Absolute Hush (15 page)

Beattie entered suddenly, looking even wilder eyed and haired than usual, an equine odour preceding her.

‘How charming you look, Sissy,' she cried warmly. ‘All dressed up like a real grown-up lady. Oh, I know this material! Tim brought it …' She didn't finish the sentence, but stood for a moment, face flushed, eyes distant, as though remembering something.

‘My aunt is horsy, and inclined to grooming inspections,' said Sissy.

There was an appreciative roar of laughter, in which Beattie
joined, at this rather mild witticism. The young men were exhausted from being frightened and Sissy's childish rudeness rested them.

‘Sorry, dear. Did I embarrass you?' Beattie apologised, and to George, filling glasses, ‘Lots of that, darling. Up to the brim. My goodness you look spruced up.'

The way the grown-up men paid attention to Sissy began to heal the scalding sensation that had been in her heart ever since she saw the Italian prisoner lie down among the trees with the gipsy. She began to feel excited and think that that unique something that had stirred her in the Italian prisoner might be roused by these other men as well.

George stooped over her shoulders murmuring in a deadpan voice, ‘Wine for you, Sissy?'

‘Thank you, George. Dear,' Sissy whispered, letting her fingers linger brushingly against his wrist.

‘Your younger brother?' inquired Robert. ‘He looks a lot like you, Sissy,' then smiled patronisingly at George.

George drew his wrist quickly away from Sissy, suddenly disliking her touch. Sissy had betrayed him yet again by her silence, and anger stopped him explaining, ‘No. We are twins. The only reason that Sissy is taller than me is because she is having a pre-pubertal spurt.'

When he sat down at his place, his humiliation was increased for he found himself much lower than Robert and Lewis who talked over his head as though he was not there. He wondered if Mrs Lovage had purposely given him an extra low chair to show him up, and he tried to maintain a half-standing posture so that his shoulders were on a level with his companions. When he was thus agonisingly arranged, he took his first cautious sip of soup but it fell back into the plate, splashing his tie.

George knew that his elbows and knees would not be able to endure the strain for long. When they gave way and he had to sink down into his seat, Sissy would realise that he was much shorter than the other men and her scorn for him, already
manifested in the way she had lied to him, would increase. Even now, he knew she was thinking how cultured the others were compared to him as their soup slipped effortlessly past their moustaches, while they, without appearing to give the troublesome substance any thought at all, chatted happily to Beattie, admiringly to their hostess, or in conspiratorial whispers to Sissy.

For a while it seemed as though no one was going to talk to George at all. And then when someone did, George wished he hadn't.

‘Why don't you sit down, old chap?' asked Lewis. ‘It looks awfully uncomfy like that.'

‘
I am
sitting down!' asserted George desperately and took another spoonful to prove the point, still keeping his weight on his elbows and not allowing his knees to buckle.

George was getting on Sissy's nerves, for she felt he was lacking the one virtue she really admired, dignity; then she caught a glimpse of his eyes and was surprised to see anguish in them. Usually she knew exactly what George was feeling, for his emotions always gushed out like unstoppered ginger beer the moment they were alone together, but today she had hardly talked to George at all. She became suddenly overwhelmed with a desire to tell him it did not matter if he was short and plump and messy, for she loved him better than anybody, in spite of those things.

George had put the bottle, still wrapped in its napkin, on the table.

‘It looks like a penis,' said Sissy to herself, delighted. She has only recently learnt the word.

Billy said something.

‘What?'

‘How many pennies for your thoughts?' he repeated.

The word ‘pennies', coming so soon after the comparison with the bottle, made Sissy giggle aloud. Spluttering, she stared at the young man's napkin-covered lap. ‘His penis has probably got freckles too,' she decided, charmed.

Billy, following her gaze, went red, began to fiddle with his napkin, and did not repeat his question.

Dishes came and went. Myrtle, growing ever redder, stumbled round the table, dropping handfuls of cutlery then laughing loudly. In her wake, Mrs Lovage scuttled, trying to minimise the damage.

The wing commander, Terence, moistly melted till he was almost out of sight.

Barney, warmed by the graciousness of Elizabeth's smile and her softly whispered ‘More? Would you care for some more?', made plans for increased secularisation.

It was green asparagus from Mr Lovage's garden that Elizabeth was offering.

‘Dip it in the melted butter. It's not often one can indulge in such things during war-time,' she advised Barney lusciously, then rounded her soft red mouth and sucked the glossy dripping vegetable in.

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.

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.'