Ghost Boy Page 21

I’ve become stronger in the months since arriving in England, and I can now move around quite easily in the flat by pushing off the floorboards with my feet. My arms aren’t yet strong enough to control my chair, but I can sit up well all day now. My left hand is still unreliable, but my right is getting steadier all the time. I hardly ever try to use both. Instead I do everything with my right arm, and my body seems to like being pushed in new directions because my failures are matched by successes: I’m not so good at opening bottles, but I can now get coffee into cups; I can’t yet tie my shoelaces, but I’m able to push the vacuum around the wooden floor.

  So much of everyday life, though, is literally above me. I feel useless as I watch Joanna hanging curtains, or I stare at things in cupboards soaring overhead. After deciding to cook supper one night, I tried to dislodge a bag of flour from a shelf using a broom and watched it hurtle down towards me, knowing there was nothing I could do to stop it. Joanna found me—and the rest of the flat—covered in flour when she got home that night.

  My worst mistake came when I tried to garden. Joanna had looked for a flat with a garden for so long that I was anxious to keep it perfect. So when dandelions started bursting bright yellow through the grass, I decided that something had to be done. But after I’d carefully sprayed the dandelions—and the rest of the lawn—with weedkiller, we woke up the next day to find that the grass had turned yellow. All we could do was watch its final death throes as we realized what I’d done wrong. Joanna and I have scattered the ground with seeds now, and we hope that the rain that falls so steadily in England will encourage a new lawn to grow.

  I’m working freelance as a web designer, but the rest of my time is devoted to being a house husband in training. I enjoy learning how to look after a home, and Joanna chastises me so little for my mistakes that I wonder if she realizes quite how inept I am.

  “What shall we do?” she wailed when we found a nail sticking out of one of our car tires.

  I had no idea.

  “Shall I pull it out?” Joanna asked me.

  It is becoming more and more clear to me that she assumes there is a long list of internal practical data hidden inside me simply because I’m a man. But after realizing that I had no advice to give, Joanna bent down and pulled the nail out. As air hissed out of the tire, and we watched it slowly flatten, we looked at each other and laughed.

  “We’ll know what not to do next time,” she said.

  But there have also been times when her patience has worn a little thinner, and recently she turned to me as we were getting ready to go out one weekend morning.

  “Shall we go to the supermarket first or the pharmacy?” she asked.

  I wasn’t sure. I still find planning my days so hard that I’m happy to follow the pattern Joanna wants them to follow.

  “I don’t mind,” I typed.

  But instead of getting up from her chair and chattering to me as she usually does, Joanna didn’t move.

  “What’s wrong?” I typed on the small portable keyboard she’s given me to use instead of my alphabet board.

  “Nothing,” she said.

  But still she didn’t move.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Completely.”

  We sit together silently.

  “I’m just waiting,” Joanna said eventually.

  “For what?”

  “For you to decide what we’re going to do this morning. I’m tired, and I want you to make a decision.

  “I know you can do it because I’ve seen you at work. You were the center of attention at the conference in Canada, and you’re completely in control in that world—you guide people and reassure them, advise and lead them.

  “So now I want you to do the same at home. I know you’re not used to it, but I’m tired of making all the decisions, my liefie. So that’s why I’m going to sit here until you decide what you want us to do today.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say. But as I looked at Joanna, I knew that she would wait all day if she had to.

  “How about the supermarket first?” I said eventually.

  Without a word, she got up and we left. Slowly I’m learning to choose what to do or eat and decide if I’m hungry or thirsty. But there’s no escape from decision-making when it comes to our wedding in June, which is only a couple of months away.

  Joanna is so busy at work that I’m doing a lot of the organizing. She dreamed of this day for so long that she collected more than a hundred gold plates that she wanted to use for our guests. But when we realized that so many people would have to come from far away, we decided to do something very different, and we’re going to have a simple service in a church attended by just eight people—my parents, David and Kim, Joanna’s mother, and three of her friends who live in England. However small our wedding is going to be, food, flowers, outfits, transportation, venues, and menus must still be arranged. There are so many details, in fact, that I’ve built a file full of information that Joanna and I read through together before deciding what we want.

  The only aspect that I’m completely certain of is the ring I had made for Joanna before I left South Africa. It is a wide band made of yellow gold, which is dotted with diamonds and filigree work bearing the symbol of two mussel shells nestling together. They represent our love because nothing can pry mussels apart once they fuse together as one on a beach—even the might of the sea.

  64 WAITING

  The church is cool and quiet. At the end of a long aisle stretching ahead of me, my mother, brother, and sister sit in a pew; friends are in another. I’m waiting just inside the door of the church and gaze up at the huge stained-glass window behind the altar ahead of me. I’m glad that its colors are beginning to brighten. It rained a little earlier this morning, and I don’t want anything to ruin this day. But now I can see bright sunshine as I turn my head to look out of the door. It’s the kind of glorious June day that seems to exist only in England with hedgerows thick with flowers, roses in bloom, and an azure sky that appears endless overhead.

  I think of Joanna. I’ve not seen her since early this morning before she left to get ready at the country house where we’ll all go later to celebrate. It’s a Georgian manor with lawns stretching green in front of it and lavender in beds around which bees fly lazily—picture perfect. None of us will forget this day. My mother smiles as I look down the aisle. She has been glowing with happiness ever since she arrived from South Africa. My brother and sister sit quietly beside her. How good it is to see them here. My father is standing with me because he is going to be my best man.

  “She’ll be here soon,” he says with a chuckle as he looks at me. “Don’t get too worried.”

  I won’t. All I feel is a happy impatience to see Joanna. I’m so anxious to marry her that I arrived nearly two hours ago. I’m glad Dad is beside me as I wait. As he helped me get dressed earlier—buttoning up my white shirt and tying my red cravat, helping me into my charcoal gray pin-striped suit and lacing up my black shoes—I realized that his quiet and steady presence was what I needed most, today of all days. It gives me such a familiar feeling of reassurance; it’s one of the earliest memories I have, after all.

  I wonder now if Dad is thinking about his own wedding day as quiet contentment radiates from him. My parents’ married life has been far from easy, and I suspect that neither of them can believe this day has arrived. They remind me of children who dare not think a fairy tale is coming true at last. Their eyes have been a little brighter, their smiles wider as Joanna and I have shown them our flat and all the other details of our life here. They have celebrated each one with us.

  It is 1:25 p.m. Joanna will now be in the horse-drawn carriage that is bringing her to the church. She will look like a fairy-tale princess, and I am her less than traditional prince. I think of her. Is she happy? Nervous? Only a few more minutes until I see her. I look down at the speech box that is sitting on my knee. It’s an old device I’ve had for a few years now, a more sophisticated version of the black box my paren
ts once so nearly bought me. I don’t often use it, but I have it with me today because I must say my wedding vows to make them legal. Apparently, a person has to speak their promises for them to be binding, and a witness must watch over me to vouch that I press the “I will” button without being coerced into doing it.

  Now I think of the words that I will soon say. Each was seared onto my memory one by one as I inputted them on my communication device.

  For better, for worse,

  For richer, for poorer,

  In sickness and in health,

  Til death do us part.

  I will never say anything that means more. But these are not just words. Each syllable, each line, will reverberate inside me as words become vows made in God’s presence, with Joanna and I knowing that He will continue to be at the center of our relationship.

  I look up at the church’s ceiling and feel Him with me now. Is it possible that one month shy of the eight years since I was first assessed, I am sitting here about to commit my life to Joanna?

  It is she who has taught me to understand the true meaning of the Bible passage we are having read during the service: “There are three things that will endure—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.” My life has encompassed all three, and I know the greatest of all is indeed love—in all its forms. I’ve experienced it as a boy and man, as a son, brother, grandson, and friend. I’ve seen it between others, and I know it can sustain us through the darkest of times. Now it’s lifting me closer to the sun than I ever thought I would fly.

  I hear a flurry of steps.

  “She’s here!” a voice cries. “Close the doors!”

  My father leans towards me as the organist starts to play.

  “Are you ready, boy?” he asks.

  I nod and he starts pushing me down the aisle as memories flash through my mind. I’ve seen so much. I’ve come so far. As I stop in front of the altar, there is a rustle of excitement, and I turn my head to see Joanna. She is wearing a long white dress encrusted with crystals, and a veil covers her face. She is holding a bouquet of red roses, and she smiles. My heart stills.

  I will not look back today. It is time to forget the past.

  All I can think of is the future.

  She is here.

  She is walking towards me.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I would like to thank my family, who have in no small way helped me to become the person I am today. Mum, Dad, Kim, and David taught me many lessons—not least to laugh, the importance of family, and sticking by each other through good times and bad. I love you all dearly.

  Thank you to Pookie and Kojak for their unconditional love, which proved that dogs truly are man’s best friend.

  I would also like to thank Virna van der Walt, Erica Mbangamoh, Karin Faurie, Dr. Kitty Uys, Professor Juan Bornman, Maureen Casey, Kerstin Tonsing, Dr. Michal Harty, Simon Sikhosana, Dr. Shakila Dada, Jéanette Loots, Corneli Strydom, Alecia Samuels, Professor Diane Nelson Bryen, Elaine Olivier, Sue Swenson, Cornè Kruger, Jackie Barker, Riëtte Pretorius, Ronell Alberts, Tricia Horne, and Sandra Hartley for all their support and the lessons they taught me about the value of friendship.

  There are so many others I would like to mention. Suffice to say I am indebted to friends, colleagues, and complete strangers who have all in some way made a difference to my life and helped me on my journey through it.

  To all my friends and colleagues at the Centre for Augmentative and Alternative Communication, thanks for your help, support, and the years we spent together. I would also like to thank God, without whom I wouldn’t be here today and for all the blessings I have and continue to receive.

  Thank you also to Cilliers du Preez, who was always willing to help me with computer problems, to Albie Bester at Microsoft South Africa, and Paul and Barney Hawes and the rest of the folk at Sensory Software, who were always there to lend a hand when it was needed.

  Finally, thank you to Ivan Mulcahy, who was never more than an email away, Kerri Sharp at Simon & Schuster, who believed in my story, and last but not least Megan Lloyd Davies for the hours of hard work and the journey that was the writing of this book.