Tread Softly

by Wendy Perriam

  In the folder marked ‘Lorna’s Cards’, she found a sheaf of homemade creations coloured in garish crayons or decorated with pressed leaves and flowers: Birthday, Christmas, Mother’s Day – all made for Aunt Agnes. ‘Thank you for being my Mumy’ was written on one of the Mother’s Day cards in a smudged and childish script. ‘I hope you will never leve me.’

  Agnes never had.

  Next she read the letters. Letters to her parents, begging them to come back; a letter to Father Christmas asking for a paintbox (which, she recalled, had duly appeared). And countless notes to Agnes, all stressing the same theme. ‘I love you more than anywon else’, ‘I will love you for ever and ever’, ‘I love you as much as this’ – with a picture of a tree so tall its topmost branches soared right off the page. Had it been genuine love or simple insecurity, a child clinging to the only adult left?

  There was also a drawing of a fairy queen with silver crown and wand, surrounded by a retinue of elves. Underneath was written, ‘Daer Fairis, please please please bring my Mumy and Dady back please.’

  She sat looking at it for a few moments, then returned everything to the folders, fetched a tray from the kitchen and started clearing away the tea things. Better to keep busy than indulge in pointless self-pity. As Agnes would say, the devil finds work for idle hands.

  Her slice of cake lay untouched. Every year Agnes would make her a birthday cake, with candles on the top and icing-sugar animals. Yet in spite of such devotion, and her own protestations of love, she had come to regard her aunt as a harridan. Why, she wondered now, had she turned hostile in her teens? To cast herself as a victim? To idealize her parents? Or was it just adolescent spleen (another burden poor Agnes had to bear)?

  Without bothering to sit down, she ate the slice of cake – raven-ously, feverishly, devouring every crumb. Then she cut a second piece and stuffed it into her mouth, scooping up the last stray fragments and licking the icing from her fingers.

  ‘Manners, child! You’re not a monkey. Monkeys cram their food in like that. Little girls eat nicely.’

  Agnes’s voice had been sounding in her head for thirty-five years. Would it be silenced when her aunt was dead? Ironically, she suspected she might miss it.

  In the annexe off the kitchen she found the table laid for supper: embroidered cloth and napkins, best rose-printed china, ivory-handled butter-knife. ‘Use the proper knife for the butter, Lorna, not your greasy one. And a napkin isn’t a plaything. Put it back on your lap.’

  She drew out a chair and seated herself at the table. There was chutney in a cut-glass dish, fruit in a porcelain bowl. Glass and china contrasted sadly with the dire state of the walls. Tendrils of grey mould sprouted upward from the skirting-boards, imprinting an alien pattern on the wallpaper. Damp was bad enough; worse was the dry rot, eating like an unseen cancer into the fabric of the house. Which would crumble first – Agnes or her cottage? Clearly there was no money for repairs.

  She closed her eyes, remembering childhood meals. Thousands of times she and her aunt had eaten together: she learning the weighty business of manners and the necessity of clearing your plate. Disgusting things like ox-liver and swede had to be completely finished before you were allowed syrup sponge or red jelly in a rabbit mould. Strange how she’d forgotten Agnes’s food: fat, floured, comforting rissoles; knobbly bacon joints served with pickled beetroot and pease pudding; home-baked soda-bread with a tough crust and a soft heart.

  These days her meals were solitary. Ralph would be slumped in front of the television with a plate on his lap and a whisky at his elbow, while she nibbled bits and pieces in the kitchen.

  She heard Agnes coming down the stairs, not at her usual brisk pace but laboriously, taking the steps one at a time, like a child. In the old days her aunt would never have dreamed of having an afternoon nap. Honest toil was the norm, from dawn to dusk.

  ‘Lorna? Where are you?’

  Quickly she got up from the table and started rinsing teacups in the sink. ‘Here, in the kitchen.’

  ‘What are you doing washing up? You ought to be resting that foot of yours.’

  ‘Listen, Aunt –’

  ‘No, you listen to me – this is important. Before I die I want to know I’m forgiven.’

  ‘Forgiven?’

  ‘Yes. For upsetting you just now. And for getting so much wrong when you were small. I don’t believe in excuses, but I think it’s true to say that I wasn’t cut out to be a mother. I never intended to have children myself, nor even to get married, despite what you said about my being jealous of Margaret.’

  Agnes was never jealous. ‘I … I’m sorry, Aunt.’

  ‘That’s all right. It was a misunderstanding on both sides, like others in the past. When Margaret died I didn’t know how to deal with my grief. Or yours. You used to have nightmares and wake up screaming, and sometimes you’d sleepwalk, which was a dreadful worry for me. And another thing – if ever you found a dead bird you’d pick it up and put it in a bush or tree, as if that would restore it to life. You even did it with dead leaves – you’d try to stick them back on the branches and cry when they fell off.’

  She remembered almost nothing of this. Had she blanked it out on purpose in order to survive? Yet what a trial it must have been for Agnes.

  ‘And I’d often find you talking out loud to your parents, or writing them letters. Before their death you’d been an adventurous child, but you began to develop all sorts of fears. You were frightened of the dark, and ghosts, and dogs, and even feathers. And when I took you swimming you wouldn’t put your head under water even for a second. I wasn’t sure how to handle it. What I did know was that one of us had to be strong. So I tried to establish order and regularity, and provide boundaries, to make you more secure. I probably went too far and overdid the discipline, but you see I feared you might inherit your father’s … wildness. In your teens you did show signs of it.’

  ‘Did I?’ She recalled only surly disobedience and private sulks in her room. Although when she’d left home there had of course been the long succession of men (before Tom appeared on the scene) – mostly older and married and mannerless, sometimes even cruel. Why had she let them near her? Perhaps she did take after her father. The new unreliable father could well have had affairs.

  ‘Yes, and I reacted badly. I hope you understand.’

  Lorna nodded. She did understand. At last. She had been wrong about so many things: criticizing Agnes as parsimonious when she had been saddled with a legacy of debt; blaming her unfairly for the horrors of Grange Park; resenting her brusque manner, which, like Ralph, she adopted purely as a defence weapon. And, again like Ralph, she never gave way to self-pity, nor expected gratitude. Yet her strength had held the home together, provided continuity.

  She went over and clasped Agnes in her arms. She was shocked by the feel of the scrawny body, the lack of flesh to cover the sharp bones. She said nothing. There was too much to say.

  Chapter Eighteen

  ‘Ralph, I wish you’d listen!’

  ‘I am listening.’

  ‘No you’re not.’ Lorna kicked off her slipper and massaged her toes. ‘I’ve been away the whole weekend. Surely we can talk for five minutes.’

  ‘You’ve been talking non-stop since you got in.’

  ‘That isn’t true.’ She had been too tired to talk after the journey: hours and dismal hours on cold, late, crowded trains. Only now, after a hot bath and a hot toddy, was she reviving. ‘And I doubt if you’ve heard a single word. What did I say last?’

  ‘That Agnes was mending a sock –’

  ‘A stocking. Oh, I know it sounds trivial, but it was so pathetic, Ralph – all that effort darning a thing she might only wear a few more times. It reminded me of when she used to mend the sheets, turn them sides to middle to give them an extra lease of life. I kept wishing I could do that for her.’

  ‘I can’t understand why you’re so fond of her all of a sudden. I thought she treated you so badly.’

  �
��No, she actually treated me well. It’s just that I didn’t see it. Admittedly she was strict – she still is. But she’s strict with herself too. I mean, she must be in a lot of pain, but she didn’t mention it once.’

  She watched Ralph prowl around the room, focused, as usual, on his pipe. Was he listening even now? The time she’d spent with Agnes, talking, sharing confidences, had made her realize how long it was since she and Ralph had communicated in any sort of depth.

  ‘You don’t seem interested in anything I’ve said. I might as well have saved my breath.’

  ‘I am interested, but what do you expect me to do? I can’t work miracles or change the past.’

  Lorna pulled off the other slipper. Her feet were sore and throbbing. ‘Actually, there is a way we can help.’

  ‘Mm?’ Ralph was staring morosely out of the dark uncurtained window. It was still raining half-heartedly, occasional spits and gusts spattering the glass.

  ‘Draw the curtains, will you, and sit down. Then I’ll tell you.’

  ‘I’ll just get a drink.’

  ‘You’re drinking an awful lot these days.’

  ‘Not quite in your father’s league,’ he grunted.

  ‘Ralph, that’s … vile!’ Surely he knew how devastated she was. Now that she’d read the pathologist’s report, there was no denying the facts: 320 milligrams of alcohol per hundred millilitres of blood. Criminally high. And the injuries were unspeakable: her father’s skull smashed to pieces and gaping lacerations on both legs; her mother’s thigh and pelvis fractured, along with seven ribs. Yet Ralph could use it as a way of scoring cheap points.

  Eventually he sat down, in the chair furthest from hers. ‘Well?’

  ‘I’ve got a sort of … plan,’ she said, trying to dispel the gory images of her parents’ mangled bodies. ‘I know you’ll probably come up with all sorts of objections. But it wouldn’t be for long. Only a few months. And I’d do everything …’

  ‘For heaven’s sake get to the point. What are you trying to say?’

  ‘I’d like to invite Agnes to come and live here. With me – with us. I owe it to her, darling. She brought me up. I can’t let her die alone.’ She glanced at Ralph apprehensively, but his face was expressionless. ‘We’ve got plenty of room – it’s the obvious solution.’ The house seemed huge after Agnes’s poky cottage, and luxuriously warm. ‘It’s terribly bad for her lungs to be living in all that damp. But it’s not just that. I want to make her feel that someone cares. And wants her. She wouldn’t be a nuisance. You know how independent she is. And if … when … she gets worse I can arrange for a nurse to come in. It would mean so much to her to be offered a home. And she’s always liked you, Ralph. Remember how relieved she was to see me marrying a successful, sensible businessman and settling down at last?’

  He gave a bitter laugh.

  ‘What’s funny?’

  ‘Sensible. Successful.’

  ‘Well, you were, darling.’

  ‘Were being the operative word.’

  ‘Getting back to Agnes – I admit it’s a lot to ask, but please would you consider it? Honestly, Ralph, you’ll hardly know she’s here. She’ll stay in her room most of the time. And meals won’t be a problem because she only eats things like soup and Complan. And at least she’ll be warm and dry, and feel less …’ The words petered out in the face of Ralph’s continued silence. His mouth was set in a thin line, his hand clamped tightly around his glass. ‘I don’t know why I bothered to ask. You’ve no intention of agreeing, have you? We swan about in this great barn of a house, yet you’d let a poor old woman die alone.’

  Silence. Except for the rain. And the measured ticking of the grandfather clock. And little muffled gasps from his pipe.

  But all at once he put the pipe down. He even put his glass down. ‘We haven’t got a house, Lorna.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, not for much longer.’

  ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

  He refused to meet her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know how to tell you.’

  Oh my God, she thought, he’s selling up, going to live with another woman …

  ‘I’ve been trying to spare you, all these weeks.’

  ‘Spare me?’ Just what Agnes had said. The familiar stirrings of panic began to take a grip: a steel cordon clamping her lungs, a piece of granite lodged in her throat.

  ‘It didn’t seem fair to worry you any more, when you had so much to cope with already – the foot and the infections, then the shingles and …’

  Ralph was gazing at the ashtray. In her mind she saw lipstick-tipped cigarette-ends nestling amid the ash and broken matches from his pipe. Yet she was no Goody Two-Shoes herself. She had responded with alacrity when Oshoba had invited her to his flat. ‘I’m worried anyway. I … I’ve suspected for ages something’s going on.’

  ‘So why didn’t you say?’

  ‘I suppose I was scared to hear it confirmed. But now I’ve got to know. You have to tell me, Ralph.’

  He picked up his pipe again and sucked on it briefly, seemingly unaware that it had gone out. ‘Remember that Shropshire job, about a year ago – the private tennis-court?’

  ‘Oh, you mean in Lydbury.’ She wondered why he was changing tack. ‘Derek Bowden. Wasn’t he a car dealer?’

  ‘A used-car salesman. Anyway, he’s injured himself playing tennis. One of the seams on the Astroturf came undone and he tripped and fell very awkwardly. He fractured his wrist and ankle and twisted his back.’

  ‘That sounds nasty. Poor man!’

  ‘Poor us. He’s threatening to sue.’

  ‘Sue? Christ, no!’

  ‘For shoddy workmanship.’

  The panic spiralled. She was breathing not air but tar. ‘I don’t understand. Len and Matthew are normally so reliable. They’ve never botched anything before.’

  ‘That’s just it – it wasn’t Len and Matthew. Don’t you remember when we were snowed under with work last March? We had to get different fitters for that one job. And evidently they used substandard glue. You know how expensive glue is – well, they obviously thought they could get away with using inferior stuff. Not only that – they skimped on the amount, so naturally the seams didn’t hold.’

  ‘Well, why doesn’t he sue them?‘ Her voice was shrill with fear.

  ‘They’ve disappeared. I tried ringing them scores of times, but the number’s unobtainable. It struck me as rather odd that they only had a mobile, but I assumed it was because they’re on the road so much. In the end I went round in person to the address they gave on their letterhead and found it was just a front. Some poor old duck lives there, who said they’d rented her garage for a while but had cleared off months ago. The bastards have done a bunk.’

  Lorna put her hand to her throat and tried to swallow. The fitters had seemed so professional, so eager to please on the phone. How could they have conned her like that? ‘But if it’s their fault, Bowden can’t hold us responsible.’

  ‘He can, and he does. And legally he’s right. We hired them, don’t forget.’

  ‘But you inspected the court. I remember you driving there in that dreadful storm.’

  ‘Yes, of course I inspected it, but faulty glue wouldn’t have shown up at that stage. Anyway, whatever the rights and wrongs of it, Bowden’s claiming for a massive loss of earnings as well as the physical injuries. Apparently he was planning a trip to Japan to import a load of cars, and he had to cancel it. And a similar trip to Portugal. He can’t fly or drive, you see. In fact he’s still on crutches even now.’

  ‘On crutches, with a broken wrist?’

  ‘One crutch. According to his solicitor, walking’s so difficult he often has to rely on a wheelchair. The ankle was a compound fracture and there were a lot of complications, so he says. Three weeks after the accident he developed an infection, and the doctor was worried it might get into the bone.’

  Lorna bit her lip. With first-hand experience of infections and complications, she
could imagine the difficulty of hobbling around on one crutch. ‘I can’t help feeling sorry for him.’

  ‘Don’t waste your sympathy. We’ve no proof it’s as bad as he’s making out. Clearly it’s in his interest to inflate it for all it’s worth. He’s already claiming medical expenses and chauffeuring costs and for the disruption to his social life and God knows what else besides. Plus he insists on having the tennis-court resurfaced, but he won’t let our men touch it. He says he’ll get it done elsewhere – another fifteen grand. I bet you anything you like he gets it patched up on the cheap and pockets the difference. I wouldn’t trust him further than I could throw him, and his solicitor sounds a nasty piece of work. At the start of all this he said Bowden was after a hundred thousand in damages.’

  ‘A hundred thousand?’ The figure was like a physical blow: a fist smashing into her face.

  ‘Yes, I was appalled too. I went straight to Philip and told him the whole story. I said I intended to fight Bowden every inch of the way. But Philip didn’t think I had much of a case. Rogue fitters or no, at the end of the day I’m the one responsible. To put it bluntly, he said I’m likely to be flayed alive in court.’

  ‘Flayed alive?’ She could only repeat Ralph’s phrases – each more alarming than the last.

  ‘I suppose it was decent of him to warn me. Most solicitors would be rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of a fat fee. But that’s the trouble. He said the fees could amount to thirty grand by the time both sides have brought in medical experts. Orthopaedic specialists don’t come cheap.’

  Her heart was beating so wildly she clasped her hands across her chest in an attempt to slow it down. ‘Ralph, I … I can’t believe this is happening.’

  ‘I know – I’ve hardly slept for weeks. I did everything I could to keep it from you. I made sure the correspondence went through Philip and told him only to call me on the mobile.’