Absolute Hush

by Sara Banerji

  Beattie, a little drunk now, raised the silver butter dish and offered it round the table. ‘Have some more, darlings! There is nothing more decadent than melted butter in war-time,’ making everybody, except Elizabeth, laugh.

  ‘I love decadence, don’t you Sissy?’ Beattie asked across the table, and Sissy, caught unawares and soothed by the young men, said, ‘Yes! Yes!’ and gushed it over her own plate as well.

  Myrtle dropped a pile of dishes and Elizabeth attempted desperate but fruitless signals to Mrs Lovage.

  Just as they were starting on the pudding, the air-raid siren sounded.

  A nervous stirring went round the table and George became suddenly animated.

  ‘Perhaps Gerry has discovered the base,’ said James anxiously. ‘They may have seen through the camouflage.’

  The airbase had been concealed under nets painted to resemble farm buildings, haystacks, and a pond; the planes inside apparently invisible from the sky, though from the ground you could see right through the mesh.

  ‘My dog was killed in an air-raid on my last leave,’ murmured Billy. ‘We left him in the garden when we went into the shelter and he was dead when we got back. Shrapnel through his spine.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Sissy and added, ‘Our dog died … but he was silly. There was only one thing he was clever at.’

  ‘Oh, what was that?’ asked Billy, eager to be consoled.

  ‘Although no one ever taught him he …’ began Sissy, then fell silent as she saw George rise.

  Silently, like a panther hunting, George moved towards the door, brushing past Elizabeth who hissed, ‘You should wait till the end of the meal …’

  A German bomber could be heard strumming against the summer sky.

  George returned with a carafe.

  ‘Oh, darling, it’s so kind of you,’ said Elizabeth. ‘But everybody’s glass is full …’

  Beattie eagerly extended hers crying, ‘Mine is not, dear,’ but George passed on, ignoring her.

  The plane was very loud now, so that Elizabeth had to almost shout, ‘Anyway, we are drinking red and that’s white you’ve got there …’

  George moved stiffly on.

  The plane was overhead and making the wine glasses tinkle.

  ‘I can smell paraffin,’ said Billy. The others were sniffing and shifting uneasily too.

  Everything seemed to happen at once.

  There came a whistling sound and a crash. The air became filled with the smell of scorching plaster and the lights went out.

  The room did a spasmodic shudder and a great tinkling of glass that seemed to go on and on as though some wild creature next door was haphazardly playing the high notes on a piano, was heard.

  Elizabeth leapt to her feet, spilling her red wine so that it flooded, unstemmed, over the table. The spilling of irrevocable liquids had always been her way of counteracting the unacceptable.

  ‘A bomb’s hit the conservatory!’ she cried.

  George violently hurled the contents of his carafe over the laps of several of the airmen, and the smell of paraffin became overpowering.

  Sissy stood up and tried to duck out of the way as George, with a swift turn of his wrist, splashed liquid over her as well.

  Lump, under Sissy’s skin, felt the paraffin thump and began to squirm against the oily inevitability of life’s ending.

  There came a sudden roar of falling bricks, a great crack appeared in the dining-room wall, bricks and plaster pieces and pictures and parts of furniture began to tumble. The wall gap widened and the lobe of a huge cactus appeared, mists of white dust bellying out round it.

  Elizabeth began to scream for Mrs Lovage.

  Beattie’s pony, tied to the front of the house, began neighing in little frightened shrieks.

  Beattie, managing to disentangle herself, ran to the window and began to yell, ‘Whoa, Patacake! It’s all right, boy!’ The pony, hearing her voice, grew calm, and the clattering of hooves and clank of harness ceased.

  Elizabeth leant across the table trying to gather her silver and linen.

  Then darkness jerked as George, clutching the candlesticks, reached out and thrust the flames towards Elizabeth’s guests.

  Through the dust and shattered masonry, people began rushing, slipping on chocolate mousse, slithering on butter, skidding in wine, as they tried to avoid George. Every now and again there would be an almost audible explosion of fire as some paraffin saturated crotch caught, followed by a yell of pain and panic. George looked like a demon as he danced, shouting, through shattered china and wine-drenched linen, whirling his flame.

  Beattie was wrapping a hearth rug round scorching Billy when her own skirt began to blaze. Instantly she threw herself into the rug with the young airman and pulled it round them till they lay like a double sausage roll.

  Sissy, overcome with sudden dizziness, held on to the table, while all around her the airmen leaped, beating at their burning trousers with flaming napkins.

  ‘Sissy,’ cried George, his voice hoarse and gentle.

  Inside Sissy, Lump’s hands are like twitching waxed spades, its mouth a rudimentary rip, and its eyes knobs of expectation.

  I don’t want to end yet but am imprisoned by my rope of flesh; tied with tendon, pinned by bone, bowed by the weight of blood. I struggle, turn, try to communicate, but have no voice. I have almost no existence yet, and go unheard. I am losing my power. I cannot influence matter beyond the belly of my mother.

  Sissy turned slowly, her sight still a little blurred, her arms out as though she was offering herself up as a sacrifice to the god of fire. George’s great distorted shadow swerved as he whirled the candle towards his sister’s belly.

  Sissy did not feel fear as the warm flame brushed her belly but almost a sort of comfort, as though relieved not to have to struggle any more.

  Beattie, rolled in her carpet, interested in her reactions to such close proximity with a man, suddenly saw smoke rise from Sissy’s dress, and stopped laughing.

  She was out of the carpet in a moment, and in three great strides was across the room and tearing at the dress.

  ‘Come on, girlie,’ cried Beattie, hauling at Myrtle’s careful stitching.

  Myrtle’s gusset gave and the dress fell in a whoosh of fire, leaving Sissy dressed in nothing but smoke with a fat little pout of a tummy and no knickers.

  Chapter 15

  Next morning, Beattie came to thank Elizabeth for the party.

  ‘Fascinating, darling. Never been to a party like it,’ she laughed, making Elizabeth scowl.

  ‘I won’t be seeing you for sometime,’ Beattie said as she left. She gave Sissy a sudden and unexpected hug. ‘I’m going away, but I will be thinking about you.’ She spoke as though she knew something important.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Sissy asked.

  Beattie sighed as though the question saddened her and said, ‘I can’t exactly tell you, but I hope I will come back,’ in a voice that made Sissy think she feared she might not.

  Maybe the extraordinary changes in Sissy’s body had made changes in her nature too. She said, ‘Please do,’ as though it mattered.

  After Beattie had gone Mrs Lovage said, ‘I have been told she’s getting Jewish children out of France.’

  ‘Very dangerous, what a hero,’ snapped Elizabeth with a touch of bitterness, not liking the note of admiration in Mrs Lovage’s tone.

  They were wearily trying to clear up some of the chaos made the previous night.

  ‘Everything to do with Sissy leads to destruction,’ mourned Elizabeth. ‘The lovely dress burned to cinders, the plates, glasses, everything broken. And the tablecloth ruined.’

  The cloth had been dragged from the table by Beattie, from under a torrent of breaking crockery, to fling round Sissy because her dress was gone.

  ‘And George,’ Elizabeth keened.

  ‘I was pouring water to put out the fire,’ George had wept next day.

  ‘But you poured paraffin.’

  ‘I�
�m only a little boy! I didn’t know!’

  But when George and Sissy were alone, he caught her by the wrists and said, ‘You see what’ll happen if you betray me again.’

  ‘What?’ said Sissy, not wanting to discuss it, trying to pull her hands away.

  ‘Don’t pretend, Sis,’ whispered George. ‘Next time I will really do it.’

  Sissy, remembering the frog, believed him and shivered. ‘Why, George?’ she asked, a tremble in her voice. ‘You tried to kill me? Why?’

  ‘Because I love you so much, Sis,’ said George.

  George had stopped being afraid. He told Sissy, with a rather sly smile, ‘It won’t matter what I do now, no one will believe it was me.’

  Twice he had been accused of lighting fires and each time had been found to be not only innocent but almost heroic.

  ‘What were you doing at the cottages if you weren’t setting them on fire?’ Sissy asked.

  George sighed. ‘OK, I had been going to fire them, but someone got there before me.’

  The next morning Mrs Lovage brought Sissy a handful of white tablets. ‘It’ll make you feel sick as a cat and give you a tummyache as though you’d eaten a tree of green apples,’ she said venomously, anticipating revenge for the greasy hands remark. ‘But you’ll have to take them. There’s no other way.’

  ‘What ever is it?’ Sissy asked, staring blankly.

  ‘It’s medicine to cure your little problem,’ Mrs Lovage said. ‘Now swallow them down with water. They taste bitter but that can’t be helped. You’ll have to be brave.’

  ‘But I’m perfectly all right now, thank you,’ said Sissy stiffly. ‘I don’t feel a bit sick any more.

  ‘It’s to get rid of the baby, you stupid girl,’ cried Mrs Lovage, wishing to get this over fast before Elizabeth came in.

  ‘Baby?’ said Sissy incredulously.

  Mrs Lovage prodded a strong finger at Sissy’s belly. ‘In there, you little fool. Don’t you go telling me some man put it there while you were asleep.’

  ‘I have no idea what you are talking about,’ said Sissy with dignity. ‘And please take your finger out of my tummy button.’

  Mrs Lovage made a sudden snatch at Sissy’s hand and thrusting the tablets into it cried, ‘Oh, come on. Don’t try this play-acting with me,’ then tried closing Sissy’s fingers over the pills. ‘I know all about girls.’

  ‘You don’t know a thing,’ shouted Sissy rudely, and opening her fist, hurled the tablets to the ground. They rolled and bounced all over the floor as Sissy strode away.

  ‘Such a waste when they’re so hard to get in war-time,’ mourned Mrs Lovage, retrieving tablets out of the cracks in the floorboards.

  Sissy, racing away from the tumble of tablets, felt less sure of herself than she allowed Mrs Lovage to see.

  She hunted through the house and at last found George in the cellar sitting on an old deckchair, reading yesterday’s newspaper and drinking whisky out of a spam tin.

  He had stolen the whisky after the dinner party. Elizabeth had hunted widely for it, going through cupboards with shaking hands and tear-filled eyes.

  ‘I think I’m pregnant,’ Sissy told him flatly.

  ‘Gracious!’ George leapt up and his chair collapsed. He went diving after it saying, ‘I’ll get the chair, then you can sit on it.’

  Shaking coal dust from his hair he set up the chair and ushered Sissy into it.

  Sissy sat carefully. For some reason her legs were trembling.

  ‘Wow, Sis, this is too exciting,’ said George. ‘Have a little tot to celebrate or will that be bad for the baby?’

  Sissy shook her head. ‘So you have understood that there will be a baby?’

  ‘Well, of course,’ said George. ‘That’s implied in the fact that you’re pregnant.’ He poured a finger of whisky and handed it to her.

  Sissy shuddered as she sipped. At last she said, ‘Do you wonder who the father is?’

  ‘Of course not, it’s mine,’ said George joyfully.

  ‘Mrs Lovage gave me quinine tablets to get rid of it.’

  ‘Poison my baby before it’s even born?’ George almost screamed. ‘Sissy, you’ve got to swear you won’t do anything like that. Swear, swear,’ as though begging her not to throw away last year’s conkers.

  ‘George, have you considered all the aspects of the matter?’ Sissy asked, trying to be sensible and mature. ‘Where will it live, for instance?’

  ‘Here, of course,’ said George. ‘Where else?’

  ‘Who will pay for its food?’

  ‘It won’t cost a thing,’ said George. It was as if he was begging to be allowed to keep a rabbit or a guinea pig. ‘It’ll drink milk from your breasts, Sissy,’ he let out a noisy laugh and began bounding round the cellar, flourishing his spam tin.

  ‘I always thought your breasts were pretty, but now they’re going to be useful too.’

  ‘What will happen when we grow up and leave home?’ persisted Sissy, but George’s enthusiasm and cheerful solutions were making her feel better already.

  George felt in charge and as if Sissy respected him.

  ‘We’ll take it with us of course,’ he assured her joyfully. ‘It will be quite little. Babies always are, so it won’t be heavy. Oh, Sis, I can’t imagine anything so much fun as sharing a baby with you.’

  Every now and again during the weeks that followed Sissy would get another worry.

  ‘Shouldn’t we be making preparations?’

  ‘Oh,’ said George, interested. ‘What sort?’ He was eager and ready for action.

  ‘Well, in the books I’ve read about such things they always had to boil water and bake newspapers,’ said Sissy.

  ‘How extraordinary,’ cried George, looking bemused. But he promised to save newspapers from now on. ‘But what will they be needed for?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Sissy. ‘I suppose when the time comes it will become obvious.’

  ‘Not long now I shouldn’t think, Sis,’ crowed George.

  ‘It’s agony from what Mother said,’ muttered Sissy, feeling resentful. ‘You don’t seem to have remembered that.’ Then a new worry struck. ‘How are we going to conceal the birth from her?’

  ‘She never found out about the cat having kittens.’

  ‘I should think even you would see that that was rather different,’ snapped Sissy.

  Elizabeth had said she was going to get Mr Lovage to drown the kittens as soon as they were born, and George and Sissy had succeeded in hiding the cat in the Apostle Bedroom wardrobe on the day of her delivery. They even managed to hide the ten kittens from Elizabeth for a week.

  ‘I wonder if she’ll be as upset about the baby as she was about that.’

  Elizabeth had been most terribly broken over the matter of the kittens.

  A week later Sissy said, ‘Where are we going to get its clothes from?’

  ‘Officers’ Families, of course,’ George nowadays had an answer for everything.

  ‘Do you think Officers’ Families does nappies, George?’

  Penned in the little amniotic pool of my mother’s womb throughout the winter I felt myself go from strength to strength. It was a nasty near brush with the quinine, but when that scare was over I began to revel in existence. I am developing in all the areas that are necessary for the world’s future. My brain, even at this early stage, is of such a high calibre that there cannot be any in the cosmos to match it. I am confident of fulfilling my mission.

  *

  Huddled under her huge Officers’ Families coat, Sissy’s tummy swelled all winter. Mrs Lovage, unable to take any action, watched with suspicious dismay and could see no way in which to tell Elizabeth who, because her mind was on other things, seemed not to notice.

  Barney had become Elizabeth’s lover and they went cycling together through the cold lanes. As they pedalled, Elizabeth would sometimes wonder why she did not feel more delight, and think it must be because the freedom the war had given her had caused her to grow out of the dom
ination of men.

  ‘How wide and red the back of his neck is,’ she would reflect as she trundled in the padre’s wake.

  ‘Your tummy’s getting huge,’ said George on Christmas day.

  Sissy told him, ‘Well, of course. There’s another person in it.’

  ‘The baby will have to have a stocking next year, too,’ said George, poking among the nuts and apples and paper tooters. ‘Do you think Mother will buy the presents or will we have to, out of our pocket money?’

  ‘When did we ever get pocket money?’ sniffed Sissy.

  ‘We could do errands,’ said George.

  It grew very cold in January and Sissy’s skirts became so tight they wouldn’t do up. Elizabeth caught sight of her once, bundled against the wind, and for a second time a chill of fear touched her. There was something about the girl’s body … but no, it must be gas. She over-ate. Elizabeth shook the silly fear from her mind. A thirteen-year-old child? Anyway, there was no man.

  Sparkling frosts laced the willows and Sissy, sitting on a legless kitchen chair, was skated by a string-harnessed George over the frozen moat.

  ‘Don’t I get a turn?’ gasped George, panting, scarlet, and Sissy reminded him sternly, ‘I am a pregnant woman.’

  ‘You’re getting heavier and heavier,’ groaned George, while Sissy, sitting fat and limpid like a snow queen, tight belly resting on her knees, leant back, blanket-wrapped, because her outdoor coat wouldn’t button up any more.

  ‘You have to remember my condition,’ she beamed.

  ‘I never forget,’ moaned George.

  Ever since the dinner party Billy, James, and Robert had been coming regularly to the Plague House to help Elizabeth. Watching George haul Sissy round the lake, they became reminded of their own childhoods and, going out, offered to pull Sissy themselves.

  George saw them coming and tried to escape but Sissy caught him by the wrist saying, ‘You’d better stay. Lurking is a sign of guilt,’ so George, longing to be pulled himself, worn out from hauling Sissy, cringingly awaited the approach of the suspicious airmen.

  ‘We might trap George into admitting he set us on fire on purpose,’ whispered James as they scrunched across the frosty lawn towards the moat and the shivering George.