Tread Softly

by Wendy Perriam

  ‘Can I tempt you to some nibbles?’ Olive proffered bowls of roasted nuts.

  ‘Mm, lovely.’ Lorna took a handful, wondering when they were going to eat. Tantalizing smells were wafting from indoors: garlic, roasting meat. She still wasn’t sure what the dinner was in aid of. Did the Kirkwoods simply like to socialize with business contacts, or was another order in the offing? But what was there left to Astroturf? The sitting-room? Hugh’s bald patch?

  ‘This weather’s a bit iffy,’ observed a man in a blue blazer and matching cravat. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if we were in for a shower.’

  Lorna looked at the sky expectantly. A nice sharp shower would mean they could go in and sit down. There were chairs and loungers in the garden, but no one was actually lounging, and she could hardly sprawl horizontally while the others remained vertical. Bunionless mortals couldn’t imagine the torture of standing. For some time now excruciating spasms had been stabbing through both feet. She wished she could unscrew them and stand on her stumps. Or perhaps borrow one of the statues’ plinths for support. Not that she would change places with the naked Venus in her rose-bower (synthetic roses, of course). It was cold enough with clothes. People’s predilection for congregating in gardens regardless of the temperature never failed to amaze her. Regardless, too, of the insect population. Squadrons of midges and mosquitoes were mingling with the guests, and two inebriated wasps clung to a pineapple-raft in the punch.

  ‘Yes, the long-term forecast isn’t good,’ Alice/Caroline remarked, gold bangles jangling as she sipped her punch. ‘Not that we’re too worried, are we, darling?’ She smiled smugly at the man beside her. ‘Bill and I are off on a Mediterranean cruise next week.’

  ‘Oh, lovely,’ Lorna said, recalling the nightmare of her honeymoon cruise with Ralph. The Terrors had assailed her the very first evening. The trouble with ships was that you couldn’t get off, apart from brief trips ashore. Sightseeing in Alexandria, she had been severely tempted to make a bolt for it and return to the safety of home. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘All over the place. Athens, Venice, Malta, Rhodes …’

  ‘Lovely,’ she said, third time. She stole a glance at Ralph, who was regaling a bespectacled man with more sales patter: the advantages of artificial grass for children’s playgrounds. She was glad it wasn’t around when she was a child. She remembered lying on her back in a nice, wet, muddy field at the age of six or seven, gazing up at the sky in the hope of a glimpse of her parents. Should heaven be so grey, she had wondered anxiously?

  ‘Lorna …’ Olive bustled up again. ‘Did Ralph tell you we had a new grandchild?’

  ‘No, he didn’t mention it.’

  ‘Yes. A little girl, born on Monday. I’ve been boring all the others with the pictures. Would you like to see them?’

  ‘Pictures so soon?’

  ‘Oh yes. And Brian videoed the birth, right from the moment Daphne’s waters broke.’

  Lorna hoped she would be spared the gory details. She took the padded pink album, glad of an excuse to sit down. It was surely physically impossible to look at photos standing up with a drink in her hand. She studied each page politely, although with a growing sense of emptiness. No children meant no grandchildren; your world unpeopled, futureless. ‘What a gorgeous baby,’ she said, wishing she had something to show in return. Perhaps she should have videoed her miscarriages or come armed with a sheaf of photos of bloody little foetuses. ‘And what’s her name?’

  ‘Brianna.’

  ‘That’s unusual.’

  ‘Yes, isn’t it? They were hoping for a boy, who was going to be Brian junior, so they chose it as the female equivalent.’

  Lorna pondered the irony of childbirth: everyone beginning life inside someone else, yet, once they emerged from the womb, becoming isolated from other human beings; each adult person separate, cut off.

  ‘My daughter likes exotic names as well,’ Olive continued. ‘She called her two boys Zachary and Sheldon. My son-in-law wanted James and John, but I’m afraid he was outvoted!’

  ‘You can’t beat James,’ Blue Blazer declared. ‘My name!’

  Lorna smiled at him gratefully – at least she’d got one straight. And Clarence she remembered because the name didn’t suit its owner – a weaselly individual with a straggly grey moustache. ‘Our son’s called James,’ he was saying, as he dislodged a lemon-pip from his teeth.

  ‘Yes, how is he?’ asked Jean/Joan. ‘We haven’t seen him in ages.’

  ‘Oh, he’s doing famously. He got ten GCSEs this year and passed Grade 8 in violin.’

  Lorna pictured the teenage prodigy: a budding Einstein-cum- Menuhin, mortar-board on head, violin case under arm, and not a trace of acne or adolescent angst.

  Having expounded further on his son’s accomplishments, Clarence broached the subject of television. ‘Did anyone see The South Bank Show last week?’

  Lorna groaned inwardly. Children and television were two conversational zones she could enter only in a state of total ignorance. Ralph monopolized the television each evening, while she sat in the study with a book.

  As the discussion moved from Melvyn Bragg to Newsnight, she studied the women’s shoes. Amazing that they could stand at all in such torturous creations: strappy sandals, slingbacks, towering stiletto heels. She had never owned such footwear in her life. From an early age both she and her feet had been ‘difficult’ (Aunt Agnes’s word).

  She dragged herself up from her chair. Being the only one sitting, and thus on an eyeline with people’s stomachs rather than their faces, made her feel somewhat out of things. She just hoped dinner wouldn’t be long. Dusk was deepening into dark, and a contingent of fluttery moths had boosted the ranks of winged gatecrashers. Brushing one from her face, she noticed the goose-flesh on her arms. A pity the coloured lights couldn’t double as a source of heat. An idea for Ralph, perhaps, once the entire world was Astroturfed and he needed pastures new.

  ‘Dinner is served!’ Olive announced, conveniently saving her guests from pneumonia. ‘Hugh, if you’d take everybody in I’ll dish up the soup.’

  Soup. Perfect! Something warming to start the meal. Lorna tried not to appear too eager as she followed Hugh back into the house, although just the prospect of a long-term chair seemed a blessed relief. Ralph, she knew, would have liked another drink and was lingering on the patio, possibly planning a hasty retreat through the artificial shrubbery. Again she sought to compensate as Hugh ushered them into the dining-room. ‘Oh, what a lovely table! You’ve gone to so much trouble.’ Indeed, raided the silver vault. Candelabra, napkin-rings, goblets, cruet, mustard-pot – all were gleaming silver. There were even silver name-holders at each place, the names written in curlicued script. She did a surreptitious check. It was Jean, not Joan, and there was also a Robert she didn’t remember meeting.

  ‘You’re here, my dear,’ said Hugh, pulling out a chair for her. ‘And Robert opposite. Clarence, you’re at this end. And, Ralph, if you’d like to sit next to Jean…’

  Lorna watched her husband peer at his name, his eyebrows rising slightly – in disbelief? Amusement? (If she invested in silver name-holders would he join her for meals at the table at home?) She could see him twice – facing her in the flesh and the back of his head reflected in the mirror on the wall behind him. He looked tired tonight, and worn. Sometimes people mistook them for father and daughter, which was both embarrassing and hurtful. Not that there was any physical resemblance. Her eyes were dark; his faded blue. Her thick, straight hair was tawny-brown; his, once blond, was now grey and thinning. And, while he was tall and effortlessly lean, she was barely five foot two and could put on weight just looking at a chocolate bar.

  Olive brought in garlic-bread. Its pungent smell made Lorna want to grab a hunk and sink her teeth into the moist, butter-oozing flesh. But she sat demurely, storing up a word-hoard for the meal to come. Enough of ‘lovely’: it must be superb, delicious, exquisite from now on.

  ‘Superb,’ she rehearsed, only to
see her mocking reflection in the mirror, exaggerating her faults: childishly red cheeks that made her look as if she’d overdone the rouge; the tiny but maddening gap between her front teeth. Hugh had prominent teeth, like tombstones. ‘All the better to eat you with, my dear …’ Did he and Olive still make love? What was he like in bed? A wolf? A pussycat?

  Olive entered with a tray of soup-bowls (flower-patterned, of course). ‘It’s vichyssoise,’ she said, setting them out with a flourish.

  Lorna rubbed her chilly arms. If there was one soup she loathed it was vichyssoise – a bland, insipid sludge that for some inexplicable reason was considered socially superior to a more robust kind like oxtail. Yet oxtail had a kick to it, was colourful and spicy and served vibrantly hot, not cold like congealing porridge.

  ‘Delicious!’ she said, holding the first spoonful in her mouth like a particularly vile medicine. Eventually she forced it down, turning the instinctive shudder into a little start of delight. ‘You must let me have the recipe.’

  ‘Oh, it’s simplicity itself. Just potatoes and cream, basically.’

  Lorna toyed with her spoon. If only she could tip the stuff into Ralph’s bowl. He was eating in his usual morose fashion, but that was no reflection on the soup. If Olive had served him truffled foie gras his expression wouldn’t have lightened.

  Lorna stared at the gobbet of cream swirled into the surface of the soup – white on white. White like bandages and hospitals. No, she mustn’t think about the operation. Anaesthetics were the ultimate in Terror: sinking down, down, down to some nameless hideous void. Maybe still awake but paralysed, screaming silently in pain. No one able to hear. She glanced around at the deaf, oblivious faces – Olive’s glistening crimsoned lips opening and shutting as she prattled on.

  ‘Yes, Brian’s just been promoted. We’re frightfully proud.’

  White. White like bones. The surgeon hacking off great lumps of bone, slicing into tendons.

  ‘We’re taking them out to celebrate next week. Daphne’s worried about a babysitter, but …’

  White. White like shrouds. Her parents had died instantly, according to Aunt Agnes, and went straight to heaven, hand in hand. Now she knew there wasn’t a heaven. Food for worms, that’s all.

  ‘Mind you, they could bring the baby with them if we went to that nice Italian place. Do you know it, Ralph? – Marco’s, in Guildford?’

  Through a fog she heard Ralph’s voice, ponderous and slow. Nothing else was slow. Her heart was racing and there was an avalanche in her stomach, tilting and churning its contents. Her head throbbed and burned, droplets of perspiration trickled down her back, yet at the same time she was shivering. She was hot and cold, like the soup and the garlic-bread. She ought to be eating, but her throat felt constricted and her hands were trembling so much she couldn’t hold the spoon. Why had no one noticed? Bill was laughing, for God’s sake, and his wife filling the air with words words words words words.

  ‘I’m having trouble deciding what to pack for the cruise. Bill says I always take too much, but it’s easier for men. They don’t need evening dresses. Or leotards and tights.’

  Lorna dabbed at her face with a napkin. Distraction – that was the key. The Panic Manual suggested offering to wash up, but there weren’t any dirty plates yet and, anyway, Olive didn’t seem the type to let guests help in the kitchen.

  She pressed her hand against her chest to stop her heart from racing out of control. Vigorous exercise was also recommended – running on a treadmill, jumping up and down on the spot. Not possible in Olive’s fancy dining-room, with an audience of nine.

  ‘The trouble with you lovely ladies is you’re far too vain. It beats me why you need a dozen different outfits every day just to watch the waves.’

  ‘Oh, Bill, you are a tease! I bet you’re just the same, aren’t you, Lorna?’

  Lorna caught sight of herself in the mirror. How could she look so normal when her mind and body were disintegrating? Reflection blurring, walls closing in, voices no longer issuing from people’s mouths but darting round the room, spiteful little arrows piercing her skin, skewering her eyes.

  ‘Go on, Lorna, tell Bill you agree with me. I mean, if you’re invited to sit on the captain’s table you can’t appear in any old thing, can you?’

  With a despairing cry Lorna staggered to her feet and lurched towards the door. If she didn’t escape she would die.

  ‘How could you, Lorna? In front of the Kirkwoods, of all people.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured, not daring to meet his eye. For once, he was facing her.

  ‘Being sorry’s no help. We’ve obviously lost them as clients. And the others are bound to talk. It’ll be all round Surrey that my wife’s a nutcase.’

  Lorna picked at a loose thread on her skirt. It wasn’t just a matter of losing business: she had humiliated him in public, and that for Ralph was unbearable. ‘Olive … seemed to understand.’

  ‘Oh, she was humouring you, that’s all.’ He struck a succession of matches in an attempt to light his pipe. ‘What’s wrong with these damn things?’

  ‘Ralph, you promised you wouldn’t smoke any more.’

  ‘I haven’t smoked. For eight days. And it’s practically killed me, I’ll have you know.’

  ‘You’ve done brilliantly, darling. Don’t spoil it now. It’s so bad for your lungs.’

  ‘After your performance tonight, my lungs are the last thing I’m concerned about.’

  More guilt. ‘But the doctor said –’

  ‘Don’t change the subject, Lorna. We’re talking about the Kirkwoods.’

  ‘Look, I … I’ll write them a note in the morning, to explain.’

  ‘Explain? What on earth can you say?’ At last he got the pipe alight and exhaled a belch of smoke.

  He was right. No mere words could explain the Terrors. Liable to erupt at any time, they could flare from a spark into a blazing conflagration, leave her prey to fear of fear itself: fear of madness, physical collapse. Usually Ralph was sympathetic, but tonight she had pushed him to the limit.

  ‘You’re not the only one with problems. Do you know how much we’re in debt? I can’t sleep at night, wondering how we’ll manage.’

  Each of them lying awake in their separate rooms. The moon with a contemptuous clock on its face, ticking out the hours. If only they could listen to its tick together, cuddle up, console each other. ‘Perhaps we ought to sell the house. Find somewhere smaller.’

  ‘That’s no solution. Moving house takes time we haven’t got, quite apart from the upheaval. Anyway, with the enormous mortgage on this place it wouldn’t release much capital.’

  ‘Let’s give up BUPA then.’

  ‘Before your operation? Don’t be ridiculous. All these years we’ve been paying in, and this is the first claim we’ll have made. Bugger!’ he muttered, noticing that his pipe had gone out. He struck another match with such force that it snapped in two, then tossed both pipe and matchbox into the ashtray. ‘Besides, you’d wait for ever on the NHS.’

  ‘I don’t mind.’

  ‘Well, I do. It’s out of the question.’

  Was he ashamed of her bunions too? Wanted a wife with straight feet and a placid disposition? Not that much to ask, perhaps. Olive and the rest of them probably managed to combine the two.

  ‘I’m going to bed. Goodnight.’

  She listened to his angry footsteps slam up the stairs, followed by the slam of a door. Yet he was still there in the room, in the acrid, accusing smell of tobacco. Last week she had cleaned the whole house, removing the dull film from walls and paintwork; picked the sticky brown shreds out of every pocket of every jacket; cleared the tangle of bent pipe-cleaners, dead matches and broken pipe-stems from his desk and bedside drawers. Most men made do with three or four pipes. Ralph had twenty-seven.

  But then Ralph wasn’t most men. Which was why she’d married him. Her long-sought maverick.

  She levered her feet from the crippling shoes. Even through her tights
she could see how red the swellings were, and the pain was agonizing. If only she could wear her granny-shoes for parties, or, better still, the ones specially made by Surgical Appliances. But if she turned up in those great clumping things she would be written off as seriously disabled.

  Which she supposed she was – on several counts. Just thinking of the débâcle this evening brought her out in a cold sweat again. Olive’s friends were probably still discussing her: ‘What a ghastly, hysterical woman. A total headcase. How does her husband put up with it?’

  How indeed? Being married to her had imposed restrictions on Ralph, and he’d had to cope in the bad times with a shaking, sobbing wreck of a wife. And he had coped, pretty well. He had seen her at rock bottom, yet continued to stand by her.

  Wretchedly she slunk upstairs, a shoe in either hand, and tiptoed past his bedroom. Hers was smaller, a child’s room. It seemed right that he should keep the master bedroom, the one he had shared with Naomi. Yet she hated sleeping alone. It wasn’t just the physical contact she missed – the solid reassurance of another body touching hers – but that there was no one to share a chat or a joke. Long ago, when she and Tom were an item, they would spend whole days in bed together – making love, of course, but also laughing, talking, hatching plans for the future. That future hadn’t happened. Tom, like most men, soon tired of panic attacks. And even stoical Ralph had finally suggested they sleep apart, after years of being woken by her nightmares – horrific dreams that made her scream and thresh about. Who could blame him? A less patient husband might have simply walked out.

  She placed her shoes side by side in the wardrobe, then took off her dress and put it on a hanger. Tidiness was important when chaos threatened your life. She tried to imagine the wrench of moving house, of exchanging Mr Hughes for a cack-handed youth barely out of medical school.

  ‘Other people manage without four bedrooms and private health-insurance schemes.’

  ‘Yes, I know, Aunt Agnes.’