Absolute Hush (6 page)

Out of the window she saw Sissy creeping across the weedy garden, slopping mug in hand, and her irritation increased.

She grumbled to Mrs Lovage, ‘I wish Sissy would stand up straight. I think rounded shoulders look awful. My mother used to make us walk with books on our heads to improve our posture.'

‘You could still make her do it,' said Mrs Lovage, a tiny note of savagery in her tone.

Elizabeth shook her head and said, a little choke in her voice, ‘You can't make Sissy do anything.'

Mrs Lovage patted Elizabeth comfortingly on the hand. ‘It's the age, ducky. She'll grow out of it, you'll see.'

Elizabeth's irritation was increased even further a moment later by the sight of George. He was creeping after Sissy like a … like a jackal, thought Elizabeth. Sneaking through the high grass, hunched with furtiveness, lacking both dignity and pride.

‘My children,' mourned Elizabeth. ‘One coarse and shuffling, the other sneaky and obsequious.' She had never imagined they would turn out so.

Sissy crept softly through the garden, revelling in herb smells as weeds got crushed by her sandals. Her nerves thrilled to the tickle of petals on her neck when she brushed against the trees. The sun on her arms felt like someone's hot breath. Her body, her nervous system, felt, today, as though it had just been released from long imprisonment.

She heard George rustling in her wake, and even that did not annoy her, though she had particularly told him not to follow her. She would reprimand him later. For the moment she would savour her enjoyment.

She was filled with a sparkling anticipation as she carried the tea, now sprinkled with tiny flowers, to the Italian prisoner.

A movement of branches made her glance round, and Sissy saw her brother slinking like a pale panther through the bushes. She pretended not to see him. It was Sissy's turn for secrets now and she wondered if George's illicit fires had been as exciting as the thing that had happened to her yesterday, and might be going to happen to her again today.

For yesterday the Italian prisoner had kissed her.

He had thrust his tongue, which had been thick and muscular, right into her mouth and she had tasted the strong bitter taste of tobacco. He had gripped and almost hurt her, and she had been overwhelmed with sensations and with wild feral smells of man and sweat and Brylcreem.

After suffocating ages he had stopped kissing and, still holding her body against his, had bent down and looked into her face. He had smiled and said, ‘Pretty lady, pretty lady, pretty lady,' so that she thought these must be almost the only English words he knew, and that he was using them to express all sorts of other things.

Utterly weakened by the violence of her emotions, she had flopped weakly in his arms and had begun to tremble.

‘Pretty lady, pretty lady,' murmured the Italian prisoner and he had softly stroked her face with his wide muddy fingers. As she lay across his thighs she had felt some part of his body stir
against her buttocks. It was as though a fat strong animal was waking up inside his trousers.

The kiss, the thing that shifted under her, the man's soft murmurings, the hoarse moans of pigeons overhead, the smells of summer and of man, had all blended together arid induced in Sissy a violent lethargy caused part by shock and part delight, so that even if her mother had burst upon her, weeping, in those moments, she would not have been able to get up. She knew George was watching from some hiding place, but she could not move.

She thought that whenever she heard pigeons from now on, or smelled lilac or apple blossom or Brylcreem, she would find herself living the kiss and having her face stroked again by a man who said, ‘Pretty lady, pretty lady.'

Bruno was chopping down the nettles round the looseboxes when Sissy arrived with the now tepid tea.

‘Ah! Pretty lady!' he cried, straightening, and putting down the grass hook. He wiped his sweating face with his shirt-tail and, taking the cup from her, said
‘Grazie,
pretty lady.' He gave her a little bow.

Sissy felt a tremor rush through her, as though the shivering of the previous day was beginning again.

Bruno, clutching his mug, sat on the old stone mounting block and patted a place at his side. Crackling twigs at her back informed her that George was there, but she did not care. She sat down by the man and he put one arm round her shoulders. As he sipped his tea, the arm slid down and began to fondle her breast.

Sissy felt the shivering start to rise in earnest again.

Bruno finished his tea, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, pointed to the loosebox and said ‘Me? You?'

He caught Sissy by the wrist and looked into her face. There was a sort of wildness in his smile which suddenly frightened her. ‘You? Me?' he said.

Tossing the empty mug on to a pile of nettles, he stood up and
began jerking her towards the stable. ‘Pretty me, pretty you,' he cried, pulling at her as though suddenly time was short, as though there was somewhere they had to reach in a moment or the chance would be lost. The front of Bruno's trousers had risen to a peak, as though the animal inside was fully awake now and ready to leap out.

Sissy began shivering with panic instead of excitement and tried to pull away, but he was much too strong.

‘You me pretty pretty,' he babbled. He began to draw her across the chopped nettle stumps. ‘Pretty pretty me you,' he chanted as he hauled her towards the stable door.

As the Italian prisoner slid the bolt back, George was racing towards the house, already shouting, ‘Mummy, Mummy! The Italian prisoner's grabbed Sissy!'

‘Quick! Quick! Do something, Mrs L,' cried Elizabeth faintingly.

The charlady was off in a moment. As she raced through sorrel and coltsfoot, holding her skirt high, she imagined returning to an awed and grateful Elizabeth, holding on to the damaged child like a guardian angel bringing back a penitent soul.

When she reached the stable, she heard sounds of struggle and panting.

She thrust her body as silently as she could through nettles and docks and became filled with courage and ambition as she reached out for the door, but Sissy ruined everything. The moment Mrs Lovage flung open the stable door, she sprang out from among the apparently bare thighs of the Italian prisoner and rushed away.

Mrs Lovage wasted moments shouting after Sissy before turning back to shut the bolts. By then, Bruno had already got his trousers back on and was at the door. Mrs Lovage tried to thrust him back in, but without much conviction, for she was a small scrawny woman and he a big muscular young man and he strode out, probably not even aware of Mrs Lovage's efforts.

He came into the sunshine still buttoning his flies, stopped, turned, and looked at Mrs Lovage in a way that made her think for a moment that he might be going to finish on her what he had started on Sissy. He paused, kept his eyes on her face and, holding his fist to his groin, tilted his enhanced pelvis towards her. Then, leaving Mrs Lovage trembling, the Italian prisoner strode out of the yard.

Elizabeth, sitting at the window of her little sitting-room and trying unsuccessfully to keep her mind on her silken threads, heard Sissy come crashing in.

‘Are you all right, dear?' she called cautiously, trying to keep reality at bay.

‘Of course!' screamed Sissy, reassuring Elizabeth by the aggression in her tone.

Sissy's feet thundered on up the stairs.

Elizabeth looked on to the soothing garden, and instead saw the Italian prisoner pass along the drive, towards the road. His hips swung jauntily, his head was high, and his trousers were so tight they revealed the totality of his manly parts. A sweet shiver flickered through Elizabeth's body.

Then, with shrill cries of outrage, Mrs Lovage appeared, gasping.

‘Oh, my God, mum! He nearly raped our Sissy.'

‘Raped?' gasped Elizabeth. She had imagined the girl had got in the gardener's way, or teased him, as she had often done to Burdwell before the war, and that, like Burdwell, the prisoner had smacked out in irritation. She had not expected anything like this.

‘He kissed her, at any rate,' amended Mrs Lovage, aware that this was not quite as good.

Elizabeth relaxed a little, feeling she was starting to understand. Mrs Lovage must be suffering from one of the symptoms of the change. She had heard that women, at this time, become inflamed with sexual imaginings.

Elizabeth had, in spite of the broken cup – nervous awe from her lovely home no doubt – thought Bruno a charming young
man. For instance, how willing he had been to help with clearing away. Her own children never lifted a finger. She felt sure that the Italian prisoner was not the sort of man to go kissing children.

‘Ridiculous,' she said firmly. ‘One of George and Sissy's stupid jokes, and now you've gone and upset him. He's left and there's no one to do the garden.'

‘But mum, but mum,'jabbered Mrs Lovage.

Elizabeth had sung aloud the morning Bruno arrived because the young man spoke no English so would be unable to lecture her, and was a prisoner-of-war so would be easily disciplined and even sent away if he was any sort of a nuisance. She had anticipated the fun, after the children had gone to bed, of having a drink with the good-looking young man and had decided that, once he settled down, she would not expect too much gardening from him. Instead she would get him a bicycle, and the pair of them would roam over the summer countryside while Mrs Lovage gave the children lunch. She and the young Italian man would sit by the roadside, eat sandwiches, and drink some of the elderberry wine Mrs Lovage had made last summer. She, Elizabeth, would train her handsome young gigolo in manners, would teach him to be attentive to her, would show him how to treat a person with her sensitive nature. And now the young man had left because of the lumpy child. As usual, Sissy had gone and spoilt everything.

In their sleep Sissy and George would often pass their limbs across each other's bodies. Sissy's foot would linger ticklishly against George's tummy button. George's fingers would knuckle up against Sissy's neck. These physical explorings sometimes led to unexpected discoveries. A few months earlier, George, half awake, had drawn his palm across Sissy's chest and had woken utterly on encountering a small soft swelling. He had shaken her in panic.

‘Don't be so silly,' she had snapped with sharp embarrassment. ‘Haven't you ever heard of bosoms? Well, that's one.'

‘But only one!' George had wailed, sitting up and gazing at his sister anxiously. ‘Shouldn't you have two?'

‘I suppose the other will come in due course,' Sissy had told him, without letting him see that she, too, felt concerned. The second did in fact arrive two weeks later.

In their sleep the brother and sister would press their cheeks together, wind their arms round each other's waists, and throw their legs over each other's bodies.

But, after the Italian prisoner's kiss, Sissy no longer wanted to go to bed early and explore with George. She turned her back on him, and shrank away, out of reach of his arms.

If George felt abandoned at night he felt even more so by day, for Sissy would not talk to him but stood looking out through the great wrought-iron gates for hours on end.

He said, awkwardly addressing her back, ‘Lucky I ran for Mrs Lovage in time.'

Sissy did not answer.

‘I expect you are glad I got her,' he tried again.

‘You are a filthy interfering little sneak!' Sissy shouted suddenly and her shoulders began to shake so that for a horrible moment George thought that she was crying. But that was impossible because Sissy never cried. George stared at the quivering shoulders helplessly.

‘How was I supposed to know you liked being dragged into the stable, Sis?' he said at last.

Sissy let out a sound that sounded like a horse snorting.

In the end George tramped wearily away, wondering if he even wanted Sissy to talk to him now that she had become so odd.

Sissy stared through hearts and spears of iron and thought about the desire she had seen in the Italian prisoner's eyes. At the time it had frightened her, but now she was full of regret that she would not see it any more.

The episode had changed Sissy's perception of herself. For the first time she saw herself as someone adult men found attractive. Testing her new theory, she watched men go past the
gates and pondered on their reactions to her. She had to admit that these were not favourable. Most were rather old, so perhaps past being attracted to thirteen-year-old girls. But the few young ones, mostly airmen from the base, did not seem inspired by Sissy either. In fact they hardly glanced at the pale-faced girl in her faded Officers' Families dress.

With a chill of fear she began to wonder if any man would look at her with desire again.

When George went to light a fire he would slip away, shoulders hunched, adopting a shuffling gait that Sissy had learnt to recognise. She never suggested accompanying George on these occasions. She knew, without his telling her, that he did not want her.

He and Sissy had only twice watched a fire together, once when the High Street cottage burned, and once when they had been picking mushrooms near the airbase.

The steady roaring sound of a plane passing overhead turned to a gappy stutter. The plane began to dip and tilt. It toppled about in the air for a few moments and then began to fall swiftly towards the field in which Sissy and George stood. They clutched each other's hands as the plane plunged into a haystack.

There came a moment's silence. The birds stopped singing. The breeze dropped. The river seemed to cease to flow for a moment.

Then a great plume of black smoke began to pour out of the stack and hay and plane vanished from sight. Sissy and George began to choke and cough as smoke filled the field. With a roar the plane exploded and the smoke became rosy with the light of the fire. Great lumps of burning hay and bits of aeroplane went circling into the sky, and burning stuff began to rain upon the children's clothes with a scorching smell. Their nostrils became filled with other smells, burning oil and hay – and roasting meat. Clots of red hot char began to sting Sissy and George's skin and made them leap.