Absolute Hush (11 page)

‘Hush. You've got to suffer a bit for beauty,' said Elizabeth, while Mrs Lovage clucked her tongue and said, ‘Now then, our Mert, be careful where you put those pins. We don't want blood on the pretty cloth.'

‘What about my agony?' shrieked Sissy, encouraged because she seemed to have decreased the pyronic look in George's eyes.

As Elizabeth worked round her, pinning, pinching, holding up, pulling round, Sissy pursed up her lips in George's direction, indicating a kiss later. ‘Tonight,' mouthed Sissy's lips, ‘I'll hold you like this and caress you here –' She let both her hands lie briefly in the warm crevice between her legs.

‘Oh, do keep still. How can we get it to hang right?' Elizabeth's voice was quite understanding as though, now Sissy was turning into a girl dressed in chiffon, they were developing a relationship. ‘We'll try hard not to hurt you again. Won't we, Myrtle?' warningly. Elizabeth knew about Sissy getting offended and digging in her toes. Sissy felt shaken with reluctant delight at the fragile protection.

Elizabeth was shivering a little, excited by the new emerging Sissy, as if her daughter was a piece of Jacobean furniture responding to polish.

‘Lovely, pretty,' she murmured, and, with a small flush of pity for what he was missing, wondered what Tim's reaction to his daughter in her soft blue dress would have been.

Sissy caught a glimpse of George's eye peeping, malevolent, through the hinge, and wondered what revenge he would take
for his mother paying her so much attention, and into her mind came the episode of the photograph when the twins were three.

Guarded by Nanny Button, they had been playing on the lawn when Elizabeth had appeared, holding a camera and a little smocked dress. Elizabeth had picked up Sissy, removed her soiled romper and replaced it with the new frock, and to this day Sissy could remember the furry soft feel of the spotted Viyella against her skin and the tickly feel of her mother's fingers as she did up the little pearl buttons at the back. Then Elizabeth had replaced Sissy on the rug and stood back to admire the effect. Sissy even thought she remembered her mother saying, as she had said today, ‘Lovely! Pretty!' After that, Elizabeth had raised the box camera while George, jostling, had tried to get into the picture too, but Nanny Button held him back.

Elizabeth, crying playfully, ‘Smile, darling. Smile, Sissy, look at the birdie,' had put the camera to her eye. ‘It is for the “Pears Soap Beautiful Child” competition.'

Sissy, very keen, had stretched her lips widely. She had heard a click, her mother had lowered the camera, but Sissy had seen no bird.

‘Oh, did you miss it?' laughed Elizabeth. ‘I bet Georgie saw it. Didn't you, George?'

‘Yes,' lied George smugly. ‘It was yellow.'

Elizabeth said, ‘It probably popped in and out too fast for you,' to try to stop Sissy's disappointed weeping, but Sissy only howled louder and in the end Elizabeth, losing patience, went back into the house, leaving Nanny Button to console her child and remove the new dress.

As soon as Elizabeth was out of sight, George had leant over and suddenly, and with great ferocity, bitten Sissy on her arm.

Now Elizabeth, immersed in chiffon, and unaware of the dangerous peepings of her son said, laughing, ‘You've got a little lady's figure already. We'll have to think of getting you a brassière from Officers' Families at this rate!'

‘A what?' asked Sissy. ‘I thought that was a kind of stove.'

Myrtle giggled and Mrs Lovage said, ‘It's to prop up your bust, ducky.'

‘Bust?' From the way they laughed she knew it was something embarrassing.

‘Bosom,' explained Elizabeth, patting Sissy on her chest. The slight touch hurt, then embarrassment swept away the small pain, for the breasts had been her and George's secret – George putting his lips round the nipples till they stood up like mushroom-coloured soldiers – and she had not expected anybody else to ever know about them. Sissy repressed a desire to rush screaming from the room.

But then Elizabeth said, ‘You might be able to fit into my cream silk slippers. You're much shorter than I but they'll probably fit all the same.'

Elizabeth had always said Sissy's large feet were one of her bad points, but they had become an advantage because now Sissy could wear Elizabeth's shoes.

‘Whatever next?' thought Sissy, watching her mother draw the pale shining shoes from the cupboard and began to feel like Alice in an upside-down land where amazing things happened every moment. ‘She'll be inviting me to use her sandalwood soap next. Or her lipstick.'

The thought of the lipstick made Sissy suddenly panic, for Elizabeth would one day discover, from the broken-off tip and the smudgy sides, that Sissy had already used it.

‘Are you cold, Sissy?' asked Elizabeth, and then to Myrtle, ‘Now, come on. Hurry up. The child's been standing around half-naked for ages.'

‘It's summer,' murmured Mrs Lovage soothingly but, all the same, closed the window and beckoned Myrtle with a hurrying gesture.

That night, in the Hairy Petal Bedroom, when George tried to kiss her breasts, Sissy, snorting ‘Oo! Ouch!', whisked her body away from him.

‘What? What?' asked George, shocked at this sudden withdrawal.

‘They hurt,' said Sissy, rolling over on to her back so George could look.

‘Sis! They've gone black!' cried George.

‘What?' Sissy craned to see in the half dark of the bedroom.

‘Like prunes,' George said. ‘As if they've been set on fire. Perhaps Myrtle's a witch and has put a spell on you.'

‘I wouldn't exactly say black,' mumbled Sissy, who, by rolling her body up and pressing her chin to her collar-bone, had managed to see at last. ‘Dark though. And sore!' she yelped, as George put out his hand to touch.

Suddenly, through the open window, came the sound of a rich deep man's voice singing, far away down the garden, ‘Why keep your gaze, beloved, on the chilly moon above …'

It was full moon and Elizabeth had gone with her gramophone to drown in the smell of honeysuckle and revel in the lusciousness of lonely love.

‘… When in my strong arms, fair lady, you will find my burning love? …'came rolling across the garden.

‘It must be awful for the ducks, who are trying to get a bit of sleep after a day of being upside-down in the moat,' grunted George.

Sissy did not respond; her attention was on the singing, which suddenly seemed to her to be the most beautiful she had ever heard. From his voice, she knew the singer must be dark; from his words, dominant. He would be able to pick her up in his arms and carry her.

Glancing at her plump and nervous brother, Sissy gave a chilly shiver.

When a pause came while Elizabeth turned the record and wound again, Sissy whispered, ‘There's something about that hoarse soft voice that makes me think of the name Leo.'

‘What voice?' said George, then, getting it, ‘What, that awful bellowing in the garden?'

Sissy winced and said, ‘It makes me feel like crying.'

‘The person who's singing is just a grown-up man. Like Mr Parson,' sneered George.

‘I should think Leo is as different from Mr Parson as it's possible to be,' announced Sissy passionately.

‘If he took his clothes off,' said George ominously, ‘he'd have hairy dangling things just like Mr Parson, I bet.'

‘He would not,' cried Sissy, her eyes stinging.

‘What would he be like, then, if he took his trousers off?' persisted George.

Sissy said nothing but into her mind came the memory of the moving animal inside the trousers of the Italian prisoner. Leo's would be like that; secret, terrifying, thrilling. Not fragile, sensitive, and too easily despairing, like George's little white equivalent.

Elizabeth had got the record turning again.

‘Don't you agree, though? About the ducks?' came George's voice, puncturing the loveliness.

Sissy tried to remember how the breathing of someone asleep was and to imitate it so that she could listen to the music.

George said, anger seething back into his tone again, ‘I know you're awake, Sis. I can see your eyelids twitching. You're paying attention to that bloody Leo, aren't you?'

‘Mmm … num … bumble …' murmured Sissy, trying to do an approximation of sleep-talking. Sissy had no difficulty in hearing the rich baritone, for Elizabeth liked her music loud so that it drowned the sound of war and austerity.

‘You love him more than me,' grumbled George sulkily.

Sissy opened her eyes slowly, like somebody just waking up.

‘Oh God!' shouted George and with wild frustration, began to bang his head against the bed-rail.

‘Don't make such a noise,' begged Sissy. ‘Even with all that music she might still hear, and then she'll know we're having a row and use it against us.'

If Elizabeth's children had a disagreement Elizabeth always said things that, had Sissy or George taken them seriously, would have increased their animosity.

Oh, poor George. Of course you must let him ride your bike if he wants. I'm sure he didn't mean to puncture the tyres last time,' or ‘I think you should carry it for Sissy, George. After all she is a girl.' The children grew to fear their mother's interventions suspecting that, far from being interested in peacemaking, she wanted them to dislike each other, thinking perhaps that then they would like her more.

But, on this night, George's anger and hurt were too great.

‘How could you like Leo more than me? Has he ever looked down your bottom hole with a candle?' howled George.

‘Oh, shh, oh, shh, George!' Sissy begged.

George shouted, ‘I don't bloody care if she hears!'

The next morning, Sissy woke and found George gone. The discovery distressed her wildly. She stared desolately at the empty dent where he had been and began crying.

She did not know why she felt so upset, for George often went out in the early morning, but this time great tears suddenly heaved out of her, not just her eyes crying but her whole body, which started convulsing like a person having a fit. She lay down again and luxuriated in her howling, allowing herself to bellow quite loudly, and stopping sometimes, to hear the cooing of the wood pigeons outside, the wet jabber of ducks, and the mingled strenuous rumbles of planes and bumble-bees. She cried for ages and, between the bouts, she would get up and go over to the mirror to examine her screwed-up red face.

After a long time, her skin stinging and her ribs sore from sobbing, she lay still and looked up at the ceiling. Reflected water from the moat bobbed, glowing, like a softly wobbling Tinkerbell among the curlicues of plaster.

From outside came the breath of the cedars starting to sop up the heat of another blazing day, something moving in the moat stirred up an exciting gassy smell, a whiff of crushed water-mint came into her nostrils, and after a while the smells of toast and chicory coffee from the kitchen.

As the sun rose, the room grew hotter and brighter and Sissy, cuddled among feathered bedclothes, began to sweat. Her mouth was still stale with sleep. She raised her arm and sniffed. The smell was strong, healthy, sour, and reassured her that she was still alive. Then, like a little exclamation of alarm, there came into her nostrils another smell, familiar, dangerous; the smell of burning.

She leapt up, went to the window and saw, perhaps two miles away, a puff of smoke, as though a giant lay in the field beyond the woods and smoked his pipe. But Sissy knew it was George.

She felt suddenly dizzy and had to clutch the sill. When the wave of faintness passed, she craned forwards into the garden and almost thought she could hear the sound of people screaming as they died burning. Then, from far away, she heard the first sound of the fire engine arriving, and suddenly felt shivery and weak but too dried up to cry any more.

When her sight cleared and her head stopped ringing, she went downstairs just as she was, her mood making her want to be sordid, have dirty teeth, knotted hair, drab clothes, still be smelling of sleep, as she came into the kitchen.

Elizabeth looked up as Sissy slumped into a chair, ‘Oh, my God, Sissy. How can you come down looking like that on a lovely day like this?' making it seem as though it was all right to be filthy in bad weather.

Sissy did not answer but, slumping even lower, bit into toast with slack jaws so that crumbs fell over her nightie, eating loudly in a way she knew annoyed her mother.

‘You look very grim today,' said Elizabeth, trying not to be too contentious after the good rapport she had developed yesterday but, all the same, feeling the anger of disappointment because Sissy had reverted to her former sullen state. ‘A real Lady Macbeth,' she couldn't resist adding, a little viciously.

Sissy said nothing. She was thinking about George, guiltily convinced that it was her fault he had gone fire raising this morning, for she was certain that was where he was. She had been unable to light the fire in George's body last night because
her own had felt so tender. He had begged her, nuzzling against her like a calf, but Sissy was trapped in a painful lethargy which, even this morning, was persisting.

If she had not been so tired she would have run across the fields to George's smoke. When she found him she would have put her arms around his neck and drawn him after her into the woods. She would have taken off her knickers, then lain on the cool leaves of expired foxgloves and pulled George on top of her.

‘Don't forget Myrtle is coming at twelve with the dress tacked,' said Elizabeth.

Sissy surreptitiously raised her hand and touched her breast. It still hurt. She wondered if her nervous system had become exposed like a peeled rhubarb stalk so that it now smarted at the slightest touch. Otherwise why should she have had that intense reaction to Leo's singing? And there had been the way she had cried this morning.