She was right too, you know. Mama is a Chinese woman who learned English for opportunities and Italian for love. BSL was never going to be a problem. I might have given her sleepless nights, but my language never has.
Mama has pushed me to be more than my deafness. Embrace it, she told me. Embrace it, and take it with you, wherever you go. It’s Mama who taught me to sign, who came with me to deaf school, who sat with me in English class. It’s Mama who made sure I went to university, trudging with me every day on the tube to Kensington, sitting in the gardens until my lectures were finished and my hearing assistant went home, before trudging back with me. It’s Mama who taught me to make ice cream, who taught me about the right mix of saltiness and sweetness on the tongue. I love my Mama more than anything. And I owe her everything that I am.
But Mama worries, Cohen. And she’s right to worry, because there have been ... issues in the past.
And it’s only right that you know about them.
When I was seventeen a man befriended me online, in a forum for people with hearing impairments or difficulties. He called himself ‘Jake’ and told me he was an American deaf person and that he knew ASL. We chatted. I thought we connected.
After a few weeks, we shared photos. Then, after another few weeks, he told me he was in London and that he could meet me for a night.
I was seventeen. I was lonely. I thought he was my friend. I hoped he might be more.
So, I met with him. We couldn’t talk, because ASL and BSL are different, but he took me to the movies. Bought me popcorn. I should’ve known then that something was amiss. Because who takes a deaf person to the movies?
I slept with him that night. It wasn’t ... pleasant. He wasn’t kind. And when it was done, he got up, laughed, picked up his phone. He called someone. He started chatting.
He wasn’t deaf, Cohen. He was hearing, and he’d abused the forum as a place to meet impressionable, vulnerable young girls like me.
I told Mama about it, and that conversation is one I never want to have again.
Have you ever seen the moment your mother’s heart broke, Cohen? Because I have, twice. Once when Papa died, and I watched her cry into the batch of Jaded Green Tea she was stirring, and then again, when she found out what happened to me that night.
She blamed herself, you see. Thought it was her fault. Imagined that somehow, somewhere, she’d taken her eye off the ball and let harm come to me. I tried to tell her that it wasn’t her fault, that it was mine, but she wouldn’t change her mind.
So now she watches me. And she’s watched me watch you and is rightly suspicious.
I’ve been walking on air since I met you, Cohen, and Mama knows something is up. She’s been talking more and more about giving up her work at the Hanyu Institute, about helping out in the ice creamery on a Tuesday again.
She’s been telling me stories about you, too. I think she’s trying to put me off, because they’re all stories about a quiet boy, a spiteful teen, and then a cruel man. I try not to pay attention, because she doesn’t know you, not really. She only knows your mother, and I know these are her stories, not yours, and that they are all from her perspective. And if anyone knows how a mother can sometimes lose perspective of their child, it’s me.
Because my mama is so frightened of something bad happening to me that she’s stopped letting me live. She’s so afraid of someone taking advantage of me again that she doesn’t let anyone get close enough to even try.
But I’m more than my deafness, Cohen. And I’m not fragile. I won’t break if you touch me.
And I want you to touch me. Very much.
So, will you meet me tonight, at 8 p.m.?
Trafalgar Square, under Nelson’s Column.
Do you know who Nelson was? Do they teach our history in your schools, or only your own? I have so many questions for you. I’m going to start writing them down so that one day, when we can finally converse, I can ask them.
Because somehow, we’ll work this out between us, won’t we? We’ll find some way to understand one another? Or are these feelings all my own?
I’m looking forward to tonight, Cohen. You can’t know how much.
With fondest – though silent – regards,
River. xx
P.S. Oh, and this is something you should know. My favourite ice-cream flavour is Melon. Melon gelato, like they serve in Venice.
You might laugh at this, but I’ve never even tried it. Lucy and Billy went to Venice for their honeymoon, and Lucy told me all about it. She said that Italian melon gelato was like a little spoon of heaven. She said that it was sour and sweet and fruity and floral all at once. She said it was like kissing summer.
Mama doesn’t like me to travel, but one day I’m going to go to Venice and eat nothing but melon gelato.
I’m going to sit by the canal and visit the Bridge of Sighs. I’m going to watch the sun sink behind St. Mark’s.
I’m going to kiss summer.
I hope you’ll join me. xx
For a time, Cohen could hardly breathe.
Evening was rising, and the cold breeze was turning into one with real bite.
He pulled his coat closer around him and realised his knuckles were stark white against the cream colour of the paper River’s letter was written on.
His first impulse was to learn who this ‘Jake’ was, find him, torture him and then kill him, preferably slowly.
He’d then find River’s birth parents – the ones who dumped her when she lost her hearing – and make them suffer too.
But he took a deep breath, trying to let his earlier calm wash over him. He couldn’t change the past. Not his own and certainly not River’s. He had to let this go. Had to move forwards.
And so, he stood, binning his coffee cup and taking in one last look at the city skyline. He headed back down the hill towards the station, checking the time – the true time, the time by which the world was set – and calculated how long it would take him to get to Trafalgar Square.
An hour. An hour to go seven miles.
Not for the first time, Cohen bemoaned the British transport system.
But he had time. For River, he had all the time in the world.
He made his way from Greenwich to Bank, before walking to Monument station and jumping onto the tube. He remembered those early days in London; the confusion he felt while staring at a map of coloured lines, with stations prettily named things like Angel, Pudding Mill Lane, Swiss Cottage, or, his absolute favourite, Elephant and Castle (no freaking elephants or castles in sight though, and so one, that was a waste of a trip and two, what the heck, London?)
He remembered calling Fowler desperately one evening, completely lost, somewhat drunk, hoping his colleague’s knowledge of London would somehow help him out.
Fowler, with his usual snide tone, got to the point.
‘For God’s sake, Ford. Just take a black cab and expense it.’
But for Cohen, there was a measure of pride in using public transport, just like the Londoners did.
‘No,’ he argued. ‘I want to do this myself.’
‘Fine,’ Fowler drawled, his tone bored. ‘Take the Piccadilly line at Green Park to Piccadilly, change onto the Bakerloo line to Charing Cross, and then take the Northern line south to Embankment. It’s easy.’
Fowler, though, was a sneaky bastard. Cohen quickly learned that no one changed trains at Green Park, that Piccadilly was always packed, and that Charing Cross was next door to Embankment so there was no reason to change trains between them at all. More than that, a kindly station assistant later told Cohen that had he walked, the whole trip would have taken him fifteen minutes. By tube, it cost him an hour.