A Quiet Kind of Thunder(17)

‘Go on, then,’ I say. Her happiness is infectious. ‘Share.’

She does, in frankly unnecessary detail. I learn more than I could ever need to know about Karam’s kissing technique – ‘Just enough tongue! More each time, like a taste test.’ – and how his hair feels under her fingers.

‘He calls me Tember,’ she says, beaming. ‘Isn’t that the cutest? Tember.’

‘So is he going to be your boyfriend?’

Her smile blooms ever wider. ‘I don’t know. I hope so . . . but it’s early days, obviously. And it was just a kiss.’

‘Just the first kiss,’ I correct, because this is the kind of thing we do for our friends.

Tem beams. ‘Just the first kiss,’ she repeats. ‘The first of many.’

‘Do you want him to be your boyfriend?’

She nods. ‘Of course! Stef, it’s all I want. He’s just . . . everything.’

‘That sounds dangerous,’ I say.

‘In a good way,’ she replies.

‘Is there a good kind of dangerous?’

She laughs. ‘Just you wait, Stef. Just wait.’

stefstef: hey

rhysespieces: hi

stefstef: so I finished Atonement rhysespieces: oh yeah?

stefstef: yeah

rhysespieces: did you like?

stefstef: yeah.

rhysespieces: cool.

stefstef: is it still OK for me to borrow the DVD?

rhysespieces: sure, if you want. or you could come over and watch it at my place?

rhysespieces: . . . if you don’t mind having to put up with subtitles.

rhysespieces: or my cat.

stefstef: would that be OK?

rhysespieces: sure. i haven’t seen it for a while.

stefstef: OK . . . when?

rhysespieces: you got plans after school weds?

stefstef: sorry yeah, I have to work.

rhysespieces: Thurs?

stefstef: yeah, could do that rhysespieces: cool. let’s say thurs after school then stefstef: ok

rhysespieces: ok

stefstef: rhys?

rhysespieces: stef?

stefstef: i’m sorry.

rhysespieces: i know.

Here is how you say sorry in BSL:

Close your dominant hand into a fist. Hold your fist to your chest and move it in a circular motion. Make eye contact while you do it.

I practise my apology in front of the mirror, mouthing ‘sorry’ to my reflection and circling my fist over and over again. One of the things I both hate and love about BSL is how it forces you to be genuine. Half-hearted apologies just don’t work when you’re communicating with your eyes and your hands. You have to mean it, or it is meaningless.

And I do want to be genuine with Rhys. I don’t even really understand why I got as defensive as I did, and so quickly. He was being so sweet with me, so patient with my faltering BSL, so encouraging of my clumsy attempts to communicate in his language. And then I flew off the handle for really no reason at all. What will he think of me now?





The first surprise is that Rhys can drive.

Seeing the expression on my face, Rhys laughs. You didn’t know I could drive?

No! We are facing each other on either side of his car. He is leaning over the roof, elbows on the metal, a light grin on his face.

I passed my test in the summer.

How old are you? If we were talking, I would have worried about trying to ask this question in a way that wouldn’t come out rude – in fact, I would probably have worked myself up into a panic attack about it – but the constraints of my limited BSL take the choice away, so I just ask.

He holds up his thumb and forefinger, like a gun, and moves his hand up and down. Seventeen.

I think about this, my hands waiting in front of me, but I can’t think what to say. Finally, I have many questions.

He laughs. Let’s go. You can ask me them later.

I get into the car, which is a battered green Skoda with an air freshener shaped like a jelly bean bouncing from the rear-view mirror, and wait while Rhys wriggles in his seat and checks the mirrors. He seems a little nervous, though he’s trying to hide it, and he smiles overconfidently at me as he reverses out of his space before quickly looking back at the windscreen.

Rhys’s house is on the other side of town from our school, not closer to my mum’s or dad’s house but making a kind of triangle between them. It’s smaller than Mum’s house but bigger than Dad’s, with a slightly overgrown front garden and a very overgrown cat lying on its back in the centre of it.

Rhys turns off the engine and holds his hands out in front of him. Home! he says, exaggerating the sign in the same way a hearing person would put on a jovial voice.

We get out of the car and head up the driveway. The cat ignores us until Rhys pushes his key into the lock, at which point he jumps to his feet and waddles up to the door, pushing me out of the way to walk in first.

Rhys rolls his eyes, points to the cat and then signs to me, King of the castle.

What’s his name?

Javert.

I hesitate. Like, from the . . . musical? I have seen the stage version of Les Misérables once and the film about six times – overwrought and depressingly tragic musicals are my favourite – but it surprises me that Rhys’s family would name a cat after a character in it. I’d always considered hearing kind of important when it came to musicals, so wouldn’t Rhys feel left out?