دوست پسر جدید

CHAPTER SEVEN

A new boyfriend

Next day, Mum and I went to Winterton for a walk. Winterton is one of my favourite places. It’s east of Norwich, by the sea.

Winterton is where Mum took me and Ron when we were children. It takes about forty-five minutes to drive there.

We put on our coats and made some coffee and some sandwiches to take with us.

On the beach, it was cold but sunny. Some children were running by the sea with their dog. As we walked along, I told Mum about Jim.

When I was finished, my face was a bit red. ‘You really like him, don’t you?’ she said, looking at me.

It was windy by the sea. Mum’s hair was all over her face, but I could see her smile through it.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I do.’

Just for a moment, she looked a little sad. She walked ahead a short way, then she looked back at me. ‘Love is wonderful,’ she said, smiling again. ‘Enjoy it while you can, Sam. Enjoy it while you can.’

I did enjoy myself that evening. Very much.

Jim and I went to a bar in the centre of Norwich. It was in the old area of town, close to the river. There was a pool table in the bar. I like playing pool. Ron taught me how to play, years ago. Now I’m better than him.

Jim saw me looking at the pool table and the next moment he was putting some money into the side of it. We played and I won easily. It only took five minutes.

My last boyfriend got angry when he lost. But when I looked at Jim I saw that he was laughing. I liked that.

‘Very good!’ he said. ‘But my snowballs are better than yours! Then he looked at me. ‘Can you understand me?’

I smiled. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I can understand if you speak slowly. Can you understand me?’

Jim smiled too. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I can understand you very well.’

We sat down together at a table and for the next two hours, we talked. Most of the time we spoke to each other, and sometimes we wrote things down.

I didn’t think about how we were talking. I was too interested in what we were saying.

This was what I found out about Jim. He was twenty-one years old and he was studying English at university in Norwich. This was his last year as a student. His family lived in Derbyshire, in the middle of England.

He had a brother of twenty-five, a sister of seventeen and a dog called Sky. He liked walking in the hills near his family home. He told me that in winter the hills were often white with snow.

Winter was his favourite time. Then he told me the only two things he didn’t like about Norfolk: there weren’t many hills and it didn’t snow very often!

Mum has told me that people who live in different places in England sound different when they speak.

People from Derbyshire sound different to people from London, and people from London sound different to people from Norwich.

They have different accents. So I knew that Jim probably had a different accent to the other people around us in the bar.

Then Jim wanted to know about me, so I told him about my job at Busy Kids. I said that I spent a lot of my time playing, and that the children don’t mind about me being deaf.

I won’t always work at Busy Kids, ‘I finished, I like working there but I also like writing stories. One day I want to write a book.’

‘I’m sure you will,’ Jim said. ‘You’ll write a book and you’ll be famous.’

‘I just want to be happy,’ I wrote on his piece of paper. But I was already happy. Happy being with Jim.

‘What’s it like to be deaf?’ Jim asked then, and I thought for a moment.

‘You don’t mind me asking you that, do you?’ Jim asked.

‘No,’ I wrote. ‘I want to tell you. But it’s difficult’

‘I think it must be very peaceful,’ Jim said. ‘I like noise, but sometimes I need to be quiet. That’s when I go to the countryside for a walk.’ He laughed. ‘But actually, the countryside can be a very noisy place! There are cars and animals and birds singing.’

‘Mum likes listening to the birds sing,’ I told him.

‘Yes, I do too.’ he said. And the sound of the wind in the trees.

‘Sometimes my world is too quiet,’ I said, and Jim touched my hand.

‘Don’t be sad,’ he said, and I smiled.

‘I’m not sad,’ I said, and it was true. I was very happy, being with Jim. ‘I think being deaf is a bit like swimming underwater,’ I told him. ‘You know, when you’re swimming and you look up through the water. Everything looks different. The water changes everything.’

Jim moved his chair near to mine and took my hand in his. ‘Fish always live in the water,’ he said. ‘It’s all they know.’

‘Yes,’ I said, and I knew he understood what I was trying to tell him. ‘Fish don’t know that the water makes things look different.’

When the bar closed, Jim walked home with me. He had his bicycle with him. It was dark, so I couldn’t read his lips, but I didn’t mind.

It was nice just to be with him. We lived in different worlds because I was deaf, and he wasn’t. But it wasn’t important.

Outside my house, we stopped under a street light. Jim looked into my eyes. ‘What’s your mobile phone number?

So I can text you.’

I told him my mobile phone number. Then I showed him how to say goodbye in sign language. He tried it a few times.

Then, he showed me another way to say goodbye. With a kiss.

I liked that way best.