‘Good. My time belongs to Joey. I’ll contact an agency and get someone to come in.’

‘Anything you say.’

Over the second glass of wine, he said, ‘You’d better tell me about sign language.’

‘There’s two kinds. Finger-spelling, which has a different sign for every letter. But it would take too long to spell every word out, so some words have signs of their own. Like this.’

She flattened her hand, fingers together and thumb apart, and laid it on her breast. Then she swept it down and up in a circle until it lay on her breast again.

‘That’s the sign for “please”. Try it.’

He did so, awkwardly.

‘No, keep your thumb separate,’ she advised.

This time he got it right.

‘Your first word,’ she said proudly. ‘If you spelled it out with your fingers it would look like this.’

She showed him, making each letter separately. ‘There are signs for most words, so that you talk fast.’

‘That sounds like an awful lot of signs to learn.’

‘Don’t tell me the man who built up Page Engineering doubts his own ability to learn something his little son can do?’

‘Very clever! Do you take this approach with Joey?’

‘I don’t have this much trouble with Joey. He’s bright as a button, and he never doubts that he can do things. That’s half the battle.’

He grinned, and she felt an obscure disturbance within her. ‘All right, teacher. On with the lesson.’

She laughed at him. She was still high from her victory.

‘It’ll come easier than you think,’ she said. ‘And you’ll have Joey to help you.’

‘If you imagine I’m going to let him see me fumbling-’

‘Give me patience! Carson, Joey will be thrilled that you’re doing this for him, and if you let him teach you it’ll make him happier than anything.’

‘Hmm!’

She could tell that the thought of being seen at a disadvantage was still hard for him to cope with, so she wisely didn’t press the matter.

‘Anyway, you’ll master the signs, but you need the alphabet as well, because some words are too complicated for just one sign.’

‘Then it’s about time I started learning my alphabet.’

She held up her hand. ‘A-B-C-’

He followed her carefully, until he could get as far as M, without prompting. To his chagrin, that was as much as he could master in one evening, but Gina seemed pleased.

‘What would you do if I went halfway and then broke my word?’ he said. ‘About the holiday, for instance?’

She gave him a curious smile. ‘Funnily enough, it never once occurred to me that you’d go back on your word. Was I wrong?’

‘No, you weren’t wrong. It’s rather alarming that you understand me so well.’ He thought for a moment. ‘I’ve got a friend who owns a travel agency. It’s late to be booking Disneyland but he’ll be able-no?’ For Gina was shaking her head. ‘Not Disneyland?’

‘Not Disneyland. Kenningham.’

‘Kenningham? That little seaside resort on the west coast? It’s a dump.’

‘It’s got the best aquarium in the country. We could spend two days there, then go on to the second best aquarium. You know what Joey’s interests are. Or I should say “interest”, singular, because it’s all he cares about. I shouldn’t be surprised if one day he makes a real contribution to marine science.’

‘Right,’ he said, with the barest touch of scepticism in his voice.

‘Carson, I’m serious. Joey is deaf, not stupid. His problem is that when he tries to talk he sounds stupid, but you’ve got to get beyond that. He has a first-class brain.’ She tried a lighter note. ‘Could Carson Page’s son have anything else?’

He looked at her curiously. ‘You’re not just telling me this because you think he has to be bright before I can love him?’

‘Have I said that?’

‘You think it.’

‘Is it true?’

‘No, it isn’t,’ he said shortly. ‘You may not think so but I love my son very much. Give me your glass. I’ll refill it.’

This was so clearly a way of changing the subject that she didn’t pursue it. Carson loved his son, but woe betide anyone who tried to talk about it. She was more convinced than if he’d made a long speech.

She sipped her wine before saying thoughtfully, ‘Tell me, what do you know about wrasse?’

‘Nothing. What is it?’

‘Joey knows all about wrasse. He can talk about them for hours.’

‘Them? Not it?’

‘Right.’

‘I feel as if I’ve walked into a madhouse.’

‘The point is, wrasse is something you ought to know about.’

‘Something to do with marine life?’ he hazarded, clutching at straws.

‘That’s right.’

‘I’ll find out-’

‘No, don’t. Joey’s an expert. Let him tell you.’

‘Will that-make him happy?’

He was studying her face carefully, as a man might watch an unpredictable creature that could spring either way. Somewhere there was a key to this conversation, but only she had it.

‘Very happy,’ she told him.

‘Then I’ll do it.’

‘But no looking it up. That’s cheating. Let him tell you.’

‘Whatever you say.’

He watched her for a moment as she leaned forward to put down her wineglass. Her hair swung free, and after a moment he reached out to gently ease it back, revealing a tiny device behind her ear.

‘Is that the implant you told me about?’ he asked.

‘That’s right. There’s a bit more actually inside my ear. It needs an operation to put it there.’

‘And it cures your deafness?’

‘No, I’m still deaf. If this is switched off I can’t hear any more than Joey. But if it’s on I can discern noises and understand them. Not exactly as you do, but enough for a normal life.’

‘I don’t understand. How can you hear and still be deaf?’

‘In hearing people, the sound comes into the outer ear, crosses the inner ear and makes contact with the auditory nerve. But if the hairs of the inner ear aren’t working, then they can’t pick up the sound and transmit it to the nerve. A cochlear implant stimulates the hairs electrically instead of accoustically, and the sound gets passed on that way. I’m surprised Joey’s specialist didn’t mention implants to you a year ago.’

Carson grimaced. ‘He kind of did, when we realised that Joey was finally deaf. I don’t think I took much in. I was so shattered, I was blocking out a good deal. Besides, it seemed such a terrifying operation, drilling through his skull.

‘We put it on hold-just for a while, we thought. But then Joey caught pneumonia. He’s always been liable to chest infections. And after that he got every bug going-colds, flu, bronchitis. For months it was as if he finished one thing and started another. The doctor said he couldn’t think of operating until Joey had put all that behind him.’

‘And now?’

‘Now he’s well and strong again, so perhaps-do you really think-?’ His face was suddenly as full of eagerness as his son’s when something pleased the child. The likeness made Gina smile.

‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘It might be time to take him back to the specialist and have him assessed for one of these. But, Carson, please don’t pin your hopes on this. Not everyone is suitable. But it’s worth finding out. If it’s going to happen, I’d like it to be while I’m around.’

‘He might be able to hear,’ Carson said slowly, ‘and talk-’

‘Eventually. He’d have to learn to talk from scratch, like a baby does, only he’ll find it hard because he’s older.

‘I was lucky because I learned to talk before I went deaf and that helps a lot. When I started hearing sounds again I could remember what they meant. But Joey hardly had any chance to hear sounds, so he’ll need to learn them all from the beginning before he can start to speak. Joey will need speech therapy and it’ll take time-at least a year, maybe longer.’ She gave him a mischievous look. ‘So you’ll still need to learn that signing, to communicate with him in the meantime.’

‘You’re the boss!’

‘Give me the details of his specialist and I’ll fix a meeting.’

‘All right. I’m in your hands.’ After a moment he added, ‘Perhaps that’s the best place to be.’

He saw her upstairs and together they looked in on Joey, who was sleeping deeply. When Carson had bid her goodnight he went to his own room, thoughtful.

His head was full of Gina, but he couldn’t make out which one. There seemed to be so many of her.

He’d met her first as the sweet, funny, slightly crazy girl who’d dented his car. She’d charmed him, but it had been an hour’s fleeting delight.

When they’d seen each other again, everything had been different. She’d met Joey in circumstances that had made her condemn Joey’s father, and before Carson’s eyes she’d changed into an avenging fury. The sun she’d briefly shone on him had vanished, replaced by thunder and lightning.

Now there was another Gina, practically a schoolmarm, telling him that he would do this and that-or else! He grinned slightly at the memory.

It amazed him that she saw herself as a little brown mouse. Because, of course, she wasn’t a mouse at all. For Joey’s sake she would take on the whole world. She’d taken on Carson Page without trouble, he reflected wryly. He didn’t know how all this was going to end, but deep instinct told him it could end well-although whether only for Joey, or for himself as well, he still wasn’t sure.

Being Carson Page, he arrived home next day with printed sheets showing signs and finger-spelling.

‘I tried to make a start,’ he told Gina. ‘I even practised a couple of letters in my office but my secretary came in and saw me doing it. She gave me the oddest look.’

‘Won’t she just assume you’re doing it for your deaf son?’

‘She doesn’t know. Nobody does.’ She was silent and he challenged her angrily, ‘Say it!’

‘Nobody must know that Carson Page did something less than perfectly,’ she said, angry in her turn.

His temper flared. He was doing his best, dammit, but she wouldn’t give him any credit. ‘By God, you’re a hard, judgemental woman!’