For The Sake Of His Child

over, thumb protruding, laid his hand on his chest, made the circular movement. Into Joey’s eyes came a look of total mystification. It hurt Carson to see it. He repeated the sign. Sorry.

Joey frowned, turning his head slightly on one side. An apology from his father was something he simply didn’t understand.

‘Have you never apologised to him before?’ Gina asked.

Carson could hardly speak. ‘I don’t think-I ever have.’ He was finding Joey’s ‘silence’ agonising.

At last the silence was broken. A happy smile broke over the child’s face. He touched his father’s hand, stilling it as Carson had stilled his. It’s all right.

Carson drew a long breath. Something had just happened that had shaken him. If you blinked you might have missed it, but it was like a volcano inside. For a moment the roles had been reversed, and the little boy had been the adult, reassuring him that they would manage somehow.

But then, before his eyes, his son withdrew from him. The unfamiliar intimacy had embarrassed him, and he became an ordinary little boy.

‘Let’s have supper,’ Gina said, reading the situation without trouble.

Joey’s attention had been caught by the papers with the finger alphabet. He looked at them, then at his father, his eyebrows slightly raised in a query.

‘Why don’t you tell him that you’re learning?’ Gina asked.

‘I don’t know the signs for that yet.’

‘Try saying it. He’s good at lip-reading. Put yourself where he can see your mouth, and speak clearly.’

Carson positioned himself, his face on a level with Joey’s. ‘I’m learning signs, so that we can talk.’

Joey frowned. He hadn’t quite caught it.

‘Slower,’ Gina advised.

This time they did better. Joey opened his hand, fingers together, thumb apart, and touched his chin once.

‘That means “good”,’ Gina said. ‘You do it. It’s quite easy.’

‘Thanks for the vote of confidence,’ he said with a faint grin. He signed, Good.

‘Haven’t you spoken to him in the past?’ she asked as they laid the table.

‘I’ve tried, but he never seemed to understand me.’

‘Maybe you weren’t trying hard enough.’

‘You sound like a schoolmistress,’ he grumbled. ‘Yes, miss. Will try harder.’

‘See that you do,’ she told him with mock severity.

‘And when he did follow what I was saying he tried to answer and-I don’t know.’

‘He made those sounds that you can’t bear to hear,’ she finished remorselessly.

He took a deep breath. ‘You really sock it to a man right between the eyes, don’t you?’

‘No point in any other way. Are you going to give up?’

‘I didn’t get where I am today by giving up.’

‘And where are you today, Carson?’ she asked coolly.

He was about to lecture her about Page Engineering and its place in the commercial world, but stopped himself in time. Of course, she wasn’t talking about that.

Nothing that he’d done impressed her, he realised. His glittering achievements were as nothing beside his failure with his son.

Joey’s pleasure in his father’s efforts led to him being a little carried away. Over the meal he tried to talk to him, spelling, making signs, and going too fast for Carson to follow.

‘Slow down,’ Carson begged at last. ‘I’m only a beginner.’

Joey nodded and repeated the sign he was demonstrating. It was complex, and Carson got it wrong. Frowning, he tried again, making a sound of impatience when it eluded him. He wasn’t used to not being able to do things well. Then Joey laid a hand over his father’s and gently moved the fingers into the right position.

‘Thank you,’ Carson said, in words. Joey frowned, watching his mouth. ‘Thank you,’ Carson repeated.

Understanding dawned. Joey flattened his hand, touched his chin with it, moved it away. He was watching Carson closely to see if he followed this. Carson looked at Gina, but she wouldn’t help him.

‘Does that mean-“thank you”?’ he asked uncertainly. She nodded, pleased.

She was glad to slip into the background while father and son made the first tentative steps to knowing each other better. It went well, and by the time they both put him to bed she knew that Carson was feeling happier.

Later that night, as they parted outside her door, Carson said, ‘What was that sign Joey made you the first night-when he said he liked you?’

Gina formed her hand into the Y shape.

‘This means “like”. You do the rest by pointing at yourself and the other person.’

He tried it, and managed the shape.

‘That’s it,’ she encouraged.

He pointed at himself, formed the Y, then pointed at her.

‘You’ve got it.’ Gina made the gesture back. ‘I-like-you.’

He did it again, saying, ‘I-like-you.’

Then something seemed to strike him, making him uneasy. He said, ‘Goodnight,’ hurriedly, and walked off.

CHAPTER SIX

GINA prepared the ground carefully for everything she had to say to Joey, waiting for exactly the right moment to present itself. In the end Joey made the moment happen with a practical joke.

Walking through the door of his room, one evening, she was pulled up short by a stream of cold water over her. He’d put a vase on top of the door.

‘Joey!’ That was Carson, just behind her, outraged on her behalf.

Gina silenced him with a swift gesture. The little boy was doubled up with laughter at the success of his antics, and she joined him, seizing him up in a ruthless embrace and swinging him around.

‘Wretch!’ she said. ‘Horrible little wretch!’

Rightly understanding this as a term of affection, Joey laughed harder than ever.

‘It’s a bit unkind, after all you’ve done for him,’ Carson grumbled, picking up the vase.

‘It’s a joke,’ Gina protested. ‘He’s a little boy. Little boys make jokes. But look, darling-’

Carson’s spine prickled, then he realised that ‘darling’ had been addressed to Joey.

‘Look, darling, next time-’

‘Next time?’ Carson demanded.

‘Hush! Next time, don’t use water. Look.’ She showed him the speech processor that was attached to her implant. ‘That’s what I use so that I can hear. It mustn’t get wet or it won’t work any more.’

It was amazing how quickly Joey was transformed from a little boy to a serious person dealing with something he understood.

Hearing aid, he signed.

‘No, it’s much more than that. A hearing aid is for people who can hear a little, and it makes it louder. This is for people who are completely deaf-like us.’

At the word ‘us’, Joey raised his head and stared at her. At the start, Gina had told him she was deaf, but she could so obviously hear that he’d vaguely assumed she was talking about the past. His father watched him with bated breath.

But you’re not deaf any more?

‘Yes, I am. I’m as deaf as you. But with this-’ she touched it ‘-I can hear.’

He grew agitated. Did I damage it?

‘No, I was lucky. The water didn’t touch it. And if it was wet I could always get another. But no more vases of water.’

He shook his head vigorously. Promise.

Then he frowned again and looked wistfully at the device. Can I have one?