Constance. Rosie Thomas

shook her head. ‘No. You won’t. You’re just an ordinary little girl.’

      This was how Constance learned that deafness wasn’t something that happened automatically to children in her family.

      From about that time, whenever she looked at her sister a feeling that seemed bigger than herself had pumped through Connie. It was her first experience of pity and sympathy, and it was mixed with relief that she wasn’t going to be like her after all, and with guilt for being relieved.

      She didn’t confess what she felt even to Tony – how could she explain what she didn’t properly understand herself?

      It was just that plenty of people, not only Hilda, already made an extra fuss of Jeanette. Mrs Dix in the newsagent’s gave her a pink lipstick that came off the front of a magazine, and when Hilda took them to buy new shoes the shop man brought out half the pairs in the back room for her to try on. It took so long for her to choose that Connie had to have the same style as the old ones she had grown out of, which meant nobody could see they were brand-new. It wasn’t fair, even though Jeanette was deaf and Connie felt sorry for her.

      Tony shifted Connie’s weight on his lap and hugged her tighter. ‘You know your sister’s deaf,’ he repeated. ‘Yes?’

      Connie picked at one of the tiny brown looped threads in the arm of the chair. She tucked her head under Tony’s chin and gave the smallest nod.

      ‘It’s hard for her. She’s going to have difficulties in her life that you never will. We have to make allowances for her. It’s hard for your mum, too.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘Because Jeanette inherited her deafness from Mum’s family.’

      ‘How?’

      ‘These things get passed down, from mothers to their babies. Like Martin’s hair, which is the same as his mum’s hair, isn’t it?’

      Martin was a boy Connie knew from her old school – the one she wouldn’t be going to any more because it was too far from Echo Street. Martin and his mother both had hair the colour of the nasturtiums that grew in the front garden in Barlaston Road.