Absolute Hush (17 page)

On the fifteenth of February Sissy woke in the night and started screaming.

Elizabeth heard and came running.

She looked down on Sissy, thrashing under the velvet canopy of the oak fourposter, and began to tremble so violently that she had to hold the bed post for support.

It is not true, she told her soul. I know it's not, it can't be.

‘My stomach hurts hurts hurts!' screamed Sissy.

Trying to keep her voice steady, still clinging to the bed, Elizabeth asked, ‘Have you been eating plums again?'

‘Plums!' shrieked Sissy as though outraged. ‘It's the middle of winter!' Then began to scream again.

‘It's nearly spring,' said Elizabeth shakily, as though argument would dispel the nightmare. ‘It's February.'

‘Plums don't grow in February, Mother,' cried George in a shrill high little voice.

‘Don't just stand there making silly remarks,' yelled Elizabeth, turning on George with blazing eyes. ‘Go and ring the doctor.'

‘Ow ow ow,' howled Sissy,

It was just as much agony for Lump as for Sissy. More, in fact, because at least Sissy could breathe and leap about, whereas Lump was trapped in a wet red channel that heaved and bucked and squeezed, but seemed to be unable to expel.

George, feeling terrified and excited, proud and anguished, all at once, rang the doctor and said Sissy was having a baby.

‘I know I've done jokes on you once or twice, but this time it's true. I swear it's true.'

Sissy screamed and the doctor grunted as he tried to release the baby from its wedged position, while Elizabeth stood at the window and tried to keep her mind on the garden. Unfortunately she looked just as a thrush was pulling a worm out of the turf and the scene seemed horribly similar to that taking place behind her, though neither the thrush nor the worm were making horrid snorting noises like those coming from the Hairy Petal bed.

Elizabeth gripped the sill dizzily and considered the absurdity of two people spending so much effort to produce something that would have to be disposed of as soon as it emerged. It seemed to Elizabeth, in her fancifully fainting state, that the child, suspecting its destiny, was trying to stay inside Sissy as the worm was trying to stay in the cool soil.

Elizabeth had no intention of looking at the child that was fighting so hard not to arrive. She would get her faintness under control, force her legs to support her body, turn, pass the bed quickly and without a glance, without breathing either, for even from here she got whiffs of blood, she would stagger to the drawing-room, find paper and pencil, and scrawl a note instructing Mrs Lovage's speedy presence.

George slithered down to the cellar for a whisky and a Woody. Pulling his bottle from its hiding place, he collapsed into his
deckchair. It took several sips to ease his terror. It was like the time he had cowered shuddering under the cow-parsley because Elizabeth had found notches in her cucumber. But this time would Sissy say it was her fault and take the blame? George could tell from the set of Elizabeth's jawbone, the depth of her sighs, and the shrillness of her groans, that this was an extreme disaster. George had never realised that birth involved blood, agony, and disapproval, and could see, if everybody started off like this, why one had to keep topping oneself up with whisky. He took another swig and tried to pretend that the distant howls were not Sissy in agony.

There were only two cigarettes left and he had been keeping them for a ceremonial smoke with Sissy after the baby was born, but now he felt more in need of consolation than celebration and decided to have one anyway.

Pulling it from its gumboot hiding place, he drew heavily at its damp fumes, and felt despair, for he was not used to Sissy ill, floored, helpless. When he had finished his cigarette, his enormous feeling of insecurity caused him to light Sissy's and smoke it too.

The groans behind Elizabeth turned into high-pitched yells and then subsided into gasping breaths.

There came quiet at last.

Then Elizabeth heard a soft little cry as though someone new had come into the world. She thought it sounded regretful.

Elizabeth shoved herself away from the window and instead of rushing past as she had intended, let her eyes rest for a brief moment on the tiny glistening creature that squirmed between Sissy's thighs.

In that one swift glance, Elizabeth saw that the hair that copiously covered the creature was the greenish fair hair of her son and daughter, that its skin was milky white like theirs, and even through the twisted lumpish shape of it she could recognise the plump squatness that was such an integral quality of both her children.

The most awful of suspicions sprang into her mind and she rushed towards the door, not to find a pencil and paper to summon Mrs Lovage, but to the bathroom to be sick.

As she passed the doctor he gave a shudder and drew a corner of the sheet round the body of the new-born child. ‘Poor little devil,' he muttered. ‘It can't live of course. Not a chance. I'd be surprised if it was still breathing by the morning.'

Sissy had been panting, exhausted, but at the doctor's words, she sat up wildly and seized the little bundle.

‘How dare you,' she growled, as though Doctor Hobbs had threatened to kill the child.

As the doctor went out Elizabeth, in the bathroom, vomited copiously and wet a flannel.

George heard his mother's footsteps dragging overhead. From long experience he had learnt to know her every movement, and even her moods, from the sounds above and, thinking himself safe, he crept upstairs and hid behind the door.

Elizabeth emerged from the bathroom, walked stiffly along the passage and, passing George's hiding place, stopped at the Hairy Petal Bedroom. She held a dripping flannel in her hand and was swaying like someone ill. She did not seem to mind water running on to the Persian rug although when George had spilled tadpoles there she had been furious.

She stood for a moment in the doorway, staring at Sissy, her mouth opening and shutting as though her lips were too dry to allow words out, then she said, hissing, ‘If anyone finds out what has gone on in this house, you and your brother will go to prison.'

Without waiting for Sissy's reaction, she stumbled back to her room and, with her shoes still on, lay on her bed and put the wet flannel over her eyes. Although she had said that to Sissy, she did not know how it would be possible to prevent everybody in the village finding out about Sissy's baby. The doctor would be sure to talk and, even if he did not, Mrs Lovage would, no matter how much she was paid. It would be impossible for anyone to resist telling such a story.

George felt dazed with shock at his mother's words. He had known that fire was an imprisonable offence but he had not realised till today that fucking was one, too.

Doctor Hobbs stepped into the chilly night. He had seen deformed children before. He had delivered one or two during his many years as a village doctor. Perhaps not quite so mishapen as the Plague House child, but pretty bad all the same. He could not understand why this one made him shudder so.

At last George dared tiptoe into Sissy's room. Moonlight was streaming in, illuminating Sissy with a cold light, making her mouth look dark and her eyes large. Sissy turned her head and stared at him and, for a moment, her face seemed quite blank, as though she didn't recognise him. Or was about to be angry.

Then suddenly she said, ‘I'm hungry.'

It was like their old days of midnight feasts and stolen eating. George tiptoed round the house, scrabbling into his pockets and under his jersey a yesterday's baked potato, a shrivelled apple from the bottom of Elizabeth's fruitbowl, and, out of the stone breadbin that always smelled slightly of mildew bread, crusts which he wiped with beef dripping and red jelly. As he scurried round the house, gathering food like a hoarding squirrel, he began to feel comforted because he was doing something for Sissy, and to think that she was not really ill or she wouldn't be hungry.

Elizabeth heard him with relief. She remembered the monthly nurse bringing her tea after her children were born, inquiring after her waterworks, speculating on stitches. She remembered Tim congratulating her, popping champagne, ringing friends, making her feel as though she had had some great triumph. She was ashamed that she was unable to face Sissy but even if Sissy had not had a deformed child from an incestuous union, a child giving birth was something too horrid and gross for Elizabeth to be able to bear.

She whispered to some unseen God, ‘At least she has got George,' as she heard him tinkling up the stairs. ‘He won't know to mention stitches or waterworks but at least he's getting her supper.'

The ox jelly slipped as George handed Sissy the sandwich and with black thumbs he slithered it in again, asking hopefully, ‘Is everything all right, now?'

‘All right?' snapped Sissy. Her eyes were glittering. ‘Have a look at that and see how all right things are.' She nodded towards the bundle.

‘The baby?' whispered George.

Sissy, lying stiffly, staring upwards, ‘Probably dead already,' her tone was expressionless. ‘Doctor Hobbs'll most likely send someone with a spade in the morning to bury it.'

‘It's human,' said George, shocked. ‘How can you talk about it like that?'

Sissy suddenly threw back her head and began to cry, her mouth open so that he could see moonbeams shining on her tonsils and saliva stretching from her bottom to her upper lip like the string of a violin.

George waited, shocked, while Sissy, her face contorted and her lower jaw wobbling, seemed to sob, although there was no sound except a whoosh of quickened breathing. As tears, snot, and spittle began to drip down off her chin and on to the bedclothes, George stared, frozen, melting beef fat running through his fingers. He whispered, ‘What's the matter? I don't understand.'

‘Have a look,' hissed Sissy in a sort of silent scream. She prodded her finger at the bundle. ‘Just take a look and see what you've done.'

‘What
I've
done?' muttered George, trembling. So Sissy wasn't going to take any of the blame.

I had been keeping still because my presence seemed to distress them and also I needed time to tune in and to understand what was going on. I had never had quite so much trouble as this before.

*

George plucked at the edge of the sheet, then gasped and recoiled as though bitten. But then he looked again and said, ‘It's got nice hair.'

‘Hair?' said Sissy bitterly. ‘What's the use of hair? I wouldn't mind it being bald as a billiard ball if it had more of the other features.' She began tossing from side to side, crazy with distress.

‘Well, I mean, if it's going to die anyway, I suppose the less it has to lose the better,' mumbled George, trying to be consoling.

‘Ah!' screamed Sissy, letting out a short sudden shriek that caused Elizabeth, along the passage, flannel water trickling over her nose, to whimper.

‘It's too soon to cry yet, Sis. After all you've never seen a newborn baby before. They might all be like this,' said George.

Sissy pulled back the sheet and peeped at Lump, and her expression became suddenly soft as she said, ‘It might be quite normal, you mean, and that horrible old doctor didn't know what he was talking about?'

She sat up and began smiling. ‘Come on, George. Let's have supper.'

‘I wish you'd stop calling it “it”,' George said, through a mouthful of bread.

‘Well, what do you suggest?' asked Sissy with equal spirit. She dug her teeth into the old bread and mouth full told him, ‘Have a look. Is it a girl or a boy?'

George peeped cautiously. ‘Neither,' he admitted. He and Sissy had progressed in their understanding of male and female anatomies in the past year.

‘Quite,' said Sissy. ‘Watch out, George. You're getting crumbs everywhere.'

They were both silent for a while, munching, then George said, ‘Perhaps it's both.'

‘Both?' asked Sissy.

‘It … I mean he … I mean she … is male and female.'

‘Then let's invent a new word instead of “he”, “she”, or “it”,' suggested Sissy.

‘H-sh?' offered George.

‘Sh-h you mean,' snapped Sissy.

They were both silent for a while, pondering the difficulty.

Then both together they shouted, ‘Hush,' and burst out laughing.

Secretly, Sissy felt that her gender had triumphed, for this word could well be a combination of both her and she. She said nothing to George, though.

George, secretly surprised at the way in which Sissy had so lightly let the masculine precede, did not comment either. He said, ‘If hush is a boy like me, as well as a girl like you, then hush will belong to both of us equally.'

A satisfied silence fell, then George said, ‘It … uh … hush can't stay wrapped up in the end of the sheet for ever.'

‘We were going to get clothes for hush from Officers' Families, remember,' said Sissy.

George gazed at the baby. ‘Hush is not much bigger than a guinea pig, Sissy. I shouldn't think Officers' Families would stock anything small enough. I mean bigness has always been their greatest fault, to date.' He held up his arms, displaying his too-long jersey sleeves.

‘It's a shame I was never keen on dolls, George. A doll's dress would have been perfect,' said Sissy.

‘Hush is not a girl!' cried George so loudly that it made the baby jump.

‘Ah!' cried Sissy and George in unison.

‘Hush can't wear a dress,' he said more softly.

‘Nor trousers,' said Sissy. ‘We'll have to invent some sort of genderless garment for hush.'

‘Hush will have to have a proper name, too,' sighed George. He gazed at the baby for a while, then he said softly, ‘It will have to be called “Lump”. Nothing else will fit.'