by Sylvia Waugh
“Hello, missus,” said the driver as he came in and saw Daisy sitting at the octagonal table.
“Yes?” said Daisy, looking up from her work.
“The people in the flat upstairs . . .” he began.
Daisy started but said nothing.
The young man held up a doll. It was Polly. Daisy recognised it immediately.
“. . . their little girl left this doll in the back of my cab. I thought she might like to have it back, but there’s nobody home.”
“That’s all right,” said Daisy. “I’ll take care of it.”
He handed the doll over. Daisy took the doll and smiled. Then she put her hand to her bag to take out her purse.
“No,” said the driver, seeing what she intended. “I don’t want nothing. I’ve just taken a fare down to the Old George. So I was almost passing, as you might say.”
“Well, thank you,” said Daisy. “Thank you very much.”
The driver was leaving the shop when Daisy called after him, “Where were they going when she left her doll?”
“Central Station,” said the driver. “I suppose they were off to catch a train.”
After he went out, the bell jangling as the door closed behind him, Daisy put the doll on the shelf by the telephone and tried to go on with her work, but thoughts got in the way. The Mennyms had left. They had left by taxi and the driver had thought they were human.
CHAPTER 42
Mrs Cooper
“I SEE YOU’VE got rid of the dolls up there,” said Mrs Cooper. “Would you like me to bring the tree down? It would look nice in the shop window.”
She had come into the shop to collect her wages. Friday was not just the day when she cleaned the house upstairs. It was also pay day.
Daisy was in her usual seat at the octagonal table, filing boxes in front of her, pretending to work. But she had been waiting tensely for just this moment. Till now the evidence for the disappearance of the Mennyms had been purely cirumstantial. This was the first positive confirmation that they had really departed. Someone had been upstairs, and looked around, and found an empty flat.
Mrs Cooper’s blunt phrasing hurt, being so matter of fact, almost expressing approval, but Daisy knew that no harm was intended.
She looked up at her cleaning lady.
“It wouldn’t be worth the trouble for the few days that are left,” she said. “Michael will take it down after the holiday.”
Daisy handed over Mrs Cooper’s wages, complete with Christmas bonus, for which she received a brief thank you. Then there was a pause, an inexplicable hiatus.
Mrs Cooper did not turn to go. She stood her ground, silently making up her mind what to say next. She dropped her purse into her shopping bag and pulled the zip along.
“It’s a nice flat, that,” she said tentatively.
“Yes, it is,” said Daisy, smiling. “I should know. I was born there!”
“I’ve always thought it was a shame to let it go to waste, especially now that it isn’t really a store-room or anything else,” said Mrs Cooper. “It was different when the dolls were there. It was like a sort of museum, wasn’t it?”
Daisy nodded, wondering what was coming next.
“Now it’s empty,” said Mrs Cooper as she stood fumbling with her brown leather gloves, straightening them out before easing them onto her fingers.
Daisy thought, empty. Yes, empty. It was a sad word, sad meaning . . .
“Have you any mind to let it?” said Mrs Cooper.
“Let it?” said Daisy. “I couldn’t do that. It would cost a fortune to make it fit to live in. No heating, no hot water, and the toilet’s downstairs in the backyard. Nobody nowadays would put up with that.”
“People modernise places,” said Mrs Cooper. “It’s done everywhere. I wonder you haven’t thought of it before. You could get a good rent for it.”
“Too much bother,” said Daisy. “And over the years we have made good use of the space, you know.”
“But not now,” said Mrs Cooper.
Daisy was puzzled. At that moment, she would have preferred to be alone, to mourn the loss of her family in silence. Belief is such a strange commodity. Till today, she had hoped, vainly hoped, that the Mennyms were still upstairs. Now that she had undeniable proof of their departure, she wanted to think of that and that alone. Instead, here was Mrs Cooper, with unusual volubility, chuntering on about the empty flat.
“It looks lovely now it’s properly furnished and all cleaned up,” she said. “I was just saying to my son how nice it was. All it needs is a plumber to put in some central heating and a new bathroom.”
Daisy knew that that was much more complicated and expensive than it sounded. But her mind was elsewhere and she said absently, “I suppose so.”
“My son’s a plumber,” said Mrs Cooper in a rush. “He could modernise it for you. Him and his wife are looking for somewhere to rent. They don’t want to take on a mortgage, not these days. It’s too risky.”
When Daisy did not reply, she went on to say, “They’d be very good tenants. It wouldn’t be like letting to strangers.”
“Ah!” said Daisy, calling her thoughts to attention and focussing on what Mrs Cooper was saying. The cleaning woman looked at her anxiously.
“It takes a bit of thinking about,” said Daisy carefully. “It’s a new idea to me. I won’t say no, but I do need time to consider it.”
“You can’t say fairer than that,” said Mrs Cooper, but looked as if she would like to say more.
Mrs Cooper ‘did’ Daisy’s bungalow in Hartside Gardens on Mondays and Thursdays, letting herself in with the key and departing like the cobbler’s elves, leaving neat evidence of her visits. Friday was usually the only time she met Daisy face to face.
“I’ll be going now,” she said. “I see you’re busy. If you make up your mind, one way or the other, you could mebbes just leave me a note at Hartside and, if the answer’s yes, I’ll tell our Joseph to come to the shop and see you.”
“That’ll be fine,” said Daisy.
“It’s a shame to leave a good house empty these days,” said Mrs Cooper above the jangling of the door as she opened it, “with the housing lists so long.”
That was enough to influence her employer. The rent would not be a real attraction, a game not worth the candle, but Daisy would think further of a flat going to waste and a young couple glad of a home.
“I’ve never thought of it that way before,” she murmured. Then, raising her voice, she said, “I’ll shut up shop early on Monday, Mrs Cooper. If you wait till I get home, we can talk about it then.”
It was four-thirty when Mrs Cooper finally closed the shop door behind her. Alone at last, Daisy neither wept nor wondered. She just sat at the octagonal table feeling as empty as the flat above. From her handbag she drew out the letter the Mennyms had left and she read it over again. A hundred readings would not suffice. It was a blank wall.
A blank wall, thought Daisy, a nothingness.
Then with alarm she thought, what on earth will I tell the Ponds? What will they think? What will they believe?
CHAPTER 43
Albert and Lorna
“THAT WAS DAISY,” said Albert replacing the receiver on the telephone. “She wants to see us. She’s asked us to take the letter that was left with the dolls in Brocklehurst Grove.”
Lorna had just come downstairs after putting Matthew to bed. She gave her husband a look of dismay. It was the Saturday before Christmas. Her parents and the rest of the Gladstones had just moved into Number 5 Brocklehurst Grove. They had sold their old house, bought new furniture and carpets, and finally persuaded Jennifer that Number 5 was as free of memories as any house could ever be. And to that end they had agreed to stay away from the shop in North Shore Road.
“Did she say why?” asked Lorna. Then she added anxiously, “I hope she doesn’t want us to take the dolls back. There’s no way we could do it. And finding someone else to care for them might be . . .” she paused, �
�. . . would be impossible.”
Lorna had championed the cause of the dolls from the beginning. She had taken seriously the plea to love them, but her mother would not hear of their remaining in the house at Brocklehurst Grove. Finding a real ‘carer’, willing and able to take on the task, had been difficult. So Lorna and Albert had been delighted when they discovered Daisy.
“I’ve said we’d go and see her on Monday morning,” said Albert. “Your mother will be looking after Matthew then anyway whilst we are supposed to be finishing our Christmas shopping. We needn’t tell her anything.”
At eleven o’clock the following Monday, Lorna and Albert went into Daisy’s shop and waited discreetly till her customer left.
“Have a nice Christmas, Mr Featherstone,” said Daisy, “and a happy New Year.”
As the door closed behind him, Daisy looked towards Albert and said, “Could you just put the catch on, and turn the CLOSED sign towards the street? Save my poor legs! Then let’s go to the kitchen and I’ll make you some tea.”
‘Some tea’ was the usual mountain of cakes and sandwiches set out on the big square table.
“Sit down and eat up,” said Daisy. “The cold will be making you hungry.”
As soon as they were seated, Lorna launched straight into the reason for their visit.
“Albert says you have something to tell us?” she said abruptly, sounding almost hostile in her nervousness.
“Yes,” said Daisy. “It’s very difficult. I hardly know how to begin. You might decide that we should call in the police.”
Her two visitors looked astounded.
“It’s the rag dolls,” said Daisy. “They aren’t here any more.”
“Stolen?” said Albert. “Have you been burgled?”
“I don’t know,” said Daisy. “I will tell you the facts, few as they are, and then you must judge for yourselves. All of the dolls were in the flat when I visited them a week gone Wednesday. That I do know. I didn’t go up to see them last Wednesday because I had a hospital appointment. And on Friday my cleaning lady told me that the dolls had disappeared.”
“But there’s more to it than that?” Albert said.
Daisy nodded.
She handed them the letter the Mennyms had left behind them.
Lorna looked at it and was mystified. She took the letter she had brought with her out of her handbag and compared the two. The envelopes (in Soobie’s hand) looked identical. The letters, both written by Pilbeam, were a good match.
“It’s the same writing,” she said. “The same printing as on the old envelope, the same script as in the old letter that the family who lived in Brocklehurst Grove left behind them.”
Albert took it from her and scanned it carefully, not just for the writing but for the words and the meaning.
Dear Daisy, Thank you for helping us when our need was greatest. Thank you for the pact. And above all, bless you for loving Kate’s People.
“It’s not signed,” said Albert, “but it is addressed to Daisy and ‘Kate’s People’ are clearly the dolls.”
“What do they mean by ‘the pact’?” asked Lorna. “Whoever wrote this obviously thinks that you are going to understand it, Daisy.”
Daisy quailed. How could she explain ‘the pact’ to these young people without explaining everything? They would never understand. What might they believe? That she was confused, weak in the head? What was it they called it nowadays?
“I don’t know,” Daisy lied. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
It was, after all, only half a lie, for knowing and believing are not the same thing.
“Whatever this means or doesn’t mean,” said Albert at length, “it can only be the work of the previous tenants of Number 5. The Mennyms, for some reason known only to themselves, have taken the dolls back again. No one else could have written that letter. We always knew they were peculiar people.”
Albert’s mention of ‘the Mennyms’, the real Mennyms and not the doll family, stirred something in Daisy’s consciousness. She looked down at the letters again. Then she came to the edge of the truth, a border so strange that what lay beyond was past imagining.
“What if the dolls were the Mennyms?” she said. “What if there were no other . . .”
She faltered, aware that she had said far more than she had meant to say.
Lorna gulped and lifted her cup to take a sip of tea. It was empty.
“Your cup’s empty,” said Daisy, glad to change the subject. “Let me pour you another.”
Embarrassed, Lorna passed the cup to her hostess.
“Have another sandwich or some of my chocolate cake,” said Daisy to Albert.
They all sat eating the cakes and sandwiches without tasting them, just automatically putting hand to mouth. The Ponds were eyeing Daisy warily. Daisy was trying hard to be natural whilst her thoughts raced off on a path of their own.
“I don’t see why the previous owners didn’t just come to us and ask for them. We would have handed them over,” said Lorna, leaving Daisy out of the equation altogether. “It’s not as if we wanted them for ourselves.”
She looked helplessly at Albert.
“Do we have to call the police?” she said.
“I think not,” said Albert. “The dolls are gone and I cannot see that we would ever get them back again. And if we do tell the police there is every possibility that your mother would get to know. She would hate it. You know she would.”
That was exactly what Lorna had begun to think.
“If the Mennyms did find out where the dolls were and for some eccentric reason wanted to steal them, I’m not sure that it would matter,” she said. “They kept them beautifully for more than forty years. They would surely not destroy them now.”
As Daisy listened, she found it hurtful that her interest in the dolls should be so completely ignored. Albert, she noted, looked rather uncomfortable.
“It must have been a shock to find them gone,” he said quickly when Lorna finished speaking. “What will you do with the flat now? Do you feel lumbered with all that furniture?”
Daisy smiled at him.
“I have plans,” she said. “Furniture is my business – you mustn’t forget that. As for the shock, it’s still sinking in. I will miss the Mennyms. They’ve been good company.”
Albert was glad he had spoken. He knew only too well that though Lorna was really good-hearted she could be very thoughtless. Blame it on her youth! The words were unsaid, but the look told Daisy what he meant.
“I think we should be going now,” said Lorna, looking at her watch. “There’s such a lot to do, and my mother will be wondering where we’ve got to.”
So the ordeal was over.
The Ponds thanked Daisy for their meal, both of them hugged her before leaving, and all of them knew that they would never meet again.
CHAPTER 44
Billy Returns
ON CHRISTMAS EVE, Billy came to visit his Aunt Daisy hoping to play with the dolls again, longing to talk to Poopie. Daisy had not seen him since the summer holidays and she had not told him that the dolls were no longer there.
It was one o’clock on Wednesday afternoon. The shop was already shut. Jamie Maughan stopped the car outside the door but neither he nor Mollie got out. Just Billy.
“We’ll be back just after four o’clock,” said Jamie. “So tell Daisy to be ready for the off. We won’t have time for tea. Make sure you tell her that.”
“She’ll know already,” said Billy. “You’ve told her on the phone six or seven times over!”
“That won’t stop her wanting to give us a big feed!” said his dad with a grin. “You know what she’s like!”
Daisy was going to spend the Christmas holiday with the family at Bedemarsh Farm. It had all been arranged, down to Billy’s own afternoon at the shop whilst his parents went off to buy a few last minute surprises.
“Come into the back, Billy,” said Aunt Daisy. “I’ve got the kettle on and there’s turkey and st
uffing sandwiches and sweet mince pies.”
Billy followed her through the shop into the kitchen and sat down at the table. This all seemed to him an irksome preliminary. In the months since summer the memory of his talk with the Mennyms had not blunted. It was carefully stored knowledge that made him feel marked out and special. He told no one, but the not-telling was a strain. And the only relief would be to meet the dolls again, to go into the room upstairs and play with Poopie. In speaking to Daisy, he was cautious, wondering just how much she really knew.
“I’ve missed the dolls,” he said. “It seems ages since I saw them.”
Daisy poured the tea, but said nothing. She too was wondering how much to tell. The departure of the Mennyms was full of unknowns.
“There’s something I have to talk to you about,” she began when she sat down beside him after refilling the kettle for the next brew. She had decided to come at the story from an angle, not to meet it head on.
Billy looked up from his tea-cup and wondered what was coming next.
“It’s me Will,” said Daisy. “I’ve been meaning to make one for ages.”
Billy looked uncomfortable. He was just turned fourteen and reluctant to talk about things like wills. It was morbid.
“No,” said Daisy laughing at his solemn face. “I’m not going to die yet. But I’m not getting any younger and it’s sensible to be prepared. Besides, I always swore I’d see to it that Lily and Polly Waggons would be looked after.”
Billy knew all about the sisters who had sat forever in the shop window. He smiled at Daisy and said, “I’ll look after them if I can.”
“You can,” said Daisy. “If it’s what you want, the shop can be yours. It needn’t be your life’s work You can get somebody in to run it for you if you like. But I want you to try and keep the shop going and to let my girls stay in their places in the window. Do you think you could do that?”
