‘Can I take this away? I’d like to read it through again more closely.’
Beth hesitated. She wasn’t sure that she wanted to give this to anyone at this stage, least of all someone whose opinion she cared about as much as Matt’s. ‘It’s really still in development.’
‘Understood. But this is enormously interesting as it stands.’ He passed the document back to her, as if to emphasise that it was hers and she had complete control over it. ‘Whenever you think it’s appropriate, but I’d be really eager to have a copy.’
His praise was like standing under a cool waterfall on a sunny day. Little pinpricks of delight all over her body that made her shiver and grin like an idiot. Beth pushed the document back across the table towards him. ‘This is a spare copy, I ran it off this morning. Just in case.’
He nodded, and took the wad of paper back, folding the pages of his pad carefully over it as if to protect it from harm. ‘Thank you. Can we get together again next week to discuss what you might need from us to carry out your study in Cardiology?’
He was letting her in. And the grilling he’d given her had made it quite obvious that this wasn’t just a favour to an acquaintance. Beth wanted to punch the air and dispense hugs all round, but currently the only person in hugging range was on her personal ‘out of bounds’ list. ‘Yes, sure. I just hope that your confidence in me isn’t misplaced.’
His long fingers caressed the pages of his notepad. ‘It’s not.’ His eye drifted to the pot of fresh coffee that Marcie had brought in for them while they’d talked and which had sat untouched on the table between them. ‘More coffee?’
He filled her cup and the talk drifted. He seemed endlessly interested in almost everything about the study, wanting Beth to demonstrate the structure and syntax of BSL when she explained to him that it was quite different from that of English, and laughing when she showed him some visual puns.
‘Well, I suppose that’s one thing my deaf patients have in common with my hearing ones. They don’t always appreciate my feeble attempts at humour either.’ A thought struck him and his eyes darkened with mischief. ‘So can you swear in BSL?’
‘Why not? You can in any other language.’ Beth signed a strongly worded invitation to reconsider his attitudes, which got a surprising amount of angst off her chest and had Matt’s eyebrows shooting upwards.
‘Right. Okay, probably no translation needed. I got the gist of that.’ He flashed her a look of deep hurt, which melted into a smile. ‘Did you just shout at me?’
He was getting the idea. ‘Yes.’
‘I think I probably deserved it.’ He processed the information for a moment. ‘So it’s not just a matter of straight translation, is it? It’s a different set of shared knowledge and ideas as well.’
‘Yes, that’s one of the things we mean when we talk about deaf culture.’ Beth was enjoying herself now. He’d worked his way round to an idea that many people missed, doing it almost effortlessly. ‘But you have to remember that most deaf people know the written language of their region and also the spoken one to varying degrees. Even if our first language is not English, it comes a very close second.’
‘I realise I’ve never asked. What is your first language—English or BSL?’
‘Both. My brothers and I grew up around signing and the spoken word together, so we all do both quite naturally. I never had that feeling that some people have that one is better or worse than the other—they’re just different. BSL is a beautiful language in many ways.’
‘So in your view one enriches the other.’ He was nodding slowly, getting his head around the concept. ‘Are both your brothers deaf?’
‘No. Nathan is but Charlie is hearing. I have a CI and Nathan doesn’t, but he does have more residual hearing than I do. So between us we’re a pretty mixed bunch.’
‘When did you get the CI?’
‘I got by with hearing aids and signing help at school, but when the hearing in my right ear started to fail I really struggled at university. So I made the decision to have the CI and once I’d adapted to it, it was a revelation to me—a whole new world.’
‘And the hearing you have in your left ear helps round the sound out?’
Beth nodded. ‘Yes. I feel that I’m lucky. The CI worked well for me, which it doesn’t for everyone, and I think I have the best of both worlds now.’
‘That’s a nice way of putting it.’ He hesitated, as if he were choosing his words carefully. ‘Something you said the other day surprised me. When you spoke about your deafness being inherited from your father.’
‘Yes.’
‘Does that bother you? You seemed…It seemed as if it did.’
‘No. Why would it?’ It didn’t bother Beth in the slightest. It just seemed to bother everyone else and from his question Matt was no exception.
‘No reason. I’m sorry if that was out of order.’ He was staring at her now and couldn’t have failed to notice that the temperature in the room had suddenly plummeted.
Beth reached for her laptop, snapping it shut, and started to gather the papers in front of her into a pile. ‘Perhaps it’s time we joined the others.’ It had been a nice afternoon. She didn’t want to spoil it by talking about this.
He hesitated and then rose slowly, picking up his pad. ‘Yeah, okay.’ He seemed about to ask something else, then thought better of it and let her lead the way out of the TV room.
When Beth entered the kitchen, it was all warmth and commotion. James was pulling on his jacket, and Josh and Anna were climbing on chairs to indicate the required height of the Christmas tree that their father was about to fetch.