The Visitors Read Online Free PDF Page B

the, is, as, it, her and all the rest. I make long sentences. Lottie and Father read them and pat me on my head to show their approval.
    One morning I ask Lottie, ‘Is it only you and Father who can read?’
    ‘No. Many people can read.’
    ‘Can Mother read?’
    ‘Yes.’
    I get straight to work. I arrange my letters with great care. They stretch across the table in the dining room, which has become our schoolroom. Lottie wants to help, but I tell her not to look. It is private.
    ‘Will Mother come down here?’ I ask Lottie.
    ‘I don’t think so.’
    So she helps me paste it on a sheet of paper. We collect a selection of spare letters and put them in an envelope. We have to wait until lunchtime to see Mother. I go in and take her hand as always. I give her the paper and the envelope. I wait while she reads. It says: ‘Mother. Please talk to me. I love you.’
    I wait. At first, there is no movement. I wonder if she is sleeping. Then I feel the bed shaking. I reach out and find her hand is wet. She raises mine to her cheeks and there are tears flowing down her face on to my hand. She takes my face in her hands and holds it there. She is looking at me. I smile and nod my head, to show her all is well. She takes me in her arms and holds me so tightly. I am nearly eight years old and it is my first hug with Mother. I cry also and we hold each other for a long time. When we have recovered ourselves, she takes the envelope and places letters on the bed. It is soft and bumpy, not ideal for messages, but I take each letter and feel it, reading slowly. She has written one word only: ‘Sorry.’
    The next day I am allowed to see Mother for longer. We bring the envelope and a tea tray on her lap on which to place them. I begin. It is a question I have wanted to ask for a long time.
    ‘Do you love me?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Why not finger spell?’
    ‘Ill.’
    ‘Where are you ill?’
    ‘Body. Mind.’
    ‘When will you be well?’
    ‘Better today.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘You.’
    Our first conversation. It is laborious, finding the correct paper letters, placing them on the tray only to find they slip and slide; and for speed’s sake we are forced to form simplistic sentences which frustrate my meaning. After, I tell Lottie that the paper letters are driving me to distraction. They are flimsy and crumpled, getting greasy and dog-eared from constant use. She tells me a printer in Maidstone made them, an expert in embossed paper. But Father is working on something much better. I must be patient. Soon, it comes. Father has constructed metal types for the alphabet and a wooden board with holes, where the alphabet blocks are slotted and can be removed to rearrange and spell out words. I am delighted and spend hours a day making sentences. I have to be dragged away for exercise and other lessons.
    Lottie brings me books. I open one and find the pages are full of raised letters. I can read whole sentences without having to make them myself. I remember in the Time Before trying to destroy Father’s books through ignorance and want. Now I can go away from Father and Lottie and sit on my bed; I have my own books, books I can read alone, without any help from another, without any explanation or filter from those who love me. I read of the alphabet, numbers and animals, picnics, jungles and the stars. I demand more and am given fairy tales, intrepid adventures, caves full of treasure, a child’s Bible. I dote on my books and hug them to me in bed, discarding dolls for a time. They are my new friends. I want more, yet I am told there are few books in raised letters and by now I have most of those from the catalogue. Yet still I yearn for more. Then I learn a new way of reading, no raised letters, instead bumps in patterns that stand for letters. Lottie and I learn the bumps and I spend hours applying them to new books Father has found for me. The patterns have a special name: Braille. Lottie explains that the blind use Braille to read