by Sara Barnard
rhysespieces: oh yeah?
stefstef: yeah
rhysespieces: did you like?
stefstef: yeah.
rhysespieces: cool.
stefstef: is it still OK for me to borrow the DVD?
rhysespieces: sure, if you want. or you could come over and watch it at my place?
rhysespieces: . . . if you don’t mind having to put up with subtitles.
rhysespieces: or my cat.
stefstef: would that be OK?
rhysespieces: sure. i haven’t seen it for a while.
stefstef: OK . . . when?
rhysespieces: you got plans after school weds?
stefstef: sorry yeah, I have to work.
rhysespieces: Thurs?
stefstef: yeah, could do that
rhysespieces: cool. let’s say thurs after school then
stefstef: ok
rhysespieces: ok
stefstef: rhys?
rhysespieces: stef?
stefstef: i’m sorry.
rhysespieces: i know.
Here is how you say sorry in BSL:
Close your dominant hand into a fist. Hold your fist to your chest and move it in a circular motion. Make eye contact while you do it.
I practise my apology in front of the mirror, mouthing ‘sorry’ to my reflection and circling my fist over and over again. One of the things I both hate and love about BSL is how it forces you to be genuine. Half-hearted apologies just don’t work when you’re communicating with your eyes and your hands. You have to mean it, or it is meaningless.
And I do want to be genuine with Rhys. I don’t even really understand why I got as defensive as I did, and so quickly. He was being so sweet with me, so patient with my faltering BSL, so encouraging of my clumsy attempts to communicate in his language. And then I flew off the handle for really no reason at all. What will he think of me now?
The first surprise is that Rhys can drive.
Seeing the expression on my face, Rhys laughs. You didn’t know I could drive?
No! We are facing each other on either side of his car. He is leaning over the roof, elbows on the metal, a light grin on his face.
I passed my test in the summer.
How old are you? If we were talking, I would have worried about trying to ask this question in a way that wouldn’t come out rude – in fact, I would probably have worked myself up into a panic attack about it – but the constraints of my limited BSL take the choice away, so I just ask.
He holds up his thumb and forefinger, like a gun, and moves his hand up and down. Seventeen.
I think about this, my hands waiting in front of me, but I can’t think what to say. Finally, I have many questions.
He laughs. Let’s go. You can ask me them later.
I get into the car, which is a battered green Skoda with an air freshener shaped like a jelly bean bouncing from the rear-view mirror, and wait while Rhys wriggles in his seat and checks the mirrors. He seems a little nervous, though he’s trying to hide it, and he smiles overconfidently at me as he reverses out of his space before quickly looking back at the windscreen.
Rhys’s house is on the other side of town from our school, not closer to my mum’s or dad’s house but making a kind of triangle between them. It’s smaller than Mum’s house but bigger than Dad’s, with a slightly overgrown front garden and a very overgrown cat lying on its back in the centre of it.
Rhys turns off the engine and holds his hands out in front of him. Home! he says, exaggerating the sign in the same way a hearing person would put on a jovial voice.
We get out of the car and head up the driveway. The cat ignores us until Rhys pushes his key into the lock, at which point he jumps to his feet and waddles up to the door, pushing me out of the way to walk in first.
Rhys rolls his eyes, points to the cat and then signs to me, King of the castle.
What’s his name?
Javert.
I hesitate. Like, from the . . . musical? I have seen the stage version of Les Misérables once and the film about six times – overwrought and depressingly tragic musicals are my favourite – but it surprises me that Rhys’s family would name a cat after a character in it. I’d always considered hearing kind of important when it came to musicals, so wouldn’t Rhys feel left out?
He nods. Mum is a big musical buff. As if on cue, a white woman with silver-streaked brown hair comes out of the kitchen, beaming. And here she is, he adds. Hi.
‘Hello,’ the woman says. ‘You must be Steffi.’ Like Rhys’s interpreter at school, she talks with her hands and her mouth. ‘I’m Sandra.’
Hi, I sign.
We’re going to watch a film, Rhys says. So, we’ll see you later, OK?
‘Come and have a cup of tea first,’ Sandra says. She is still smiling at me. ‘I want to find out more about the famous Steffi.’
I feel my face flame and I turn, horrified, to Rhys, who has reacted in exactly the same way.
‘It’s so wonderful that he’s been able to meet someone who speaks BSL,’ Sandra adds. ‘You’re a gift, Steffi.’
I seriously consider running away.
OK, bye. Rhys takes my elbow and starts steering me towards the stairs.
‘Um, excuse me,’ Sandra says, eyebrows raised. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’
Rhys gives her a look. My bedroom.
‘Not today, mister.’ Sandra looks torn between stern and amused. ‘The living room is right through there.’
Rhys lets out a loud huff of frustration through his nose. He makes a sign I don’t recognize, following it with always go in my bedroom.
‘Steffi is not Meg,’ Sandra says patiently, and though her hands are finger-spelling like an expert they may as well be punching me in the stomach with four simple words. ‘Living room.’
Rhys sighs loudly, but obeys. Sorry, he says to me and I blink at him, unsure how to reply. Should I express sadness that we can’t watch a film together in the privacy of his bedroom? On the comfort of his . . . um, bed? And should I do this in front of his mother?
‘Steffi,’ Sandra says to me when Rhys’s back is turned. ‘Cup of tea?’
I freeze. I can feel the old familiar fight happening inside of me. What will win? Politeness or social anxiety? Or will this be the moment my muteness rears its ugly head and shouts (silently) HI STEFFI, DID YOU THINK I’D –
‘OK,’ I say. I imagine pushing against a straining cupboard door and locking the beast inside. Gotcha. This time.
I touch Rhys’s wrist and he turns back to me, halfway through the living room door. I’m going to have tea with your mum.
He spins round and throws his mother another glare, before turning back to me. You really don’t have to do that.
‘It’s OK,’ I say. ‘You set up the DVD.’
Rhys hesitates, looks at his mother again and shrugs reluctantly. I go into the kitchen to find his mother already pouring out water from the kettle. Either she has a super-speedy kettle or she’d been planning this.
‘How do you take your tea?’ Sandra asks me with a smile.
‘Just milk,’ I say, hovering over a kitchen stool then forcing myself to sit on it.
Sandra busies herself making the tea without speaking, and the silence hangs over us, awkward and loud.
‘Thanks,’ I say finally when she rests the cup in front of me.
‘I’m so pleased you’ve been able to help Rhys settle in,’ Sandra says, sitting on a seat opposite me. ‘It’s such a relief for me that he’s been able to make such a good friend.’
Did she emphasize good friend, or am I just being paranoid? I try to smile, but it doesn’t feel very convincing so I take a scalding gulp of tea instead.
‘Rhys says you’d like to work with animals,’ she says.
I’m so surprised I can’t even nod. They really must have talked about me if they got to the level of detail that includes my wish to work with animals.
‘I’ve been thinking about getting a dog,’ Sandra con
tinues gamely. ‘I’d quite like a bit of company.’
‘You should adopt,’ I blurt, thrilled to have something to say. ‘I work at the kennels in town, and there are some really sweet dogs that need homes.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ Sandra says. ‘Well . . .’ She stands up, and I understand that I am now allowed to leave the kitchen. What was that all about? Weird. ‘I wanted to let you know that you’re welcome here any time,’ she adds.
‘Thanks,’ I say. I swallow my tea in three sickening swallows and plonk the cup down on to the table. I inch out of the kitchen, throwing out another ‘Thank you!’ as I go.
When I go through to the living room, I see that Rhys has created a tiny fort out of cushions and blankets, closer to the screen than I’d usually sit and with a careful amount of space between what is obviously his main cushion and mine. The sofa, which takes up the length of the back of the room, has been stripped bare.
Rhys’s back is to me and he is playing with the remote, scrolling through subtitle options. I walk over to him and settle on to my side of the faux fort. He glances at me and smiles. Hi. Sorry about my mother.
That’s OK. She just wanted to say hello. I gesture around me. What’s this?
He pauses and I see anxiety sweep across his face. I thought it would be better to watch it like this. That way we can watch and talk. Is that OK?
I smile, understanding. Our cushions and TV make a kind of triangle, making it possible for us to communicate while we watch. On the sofa, it would have been more awkward, bunched up on either side. Here we have space. Great idea.
He relaxes, the familiar beam reappearing. Great. Ready to start? Oh! He raises his finger and then jumps up. Popcorn. Be right back.
Popcorn. The way he put up his finger as his face pinged like a microwave. He’s so adorable. Oh God, I think I love him.
I stand up to look around the room, stepping towards a family portrait above the fireplace. Rhys, who must be about ten or eleven in the picture, is standing between two other boys – one older, one younger – and in front of his parents. They look like the perfect family, standing all proud together. I find family portraits of nuclear families fascinating.
I decide that Rhys doesn’t look much like either his mother or his father, though he is almost identical to his older brother. They have the same grin and the same warm, slightly mischievous eyes.
I hear the sound of Rhys returning and I glance behind me to smile, hoping it won’t look weird that I’m just standing here staring at a photo of his family. You look a lot like your brother, I say.
Rhys is holding a giant bowl of popcorn, so he shrugs and smiles rather than reply, putting the bowl on the floor between our cushions and then coming to stand beside me.
Aled’s at university, he explains now his hands are free. I nod, remembering that he told me that a couple of weeks ago. Edinburgh. Pharmacy, like my dad.
Your dad’s a pharmacist?
He nods. Mum is too. That’s how they met.
Your dad is from Guyana, right? I have to fingerspell Guyana and I get it wrong, adding in at least one extra A, feeling my face warm.
But he smiles, patient, and fingerspells it correctly for me. Yes.
Have you ever been there?
Just once a couple of years ago. We visited my grandparents. I want to go back one day, though. He grins. Shall we watch the film?
I nod quickly, hoping I haven’t asked too many annoying questions. We sit together on our little cushion fort and I reach for a handful of popcorn so I have something to do with my hands. Rhys presses the remote and the film starts with the sound of typewriter keys click-clacking, staccato and tense. I worry then that Atonement isn’t the best film to watch with a deaf friend. For one thing, it’s the atmospheric kind of film that uses the score like dialogue, filling in the long silences between characters with explanatory mood music. Is the closed captioning enough? I watch Rhys’s face, trying to read him from my peripheral vision. Does he know what he’s missing? I wonder. Does he mind? But then I turn back to the screen and realize I’ve missed a whole chunk of the opening because I’d been worrying about Rhys missing something. There’s irony for you.
I try to settle myself into the film, but I’m so aware of Rhys beside me that I don’t do a very good job of it. He is calm and still, his shoulders relaxed and his head slightly tilted. Every time he reaches for some popcorn, my heart goes zip, because maybe this is the time he reaches for my hand, maybe . . .
But of course he doesn’t, because I am Steffi. I am not Meg.
We don’t talk during the whole film. When the library sex scene happens – which I had completely forgotten about until the moment the library door opens on-screen and my entire body heats up twenty degrees – we both studiously avoid even looking at each other. When the horses are shot on the beach, I have to hold in tears, and I turn my head slightly away from Rhys so he won’t see. Maybe this wasn’t the best choice of film for us to watch together – so heavy and intense – but it’s too late now.
When the credits roll, Rhys turns to me, his expression open and expectant. Did you like it?
Yes. Actually, I feel emotionally drained. I’m working hard not to act as grief-stricken as I actually feel.
How did it compare to the book?
I hesitate, trying to articulate my thoughts in my own head before I even think of translating them into the language we share. It’s a very good . . . I flail, stopping mid-sentence. I have no idea what ‘adaptation’ is in BSL. Film, I finish helplessly.
Better than the book?
No, as good. Different.
Are you OK?
Yes! Why?
I can read faces. It’s what I do. Sad?
I think carefully, hands poised. The thing with having limited BSL skills is that it forces you to condense complex emotions into their simplest form in order to communicate them. It made my heart hurt.
He smiles. For a crazy moment I think he’s going to take my hand, but instead he uses his own to tell me that he knows what I mean, that he feels the same.
‘DINNER!’ an unexpected voice bellows from behind me, and I pretty much jump out of my skin.
Rhys scowls, groans, then rolls his eyes. Sorry, he says to me.
‘Hi!’ the voice comes again and I turn reluctantly. The voice belongs to a teenage boy who must be Rhys’s brother Alfie. Small for a thirteen-year-old and skinny, with a crop of messy dark hair, he is balancing on the ends of his toes and absently hopping from foot to foot, like there is too much of him to contain. ‘Are you Rhys’s girlfriend?’
Rhys, who has got to his feet, takes a swipe at him and Alfie dodges, grinning. Ducking his head under Rhys’s aloft arm, he crosses his eyes at me. ‘Are you?’
‘No,’ I say.
‘Aw.’ He looks disappointed. He turns to Rhys and they begin a blisteringly fast conversation, hands and faces in constant motion. It’s both impressive and impenetrable. I realize just how slow Rhys has to be when we’re talking and it makes me feel a little embarrassed and a lot inadequate. Why is he even putting up with me?
Rhys grabs hold of Alfie’s hood and pulls him in for an affectionate headlock. ‘Dinner?’ he says out loud to me, his hands occupied.
‘Um.’ I hadn’t planned to stay for dinner.
‘Dad cooked,’ Alfie pipes up. ‘And Mum set you a place at the table. And she put out the nice placemats.’
‘Sure,’ I say to Rhys, trying to smile. ‘Why not?’
When I head home a couple of hours later, I am feeling very pleased with myself. For one thing, I’m so stuffed with food – metemgee, which is a type of stew from Guyana and which I’m pretty sure has changed my life – I’m practically rolling down the street. For another, I managed to get through the entire meal without a) saying anything stupid or b) failing to say anything at all. This is, frankly, huge for me.
One of the times I find speaking hardest is when there are more than two people in the room. I’m mostly fine
when it’s one on one, but if there’s a group I find it almost impossible to say anything out loud. A lot of that is because I can’t insert myself into conversations; I literally don’t know how. (What if I speak at the same time as someone else? What if no one hears me and I have to repeat myself? What if I say something stupid and they all look at me weirdly? Why would anyone care what I have to say anyway?) My brain and my mouth freeze and I just stand there, dumb, until I’m rescued (usually by Tem). Even if it’s a group of friends or family, I am almost always the person watching from the side, smiling gamely, nodding, laughing at jokes, but contributing absolutely nothing.
So that’s why I was so nervous about agreeing to dinner with the Gold family. All I could hope was that they would be kind enough to let me sit there and eat without doing what people usually do, which is ask me loud, patronizing questions in a bid to get me to ‘open up’. I told myself that Rhys was there, and if all else failed I could always sign to him.
But the dinner turned out to be a revelation. I talked! I answered questions! I made a joke about fish! And they laughed!
I love the Gold family.
From the moment I sat down, it was different from any other dinner. They all talked with their hands, faces and bodies as well as just with their mouths, so casually and easily that it didn’t seem to matter which method any of us chose at any one time. When Rhys’s mother asked me what I wanted to drink, I signed Water, please and no one acted like it was strange I hadn’t also spoken. And then, a few minutes later, when I signed The film was great, I said it out loud as well, and, again, no one acted like it was strange that this time I had spoken.
This might sound like nothing to most people, but it made my heart swell three sizes. It made me beam. Druglike, it made me want more. So I talked more. I told them I wanted to study Zoology with Animal Behaviour at Bangor University. I told them about Rita and how her ears had to be pinned up when she was a puppy because one kept flopping over.
It felt so normal. I felt so normal.
For the first time, I think I understand what my Uncle Geoff had wanted for me when he took it upon himself to teach me BSL all those years ago. It wasn’t about the language itself – it was about giving me a choice. It was showing me an alternative to speech, showing me that I could express myself how I wanted, and that that was OK.