Tread Softly (42 page)

‘He's been
what
?'

‘Don't be angry, beautiful lady.'

‘I've every right to be angry.' She wrested her arm away. ‘It's a bloody cheek!'

‘But he's angry too, you see.' Again he tried to touch her, clutching at her hand this time, as if by maintaining physical contact he could overcome her resistance. ‘Because I slept with you.'

‘What the hell's it got to do with him?'

Oshoba bit his lip, said nothing.

‘Is it because I'm white?'

‘Maybe. He's had some bad experiences over here. So now he's prejudiced. And perhaps he's jealous too, a bit. He's never had a girlfriend.'

‘Well, that's his problem.' She was already struggling into her clothes – the clothes Oshoba had removed so sensuously and slowly, kissing the insides of her thighs as he drew down her lacy tights, tonguing her breasts as he unfastened her bra.

‘Please don't rush off. I hate it to be like this when before we were so close.'

Torn all ways, she sank down on the bed. Perhaps he simply wasn't strong enough to withstand his brother's demands, his dislike of her, his prejudice. For all she knew, Olu could be a brute. And yet the story didn't quite ring true. Why had the sister never been mentioned before? And why was he avoiding her eyes? ‘Oshoba, I didn't even know you
had
a sister. How come she's suddenly ill?'

‘We only heard last night. My father rang.'

‘I'd have thought you'd have been more upset then. If I'd just heard my sister was at death's door I don't think I'd feel like jumping into bed with anyone, even you. And it certainly didn't affect your performance.'

He slipped his hand between the buttons of her blouse. ‘That's because I find you so exciting.'

‘I don't want flattery, Oshoba. I want the truth.'

‘It
is
the truth. When I see you naked, everything else goes out of my head.'

Could she believe him? Or had the whole thing been a sham from the start? Perhaps he had latched on to her at Oakfield in the hope of financial gain, sensed her vulnerability, seen her as a soft touch. According to Kathy, some of the carers did blatantly tout for cash. But Oshoba hadn't seemed the mercenary type. Unless he'd been biding his time, of course. The problem was, she would never know – which meant that things between them could never be the same. Even now, while his thumb caressed her nipple, her body was responding while her mind warned, ‘Stupid fool! He's only after your money.'

‘Lorna, you don't seem to realize it's
you
I'm worried about.'

‘What d'you mean?'

‘Well, Olu says if you won't help he might have to ask your husband.'

She sprang up from the bed. ‘Oshoba, if you or Olu
dare
say a word to Ralph …'

‘But how can I stop him?'

‘Oshoba, this is blackmail.'

‘No, of course it isn't. I just want to save you from trouble. But I'm worried for myself as well. I don't want your husband knowing that we've …'

‘A pity you didn't think of that earlier.' She seized her jacket and buttoned it with shaking fingers. ‘And you can tell Olu that he won't get a single penny from either me or Ralph. Is that clear?'

‘No, wait, please. We have to talk.'

‘We've talked quite long enough.'

‘At least let's finish the wine.' Desperately he pushed the glass into her hands.

She hurled it to the floor. ‘It's over, Oshoba, don't you understand? Buy your own wine in future. And pay your own bloody fares.'

‘An absolute disgrace!'

Aunt Agnes's voice exploded in Lorna's head as, nervously, she approached the grave. It was overgrown with weeds, the headstone cracked and leaning to one side as if drunk, like her father. And the graves around it were similarly out of kilter, some half sunken, some tilted at perilous angles, many crumbling or broken. A marble angel lay helpless on her back, one wing snapped off, her face streaked with green. Groundsel and chickweed had invaded the stone slabs; coarse tufts of grass sprouted between cracks. Was her father so powerful that even after death he could leave this trail of devastation? When she'd visited as a child, the plot had been well tended, the gravestones upright, the whole churchyard neat and trim. Agnes would never have allowed insolent weeds to encroach or rapacious ivy to choke her beloved sister. Instead, pristine white lilies or sprays of scented lilac would be arranged in vases and forbidden to droop. Lorna used to wonder why the dead should even want flowers, when they could no longer see or smell them. As an adult she had avoided the place and all its traumatic associations, preferring to keep her father exuberantly alive, not confined in a box, shackled by a stone.

On impulse she put down the heavy carrier-bag, knelt on the ground and started grubbing up the weeds with her bare hands. How could she leave Agnes's remains in such a wild, disorderly spot? Soon her nails were filthy and her wrists scratched, so she searched for a piece of flint to dig out the obstinate roots. Then she used it to scrape the lichen off the headstone and finally sat back on her heels and stared at the formal names: Garret Michael David Alexander; Margaret Anna Martha Rose. She had never known her parents as they really were. And perhaps the few memories she had of them were coloured by her craving for a perfect, problem-free family.

She shivered, although the day was unseasonably warm – the fields and hills beyond the churchyard shimmering in a heat haze, the recent rain and gloom purged in a convulsion of new growth. Polished celandines carpeted the ground, interspersed with young, keen, sappy nettles, and a white bridal veil of cow-parsley foamed along the hedgerows amid a luminous gauze of green. All around, trees and plants were uncoiling, budding, sprouting, while swifts and swallows painted darting black hieroglyphs on the becalmed blue sky. Living here as a child, she had been too forlorn to notice the beauty of the countryside. Her focus was on her parents (where might she find them? In heaven? Under ground?) and on her hated boarding-school. Nor did she remember the place being as lonely as today. There had always been people – grown-ups mostly, telling her what to do; not just Agnes but busybody villagers. Now, however, the area seemed abandoned, tenanted only by the dead.

She took the heavy cardboard box out of the carrier-bag. How grotesque it was that the person who had brought her up and had loved her most in the world should be reduced to a bagful of ashes. At Clare's, she had kept it under the bed, unwilling to confront it, and indeed the very sight of the oblong box brought back an image of Agnes in her coffin, her nails still varnished strawberry red, in contrast to her old-fashioned clothes. She had kissed the stiff white brow, repelled by its marble coldness and by the vase of artificial flowers standing on a plinth beside the corpse – dusty roses in a hideous shade of mauve. And at a time when daffodils and tulips were running riot in every garden, on sale in every florist's. Were the undertakers too mean to buy a bunch or two? The artificial had no place in Agnes's life.

Ignoring the sick feeling in her stomach, she peeled off the tape that sealed the cardboard box. Inside she found a tall, screw-topped jar, and inside that a polythene bag of silvery cinder-dust. Box, jar and bag all bore identical labels, giving Agnes's name, the date of her cremation and the cremation number: 804. But no, this
couldn't
be Agnes – in a plastic bag in a plastic jar …

She drew the bag from the mouth of the jar and undid its plastic tie. Never before had the difference between life and death seemed so chillingly stark. A corpse was at least recognizable as human – clothed and three-dimensional, the person you had known – whereas this gritty grey stuff might just as well be the debris from a bonfire or the sweepings from a grate.

She had no idea how to proceed. The scattering of ashes surely required some form of ritual – a priest intoning solemn words, backed by organ and choir. But, like the village, the churchyard was deserted, basking in Sunday lunch-time stupor. Birds provided the only choir: raucous jays, brash thrushes, a cacophony of rooks.

Kneeling in a respectful posture, she held out the bag and slowly trickled the ashes on to the grave. Some settled there; some lifted in the breeze, dispersed. Was she reuniting the sisters, or simply casting Agnes to the winds?

Tears slid down her face. She wiped her eyes with her sleeve, knowing her aunt would disapprove. Coming out without a clean cotton handkerchief was a capital offence. (Agnes couldn't abide paper tissues.) ‘Dearest Aunt,' she whispered, ‘I promise not to sniff. There's no need to worry about me any more. Your work is over now.'

She pressed some of the fine granules into the engraved letters of her mother's name. ‘Rest in Peace' was written underneath in Gothic script. Had her mother ever known peace?

Suddenly she saw her father coming down the path. She and Mummy had been watching for him, waiting on the doorstep. She ran to meet him, her summer sandals hurting on the ruts. Her head was level with his legs. Pin-striped legs. Unsteady legs, lurching towards her. He bent to kiss her. A dribbly, nasty-tasting kiss.

‘Look what I found, Daddy!' She held out the feather. A magpie's feather, blue-glistening-black.

He didn't take it, though. He didn't even seem to see it. His eyes were funny, with little streaks of red in them.

‘Don't bother me, Lorna. I'm tired.'

His voice was wrong: a fuzzy growl. Her mother's voice was wrong as well. Scared and shrill. And her face too tight.

They went inside. He sat at the table, but he didn't eat his meat or apple pie. He just drank some brown stuff from a bottle. Mummy tried to stop him, but he banged his fist on the table and the cups and glasses shook. Mummy cried. He laughed. No one noticed
her
, so she slid down from her chair and hid behind the door. She'd lost her magic feather. She wished she had feathers too, to fly away.

She screwed her eyes tight shut. Better not to look. Or make a noise. If she wasn't quiet he'd bang the table again.

‘I will
not
be quiet!' she yelled, wheeling round to face the grave. ‘Not any more. To hell with you, Daddy! You ruined our lives. Smashed yourself up. Killed Mummy.' She kicked out at the head-stone, hurting her foot on the granite. ‘I was born brave and you destroyed that, you selfish, drunken pig …'

The rooks' voices mocked in echo, but she shouted louder still. ‘And that awful school … It was like another death. You and your pretensions! You can't imagine what it was like, being treated as if I
smelt
. Just because I had no parents. And all the time I kept thinking, What if Agnes dies too? Nothing was safe. Or permanent. How dare you be so …'

Her voice was getting hoarse. What was the point of ranting? It was
over
. Her father was dead. Her mother was dead. Even Agnes was dead. She had to accept it, let them go. Life
wasn't
safe, not for anyone. It was full of risk and uncertainty. So be it – she'd survive.

Somewhere in the distance she heard the throb of a tractor. People working, purposeful …

She stood looking out across the patchwork fields, although the combed brown furrows and the green glaze of wheat remained a featureless blur. Her attention was on the past, flashing by in fast-forward: her childhood here, first with her parents, then with Agnes; the prison years of school; the wild affairs; the breakdown; the safe harbour of marriage; the recent squalls and shipwreck.

It hadn't been all bad. At least she'd not been consigned to a mental home like Frances; nor had she become an agoraphobic. In fact she had reached the age of forty able to function more or less normally.

So what now? Did she flounder on in futile indecision, knowing that no choice
was
a choice, then waste the rest of her life in regret?

‘No,' she said aloud, punching her fist into her palm. ‘Dammit, I
will
take the job at The Cedars.' She repeated the statement, as if requiring her decision to be witnessed and official, heard by the whole county. ‘I won't be ruled by panic any longer. Or by Ralph. Or my father. I don't
need
protectors. I don't need men at all. Agnes got by without them, and so will I.'

She tore up a fistful of celandines and flung them over the ashes. No more fake flowers or artificial grass. She wrenched a clump of cowslips from the ground, threw it on to the grave, and added dandelions and buttercups – the flowers she'd loved as a child. That courageous child had died when her world was overturned. But she could resurrect her. And she'd do what they did in fairy-tales: slay the wicked Monster.

She grabbed the box and carrier and broke into a run, thudding down the churchyard path and out into the lane. Her feet hurt terribly – but too bad. She'd finished with doctors, operations, crutches. Pain or no, she refused to be a patient from now on.

Suddenly, up loomed the Monster, breathing fire and blocking her way. ‘Slay
me
? Are you kidding? I'll be with you till you die.'

‘No you won't. You're nothing – a spectre from my childhood, that's all. I was frightened then, with reason, but –'

‘Nothing, am I? Just you wait and see. I can wreck this new job for a start. An administrator prone to panic attacks? – you'll be fired within the week.'

‘I'm not listening! You don't even exist.'

‘Oh really? Then why's your heart pounding nineteen to the dozen? And why are you short of breath?'

‘Just … habit,' she gasped. ‘But I'll fight you. You can threaten all you like, but I'll win in the end. I'll stand up to you. Like Agnes did.
And
my mother. Everyone has Monsters. Even my father. Obviously.'

‘Yeah,' the Monster cackled. ‘And we know where
he
ended up!'