For The Sake Of His Child

CHAPTER FIVE

IT DIDN’T take Gina long to find that nature had intended Joey to be a little devil. If his deafness hadn’t damaged his confidence he would have been a real handful. He was still sometimes possessed by an imp of mischief, but had enough charm to win forgiveness.

He reacted to the news that they were going to visit Mrs Saunders by sticking his lower lip out and sitting down, giving Gina a defiant look.

‘We’re going to the hospital,’ she said firmly. ‘Now!’

He eyed her, sizing up the strength of the opposition.

‘Why don’t you like her?’ Gina asked.

Because she doesn’t like me.

Gina knew better than to say, Nonsense, I’m sure she does. Instead, she put a friendly hand on his shoulder. ‘Come on. Let’s do our duty and get it over with.’

He made a face. Gina immediately made the same face back, and they laughed together.

They found Mrs Saunders sitting up in a chair. She was middle-aged and looked bruised and belligerent. She eyed Joey with wary hostility. He eyed her back in the same spirit.

‘I don’t want any of his tantrums in here,’ were her first words.

‘He doesn’t have tantrums-’ Gina began.

‘That’s what you think. Screaming and yelling-’

‘Only because he can’t make himself understood. It gets too much for him. When you come back-’

‘I’m not coming back. I’ve got a new job waiting for me when I come out of here.’

‘What?’

‘I took the day off last week to go to an interview. The next day they called and asked me back for another interview. I was coming home from that when I had the accident.’

‘So that’s why you went out and left him alone,’ Gina said angrily.

‘Well, I could hardly take him with me, could I? Anyway, I’ve got another job and that’s that.’ She set her chin.

There was nothing to do but leave. From Joey’s cheerful expression, Gina guessed he’d picked up the gist of the conversation.

For the rest of the day Gina was thoughtful. A plan was taking shape in her mind. At last she nodded to herself, confident that she had a way to make this work. When Carson called to say he would be late that evening she told him not to worry. She had everything in hand. He hung up with an easy mind.

So his shock was all the greater when he arrived home at ten o’clock that evening and found Gina’s bags packed and standing in the living room.

‘I was just going to take them out to my peanut,’ she explained.

‘You’re not leaving?’ he asked in alarm.

‘Right now.’

‘You can’t do that.’

‘I can. I don’t care what arrangement you’ve made with my employers. If they fire me, they fire me. I’ve made up my mind.’

‘Gina, just until Mrs Saunders comes back-’

‘She isn’t coming back. She’s got another job-’

Carson swore under his breath. ‘All right. I’ll find someone else. But until then-’

‘Joey doesn’t need someone else. He needs his father. You’re his father. Not me. Not Mrs Saunders. Not someone you hire from an agency, but you.’

‘I’ve got a business to run-’

‘The business is just an excuse because you can’t face being alone with him.’

‘Only because I know I’m no use to him.’

‘Well, that can change, can’t it? You can work on yourself until you are of use to him.’

‘How?’

‘You could learn sign language, for a start, so that you two can communicate. You should have done it long ago.’

‘What time do you think I have-?’

‘I’m disappointed in you, Carson. I thought you were an honest man, honest with yourself as well as everyone else.’

‘Are you saying I’m not?’

‘Why don’t you admit the real reason you haven’t learned sign language?’

‘You’re sure you know the real reason, are you?’

‘You’re asking me that, with my background?’

‘All right. Tell me.’

‘Because you can’t face the truth. Learning to sign would have been an admission that your son is deaf. You probably decided not to admit it long ago. Shut your mind and it isn’t true. That’s it, isn’t it?’

‘Maybe,’ he admitted, tight-lipped.

‘But Joey can’t put it aside like that. For him it is true, every moment of every day and night. There’s no escape. He’s trapped in a cage and all your money and success can’t break down the door and pull him out of it. You can only get in there with him, and maybe lead him part of the way out. If you won’t do that, I’m out of here.’

They faced each other. ‘This is blackmail,’ he said at last.

‘Yes, it is.’

‘Just give me a little time-’

‘The time is now. My terms are simple. I want your promise about several things. Joey has six weeks of the summer holiday ahead of him. You’ve got to make use of that time. You learn sign language, and talk to him. And listen to him. He’s very interesting.

‘Plus you leave work early-no more getting home at ten. If meetings overrun, you cut them short. You take at least a week off to give him a holiday somewhere. I want your solemn word. If I don’t get it, I leave this minute. And when Joey wakes up tomorrow you can explain my absence in any way you can.’

‘And what would that do to him? I thought you wanted to help him.’

‘I’m helping him the best way I know. Do I have your word, or shall I get my coat?’

Silence.

‘You warned me you were tough,’ he said.

‘I had to be. You’ll discover that Joey’s tough too, for the same reason.’

‘No prizes for guessing whose side you’re on.’

‘Carson, I see that little boy facing crippling problems with humour and courage. And I see his father, ducking out. Whose side do you expect me to take?’

‘If I give you those promises, I want one in return.’

‘What?’

‘That you’ll stay with us the whole six weeks. I can do it, Gina, but not without you.’

‘If my employers say yes.’

‘They will.’

She smiled. She knew she’d won. ‘Yes, I’m sure they will, if you say so. All right. I promise if you do.’

He held out his hand. ‘Shake.’

‘Shake.’

He gripped her in an echo of their first handclasp. It had been only a few days ago, but they both felt as though they’d travelled a million miles.

‘I’ve got a meal for you,’ she said prosaically.

Over supper her mood was euphoric. She poured his wine and raised her own in salute. It was the salute of a victor.

‘I’d hate to face you in the boardroom,’ he grumbled. ‘You’d bankrupt me in a week.’

‘We ought to establish some ground rules.’

‘Not bankruptcy. Take-over.’

‘Who cleans this house?’

‘Mrs Saunders used to do it, but I’m not asking you.’

‘Good. My time belongs to Joey. I’ll contact an agency and get someone to come in.’

‘Anything you say.’

Over the second glass of wine, he said, ‘You’d better tell me about sign language.’

‘There’s two kinds. Finger-spelling, which has a different sign for every letter. But it would take too long to spell every word out, so some words have signs of their own. Like this.’

She flattened her hand, fingers together and thumb apart, and laid it on her breast. Then she swept it down and up in a circle until it lay on her breast again.

‘That’s the sign for “please”. Try it.’

He did so, awkwardly.

‘No, keep your thumb separate,’ she advised.

This time he got it right.

‘Your first word,’ she said proudly. ‘If you spelled it out with your fingers it would look like this.’

She showed him, making each letter separately. ‘There are signs for most words, so that you talk fast.’

‘That sounds like an awful lot of signs to learn.’

‘Don’t tell me the man who built up Page Engineering doubts his own ability to learn something his little son can do?’

‘Very clever! Do you take this approach with Joey?’

‘I don’t have this much trouble with Joey. He’s bright as a button, and he never doubts that he can do things. That’s half the battle.’

He grinned, and she felt an obscure disturbance within her. ‘All right, teacher. On with the lesson.’

She laughed at him. She was still high from her victory.

‘It’ll come easier than you think,’ she said. ‘And you’ll have Joey to help you.’

‘If you imagine I’m going to let him see me fumbling-’

‘Give me patience! Carson, Joey will be thrilled that you’re doing this for him, and if you let him teach you it’ll make him happier than anything.’

‘Hmm!’

She could tell that the thought of being seen at a disadvantage was still hard for him to cope with, so she wisely didn’t press the matter.

‘Anyway, you’ll master the signs, but you need the alphabet as well, because some words are too complicated for just one sign.’

‘Then it’s about time I started learning my alphabet.’

She held up her hand. ‘A-B-C-’

He followed her carefully, until he could get as far as M, without prompting. To his chagrin, that was as much as he could master in one evening, but Gina seemed pleased.

‘What would you do if I went halfway and then broke my word?’ he said. ‘About the holiday, for instance?’

She gave him a curious smile. ‘Funnily enough, it never once occurred to me that you’d go back on your word. Was I wrong?’

‘No, you weren’t wrong. It’s rather alarming that you understand me so well.’ He thought for a moment. ‘I’ve got a friend who owns a travel agency. It’s late to be booking Disneyland but he’ll be able-no?’ For Gina was shaking her head. ‘Not Disneyland?’

‘Not Disneyland. Kenningham.’

‘Kenningham? That little seaside resort on the west coast? It’s a dump.’

‘It’s got the best aquarium in the country. We could spend two days there, then go on to the second best aquarium. You know what Joey’s interests are. Or I should say “interest”, singular, because it’s all he cares about. I shouldn’t be surprised if one day he makes a real contribution to marine science.’

‘Right,’ he said, with the barest touch of scepticism in his voice.

‘Carson, I’m serious. Joey is deaf, not stupid. His problem is that when he tries to talk he sounds stupid, but you’ve got to get beyond that. He has a first-class brain.’ She tried a lighter note. ‘Could Carson Page’s son have anything else?’

He looked at her curiously. ‘You’re not just telling me this because you think he has to be bright before I can love him?’

‘Have I said that?’

‘You think it.’

‘Is it true?’

‘No, it isn’t,’ he said shortly. ‘You may not think so but I love my son very much. Give me your glass. I’ll refill it.’

This was so clearly a way of changing the subject that she didn’t pursue it. Carson loved his son, but woe betide anyone who tried to talk about it. She was more convinced than if he’d made a long speech.

She sipped her wine before saying thoughtfully, ‘Tell me, what do you know about wrasse?’

‘Nothing. What is it?’

‘Joey knows all about wrasse. He can talk about them for hours.’

‘Them? Not it?’

‘Right.’

‘I feel as if I’ve walked into a madhouse.’

‘The point is, wrasse is something you ought to know about.’

‘Something to do with marine life?’ he hazarded, clutching at straws.

‘That’s right.’

‘I’ll find out-’

‘No, don’t. Joey’s an expert. Let him tell you.’

‘Will that-make him happy?’

He was studying her face carefully, as a man might watch an unpredictable creature that could spring either way. Somewhere there was a key to this conversation, but only she had it.

‘Very happy,’ she told him.

‘Then I’ll do it.’

‘But no looking it up. That’s cheating. Let him tell you.’

‘Whatever you say.’

He watched her for a moment as she leaned forward to put down her wineglass. Her hair swung free, and after a moment he reached out to gently ease it back, revealing a tiny device behind her ear.

‘Is that the implant you told me about?’ he asked.

‘That’s right. There’s a bit more actually inside my ear. It needs an operation to put it there.’

‘And it cures your deafness?’

‘No, I’m still deaf. If this is switched off I can’t hear any more than Joey. But if it’s on I can discern noises and understand them. Not exactly as you do, but enough for a normal life.’

‘I don’t understand. How can you hear and still be deaf?’

‘In hearing people, the sound comes into the outer ear, crosses the inner ear and makes contact with the auditory nerve. But if the hairs of the inner ear aren’t working, then they can’t pick up the sound and transmit it to the nerve. A cochlear implant stimulates the hairs electrically instead of accoustically, and the sound gets passed on that way. I’m surprised Joey’s specialist didn’t mention implants to you a year ago.’

Carson grimaced. ‘He kind of did, when we realised that Joey was finally deaf. I don’t think I took much in. I was so shattered, I was blocking out a good deal. Besides, it seemed such a terrifying operation, drilling through his skull.

‘We put it on hold-just for a while, we thought. But then Joey caught pneumonia. He’s always been liable to chest infections. And after that he got every bug going-colds, flu, bronchitis. For months it was as if he finished one thing and started another. The doctor said he couldn’t think of operating until Joey had put all that behind him.’

‘And now?’

‘Now he’s well and strong again, so perhaps-do you really think-?’ His face was suddenly as full of eagerness as his son’s when something pleased the child. The likeness made Gina smile.

‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘It might be time to take him back to the specialist and have him assessed for one of these. But, Carson, please don’t pin your hopes on this. Not everyone is suitable. But it’s worth finding out. If it’s going to happen, I’d like it to be while I’m around.’

‘He might be able to hear,’ Carson said slowly, ‘and talk-’

‘Eventually. He’d have to learn to talk from scratch, like a baby does, only he’ll find it hard because he’s older.

‘I was lucky because I learned to talk before I went deaf and that helps a lot. When I started hearing sounds again I could remember what they meant. But Joey hardly had any chance to hear sounds, so he’ll need to learn them all from the beginning before he can start to speak. Joey will need speech therapy and it’ll take time-at least a year, maybe longer.’ She gave him a mischievous look. ‘So you’ll still need to learn that signing, to communicate with him in the meantime.’

‘You’re the boss!’

‘Give me the details of his specialist and I’ll fix a meeting.’

‘All right. I’m in your hands.’ After a moment he added, ‘Perhaps that’s the best place to be.’

He saw her upstairs and together they looked in on Joey, who was sleeping deeply. When Carson had bid her goodnight he went to his own room, thoughtful.

His head was full of Gina, but he couldn’t make out which one. There seemed to be so many of her.

He’d met her first as the sweet, funny, slightly crazy girl who’d dented his car. She’d charmed him, but it had been an hour’s fleeting delight.

When they’d seen each other again, everything had been different. She’d met Joey in circumstances that had made her condemn Joey’s father, and before Carson’s eyes she’d changed into an avenging fury. The sun she’d briefly shone on him had vanished, replaced by thunder and lightning.

Now there was another Gina, practically a schoolmarm, telling him that he would do this and that-or else! He grinned slightly at the memory.

It amazed him that she saw herself as a little brown mouse. Because, of course, she wasn’t a mouse at all. For Joey’s sake she would take on the whole world. She’d taken on Carson Page without trouble, he reflected wryly. He didn’t know how all this was going to end, but deep instinct told him it could end well-although whether only for Joey, or for himself as well, he still wasn’t sure.

Being Carson Page, he arrived home next day with printed sheets showing signs and finger-spelling.

‘I tried to make a start,’ he told Gina. ‘I even practised a couple of letters in my office but my secretary came in and saw me doing it. She gave me the oddest look.’

‘Won’t she just assume you’re doing it for your deaf son?’

‘She doesn’t know. Nobody does.’ She was silent and he challenged her angrily, ‘Say it!’

‘Nobody must know that Carson Page did something less than perfectly,’ she said, angry in her turn.

His temper flared. He was doing his best, dammit, but she wouldn’t give him any credit. ‘By God, you’re a hard, judgemental woman!’

He stormed out, not looking where he went, and collided with Joey in the doorway, so hard that the child fell and Carson nearly lost his balance.

Joey got up quickly and made a sign, folding his hand with the thumb protruding at the top. He touched his chest, circled away and back to his chest.

‘What’s he saying?’ Carson asked tensely.

‘That sign means “sorry”,’ Gina told him.

‘But it was my fault.’

‘Then tell him that you’re sorry. It’s not a difficult sign.’

Joey began to apologise again, but Carson seized his hand and stopped him. Slowly he folded his own fingers over, thumb protruding, laid his hand on his chest, made the circular movement. Into Joey’s eyes came a look of total mystification. It hurt Carson to see it. He repeated the sign. Sorry.

Joey frowned, turning his head slightly on one side. An apology from his father was something he simply didn’t understand.

‘Have you never apologised to him before?’ Gina asked.

Carson could hardly speak. ‘I don’t think-I ever have.’ He was finding Joey’s ‘silence’ agonising.

At last the silence was broken. A happy smile broke over the child’s face. He touched his father’s hand, stilling it as Carson had stilled his. It’s all right.

Carson drew a long breath. Something had just happened that had shaken him. If you blinked you might have missed it, but it was like a volcano inside. For a moment the roles had been reversed, and the little boy had been the adult, reassuring him that they would manage somehow.

But then, before his eyes, his son withdrew from him. The unfamiliar intimacy had embarrassed him, and he became an ordinary little boy.

‘Let’s have supper,’ Gina said, reading the situation without trouble.

Joey’s attention had been caught by the papers with the finger alphabet. He looked at them, then at his father, his eyebrows slightly raised in a query.

‘Why don’t you tell him that you’re learning?’ Gina asked.

‘I don’t know the signs for that yet.’

‘Try saying it. He’s good at lip-reading. Put yourself where he can see your mouth, and speak clearly.’

Carson positioned himself, his face on a level with Joey’s. ‘I’m learning signs, so that we can talk.’

Joey frowned. He hadn’t quite caught it.

‘Slower,’ Gina advised.

This time they did better. Joey opened his hand, fingers together, thumb apart, and touched his chin once.

‘That means “good”,’ Gina said. ‘You do it. It’s quite easy.’

‘Thanks for the vote of confidence,’ he said with a faint grin. He signed, Good.

‘Haven’t you spoken to him in the past?’ she asked as they laid the table.

‘I’ve tried, but he never seemed to understand me.’

‘Maybe you weren’t trying hard enough.’

‘You sound like a schoolmistress,’ he grumbled. ‘Yes, miss. Will try harder.’

‘See that you do,’ she told him with mock severity.

‘And when he did follow what I was saying he tried to answer and-I don’t know.’

‘He made those sounds that you can’t bear to hear,’ she finished remorselessly.

He took a deep breath. ‘You really sock it to a man right between the eyes, don’t you?’

‘No point in any other way. Are you going to give up?’

‘I didn’t get where I am today by giving up.’

‘And where are you today, Carson?’ she asked coolly.

He was about to lecture her about Page Engineering and its place in the commercial world, but stopped himself in time. Of course, she wasn’t talking about that.

Nothing that he’d done impressed her, he realised. His glittering achievements were as nothing beside his failure with his son.

Joey’s pleasure in his father’s efforts led to him being a little carried away. Over the meal he tried to talk to him, spelling, making signs, and going too fast for Carson to follow.

‘Slow down,’ Carson begged at last. ‘I’m only a beginner.’

Joey nodded and repeated the sign he was demonstrating. It was complex, and Carson got it wrong. Frowning, he tried again, making a sound of impatience when it eluded him. He wasn’t used to not being able to do things well. Then Joey laid a hand over his father’s and gently moved the fingers into the right position.

‘Thank you,’ Carson said, in words. Joey frowned, watching his mouth. ‘Thank you,’ Carson repeated.

Understanding dawned. Joey flattened his hand, touched his chin with it, moved it away. He was watching Carson closely to see if he followed this. Carson looked at Gina, but she wouldn’t help him.

‘Does that mean-“thank you”?’ he asked uncertainly. She nodded, pleased.

She was glad to slip into the background while father and son made the first tentative steps to knowing each other better. It went well, and by the time they both put him to bed she knew that Carson was feeling happier.

Later that night, as they parted outside her door, Carson said, ‘What was that sign Joey made you the first night-when he said he liked you?’

Gina formed her hand into the Y shape.

‘This means “like”. You do the rest by pointing at yourself and the other person.’

He tried it, and managed the shape.

‘That’s it,’ she encouraged.

He pointed at himself, formed the Y, then pointed at her.

‘You’ve got it.’ Gina made the gesture back. ‘I-like-you.’

He did it again, saying, ‘I-like-you.’

Then something seemed to strike him, making him uneasy. He said, ‘Goodnight,’ hurriedly, and walked off.