Now and Then Friends by Kate Hewitt

Author:Kate Hewitt
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2016-05-25T17:43:38+00:00

18

Claire

“Are you deaf?”

Claire jerked around from where she’d been stacking milk bottles, wiping her hands, cold and damp from the condensation, on her jeans. “Pardon?”

Dan stared at her from behind the counter, his arms folded. “I said, are you deaf?”

She thought he was being rude, but as he stood there expectantly she realized he meant the question, and he was waiting for her to answer it. “No, not . . . not exactly. Why do you ask?”

“Because I’ve noticed you have trouble hearing me when there are people around, and you always tilt your head to one side when someone is talking. So I wondered. Are you deaf? Partially, I mean?”

She blinked, discomfited by his perception. “Yes, actually, I am. But you’re the first person who has noticed.” She never talked about her hearing problems. Her mother had insisted it didn’t matter, people didn’t want to know, and Claire shouldn’t limit herself by acting as if she had some sort of disability. Claire didn’t think her mother was ashamed of her, not precisely, but Claire’s ear troubles, the endless operations and illnesses, weren’t something she bandied about. Even Hugh hadn’t known about it; Claire hadn’t meant to keep it a secret, but he hadn’t seemed like someone who would be interested in any kind of weaknesses or deficiencies, and disability or not, she knew instinctively that’s how it would be viewed.

“I knew some blokes in the army,” Dan said. “Blew out their eardrums when they were too close to an explosion. Went deaf in one ear.”

“Oh. Right.”

“What happened to you?”

“I had loads of ear infections as a child. Eventually one became bad enough that it developed into a cholesteatoma.”

“A what?”

“A tumor sort of thing. Anyway, it dissolved the bones in my ear and made me deaf. In one ear.” Just in case he thought she was really deaf.

Dan nodded slowly, his expression unchanging. “That’s tough.”

The last thing she expected was Dan’s sympathy. “It’s not too bad. I’m kind of used to it now. But I suppose when I was younger . . .” She shrugged, not used to going into the details. The endless doctor’s appointments and medical procedures she’d had in an attempt to rebuild the bones in her ear and restore her hearing; none had been successful. The bouts of pneumonia and flu, the suffocating concern of her mother. The feeling that she had to be wrapped in cotton wool, and she was still fighting her way out.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Dan asked. “About being deaf?”

“Partially deaf—”

“Even so. It would have been good to know.”

“I don’t tell anyone. It doesn’t really affect me.” Dan gave her a disbelieving look. “We haven’t been sharing confidences, have we?” Claire challenged. “The only things I know about you are that you’re from Leeds and that you were in the army.”

“And I have a dog named Bunny.”

“Right.” They stared at each other for a moment; Claire felt as if Dan was weighing her up.

“All right,” he said. “What do you want to know?”

“About you?”

He shifted where he stood.

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