خرید

CHAPTER TWO

Shopping

Just for a moment, try to think what it’s like to live in my world. Stop what you’re doing and put your hands over your ears. Are there no sounds at all? Or are the noises of the street just quieter than usual?

I know Mum loves listening to the sounds of birds singing in the countryside when we go walking. In my world, there are no birds singing. There are no noisy men working on the roads. No people leaving bars late at night shouting at each other. No babies crying.

But the man I love doesn’t live in my world. He lives in the hearing world.

The first time I saw him, he was standing in front of the shop across the road from our house. He was putting apples and oranges onto the table outside the shop and his black hair had blue lights in it from the sun.

I watched him from my bedroom window, and I smiled at how carefully he was putting the fruit onto the table. He was like an artist, not a shop assistant.

Then, as I watched, a big motorbike went up the street. The young man looked up and smiled as he watched it go past. I saw the motorbike go past, but he heard it first, then saw it.

After the motorbike was gone, he went back to his fruit. But then a small girl fell off her bicycle close to the shop and he ran to help her. He knew she wanted help because he heard her.

In only one minute, I already knew four things about him.

He had beautiful black hair.

He liked motorbikes.

He was kind to apples, oranges, and little girls.

And, of course, he could hear.

Until I first saw him, I didn’t think very often about being deaf. It’s all I’ve ever known, and I can’t do anything to change it. And all my boyfriends have been deaf. But after I saw the young man, I wanted to be like most other people. I didn’t want to be different.

I soon found out that he only worked at the shop on Saturdays. After that, I went in there to buy something each Saturday. Every week I wanted to talk to him, but every week I just smiled and paid for my things. Things that I didn’t really want.

Mum often looked at me strangely when I came back from the shop. ‘We didn’t need any apples, Samantha,’ she said once. ‘I bought some yesterday.’ And another time, ‘We’ve already got biscuits in the cupboard.’

On Saturdays, I always wanted to go to the shop, but I always felt afraid too. I never felt very comfortable as I walked across the road. I played with the money in my pocket like a child going to buy sweets.

And then sometimes when I got to the shop I waited for a moment outside, reading the postcards in the window. People who want to sell things write about them on a postcard and the young man puts them in the window: ‘Car, five years old. Cat needs good home, large fridge, nearly new.’

On Saturday I read all of the postcards twice before I went into the shop. Then, when I was inside, I didn’t know what to buy.

Mum and I always go to the supermarket on Fridays and I really didn’t want anything. The young man was busy selling bread and cakes to a woman with two children. This gave me time to think, and in the end, I decided to buy a newspaper.

The shop was often very busy on Saturdays. Usually, the young man just had time to smile at me and take my money. But that morning it was different. After the woman and her children left, the shop was empty. There was only me and the young man.

When I took my newspaper to him to pay for it, he smiled. But when I tried to smile back at him, my mouth felt like wood. Then he said something to me.

I watched his mouth closely. We had lessons at school to help us lip-read - to watch people’s mouths to read their words when they talk. I can lip-read quite well. So I watched the young man’s mouth and I thought he was talking about a fire. A big fire.

Then I looked down at my newspaper and saw a picture of a house on fire.

It was a colour picture, and the fire was very big and red. I hoped nobody was in the house.

That’s what I wanted to say to the young man: ‘How terrible! I hope nobody was in the house.’ But I didn’t say it. I didn’t say anything. I don’t like speaking, you see. I don’t like actually using my voice.

When I was a child I often tried to talk and other children didn’t understand me. Sometimes they laughed. That’s why I think my voice sounds strange. And I didn’t want the young man to think I was strange.

When I looked up, the young man was speaking again. Then he waited for me to answer him. But I didn’t hear him, so I couldn’t. So I just smiled and took my newspaper and left the shop.

But as I walked across the road to my house, I felt sad because I was sure he probably did think I was strange now.