had the air of someone who understood that serious business was afoot.
Gina had feared that the exterior attachment and the process of switching on and testing the sound might be distressing to a child. But Joey was so eager to get on that he took it all in his stride. At last the aurologist had finished.
‘Now,’ he said, standing back, ‘let’s see what happens.’
Nothing.
Joey looked around him in bewilderment, as if asking what was supposed to happen next. Gina closed her eyes, praying hard. Carson’s face was deathly pale. He turned away and went to the window behind his son. When he looked back Joey was sitting with his head bent, as though crushed by defeat.
‘My God!’ he said, distraught. ‘Oh, my God!’
Joey swung around sharply to look at his father.
‘Carson,’ Gina said through tears of joy. ‘He heard you!’
‘Did you?’ Carson flung himself on his knees beside Joey. ‘Did you hear me?’
‘He can’t understand,’ Gina protested. ‘He’s not used to the sounds of the words.’
Carson took Joey’s face between his hands, looking at him steadily. ‘Joey,’ he said. ‘Joey.’
‘Aaaah-’ the child said. And suddenly, a light came into his face. He had heard his own voice.
‘Joey,’ Carson repeated, hardly daring to believe the miracle
‘Aaaah!’ Joey repeated the sound, his astonishment and delight wonderful to see. ‘Aaaahh!’ he yelled jubilantly, while everyone in the room smiled and covered their ears.
‘He did it,’ Carson said in triumph. ‘He can hear!’
The aurologist was smiling but cautious. ‘Now the real work begins,’ he said. ‘The mapping is going to take time.’
‘Mapping?’ Carson echoed.
‘Programming the device so that Joey gets the best results. The levels and the tuning vary from person to person. You’ll need to bring him back every week, then every two weeks, then every month, every two months, three months, six, then once a year. And each time we’ll adjust the sound, building on his experience.’
He and Joey set to work, testing noises, constantly adjusting until they found the level where Joey was comfortable.
After a while Gina looked around and realised that Carson was missing. She slipped out into the corridor and found him there, standing, leaning against the wall, his eyes closed. He looked almost more like a man crushed by misfortune than one who’d seen the dawn of hope, but she knew him now, and understood the violence of the emotion that racked him.
She went to his side and touched him. At once his arms went tightly about her, and they stood together in the quiet corridor while his shoulders heaved with sobs.
Gina made Joey’s birthday cake herself and lovingly adorned it with eight candles.
She put the finishing touches to it early in the morning before Joey was up. Carson too came down early and found her in the kitchen. She was carefully adjusting the last candle, and he slipped his arms around her from behind, kissing the back of her neck in a way that distracted her and sent the candle toppling to the floor.
‘Now look what you’ve done,’ she told him severely.
‘You’ve got plenty more candles. You can spare me a moment, can’t you?’
She emerged from his arms a few minutes later, breathless and somewhat dishevelled.
‘No more waiting,’ he said. ‘I want to tell Joey about us today. We can be married by the end of next month. Say yes.’
‘Yes,’ she said happily. To be his wife in a few weeks. What more could she ask?
The sound of footsteps alerted them. Gina hastily whisked the cake out of sight, and a moment later Joey burst in gleefully. After that it was a pandemonium of laughter and presents.
The three of them spent the day in the park. It was the merriest birthday Joey had ever known. The world was a wonderland of new sounds. Some of them confused him, and he couldn’t cope with too many at once. But he was learning all the time.
In the late afternoon they returned home and Gina set up the table for tea. The cake was a triumphant success as she carried it in with the candles alight.
‘Blow!’ she said.
Joey took a huge breath and blew all eight candles out at once, while the other two clapped. When they had all eaten a slice Carson gave her a questioning look, which she answered with a nod. The child looked from one to the other.
‘Joey,’ Carson said, ‘you know how important Gina has become to us?’ Joey nodded. ‘Well, what would you say if-?’
He was interrupted by a sharp rap on the window behind them. Outside was a beautiful young woman with blonde hair, knocking with one hand and waving with the other. Through the net curtains Gina couldn’t see her clearly at first.
But then she did. And, with horror, she recognised her.
Angelica Duvaine.
Suddenly everything seemed to be in slow motion: Carson, following her appalled gaze, growing tense and still; Joey, his eyes riveted on the window, his mouth silently forming the word ‘Mummy’.
Carson rose like a man in a dream. He seemed to find it hard to move. Gina was watching his face, but all it contained was disbelief.
Joey was the first to come to life. He jumped to his feet and raced to the door, pulling it open to throw himself into the wide open arms of the woman. Carson seemed to recover the power of movement and went after him. Gina followed and was just in time to see Angelica put her arms about him, kissing him lingeringly on the mouth, while Joey bounced with excitement, and a dozen photographers snapped away eagerly.
Angelica Duvaine had brought the press with her.
‘Damn you, get out of here!’ Carson roared at them.
‘Don’t be angry, darling,’ Angelica cooed in a seductive voice. ‘I just had to share our happiness with the world.’
She turned from him quickly and hugged Joey again, the picture of motherly delight, but with her face always carefully turned towards the cameras.
A man wielding a microphone pushed forward. ‘Do you have a statement for us, Miss Duvaine?’
‘Only that this is the happiest day of my life. All my sadness is over-’
‘Get in the house,’ Carson said in a savage under-voice.
‘I have to be going now,’ she told the journalist. ‘I need to be alone with my family-I’m sure you understand-’
She managed to tuck one hand in Carson’s arm and use the other to draw Joey against her, and the three of them went into the house. Gina backed away to let them in, and she could feel the other woman’s eyes flickering coldly over her, not missing a thing.
But she didn’t waste words on Gina. As soon as the door was closed she forestalled Carson’s explosion by dropping to her knees and embracing Joey with cooing sounds of delight. The child clung to his mother in a way that said everything about his loneliness and sense of abandonment.
Gina watched, realising that she had been fooling herself. She’d got as close to Joey as she could, and he’d become fond of her, but it was all as nothing the moment his real mother returned.
And Carson? Would it be the same with him? Would he forget her now that the woman he’d once loved so terribly had come back?
She was dizzy was the suddenness with which the world had turned around. One moment Carson had been announcing their engagement; the next, Angelica was there in their midst, reclaiming him and their son with terrifying confidence.
‘Oh, it’s so good to be home!’ she cried dramatically.
‘You still have a key, I seem to recall,’ Carson said in a biting voice. ‘You could simply have walked in.’
‘Oh, that wouldn’t have been nearly so effective, darling.’
‘No, it wouldn’t have got us all out there where the press could see us, would it?’ he snapped.
‘Well, you must admit, they were lovely shots.’
