Razz
by Eleanor Cullen
Her
publishing December 23rd
Me
publishing December 24th
Them
publishing December 25th
Her
I was bewitched when I saw her. And she knew it.
She caught me staring, held my gaze until I felt all the warmth in my body make its way to my cheeks. Her lips twitched, but she didn’t laugh. Maybe I was too beneath her to be a source of amusement.
I looked away first, obviously. I studied the laminate beneath us, the one I’d walked on so many times before, as if this was my first introduction to grey floorboards.
The ceiling light flashed on and off, on and off, my cue to pay attention.
All the chairs, a mish-mash of different coloured plastic things and the odd metal one with a cushioned seat, were positioned in a circle. I sidled between the two in front of me and sat down, adjusting myself to avoid the faint penmarks underneath my leg. The childish scrawl of graffiti was a pleasant distraction from her. From looking back at her.
The remaining chairs filled, every other one at first – each person insistent on leaving a single seat either side of them until that became impossible. Dan sat next to me on my left, nobody on my right. I scoured the circle, but she hadn’t taken a seat yet. My breath hitched as each other chair was taken up by somebody who wasn’t her.
I took one of my braids in my hands, fingers stroking it up and down, down and up. A habit I thought I’d left behind in college.
Then it moved. The scrappy blue chair next to me with the slightly bent leg scraped across the floor, an unknown force dragging it backwards. I forced my eyes to look up and there she was. Her tan coat still buttoned tightly around her stomach, her brown scarf tucked round her neck and her brown thin-framed glasses perched on her nose. She squeezed herself into the circle, tucking her chair back again to rectify the ring of seats. She didn’t look at me this time.
Razz bustled in, dropping the usual tray of donuts on the table by the door. Her boots trailed a muddy path behind her, but we all knew she’d be staying behind to clear up anyway. She probably had a mop with her own name on in the storage cupboard, just for the days she forgot to wipe her feet.
Everyone had left the nicest chair for her, the one with the least amount of pulls in the scratchy woollen cushion and with the sturdy back that never threatened to give way because it had had enough. She took it with a grateful smile, then tugged up her sleeves. Around her wrists, covering the scars that only a few of us knew were there, were beaded bracelets. Probably made by her sister’s grandkids. She wore bangles once, but thankfully they seemed to have been left at home.
She delivered her regular welcome speech, telling us what was going to happen over the next hour and describing our little hall as a safe place. A sanctuary. The phrases used to make me nauseous with how pathetic they felt, but I was grateful for them in that moment. Grateful for them because my stomach was churning at the thought of her being so close to me. At her legs resting so close to mine. At her thigh getting closer and closer and… we were touching.
Razz gave me a knowing look as she continued, her eyes lingering on our legs and a smirk twitching at her mouth. The crafty old cow. What did she know?
Me
‘How do you know Razz?’ she signed to me. It was my eighth time going to the support group. My eighth social outing where I was relying on my own communication skills instead of letting my translator help. My eighth time sitting far close to the girl with the braids. The meeting hadn’t started yet, but the two of us had taken our usual seats beside each other.
‘Razz?’ I repeated. She’d fingerspelt the name, then followed it with what I could only assume was the sign name for the mysterious person. ‘Who?’
She looked at me as if I’d grown an extra head. ‘Razz,’ she signed again. Then, she pointed to the front door, specifically to the person walking through it.
It was the old lady I’d met several weeks ago, the one who’d invited me here in the first place and who hosted the sessions. She tottered in, wearing more layers than Stevie Nicks, and placed her tray on a table. Shrugging off her furry tasselled coat, she gave me a wink.
‘We met in the doctor’s,’ I explained, though I was sure she hadn’t introduced herself as Razz to me. But I wasn’t about to say that, to spend more of our precious time discussing the woman over there when I could be asking about the one in front of me.
The one in front of me smiled, content with that explanation. She always was. She was content when I first met her, though I know I made her nervous. She was content enough to let me sidle closer towards her each session until, on our fourth, I finally invited her out to a coffee shop afterwards. She was content to let me choose where we visited each session after that, content to let me ramble on about my life, content.
She wasn’t born deaf. I’m sure she’d be horribly self-conscious if she realised I could tell. Realised her signs lacked the fluency that she had yet to develop. It didn’t matter, though. She understood me when I went on my rants about Dan and John and the men who commandeered every conversation in every meeting and she always replied with apparent ease. She was content to let me chat, even when she didn’t agree.
‘Betty’s?’ I continued, signing that I was craving a hot drink.
‘Of course,’ she replied, her eyes lighting up the way they always did. Forcing me to light up too, for a smile to form without me giving it permission to do any such thing.
It settled me. Brought a calmness I didn’t know I needed. But maybe if it hadn’t, maybe if she hadn’t lightened up and she’d looked reluctant for once instead of content, it wouldn’t have happened.
‘Sorry,’ I signed as the two of us were leaving the community centre. I’d bumped into the old lady – sorry, Razz – as she was starting to tidy up. She turned around and I half expected a smile, or a wave of the hands to signal that it was okay, but I was met with a glare instead. A proper head to toe study and a glare.
‘The hell is her problem?’ I asked once we’d left. It didn’t do to sign anything secret in front of her; she could follow two sign conversations at the same time even if they were happening on opposite sides of the room.
‘What do you mean?’ We were just a few seconds away from the cafe over the road, from her hot chocolate and my mocha, but we stopped. Her to look at me wounded, as if I’d insulted her instead of Razz.
‘She can be so rude,’ I explained, not once stopping to think that maybe I shouldn’t insult this woman to someone who views her as a grandmother and even has a special name for her.
She visibly bristled, stepping away from me. ‘You’re calling somebody rude?’
For someone who had to learn sign language later in life, she sure knew how to place emphasis in a way that made her words sting.
My defence flew up then, outweighing all my rationale, and I defended myself starkly. Repeatedly. Probably, as much as I hate to admit it, rudely. The light in her eyes swapped places with fire, pure anger, and then, eventually it extinguished completely. She shook her head at me and turned away.
I couldn’t call after her, of course. In hindsight I could have run after her. Could’ve flung my arms around her shoulders and begged her to listen to an apology, a real one. But I watched her leave. My frustration replacing itself with sadness without me even realising.
I still go to the community centre every week. Never inside or as part of the actual group; I watch from our coffee shop. I see Razz hobbling in, holding food and wearing boots that are far too young for her. I see Dan and John, and the other stragglers as they arrive.
The girl with the braids will start coming back soon. She’ll wander in, use the notes app on her phone to tell the server that she’s deaf and she’d like a hot chocolate. I know she will. And I’ll swallow my pride and tell her that I love her.
Them
They were made for each other. That’s the kind of cliche crap I used to berate my sister for saying. She’d swoon over her best friend and her fifth husband, showing me the photographs they’d uploaded online and expecting me to ‘ooh and ‘ahh’ in the right places. I had a tendency to roll my eyes instead.
She still says things like that now, during our fortnightly video calls. Her from the villa in Australia she’s spending retirement in, me from my living room with its faded curtains and armchair. My nephew took the settee last time he visited, said I wouldn’t have much use for it now his mum was out of the country. I should’ve told him to eff off, really, but I didn’t.
Whilst my sister couldn’t have been more wrong about her friend and husband number five, I do think that maybe she has a point. Maybe people are made for each other. Those two at least.
One of them had known me for years. She joined the support group when her hearing first deteriorated and never left. She’d returned my ‘are they taking the mick’ looks across the room whenever certain group members said ridiculous things, shared my disgust at the men who took two donuts off the snack table without checking that everybody else had already had one. She was the only person who’d ever called me Razz, saying Ruth wasn’t quite a fabulous enough name for someone like me. She’d been right, of course.
She never opened up much. Never gave more details than was necessary, not aloud. She kept her signs simple, concise. She thought about everything she said. I liked that about her, because I knew she noticed far more than she let on. I don’t think she ever noticed that I’d orchestrated it though.
It was me who sent the other one in. She was in my GP surgery, signing with a fury I’d never seen before at the front desk. Her interpreter, having to translate for the poor receptionist, was red in the face and mumbling, clearly uncomfortable with the abundance of curse words he was having to say.
It was still going on when I left for my appointment and returned to book my next one. I had to stand behind them. The translator tried to tell the girl that they should leave, or at least ‘let the old woman’ behind them go first. Perhaps he didn’t realise I knew sign language. He certainly learned that I did when, just before I left the surgery, I corrected his translation of ‘daft old bint’.
We met twice after that, and maybe it was my sister’s habitual romanticising. Maybe it was knowing that my support group numbers were dwindling. But I got her to come along and, as those annoying twee types say, the rest is history. They took the sessions as chances to get to know each other until they decided to face the outside world.
There are only four people in the group now. Two elderly men, a teenager and a mother. It’s hard to find the motivation. The others leaving was expected, a blessing in some ways. But the two girls broke my heart.
It was just one session when, out of the blue, their seats were empty. There was no greeting of ‘Morning, Razz!’, no ‘Thank you Razz’, just boring old Ruth from everybody. My sister told me I should be glad, that it was a horrid nickname and I should be happy to be rid of the two of them. She doesn’t know what it’s like to be forgotten. To have the people who made you feel young again realise what a boring old cow you are and drop off the face of the earth. There’s every chance they broke up, I suppose, and that they simply avoid the group now in case they bump into each other.
There’ll be no need soon enough; they’re upping the rent and we can’t keep up. Soon the group will be gone just like them, like my sister, like my nephew.
There was post for me this morning. Actual, real, post, not just the flyers that get shoved through the letterbox every few days. This was an envelope. A creamy beige envelope, sealed with one of those stickers that looks like a wax seal. I couldn’t bend to grab it; my knees were playing up. But I grabbed the litter picker I keep in the hall for that purpose.
One arm against the wall, I maneuvered the stick so I could pick the letter up. A wedding invitation, judging by the church bells stamped in one corner and the illustration of lovebirds along the bottom. For a moment, I considered who might be getting married. Any grandchildren of cousins, any children of friends, but nobody came to mind. Nobody who would invite creaky old Ruth to a wedding.
I muttered under my breath. Next door’s post was always getting delivered to me, just because the postman couldn’t open their letterbox. I think they jammed it shut on purpose to stop getting all the takeaway leaflets; everyone on the street knows they’ve been on those weight loss jabs. They probably couldn’t bear the temptation of cheap pizza and thinking they’d lost all the money spent on needles.
The two of them came round every week or so, picking up the post that I got lumbered with. Never a thanks or an apology. Always in their ridiculous ‘activewear’ as if anybody believed that they dropped half their body weight going to a gym. For their insufferableness, I was tempted to torch the invitation; there was no point in them going to any such ceremony anyway when they can’t even try the cake. Taking the letter out of the picker’s grip, I brought it closer, squinting so I could read it properly.
Right there, in curly cursive, the letters as elegantly drawn as if they’d been printed, was the name Razz.
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