Hearing Helen

by Carolyn Morton

  “So,” I tried to speak normally, but my voice came out as squeaky as Dad’s chair, “what’s happened?”

  Mom put her hand over her face, shaking her head repeatedly.

  “It’s Hank,” Dad said to me, sitting down too. “He’s decided not to take part in the competition. Or do Medicine.”

  “But what’s he going to do then?” I asked.

  “Thanks to that girl, probably clean cars at Bill’s Garage or earn peanuts as a student assistant at Maths Magicians,” said Mom sharply. I’d never known her to take a dislike to someone the way she had to Caryn.

  *

  Fourteen

  THE NEXT MORNING, I grabbed an apple and sneaked out of the house while Hank was still in the bathroom, so I could get away before there was any more yelling.

  “Bye!” I called, banging the door behind me before anyone could ask me why I was leaving so early.

  At school, I went and sat on my bench. Shivering, I shoved my blazer under me and dragged my jersey over my knees in a way that would have made Mom have a fit if she’d had time to notice anything other than Hank. I propped Felicity next to me on the bench and put her fake milk bottle in her mouth. “You’re my only real friend right now,” I said to her, patting her head. She dribbled down her chin and blinked her eyelashes at me reassuringly.

  There was something desolately peaceful about being all alone there. No yelling. No screaming. No awkward silences hanging around you, filled with unspoken bitterness or broken expectations. I was glad I’d come so early. I closed my eyes and just sat.

  I must have been there twenty minutes before I heard the first voices and saw tiny uniforms in the distance coming through the school gate. I stretched out my legs reluctantly and picked a thorn out of the bottom of my shoe, flinging it back onto the ground.

  “That almost hit me,” said a voice.

  I glanced up to see Kean. “Oh, hi,” I said, placing my hands on my knees. Quite steady. Not even a hint that they were wobbling, as he usually made them do. He smiled at me crookedly and I wondered why he didn’t bother to lift the other side of his mouth too.

  He sat down beside me without asking if I minded, pushing Felicity out of the way, then glancing over his shoulder.

  “Oh no,” he whispered, jumping up again, “here comes June. Let’s go inside so we don’t have to say hello.”

  “No, wait,” I replied, frowning. Kean threw me another crooked smile and shrugged, dismissing me and walking away with a swagger that sped up as June got nearer.

  “He’s still scared she’s infectious,” I confided to Felicity. The doll didn’t say anything, but I could see by the contemptuous way she burped that she agreed.

  Kean needn’t even have bothered, though, because June hadn’t noticed either of us. Her head was down and she slipped her bag off her back and headed straight for the broken swing. Wriggling herself into it, she pushed her feet into the hollowed-out ground below. Another strand of the rope frayed away, causing the swing to lurch, but June didn’t even seem to notice.

  “Stop!” I shouted angrily to her, but she ignored me, pushing herself higher. I leapt up, feeling suddenly sick with fear as I saw June soaring into the air, and tore over to her. As she came down, I grabbed at the swing and held it, almost falling over.

  June half tumbled out of the swing, and for a moment I thought she was going to hit me. I was so mad, I didn’t care.

  “Look at the rope!” I screamed at her, shoving it at her. “Are you trying to kill yourself? Why can’t you listen?”

  June’s pupils dilated, and she stood stock-still, staring from the rope to me and back again.

  “Helen,” I heard a voice behind me say quietly. I turned to see Madame Pandora and Mrs Smith standing by my bench. Madame Pandora had Felicity gripped so tightly in both arms, it looked like a sumo-wrestling hold, and her face was whiter than chalk.

  “Go inside, child,” she said, passing me the doll. “Go to my practice room while we talk to June.”

  I stood in the corner of the practice room, like a naughty child, burying my face between the embrace of Felicity’s chubby arms. Minutes later, the clunk of June’s heavy school shoes was followed by the soft padding of sensible shoes and then the musical rhythm of tapping stilettos.

  “Come here, Helen,” Mrs Smith called, and I looked up reluctantly. June was sitting on the piano stool, her face, as white as Madame Pandora’s had been, averted and her hands kneading the stool rim repeatedly.

  “Child,” said Madame Pandora to me with quiet authority, “call your friend.”

  I said June’s name unwillingly, but she didn’t look up. “You see?” I shouted. “She’s treated me like this ever since she got out of hospital.”

  Mrs Smith shook her head. “It’s not you,” she replied and walked over to June, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Helen is talking to you, June,” she said, looking at her.

  June started and turned to stare at me as though she’d had no idea. Mrs Smith gestured to me to sit down too.

  “June is deaf,” she explained to me gently.

  “What do you mean?” My voice came out all funny, like I had a frog in my throat.

  “One of the side effects of meningitis,” said Mrs Smith.

  “How long will it last?” I asked disbelievingly. “Can’t the doctor give her medicine to make it better?”

  June caught my last words and shook her head. “It’s my middle ear,” she said. “It’s permanent. There’s nothing anyone can do. We don’t have a good medical aid, so there’s no money left for hearing aids.”

  “What about the government hospitals?” I asked. “Don’t they give stuff away for free?”

  “There are no good hearing aids available there at present,” said Mrs Smith, and I realised that she must have been phoning the hospitals for June. I suddenly felt terribly ashamed of all the times I’d laughed at my teacher’s eyesight. “There are hearing aids that go into the ear, but June’s hearing loss is quite bad, and she needs stronger ones that go behind the ear. There’s a shortage. And a long waiting list.”

  Madame Pandora gestured to Mrs Smith, who nodded.

  “We’ll leave you girls for a moment,” said Mrs Smith, holding the door open for her colleague.

  I went to stand near June so she could see me and was vaguely aware that I was crying, yet it didn’t seem to matter in front of her.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, looking straight at her so she could read my lips but wishing I didn’t have to look into her eyes. “I thought you were angry with me and didn’t want to be friends. You kept ignoring me.”

  She shook her head. “I couldn’t hear you,” she replied, taking my hand and pulling me nearer so my mouth was closer to her ear. It was the first time she’d touched me voluntarily since being sick, and it felt as good as a hug. “And I didn’t want to talk too much in case you found out. I was trying to hide it.”

  “If I’d known, I would have been kinder,” I said.

  “I didn’t want anyone to be kind to me because I’m deaf,” she said quietly. “I wanted you to be kind because I’m me.”

  “I’m sorry,” I repeated, clinging onto her hand. I felt like I needed to say it over and over until it could mean something. “I’m really sorry, June.” It was all that I could say.

  On Friday after school, I took a detour past the bus station. I just didn’t want to go home yet. Even when it was empty, our house had the eerie stillness of an abandoned battleground. At least that was the reason I told myself, but when I saw a bus heading for the Cape Road bus stop near Mill Park, I jumped on. Just to see if Hank really didn’t intend to take part in the competition. If so, his place would be vacant.

  As the bus drew up to its stop, I glanced at my watch. Three o’clock. I sprinted down the road, my suitcase banging against my back until I reached the gates of the Music Academy. The parking lot was starting to fill up as glistening Mercedes and low-slung sports cars slid aristocratically into freshly marked parking bays.<
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  “Helen!” I saw Caryn standing at the door of the hall, programmes in hand and waving exuberantly. Maybe, if Caryn was here, Hank had decided to take part in the competition after all. “Here, take a programme,” she said as I reached the doorway, slipping ten rand from her own purse into the kitty.

  “Hey, thanks, Caryn,” I said, surprised.

  “Sit anywhere,” she replied with a wink.

  I slipped into the hall, past the stage with its thick, plush curtains on either side, drawn open to reveal a baby grand piano. The place was already filling up, and I squeezed in next to a large woman in pearls and a rustling jacket that crinkled self-importantly every time she moved. A hush fell over the audience as Madame Pandora bustled across the stage to the microphone.

  She introduced the three other teachers who would judge with her. Everyone clapped for them as they sat down at tables at the side of the stage, and they inclined their heads like celebrities. I half expected them to have buzzers, like in SA’s Got Talent.

  The pieces were outstanding, and I felt my palms getting sticky when I saw the final person on the agenda. Madame Pan­dora rose as the previous performer bowed to applause and walked off stage.

  “And next,” she announced, “is H. Booysens.”

  I craned around to see if he would come after all. Silence.

  “H. Booysens?” Madame Pandora asked again. She glanced down and caught my eye and her lips moved, so slightly that I wasn’t even sure if I’d imagined it.

  “Last call for H. Booysens?” she said.

  It was now or never. I scrabbled in my bag for my music book and stood up shakily. I’m H. Booysens too, I told myself, and walked on stage, wondering when Madame Pandora’s wrath would fall on me. It didn’t. She paused for a moment, and then glanced at the programme.

  “Ah yes,” she said smoothly. “A brief amendment must just be noted here, ladies and gentlemen. H. Booysens is in the junior, not senior category, as stated on your programme, and she will be performing not a Debussy nocturne but a piece called ‘Winter’ by an unknown Russian composer … Am I right?”

  I nodded speechlessly and made my way to the Steinway. I had never played on anything so big or shiny before. I wiped my sweating hands on my school uniform, but as soon as I’d dried them, they felt slippery again. I opened my book and the notes seemed to tumble out of my piece and onto my lap, reams of them. “I don’t need you,” I whispered to the book, shutting it again and closing my eyes.

  I felt the pedal tentatively with one shoe. Instead of squeaking, the pedal sank silently and in unison with my foot. In my head I saw June, and I realised she had never been as beautiful as she had been today and that Kean would never see it. I remembered how Madame Pandora had played my music and for the first time I truly understood.

  I raised my hand over the keyboard, hearing the first grieving note of winter in my mind, and it became inextricably linked with my image of June. My fingers fell slowly as the notes wove themselves around me and around June, drawing us together like a scarf, then scattering and building up again into a crescendo of mourning and hope.

  Finally, the last note sounded and I sat bowed over, listening to it slowly fading as I lifted my hand. I had completely forgotten the audience and I barely heard their applause. I don’t think I even bowed.

  “Where are you going?” Caryn whispered as I walked out of the hall, my mind still caught up in my own imaginings. I blinked, confused. “They’re announcing the winners now,” she said, grabbing my shoulders and steering me back towards my seat.

  Madame Pandora rose and made another speech about the excellent quality of the music. I wasn’t listening. I just wanted to get back home now and crawl into bed, I felt so exhausted.

  She called up three matrics who had won the grand prizes. The lady next to me in the rustling clothes clapped extra loudly for the second-place winner, a pasty-looking girl with rather hairy legs, who I presumed was her daughter.

  “And in the junior category, the winner is Sanelisiwe Johnson, and second is Alicia de Bruin,” continued Madame Pandora, mentioning their prize money as well, to much loud clapping and even a whistle, which she silenced with a frown.

  “And third place, with a prize of twenty-five-thousand rand goes to H. Booysens,” she continued, placing slight emphasis on the H.

  “Isn’t that you?” my neighbour said, prodding me. Bemused, I stood. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone standing at the side door, next to Caryn, clapping loudly, and realised it was Hank. As our eyes met, he gave me a thumbs-up.

  “Go, Helen,” he whispered, tugging my hair affectionately as I passed him.

  Twenty-five-thousand rand! My brain felt like it was going to explode. I could afford to go to the Music Academy, I thought. I could buy a fancy phone, like Kean’s. I could fix the car the next time it broke, and paint the house so that maybe my parents would finally start noticing me more.

  Madame Pandora put out her hand to shake mine and I glanced into her eyes, as black and mysterious as a bottomless well. They seemed to sparkle and to warn at the same time, darting sharply over my face as though she could read my mind. She bent over, speaking into my ear as I had done to June earlier.

  “Well done, child,” she whispered.

  *

  Fifteen

  CARYN GAVE US A LIFT home because, she said, there was no way I was going home on the bus carrying a cheque for twenty-five-thousand rand in my pocket.

  “Do you want to come in?” Hank asked her as the car slid into our driveway.

  “Better not.” She shook her head and leaned forward towards him.

  “Thanks for the lift,” I said, hastily jumping out so I didn’t have to watch them kiss. I saw a movement at the kitchen window, though, and knew that Mom had seen. I heard something, probably the fridge door, being banged loudly.

  “Where have you been?” Dad asked as we walked in, glancing up from his plastic chair and switching the TV to mute.

  Mom’s eyes followed Hank, half resentful, half hopeful, as she waited for him to answer. “We know you said you didn’t want to play in the competition, but when you were both so late getting back, we thought perhaps you’d changed your mind,” she said, absentmindedly taking a school notice from me that needed signing.

  Hank shook his head, and Dad immediately put the TV sound back on with an unnecessarily hard click. Mom tightened her lips and added an extra underline to her name on my reply slip that went right through the page and left a smudge on the kitchen counter. She turned her back to us so we couldn’t see her face and started taking the vegetable pot out of the cupboard.

  “Wait, Dad,” Hank said, leaning over to pick up the remote and turning off the TV. Dad half rose, as if he wanted to snatch the remote back, but Hank started talking quickly. “I didn’t take part, but Helen did.”

  Dad’s body stopped in midair, as though it was frozen, and sank back into his chair.

  “She did what?” Mom almost dropped her pot.

  Hank put an arm around me. “She took my place and came third,” he said. I glanced up at the new tone in his voice and realised that my big brother was actually proud of me. I thought how I’d blackmailed him into doing household chores and swallowed guiltily. “Helen won twenty-five-thousand rand.”

  Mom shrieked and the pot clattered onto the floor. The next thing I knew, both she and Dad were hugging me, with Hank’s arm still tight around my shoulders. I wondered if this was what it felt like to be a chicken nestling beneath its mother’s down, so surrounded by warmth that you felt nothing could ever harm you again.

  “That’s wonderful!” Mom said, tears running down her tired cheeks to meet the corners of her smile.

  “Just think what this will mean for you,” said Dad, settling back in his chair and pulling me onto his lap, even though I was way too big for that now and my legs dangled over the arm of the chair. I didn’t care. My heart felt like it was on fire.

  “Now you can go to the Music Academy next year
, just as you dreamt of doing,” Mom said excitedly and I nodded automatically, revelling in all the attention. “We can buy you some new clothes too. And tune the piano.” Her eyes wandered across the room to the garden beyond the window and I knew, although she wouldn’t say it, that she was mentally planting light-hearted marigolds and whitewashing walls.

  Having a dream come true is one of the scariest things that can happen to you, I thought, remembering Madame Pandora’s needle-sharp eyes scanning my face.

  Later that evening I sat in the lounge, trying to piece to­gether­ my part of the project on pregnancy and parenthood. Dad was there too, snoring through an open mouth in accompaniment to a music video blaring out of the television. Mom had meant to help me but, after all our celebrations, the supper and washing up had taken longer than usual and her eyes kept jerking open as she struggled to stay awake, until finally I sent her to bed. Only Felicity was still awake. Except for Hank, but he was in his room, probably on Mxit with Caryn.

  “Reflect on what your experience with the ‘baby’ assigned to you has taught you about parenthood,” I read out the last question of our project to Felicity.

  “Well, first of all, no offence, but I don’t plan to have children for a long time,” I said to her. “Maybe when I’m thirty.” She blinked indignantly as I began writing. “Or twenty-five, if that makes you feel better?”

  Kids take up a lot of your time. During the day, they either need feeding or burping or comforting. At night, they wake you up. Constantly.

  “Don’t worry,” I reassured Felicity, reading it out to her. “That’s just the negative stuff.”

  On the other hand, once you’ve accepted the endless crying and eating and hiccupping, you feel almost lost without it. All that responsibility makes you realise – made me realise – that having a duty to protect and nurture someone else can give life depth and meaning. Because life is no longer just about you.