Oh that . . .
I’ve been dying to ask. I assumed it was school.
No, it actually wasn’t. My uncle – my dad’s brother-in-law after he married my stepmother when I was five (stop me if this gets confusing) – is a teacher in a deaf school. He suggested that I learn BSL when it started to look like I wouldn’t be able to communicate at all. He said it might help with my confidence.
Not SSE?
Sign-supported English?
Yeah. Wouldn’t that have made more sense?
It would have made more sense, yeah, but I think Geoff loved the idea of being able to teach me this whole new language so much that he just went right for the big guns. He doesn’t do things by halves. And Dad thought it was brilliant, like a family project. He loved this idea of his new family having their own way of communicating. We all learned together – me, my stepmother, him and Clark.
Who’s Clark?
?
He was my stepbrother. He’s dead.
Oh shit. Sorry.
I can’t talk about him right now.
That’s OK. We can stick with the speech thing. Did you use BSL at school?
Not really. My teachers knew what the basic stuff meant – like can I go to the toilet and yes and no, please and thank you, whatever – but no one could hold a conversation in it. It was just a way to get by.
What happened when you got to secondary school?
Everything went to shit.
Oh.
Yeah. The thing is, everyone at my primary school knew me, and they were used to the problems I had. So they stopped being surprised if I talked or not, and a lot of them could actually talk for me by the end – not even just Tem.
So you were comfortable there.
Yeah, exactly. It was so safe. But then secondary school was this new environment, and it was big and loud and full of strangers. I couldn’t deal with it.
You went mute again?
Basically, yeah. But it was so much worse this time because I understood so much more, like what’s expected of you not just by teachers but other kids, as well. I was the weird kid who didn’t speak. The teachers knew about it – they must have been briefed or something – so it was OK from that side of things, but you know that secondary school is about twenty per cent learning and eighty per cent social. You have to talk to other kids. You just have to. And I couldn’t.
So what happened?
I was bullied for a while. I was such an easy target. There were these kids who thought it was funny to grab me and do stuff like draw on me, and they’d tell me they’d stop if I just said ‘stop’. It was horrible but it didn’t really last long because Tem was there, and people liked her, so eventually they just left me alone. The school was a lot more interested in helping me than my primary school, so I spent a lot of time with the counselling team and working with tutors outside of the main class time. It all helped. I’d got a lot better by about Year 8.
So you’re not mute any more?
Oh no, I haven’t been actually mute for a long time. I’m just really shy. Like, clinically shy. Socially anxious. I have some diagnoses. A whole bunch.
You don’t usually talk in class?
Not if I can help it.
Is that why everyone looked so shocked today?
Yeah.
What’s changed?
If I tell you, don’t tell anyone.
You know I won’t.
Tem doesn’t even know.
OK, now I feel bad. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.
I started taking medication at the end of the summer.
Oh right.
It might be kicking in. I don’t know.
That’s a good thing, right?
Yeah. Bit of an adjustment, though. I’m so used to being the quiet one.
I know what you mean. I don’t know who I’d be if I could hear.
Would you choose that, if you could?
I don’t know. I really don’t. I like my life. I like being me. I feel like I’d kind of be letting myself down – and the whole community, which I really love – if I said I wished I could hear. It would be like giving up a big part of myself. So much of what I have wouldn’t have happened if I could hear. Like, even meeting you.
Me?
Yeah. If I’d started here as just another boy would you even have noticed me? Why are you laughing?
Would YOU have noticed ME?
That’s exactly what I’m saying. I like the way things are. I like that I’ve met you and we’re getting to know each other.
Why?
What kind of a question is that?
I just don’t really get it.
Get what?
Is it because I can speak some BSL?
Is what because of that?
You didn’t answer my question. The pact.
You need to answer mine for me to be able to answer yours.
Why you talk to me.
I like talking to you.
No one likes talking to me.
Isn’t it more that no one usually gets the chance?
I have to go to class.
It’s almost lunchtime?
Then I have to go to get food.
OK cool. Where do you want to go?
By myself.
How have I upset you?
Don’t walk away from me, you know I can’t shout after you.
‘Stef.’