Tread Softly

by Wendy Perriam

  ‘I managed to do a bit today. And whatever happens I must be back full-time on Monday. Things are piling up.’

  ‘It’s New Year’s Eve on Monday.’

  ‘Oh, God, yes. Which reminds me – the Kirkwoods have invited us out. There’s some ghastly dinner-dance at Hugh’s golf club.’

  ‘Well, for once we’ve got the perfect excuse.’ She gestured to her foot again, propped on a pile of books in lieu of pillows.

  ‘We’re not really in a position to refuse. Hugh’s doing us a favour, darling – he’s asked his next-door neighbours, who are apparently very taken with the Kirkwoods’ low-maintenance garden. Well, the wife is, anyway. And they’ve got a place in the country, so it would be madness to pass up the chance of new business.’

  ‘But, Ralph, I can’t go to a dance on crutches.’

  ‘There’s no need for you to dance. All you have to do is be charming and look nice. And surely you don’t want to spend New Year’s Eve in this dump? What treats have they in store? Let me guess – bingo and a sing-song.’

  ‘Close! Carpet bowls and Scrabble. Followed by tea at five and bed at seven thirty.’

  ‘Well, there you are.’

  ‘Actually, I was rather looking forward to not having to celebrate. You see, I’ve come out in a rash and –’

  ‘Like the one you had in hospital, you mean?’

  ‘No, that was nothing much – just a side-effect of the antibiotics. This is rather nasty.’

  ‘Where is it? Let me see.’

  She pushed the two nighties down, to show him.

  ‘Strewth! It’s awful. And it goes right round your side. Do you think it could be bites – fleas, or bed-bugs, or something? I wouldn’t be surprised in a run-down place like this.’

  She shook her head. ‘It’s not just itchy, it’s painful. Ow! Don’t touch. The slightest pressure hurts. I can’t even wear a bra.’

  ‘I don’t like the look of it at all. What did the doctor say?’

  ‘I haven’t seen a doctor.’ Come to think of it, she hadn’t ever seen one at Oakfield House. No doubt doctors were rationed, along with pillows, knives, functioning lifts and care assistants with problem-free personal lives.

  ‘Well, the sooner we get you home the better. Then you can make an appointment with Dr Burgess.’

  ‘All right.’ She was too dejected to argue. The thought of moving from her bed, packing her stuff here and then unpacking it at home seemed beyond her powers at present, never mind sitting through a dinner-dance till the small hours.

  ‘Would you like me to ask at the chemist’s? That place in Park Street stays open late, and maybe they can recommend an ointment.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’m OK.’ He made no demands on her when he was ill, so it seemed unfair to burden him with shopping trips. Besides, what use would ointment be? Morphine and a skin graft might help, but they, alas, weren’t available at chemists’.

  ‘Or how about ice, to cool it down.’

  ‘Ice? I shouldn’t think they have any. And even if they did it would be a puddle of water by the time it got up here.’

  Ralph sat frowning, his shoulders tense, his fingers drumming on the chair-arm. ‘Mind if I just catch the news?’ he said finally.

  ‘N … no.’ He had only been here ten minutes. Still, ten minutes’ conversation was quite a triumph compared with home. She had long suspected that Ralph’s addiction to news was simply another ploy to avoid talking. Faced with footage of a big London hotel going up in flames and Serbian corpses being exhumed from a mass grave, she could hardly burble on about rashes or bad feet.

  She retrieved her magazine and turned to the problem page. ‘If your marriage is lacking oomph, you may need to play the seductress. Give your husband a luxurious sensual massage, or share a bubble bath …’

  Ralph hated sharing the bathroom, let alone a bath. Should she write in for advice?

  ‘Use a loofah mitt for extra stimulation. And whisper endearments as you soap his …’

  Ralph would regard it as assault if she approached him with a loofah mitt, and, as for whispered endearments, he’d probably complain that she was interrupting the weather forecast.

  The magazine seemed to throb with sex – a piece about multiple orgasm, a picture of a couple in a clinch, and a feature called ‘Position of the Month’, which looked uncomfortable in the extreme, if not anatomically impossible. Had anyone ever had it away in Oakfield House, she wondered? Perhaps she should set a precedent, bare her breasts and inveigle Ralph under the blankets. But the rash practically covered her left breast, and if she lay on it and exposed only the right the pain would be horrendous.

  At that moment he stood up. Had he had the same idea? After all, it was a fortnight since they’d last made love, and she would subject herself even to pain for the sake of knowing he desired her, unglamorous and spotty as she was.

  Smiling as he approached, she tried to free her right breast from its layers of clothing, but then realized to her confusion that he was interested not in her but in the empty teacup. He took it over to his chair, deliberately turning his back so she couldn’t see what he was doing. However, the splash of liquid and the smell of whisky were unmistakable. Well, what did she expect? Ralph never watched the news without a drink. A pity, though, that Scotch didn’t loosen his tongue. There was so much she wanted to know – the latest on the business front; how he was coping on his own at home; who had written; who had phoned.

  She suddenly noticed that his eyes were no longer focused on the screen. What was going through his mind? Money worries? What to have for dinner? Steamy fantasies of females in G-strings rather than muffled up to the eyeballs?

  ‘Ralph,’ she said tentatively. ‘D’you think we might – ?’

  She was interrupted by a knock on the door. ‘Oh no!’ she said. ‘Matron!’

  Ralph sprang to his feet, upsetting the whisky bottle. He rammed the window open and knocked his pipe out on the sill. There was a sudden exclamation, followed by a curse. ‘I’ve dropped my pipe,’ he muttered through clenched teeth.

  Another knock.

  ‘Just a minute!’ she called, and hissed at Ralph: ‘Never mind the pipe. Hide that whisky bottle!’

  Ralph darted over to pick it up, then hid it behind the curtain.

  After a third knock the door opened a crack. ‘I’m sorry, Lorna, is it inconvenient?’

  ‘Oh, Frances, it’s you. N … no – not at all.’ Earlier she had asked Frances to pop in, but of course she hadn’t known then that Ralph would turn up out of the blue. ‘Frances, this is my husband, Ralph.’ Or his back, at least. He was leaning out of the window, trying to see where his pipe had fallen. ‘Ralph,’ she said sharply, ‘I’d like you to meet Frances.’

  He turned round, visibly shocked at the sight of a totally bald woman with a pronounced facial twitch, dressed in a moth-eaten fur coat. ‘Er, how do you do?’ he mumbled.

  Frances smiled warmly. ‘Hello, Ralph. It’s a great pleasure to meet you. Lorna was telling me about you just last night.’

  ‘Yes, Frances and I met two days ago,’ Lorna said, in the awkward silence. ‘We’ve discovered we’ve got a lot in common.’ Panic attacks, reclusive husbands, an off-beat sense of humour.

  ‘Did you have a nice Christmas?’ Frances asked Ralph as silence loomed again.

  ‘Well, up to a point. How about you?’

  Lorna winced. Frances had spent Christmas in a psychiatric hospital and had only just returned to Oakfield House.

  ‘I must admit I’ve had better ones!’ Frances laughed.

  Aunt Agnes would be proud of her. It took courage to survive years of severe depression, followed by stomach cancer, and still be able to laugh. ‘I’ll come back later,’ she murmured tactfully.

  ‘No, please …’

  But she had gone.

  ‘Honestly!’ Ralph said. ‘These people give me the creeps – going around with shaven heads and wearing coats indoors.’

  ‘Ralph, she’s got cancer
. The chemotherapy made her hair fall out. And she feels the cold because she lost so much weight.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. But that twitch – it’s so off-putting.’

  ‘I know, but worse for her. She finds it frightfully embarrassing. But it’s a result of some drug they gave her and she can’t do anything about it.’

  ‘It’s not good for you to be with all these old fogeys. No wonder you’re depressed.’

  ‘I didn’t say I was depressed. Anyway, Frances isn’t that old. She’s only seventy-one.’

  ‘Old enough to be your mother.’

  ‘So what? It doesn’t mean we can’t be friendly. We had a good laugh last night.’

  ‘I can’t think what she’s got to laugh about.’

  ‘Well, exactly – that’s why I admire her. She’s jolly brave.’

  Ralph shrugged. ‘Look, I’ve got to go and find my pipe. It’s my best Dunhill.’

  ‘Will you be able to see in the dark?’

  ‘I’ll manage.’ He forced a smile. ‘Don’t run away!’

  He certainly seemed on edge tonight. Was it just post-flu gloom, or something amiss with the business which he was keeping from her? Both perhaps.

  While he was gone, she leafed idly through the magazine and, coming across the horoscope page, read his: ‘Mercury, the planet of communication, meets easy-going and expansive Jupiter, so don’t worry about work, just party the nights away! Your animal magnetism will be too powerful to resist.’

  And hers: ‘A perfect week for travel – exotic places, new horizons, the promise of romance …’

  Yeah, sure.

  She tossed the magazine aside, shivering in the blast of wintry air from the window Ralph had left open.

  ‘You’ll die of pneumonia sitting in this draught. If the rash doesn’t kill you first, of course.’

  ‘Go away!’

  ‘Rashes can be dangerous, you know,’ the Monster continued, unabashed. ‘It could be scarlet fever. And even measles can lead to serious complications.’

  ‘I’m watching this programme, if you don’t mind.’

  The news had finished and a romantic drama was now playing to itself – a smoochy couple enjoying a candlelit dinner at home; flowers on the table, wine chilling in an ice-bucket. The sight of any couple sharing a meal always made her envious, especially when it involved lively or even flirtatious conversation. Soon she would be back to separate trays in separate rooms again. In that respect she’d miss Oakfield House. However vile the food, she was beginning to enjoy the company, having recently moved tables and now sitting with a friendlier bunch. Even Dorothy Two had revealed a less aggressive side and had invited her to her room to see a stack of photo albums. The record of her life fossilized in two-dimensional prints had been oddly touching – one picture in particular: Dorothy sixty years ago, looking achingly young and glamorous at the wheel of an MG.

  She would even miss Sharon, who was confiding in her more and more, asking advice about Danny or his father. It was good to feel useful and appreciated rather than sitting in her office with only the computer for company.

  ‘I doubt if you’ll ever make it to the office. I mean, how are you going to cope with the huge backlog of work when you’re in such pain?’

  ‘I’m not listening.’

  ‘It’s bound to be something serious, and that’ll be the last straw for Ralph. The business will go broke and …’

  Where was Ralph, she wondered, doing her best to ignore the Monster. Had he found his pipe and sneaked off home without bothering to say goodbye?

  ‘No, he’s had a heart attack. And no wonder, careering around in the dark with flu. He may say he’s better, but did you notice how pale and gaunt he was?’

  ‘There’s someone at the door. That’ll be him now.’

  ‘Or a police inspector, more like, come to report his death.’

  In walked Sister Kathy. ‘Hi, Lorna. How’s things? Sorry I didn’t stop by earlier – we’re up to our eyes as usual.’

  ‘Oh, Kathy, am I glad to see you!’

  ‘Why, is something wrong?’

  ‘Not really. It’s just that …’ Should she show Kathy the rash and get some expert advice, or was she making a fuss about nothing? ‘You’ll probably think –’

  The door burst open and Ralph appeared, his hair dishevelled and a rip in the side of his jacket. ‘I’ve had it with this place! I can’t believe the way I’ve been treated.’

  Kathy slipped out with a conspiratorial smile at Lorna. ‘Men!’ it seemed to say.

  ‘Ralph, whatever’s happened?’

  ‘I was only looking for my pipe, for heaven’s sake! I was groping about among the dustbins when suddenly this crazy woman starts screaming blue murder and saying there’s an intruder trying to get into her room. The next thing I know I get grabbed from behind and frog-marched off to Matron. Who clearly thinks I’m lying through my teeth until she checks your name and room number. They’re imbeciles, the lot of them. Just look at the state of my suit!’

  ‘Oh, Ralph, how awful.’ It was so unusual for him to explode in fury, she realized how upset he was. But of course he’d been humiliated – a reminder of his school-days, when he’d been derided as a scholarship boy. ‘Come and sit on the bed, darling.’

  Surprisingly, he did, and when she put her arms around him he clung to her like a drowning man.

  ‘Lorna,’ he said, softly, into her hair. ‘I do miss you. Please come home.’

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘Come on, Hugh, let’s dance.’ Olive was pushing back her chair. ‘Someone’s got to break the ice.’

  Hugh rose to his feet with alacrity, clasping his wife’s hand in his and placing his other bear-paw on Lorna’s shoulder. ‘I’m just sorry, Lorna, that I can’t ask you to dance.’

  ‘Please don’t worry,’ Lorna said, cringing at his touch, which sent shooting pains down the whole of her left side. ‘It’s fun for me just to watch.’ Fun? God forgive the lie.

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right, my dear?’ Olive glanced at her in concern. ‘You’ve hardly eaten anything.’

  ‘Yes … fine, Olive, thank you. The food’s superb.’ Determinedly she attacked the meringue with her spoon, surprised it didn’t shoot all over the place like the granite-hard specimens at Oakfield House. Thank goodness they had reached the dessert. A five-course dinner wasn’t exactly a recommended cure for nausea.

  ‘You’re not slimming are you, Lorna?’ Clarence’s simpering little giggle had been getting on her nerves all evening.

  ‘Good gracious no! I love my food.’ Ironic then that she had swallowed scarcely a mouthful of the most splendid meal she had seen in years: venison pâté, crab and caviar tartlet, followed by fillet of sole and beef Wellington, and now rounded off by raspberry pavlova with hazelnut ice-cream. Rather different from the five-o’ clock Oakfield repast of tinned spaghetti hoops and sago, or fish cakes and jam tart. She’d also had to decline the succession of château-bottled wines, which meant that, while everyone else became more relaxed and garrulous, she sat dismally sober. The dinner seemed interminable. Far from anticipating the stroke of midnight, she felt as if the New Year had long since come and gone, and they were now well into February.

  Aware that Clarence was still watching, she forced down a soupçon of ice-cream. It was deliciously rich and creamy, so all the more frustrating that she couldn’t do it justice. Also it was unlikely to be alive with germs. She had once seen Hashim use his fingers to scoop icecream from the carton into bowls, sneezing between portions and wiping his nose on his hands. Funny the way she kept thinking of the home. She should be glad to have escaped, yet in truth she was missing the place – even feeling uprooted and insecure. This evening, while the food was being served, she had half expected to hear Sharon’s acerbic remarks, not the obsequious ‘sirs’ and ‘madams’ of the golf club’s over-attentive waitresses. And it was somehow odd to be eating a meal unaccompanied by a chorus of choking and coughing. The diners here
were perfectly capable of feeding themselves without spillages or dribbling and, as far as she could tell, no one yet had wet their knickers.

  Ralph cleared his throat. ‘Er, Jackie, would you like to dance?’

  Poor Ralph. He hated dancing as much as formal dinners, but Jackie must be courted until he’d secured the contract for the garden job. Olive had thoughtfully seated them together, with Alexander opposite. Throughout the fish course Ralph had done his best to overcome Alexander’s resistance to the notion of artificial grass. Fortunately, though, Jackie seemed to be the one who made the decisions and she was 100 per cent in favour.

  As Ralph approached the dance-floor, he wore the expression of a hapless victim entering a torture chamber. Lorna hoped no one else had noticed. All was well at least below the neck: the elegant black dinner-suit emphasized his tall, slim build. Jackie was wearing a low-cut mini-dress in racy pink shot silk. Lucky for some, Lorna thought, uncomfortable in the high-necked blouse and long, frumpy skirt she had been obliged to wear to cover both the rash on her top half and the bandage on her foot. And there was the added complication of trying on clothes while hopping about on one leg. Even washing her hair had proved a major challenge. Finally she had managed it by sitting on the floor, drenching the bathroom in the process. (A bath itself was out of the question, since she mustn’t get the bandage wet.) If nothing else, a bunion operation taught you how valuable two legs were – essential equipment, in fact, for almost every stage of preparing for an evening out.

  With a flourish on the keyboard the band launched into ‘Some Enchanted Evening’. Rather an overstatement, she felt, scratching her rash surreptitiously while all eyes were on the dance-floor. Despite his lack of enthusiasm, Ralph was an excellent dancer, but the slow foxtrot was not Jackie’s forte, alas. She kept tripping over his feet, apologizing and clutching at his arm, until he began to look as grim as someone bent on hara-kiri. Hugh and Olive, in contrast, might have been contestants on Come Dancing, whirling around the floor with professional ease and grace, adding sequences of fancy steps and daring spins and turns.