One Mother's Diary: ¿Habla español?

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10 ¿Habla español?

                               
                                              
                            One grey weekend November 2013

Although the beginning of 2013 started in traumatic fashion with Calum’s implant operation and its subsequent side effects, with hindsight I can now see that although it was a problem it was just that: one problem and not several.  Now, sitting on the top shelf of the problem area in my mind are several problems all jostling for the number one slot.

I’m sorting through official looking letters and papers on a grey Sunday morning in

November.  Everything is mixed up together in one drawer.  Now that I work five days a week (not full time but as I work in a school it feels like it) any official papers which arrive I shove into one drawer thinking that I will sort them out at the weekend.  But all my weekends fuse into one acrylic blob of me driving everywhere trying to sort out and visit various family members all with problems of their own.  It’s as though everyone wants a part of me but there’s not enough of me to go around. 

I’m looking through papers which I should have actioned weeks ago.  The first letter which catches my eye is one about our company tax return should have been delivered to HMRC some weeks back.  Following my husband Martin’s redundancy from a Local Authority two years ago we set up a Limited Company and I did the accounts; mostly teaching myself from books and online tutorials.  Somehow I seem to have totally forgotten that I’m still supposed to be doing this.  Other papers are there: the Local Authority has assessed my mother (they spoke to her for fifteen minutes) and have decided that she doesn’t need the level of care which she is currently receiving.  My mother, knowing that she was about to be assessed, decided to get top marks in this test and took it upon herself to answer yes to every question put to her by the social worker.  I sat beside the social worker, let’s call her Sarah, as she asked her questions.  At several points, as Sarah directed her questions to the curtains, I had to remind her that my mother was deaf and that she relied heavily on lip-reading.  On the umpteenth prompting Sarah leaned forward to my mother and asked very loudly, ‘How are you at getting around?’  My mother suddenly became very animated,

            ‘Ooh, I’m very athletical – look!  Look!’

            My heart sinks as I see my mother waggling her ankles, which are raised on a small stool to prevent swelling, up and down.

‘So you are quite fit?’  Asks Sarah, more as a statement than a question.

My mother beams with pride.  I can see her place in her beloved care home slowly slipping away from her.  Sarah turns to me and I seize my opportunity. 

            ‘Look, my mother has dementia, she sees this as a test, and she’s remembering how she was not how she is now.’

            But Sarah sees no evidence of dementia.

            ‘How is your memory?’

            ‘My memory is wonderful.  There is nothing wrong with it!’

            My mother is beaming and now she is laughing.

            ‘Can you wash yourself?’ asks Sarah.

My mother explodes with laughter.

‘What a ridiculous question!  Can I wash myself?’ 

And, then, because my mother is laughing so much I find myself joining in.  I can’t stop myself.  I realise that I want to cry but I’m laughing instead.  How did we get to this situation?  Why did I not see this coming?  Have I been so focussed on Calum and his brother and the needs of my father that I forgot about my mother?  I feel like I’m in a Monty Python sketch.  The questions just get worse:

‘Can you cook for yourself?’

‘No – she can’t!’ I hiss in Sarah’s ear.

‘Yes I can!’ shouts my mother with glee.

Sarah turns and beams triumphantly at me.  I want to hit her.

            I’m sifting through my letters and papers on a cold, grey Sunday morning.  There’s a letter from a solicitor about the small, bungalow we will be buying for my father.  Did I reply to that?  Is that why the sale hasn’t progressed?  My father keeps telephoning:

            ‘What’s happening?’  He asks.  ‘When am I moving?  Have we got a date?  I need to know.  I need to sort things out.  I’ve got a side board I need to sell.  Can you get a man round to buy it? I want a man to come round and make me an offer!’

            I try to explain that it’s probably better to donate old furniture to charities than trying to sell it.  I think of my father’s side board from the 1970s with its rusty, green handles and mildew.  I’m thinking that even a charity wouldn’t want it.

            ‘I don’t want to give things away!  I want money for them!  I want a man round!’

            I tell him that mum may not be able to stay in her care home.  His reply is instant:

            ‘Well – she’s not coming back here!’

            I look at all these papers and feel very depressed about everything.  The world is grey.  Is there a point to any of this?  And then another sheet of paper falls into my hand. 

            ‘English: Holiday in Mallorca (Majorca)’ 

            What’s this?  I haven’t seen this before.  It’s in Calum’s handwriting on A4 lined paper.  I must have picked it up and mixed it up with all my ‘important’ papers when I was having a tidy-up. 

            ‘First day: The owners have a dog called Guapa which means beautiful in Spanish.  Settled down and unpacked our bags.  Feel excited for the holiday!’

            It’s a diary which Calum must have written upon our return after our summer holiday in Mallorca.  Earlier this year our neighbours, a lovely family which we all miss, moved to Andratx in Mallorca so we decided to go there for our annual holiday.  Reading Calum’s entries for each day I am back there in the heat, with the blue skies and our unusual landlords. Due to a mix up our landlords thought we would be arriving in the morning but we thought we couldn’t arrive until 4 pm.  Consequently, by the time we did arrive we were exhausted from the flight, shopping and generally trying to find things to do to fill in time whilst they were drunk from having had wine open for our expected arrival three hours earlier.  Our landlords were British and, although I had explained this to Calum he was still determined to practice some Spanish which he had been learning.  This was why in the general confusion of our late arrival we hear,

            ‘¿Habla español?’

            Everyone turns to look at Calum.  The older landlord, Grahame, inspects Calum and replies,

            ‘Si.’

            Calum beams.  Grahame then proceeds to welcome Calum in Spanish and introduce their dog, Guapa, also in Spanish.  I translate Grahame’s Spanish into sign language.  Calum then strokes Guapa and says,

            ‘Gracias.’

            Calum is especially proud of his Spanish ‘th’ sound which many British people find confusing and difficult to pronounce.

            Grahame stares at Calum whilst rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

            ‘Ah – I see – he’s deaf but can understand Spanish.  No English, then?’

            He looks at us but then walks off before we are able to understand what has happened or reply.  For the rest of the holiday when we do bump into Grahame, he speaks to Martin and I in English but to Calum in Spanish.  Unfortunately, I am unable to stop myself translating everything that Grahame says into BSL with the result that I reinforce his belief that Calum is unable to hear English but is able to hear and understand Spanish.  At one point Martin gets annoyed,

            ‘Why do you do that?  Why do you keep translating what he says into sign?  Why don’t you just tell him Calum is deaf?’

‘I HAVE!’

            ‘Well – tell him again!’

            I see Grahame by the pool and seize my chance.  I tell him that Calum is deaf.  Grahame looks at me and tells me that he knows that but that he also has known several disabled and blind people and that many people have impairments and that the world is made up of all sorts of people. 

            ‘No, I mean he’s deaf not Spanish.’

            I don’t know if it’s the heat, or the wine but Grahame looks at me as though I am slightly mad.  Then he clearly changes his mind about me, assumes he has misheard and says,

            ‘Yes, he’s an amazing wee chap.’

            We both go our separate ways, both wondering what the other one means.

            I carry on reading Calum’s Spanish diary.  ‘On another day I met six deaf ladies from Scotland and had a good conversation.’  Oh how well I remember that day.  We had spent the day in a water park and decided to go into Magaluf for the early evening just to see if it really was as bad as it’s depicted on television.  I am pleasantly surprised by the seafront.  I sign to Calum how nice it is.

            ‘Oh stop signing to me!’  He signs angrily.  ‘Speak it!’ he says. 

            Oh dear, I think to myself, this is the stroppy teenager who doesn’t want to appear Deaf.  I ask him, with speech, if he wants an ice cream.  He doesn’t understand.  I ask him in sign.  He understands immediately.  He signs ‘chocolate please’.  Suddenly a woman is standing up in a nearby bar and is waving to him.  She beckons to him as though she knows him. 

            ‘Do you know her?’  I sign to Calum but Calum is already at her table.  I walk over to the table with his chocolate ice cream.  Around the table are six women all involved in an animated conversation with Calum.  Their hands fly and their eyes sparkle.  They pull a chair over for Calum.  It’s a wonderful sight: seeing my son laughing having a conversation with a group of people on holiday.  I turn to my husband,

            ‘Let’s sit down and get a drink.  I don’t think we’ll be going anywhere for a while…’

            Those wonderful Deaf women were from Glasgow.  Two days later we spent a day at the water park with them.  It was so lovely meeting and spending time with them and I felt an incredible sense of pride in my son as a Deaf person.  I noticed hearing people looking at Calum and the women as they signed.  There was no sense of ‘oh gosh – they are deaf – poor things…’  It was more a sense of ‘oh – wow – look at those people signing!’  It was a great day, it was a wonderful day, it was a day on which Calum recharged his ‘Deaf identity’ batteries.

            Meeting up with our much-missed former neighbours they couldn’t get over just how much understanding of speech Calum had acquired.  They had left for Mallorca before Calum had had his implant operation.  We spent some wonderful days with them, too, swimming, laughing and catching up.  And then, too soon, our holiday was over.

            As we put our last bag into our hired car Grahame came out to wish us goodbye.  We said our goodbyes in English and then, turning to Calum, he said,

            ‘Adios!’

            ‘Adios!’ replied Calum. 

            Somewhere on is Mallorca there is an expatriate who tells stories of a deaf English boy he once met who couldn’t speak English but who could speak Spanish.   

We live in a crazy, mixed up world.  We get knocked down and then we get up again.  I thought my days of fighting Local Authorities were over.  Well, they might be as far as Calum is concerned but this time it’s the other end of the age spectrum waiting for action.  Righto Ms Social Worker Sarah, here I come…

 

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