by Lucy Gordon
He looked at her, then away. After a moment he looked back.
‘Don’t you want to tell me?’
He took a deep breath and made a noise that sounded like, ‘Oooeeey!’
‘Joey? That’s fine. My name is Gina.’ He frowned, so she said it again. He tried, not very successfully, to say the word.
‘Look,’ she said, holding up her hand.
Slowly she made the sign for G, then I. She wondered if he understood finger-spelling, but his eyes brightened, and she finished the word.
‘Gina,’ she said.
He tried to say it. It came out badly but she smiled encouragement, and spelt it again with her fingers. Joey watched intently, then repeated her movements exactly.
‘Well done,’ she said, spelling the two words.
He tried to follow her and got it right on the second try.
‘Have something to eat now, and we’ll try again later,’ she said.
Now that he’d calmed down, she could study him better, and she saw sadness, as if the weight of the world was crushing him.
She ventured to try a longer sentence. ‘Are you enjoying your biscuits?’
He nodded, tried to say something and choked on a crumb. She patted him on the back and they laughed together.
Then it was his turn. He tried to speak some words which Gina almost understood. Some signalling back and forth revealed the meaning: You must eat biscuits, too.
After that the conversation was fast and furious. A light came into the child’s face. He communicated as if he’d never managed it before.
‘I’m deaf, too,’ she told him. ‘I can hear now, but I know what it’s like. Nobody understands.’
He nodded and, eyes wide, repeated with his fingers, Nobody understands.
‘You’re very clever,’ Gina told him, her fingers working fast.
Joey simply stared. Gina said it again and indicated for him to spell the words too. But instead of doing so he made a single sound.
‘Eeee?’ he said.
Something stuck in Gina’s throat. Instinctively she knew the meaning of that pathetic question.
‘Yes, darling, you,’ she said. ‘You’re very clever. You really are.’
This time he didn’t try to answer, but simply shook his head forlornly. Gina couldn’t bear that sight. She put her arms about him and hugged him to her. He hugged her back, clutching her so fiercely that she gasped.
I’m a stranger, she thought. Yet the poor little soul clings to me.
She closed her eyes and held on to him tightly, trying to convey comfort and safety in a way he could understand. When she opened her eyes again, Carson Page was standing in the doorway, watching them with an expression from which all emotion had been carefully wiped.
‘It’s time for us to go,’ he said.
Reluctantly Gina tried to release herself from the little boy’s arms, but Joey tightened his grip and wailed.
‘All right,’ she said quickly. She turned his face to her and said slowly, ‘Don’t worry. I’m here.’
She didn’t know what had made her say that in defiance of his father, but at that moment she would have done anything for this little boy.
‘I’m taking him home,’ Carson said firmly.
Gina faced Joey. ‘Home,’ she said.
But the child shook his head wildly. And when his father took hold of him, he began to thrash about, trying to fight him off.
‘Come along,’ Carson said firmly, tightening his grip.
‘Let him go!’ Gina rose to face him.
‘What did you say?’
‘I said, let him go. You’ve no right to treat him like this.’
‘Are you out of your mind?’
‘I’m asking you to be gentle with him-’
‘I make every effort to do so, but I will not tolerate tantrums.’
At the word ‘tantrums’, Gina wanted to bang her head against the wall-or preferably bang his head against the wall. Was there any way of getting through to this man?
‘He’s not having a tantrum,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘He’s lonely and frightened. Are you such a monster that you can’t tell the difference?’
Carson stared at her, thunderstruck by the force of her attack. She was amazed at it herself. Her nature was normally placid, but Joey’s suffering had brought old fears and miseries to the surface, destroying her control. For a moment she was a child again, lashing out at a cruel world that didn’t care enough to understand.
Then she saw Philip Hale in the doorway and her heart sank.
‘You will collect your things, Miss Tennison, and leave immediately,’ Mr Hale said, in a voice that contained a hint of triumph.
‘No,’ Carson said at once. ‘I owe Miss Tennison a debt, and I can’t allow her to lose her job.’
Philip Hale’s face was a picture. The desire not to offend a valuable client warred with indignation at Carson’s imperious way of declaring what he would and wouldn’t allow. While he was struggling Carson went on without waiting for a reply.
‘Miss Tennison, I thank you for saving my son, and-’ for the first time he seemed to falter ‘-and for the understanding you have shown him. You’re a credit to your employers, and I shall be writing to the senior partners to say so.’ He emphasised ‘senior’ very slightly. Philip Hale noticed and his eyes narrowed.
Gina let out a slow breath, more confused than she’d ever been. He was brusque, harsh and arrogant, but he was also fair.
Carson reached out to Joey. All the fight seemed to have drained out of the child, and he took his father’s hand without protest. But he was weeping with a kind of resigned despair that broke Gina’s heart.
She watched as father and son walked out and headed for the front door. They got halfway. Then Carson stopped and looked down at the child who, by now, was wiping his face. He put his fingers under the boy’s chin, and lifted it, looking urgently into his eyes. Then, more gently than Gina would have believed possible, he took out a handkerchief and dried the little boy’s tears. He looked back at her. For the first time he seemed unsure of himself.
‘You’d better come with us,’ he said. ‘I mean-if you can spare the time.’
Gina opened her mouth to say that of course she would come, but suddenly she was swept by alarm. She wanted to help this vulnerable child, yet a great weight seemed to be crushing her.
‘I-I-’ she stammered.
‘Go with him and make yourself useful,’ Hale said, speaking through gritted teeth. ‘I shall have things to say to you later.’
She collected her bag and hurried to catch up with them. Joey watched her, eyes wide, smiling. Then he put up his hands and spelled out, ‘Come too.’
‘Yes,’ she said, clearly. ‘I’m coming, too.’
‘Then let’s go,’ Carson said.
CHAPTER THREE
O N THE journey, nobody spoke. Sitting in the rear, with Joey, Gina could only see the back of Carson’s head. It had a forbidding look. The child seemed simply content to have her there. Gina was trying to calm herself, battling with traumas she had thought would never trouble her again.
For a while she’d been back in the old nightmare of childhood, hemmed in by silence and misunderstanding. It was a prison from which she’d hoped she’d escaped, but suddenly the walls had been there again. Now she was struggling with herself. She didn’t want to return to that prison, and yet Joey’s need was so great…
What was she thinking of? she wondered. This was one brief visit, and then she would never see either Joey or his father again.
She was bitterly disillusioned by Carson. Was it only yesterday that she’d thought she detected charm and kindness beneath his gruff manners? Goodness, had she been wrong about that!
The truth about him was that he was as prejudiced about deafness as anyone else, and furious at the fate that had given him a deaf child. To blazes with him! she thought stormily.
She realised that the little boy was trying to catch her attention, sp
elling out some words. She answered with her fingers, and they chatted in silence for the rest of the journey.
She soon recognised the part of London where they were heading. It was a place where rich men chose to live to show their status, with broad, tree-lined streets and large detached dwellings standing well back from the road. She’d once arranged the purchase of a house like one of these, and knew that they cost a million.
At last they slowed outside the largest mansion in the street, and Carson turned into the sweeping, curved drive and past the trees that hid the house from passers-by.
‘Normally Mrs Saunders would be here,’ he explained as he opened the front door. ‘She runs everything and looks after Joey when he’s not at school, but at the last moment she needed the day off, which is why I had to take him with me.’
‘Yes, I could tell you weren’t very experienced in looking after him,’ Gina said wryly.
They had stepped into a large hall with polished wooden floors and a broad staircase. The house was pleasant, with tall windows, and through the open doors she could see sunlit rooms. It might have been a lovely place to live, but to Gina’s eyes there was something unwelcoming about it. It was spotless, and everything was of the best. But it wasn’t a home to the two people who lived here, each trapped in his own isolation.
She was beginning to be worried by the looks Joey gave her, and the way he held her hand, as though she was vital to him. She mustn’t be. She could only do her best for him and pass on.
Yet she couldn’t help remembering the way people had come and gone in her own childhood, the feeling that here was someone who understood, only to find them vanished in a week.
Joey was pulling her hand, urging her out towards the garden. She followed him, with Carson bringing up the rear. It was a large, beautiful place, with magnificent lawns and flowerbeds. But Joey had no time for their beauties. He almost dragged Gina to a large pond where fat fish idled around. He pointed each out in turn, and chatted about them with his fingers.
‘He’s very interested in fish,’ Carson said, catching up with them. There was an undertone of desperation in his voice, as though he was making conscientious efforts, but wasn’t sure what came next.
Gina noted the effort, but still blamed him. Joey had been his son for several years, and he ought to be able to cope better than this.
Joey left them for a moment to go around to the far side of the pool and study the water. He was frowning and his concentration was so intense that he looked like a little professor.
‘Why doesn’t Philip Hale like you?’ Carson asked suddenly. ‘It’s more than you told me yesterday, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. He considers me “disabled” and he can’t handle that. Some people can’t cope with anyone out of the ordinary.’ She regarded him levelly.
‘Was that meant for me?’ he demanded.
‘Would it be true?’
‘You evidently think so. You don’t like people who make snap judgements, do you? But today you judged me and found me wanting very quickly. No mitigating circumstances, no “let’s learn all the facts”. Just “off with his head”.’
There was just enough truth in that to make her uncomfortable.
‘Carson, please don’t think I’m not grateful to you for saving my job. It was decent of you, after the things I said to you.’
‘A simple matter of justice,’ he said coolly. ‘Besides, you can be useful to me.’
‘Yes, I thought it might be something like that.’
‘You don’t take any prisoners, do you?’ he said wryly.
‘Well, if there’s a battle, I’m on Joey’s side. I fought it years ago. Don’t be fooled by my appearance. I may look like a little brown mouse, but I’m really very tough.’
‘Little brown mouse?’ he echoed. ‘With that blazing auburn hair?’
She was taken aback. She was used to thinking of her hair as sandy, or at most ‘reddish’; certainly at the dull end of the red spectrum. Nobody had ever suggested before that it was at the glamorous end.
All the way back to the house Joey watched the two of them closely, aware of their tension. Once inside he began to pull on Gina’s hand, urging her to the stairs.
‘Please, go with him,’ Carson said.
She wasn’t sure what to expect from Joey’s room, but the reality made her stop and stare. It wasn’t that the walls were covered with posters-it was the content of the posters that astonished her. Not a footballer in sight.
Everywhere she looked there were whales, penguins, sharks, sea lions, fish, coral, shells. The bookshelves took up the same theme, and beyond them were more shelves of videos.
‘You must know a great deal,’ Gina told Joey.
He nodded.
‘Have you always been interested in marine life?’
She had to spell marine, but then he understood and nodded again.
He showed her around, and she found that he had all that money could buy, including a computer through which he could pursue his interest on the Internet. His father had even provided a credit card with which he could purchase whatever he pleased from an on-line bookshop.
In fact, the room had everything except some sign of warm, adult interest. This child lived in a vacuum, Gina thought with a shiver. On the evidence of his books he was highly intelligent, but he had nobody to share it with.
And then she found something that struck a curious note. A large framed photograph stood by Joey’s bed. It showed a young woman in her early twenties. Her face was heavily made up, but even without that she would have been beautiful. Her rich blonde hair tumbled over her shoulders and her mouth was curved provocatively at the camera.
Gina recognised the woman. She was a young actress called Angelica Duvaine who was fast making a name for herself in films. Gina had seen her playing second lead in a recent blockbuster. She had a limited talent but her beauty and glamour were stunning. It was a strange picture to find in the room of such a young child.
Joey saw her looking and beamed with pride.
‘My mother,’ he spelled.
‘But-’ Gina realised she was entering a minefield. A child, cruelly deprived of his own mother, had set up this fantasy to comfort himself. How could she snatch it from him?
‘She’s very pretty,’ Gina agreed.
Joey nodded and pointed to the picture. ‘Eeee-aye-eeee,’ he said.
Gina understood this as She gave me. A fan picture, sent through the post, and the child thought he’d been selected for special favour.
‘She gave it to you?’ she echoed. ‘That was nice of her.’
Joey fought for speech. The result was garbled but Gina understood. She loves me.
‘Yes,’ she said heavily. ‘Of course she does.’
Carson looked in. ‘There’s something to eat downstairs.’
Supper was laid in the elegant dining room, full of polished rosewood, with expensive pictures on the wall. Gina reflected that she would have hated to be a child in such a room, and Joey seemed to feel the same, because he was subdued.
The meal was excellent, and she complimented Carson on it.
‘I can’t take the credit,’ he admitted. ‘Mrs Saunders left everything ready and I just microwaved it.’ He regarded his son, staring unenthusiastically at his plate. ‘What?’ He touched Joey’s shoulder to get his attention. ‘What’s the matter with it?’ he asked, raising his voice.
‘Does Joey have any hearing at all?’ Gina asked.
‘No, none.’
‘Then why do you shout? Speaking clearly is what he needs, so that he can follow your lips. Anyway, there’s nothing the matter with the food. But if Joey’s like me at that age he’d prefer a burger.’
‘Junk food,’ Carson said disparagingly. ‘This is better for him.’
She saw Joey looking from one to the other with the bewildered look of the excluded, and took his hand in hers for a moment. At once the look of strain vanished from his face.
‘But who wants to have wh
at’s better for them all the time?’ she persisted. ‘Junk is more fun. Have you ever asked him what he prefers?’
‘That isn’t easy.’
‘Yes, it is,’ she insisted. ‘You look into his face so that he can see your lips.’
‘Do you think I don’t try that? He doesn’t understand me. Or he chooses not to, for reasons of his own.’
Gina was about to dispute this but a memory of her childhood got in the way.
‘That depends how you talk to him,’ she mused. ‘If you let him see you’re impatient, he’s bound to get upset.’
‘I do not-well, I try not to-are you saying he is doing it deliberately?’
‘I don’t know, but it’s what I used to do. When you’re faced with a really unsympathetic adult who’s obviously just doing his duty, and would rather be anywhere but with you-you don’t tend to make it easy for him.’
‘And I am the unsympathetic adult, I take it?’
‘Are you?’
He let out a long, slow breath. ‘I’m doing my best.’
‘How good a best is it?’
‘It’s damnable,’ he flashed. ‘All right? That’s what you think, isn’t it? And it’s the truth. I’m a lousy father, I don’t know what I’m doing and he’s suffering for it.’
‘At least you’re honest.’
‘But where does honesty get us?’ he asked bleakly. ‘Do you have the answer any more than I do?’
The weight of despair in his voice checked her condemnation. He too was suffering, and he coped less well than the child.
Last night, the word ‘deaf’ had made a change come over him and she’d judged him severely, assuming that he’d reacted with repulsion, as so many people did. But the truth was that deafness confronted him with problems he couldn’t cope with, and a miserable awareness of his own failure.
‘What should I do?’ he said wearily. ‘For God’s sake, tell me if you know!’
‘I can tell you what it’s like for Joey,’ she said. ‘If you understood that, you might find things easier for both of you.’ She saw Joey looking at them and said, ‘Not now,’ quietly to Carson.
For the rest of the meal she concentrated on the child, making him feel included. Carson ate very little, but he watched them, his eyes moving from one to the other as though he was afraid to miss anything.
