how much they cost.”
Appleby’s face dropped, but only for a moment.
“Granny Tulip knows everything,” she said forcefully. “She says we are going to buy a house as soon as we find one that meets our needs. I believe her even if you don’t!”
They hurried on in silence, under the railway bridge, up Deacon Street and into the town centre. At the top end of the High Street they came to three estate agents on one block. Two of them had their Property Mart papers in racks outside the door.
The papers were free, but not clearly marked so. The girls looked at the spacious, well-lit shop inside the plate-glass windows – and felt apprehensive.
“Should we go in and ask for one?” said Pilbeam doubtfully.
“You must be joking,” said Appleby. “We wouldn’t dare go in there. They’d know like a shot that we weren’t genuine customers. We’re too young. They’d wonder what we were up to and they’d look more closely.”
“But Granny wants the papers,” said Pilbeam thoughtfully. “I look older than you. Perhaps if I went in and you stayed outside . . .”
“No need,” said Appleby. “It would still be very dodgy, and it’s just not necessary. You keep watch and I’ll nick a couple of the papers. If they really are free, it won’t even be stealing.”
Pilbeam still felt dubious but she loitered in front of each stand whilst Appleby sneaked in behind her, removed a paper, and slipped it into her shoulder bag.
“I’ve got ’em,” she said in a quiet, conspiratorial voice. “Now let’s walk slowly to the next corner as if we weren’t in any sort of hurry.”
After they had rounded the corner, Appleby said, “Now for home!” and set off at full pelt down the side street. Not that she was afraid of being caught, but she wanted to get back to the flat double-quick and start househunting.
When they reached the top of Deacon Street, Appleby said, “Come on, Pilbeam, I’ll race you the rest of the way.”
It was a tempting offer. The rest of the way was all downhill and Pilbeam’s legs were longer than her sister’s! She looked at the long road that swept down towards the river. But no . . .
“Behave yourself, Appleby,” she said sharply. “Do you want everyone looking at us?”
They continued to walk fast and were very soon going up the stone steps that led into the kitchen of Number 39. Pilbeam carefully locked the door behind them and when they went into the living room she put the keys back on the sideboard in exactly the spot where Daisy had first left them.
Vinetta and Tulip were anxiously waiting. Tulip was eager to get her hands on the property papers. Vinetta was more concerned that her daughters should be safe home. Neither had realised just how far the girls would have to walk.
“You took your time about it,” said Tulip, looking accusingly at Appleby as they entered the room. “I bet you stopped at every shop window.”
“What a cheek!” said Appleby, furiously flinging the papers down on the dining table. “You should try walking from here to the High Street and back. We never stopped once. But nothing satisfies you. I told Pilbeam we should run all the way, but she wouldn’t hear of it.”
“We did hurry, Gran,” said Pilbeam, trying to make peace, “and it is quite a long way. Appleby didn’t stop to look at a single shop. She even asked me to run down Deacon Street.”
Tulip had the grace to feel a little ashamed of her ingratitude but was not about to show it. She picked up the papers and busily spread them out on the dining-table. Soobie left his rocking-chair and came to join the group. The five of them pored over the Property Marts, passing sheets round from one to another, remarking upon how expensive everything was. Poopie and Wimpey were fortunately out of the way, playing upstairs so as to keep their noise at a distance from the shop below . . .
“This seems possible,” said Vinetta, looking at the advertisement for a house the other side of town, overlooking the moor. Even the price seemed fairly reasonable. There was a picture of a detached, three storey building standing in a well-wooded garden.
“Let me see,” said Tulip adjusting her spectacles.
“Ha!” she said when she’d looked at it. “Do you know what that price is for? Read the small print! One flat! One two-bedroomed flat on the second floor!”
Vinetta was appalled. At that rate, they would never be able to buy anything anywhere.
“We might as well give up,” she said as she considered the other prices on the
page. “A house the size we want will cost a small fortune.”
Tulip looked prim and mysterious at the same time.
“What makes you think that we don’t have ‘a small fortune’, as you put it?”
“You’ve spent the past forty years making us feel as if the next gas bill might be an insurmountable obstacle,” said Vinetta. “I never believed that, but I did have the idea that we were not the richest people around.”
“Well, we are certainly not the poorest,” said Tulip. “If you want the honest truth . . .”
“I do,” said Vinetta. “I always do.”
“As I was saying,” said Tulip, “if you want the honest truth, I would say that we can afford the dearest house on this page, but after we’d bought it we would all need to work hard to pay the bills and build up our capital again.”
“How would we do that?” said Pilbeam.
“I shall resume providing knitwear for Harrods, of course. And Bloomingdales might still be interested. Your mother will sew. Your father will look for another job. He can even be Santa Claus at Peachum’s again if nothing else comes his way.”
Appleby gave her grandmother a look of admiration.
“You’re great,” she said, forgetting her earlier annoyance.
“Not great,” said Tulip deprecatingly. “Just determined.”
Soobie had said little. Now he made his contribution.
“There’s nothing suitable in either of these papers,” he said, “no matter what the price. We need space and we need security.”
“We’ll have both,” said Tulip. “I didn’t for one minute think that we should find our ideal home at the first attempt. We keep looking. There’s sure to be something out there for us to buy.”
“Then what?” said Soobie.
“Then I shall have to speak again to Mr Dobb.”
CHAPTER 27
Magnus
THE SEARCH FOR another house gathered momentum. Agents were asked by telephone to send details of properties to Number 39 North Shore Road. Tulip gave the name of Thompson as sounding unsuspicious and easily confused with half a dozen other names. This slightly worried Vinetta at first, but Tulip had an answer, as she always had for everything.
“It is called ‘muddying the waters’ I believe,” she said. “When we find something we really want, I will ring Mr Dobb and give him full instructions. No direct contact will be made with the agent after that time. We shall buy under our own name, but no one will connect us with this address.”
So particulars of numerous houses were seen – and rejected. The Mennyms were looking for the ideal home. It was not going to be easy.
Meantime, in the room upstairs, isolated from this activity, and having not the slightest wish to hear about it, Granpa Mennym nursed a broken heart.
Magnus just could not get used to being alive again. Each morning Tulip brought him his breakfast on a tray but he did no more than pick at the imaginary meal, pushing it around the plate. Sometimes he complained that the eggs were fried too hard or that the toast was cold. Sometimes he thrust the tray away so vigorously that the crockery and the cutlery clattered alarmingly.
Tulip took all of these sulks and tantrums in her stride. She was so understanding that Magnus felt like thumping her at times. And so cheerful . . . and so optimistic. She just stopped short of singing, but he could swear that she was humming under her breath, something like ‘Morning has broken . . .’
The rest of the family weren’t much better. Even Appleby never saw him without trying to cheer him up, and that was the last thing he wanted!
Magnus had all sorts of problems. His notes on the Civil War, work of decades, were lost beyond recall. All those references, all those shelves full of books. And what was he left with? One solitary book out of a twenty-four volume work published a century ago! That was all he had left. The Civil War was well and truly over. Scholarship had died in a black bin bag on the first day of October nearly a year ago.
“You should try composing a crossword puzzle,” said Tulip. “Remember how much you enjoyed being Magnopere!”
“Hmmph,” said Magnus dully.
What he could not explain, even to himself, was the disappointment of waking up and finding himself unchanged. His love of learning went much deeper than the famous ‘pearls of wisdom’ he churned out on all occasions. There had been a moment, at the point of ‘death’, when briefly, oh so briefly, another sort of knowledge seemed to be within his grasp.
“I’d like to talk to Soobie,” he said one day, “just the two of us.”
Without a murmur, Tulip went to fetch him. It was not an ideal combination, but her dour grandson was at least taking a positive attitude towards househunting.
“What does he want?” Soobie asked suspiciously, remembering previous tête-a-têtes.
“A change of company, I think,” said Tulip. “And I would be much happier if you managed to get him interested in something. I should be ashamed to say it, but I’m sick of the sight of his miserable face. Goodness knows, I’ve done everything I can to cheer him up!”
Soobie tapped on the bedroom door and when there was no answer he went in and closed the door gently behind him, just in case Magnus had fallen asleep. He looked towards the bed and was surprised to see his grandfather reading. The book bore the title A Brief History of Time. (Appleby had bought it for him at the Oxfam shop in Albion Street. He had tried his best not to read it, but old habits are hard to break.)
As soon as Magnus became aware of Soobie’s presence, he hastily shut the book and thrust it to one side. With an exaggerated yawn, he looked up at his grandson and waved one arm towards the chair beside the bed.
“Sit down,” he said. “No need to say much. A bit of sanity is all I need, the sight of a face that’s not always simpering. At least it’s better than listening to your grandmother dispensing happiness.”
Soobie nodded his sympathy. It was a tricky situation. If he dared to say anything disparaging about Tulip, Magnus would be indignant. If he expressed support for Tulip’s optimism there was every chance that Magnus would throw something at him. So Soobie sat down as he was told and nodded.
They sat in near silence for some minutes, Magnus sighing from time to time. His white moustache drooped; his brows beetled; and his black button eyes retreated into crumpled folds of cloth.
At last Soobie could bear it no longer. He had been asked to come and talk to Granpa. So talk!
He picked up the book that Magnus had discarded.
“I’ve read this,” he said. “Some time ago. I bought it from the book club. It might even be the same copy! I suppose the Ponds could have given my books to the charity shop. They certainly didn’t send any of them here!”
“Hmmph!” said Magnus.
“It’s a good read,” said Soobie, with the glimmer of a smile, “but there’s nothing in it to explain the likes of us.”
“That’s the point,” said Magnus. “Nothing on this God’s earth can explain how we are here. If we were just ordinary, lifeless dolls it would be all right. But we think and we go on thinking year after year. Where does it all lead?”
“I don’t know, Granpa,” said Soobie uncomfortably. “Remember what the poet said – ‘concentrate on this Now’. It might not be much, but it’s the best we can do.”
Magnus turned on his pillow, raised himself on one elbow and looked directly at Soobie.
“I just wish,” he said, “that your grandmother wouldn’t be so damned cheerful. She’s enjoying this. I think she could go on for a thousand years fixing the future. She’s incorrigible.”
“Has it not occurred to you,” said Soobie cautiously, “that Granny might be right? I mean, we’ve all the time in the world. If we move from here, you can build up a collection of books again. You can restart your studies.”
Magnus looked horrified, black button eyes nearly popping out of his head.
“Not the Civil War,” he exploded. “I’m sick to death of the Civil War!”
“Reading is your life,” said Soobie. “I can’t see you living without studying something. Why not take up another field of interest? Become a physicist.”
“I’m too old,” said Magnus, but his fingers twitched over the cover of Hawking’s book. “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”
“Rubbish!” said Soobie. “That’s a story put about by the young to intimidate the old. Besides, you have time on your side in a way that no human ever could. Do an Open University Course, for a start. As far as I can tell, all of the work can be done by post, especially as you are bedridden!”
“Posted to this place?” he said, looking disconsolately round the room. The book nearly slipped from his fingers and he just managed to save it from falling to the floor. “This one book has to be hidden every Wednesday,” he went on, “along with the writing paper Appleby brought, and any newspapers that might be lying around. Your grandmother shoves them all into the little gap under the wardrobe, and then she has the devil of a job fishing them out again. It wouldn’t work. There wouldn’t be enough space to hide any more.”
“We will be moving,” said Soobie. “Even I believe that. Granny Tulip knows what she’s doing. It’ll just be a matter of time. When we move you can have as many books as you like.”
Magnus was torn. It sounded very attractive, but could he surrender so easily? It seemed somehow a betrayal to turn from despair to hope, as if he were rejecting the truth in favour of a comfortable lie.
“Too damned cheerful,” he growled. But the seeds of recovery had been planted.
“You can go now,” said Magnus. “I’ve got some thinking to do. Tell your grandmother to stay downstairs for a couple of hours. I won’t be bothering with tea.”
“Is he any better?” asked Tulip when Soobie returned to the living room. “If only he’d eat his meals like anybody else, that would help.”