Питер Мэй - A Silent Death

‘I don’t think he can afford it.’

‘Well, then, you’ll just have to come here three nights a week, and we can make this our real-life chat room.’ He grinned. ‘And I’ll teach you proper sign language.’

She pulled a face.

‘No, honestly, it’s good. When you get the hang of it you can really express yourself. You forget that you’re not actually speaking out loud.’

She shrugged. ‘Maybe.’ She paused. ‘Still not sure I’m coming back, though.’ She watched his face fall again — an odd expression, but for the first time she realized how apposite it was. His face really did fall, and she didn’t have the heart to keep playing hard to get. It made her laugh. ‘But if you ask nicely...’

His relief was patent, and he grinned. ‘I’ll do better than that. I’ll take you out for tapas. I don’t just have to see you here.’

‘Woah!’ she raised her hands. ‘Not so fast. We just met, remember?’

‘Life’s too short for wasting time.’

‘Maybe. But it seems to me that you’re asking me out on a date when you really don’t know anything about me.’

‘Well, how am I going to get to know you if I don’t see you again?’

‘You can see me here.’

His face lit up. ‘You’re coming back then?’

She saw how he had trapped her into that. ‘I’ll think about it.’

He beamed. ‘Well, think about tapas, too. And maybe a beer. We don’t want to spend our whole time surrounded by a bunch of old deaf people.’

She laughed out loud. ‘One day, Sergio, we’ll be old deaf people, too.’ And she realized how much she liked saying his name, and how much she really did want to get to know him better. And she decided there and then that she would accept his offer to take her on a date. But she wouldn’t tell him just yet.

It was a couple of weeks before Ana plucked up the courage to tell her parents that she had been asked on a date by a young man at the centre. She needed a lift into Estepona. But she was completely unprepared for the reaction it provoked. She had been five times now to the centre, and on her previous visit had told Sergio that she would go for tapas with him.

It was a hot summer’s night. Her father sat at the table wearing only a singlet and shorts, the local newspaper open in front of him. A pair of half-moon spectacles rested halfway down his nose and sweat darkened the white cotton of his vest where it stretched itself over his ample belly.

He looked up, frowning, and said simply, ‘No.’

Ana bristled. ‘What do you mean, no?’

‘Well, which part of the word don’t you understand?’

She turned belligerent. ‘I understand that I’m seventeen years old and that if I want to go out with a boy, I’ll go out with a boy.’

‘As long as you’re under my roof you’ll do what I damned well tell you.’

Her mother appeared at the kitchen door. ‘What do you even know about this boy?’

‘A lot.’

‘What age is he?’ her father said.

‘He’s twenty-one.’

‘Hah!’ He folded his newspaper shut and slapped a palm on the table. ‘Well, that settles it. Only one thing on his mind.’

‘How could you possibly know what’s on his mind?’ Ana was aware of her voice rising in pitch.

‘Because I was twenty-one myself once. I know what a young man thinks when he looks at a seventeen-year-old girl. The answer is no. And that’s an end to it.’

Her mother cast a judgmental eye over her husband, wondering perhaps if those same things still went through his mind when he looked at a seventeen-year-old girl. She refocused on Ana. ‘You met him at the centre?’

‘Yes.’

‘So he’s deaf?’

‘Yes, he is.’

She gasped her frustration. ‘Holy Mary mother of God, Ana, could you not find yourself a normal boy?’

Ana’s simmering anger started to boil over. ‘What do you mean, “normal”? Are you saying I’m not normal?’

Her mother realized her mistake. ‘No,’ she said hastily. ‘But you need someone with normal hearing to make up for your lack of it. You know the doctor said it’s only going to get worse. One day you’ll not be able to hear at all. Then you’d be two deaf people.’

Now her father slammed both palms down on the table. ‘Enough!’ he bellowed, and Ana was sure they must have heard him down on the coast. ‘You are NOT going out with him.’

Ana felt hot tears fill her eyes. If only Isabella had been there to speak up for her. She was sure her parents would have listened to her sister. But the only one who was going to stand up for Ana was Ana herself. She got to her feet. ‘What are you going to do, tie me up? If I want to go out with Sergio, I’ll got out with Sergio. And if you won’t give me a lift into town I’ll just get the bus.’ She lifted her bag, slung it over her shoulder and stormed out of the living room, slamming the door behind her.

Sergio was waiting nervously for her outside the post office on the Paseo Maritimo , an elegant tree-lined promenade that ran the length of the seafront in Estepona. The chiringuito beach bars were full and the smell of fresh fish grilling on wooden embers filled the evening.

She was nearly half an hour late, and had done her best on the bus to repair the damage to her face.

‘I really thought you’d stood me up,’ Sergio said. ‘Another five minutes and I’d have been off.’ Although Ana suspected he would have waited a lot longer. He peered at her in the fading light. ‘Have you been crying?’

She shrugged it off. ‘Some bad news at home,’ she said. ‘But it’s okay, I don’t want anything to spoil our evening.’

Concerned eyes lingered on her face for several long moments before Sergio took her hand and they began strolling slowly along the Paseo in the direction of the old port.

Apartments rose on three and four levels above the shops and restaurants lining the broad Avenue del Carmen that swept down into town from the west. A fine, sandy beach stretched away to their left, and a gently foaming Mediterranean washed up along the shore, breathing softly into the night. It was cooling now, but the air was still soft on their skin.

Ana liked the feel of her hand in his. It felt big and protective. Their arms swung together a little as they walked in an easy silence. Lip-reading, since they were both facing in the same direction, was not an option. And their hands were otherwise engaged.

Ana had taken her first few lessons in signing, and spent most of her time with Sergio practising it. To her surprise it had come much more easily than she expected. But for now she was content just to feel close to him. Words were unimportant, and she let all memory of the row with her parents slip away.

Sergio took her to a tiny tapas bar in the port, squeezing past crowded tables on the terrace to find a quiet spot in the dark interior. The walkway outside was jammed with tourists and locals finding seats in restaurants and bars. The smell of woodsmoke and barbecued meats suffused the night air, and yachts bobbed gently in the dark on the moonlit waters of the marina. They ordered the house selection of tapas, and a waitress brought them seemingly endless plates of patatas bravas, albóndigas, langostinos, empanadas, tortitas ... Sergio asked for two glasses of Rioja, and they sipped on its smooth velvety vanilla as they ate.

Ana spoke and signed at the same time, Sergio correcting her as she went. Tea-light candles burned on their table, and tiny pinpoints of light danced in his dark eyes. ‘So,’ she said. ‘Once you have graduated, what is it you want to do?’

‘I want to teach,’ he said. ‘In a school for the deaf, or special needs pupils. I want to bring the world to children with problems and teach them that they are no different from anyone else. That there’s nothing to stop them from being whoever it is they want to be.’