We went to a pub she knew, the Horse and Hounds, I think; I
remember it was really noisy, crowded, with that thick feeling in the air you
get when there are too many people in a small space. That’s where being blind
comes in useful, though, ‘cause people make room for you, move out of your way
a bit most of the time; I think Heather appreciated it, anyway, we got served
pretty quick. Blind man and pretty girl, huh, pretty much perfect for getting
served at bars. Well, we got our drinks, made our way to the table, she led me
over, actually, because I remember the feeling of her hand on my back through
my coat and how it seemed to, I don’t know, kind of concentrate me in that one
sensation, made the feeling of her hand all I could concentrate on for a
moment... Anyway, we sat down and we started talking and we really hit it off. We
talked about my eyes and my life and I asked her what colour her eyes were, and
she told me they were green, and she let me touch her eyelids and I could see
the green through my fingers, the kind of green you get when sun shines through
an oak leaf, where you can see the life framed against the sky. And she let me
feel the rest of her face and make a picture up of her...
I still remember that picture, that first picture I had of
her. Funny, really; you’d think with what happened afterwards I wouldn’t
remember that, but I do. I knew she was blonde because she told me; I pictured
a kind of dirty blonde, that kind of almost-brown, like honey mixed with
chocolate. And her face was soft, I remember that too; her nose was small, her
mouth was small too, and it was so soft, like someone had soaked it in water
for an hour, you know? She sounded perfect, she felt perfect; and she liked me.
Can you believe that? She actually liked this blind bloke she’d just picked up
off the street. She said later it was because I’d made her laugh, and she said
she didn’t laugh much. I wanted her to laugh all the time, thought I could make
her laugh all the time, didn’t want to do anything else. I mean, it wasn’t love
at first sight or anything, hah, couldn’t be, but maybe love at first touch. I
could believe that, love at first touch. And I knew that this picture of her
was mine, and only mine, because everyone else would see her with their eyes
and I saw her with my fingertips and my ears and my nose and so I had a picture
that no-one else but me could ever see.
And she told me about her life, and how she worked in a
charity shop and loved kittens and how her mom had been really sick when she
was a little girl and- well, all the things you talk about when you meet a new
person you like. I think we knew more about each other after that first drink
than most people know about each other in their whole lives. Anyway, we
arranged to meet up again, and again after that, and things just seemed to slip
into place, and we were going out.
She’d come round some evenings and we’d sit and listen to
the radio together or she’d read me a book, and we’d hold hands... I remember
our first kiss, the first kiss I’d had in ten years, the way we were sitting at
a table in the pub and we were talking and I said I loved her and felt her
breath stroking my cheek so I could see where her lips were, where her face
was, and leaning in as she put her hand on the back of my neck and I could see
her fingers as they curled in my hair...
It was the best I’ve
ever felt in my life, just feeling the softness of her lips and tasting
strawberries on her tongue. Since then I always saw her lips as being red as
strawberries; that was another thing about not being able to see, it meant the
picture in your head could change without the thing you were picturing having
to change at all. And I did love her, as well, I wasn’t just saying it to get a
kiss; I loved the way she felt when she held my hand and the way she always
smelt like strawberries even after a hard day and the way she’d laugh whenever
I said something stupid or not even that funny. I loved that I could make her
laugh. And even though I couldn’t see her I felt like I knew what she looked
like; I knew she had slender hands and she wasn’t that tall and she had dirty
blonde hair and green eyes like the leaves on a tree and she loved the colour
purple, because she said it always reminded her of her name.
After that, things just kind of melted into reality. She
told me she loved me as well, told me while we sat stroking each others’ faces
on the sofa in my flat, and it felt like I was flying above the clouds. That
was my picture of love, then; flying above the clouds and seeing them red and
gold as the sun came up above them... That’s one of the things about not being
able to see physical things, you know, it means you can see abstracts, see
things that don’t really exist except in your head. So love was like being
above the clouds, and hope was like a fire burning against a deep, dark forest,
and sadness was this kind of purple smoke that folded itself around things and
became solid and wouldn’t let go... People who can see can’t see that, because
they were too preoccupied with what they could see; or at least I was when I
could see, before I went to Northern Ireland and the nail took out both my
eyeballs in less than one second and changed my life forever.
Soon enough Heather moved in with me; said we spent so much
time together anyway that it made sense, and anyway it would be better for me
to stay in a place I knew well enough to walk around even without my dog to
guide me. And we loved each other, me
and Heather, as much as we ever could, and we learnt about each other, met
parents and everything, shared everything that two young people in love usually
share, hopes and pains and dreams...
Maybe I should have started here, because this is where all
the trouble started, really. We were sitting on my sofa, she was stroking the
dog and I was stroking her hair, working out the new style she’d had done with
my fingers, and she was reading a magazine with her other hand, just flicking
through while we listened to the radio. Then I felt her tense up under my hand,
and I asked her what was wrong, what was up. And she laughed, kind of
nervously, really, there’s a little tremor in her laugh I hadn’t heard there
before and didn’t like too much. I suppose that should have made me pause,
but... She said there was an article in this magazine, this thing about a doctor
in America who’d perfected an eye transplant. Like, you’d get a pair of eyes
from someone who’d died, like an organ donor type deal, and as long as they
were kept in the right conditions you could use them to replace the eyes of
someone who’d lost their eyes. Obviously, we were both excited. I mean, I dealt
with having no eyes, had to deal with it, but I missed it, you know? Missed
being able to see new stuff properly, regretted that I’d never really seen
Heather as she really was, just a picture in my mind and my fingertips... So
yeah, we were excited. And I’d saved up some money, I mean it’s not like I was
going to theme parks every weekend, right, and so we decided to go to this
doctor’s clinic and see what he could do. Tried not to get our hopes up, because
I’d lost my eyes so long ago and neither of us really understood exactly what
the ins-and-outs of the operation were, and we knew it was a risky procedure
but we talked about it and decided we’d give it a go. And in about a week we’d sorted
some stuff out and got on a plane to America and then we were in New York and
knocking on the door of this doctor and sitting down, hand in hand, in his
office.
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