Tread Softly (19 page)

‘No, it's definitely shingles. You can tell by those scaly blisters, and you only ever get it on one side. I had it on the right side. With you it's on the left. You should be in bed, my dear, not out at a dinner-dance! Look, I'll have a word with Ralph and get him to take you home.'

‘No, please … I've been such a nuisance already.' She paused, fearing she had said too much, yet tempted to go on. ‘You see, I … I found it a strain leaving the nursing-home. There are so many stairs at home, for one thing. And so much to do, and … and … I keep getting weepy and pathetic.'

‘I was just the same, Lorna, and that was
without
an operation. Hugh was frightfully worried. I'd burst into tears over nothing.'

‘And I feel sick, and …'

‘So did I. I'm afraid you have to take this seriously, my dear. It often lasts for ages. I had it for over three months.'

Lorna stared at her aghast. Three months?

‘There you are,' the Monster cackled. ‘Told you so!'

‘And if you're not careful you can get a secondary infection in the blisters.'

‘Yeah – you're bound to, knowing your luck.' The Monster gave a gloating laugh.

Olive patted her hand kindly. ‘I really would advise you to go home.'

She remembered Ralph's anger after her panic attack at Olive and Hugh's. Admittedly this was rather different, but she couldn't let him down again. ‘I'd feel awkward disrupting the proceedings, Olive. Look, it's not that long till midnight. I'll stay till then, OK?'

Olive was about to protest, but Lorna got in first. ‘I'm fine, Olive, honestly. And I wouldn't want to miss the fireworks.'

The worst lie of all. She detested fireworks.

A squall of rockets zipped the sky apart, cascading down in shards of coloured light. Inside, the walls convulsed with more pulsing, jouncing lights, glittering and blinding. A fanfare from the band lasered through her side, disorienting her with pain and sound combined. Faces loomed and receded. Who were they? Did she know them?

Glasses clinked to glasses, their tiny consoling chinks drowned by the war zone beyond the window – bombs exploding blue and gold.

Someone crushed her in a bear-hug. She tried to smile. More pain. A waft of scent and cigarette smoke as another person kissed her. She swallowed, tasting nausea.

Balloons were showering from the ceiling: dangerous silent bombs. Nothing else was silent: discordant voices rising all around her; mouths opening, shutting, blurring; faces split with scarlet grins.

‘Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And never brought to mind …'

No! she tried to shout, as she was swept towards the dance-floor. Her legs were paper streamers, her voice a burst balloon.

‘Don't worry, Lorna, we've got you! We're holding you nice and tight.'

Strong hurting arms on one side, soft hurting hands the other. She couldn't fall; she wouldn't. She was being shunted round and round in an unsteady, drunken circle. Walls and floor and ceiling circled drunkenly the other way, while the frenzied sky outside rampaged red and silver, so loud, so bright, it was shattering the glass.

Then a voice she knew suddenly rose in warning: ‘Careful! She's falling! Oh my God, she's …'

‘Lorna, how are you?' Clare hugged her eagerly.

‘Ow! That hurts! I'm sorry, I'm a bit like a vestal virgin at the moment – can't be touched. But it's great to see you. I've missed you.'

‘Me too.' Clare perched on the end of the bed. ‘Christmas was the usual farce, but yours sounds ten times worse. You do look pretty grotty, I must say.'

‘Thanks a lot!'

‘How's the foot?' Clare peered curiously at the blood-encrusted toes protruding from a now somewhat grubby bandage.

‘Not marvellous. I have the stitches out tomorrow, which means I see my darling surgeon.'

‘How are you getting there, with Ralph away? Want me to drive you?'

‘It's sweet of you, but no thanks. I've arranged an ambulance on BUPA, believe it or not.'

‘I should jolly well think so, considering what you fork out. By the way, you know they've got the wrong name on your door?'

She laughed. ‘Yes. Mrs Paterson.'

‘Shouldn't you ask them to change it?'

Lorna shifted position to reduce the pressure on her bedsore. ‘I've grown to like Mrs Paterson. She has certain qualities Mrs Pearson lacks, so it's quite liberating really.'

Clare gave her an odd look.

‘As for Mr Paterson, he's a bigamist, I've decided, who lives contentedly in Penge with the
other
Mrs Paterson.'

‘You're nuts.' Clare began pulling things out of her carrier-bag. ‘Now then – I've brought all sorts of stuff: vitamin C, lemon barley, echinacea, leeks …'

‘Leeks?'

‘I looked up shingles in my
Natural Cures
book and it said apply honey and raw leek juice to the blisters. We really need a liquidizer to extract the juice. Shall I ask in the kitchen?'

‘I shouldn't. The new chef's deaf and dumb.'

‘You're joking!'

‘No, honestly. They've had a succession of agency cooks since Christmas, but none of them would stay.'

‘I'm not surprised, after what Ralph's told me.'

‘Oh, he's just biased. Though actually he couldn't wait to get me back here after I collapsed at the golf club. I think he was scared I might peg out on their hallowed premises! Of course he had to eat humble pie after saying all those insulting things to Matron.'

‘I can't imagine Ralph eating humble pie.'

‘Nor me.'

‘So is it really as dire as he says?'

‘To tell the truth I quite like it, but perhaps I'm just a masochist. They
are
chronically short of staff. And those they've got do seem rather accident-prone. One's slipped on the ice and dislocated her shoulder, another's gone down with glandular fever, and a third's in hospital with appendicitis.'

‘And meanwhile you starve. Ralph said you've lost a stone.'

Lorna shrugged. ‘It won't do me any harm. I've no appetite in any case. You can have my lunch if you want – if and when it comes. It's meant to be mixed grill, but what they say and what you get are never quite the same. I don't suppose many people notice – very few of them still have a short-term memory.'

‘Actually mixed grill sounds rather good.'

‘It may be tripe and onions. You've been warned!' Lorna tensed as a sharp pain seared her chest and side. Aunt Agnes used to tell her that the human body was proof of God's omnipotence – the perfect instrument, the cream of all creation. Even as a child, Lorna had doubted it: if God was so wonderful, why did knees get grazed and noses run? Later in life this view was reinforced. Bodies, and minds more so, seemed unreliable, if not wilfully perverse. And as for the present, any deity that might exist had clearly given up on her: apart from the shingles, she had developed a crop of mouth ulcers, calluses on her hands from the crutches and, a final indignity, chronic constipation.

Clare retrieved a pillow from the floor. ‘Lorna, I hate to see you like this. Is there anything I can
do
?'

‘Just your being here is great.' Dependable, outspoken Clare always made her feel less unreal. Clare was solid in appearance (stocky and broad-shouldered) and solid gold in character. With her no-nonsense hairstyle and unfashionable clothes, she was striking rather than pretty, although she did have a perfect complexion and distinctive slate-blue eyes.

‘Let's try this anyway,' she said, unscrewing the honey jar, ‘on its own, without the leek juice.'

Lorna made a face. ‘I'm not sure I fancy being all sticky.'

‘You never know – it might just work. Come on, show me this rash.'

As Lorna unbuttoned her nightdress, Val's head appeared round the door. ‘Hope I'm not intruding …'

‘Er, no … come in.' Lorna hurriedly made herself decent. ‘Clare, this is Val, the activities organizer.'

‘Nice to meet you, Clare,' Val gushed, proffering a hand which, with honey on her fingers, Clare was obliged to refuse. ‘I just came to ask you, Lorna, if you'd like to join us for darts this afternoon.'

‘I don't think so, thanks all the same.'

‘Well, if you change your mind it starts at two. I'll pop in at quarter to, OK?' And she rustled off in a swirl of yellow frills. (Even in the daytime Val tended to favour cocktail-wear.)

Clare frowned. ‘Darts on one leg? Is she mad?'

‘Oh, I expect you can play from your wheelchair. Most people here have no legs – at least not in working order.'

Clare suddenly giggled. ‘I wonder what she thought – you about to strip off and me advancing on you with a jar of honey! It'll probably be all round the place that we're a couple of weirdo Iezzies.'

‘There's more than a couple here already, from what I've heard.' She might joke about it, but there was pathos in the fact that, deprived of family visits or contact with the outside world, some of the residents cuddled up together for the only comfort they could find.

‘You'd better watch it, Lorna. A young, glamorous slip of a thing like you, they'll be buzzing round in droves!'

Young and glamorous? Lorna glanced from her oozing blisters to her unprepossessing feet. If she had a shred of vanity she would crawl under the covers and pull the sheet right up. But even the thinnest blanket pressed against the bandage, as well as aggravating the rash.

‘Now lie back and think of England while I get down to business!'

‘Ouch! No, Clare – it's agony. I can't bear you touching me.'

‘Sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you. Let me trickle a bit straight from the jar, very, very gently. Better?'

‘Yes.
No!
It's going all over the sheets. And they never change the beds here, so I'll be gunged-up for the next two weeks.'

‘You're not staying that long, surely?'

‘The doctor said two weeks.'

‘You'll go bananas!'

Lorna wiped a drool of honey from her stomach. ‘It's not all bad, you know. I like the other residents, on the whole. They may be a bit peculiar, but some of them are also very brave and I feel a sort of … bond with them. Anyway, it was awful being at home. Even two days got me down. It was as if I were seeing the house with new eyes after being out of it. Normally I'm stuck there day after day, and often on my own. It's terribly isolating, Clare, with no neighbours close by and not a sound from another living soul.'

‘It beats me why you don't move. You've never liked the place much.'

‘Oh, I couldn't. It would break Ralph's heart. That house is his security, in every sense.'

‘What about
you
, though?'

‘Mostly I'm OK there. I think it was being so immobile and in pain and everything. And I had this strange feeling of Naomi's presence, as if she was still … around, and haunting the place. I mean, it's her home really, not mine. She and Ralph chose the house together. And the fact that she died there does make it rather spooky.'

‘Does Ralph ever talk about her?'

‘Of course not. You know Ralph. He probably felt guilty, not realizing how sudden the end would be. She'd been ill for ages, you see, and I suppose he assumed the situation wouldn't change. It must have been a dreadful shock for him – though perhaps a relief as well. With a full-time job and an invalid wife it can't have been much of a life.'

‘Surely he had some help.'

‘Well, yes, a nurse came in in the daytime, but he took over evenings and weekends. In fact I'm sure that's one of the reasons he became rather a recluse. You see, it was always just the two of them, and as Naomi got worse she withdrew into her own world. So he would eat alone and sleep alone and –'

‘Poor Ralph. It does sound grim. You'd think after that ghastly childhood he'd have picked a nice normal wife.'

‘She
was
nice and normal, as far as I can gather. The illness came on unexpectedly, which was hard for Ralph as well as her, because above all else he hates being out of control, and you can't control MS. His natural inclination is to try to put things right, create order out of disorder, and when he can't he feels impotent. I suspect that's part of the trouble at the moment – me being laid up much longer than he thought. He does seem incredibly tense. After I'd talked to him on the phone last night I felt completely wrung out. I have to say I don't relish the prospect of going back to work.'

‘Well, why not stay with
me
for a while? Come right away if you want, then at least you'd be shot of this dump. I may not be Florence Nightingale, but I would remember to bring you meals.'

‘You're an angel, Clare, but I'm probably better off here.' She couldn't explain, even to Clare, her dread of panic attacks, especially in a small, claustrophobic flat. They were a risk wherever she was, of course, but Oakfield did have night staff, whereas she could hardly wake Clare in the early hours and expect her to cope. How fantastic it would be if friends (or spouses) could take things from you literally, endure them in your stead. Perhaps that should be the definition of true love: if they could they would. But would
she
bear Clare's pain, on top of her own, or Ralph's unspoken fears?

There was a tap on the door: Sharon, with the lunch-tray, and as voluble as ever. ‘I should be home in bed, Mrs Pater …, not dragging myself up and down these stairs. I've got the galloping trots. I spent all night on the loo. Agony it was. No good telling Matron, though. If you'd got terminal cancer she'd still force you to do your normal shifts.'

‘Oh dear, I am sorry.' It occurred to Lorna that since her return to Oakfield House she had spent more time commiserating with the carers over their ailments than vice versa.