Look Who’s Talking

Her mum and dad were trying their best to get Milly to speak, but it was a losing battle . . .

SOMETIMES, when they started to argue, Milly would cover her ears and block out the noise by burrowing under the covers.

Sometimes, she would get as close to the argument as possible without being seen, listening to all the nasty, spiteful things they shouted and spat at each other, wondering how her own mum and dad could ever smile or hug each other again after saying such dreadful things.

She didn’t always understand what was being said, but she knew that it hurt her to hear it. She would sit in the shadows and dare herself to keep listening, with tears running hot and silent down her cheeks.

At other times, she would focus, her deep brown eyes narrowed in concentration as she tried to analyse the strange extremes of grown-up relationships.

Very occasionally, Milly could be detached and adopt a matter-of-fact attitude remarkable in a six-year-old. She would sit with her legs poking through the banister rail swinging to and fro, letting the volume of the latest disagreement wash over her.

Milly loved her parents. She knew that they loved her.

She also knew that they loved each other.

What she couldn’t understand was how love could be soft, sweet and reassuring, like Flopsy Ted or a huge pink marshmallow, but could also be spiky and itchy and hurtful like a cheese grater, or the thistles on the lawn.

She couldn’t put these contradictions into words.

One Thursday, Milly stopped talking. On her last evening of speaking she ate her tea of fish fingers, mashed potatoes and peas but didn’t want pears for pudding.

She had her bathtime and snuggled in bed in her pony pyjamas with Flopsy Ted while Mummy put away her toothbrush. Daddy read her “Snow White” because a meeting had been cancelled so he was home early.

Milly fell asleep, but a couple of hours later she was woken by the familiar sound of argument downstairs.

To begin with, Milly hid under the covers. Then she took Flopsy Ted to the landing and they listened together.

“You’re never here, Doug. I’ve been trying to be supportive of your precious career, but I’m on my feet all day at work, then I come back and keep the house going.

“It’s been the same for four years and I’m exhausted. This wasn’t what we wanted, was it? I don’t see you. It’s like you don’t even want to be home with us.”

“I do want to be here, and I do love you, Jan.”

“So why are we ending up like this, week after week? Where’s the happy-everafter we dreamed of? Because I’ll tell you something, this isn’t it!”

Suddenly, Milly decided that she would not speak again until Prince Charming came to find her and showed her what love really was and brought her a happy ever after. Just like in the book.

The next morning, in the rush of getting ready for school and work, Milly’s mum and dad didn’t notice that she had stopped speaking. No-one at school noticed, not even her friends at playtime.

When Milly wasn’t her usual chatterbox self on the journey home, her mum didn’t think anything of it.

She only thought it a little strange when Milly went straight up to her bedroom instead of asking to play outside or watch television.

After tea, as she cleared the dishes, Jan stroked Milly’s smooth hair.

“Are you all right today, Mill? You’re a bit quiet. I bet you were up reading again when you should have been asleep, weren’t you, silly sausage!”

Milly just looked up. Her mum was always doing that, asking her a question and answering for her.

“Hey, Millsy-moo!” her dad called when he came home. “What’s going on in the world?”

He ruffled her hair and carried on fetching his dinner from the oven and reaching for the television remote.

Two days later, they both accepted that something was wrong, and two weeks later they got a letter confirming an appointment with a behavioural psychologist.

Two months later, they actually got to see the man himself.

“Physically there’s no problem with her voice, and there doesn’t seem to be any deeper psychological trauma to worry about,” Dr Reed concluded after a few sessions with Milly.

“All Milly needs is time. Keep communicating with her as normal; don’t change that, try not to force anything.

“It’s a phase, a natural phase. She needs to work through it. If she’s still not talking in another three months, call my secretary and we’ll meet again.”

Later that evening, as Jan told Doug what the psychologist had said, it caused another argument.

“What is he on about? Our little girl hasn’t said a word for four months and we’re simply supposed to carry on? What about her schoolwork, her friends?”

“I don’t know, Doug. I don’t know anything about psychology, but he’s supposed to be the expert, isn’t he?”

“What if he’s not? What if we’ve taken our little girl to see a man who has no idea what he’s on about and gives us bad advice?”

They sat in silence for a minute, sharing the same feelings of fear over what was happening to their daughter and the same waves of helpless love for their child.

Doug reached out and took Jan’s hand.

Upstairs, in her bed, Milly lifted her head out from under the covers, listening.

“It’s going to be all right, honey. We’ll all get through this together.”

“I can’t bear to think of her so sad she’s refusing to talk to us. That’s apparently the problem, isn’t it? We’re supposed to be protecting her, yet we’re the ones who . . .”

“I know, but it’ll be OK. Come here.”

Doug and Jan started to spend their evenings searching on the internet for self-help groups and websites that might help them to learn more about what was happening to their little girl.

Every time the web searches flicked up something funny or irrelevant in their listings, Doug and Jan laughed like teenagers. It eased the tension of their desperate search for help.

Doug now kept regular hours at work and was always home for his quiet Milly-moo, so the family spent more time together.

They ate dinner together, watched TV programmes and even played board games for the first time in years in an attempt to draw Milly into speech.

They tried to give it space, give it time, but nothing seemed to work.

One weekend, they were invited to a barbecue by the new family around the corner.

Everybody was there: people they passed every day, people they hadn’t met before and people they hadn’t seen for years.

There was Mrs Townsend, now very old and bent; the Daniels family whose twin babies were starting primary school (“Doesn’t time fly!”) and the man who intrigued Milly the most – the old man with a white beard who wore too many clothes.

He had lived on the street for longer than anybody else and he always wore a full suit with shirt and tie, even on warm summer days like this one. He smiled and seemed to know everybody.

Milly liked to watch him: he always seemed to leave people laughing.

When he came over to Milly and her parents, Milly clutched her mum’s hand and half-hid behind her mum’s legs.

“Hello, little one. My name’s Freddy,” he said. “I do like that teddy bear. He’s rather flopsy!”

Milly’s mouth dropped open in surprise.

“That’s his name.” Jan laughed. “He’s called Flopsy Ted, isn’t he? And this is Milly.”

Freddy didn’t seem worried when Milly didn’t say anything. He smiled softly as if her silence were no problem in the slightest.

“Well, someone chose a wonderful name for you, didn’t they? I can see that your mum and dad adore you. It’s lovely to see a family doing things together.”

He was crouching down now, at Milly’s height.

“I see lots of little boys and girls whose mummies and daddies are so busy nowadays,” he whispered to Milly.

“They’re working so hard that they forget to tell their little girls how special they are, or how much they love them. Sometimes, they even forget to tell each other. Imagine that!” Milly gulped.

“Let me tell you a secret, Milly. Those mummies and daddies usually work so hard because they’re trying their best to look after their children and their family, trying to look after each other. And doing all that is a bit like saying ‘I love you’, too. Just without speaking!”

Milly smiled and squeezed Flopsy Ted a bit tighter.

“Sometimes, mummies and daddies need to hear ‘I love you’ just as much as you do. They need it from each other and they need it from their children.

“Cuddles, too, and great big kisses. After all, that’s what was strong enough to wake up Snow White, wasn’t it?”

Freddy stood up and told Jan that Milly was a delightful child. Then he did something very strange. He bent over, took Milly’s hand and kissed it.

“I am charmed to have met you, little Milly, and I have very much enjoyed speaking with you and Flopsy Ted.”

Off he went to talk to other families. Milly and her parents wore bemused smiles on their faces.

On the way home, Milly listened to her mum and dad chatting as they walked beside her.

“Fancy Freddy Prince still being around – I haven’t seen him in ages!”

“Used to be the local doctor, didn’t he? Such a lovely man, Doctor Prince. Even now, he always makes you feel better. That’s a real doctor for you.”

“True,” Jan agreed. “He was absolutely charming to Milly, wasn’t he, sweetheart?”

As if it were perfectly normal, Milly answered.

“Yes, Mummy. He was charming – Freddy Prince Charming, ha, ha!”

As her mum and dad tried hard not to over-react at this breakthrough, Milly capitalised on the captive audience, as children naturally do.

“Maybe we could all go and get some ice-cream before we go home,” she ventured casually. “What do you think?”

Doug and Jan glanced at each other, grinning.

“I think that’s a great plan,” Doug said.

“Good.” Milly’s brow furrowed, and she took a deep breath. “Um, I love you, Mummy. And you, Daddy.”

“Love you, too, MillsyMoo,” they answered, as they always had.

Then they squeezed hands for a moment, which Milly knew was another way that parents tell each other they love each other.

So the three of them, plus Flopsy Ted, carried on walking into the sunset, towards a future with lots of cuddles and, quite possibly, a happy ever after. n

Sometimes mummies and daddies need to hear “I love you”, too