LITMIR.BIZ

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Silently he clipped and turned and snapped pieces on to the back of the clock. I felt the two cogs in my hand, tried to see if I could tell where they went just by touching them.

      When it’s that quiet, you can hear little creaks and ticks coming from the house. A bump from upstairs and the muffled sound of Dad’s voice. The hum from the fridge. Me breathing. Sam breathing, quicker than me. Sam leaned closer, like he was trying hard to hear what sounds I was making. He had a little plastic tube clipped round and going into his left ear.

      Mrs Cooper came in with two mugs of squash, putting one of the mugs and a napkin right into Sam’s hand. Sam leaned towards the sound of her footsteps as she left, swigged from his mug, then wiped his mouth on his sleeve. Even his long floppy fringe didn’t cover his grin.

      He held his palm out to me, the squash still glistening on his sleeve. I knew what he wanted without him even saying anything.

      I put the two cogs he’d given me in his skinny hand.

      He smiled, like he was looking at something inside himself or remembering something that made him feel good. It made me smile too. But he wouldn’t have known that.

      Mrs Cooper came back to see the finished clock. Some of the cogs were in the wrong place so she turned it over a few times, took off a few pieces and guided Sam’s hands. Sometimes Sam patted her hands away so he could do it himself and when she tapped her fingers on his palm, he pushed her hands under the table.

      He leaned against me, until his face was close to mine and I could smell the squash on his breath and see the tiny dark hairs over his top lip. I already knew then that Sam didn’t see things like we do, that the reason he leaned so close was because that’s how the world talked to him – through his skin. He held the clock to his left ear, so it was between us. We listened to the perfect steady tick coming from inside. I saw how all the little pieces made one perfect thing.

      On the table Sam had lots of little coloured boxes with cards filed in them. They had words at the bottom and bumps punched in the top.

      “It’s called Braille,” said Mrs Cooper. “It’s a sort of writing Sam can feel.”

      Pictures were stuck on the cards with sticky tape, gone yellowy brown. He laid some on the table. There was a picture of a frying pan with yellow circles inside saying PANCAKES, and a picture of a clock, saying CLOCK, and another with a big number 2.

      “Sam’s got his own way of seeing things. He likes people to make up their own minds what he’s saying,” said Mrs Cooper.

      I knew Sam was saying they made the pancakes so they could meet us and then Sam and me could make the clock.

      There was a loud rapping at the door, just like a policeman. Mrs Cooper opened the door wide.

      “Is my daughter here?” Dad said.

      “Oh, hello. Yes, she’s been helping Sam. Come in.”

      Dad stayed in the passageway and said, “Cally didn’t tell me where she was going.”

      Mrs Cooper said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t check.” She whispered to him, while she smiled and winked at me. “She seems so shy and quiet.”

      Dad didn’t say anything, just stared at me with narrow eyes. Then he watched Sam as he came towards him holding two cards up, one saying PANCAKES and another card saying GIFT. Sam rolled his head, turned his ear towards Dad. I suppose he meant the pancakes were like a present. But I wasn’t sure.

      “Thanks for the pancakes,” Dad said, biting his lip. He flicked his head. “Cally, come on, there’s some unpacking to do.”

      Mrs Cooper said, “Well, if there’s anything else I can do … Cally’s welcome, any time.”

      But Dad was already halfway up the stairs.

      18.

      LATER DAD SAID, “LET’S TAKE A WALK. LUKE? You coming?”

      We walked across the common, along the open grass, following a path through wide ancient trees and skinny white tree trunks and tangled brambles and bracken. Magpies bounced and flew away in a clearing where we found a bench. The bench leaned backwards and was sinking into the soft ground.

      Dad nudged me. “What’s that boy’s name?”

      “Sam,” said Luke. Dad rolled his eyes at him. He wasn’t supposed to answer.

      “What’s wrong with him anyway?” said Luke.

      Dad sighed. He shook his head. “It’s not that there’s something wrong with him; he just can’t see and hear. Is that right, Cally?”

      I nodded.

      Luke spun his Frisbee and ran after it. He threw it again towards a girl twirling round a low tree branch.

      Dad folded his arms. We sat and watched an old man stoop and shuffle across the open space between the trees. Trees grew higher up out of a steep bank past the long summer grass. A long way off you could see the tops of banks and churches in town.

      “Used to be a lake over there,” Dad said, pointing, “just beyond the trees. Swan Lake it was called. When I was a kid I used to take my model boat there. I made it myself.”

      Dad laughed. “It sank. It’s probably still down there, rotting away. They closed the place down ages ago. I can’t remember why.”

      He didn’t talk like this very often any more. I liked it. I leaned against him.

      “There was a miniature steam train that used to run around the top.” He leaned over and pointed at the high trees. He laughed again. “Some of us kids didn’t have a penny between us, so we’d jump on the back when the driver wasn’t looking.”

      He looked at me, smiled. “I used to make up stories about having my own train, and who I’d take with me to the places I wanted to see: mountains and waterfalls and lakes, the glaciers in Iceland.”

      In my mind’s eye I could see him leaning from a train window, the rattling, thumping beat of wheels against the tracks.

      “All kids make up stories, about all sorts of things. I think it’s just because they wish things were different.”

      He nudged me. “I wish things were different too.”

      And for a minute I thought if Dad wished things were different that meant he’d talk about Mum and remember her, and make it feel like she was here. And I was ready to say, OK, Dad, can we get the photos out and talk about Christmases and birthdays and holidays together and get your guitar and try and sing Mum’s songs so it wasn’t like she’d never been here at all?

      And then Dad said, “But we’ve got to forget the past and making up silly stories. It’s all part of growing up.”

      He sounded like Mrs Brooks so I didn’t listen. Maybe she’d told him what to say. Instead I watched Luke fling his Frisbee, closer and closer to the girl in the tree who was hanging upside down by her knees.

      Dad went on. “So first job is to paint your bedroom. What colour do you want?”

      Now the girl was going round and round the branch; her long brown hair flicked after her. Luke leaned on the tree.

      “Pink, I suppose,” Dad said. “Girls like pink, don’t they?”

      I kicked a pile of rabbit poo on a hump of grass by the bench. When you haven’t been speaking for a little while, even though the colour of your bedroom is normally really important, it just doesn’t seem to matter. I shrugged. I know he just wanted me to say something. Not anything that was really important though, not anything he didn’t want to hear. Actually, I didn’t like pink any more. You sort of grow out of it. I tried to imagine my bedroom any other colour but pink and the boring old book-page colour it was.

      I watched the girl sit up on the branch, Luke climb up beside her. She pulled her hair band down round her neck, straightened her hair and put it on again.

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