Tread Softly

by Wendy Perriam

  Not a practical proposition on crutches, even if she knew where the clean linen was kept. ‘I’ll … get someone,’ she said, wondering who and how. At least her panic attack had been halted in its tracks. Fear had turned to anger – that the residents should be so shamefully neglected. Along the entire length of the corridor she didn’t find a single member of staff. Then suddenly there was a sound of giggling from behind a closed door. Opening it a crack, she saw a buxom black nurse lying on a sofa in the arms of Sunil, the male carer from Sri Lanka. Her gaze strayed to the carpet, littered with incriminating objects: a wine bottle and two glasses, an ashtray studded with fag-ends, and a pair of white lace knickers – presumably the nurse’s. Brilliant! While the patients called in vain for help, the staff spent their time smoking, drinking and shagging. She coughed loudly and they sprang apart.

  ‘There’s a patient needs you,’ she said curtly.

  The nurse had the grace to look embarrassed as she smoothed her crumpled uniform, but her tone was aggressive in the extreme. ‘And what are you doing down here, may I ask?’

  ‘I couldn’t sleep.’

  ‘That’s no reason to go prowling about.’

  ‘I needed some pain-killers and there’s no one on duty up there.’

  ‘Excuse me but there most certainly is. Oshoba’s on duty. And Janet. Go back to your room and I’ll phone through for Janet to bring you some aspirin.’

  ‘I don’t want aspirin. I want an explanation. What’s the point of patients having bells if you never take any notice? There’s a poor lady along the passage getting cold in wet sheets. And yesterday Sydney fell out of bed and it was over two hours before anyone discovered him. He could have been lying unconscious for all you lot cared.’

  The nurse drew herself up to her full height. (Sunil had already fled.) ‘How dare you speak to me like that?’

  ‘Because I’m utterly disgusted! This place is a scandal. Kathy’s the only decent member of staff, and she’s rushed off her feet. You’ll be old one day, and then you’ll know what it feels like to be stuck in a cold, wet bed.’

  ‘Stop shouting, Mrs Pearson. You’ll wake the patients.’

  ‘They’re already awake, some of them, calling for help, but you’re so busy necking on the sofa, you –’

  ‘That’s outrageous! I shall tell Matron what you said.’

  ‘Please do. I’m sure she’ll be interested to know what her staff get up to.’

  The nurse turned on her heel and stalked off.

  Lorna stood trembling, with triumph, anger, fear. She had spoken up for Kathy’s sake. Kathy was too professional to admit that Oakfield House was badly run, but it was obvious to anyone. And the patients were mostly too ill or confused to know their rights, let alone demand them.

  She steadied herself on her crutches, overcome by a wave of dizziness. What the hell had she done? They would probably expel her now, as they had tried to do at school. (And, unlike school, she didn’t want to leave, whatever the abuses.) It was only her word against the nurse’s, and Matron was duty-bound to support the staff, especially after that business with Ralph’s pipe.

  God! She had forgotten about Ralph, and that she didn’t know what was happening in his life. If they sent her home tomorrow she might find him already gone.

  ‘Ah, Lorna, there you are!’

  Hearing the familiar deep voice, she looked up in relief. ‘Oh, Oshoba!’ she said, and clung to him. He put his arms around her and she realized with a jolt that Ralph would never hold her so close. Often when she tried to hug him he would back off or pull away, as if such contact was emasculating.

  Oshoba was even stroking her hair. ‘I saw you were missing from your room,’ he said, ‘so I came downstairs to find you. What’s wrong, my lovely lady?’

  ‘I’ve just shouted at a nurse and –’

  ‘That’s not the end of the world!’

  ‘No, but the reason I was angry is that no one here seems to … care.’

  ‘I care. I care about you especially. You know that. Remember, I brought you the chocolate. And the bar of lavender soap.’

  She wiped her eyes. ‘Yes, you did.’ A succession of little treats. Treats that had meant a lot.

  He took her elbow and guided her towards the stairs. ‘And the cream for your bedsores.’

  ‘Yes. You’re an angel.’ She leaned on him gratefully as they made their slow way up.

  ‘How are the bedsores?’

  ‘Not good.’

  ‘Maybe we should bandage them.’

  She smiled, despite herself. A bandage on her bum?

  ‘You’re smiling! That’s better. You have a very beautiful smile, Lorna.’

  Pathetic how his flattery could cheer her. Yet he seemed a genuinely decent person – in fact he and Kathy were the only two unfailingly compassionate staff.

  ‘And is the rash any better?’

  ‘Not really. Still itching like mad!’

  In her room, he took the crutches from her and rested them against the wall, then lifted her bodily on to the bed.

  ‘No, Oshoba,’ she protested. ‘I’m too heavy.’

  ‘Not at all. You’re as light as a feather.’ He peered intently at her foot. ‘And how are those poor toes of yours?’

  ‘A bit messy, I’m afraid.’

  Unexpectedly, he leaned over and planted an ardent kiss on the blood-encrusted toes. Lorna was dumbstruck. Here was a man she scarcely knew, who had not only embraced her but was now performing an intimate act of devotion more suited to a parent or a spouse. Yet Ralph, her husband of eleven years, would no more dream of kissing her foot than of stripping naked in Hyde Park. The gesture was so potent it was as if Oshoba had healed her foot – instantly, miraculously; made her feel that, even with the infection and the scar, she could climb a mountain, run a marathon.

  ‘Now, before I leave you to sleep, I’m going to bring you a cold compress for the blisters.’

  ‘No, really, Oshoba, don’t bother. I know how busy you are.’

  ‘It isn’t any bother. I want to make you comfortable, and it’ll help cool the irritation.’

  He returned with a small metal bowl of water, a folded piece of gauze and a bottle of calamine lotion. He placed them on the bedside table, then dipped the gauze in the water and wrung it out.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ she said, embarrassed. Surely an untrained male care assistant wouldn’t presume to bathe the rash himself.

  ‘OK.’ He plumped the pillows behind her and helped her sit up.

  ‘Thanks, Oshoba. That’s fine.’

  But still he made no move to leave – indeed, his broad, burly figure seemed to fill the room. Below his smart white tunic he wore patched blue jeans: a strange combination of the professional and the casual. The jeans were very tight, she noticed, defining every muscle of his legs, and the musky scent of his hair-oil lingered in the air, overlaying the usual Oakfield smell of urine.

  ‘Use the compress while it’s cold,’ he urged.

  ‘Yes … of course.’ Self-consciously she picked up the gauze and dabbed it on her throat.

  ‘No, not like that. I’ll show you.’ He sat beside her on the bed and eased her nightdress down, to expose her left breast. She knew she ought to stop him, yet she was intrigued by the sight of his black, black hands applying the compress to her pale, pale skin. The coldness of it made her gasp.

  ‘Yes, it is a bit of a shock,’ he smiled.

  A shock in every sense. Here she was, half-naked and alone with him, as she had been in her fantasies. Those fantasies had become daringly erotic. Every night and morning she would draft him in to pleasure her.

  He pressed a little harder – pain and pleasure mixed: the rash still smarted, but the texture of the gauze was wonderfully sensuous against her breast.

  ‘Nice?’ he said.

  She nodded. Did he need to ask when he could see her nipples were erect? Yet his face betrayed no emotion as he moved the compress back and forth, in slow, deliberate circles. Was he aware
of the effect he was having? Far from being cooled, her whole body was on fire. And she was still fascinated by his hands: the size of them, the breadth; the contrast of the paler palms and the pinkish sheen of the nails.

  ‘Now I’ll pat it dry and put some calamine on.’

  The soft graze of the towel was tantalizing, his velvet fingers more so as they glided around the nipple, rubbing in the lotion. Don’t stop, she wanted to plead. Keep doing this all night.

  But he stood up, wiped his hands and pulled her nightie back over her breast. ‘There – that should feel better. Now where’s that cream for the bedsores?’

  ‘Here. In the drawer.’

  He uncapped the jar and coaxed her on to her side.

  Cheeks flaming, she made a token show of resistance, although her emotions were a turmoil of excitement, shame, desire.

  He, however, remained detached and simply said, ‘It’s easier if I do it. You can’t reach.’

  As he drew aside her nightdress and began to apply the Vasocrem, she could only surrender to the sensations: the exquisite contrast of warm hands and cool cream. The soft pads of his fingers brushed across her skin and she let her breath out in a guilty, moaning sigh.

  ‘I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?’

  ‘No … no.’

  He used just the right amount of pressure, massaging in the cream yet causing no discomfort. His touch was assured but leisurely, as if she were the only Oakfield patient and his sole concern was to serve her.

  Or was it more than service? She was becoming disturbingly aware that his fingers were straying ever further, until they reached the crease between her buttocks. Nor did they rest there, but explored the crease, idling to and fro, across it and between. She tensed against him, making a desperate effort to stop – stop herself, stop him.

  ‘Oshoba, we mustn’t … This is wrong.’

  Wrong. And magical. He seemed to know by instinct just how to stir her senses, work her up to such a pitch that she had to bite her lip to keep silent. It was imperative to maintain the charade that they were patient and carer engaged in a medical procedure.

  Yet Oshoba must be aware that she was responding – indeed he was inflaming that response as he inserted just one finger and probed gently, deeper, deeper. She shut her eyes and pictured him stretched naked beside her: the gleaming expanse of blackberry-coloured skin, the springy pubic hair, the penis … Black? Pale-tipped? She longed to turn and face him, cup the penis in her hands, make this encounter mutual, total, real.

  No … it was already real enough. He was driving her to the ecstatic point of almost-no-return, only to withdraw his finger teasingly, then slip it in again. Her back was arching up beneath his hands, her breathing fast and fractured. Nothing else existed save the pressure of that finger, so intense and yet so subtle that any moment, any moment, she was going to explode.

  ‘Oh, Oshoba,’ she gasped. ‘Oh, Oshoba.’

  Part Two

  Chapter Seventeen

  A pity, Lorna reflected, that humans hadn’t been created with double the number of hands. She could do with them just now – to carry her stick, umbrella, suitcase and bag, and a couple more to stop her hair blowing across her face and dab her eyes, watering in the wind. March had come in like the proverbial lion, roaring its defiance with hail, snow, sleet and storms. Still, whatever the weather, it was a relief to escape to the countryside and leave everything behind for one weekend. There were even signs of spring: waterlogged catkins nodding at their reflections in the swollen sludge-brown stream; rooks flapping overhead with unwieldy cargoes of sticks. Years ago, at the time of the miscarriages, she had envied the birds building nests for a whole clutch of young …

  She put down her case to give her arm a rest. There was no rest from the wind, however, which had seized her coat and scarf in its teeth and was trying to wrest them off. The stick made walking difficult, as did the clomping boots Mr Hughes had advised her to wear, even though they made her feel like a navvy, and also hurt the scar, which had gone red, ridged and uncomfortably hard. She had asked him if it would fade.

  ‘A scar is for ever, Mrs Pearson.’

  Ralph had said diamonds were for ever, although for all she knew he might have bought some other woman diamonds. She still had no idea what his ‘serious’ problem was. Seven weeks had passed since his first mention of it, yet he’d made no further effort to explain. Nor had she pressed him – partly out of fear of being told bad news and partly from guilt about Oshoba.

  Even thinking about Oshoba brought her out in a cold sweat. She should never have set foot in his flat. ‘Just come for a coffee,’ he’d said, and admittedly they hadn’t moved from the kitchen. But she had let him kiss her, let him half-undress her, and if his brother hadn’t barged in God knows how far they might have gone. Whatever Ralph was up to, she was in no position to adopt a high moral tone when she had behaved so badly herself.

  She walked on, past the village church, where an elderly man was sheltering in the porch. Her stint in the nursing-home had made her more aware of the old. Before, they’d been invisible; now she saw them everywhere: dithering, tottering, fumbling their way through a world that valued youth and strength over experience and maturity. She still missed Oakfield House. Things were so fraught at home she sometimes wished she could return there as a patient, instead of struggling to hold a business together, look after a big house and cope with Ralph’s strange moods.

  The rain had started again as she reached the familiar gate, which, she noticed with surprise, was loose on its hinges and hanging at a perilous angle. It wasn’t like Aunt Agnes to allow a gate to sag. In fact the cottage looked shabby altogether. The paint had blistered on the window-sills, several tiles were missing from the roof, and the garden was neglected: the once sternly pruned rose-bushes now gangling and unruly.

  She rang the bell and heard a protracted bout of coughing before the door was opened. She stared in shock at the whey-faced, stick-thin woman with hair like straw and deep shadows beneath her eyes. Agnes looked years older and had lost at least two stone. The voice, though, was as brusque as ever.

  ‘Good gracious, Lorna, you’re soaked to the skin! Where’s the car?’

  ‘I came by train. I’m still not allowed to drive.’

  ‘Why on earth didn’t you say? I’d have ordered you a taxi from the station.’

  ‘Look, a bit of wet won’t hurt. What matters is how are you?’

  ‘Fancy walking all that way. And on a stick. Come in and get dry.’

  ‘Aunt … are you all right?’

  ‘Never mind about me. Take off that wet coat and put this woolly on.’

  The habit of obedience was so deeply ingrained that Lorna meekly slipped into the home-knitted yellow cardigan Agnes was holding out. Well, an extra layer would be useful – the house was cold and smelt of damp.

  ‘Cup of tea?’

  ‘Yes please. I’ll do it.’

  ‘You will not. In my house I make the tea. Anyway, I don’t want you in the kitchen under my feet. The fire’s on in the sitting-room. It should be warm in there.’

  Tepid. And the room, like its owner, was clearly in decline. It was neat, of course, and clean, but long, mouse-coloured fingers of damp were seeping through the wall, the blue carpet had faded to grey, and even the gas fire’s was wheezing and complaining. As she sat down in a saggy chair (draped with a rug to hide a tear in the cover), Lorna realized to her shame that it must be a year since she had last visited. She had meant to come before the operation, but she and Ralph had been so incredibly busy. And then she’d been immobile for weeks and …

  Agnes appeared with a towel. ‘Here, dry your hair on this. I see you haven’t had it cut.’

  ‘Ralph likes it long.’

  ‘Well, I don’t Frankly, it’s a mess, Lorna.’

  ‘I know. But in this wind …’

  ‘How is Ralph?’

  ‘OK.’ Silent, brooding and more tense than ever.

  ‘And how’s the foot?’
/>
  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Then why are you walking with a stick? The operation was months ago.’

  ‘Eleven weeks. But … various things went wrong.’

  ‘After paying all that money?’

  ‘Yes. In fact the surgeon says he won’t know until my six-months check how well I’ll be able to walk in the end.’

  ‘Disgraceful! Those doctors should be shot.’

  Lorna winced at the thought of her precious Mr Hughes meeting so brutal an end. ‘We ought to have been made with skateboards for feet, instead of all these complicated bones.’

  Her attempt to lighten the tone was wasted on Aunt Agnes, who said simply, ‘Sit up straight, Lorna. No wonder you’ve got a bad back. Is it any better?’

  ‘Mm, a bit. But that’s quite enough about me. How are you?’

  ‘I’ll tell you when I’ve made the tea. I baked a cake – the one you like, with the chocolate butter icing.’

  ‘Oh, Aunt, you shouldn’t have.’

  ‘And why not, pray? It’s not often I see you these days.’

  Lorna stifled another pang of guilt. It wasn’t just ‘these days’: her visits had always been sporadic. She tended to excuse herself on the grounds that Agnes lived in the back of beyond – a pathetic excuse.

  ‘Do you still take all that sugar in your tea?’

  ‘Only two.’

  ‘It’s bad for you. I’ve been telling you for years.’

  ‘Everything’s bad for you, so they say. Coffee, tea, red meat, and certainly cake with chocolate butter icing!’

  Agnes had the grace to smile. ‘I’ll cut you a nice big piece. It’s only cold meat for supper. I don’t find it easy to cook these days.’

  ‘Yes. What’s wrong? You don’t look well. Is your arthritis worse?’

  ‘Oh, that’s a minor detail.’ Agnes dismissed two hip replacements and stiff, distorted finger-joints. In silence, she cut the cake, poured the tea and eventually settled herself in her chair. ‘I’ve got cancer, Lorna. They diagnosed it in January.‘