Wish

by Peter Goldsworthy

  My mother is a small, dainty woman; in part her dancer’s grace is the compact grace of the small. My father is also small, but stockier—an athlete, a sprinter. A Roadrunner. He ran a close second in the Bay Sheffield in his teens, and a more distant third in the Stawell Gift. He would have won, my mother liked to claim, given a good start. He couldn’t hear the starting gun, and lost precious time watching the other runners or waiting for the puff of smoke. A proud man, he spurned the shelter of such excuses himself. My mother has a drawer full of newspaper clippings from those glory days. He looks the same in every picture, a small, cocky bantam with a puffed out chest and ramrod back, staring the camera straight in the eye. ‘The Deaf Dash’, the sports headlines dubbed him. In his later footballing days, this shrank to ‘Dasher’. Dasher James. He took more pride in that. He didn’t want any special favours, special adjectives.

  Life had been easier for him than for most of the Deaf, his fast-twitch muscle-fibres had opened any number of half-closed doors. He had no patience for those who couldn’t force their way through those doors. Always more willing than my mother to pass judgement, he believed firmly that those who were locked out in the cold belonged there, deserved to be there.

  ‘Give all the money in the world to the poor, and…what?’ he once signed to me.

  I shrugged: what?

  ‘After six months the rich have it all back again.’

  My mother, overhearing—overseeing—threw up her hands in horror.

  He had a repertoire of little sayings, or signings, like that: a cliché for every occasion. Sooth-signings. He was a champion on the football field, a quick little man who played a hundred-odd games for the local football club, and two for the state team. After work, he sometimes took me to the beach for kicks. He could hit me on the chest with a football from any distance. He could knock a crow off a Norfolk Island pine with a football.

  I couldn’t hit the side of the sea-wall. I always headed for the safety of the water as soon as his back was turned. Even then I was too slow and awkward on land. Too fat.

  ‘Too cuddly,’ my mother signed, reassuringly. She had her own two-handed mime for ‘cuddle’, a family sign, somewhere between ‘hug’ and ‘bear’, with a bit of ‘love’ merged in. Two fists, crossed tightly on the chest.

  We had a family sign for ‘fat’ too, the mouth pursed tightly shut, the cheeks inflated: a mime of fatness. Or is it more a mime of the cause of fatness, a mouth stuffed full of food?

  She never let my father criticise me. Hers was a much fiercer sense of injustice; many of the Deaf share that sense. Anyone who has suffered at the hands of the unimaginative shares that sense.

  She would always back the underdog, any underdog. She always supported the bottom team on the football ladder. She took me most Saturdays to watch my father play when I was little, and he was nearing the end of his career. She barracked, signing frantically, for the team that was losing—‘running second’—even if he was playing, as he usually was, for the team that was winning. He had no need for sympathy, he had never felt himself to be an underdog.

  ‘Great vision,’ a commentator once said on television, as we watched a footy show replay on Sunday morning, and my father stabbed some pass across his shoulder to hit a team mate on the chest. ‘James doesn’t need ears—he’s got eyes in the back of his head.’

  My father’s toe jabbed my back; I interpreted, and they both laughed the explosive incontinent deaf-laugh that neither of them could ever hear; a loud tuneless alien laugh that made heads turn in public and embarrassed me no end.

  I learnt the sign for ‘embarrassed’ early: the dominant Fist Hand disappearing behind the Flat Hand’s screen—hiding its head in shame. Crawling into a hole.

  Plus an even simpler, more expressive sign: the Flat Hand sliding up to cover the face. Sometimes with the shape for ‘red’ added: shame-face, red-face.

  When I write the word ‘embarrassed’ on this page, when I remember those times, this is closest to what I feel.

  This is what I feel. The sign is the thing it represents.

  My parents’ weird speech was another embarrassment, a speech they couldn’t hear themselves, but pieced together from studying tongue and lip positions. It had a blurred, indistinct sound, a language of vowels, as if the edges of its consonants had been sanded smooth. It sounded like the speech of clowns, or spastics.

  In my teens I found it difficult to be their son in public. My behaviour is hard to explain, harder still to excuse, but I seemed to change overnight. I still loved them, that went without saying—at home, in private. In public I was shamed by them. The two feelings—love and shame—fused together, and warped each other into strange new forms.

  I insisted they keep their mouths shut in public, and only communicate with others through me.

  I always walked several paces ahead or behind.

  I bought a cheap guitar, taught myself a handful of basic chords, and sang my way through The Bob Dylan Songbook, a private world they couldn’t share, or even enter.

  I said things behind their backs, often shouted things behind their backs. To abuse my father after I’d been punished for some misdemeanor—to stand a few inches from the back of his head and shout fuck you and hate you, unnoticed—was a wonderful release. Perhaps it even helped me to pass more quickly through that shameful time.

  I also lied to them. I played jokes at their expense. Once, once only, I even deliberately mistranslated the Movie of the Week, inventing the occasional line of dialogue at first, then faking whole scenes.

  Both my parents could lip-read, partially, and both were highly sensitive to body language, but somehow my improvements—my lies—were overlooked at first. Shifting their attention between the screen and my hands meant that they were able to scrutinise neither perfectly, non sequiturs went unnoticed. They also saw exactly what they wanted to see; my mother was always more willing to believe in happy endings than sad.

  The lies soon snowballed, uncontrollably, my leaky memory could not keep pace with the changes. As the end of the movie approached disappointment seeped slowly into my mother’s face, spreading across her small neat features like a stain. I had overstepped the mark. She could tolerate being shunned in public, she could tolerate my private world of music, but this was a betrayal of trust. It took some time for her to accept what I’d done; finally, with tears in her eyes, she lifted her hands.

  ‘Not funny,’ she signed, ‘cruel.’

  Cruel: the Point Hand become a knife, slitting the throat.

  That same knife was turning in my heart. I regretted instantly what I had done, and fumbled for excuses.

  ‘Joke,’ I signed, ‘just joking.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ my father signed back: the Two Hand thrust from the mouth, double-speak, forked tongue.

  He stood and slapped me hard across the face. For once my mother failed to defend me.

  ‘You deaf—not,’ she signed, sadly. ‘You understand—not.’

  The accusation was always there, barely beneath the surface: if I had been born deaf I might have been a better, more decent person.

  When I remember those teenage years now, I’m embarrassed—shamed—only by myself. I squirm inside; my hands fly up to cover my face, involuntarily.

  Sign puts it best:

  7

  Wednesday night, Basic Auslan, Room 101—my first class for years. I zipped my lips, theatrically, then tapped my watch twice. Not classical Sign, but the point was clearly made: no English to be spoken for the next two hours.

  My apprehension was clearly mirrored in the faces of my students.

  Twenty-odd beginners were scattered around the edges of the classroom, repelled from me and from each other by the powerful centrifugal force of shyness.

  None were deaf. Basic Sign is aimed more at the friends and families of the Deaf, a course for the hearing. Social workers, trainee nurses and teachers help make up the numbers.

  I plucked a book from the nearest desk, turned it this wa
y and that with exaggerated interest, set it down, then demonstrated the sign. Two open palms, hinged together: two pages.

  Heads nodded here and there, tentative hands began to mimic the shape. I walked among the scattered desks, pointing out other everyday objects, silently demonstrating their corresponding signs. Desk, window, pen—simple representations, all of them. See-through shapes.

  ‘Are we late?’

  A voice—a woman’s husky contralto—jarred the silence; all eyes turned. Two late-comers were framed in the doorway: a thin, elderly man in corduroy trousers and coat, and the speaker, a plumper, younger woman in jeans and a khaki work shirt. A cigarette was jammed in her mouth; she removed it and spoke again, a small explosion of smoke.

  ‘We are in the right place? Basic Auslan? Finally?’

  A plump black dog pushed its head between her legs and gazed in, tongue lolling; a titter of surprise rippled across the class.

  ‘This place is a maze,’ she said.

  I pressed a finger to my lips; realisation dawned, she turned to her older companion and smote her forehead with her fist: Stupid-me.

  I liked her immediately, a natural signer. She had a comfortable thirty-something face, plenty of laugh-lines, a broad lopsided smile. The rest of her body looked equally comfortable, a collection of bulges unapologetically sheathed in those tightish denim jeans. A skewed bunch of hair topped her head, a kind of vertical spout, a punkish semblance of carelessness.

  She looked from her cigarette to me, and raised her eyebrows quizzically. I shook my head firmly, she grimaced in mock pain, took one last exaggerated drag, then ground the butt beneath her heel.

  More titters among my students; they were enjoying the performance.

  She pointed to the dog, and lifted her eyebrows again, another unspoken question. I spread my hands and shrugged; I knew of no rules forbidding dogs from the classroom. She was wearing heavy work boots; the effect, as she tiptoed theatrically to a desk in the front row, was clown-like. Her plump black dog waddled painfully after her, its front and rear ends composed, it seemed, of disconnected halves.

  Her human companion also followed. Despite his age and small stature, he too seemed to command attention. He sported a surprisingly youthful head of hair, but the face beneath was lined and leathery—it reminded me of a shrunken head. He walked with a slight forward stoop, choosing each step with care. His clothes had a vaguely academic look: brown coat, dark skivvy, brown cord-jeans. On his feet were a pair of white sneakers, an athlete’s triple-striped running shoes, an incongruous touch. Despite the clear age difference there was something in their body language as they sat together—practised intimacy, a kind of subliminal pas-de-deux—that suggested husband and wife.

  The dog spread itself on the floor, resting its chin on her boot; I regained the attention of the class.

  I tapped my chest, simplest of possessive pronouns:

  My, I chalked in large letters on the blackboard.

  Heads nodded; so far, so good.

  Name, I added, then shaped the word with my free hand: an opaque sign made with the Hook Hand.

  The class waited; I set down the chalk and finger-spelt, slowly, with both hands: ‘J-O-H-N.’

  I signed to the furthest student: ‘Your name…what?’

  She shrank further into her corner. I pointed to a wall-chart above her head—an illustrated finger-spelling alphabet—and coaxed a reluctant, misshapen J-O-A-N-N-A from her timid hands.

  It took a good minute. I mimed exhaustion, boredom, melodramatically wiped my brow. More titters in the class. I signed an abbreviation—‘J-O’—with a great show of relief. The students laughed, more loudly, the ice of shyness was slowly breaking. Inside another five minutes, all were practising standard introductions: greetings and names, finger-spelt.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you. My name J.J. Your name what?’

  ‘My name S-T-E-L-L-A.’

  The latecomer in the front row smiled, pleased with herself. She was easily the most fluent of the students. She sprawled comfortably in her chair, legs apart, her body language relaxed, open, interested—a sharp contrast to the rest of the class, still terrified of making fools of themselves.

  Her companion, or husband, was also quick to grasp the shapes, if not quite as quick as his wife: ‘My name C-L-I-V-E.’

  There was something measured and overcontrolled in his finger-spelling. His legs were crossed, rather prissily, his posture was more upright, more feminine, than his wife’s. He struck me as the type who might pull out a pipe mid-sentence, tamp in tobacco, apply a match, and puff, meditatively, before finishing.

  ‘Good-to-meet-you C-L-I-V-E.’

  His leathery face seemed familiar but I couldn’t quite place it. I scanned the class-roll on my desk, surreptitiously. His surname also had a familiar tang: Kinnear, Clive. Immediately below it: Todd, Stella.

  ‘B-I-N-K-Y,’ Stella finger-spelt, and pointed to her dog, flattened like a seal against the floor, staring up with mournful spaniel-eyes.

  I signed hello to Binky; she thumped her tail sluggishly against the floor; more titters.

  I steered the class further into the usual beginners’ repertoire. Signs for ‘yes’ and ‘no’. ‘Please’ and ‘thank you’. The beard-shape for ‘man’, the long-hair shape for ‘woman’. I opened the window, mimed the shivering-fists of ‘cold’; closed the window, wiped my sweaty-brow: ‘hot’.

  More laughter, and a smattering of applause.

  I shook my head with mock horror at those clapping hands, cupped my ear, shook my head again. Puzzled faces all around; I demonstrated deaf-applause: the hands raised high above the head, shaking, shimmying.

  The class followed suit, smiling, nodding.

  I was on familiar terrain, increasingly at ease. I shaped the numbers one to ten, ten to twenty, twenty to a hundred. I shaped the sign for one thousand, an elegant economy I’ve always loved: a single finger ‘one’, followed by the twist sign for ‘comma’. Two thousand: two, comma.

  The class was gradually relaxing, unfolding. Sign has that effect; it brings people out of themselves. It brings me out of myself; switching from English to Sign I become less awkward, more extroverted.

  I become myself.

  If time is a bird, the bird is surely a swift; as of old the lesson flew by, students began glancing discreetly at their watches.

  ‘Any last questions?’ I chalked on the board.

  Stella raised her hand; I nodded.

  ‘Can we ask them in English?’

  Her words, the first spoken words for two hours, sounded overloud, almost hurtful to the ear. Or perhaps it was her voice, a smoker’s voice, abrasive, sandpapery.

  I answered her in Sign: ‘In lessons—only Sign. Speaking—banned.’ The sign for ‘ban’: emphatic, unmistakable.

  I added, in English: ‘But since the lesson is officially over…’

  She exhaled, exaggerated relief. ‘One last question then,’ she said. ‘What is the sign for asparagus?’

  At first I thought I had misheard: ‘The sign for what?’

  ‘Asparagus.’

  Another titter rippled across the class; Stella ignored it, waiting. I pursed my lips, furrowed my brow. I knew of no single sign. I was tempted to improvise—long-green-veg, green-pencil-veg. In the end I finger-spelt: A-S-P-A-R-A-G-U-S.

  ‘Long way,’ I added, apologetically. ‘Slow way.’

  As the room emptied she approached me with another request: could she bring a video camera to the next lesson?

  ‘With your permission, of course. Taking notes is fine to a point but so much of the…dynamic is lost.’

  Close up, she seemed slightly older than I had first thought. Mid-forties, possibly. Her face had the looseness of a well-worn garment: a lived-in face, crinkle-eyes, floppy cheeks, a generous smile.

  ‘Our adopted daughter is learning to sign. It would be useful to have the videos at home.’

  ‘Your daughter is
deaf?’

  ‘She’s mute. She’s not deaf—just dumb.’

  I was puzzled: ‘Your daughter can hear but she can’t speak?’

  Her body language seemed suddenly shaded with reticence; she turned to her elderly husband for help.

  ‘Eliza was born without vocal cords,’ he said.

  There was something a little too calm about the way he looked me in the eye as he spoke. The body is its own polygraph: a visual display—a leakage—of signs and shapes that tell the truth despite what emerges from the mouth. The body always betrays the voice.

  His forced calm gave me pause; made me think things through. A child born without vocal cords? I’d heard of no such disability, ever. I waited, curious; no elaboration was forthcoming. I felt I didn’t know them well enough to push.

  I asked: ‘How old is she?’

  Stella resumed control of the conversation: ‘Eight.’

  ‘I take it she has the basics of Sign already?’

  ‘She’s been taught a little. At the, ah, Home. Not much, but needless to say she’s streets ahead of us.’

  ‘Then perhaps she should be taking this class.’

  More evasive language was written on Stella’s body.

  ‘Eliza’s very shy,’ her husband murmured, more controlled and deliberate in his movements, and in his speech. ‘We hoped that she would agree to come but perhaps she’s not quite ready.’

  I knew that I had heard that quiet, precise voice somewhere before. I knew that I had seen the face, but where?

  ‘Feel free to tape the lessons,’ I said, ‘but no copies can be made. Sign classes are a source of revenue for the Institute.’

  He waved his hand, a little dismissively: ‘It goes without saying that we would never record your material—your intellectual property—for anything other than personal use.’

  Stella said, jokily: ‘We promise not to sell the tapes to Hollywood, J.J.’

  She slid her arm in Clive’s, and steered him towards the door. As I followed them out I realised for the first time that he was wearing a hair-piece: a ginger toupée, well-camouflaged at the front, but clearly, artificially separate from the leathery skin of the back of his neck. This touch of vanity, or insecurity, finally confirmed, surely, my hunch that he was married to a woman young enough to be his daughter.