For The Sake Of His Child

head against the cold window, dozing unhappily in the dawn light. Joey found her like that when he awoke.

There was something unnatural about the day that followed. Gina and Carson went through a parade of acting normally, as though their minds weren’t both dominated by the same thought.

The Leytons were leaving that afternoon, and a final meeting for coffee and a visit to the fair got them through some of the day. After putting Joey to bed, Gina and Carson were to eat downstairs in the restaurant.

‘Will you be all right?’ she asked the child. ‘We’ll only be downstairs, but if you wake and we’re not here-’

I’ll go back to sleep again, was his common-sense answer.

‘Yes, I’m fussing too much,’ she said, reading the subtext beneath the signing. Joey grinned his agreement, and a moment later he was asleep.

Over dinner they talked about this and that, continuing the pretence of the day until their invention ran out. She looked up to find Carson watching her.

‘Don’t you have an answer for me?’ he asked.

‘You must think I’m a dithering idiot,’ she said with a sigh. ‘I’ve been thinking and thinking-’

‘Is it such a terrible prospect that you have to talk yourself into it?’

‘No, but-just a little more time, Carson, please.’

‘Of course,’ he said courteously. ‘If you’ve finished, we might take a stroll.’

The waiter brought the bill and he signed for it. Then he patted his pocket, annoyed with himself.

‘I’ve left my wallet behind. I’d better get it before we go out.’

He hurried upstairs, collected the wallet from his room and headed back, but as he passed Joey’s room something stopped him. From inside he could hear a soft noise, almost like whimpering. Frowning, he pushed open the door. The light was off and Joey was hunched under the bedclothes, moving about jerkily and making the sounds Carson had heard outside. There was something desperate about them.

He moved to the bed and touched his son on the shoulder, shaking him gently. But Joey seemed in the grip of a nightmare. He moaned more loudly, but his eyes stayed closed. Carson shook him again, and this time the boy shuddered and his eyes opened.

But instead of focusing on his father they stared wildly into the distance. His chest heaved and tears poured down his face.

Sorrow wrenched at Carson’s heart. This was his child, in distress, and he couldn’t help him. He put the bedside light on so that Joey could see him, and grasped the boy firmly to get his attention. At last, to his relief, the child’s eyes seemed to find him.

‘Joey,’ he said, slowly and clearly. ‘It’s all right. It’s over now. Joey-it’s over.’

What had scared the child so badly in his sleep that he couldn’t shake it off now? If only Gina were here. She would know what to do.

But she wasn’t. There was only himself to comfort his son, and he was failing him, as always. In pain and helplessness he drew the little boy against him and enfolded him in his arms.

‘There, there,’ he said. ‘There, there.’

He felt the soft brush of fingers against his neck. Joey had reached up until his hand could fit against his father’s throat. He pressed gently, not enough to hurt, but enough to feel the vibration.

‘I’m here,’ Carson said again. ‘It’s all right. Daddy’s here-Daddy’s here.’

He didn’t know if Joey could make out the words, or whether it meant anything to him at all, but he kept on making sounds of comfort, and gradually he felt his child relax. He looked down.

Joey had fallen asleep trustingly in his arms.

For a long time he watched the little boy’s face, a prey to feelings that shook him fiercely and left him drained. The pent-up love of years was there, waiting to break down the barriers of fear and incomprehension.

There was a soft noise in the doorway, and Gina slipped inside. When she saw father and son she stayed very still, watching them, smiling. Carson looked up.

‘He was having a nightmare. I don’t think I can go out after all. If he awakens-’

‘He must find you still here,’ she agreed at once, coming over to the bed.

Joey stirred again and Carson looked down into the child’s face. Gina drew a long, wondering breath at the expression on his face. This was the real Carson, the man who lived beneath the prickly exterior, a man whose love for his son was so profound and heartbreaking that it could barely be confessed, and then only to herself.

She’d come close to refusing him but now she saw that she’d nearly thrown away everything that made her life worth living. Their marriage might bring her sadness, but she loved this vulnerable man, and she could no more walk away from him than fly to the moon. Whatever the future held, she would face it.

She touched him gently on the shoulder and waited for him to look up.

‘I’ll marry you,’ she said.

She slept in Carson’s room that night, so that he could be with his son. Next morning, she knocked on their door early. She had something important to say.

‘Is Joey awake?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did he tell you what was the matter last night?’

‘He doesn’t even remember having a nightmare.’

‘Then you must have driven it right away. Carson, have you told him about us?’

‘No, I wanted you to be there to see his face.’

‘I don’t want to tell him just yet. Let’s wait until he’s been switched on. He’s got a lot on his plate.’

‘Maybe you’re right,’ Carson agreed reluctantly.

It was the last morning, and in the afternoon they would start the journey home. Their final visit to the funfair was marred by one painful incident. But Gina thought that if you looked at it the right way it was a kind of triumph.

Joey became absorbed in hooking ducks out of the water. There was another boy there, of about his own age, and it soon developed into a contest between them. The boy’s parents looked on, smiling.

But their smiles changed to frowns when the children began to talk. Joey ventured to try speaking a few words, which the other boy seemed to comprehend. But his parents looked uncomfortable, and the mother moved forward and took firm hold of her son’s arm.

‘Come along, darling. We’ve got to be getting on.’

‘Mum-’ the child tried to introduce his new friend ‘-this is Joey-’

‘Yes, dear, but we have to be going.’

‘But Mum-’

‘Come on!’ the mother snapped. ‘Leave him alone, dear. He isn’t like other children.’

She spoke slowly and emphatically, and Joey, watching her face, made out every word. Gina flinched at the look that washed over his face.

But she wasn’t the only one who’d seen it. Carson confronted the woman, barely containing his rage.

‘You’re right, madam,’ he said bitingly. ‘My son isn’t like other children. He has more brains, more courage and more sheer guts than most people will ever know.’

It was worth everything to see the change in Joey as he saw his father defending him. He understood everything, not just the words, but Carson’s attitude of fierce protectiveness, and the way he laid his hand on his shoulder.

The other couple gathered their son and scuttled away. Joey and Carson looked at each other.

‘Are you all right, son?’

Joey nodded, and slipped his hand confidingly into his father’s. There was a shining happiness about him, and it lasted all the way home.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ON THE day of Joey’s ‘switch-on’ Carson drove them to the hospital. Joey sat in the back of the car with Gina, attending while she silently explained that today he would see, not a doctor, but a hearing specialist called an aurologist and a speech therapist. By the time they entered the building he