by Sara Barnard
By late September, I’m comfortable in our friendship and definitely getting better at BSL. It’s Wednesday and I’m sitting with Rhys in our Maths class. I try to watch Clare, his communication support worker, as much as possible, trying to keep up with her signs instead of following Mr Al-Hafi’s voice. In fact, I’m so focused on doing this that when Mr Al-Hafi points to the equation he’s written on the board, I say the answer out loud without thinking about it.
Everyone swings to look at me, wide-eyed, and my whole body goes hot. They are honestly looking at me like I just pulled out a gun and fired it.
‘That’s right,’ Mr Al-Hafi says smoothly, God love him. ‘Nice work, Stefanie.’
My heart is still pounding as I shrink down against my seat, scribbling furious notes across the page that don’t actually make any sense. I can feel Rhys watching me, his gaze curious. He hasn’t known me for years, like most of my classmates. He doesn’t know just how unusual it is for me to answer a question out loud, let alone unbidden.
What was that? Was my mind sufficiently distracted by Clare that it forgot about its self-enforced rule to not speak in public? Or was it the medication? Was it Rhys? And, if so, is that thought comforting or frightening? I don’t want a boy to be the reason I get better. What would that say about me if it is?
And is this what getting better is? Obviously being able to talk normally in public is what I want, but now it seems to be happening I feel strangely unsettled. I suddenly understand a lot better what my doctor meant when he talked about my sense of self being entwined with my silence. Who am I if I can talk? Will that mean I say all the things I usually keep in my head? But so many of them are snide, or bitter, or just plain dull.
My brain battles with these thoughts until the bell rings. I blink out of the turmoil of my head and realize I haven’t taken in anything that happened in the last twenty minutes of the lesson. My notepad is a mess of barely legible scribbles. I can just about make out the words maths maths maths this is maths.
Oh God, I’m losing it.
There’s a tap at my wrist and I look up. Are you OK?
Yes, I sign automatically, then pause. I consider.
Seeing my face, Rhys puts his head to one side – like Rita does when she’s confused by something – and smiles. The pact.
I don’t know what to say. My mouth is closed, my hands are still.
Want to talk about it?
No. Yes. No.
OK.
A conversation in fragments
A table in the common room. Rhys sits sprawled over a chair, his limbs too long and languid to fit into it properly, and I am cross-legged on the table, facing him. Our hands are in constant motion, flitting up and down from the space in front of our faces and chests to the piece of paper we have between us. He is patient, prompting me with a gentle swing of his hand. And we begin.
So.
So . . .
You can go ahead. I’m ‘listening’.
I don’t know where to start.
Shall I ask questions?
Yes.
OK. HOW COME YOU DON’T SPEAK MUCH?
I was a childhood mute. I stopped talking when I was four, which was when I went to nursery. I just . . . didn’t speak. No one knew why. Big fuss.
You stopped speaking COMPLETELY?
Oh no. At first it was just in the nursery. I just clammed up. I’ve seen the notes my teacher made at the time. She says it was like I was a statue all day – no expressions, no voice. Like I was scared to do anything at all. I could still talk at home and to my family and friends. But then it started getting worse. First I stopped talking to anyone I didn’t know, like people in shops and restaurants, and then it was friends, and then it was anyone who wasn’t my immediate family. For a while I could only talk to my mum and dad when I was certain there was no one else around.
That must have been hard.
I don’t remember it in any detail. Most of what I know is what people have told me over the years. All I remember from the time is this kind of numbness.
So what happened?
I had to see doctors and speech therapists. I saw them for years, actually. We got loads of written materials about selective mutism. What my parents should expect. They had to get two copies of everything because they weren’t exactly on great terms at the time. They divorced when I was three.
Maybe you were trying to bring them together by not talking?
Look, I’ll answer any question you ask but don’t try and psychoanaylse me, OK? I’ve heard it all a hundred times.
Sorry.
It makes me really mad.
Sorry.
People always want to have the answer. Even now, after all these years. It’s like, don’t you think that we’ve all thought of every possible option already? We stopped waiting for a light-bulb moment a long time ago. It’s never going to come. Sometimes things just happen.
I won’t do it again.
So anyway. I was meant to be getting help but it was all a bit patchy, to be honest. I lived mostly with Mum at the time and I saw Dad at weekends. They didn’t agree how to ‘handle me’, or whatever. Dad wanted to follow what the guides said, like, to the letter, but Mum didn’t really have much patience for it.
What do you mean?
I don’t think she really believed that it was something that was happening to me instead of something I was doing. She thought I was doing it on purpose. Trying to make things difficult. I know it must have been frustrating, but she used to shout at me. She couldn’t take it when I wouldn’t talk to the rest of our family. Like my gran. Mum would be, like, ‘Are you trying to punish me?’ and then she’d cry.
What about in school?
I was meant to get one-on-one help, but my school was quite understaffed and underfunded – it’s actually been closed down since I left – and so I was just included in the SEN group.
SEN?
Special Educational Needs.
Oh. Did it help?
Well, it’s not like anyone was UNhelpful, but none of it helped. I just didn’t talk, but because I did all the work I think they decided it was easier to let me get on with it. They did try some of the things the guides suggested – there’s this technique called ‘sliding in’ – but it wasn’t getting results fast enough so they kind of gave up. I don’t want to make them sound bad, because everyone was so nice to me, and they really tried to make me feel like it was OK to just be, you know?
And I had Tem.
Your best friend?
Yeah. We’ve been best friends since we were tiny. There was a time when I couldn’t talk to her either, but that only lasted a few months. Literally. But Tem doesn’t care whether I talk or not, so there was never any pressure. And she NEVER looked surprised if I did talk. Everyone else used to watch me so closely . . . and if I did say anything they’d always make this shocked face that made me feel so . . . exposed. But with Tem it always felt normal. After a while she could read me so well she used to talk for me at school, like she was my interpreter. And that made things easier for everyone. By Year 2 I could whisper to Tem in school, and then over the next few years I could talk to her, then whisper to other kids, and then by the time I got to Year 6 I was almost normal. Very shy, but I could talk.
Where does BSL come in?
Oh that . . .
I’ve been dying to ask. I assumed it was school.
No, it actually wasn’t. My uncle – my dad’s brother-in-law after he married my stepmother when I was five (stop me if this gets confusing) – is a teacher in a deaf school. He suggested that I learn BSL when it started to look like I wouldn’t be able to communicate at all. He said it might help with my confidence.
Not SSE?
Sign-supported English?
Yeah. Wouldn’t that have made more sense?
It would have made more sense, yeah, but I think Geoff loved the idea of being able to teach me this whole new language so much that he just went right for the big guns. He doesn’t do
things by halves. And Dad thought it was brilliant, like a family project. He loved this idea of his new family having their own way of communicating. We all learned together – me, my stepmother, him and Clark.
Who’s Clark?
?
He was my stepbrother. He’s dead.
Oh shit. Sorry.
I can’t talk about him right now.
That’s OK. We can stick with the speech thing. Did you use BSL at school?
Not really. My teachers knew what the basic stuff meant – like can I go to the toilet and yes and no, please and thank you, whatever – but no one could hold a conversation in it. It was just a way to get by.
What happened when you got to secondary school?
Everything went to shit.
Oh.
Yeah. The thing is, everyone at my primary school knew me, and they were used to the problems I had. So they stopped being surprised if I talked or not, and a lot of them could actually talk for me by the end – not even just Tem.
So you were comfortable there.
Yeah, exactly. It was so safe. But then secondary school was this new environment, and it was big and loud and full of strangers. I couldn’t deal with it.
You went mute again?
Basically, yeah. But it was so much worse this time because I understood so much more, like what’s expected of you not just by teachers but other kids, as well. I was the weird kid who didn’t speak. The teachers knew about it – they must have been briefed or something – so it was OK from that side of things, but you know that secondary school is about twenty per cent learning and eighty per cent social. You have to talk to other kids. You just have to. And I couldn’t.
So what happened?
I was bullied for a while. I was such an easy target. There were these kids who thought it was funny to grab me and do stuff like draw on me, and they’d tell me they’d stop if I just said ‘stop’. It was horrible but it didn’t really last long because Tem was there, and people liked her, so eventually they just left me alone. The school was a lot more interested in helping me than my primary school, so I spent a lot of time with the counselling team and working with tutors outside of the main class time. It all helped. I’d got a lot better by about Year 8.
So you’re not mute any more?
Oh no, I haven’t been actually mute for a long time. I’m just really shy. Like, clinically shy. Socially anxious. I have some diagnoses. A whole bunch.
You don’t usually talk in class?
Not if I can help it.
Is that why everyone looked so shocked today?
Yeah.
What’s changed?
If I tell you, don’t tell anyone.
You know I won’t.
Tem doesn’t even know.
OK, now I feel bad. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.
I started taking medication at the end of the summer.
Oh right.
It might be kicking in. I don’t know.
That’s a good thing, right?
Yeah. Bit of an adjustment, though. I’m so used to being the quiet one.
I know what you mean. I don’t know who I’d be if I could hear.
Would you choose that, if you could?
I don’t know. I really don’t. I like my life. I like being me. I feel like I’d kind of be letting myself down – and the whole community, which I really love – if I said I wished I could hear. It would be like giving up a big part of myself. So much of what I have wouldn’t have happened if I could hear. Like, even meeting you.
Me?
Yeah. If I’d started here as just another boy would you even have noticed me? Why are you laughing?
Would YOU have noticed ME?
That’s exactly what I’m saying. I like the way things are. I like that I’ve met you and we’re getting to know each other.
Why?
What kind of a question is that?
I just don’t really get it.
Get what?
Is it because I can speak some BSL?
Is what because of that?
You didn’t answer my question. The pact.
You need to answer mine for me to be able to answer yours.
Why you talk to me.
I like talking to you.
No one likes talking to me.
Isn’t it more that no one usually gets the chance?
I have to go to class.
It’s almost lunchtime?
Then I have to go to get food.
OK cool. Where do you want to go?
By myself.
How have I upset you?
Don’t walk away from me, you know I can’t shout after you.
‘Stef.’
I decide to take the rest of the day off, even though I’m supposed to go to English in the afternoon. I have Atonement with me, so I go to Starbucks, buy a vanilla hot chocolate and spend the next couple of hours reading in the corner. I am completely alone and it is blissful.
I don’t even bother making notes; I just read until the pages run out and then I sit, slightly dazed, forced back into the real world. A couple at a table near me are trying to name all seven dwarfs, but have stalled at five. A girl on my other side is scowling at her laptop and jabbing at the keys with angry fingers. When did these people come in? What time is it?
I put the book down and pick up my phone. It’s almost 3 p.m. and Tem has sent me four messages escalating from a casual ‘Hey, I have news, message me!’ to a final, desperate ‘STEFFFFFFFFIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII’.
I finish scrolling and smile at the string of messages, then type out a reply.
Steffi:
I’m in Starbucks. What’s up?
Tem:
THERE YOU ARE.
Here I am!
I KISSED KARAM.
I hesitate, waiting for the jolt of surprise to pass so I can work out what I’m feeling. Obviously I know she likes Karam, but as of yesterday she was still playing it cool. And it’s the middle of the day!
Steffi:
???
Wow! I think I need to hear the details?
Tem:
I can see your disapproval in nine words, Brons.
I’m not disapproving!
SURE. Well I’m coming over tonight,
so you can practise being excited OK??
OK!
Awsum. Right after school, k?
Was it a good kiss?
Yes.
☺
I’m really not disapproving. Just . . . cautious. Protective. That’s the best friend prerogative, right?
I’m still holding my phone and I look at it, nibbling on my lip, then tap the jackbytes icon. The screen loads.
[stefstef is online]
[rhysespieces is offline and cannot receive messages]
stefstef: Sorry.
[rhysespieces is online]
[stefstef has gone offline]
Tem is giddy with happiness when she arrives at my house after dinner. She throws out a cursory ‘How are you?’ on the way to my room, but I know it’s not the time to start telling her about my sort-of argument with Rhys – was it an argument? – so I just smile and reply that I’m fine. She is too excited to notice my sort-of lie – is it a lie? – and does a running leap on to my bed, bouncing a little like a child before settling down on to crossed legs.
‘Go on, then,’ I say. Her happiness is infectious. ‘Share.’
She does, in frankly unnecessary detail. I learn more than I could ever need to know about Karam’s kissing technique – ‘Just enough tongue! More each time, like a taste test.’ – and how his hair feels under her fingers.
‘He calls me Tember,’ she says, beaming. ‘Isn’t that the cutest? Tember.’
‘So is he going to be your boyfriend?’
Her smile blooms ever wider. ‘I don’t know. I hope so . . . but it’s early days, obviously. And it was just a kiss.’
‘Just the first kiss,’ I correct, b
ecause this is the kind of thing we do for our friends.
Tem beams. ‘Just the first kiss,’ she repeats. ‘The first of many.’
‘Do you want him to be your boyfriend?’
She nods. ‘Of course! Stef, it’s all I want. He’s just . . . everything.’
‘That sounds dangerous,’ I say.
‘In a good way,’ she replies.
‘Is there a good kind of dangerous?’
She laughs. ‘Just you wait, Stef. Just wait.’
stefstef: hey
rhysespieces: hi
stefstef: so I finished Atonement
