Tread Softly

by Wendy Perriam

  A care assistant was trying to feed Irena, who stubbornly refused to open her mouth. ‘OK, be like that,’ the girl said, snatching the plate away. (Peace and good will had reached a depressingly low ebb.)

  ‘I want soup,’ Hilda reiterated, in case her previous demands had gone unheard.

  Soup would certainly have been a better choice for Sydney, whose lack of teeth made unripe melon hazardous. He did rather ill-advisedly put the orange-slice in his mouth, but then took it out, half-chewed, and offered it to Irena. The countess haughtily ignored him.

  ‘Well, down the hatch!’ said Lorna brightly, raising her second glass. She felt better already, in spite of having to sit with her foot propped up at an extremely awkward angle, which sent spasms of pain down her back. One took so many things for granted, like being able to sit four-square at the table, with both feet on the floor.

  ‘Chin-chin!’ responded Hilda, also embarking on her second glass. Fortunately there was no sign of Matron nor any obvious change in Hilda’s condition, but Lorna kept an eye on her, prepared for emergency measures.

  The carers started to clear away the melon plates, and indeed most of the melon. Ar Oakfield House, serving the food was clearly of more importance than ensuring its consumption. Maybe the recent spate of deaths was due less to strokes and heart attacks than to simple malnutrition.

  Lorna refused to relinquish her plate until she had scraped the melon-skin clean and even eaten the orange-rind (to provide a few extra calories). After all, there was no guarantee that any more food was on its way. Knowing Tommy’s temperament, the turkey might end up on the kitchen floor.

  But no, she was wrong. Sharon and a small, spindly, dark-skinned fellow were approaching with a tray of plates.

  ‘Good God,’ Dorothy expostulated. ‘What’s this supposed to be?’

  The turkey, anaemically white, was reduced to shreds – a sorry heap spattered with blobs of stuffing and accompanied by a single boiled potato and a mush of disintegrating, greyish Brussels sprouts.

  ‘Where’s mine?’ asked Lorna anxiously when everyone but her had been served.

  ‘Coming.’

  While she waited she sipped yet more sherry. Pure benevolence, of course – to keep the others out of danger. In fact Dorothy must have drunk as much as she had, although her tongue was as sharp as ever.

  ‘If I’ve told them once I’ve told them a thousand times. There’s no goodness left in vegetables if they’re cooked to a pulp like this.’

  ‘I want vegetables.’

  ‘You’ve got them, Hilda,’ Dorothy said tartly. ‘That disgusting mess there.’ She poked it with her knife. ‘If you don’t mind, Lorna, I’ll start. Mustn’t let it get cold. A joke, of course! In all the time I’ve been here I’ve never known a meal served hot, and I doubt if today’s will be any different.’ Sampling a piece of turkey, she gave an exaggerated shudder. ‘Tough, tasteless and probably swarming with Tommy’s germs. Well, if this is Christmas dinner they can keep it. Sharon!’ She snapped her fingers at the girl, who was now serving the adjoining table. ‘Bring me a round of buttered toast. This food’s inedible.’

  ‘I can’t be making toast, Mrs Fleming. Not now. I’ve got all the others to serve.’

  ‘Including me,’ Lorna reminded her. Tough, tasteless, germ-infested turkey was still preferable to none.

  ‘I won’t be spoken to like that, Sharon. It’s high time you learned some respect.’

  ‘And it’s time you learned to get off your high horse,’ Sharon muttered, marching off in a huff.

  Lorna sighed. With Sharon gone she would have to beg a dinner from one of the other carers. She craned her neck to look into the servery, where a couple of girls appeared to be doing nothing. Then she realized to her horror that they were, in fact, helping themselves to the residents’ Christmas pudding, apparently unaware they were being watched. They gouged out lumps with their hands, licking their fingers greedily before digging into the pudding again. No wonder Dorothy had talked about germs: she too must have observed such flagrant breaches of hygiene. Their behaviour was outrageous. Wasn’t anyone in charge? Surely if Matron saw them she would sack them on the spot. Some of the residents had only just recovered from flu. Now, it seemed, they were in danger of food-poisoning.

  Revolted, she turned back to the table. Maybe it was just as well she hadn’t any food. But then all at once her stomach rumbled audibly, as if informing her that a stomach upset was preferable to starvation. And at that moment the small, spindly fellow happened to be passing, so, suppressing her scruples, she caught his eye. ‘Sorry to bother you …’ – she squinted at his name badge – ‘Hashim, but I haven’t had my main course yet.’

  ‘You Mrs Clark?’

  Oh dear. With his thick accent, there were bound to be more misunderstandings. ‘No, I’m Mrs Pearson. Or Mrs Paterson, if you prefer. Either will do fine.’

  ‘You Mrs Fine?’

  ‘No.’ (The Monster would die laughing.) ‘Mrs … Peear … sonn.’

  ‘Oh.’ He frowned, abandoning further attempts to use her name. ‘You like melon?’

  ‘Yes, very nice. But I’ve had my melon. Now I want turkey.’

  ‘Turkey?’

  Was it such a peculiar request – on Christmas Day, when everyone else in the room was tucking in? ‘Yes, turkey, please. Lots.’ Untouched by human hand, she added sotto voce.

  ‘I go ask Chef.’

  ‘Chef not there.’

  ‘He’s not there, if you ask me,’ Dorothy put in, removing a black bit from her potato. ‘It’s always the same with these darkies. God knows what language they speak at home – if they’ve got homes, which I doubt – but it’s certainly not English.’

  Lorna sprang to Hashim’s defence, regretting her earlier irritation. The poor man might be struggling to support an invalid mother or a brood of under-fives. ‘At least he’s trying,’ she said, crunching a stray orange-pip to fight off her hunger pangs.

  ‘They have to do more than try, Lorna. That’s the trouble with this country today: no standards, no national pride. Is it any wonder we’re going to the dogs?’

  ‘I want sherry!’ Hilda reached for another glass.

  ‘No, that’s mine,’ said Lorna, alarmed at Hilda’s hectic flush and having visions of her keeling over. Would they all be charged as accessories to murder?

  ‘You’ve had more than your fair share already, young lady!’ The words were perfectly enunciated, the voice unmistakably English. Astonished, Lorna looked at Irena – deaf, foreign Irena, who met her eyes with a malevolent glower. The countess said nothing further, although the unflinching gaze was condemnation enough.

  ‘Gosh, yes, you’re right. I’m … sorry,’ Lorna stammered. Perhaps Irena was neither Polish nor deaf. Feigned deafness could be useful here, as an escape from largely pointless conversations. Had she known in advance the vagaries of Oakfield House, she could have come forearmed with a hearing-aid (switched permanently off), a canteen of cutlery, a supply of ready-meals and several rolls of toilet-paper (there had been none this morning, and no one to ask).

  Every time she glanced up she met the intimidating Gorgon stare. Again she gave thanks that she wasn’t actually eating – subjected to such venomous scrutiny, even a morsel of food would have choked her.

  ‘Goodnight,’ said Sydney suddenly – the only word Lorna had heard him utter.

  ‘Er, goodnight,’ she replied. Was it wishful thinking on his part, to make the day go faster?

  ‘Goodnight,’ he said again.

  ‘Goodnight,’ she countered valiantly.

  ‘Goodnight, Madge.’

  Madge? Lorna gave a bewildered smile. He was evidently still addressing her, his rheumy eyes fixed doggedly on hers. Another name to add to the collection.

  ‘Goodnight,’ he prompted.

  Her turn. ‘Goodnight.’

  ‘Goodnight.’ Would they continue like this till it was night? Well, in the absence of other distractions there were worse ways of passin
g the time.

  After a dozen more goodnights, Hashim came to the rescue by bringing her meal – not turkey, not stuffing, not even vegetables, but a small piece of plain white fish marooned on a large white plate. She goggled. ‘Fish?’

  ‘Matron say you on special diet.’

  ‘Special diet? Certainly not!’

  ‘Matron say no meat.’

  ‘Goodnight.’ Sydney spluttered bits of stuffing in Lorna’s direction.

  Dorothy rounded on him in annoyance. ‘It happens to be lunch-time, Sydney. I admit you have cause to doubt it, since several of us here have failed to get any lunch – or anything worth calling lunch – but it certainly won’t help matters if you keep insisting that it’s bedtime.’

  Her outburst was largely wasted on Sydney, although it did succeed in reducing him to silence. In the lull, Lorna told Hashim again that she wasn’t on a diet. In fact in the two days she’d been at Oakfield House she must have lost half a stone. And this was Christmas, for heaven’s sake, when the rest of the nation was gourmandizing.

  ‘You fish!’ beamed Hashim, his comprehension levels roughly similar to Sydney’s.

  ‘He’s mixing you up with Miss Bagley,’ Dorothy explained. ‘She eats fish for every meal, including breakfast. It’s some religious thing. She’s stark staring mad, but they have to humour her. Her husband’s a big noise on the council.’

  ‘Where is she? Can’t we swap?’

  ‘No, she’s in her room. She never comes out except for church.’

  ‘So how could they muddle the plates?’

  ‘Here they can muddle anything. I suggest you eat it, dear. If you ask for it to be changed they’ll probably bring you Rodney’s meal, and he’s a vegan. It’s up to you. If you’d prefer a plate of sunflower seeds …’

  ‘No, no, this’ll do.’ After removing several bones, Lorna took a cautious mouthful and washed it down with sherry. At least fish was marginally better than last year’s cheese and deadline sandwiches, even if it was flavourless and semi-raw. No one else was eating. Hilda had hiccups, Sydney was now serenely dribbling (perhaps imagining that night had fallen at last) and Irena engaged in fisticuffs with a despotic care assistant who had tried to force a fork between her lips. Dorothy was in full flow about over-fishing in the North Sea, presumably inspired by Lorna’s minuscule portion of cod. All the while the rain provided a counterpoint, slamming against the windows with gleeful malice.

  ‘Who’s that woman with the bad foot?’ A loud voice from the adjoining table.

  ‘I think she’s Hilda’s daughter.’ Equally loud.

  ‘She can’t be. Hilda’s not married.’

  ‘Well, whoever she is, she’s no business to stick her leg up like that. It’s bad manners. And right in Dorothy’s way. If there’s something wrong with her she should stay at home.’

  Lorna froze. Should she explain the situation? Best not. Judging by their volume, the speakers were deaf, which meant she would have to shout, and she didn’t fancy introducing the shameful subject of bunions to the assembled company. (Actually the dining-room was much less full than yesterday, with only the rejects left – those without families, or too ill or decrepit to go out for the day. A few relatives had come for lunch, looking wretched for the most part as they made stilted conversation between mouthfuls of cold turkey.)

  ‘Oh my God!’ Dorothy exclaimed, interrupting her own tirade about dwindling haddock stocks.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Lorna, startled.

  Dorothy leaned towards her and hissed in a stage whisper: ‘They’re about to remove Mr Wilcox.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Mr Wilcox. Who passed away this morning. They always smuggle the corpses out at mealtimes. They think none of us will notice. But I always know. For one thing, it’s the only time they shut the dining-room doors. Look out of that side window and you’ll see the ambulance.’

  Lorna swivelled in her chair. A long, low, white vehicle was parked by the dustbins, with ‘Private Ambulance’ in blue letters on the side. The piece of fish in her mouth turned rubbery and dead. She was chewing Mr Wilcox – that same cold, stiffening body being trundled past the firmly closed dining-room doors. ‘Where’s M … Mrs Wilcox?’ she asked.

  ‘Over there.’ Dorothy pointed to the table in the corner. ‘The lady in green.’

  The lady in green, sublimely indifferent to the fate of her late husband, was tackling her food with vigour, trying to stuff a whole potato into her mouth.

  ‘Isn’t she … upset?’

  ‘Not at all. Just before lunch I saw her cuddling up to Rodney. One man’s as good as another as far as Edna’s concerned. It’s OK – all clear now. They’re opening the doors again.’

  Lorna clutched her sherry-glass. How appalling it must be to live here permanently and watch your fellow residents die off one by one, knowing you might be next. She glanced again at Mrs Wilcox, who now appeared to be choking and had sicked potato down her bib. The others at her table sat in silence, making no attempt to eat. Was the Christmas dinner really worth the effort? Maybe it would have been better, and safer, to have invested in a few dozen jars of baby food; it would have been far less work for the carers, who were now stacking the dirty plates and scraping vast amounts of uneaten food into a plastic pail – whole dinners in most cases. Lorna hoped it would go to the pigs: they at least would enjoy their Christmas.

  After an interval punctuated only by Hilda’s hiccups, Sharon came slouching back to their table. ‘Do you want Christmas pudding or mince pie?’

  ‘Both, of course,’ snapped Dorothy.

  ‘Sorry, one or the other.’

  ‘It’s a scandal, considering the fees we pay. I shall write to the management, on principle.’

  Sharon merely shrugged.

  Lorna was surprised there was any Christmas pudding left, after the depredations of the two thieving care assistants. She herself resolved to opt for pie – if she could manage to eat anything, that is. Mr Wilcox was still lodged in her throat, decomposing, as the Monster had predicted.

  ‘Which for you, Miss Bancroft?’ Sharon said with increasing exasperation.

  ‘I’m very worried, dear, about missing the Queen’s speech. I’ve heard it without fail for the past seventy-odd years and I wouldn’t want to break the tradition.’

  ‘It’s not on till three. And it’s only five past two now. Do you want pudding or mince pie?’

  ‘They said it was in the lounge, but the lounge television’s broken. Do you think I ought to tell that man who –?’

  Sharon raised her eyes to heaven, but finding no help there either she turned instead to Hilda. ‘Miss Chambers, pudding or mince pie?’

  The only response was a hiccup, and, since Sydney was incapable of choosing and Irena refused to hear, Sharon announced irritably, ‘I’ll bring three of each, OK?’

  ‘Yes, fine,’ said Lorna, to keep the peace.

  ‘It’s not fine, Lorna. If you don’t take a stand, who will? The food’s an absolute disgrace. I’ve complained till I’m blue in the face, but no one ever listens.’

  Lorna wondered if she could persuade Aunt Agnes to take up residence here, with the express purpose of inculcating gratitude into Dorothy. But that would require a miracle, and miracles were beyond even Aunt Agnes’s capabilities.

  Both pudding and mince pie eventually arrived, in the same piece-meal state as the turkey. Tommy’s heavy hand again, or had all the carers had a go at sampling them? The choice was between dark crumbs (pudding) and pale crumbs (pastry – mincemeat was practically nil). Sharon slammed the plates down indiscriminately. Lorna got pale crumbs, with a coarse black hair – Hashim’s? – draped tastefully across the top.

  ‘Brandy sauce?’ Another girl was hovering with a large metal jug of something white and viscous, which looked and smelt like distemper.

  ‘Oh … thank you.’ Lorna removed the hair before it could be swamped. Fortunately Dorothy hadn’t seen it, otherwise she would have summoned the health
inspectors on the spot.

  ‘I want brandy,’ Hilda hiccupped.

  ‘Well, you won’t get it,’ retorted Sharon. ‘And there’s none in that sauce neither. Only starch and chemicals.’

  ‘Sharon, I intend to report you for gross impertinence.’

  ‘Go ahead, Mrs Fleming. Find some other idiot who’ll work all Christmas week for a pittance, waiting on ungrateful sods like you.’

  Apoplectic with rage, Dorothy tottered to her feet. ‘Matron!’ she shrieked.

  ‘Matron go home,’ Hashim informed her helpfully.

  ‘Yeah. Me too, if I had any sense.’ Sharon turned on her heel and stalked out.

  Lorna seized the last glass of sherry and drained it at a gulp. The only way to endure the remainder of this unspeakable Christmas Day was to get completely and utterly smashed.

  Chapter Ten

  ‘Mummy!’ she sobbed. ‘Mummy, where have you gone?’

  The room was wrong. Small and strange. And cold. Everything had changed. Different bed, different-coloured walls.

  ‘Mummy,’ she screamed. ‘Where am I?’

  ‘It’s all right, Lorna, I’m here.’

  A figure had floated in, all in white like a ghost.

  ‘I want Mummy. I want my mummy.’

  ‘You’re living with me now, Lorna dear.’

  ‘I want to go home. Take me home.’

  ‘This is your home.’

  ‘It’s not, it’s not,’ she wept. She closed her eyes and sank down, down, down, searching for Mummy and Daddy. She was deafened by the silence, blinded by the dark. Everything dark dark dark dark dark …

  ‘Mrs Pearson?’

  Another voice. She tried to swim towards it, catch it, like a buoy, a raft.

  ‘What’re you doing lying in the dark?’

  A glaring light snapped on. She blinked, rolled on to her side. In the doorway stood a short, stocky girl in glasses.

  ‘I’ve brought you a cup of tea. Sorry it’s so late.’