Absolute Hush (18 page)

‘I see what you mean,' said Sissy wearily.

I could tell from George's tone that he was disappointed in me and wished I was either male or female. How I wish they would stop concentrating on this sex business and look at me for what I am, for I
have a good deal to offer if they will just let themselves see it. But no. They yearn for me to be equipped with lips and lobes and balls and nostrils which I don't need at all.

George looked at Lump as though measuring it for size but what he saw made him sigh deeply.

‘We'll have to make hush's clothes ourselves,' he said at last.

‘We?' whispered Sissy.

The thought of making baby clothes caused both of them to slump a bit and they remembered the hopeless conker car. They were no good at making things, but then Sissy said, ‘What about the big bellied frog, George?'

George gave a little gasp. This was the first time either she or George had mentioned it. But now Sissy said in a rush, trying not to allow bitterness into her voice, ‘You made a lovely little outfit for it, Georgie.'

George went red. Then he said, ‘Lump's clothes would have to be knitted.'

‘Why?' asked Sissy.

‘Babies' clothes always are,' George replied. ‘And I don't know how to.'

‘You could learn,' cried Sissy. ‘You learnt how to sew the dress for the frog.'

‘I was strongly motivated,' George muttered. ‘But I can probably learn if someone teaches me.'

‘Who?' wondered Sissy. ‘If we tell people about Lump we might go to prison. You know what Mummy said.'

‘Would we mind? Wouldn't we be freer in prison than we have become now?' suggested George.

‘George, you were scared enough before. You spent a week in the attic so as to avoid it.'

‘You let me stay there when the police weren't looking for me any more,' George blurted out suddenly. ‘I found out.'

It was Sissy's turn to go red. Perhaps it is because of Lump that they are able to talk about the previously unmentionable.

But then Sissy said sternly, ‘Men and women are locked up
separately. We would never be allowed to even see each other. You wouldn't like that, would you?'

‘No, no,' stammered George. But even as he said it he allowed the tiniest disloyal flicker to cross his mind. Being locked up, without Sissy, without Elizabeth, without Lump, without any of his present problems, did not seem all that disagreeable to him at present. But he said again stoutly, ‘No, no, Sissy, of course not.'

‘You sound as though you don't really mean it,' cried Sissy, who had become extra sensitive after all she had been through.

‘I suppose I will have to go and ask Mother to teach me how to knit,' moaned George gloomily. ‘That's what you're getting at, isn't it?'

‘You'll need some wool,' said Sissy in a businesslike voice. ‘You could unpluck your jersey. You're always complaining that the sleeves are too long.'

Half an hour later, Sissy and George were arguing hotly about how much more sleeve to pull.

‘It'll be up to my elbows.' George tried to hold his hands behind him, while Sissy, like someone controlling a reluctant dog, tugged at the unravelling thread saying, ‘In for a penny in for a pound, George. We might as well make a good job of it while we're about it.'

‘The way things are going,' groaned George, ‘I'm going to end up with a sleeveless pullover and Lump is going to be so overdressed you won't be able to find the baby among the folds.'

What a joke. I who have not been lost even in the infinity of the cosmos, lost in a little bit of George's knitting. But I had not experienced parental care for a long long time, and their concern moved me all the same.

When Elizabeth felt sufficiently recovered, she got up, stiff, feeling old. This was worse even than when she had heard Tim was missing, a tragedy which, unlike the horrid events of this night, could be discussed with others, who then pitied her.

Her body felt wild, restless, cried out for action, so she went over to the window and looked out, as though outside she might find an answer to her trouble.

And she saw, lying on the road, the old doctor's cycle, its wheel feebly turning. Beside it was his case, flung open, stethoscopes and ointments, pressure readers and bandages scattered across the tarmac. And beyond, the dark hump of the doctor's body.

As she stared, the old man's shoulders gave a slight twitch and Elizabeth let out a soundless scream.

Although she stood looking for a long time after that one twitch, a profound stillness overcame the fallen figure which Elizabeth felt sure was the quiet of death.

At last she lay down again, warmed by a tiny touch of hope, and drifted from feeling relieved because the only person who knew about the baby could tell no one, to horror that she felt so little distress at the death of an old friend, and wondered if there was something really lacking in her because she did not have the raw emotions of other people.

Then she heard the small sound of floorboards creaking and a moonlit shadow fell across the threshold. Elizabeth looked round, gasping, as George slunk in.

She sprang from the bed and swiftly drew the curtains then,
turning, asked, her voice hard as though she was not George's mother at all, ‘What do you want?'

‘You have to teach me how to knit,' muttered George through trembling lips. Seeing her face remain expressionless he added, ‘But it doesn't matter if you don't know how.'

‘Oh, I know how to knit,' cried Elizabeth. ‘I have spent the whole of my life knitting. My own shroud.'

‘Really?' Interest began to drive out terror. ‘I have never seen it.'

‘I speak metaphorically,' said Elizabeth. She stared at George a moment longer, opened her mouth but in the end said nothing, overtaken by a sudden chill as she realised what George was asking for. Then, with a sigh, she went over to her dressing-table drawer.

George watched fascinated, expecting at any moment to see the partly knitted shroud emerge. Even a metaphorical one must be of considerable interest, he thought, and he expected it to be elegant, matching Elizabeth's general style.

Instead she drew out a long slim parcel, eyed with distaste the dirty ball in George's hand, and, after making some sort of mental calculation, drew out a pair of thick knitting needles and handed them to him.

Half an hour later Elizabeth was saying, ‘In, under, pull the wool across, draw the needle down … In, under, pull the wool across …' and a little lumpy square was emerging from out of George's thick fingers. At half-past three Elizabeth asked briskly, ‘Sleeves?' as if she was selling him something.

George nodded dumbly, reluctant to voice his doubts.

Elizabeth, her lip curled with distaste, stitched the seams herself, holding the knitted pieces with the tips of her fingers as if they were too horrid for closer physical contact.

When George had crept away with the vile and cobbled knitting, Elizabeth fell back on to the bed. After some moments she heard him shout to Sissy, ‘Mummy and I have made Lump a garment.'

Elizabeth shuddered and decided to move downstairs and
away from the disgusting doll. She would settle herself in the little drawing-room that looked out on to the moat and not go upstairs until the crisis was over.

‘It's a funny shape,' said Sissy. ‘What are these sticking out bits for?'

George said softly, ‘For Lump's arms,' then looked at Sissy with anguish in his eyes. ‘Arms …' he said again in a hesitant voice.

Like people launching a ship they have built, George and Sissy drew the child out and began to put on the garment.

‘No! No!' cried George as Sissy fumbled, ‘You said that was Lump's arm and now you're putting it into a leg hole.'

But at last Lump was dressed and its parents surveyed it and waited to feel proud. After all, even the parents of vultures look upon their offspring with delight. But their expressions reflected only doubt.

In fact I felt rather delighted with my garment, and tried to give expression to my pleasure by raising my limbs and stirring them, but George and Sissy remained unimpressed and, huddling under a shared eiderdown, gazed at me with what appeared to be dismay.

I gave up in the end. After all, I was only new-born, and the struggle along the dark tunnel that led from the womb to the world had been more exhausting than anything I had experienced when getting from infinity to here.

George had said, ‘Lump doesn't look as though hush will ever learn to crawl,' and Sissy moaned, ‘Poor thing, poor thing.'

I felt a flash of indignation. Here I stand with one leg in the ocean of the infinite and my parents are disappointed because I may never be able put my nose in the dust, my arse in the air, and creep on my hands and knees.

George and Sissy did not sleep at all that night, but mostly cowered against each other under the eiderdown, their chins resting on their knees. Sometimes, exhausted, they would lie down for a short while, but soon have to sit again and talk in
whispers because they feared the universe might overhear and accuse them.

‘What's going to happen? What will people say? What will people do?' And then, fear of fears, ‘What will happen when Mrs Lovage comes?'

They could imagine Mrs Lovage sweeping Lump into a dustpan, then, holding her nose with thumb and forefinger, rushing to tilt Sissy's offspring into the bin as she had disposed, after initial screamings, of the kitten with five legs.

The kitten had rustled, mewing, among the papers and potato peelings right up to Mrs Lovage's cigarette time, when George and Sissy had had a chance to rescue it.

They had wrapped it in George's winter stockings and fed it milk from the rubber bladder of a fountain pen.

George and Sissy had referred to it as ‘it' instead of ‘he' or ‘she' not because, like Lump, it lacked gender but because they were inexperienced in sexing new-born cats.

‘We'll know one day,' Sissy had said. ‘It will give itself away by having kittens.'

‘Or something,' said George.

‘Or something,' agreed Sissy.

George and Sissy had become excited about their new pet and visualised making their fortunes by exhibiting freaks.

‘We could put an advert in the paper,' said George. ‘Ask people to bring us their four-winged pigeons, two-headed lambs, hairless puppies, instead of throwing them away in the dustbin.'

Unfortunately, the five-legged kitten died halfway through its first day of freedom. However, the death of their showpiece only daunted Sissy and George briefly and, at tea-time, George had tiptoeingly stalked his mother into the sitting-room, and asked her, shifting from one muddy boot to the other, with bits of garden stuff dropping from his knees, ‘Do you know how to stuff animals, Mummy?'

Elizabeth had made something which George had later described as a graceful gagging sound, and Mrs Lovage, on her
hands and knees cleaning out the fireplace, asked, ‘What are you up to then, you disgusting little creature?'

Despite the lack of encouragement, George and Sissy had persevered. They took a book out of the library telling them how to skin the kitten, cure the pelt, and stuff it, using chemicals the village chemist had given them, in exchange for their doing half a morning of bottle washing for him.

‘We should take Mrs Lovage on as our publicity agent,' said George, when, thanks to the charlady's indiscretion, everyone seemed to know about the kitten and approached the children with sly winks and giggles saying, ‘How many Woodies for a freak peek?'

Only two people actually turned out to be serious about seeing the exhibit. One was Myrtle, who, after a single glance, pronounced it to be a filthy mess, and refused to give them the Woodbine she had promised, saying she didn't approve of children smoking anyway.

The other was a fat boy who Sissy had once spat at when he attacked George. He had, ever since, nursed a hatred for the twins and, on this occasion, tried to snatch the precious exhibit on which George and Sissy had spent so many hours scraping, stretching, pinning, drying, salting, sewing. In the scuffle, although they managed to retrieve their treasure, the fifth leg fell off.

George and Sissy tried to sew it on again, but without success, and in the end they became disheartened, and buried the kitten beside the Silly Dog and Teddy's doorkey.

‘It will happen to Lump,' they whispered shudderingly.

Elizabeth must have slept a little, after all, for she became suddenly aware of one of those pale pure mornings full of bird songs echoing and water reflected in golden shimmers on the ceiling. She wriggled and stretched a little, a feeling of luxury flowing through her. She was going to be happy for a moment, and think of Barney coming. She was going to anticipate getting Mrs Lovage to help her to polish the silver candlesticks
to celebrate his arrival, the two of them laughing at the ways of men as their cigarette-smoke-hazed reflections emerged from under the polishing cloth.

Then she realised her shoes were on, that there was a face flannel over her face, and that made her remember and she was not happy any more.

When Mrs Lovage's footsteps were heard scrunching through the gravel, Elizabeth hurried down and locked the doors, then stood trembling as Mrs Lovage tried the back. Finding it locked, Mrs Lovage tried again harder and then began rattling. Elizabeth held her breath and tried to keep the tears back. There came fretful footsteps, tappings on windows, rattlings of doors, callings of, ‘Is it you, ducky? The door's locked. I can't get in.'

Mrs Lovage rang the frontdoor bell and the sound rolled clamorously through the house. Elizabeth opened the frontdoor.

‘I shan't be needing your services for the moment, Mrs Lovage,' she said, and then went on to talk about money and wages and owings, while Mrs Lovage stared open mouthed.