The quiet table

Source: an original fiction extract.

At the family lunch, Ella placed her grandfather beside the window because she thought he would like the view. The table was crowded with bowls, elbows and people finishing one another's sentences. He smiled when she pulled out his chair, then rested his hearing aids in their small case. Ella assumed he wanted a break from the noise. She brought him water and explained loudly that the potatoes were coming. He nodded. Across the table, her cousins began telling a story about a disastrous camping trip. Her grandfather watched their faces without joining in.

Whenever somebody asked him a question, Ella repeated it closer to his ear. Sometimes he answered; sometimes he smiled as though the question were a compliment. She began answering for him when she knew what he would probably say. Did he want more gravy? Not much. Was his garden doing well? The beans were excellent. It seemed helpful to keep the meal moving. Then her cousin asked about a photograph of a motorbike in the hallway, and Ella said it had belonged to him when he was young. He put down his fork and looked at her.

After lunch, she found him in the kitchen rinsing a glass. She asked whether the noise had tired him out. He said the batteries in his hearing aids had run down and he had forgotten the spares. Ella said she wished he had told her. He said he had tried while everyone was arriving. She remembered him touching his ear at the front door. She had thought he was adjusting something. For a moment she felt annoyed that he had not tried again. Then he asked whose motorbike she had been describing. The one in the photograph, she said. It had belonged to his sister.

He sat at the small kitchen table and told her how his sister had bought the bike with money earned at a bakery. Ella sat opposite, where he could see her face. She asked one question at a time and waited. The story took longer than it would have at the lunch table. He paused to remember a road's name, then corrected a date without being prompted. Her cousin came in looking for the cake knife and stayed. When Ella began to explain the story, her grandfather raised a finger. She stopped and let him begin again.

Before he left, they found a packet of suitable batteries in the drawer where Ella's mother kept spare household things. Her grandfather fitted them and said the room sounded much too loud again. He was smiling. Ella asked where he would like to sit at the next lunch. He said not beside the window, because the light behind people's heads made their faces difficult to see. She moved the chair back into place after he had gone. The view was still good. She could now imagine why it had not been the most useful thing to offer.

Consider the whole source. A reader said: “Ella’s actions are caring, but she confuses making things easier for everyone else with helping her grandfather participate. The writer shows her learning to listen rather than speak for him.” Evaluate how far you agree. Support your judgement with detailed references to the text and the writer’s methods.