Absolute Hush by Sara Banerji

was because she was his secretary and they shared naval secrets. Elizabeth had suspected nothing because the Wren was ugly with hair the colour of ham rind, and a shiny pink face like a pre-war rasher. Elizabeth remembered that she had smelled slightly smoky and salty too, and now for the first time the idea occurred to Elizabeth it was the smell of passion.
    Elizabeth’s figure was willowy, her hair beautifully permed, her skin like the bloom on a damson – through the application of pre-war powder over the vanishing cream – and she smelled of Chanel and sandalwood soap. It simply had not occurred to her until now that Tim might have preferred a willing woman to a lovely one.
    She said to Mrs Lovage, ‘Do you think it will be all right to ask no women?’
    â€˜What about Sissy?’ said Mrs Lovage.
    â€˜Sissy?’ Elizabeth swung round and stared amazed. ‘Sissy?’ she said again, as Mrs Lovage went on polishing unperturbedly.
    As though addressing her own reflection, Mrs Lovage said after a while, ‘It’d be a chance for her to meet some decent young men.’
    â€˜But why should she meet men, Mrs L? She’s only thirteen,’ cried Elizabeth.
    â€˜There’s no such thing as “only” when it comes to teenage girls,’ Mrs Lovage replied placidly.
    â€˜It’s ridiculous. You can’t have a child at a dinner party,’ Elizabeth protested.
    â€˜She’d be under your eye at your dinner table.’
    â€˜Whatever do you mean?’ snapped Elizabeth.
    â€˜Now don’t take on so, dearie,’ soothed Mrs Lovage, straightening and waving her arms around in one of her symbolic hugs. ‘She’s reached the age, that’s all. My Myrtle was reeking of eau-de-Cologne and making eyes at the young airmen by the time she was twelve. Her Dad caught her canoodling before her thirteenth birthday.’
    Elizabeth didn’t comment but thought secretly, what else would one expect from a girl like Myrtle.
    â€˜Three village girls, all under sixteen, have been put in the family way,’ Mrs Lovage was saying.
    â€˜But Sissy isn’t a village girl,’ retorted Elizabeth.
    â€˜It’d be better for Sissy to come to a dinner party than for you to have a bastard for a grandchild,’ said Mrs Lovage, sucking at her ciggy, and scouring a ring mark. ‘She’d have been preggy by the Eyetie by now if it hadn’t been for me.’ Her attention was on the oak sideboard or she might have sensed danger.
    â€˜Girls of our class don’t get bastards,’ Elizabeth announced so suddenly and savagely that Mrs Lovage looked up, alarmed.
    Elizabeth was glaring and Mrs Lovage shrank back nervously.
    â€˜How dare you make such a suggestion about my child,’ Elizabeth almost shouted, purposely rude as if the episode of the Italian prisoner had filled her with a desire for revenge.
    â€˜But … but …’ stammered Mrs Lovage, flustered at not finding Sissy their mutual enemy. ‘I thought, I only said –’ She sat back and stared, bewildered hurt in her eyes.
    â€˜I’m sorry, ducky.’ She was almost whimpering. ‘I don’t know what I said, but I’m sorry.’
    Elizabeth at once felt guilty, and said swiftly, ‘I apologise for being rude, Mrs L. Put it down to a mother’s broken heart,’ then, clasping her palms against her breast, let out a groan.
    â€˜I’ll help you make a dress for Sissy, dearie,’ said Mrs Lovage, trying to get back into the good books. ‘We’ll have her looking really beautiful for the dinner. All she needs is a bit of a scrub and a pretty frock.’
    This conversation took place at the moment the sperm’s snout punctured the ovum and made me. It is a cosmic moment, a milestone in the history of the human race, and yet those people closest to me passed it by, and instead discussed scrubbing Sissy, then went on to fret