Ghost Boy Read online

  “Martin?”

  I look up to see Michal, a speech therapist at the communication center I’d met at the workshop last month.

  “Shall I take you to the tea room, and we’ll get a drink?” she asks.

  Michal smiles. Relief floods into me. I click on just one symbol.

  “Thank you.”

  23 AN OFFER I CAN’T REFUSE

  Apparently I’m a rare species. Like a parrot or a monkey, I’m of interest to the experts. Partly it’s because I’m both a new user of AAC and a young adult, which is somewhat unusual. Most people who learn to communicate via AAC are either children who have been born with problems like cerebral palsy, autism, or a genetic disorder, or older adults who have lost their speech through illnesses such as strokes or motor neuron disease. People like me, who lose their speech in the middle of life rather than at the beginning or end through illness or accident, are rarer. But more important is the fact that I’ve learned so much so quickly about computer communication and I’m teaching myself to read and write—that’s the real novelty because many AAC users never become literate. So the students have gathered to listen to me speak on the last day of the course.

  “Adjusting to my new life has been challenging and frightening at times,” I tell them. “There’s so much I don’t know, and I’ve often felt completely overwhelmed. I’m on a steep learning curve, but everything is changing drastically for the better.”

  As the students swarm around to congratulate me after my speech, I feel uplifted to be among them. People my own age seem so bright, as if they’ve been drawn in rainbow colors, with their huge smiles and loud voices. In honor of the occasion, I decided to stop wearing my bib, and I look a little more like them now.

  “You were great!” I hear an American voice say.

  Erica is a student I met earlier this week on the morning when Mum had gone to the store and Michal took me for tea. After getting me a drink, Michal got distracted, and I stared at my cup, knowing I wouldn’t be able to drink what was in it because she hadn’t given me a straw.

  “Do you need something?” a voice asked.

  I turned my head to see a woman who looked to be about my age. She had short blonde hair and energy bubbled off her. I waved my hand downwards.

  “It’s in your bag?”

  The woman bent down, found a straw and put it into my mug.

  “My name’s Erica,” she said. “Do you mind if I join you?”

  I liked how direct she was. Erica told me she was on a ten-month visit from her university in America, where she had studied to be a speech and language therapist; now she was doing a postgraduate course in South Africa. I marvelled at how she talked to me about anything and everything. It wasn’t often that someone spoke to me so easily.

  “I don’t find it cold here even though it’s the middle of winter!” Erica said with a giggle. “I’m so used to harsh winters in Wisconsin that this is nothing. I can’t believe everyone looks so cold when all I want is to walk around in a t-shirt.”

  We carried on chatting until the tea break was over, and Erica pushed me back to the lecture room.

  “It’s been nice talking to you, Martin,” she said.

  We’ve chatted on and off ever since, and now Erica is smiling at me once again. She looks mischievous as she bends down towards me.

  “I’ve decided that we should be friends,” she says.

  She leans closer so that no one else can hear.

  “But there’s one condition: no parents.”

  I smile at Erica as I give her my email address, and she heads off to talk to someone else as Professor Alant comes to see me.

  “I’d like to talk to you if possible, Martin?” she says. “Alone, if that’s okay?”

  I’m sure that I must look almost as surprised as my mother does. I don’t often talk one on one with people I don’t know. But Professor Alant looks resolute as she sits down beside me and my mother leaves us.

  “We’ve enjoyed having you with us this week,” she says. “Have you enjoyed being here?”

  I nod.

  “I’m glad because your insight into being an AAC user is invaluable, and we’ve been so impressed by all the hard work you’ve put in and the amazing results you’ve achieved,” she tells me. “That’s why I want to speak to you, because your mother has told me you’re doing voluntary office work one day a week, and apparently you enjoy it a lot.

  “So I wanted to ask if you’d consider doing a work trial here too? I’d like to see how it goes one morning a week for the next month and then we can discuss the possibility of something more permanent. How does that sound?”

  I stare at Professor Alant in disbelief. I’m too surprised to look at my laptop, let alone program it with a reply. My world isn’t just opening up—it’s exploding.

  24 A LEAP FORWARD

  “What do you think, Martin?”

  Juan looks at me expectantly. She works here at the communication center and is one of my new colleagues.

  I’m not sure what to say. Juan wants to know what I think would best help a child who was assessed here recently. But I’m so unused to being asked my opinion that I don’t know how to give it properly yet. Working here is so different to the health center, where many people seemed unsure about how to interact with someone like me.

  “Can you find the January files, please?” they might ask Haseena, my colleague, when they walked into our office.

  Even if she was obviously busy, there were those who didn’t ask me to help them. It took time for people to trust me professionally, and I enjoy the fact that they do now.

  But here, at the communication center, people have asked me what I think from the moment I arrived. I’m the one person who has put their theories into practice, and they’re keen to know my opinion. This unnerved me at first, but I’m slowly getting used to it.

  The first day I came to work here, I sat in the same room where Shakila had once assessed me, and I realized I had even less of an idea about what was expected of me now. I was going to have to make my own decisions about how to start and finish the administrative tasks I’d been given, such as creating a story written in symbols for the center’s newsletter.

  In the second week I was moved into an office with a woman called Maureen, whom I soon became friends with, and by the third week I’d discovered how invigorating it was to be in a place where people weren’t afraid of me.

  It’s now the fourth week I’ve been at work, and this morning is the end of my trial—the moment of truth. To calm my nerves about my upcoming meeting with Professor Alant, Erica pushes me through the campus to get a coffee. We’ve become good friends. It’s a beautiful spring morning. The trees are heavy with blossom, and the sky is bright blue above us.

  “Do you think you’ll get the job?” Erica asks.

  On my lap lies a large laminated sheet covered in the letters of the alphabet. It also contains commonly used words and phrases like “Thank you” and “I want.” I use this alphabet board a lot now that I’m spelling better because it’s not always practical to have a laptop with me. Literacy is an inexact science though. While I still find reading hard, writing is easier for some reason; I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because writing means breaking down words into their individual letter shapes rather than reading a whole string of symbols that have blurred together to make a word.

  “I hope so,” I tell Erica as I point to the letters in front of me. “I really do.”

  “I think you will.”

  “How come?”

  “Because you’re brilliant, Martin!”

  I wasn’t so sure. Being in an office had revealed to me just how huge the gaps in my knowledge were. With no memories of my formal education, my brain is a dumping ground where bits of information are thrown together, and I have no idea where they come from. In many ways, I feel further behind now than I did before.

  Mum and Dad are waiting as Erica and I arrive at the center, and the three of us go in to see Profess
or Alant.

  “I have to be honest and say that situations like this often don’t work out,” she says as soon as my parents sit down.

  My heart sinks.

  “But even so, we would like to offer you a paid position here, Martin,” Professor Alant says with a smile. “We feel you could provide really invaluable assistance to the work we do, and we’d like you to become a salaried member of staff working one day a week. How does that sound?”

  “That’s great news!” my father exclaims.

  He smiles broadly at me, and my mother beams too.

  “There are conditions to this offer, though, because if you are to become a member of staff, you will need to be as independent as possible,” Professor Alant adds. “We’ll do all we can to help you achieve this, but the one thing you need that we can’t provide is an electric wheelchair you can operate independently.

  “At the moment, your wheelchair needs to be pushed by someone, but that won’t always be possible when you’re working alongside colleagues.”

  I nod as Professor Alant speaks.

  “The reason I’m saying this, Martin, is because your job here won’t work if you have to rely on the other staff to help you.”

  I look at my parents, praying they will agree to this.

  “We understand,” my mother says. “I’m sure Martin will be only too pleased to do everything he can to help. This job means a great deal to him.”

  I nod.

  “There’s just one other thing,” Professor Alant says. “I think you need to consider projecting a more professional image, and I’d suggest perhaps a shirt and trousers?”

  I stare down at my familiar T-shirt and jogging bottoms. My mother opens and closes her mouth like a goldfish.

  “Does that sound acceptable?” Professor Alant asks.

  My finger points to one word on my alphabet board.

  “Yes,” I reply.

  “Then that’s all agreed,” she says with a smile. “Welcome to the team, Martin. I’ll look forward to seeing you next week.”

  My father pushes me out into the hall, but no one speaks until we’re safely out of earshot.

  “Your clothes?” my mother exclaims incredulously. “What’s wrong with your clothes?”

  She sounds a little angry. Mum has always bought my clothes, and I’ve never given them any thought.

  “And did you hear what she said about things like this never working out?” Mum continues. “What did she mean?”

  “I think she was just trying to say that employing someone with a disability can be challenging,” my father says softly.

  “Well then, she hasn’t met anyone like Martin before, has she?” my mother roars. “If anyone can do it, he can. You’ll show them, won’t you?”

  My parents look down at me as we reach the front door of the center. It is almost two years to the day since our first visit here for my assessment.

  “Well, we’ll leave you to get on with your day,” Dad says as he squeezes my shoulder, his grip tightening as he wordlessly expresses his excitement.

  “You’ll prove anyone who doubts you wrong, won’t you, son?” Mum says as she smiles. “I know you will.”

  Happiness bursts inside me as I look at them. I hope I will make them proud.

  25 STANDING IN THE SEA

  I had only the rarest glimpses of my father’s feelings when I was the ghost boy. Once, as he came into the den after everyone else had gone to bed, I felt hopelessness seeped from him in the darkness.

  “Martin?” he said as he looked at me.

  I was silent, of course, as Dad sat down in a chair and began to talk. As he sat staring out of the window at the night beyond, he told me about his childhood in the country. When he was growing up, my grandfather, GD, always wanted to be a farmer, but he ended up working in the mines. Even so, he tried to provide as much as possible for his family by growing food like potatoes, peas, and onions and harvesting honey from his beehives. He also had cows to provide milk, cream, and butter, and one of these animals had provoked my father into a childish act of vicious rebellion he’d never forgotten. Now he told me about it in the silence of the night.

  “I hit one of the cows with a stick,” Dad said softly. “I can’t remember why I did it anymore, but I cut its eyelid. I should never have done it.”

  He was silent for a moment.

  “But for some reason I can’t stop thinking about it now, and I think it’s because when I remember that day, I realize I got more reaction from a cow than I get from you, my own son.

  “I just don’t understand how that can be. How can you be so still and silent year after year?”

  Dad’s breath came out of him in jagged gulps. I longed to comfort him, but there was nothing I could do as he sat silently until his breathing evened out again. Then he stood up and bent down to kiss me on the forehead as I felt his hands close softly around my head. He held it for a few seconds just as he did every night.

  “Let’s get you to bed, boy,” he said.

  That was the only time during all the years he cared for me alone that my father ever gave me any hint of just how desperate he felt at times. But I didn’t realize how much his unwavering strength had sustained me until I went on holiday with my family for the first time when I was twenty-five.

  Usually I went into residential care when they went away, but this time I was taken on the trip to the sea. I was so excited. I couldn’t remember seeing the sea before, and the huge rolling mass took my breath away. I stared at the water in disbelief, not knowing whether to be awed or afraid. The sea repelled me as much as it fascinated me. Over the years I’d learned to like the way water lifted and supported my body, freed me in a way that nothing else could. But I’d always found it frightening to think I had no defenses against it and wouldn’t be able to kick my legs or paddle my arms enough to keep above the surface if I started to sink.

  I felt both excited and scared as my father pushed my wheelchair closer to the waterline, and I listened to the beat of the waves. Then he helped me to my feet and started shuffling me across the sand towards the water. But the closer I got to it, the more fearful I became, and my father must have felt it.

  “Relax, Martin,” Dad kept saying again and again as the waves began to curl over my feet.

  But I couldn’t listen. Adrenalin pumped through my body, and my powerlessness felt more overwhelming than ever before as I confronted the sea. I knew it could take me so easily if it wanted to.

  My father guided a few more of my halting steps into the water.

  “You’re safe,” he kept telling me.

  But I felt terrified as the sea closed around my feet and legs. I was sure I was going to be swept away, and I’d have no choice but to go. Suddenly I felt Dad lean closer to me.

  “Do you really think that I would let you go?” he shouted above the sound of the waves. “Do you think that after all these years, I would let something happen to you now?

  “I’m here, Martin. I’ve got you. I won’t let anything happen. There’s no need to be scared.”

  And it was only in that moment, as I felt my father’s arms holding me upright and his strength keeping me steady, that I knew his love was strong enough to protect me from an ocean.

  26 SHE RETURNS

  I open my eyes in the darkness. My heart thumps. Terror fills me. I want to scream, yell, cry out the fear that is running cold in my veins.

  I turn my head to look at the clock.

  It’s five a.m., the fourth time I’ve woken tonight, and just forty-seven minutes since I last opened my eyes to try and escape my dreams. Tonight they are particularly bad. I wonder if they will ever stop. These are the moments when I feel most alone, as the world sleeps peacefully and I wake in the gray light of an empty dawn.

  The nightmare that woke me this time was not so very different from the last. They never are. If my dreams weren’t so terrifying, they would be almost boringly predictable.

  She was standing in front of me, lookin
g down at my face. I knew what she was going to do, and I wanted to push her away, but I couldn’t. My arms stayed beside me as lifeless as ever as her face came closer. I felt horror surge up my throat as I longed to plea for mercy.

  Then I woke up.

  It’s like this most nights now. However hard I try to submerge the past, it bubbles up into the cracks I can’t fill with thoughts of work and home, lists of jobs to do, and things I want to experience.

  What exhausts me is that I’m no longer haunted only at night. On any ordinary day a thousand tiny triggers lie in wait for me; these are things that no one else would notice, but they instantly take me back to the past: a few lilting notes of classical music play in a shopping center, and I’m back at the home in the country where I was trapped like an animal and longed for escape.

  “It’s so peaceful here,” my mother always used to say when she dropped me off for a stay.

  As we entered the building, the restful tones of Vivaldi or Mozart were usually seeping out of a stereo somewhere, and I would look at my mother, pleading for her to understand what the music was hiding.

  That’s why hearing it sends me hurtling back to the past. Or I see a car that reminds me of the one driven by a person who used to hurt me, and I’m there again: heart beating, sweat pricking cold across my skin, and breath coming in gasps.

  No one seems to notice when this happens. Have I really learned to disguise my feelings so well that I can hide even such raw terror from view? I don’t understand how I do it, but somehow I can. I’m completely alone as I try to bring myself back to the present by reminding myself that the past is behind me.