going on and on at me, trying to make me speak, jumping out and trying to scare me, putting a cold key down my back. He was really getting on my nerves. And besides, when you’ve got two plastic cogs in your pocket, it makes you think that the thing they belong to is not going to work without them.
I crept downstairs without my shoes on, without telling Dad, while he was head first emptying another cardboard box.
I looked at the yellow skin of the drum for ages and listened at the door. I hoped it would just open by itself. I waited and waited. Did my twelve times table a few times. Waited some more. I decided two bangs would do.
I heard a happy shriek coming from inside.
Mrs Cooper opened the door wide. The blue bag was on the floor again, right in the doorway. Mrs Cooper rolled her eyes and kicked it out of the way. Sam was feeling along some shelves. He pulled out a cardboard box from a big stack, knocking some other things on to the floor. He said something, but his voice was strange and I couldn’t understand him. He held the box up. It was upside down but I could see very clearly what it was.
Mrs Cooper closed the door behind me and whispered, “He can’t see and he doesn’t hear much, but I promise you he won’t bite.”
Sam was already at the dining table. He reached out and dragged another chair so it was right next to him. He wasn’t really taking any notice of me. So I leaned on the chair.
He tipped the contents on to a tray. There was a clock face with numbers pegged into it and Sam clipped it into another ring with raised bumps around the edge. The instructions said the bumps were a kind of writing that Sam could feel. 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.
