Tread Softly (12 page)

‘No!' a small boy yelled.

‘Oh yes!' gushed Val. ‘We
are
.'

‘Now I'd like you to put your hands together for a charming young lady – Carmen. She comes from sunny Spain and she's going to sing all your favourite numbers.'

This time Val led the applause and the relatives dutifully joined in as a female of uncertain age in a sleeveless, backless, strapless creation teetered into the room on four-inch stiletto heels. With the extravagantly frilled black-and-scarlet dress she wore elbow-length red satin gloves and a red feather boa flung around her scrawny neck. Her hair was dyed exactly the same shade of black as Rodrigo's (perhaps they economized by sharing the same packet) and was adorned, as were her shoes, with artificial roses – red, of course.

With her long black lashes fluttering and the dangling flesh on her upper arms aquiver, she virtually made love to the microphone, singing in a husky voice:

‘In olden days a
Glimpse of stocking …'

On cue she lifted her skirt to reveal a glimpse of black fishnet, complete with saucy red garter.

‘Get ' em off!' Fred shouted, unexpectedly roused from his torpor, and quickly hushed by a nurse.

But Carmen, fired by this solitary spark of audience appreciation, made a beeline for his wheelchair and, without interrupting the song, leaned so close her face was within inches of his – a veritable assault by eyelashes.

‘… heaven knows,'

she warbled on,

‘Anything goes.'

Fred made a grab for her boa and again had to be restrained (although not before he'd managed to pull out a fistful of scarlet feathers).

Clearly one for the gentlemen, Carmen next approached Sydney, but even a full-throated rendering of two more verses of ‘Anything Goes' elicited no response beyond a dribble.

Lorna admired the woman's valour as she pranced around the room, skilfully avoiding furniture and wheelchairs, and flirting with relatives, male care assistants or indeed anyone who could meet her eye without flinching. What a way to earn a living – putting on a performance for a circle of largely uncomprehending faces, plus an assortment of bored relatives, derisive staff and unashamedly giggling children. Some of the residents looked not just blank but terrified – and, of course, imprisoned in their own private world of dementia, they
would
be frightened by the extra noise and upheaval.

‘Wasn't that just glorious?' Rodrigo enthused, again taking centre stage. ‘Let's give the lovely Carmen a great big hand. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen! Thank you, thank you kindly. And now I want you all to join in. I'm sure you know this next number – maybe you even danced to it in your youth. Well, let's be young again!'

With a twirl of his hips, he broke into ‘Dancing in the Dark' – somewhat inappropriately, since the lights were glaringly bright.

‘… till the tune ends we're dancing in the dark.
And it
soon
ends …
Time hurries by. We're here, and we're gone.'

Too true, thought Lorna, noticing a man near by who looked as if he was gone already, his eyes closed and his skin deathly pale. Still, her heart went out to Rodrigo. He was doing his desperate best, smiling and cavorting and coquettishly ogling the few souls brave enough to join in – among them a tiny, bird-like lady with a bandaged knee and her arm in a sling, who was being minded by a nurse.

‘Elizabeth used to sing in a professional choir,' the nurse whispered to Lorna. ‘She had a beautiful voice, didn't you, Elizabeth?'

‘Used to' must be the watchword here, Lorna reflected as she listened to the old lady's wavering monotone. Used to sing, used to dance, used to work, make love, bring up children, contribute to the community. Strengths and talents could atrophy as much as ears and eyes.

In sudden gratitude for her own powerful voice, she too sang along, and was rewarded with a beaming smile from Rodrigo.

By the end of his performance she was hoarse. They seemed to have worked their way through the collected works of Cole Porter, Irving Berlin and Richard Rogers, finishing with a lacklustre rendition of ‘Will You Love Me in December as You Do in May?' (unlikely).

An agitated Val now returned to the microphone to inform the assembled company that, although Father Christmas was expected, she'd just had news that he was unavoidably delayed. ‘You know how far it is from Lapland!' she said gamely, rather spoiling the effect by mentioning a hold-up on the A3.

In the air of anticlimax, the care assistants cleared the dirty plates and removed those residents whose brains, bowels or bladders were unequal to any more excitement. Lorna would have gladly sacrificed several thousand brain cells for the chance of leaving too, but she was jammed into a corner and could hardly claim priority treatment with so many valetudinarians present. One of the worst things about old age was dependence on other people for every aspect of life, including motion up and down or in and out.

Still no sign of Father Christmas, much to Val's dismay. Carmen and Rodrigo had departed (with much kissing of hands and a force-nine gale from Carmen's lashes), so to fill the gap she tried to jolly the care assistants into doing a turn or singing a song. No takers: they were all too shy or too busy. Lorna wondered if she should offer – do a one-legged jig, for instance, or recite ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade', which she had once known off by heart. Instead she helped herself to the last of the iced fancies – a particularly garish specimen iced in lemon-yellow with puce-pink decorations. She assumed there would be no more food till tomorrow's breakfast, and even that wasn't a certainty on Christmas Day with severe staff shortages.

Val kept glancing at her watch, and every so often would dart over to the window to look for the awaited car (sleigh) or scuttle to the door and peer left and right in a state of high anxiety. Lorna found it distressing that Father Christmas should be so eagerly anticipated when the presents in his sack could never be what these people really needed: health, happiness and hope.

However, Val was now engaged in a long whispered conversation with a young West Indian nurse, who left the room taking several carers with her. A search party for Santa?

‘He was late last year as well,' Dorothy One complained.

‘And the year before he never came at all.'

‘I don't know why they bother. He probably charges an arm and a leg. I'd rather they spent the money on more nurses. I waited half an hour this morning before anyone answered my bell. And then it was a coal-black fellow who couldn't understand a word I said.'

‘I won't let the black ones touch me. They've all got Aids, you know.'

Poor Oshoba, thought Lorna, licking icing off her teeth. Nevertheless she joined in the conversation. On Christmas Eve even racist company was preferable to none. ‘How long have you all been here?' she asked, resolutely changing the subject.

‘Three years,' said Dorothy Two. ‘Which is three years too many.'

‘Six months,' Dorothy One chimed in. ‘I was a fool to give up my house, but my daughter said I couldn't manage.
She
couldn't manage, more like it. And since I've been here she hasn't had to, of course. I scarcely ever see her these days. I suppose she may pop in tomorrow, give me a present I don't want, stay for five minutes and say she's got to rush back for the boys.'

Lorna gave a sympathetic murmur, although a pep talk from Aunt Agnes might have been more effective – a reminder of how lucky they were to have daughters, presents and grandsons at all, and to be waited on hand and foot (well, stretching a point) in a nursing-home.

The next half-hour passed innocuously enough, with the two Dorothys capping each other's complaints about the staff, food and management at Oakfield House, the demise of decent standards in both the monarchy and the BBC, and the deplorable state of the pavements, the countryside, the education system, the present government and the nation in general. No wonder the Monster was lying low – he couldn't cope with the competition.

Dorothy One was just fulminating about the incompetence of the local council when Val bustled in triumphantly to announce Father Christmas's arrival.

‘About time too,' said the Dorothys in unison.

In walked not Father Christmas but a scowling tight-lipped Tommy, kitted out in a red velvet dressing-gown and one of the Santa caps. A large quantity of cotton-wool whiskers was affixed to his chin with an even greater quantity of glue, and he carried a bulging pink nylon pillowcase stamped ‘Property of Oakfield House'.

‘Father Christmas doesn't wear glasses,' a little girl objected.

Val sprang to his defence. ‘Oh, but he does! You see, he spoiled his eyesight reading the long lists of presents all you children sent him.'

‘Where are his reindeer then?' the girl insisted.

‘I'm afraid they're delayed on the A3. But he has brought two of his elves with him.'

‘
Where?
‘ asked the child.

‘They're, er, coming.'

‘Tommy,' Fred called. ‘Why are you wearing a dress?'

‘Now, Fred, dear, don't spoil the fun,' one of the nurses chided. ‘It isn't Tommy, it's Father Christmas. He's come all the way from Lapland.'

‘Like hell he has,' muttered Tommy. ‘I'm suffocating in this bloody stupid get-up.'

Val ignored him. ‘And here are the dear little elves', she said, ‘who help Santa in his grotto.'

‘They're Angie's boys,' Dorothy said disparagingly. ‘She's had to bring them with her today because their nan went down with flu.'

‘Who's Angie?' Lorna asked.

‘One of the cleaners. Nice girl, but useless – can't see dirt unless it's under her nose. And the boys are a pair of right little tearaways.'

In fact they looked enchanting, dressed in makeshift crêpe-paper costumes and coloured tights, and seemed a good deal keener on the task in hand than Father Christmas himself, who stood shuffling from foot to foot and glaring down at the carpet, misery personified. Seizing the pillowcase, the boys began pulling out presents and ripping off the paper.

‘No! No!' Val shrilled. ‘You don't unwrap them, you hand them round.'

The boys' enthusiasm patently dwindled.

‘Each one has a label with a name on. Can you read them out, Sam?'

‘Sam can't read,' his brother declared proudly.

‘Oh dear. Can
you
, Josh?'

‘Some words. Not the hard ones.'

‘Look, I think I'd better do it. And you can distribute the presents.' Val put on her glasses and peered at one of the labels. “‘Dorothy'',' she pronounced.

Half a dozen voices piped up simultaneously, all laying claim to the gift.

‘We'd … er … better leave that one for the moment.' Val rummaged in the pillowcase and pulled out another present. “‘Ellen''.'

‘She's not here,' someone said. ‘She had to see the doctor.'

‘I'll have it then.' The older boy made a grab for the package.

‘No you
won't
, Josh.' Val's eyes narrowed in anger for an instant, before her mask of professional geniality returned. ‘Right – third time lucky: “Sydney''.'

Sydney didn't recognize his name, but Val pointed him out to Josh, who raced across (with Sam in close pursuit) and hurled the present on his lap.

‘Gently, boys! Gently. You're not on the football field! Maybe Sydney would like you to help him open the present.'

The boys evidently regarded this as a privilege worth fighting for. Josh eventually won and presented Sydney with a rather battered box of McVitie's Abbey Crunch. Neither boys nor biscuits, however, seemed to impact on his consciousness. His eyes were focused inward, his face totally impassive. And, since he lacked both teeth and relatives, the gift was singularly inept.

‘Say Happy Christmas, boys, then come and get the next present.'

‘Happy Christmas,' Josh muttered, already charging back to Val.

‘Christmas,' echoed Sam.

‘This one's for Marjorie,' Val told them. ‘The lady in the blue.'

To Lorna's surprise, Marjorie's face visibly softened as Sam and Josh approached. She even reached out a shaky arm and tried to put it round Sam's waist. Was she remembering Trevor as a little boy? Certainly she looked happier than at any time this afternoon, smiling at the children with genuine affection. Yet her withered cheeks and faded, filmy eyes were a chastening reminder of mortality, set against the boys' unblemished skin and penetrating gaze.

Don't grow old, Lorna longed to tell them. Stay as you are, two Peter Pans.

The Peter Pans showed little interest in Marjorie's present – a gift-pack of soap and shower gel. Vi and Cynthia received the same. Presumably it made economic sense to give them things the home should have provided anyway. Lorna hoped her present would be a knife and fork. At lunch she had been supplied with only a spoon, bent so spectacularly out of shape it made her wonder if Uri Geller had ever visited the premises.

‘Oh dear,' Val tutted, examining the next parcel. ‘This one hasn't got a label. And nor has this. Sharon, weren't you meant to write them?'

‘Yeah, sure – and a million other things. I've only got one bloody pair of hands, you know.'

‘Ah, here's one with a name,' Val said hurriedly, forestalling further invective. “‘Lorna''. That's the lady with the bad foot. Take care now, boys!'

But the warning came too late. Sam cannoned into Lorna's footstool, banging her bandaged toes. Tears of pain sprang to her eyes, but she blinked them away, realizing how important it was to maintain the charade of good cheer. Without it they all had cause to weep (more cause than a mere throbbing foot) – overworked staff, underpaid carers, creaking performers, guilt-ridden relatives, and aged residents doomed to a joyless existence.