Tread Softly (7 page)

Lorna gritted her teeth. Anne Spencer-Armitage was an acquaintance rather than a friend. (What friend would phone at this hour?)

‘I expect you're in agony, aren't you? They say it's one of the most painful operations you can have.'

‘I wouldn't know. I'm drugged to the eyeballs with pain-killers.'

‘You want to be careful, Lorna. Those drugs can cause bleeding of the stomach. In fact a girl at work developed a full-blown ulcer after just two weeks on ibuprofen.'

Who needed the Monster when Anne was about? Only half listening, Lorna tried to turn off the television, but succeeded merely in increasing the volume.

‘What's that awful noise?'

‘Gang warfare in Chicago. Oh dear, there's someone at the door.' Breakfast, with any luck. Which she had no intention of sharing with Anne. ‘Can I ring you back?'

‘Yes, do. I'm dying to hear the gory details.'

The lanky man slunk in again, with a piece of paper in his hand. Another menu? A reply to her note?

No, another consent form. Would she accept the risk of eating a boiled egg? Presumably it referred to salmonella but, having just survived major surgery, she would doubtless survive a few germs in an egg. As she signed her name, the phone rang once more: Ralph's return call at last. This time she asked him how
he
was, inventing the ideal reply: I miss you desperately. The house is bleak and empty without you. It's lost its heart. I'm bereft.

‘What d'you mean, how am I? There's nothing wrong with
me
. Bugger! There's the other phone again. It's Patrick Gillespie, I bet. He's …'

With the TV blaring, she couldn't hear the rest of the sentence. She punched the buttons on the remote-control, with no more effect than before. It would probably switch off at the set, but she wasn't allowed out of bed until she had seen the physio and been issued with her crutches. Enforced immobility was frustrating. She longed to go to the bathroom to clean her teeth and have a proper wash, but could only lie and listen to atrocities – all the crises and accidents beloved of the Monster. Existence must have been easier in medieval times, when you didn't hear about events beyond the confines of your own small village. She tried to turn herself into a thirteenth-century goodwife, with nothing to worry about except a hen not laying or a faulty stitch in her tapestry.

‘No anaesthetics,' the Monster sneered. ‘No penicillin. No fridges. You'd be panicking before you could say Black Death.'

‘Go away!' she ordered, then ‘Come in' as she heard another knock at the door.

The egg at last, with any luck. By now her stomach was rumbling audibly and her mouth felt like the bottom of an ancient, boiled-dry kettle.

In walked a bouquet with a small, red-haired man on the end of it. ‘Flowers for you, Mrs Pearson.'

She looked nervously at the pompous blooms shrouded in Cellophane – the sort of thing one might order for a funeral.

‘I'll fetch a vase.'

‘Thank you.' She prised the card from the bouquet: ‘From Heather and Sebastian, with fondest love.'

There must be some mistake. She didn't know anyone called Heather and Sebastian. Perhaps she could eat the flowers for breakfast, though – scrambled lilies on toast – and drink the water in the vase.

Swiftly reappearing, the red-haired man proved a model of efficiency. He turned the television off (having first explained the controls), filled her water-jug, promised to sort out the mystery of the flowers, and finally gave her the number of the kitchen.

‘Hello. It's Mrs Pearson in room twenty. I ordered a boiled egg … Oh, on its way? Wonderful!'

Within a couple of minutes there was a tap on the door. ‘Yes!' she whooped. ‘Come
in
. I'm so hungry I could …'

In walked Diane Morris, the wife of one of their wealthiest clients. ‘Lorna, how
are
you? Do forgive me barging in like this, but I'm on my way to work and I literally pass the door. I just couldn't resist popping in to see you. Did everything go well?'

‘Mm … fine.' She was rigid with embarrassment. Diane's appearance – elegant cream suit, immaculate hair, scarlet lips and nails – highlighted her own state of dishabille. Worse was the contrast in their feet: Diane's shod in dove-grey kidskin ankle-boots; hers ignominiously naked – the right twisted and deformed, the left bloody and bristling with wires. Quickly she pulled the sheet over them and forced her face into the semblance of a smile, although making stilted conversation with a comparative stranger was not a welcome prospect.

‘Do sit down. How lovely to see you!' Whatever her feelings, she must make an effort for Ralph's sake. ‘And what's the weather doing out there?'

‘It's perishing, my dear! You're lucky to be here in the warm.'

Shades of Aunt Agnes. ‘Yes, they do keep it nice and snug.'

‘And how long will you be in?'

‘Oh, barely a week. I'll be home well in time for Christmas.'

‘Don't mention Christmas, Lorna! I've hardly begun my shopping …'

‘Are you and Bob going away?'

‘Just to our country place in Shropshire. Both the girls are coming, with their families, so it'll be the usual houseful. How about you?'

She wouldn't be going anywhere, that was for sure. Well, maybe hobbling on crutches from the bedroom to the kitchen. Christmas was lonely at the best of times, without being incapacitated. If only she could hire a ready-made family: parents, children, cousins, aunts … Her one living relative, Aunt Agnes, was otherwise engaged – spending Christmas in a hotel with an old friend from her teaching days.

‘Lorna, if there's anything you need I'll be delighted to help. You only have to say.'

‘No, honestly, I'm fine.' Fine was true, for once, because at that very moment the breakfast-tray arrived: grapefruit segments, two boiled eggs, buttered toast, and tea and milk in a flower-sprigged pot.

‘Oh, my
dear
, you haven't had your breakfast! I'm so sorry. I'm disturbing you.'

‘No, please. It doesn't matter. It's sweet of you to come.'

As the phone rang yet again, Lorna began to wish she was in a National Health ward. She wouldn't have a phone then; nor would visitors be allowed to swan in at breakfast time.

‘It's me again.'

‘Oh … hello, Ralph.'

‘What's up? You sound peculiar.'

‘Er, Diane Morris is here. She's very kindly come to see me.'

‘I'll ring off then. I'm a bit pushed, actually. I've got to see that useless contractor in Staplehurst, so I shan't be able to ring again till tonight.'

Ring? Wasn't he coming in person? She couldn't ask with Diane there. How long was the wretched woman going to stay? It must be getting on for nine by now, but Diane worked in advertising, which was noted for its relaxed attitude to timekeeping. She and Ralph were at their desks by seven.

‘Don't let your breakfast get cold, Lorna – not on my account.'

‘Actually, I … I couldn't face eating at the moment.' What she couldn't face was conversing with her mouth full in front of the fastidious Diane. Or, worse, dripping egg yolk on the sheet. She eyed the untouched food – butter already congealing on the toast. Even the smell of the toast was lost in the blast of Diane's Chanel No. 5.

‘But what's wrong, my dear? I thought you said you felt fine?'

‘Oh, just a bit … sick, that's all. You know how it is after anaesthetics.'

‘Well, I
don't
, to tell the truth. I've never been ill in my life, let alone in hospital. Bobby says I'm so healthy it's disgusting. Anyway, if you're feeling sick you won't want visitors, so I'd better make myself scarce.'

‘Well, it's been a pleasure. Thank you …' Any second now she would be able to sink her teeth into the toast, devour each egg in a couple of gulps, wash them down with pints of glorious tea.

But no, it seemed she wouldn't. Another intrusion, in the shape of Nurse Pat, accompanied by a porter with a wheelchair.

‘I'm sorry to disturb you, Mrs Pearson, when you have a visitor, but Mr Hughes has requested an X-ray. Oh, you haven't had your breakfast yet. Aren't you hungry?'

Yes!
she wanted to shout. I could eat a horse. Why stop at one?

She could eat an entire stud farm. But she could hardly contradict what she had just said to Diane. ‘I seem to have lost my appetite.'

‘Don't worry, that often happens. I'll get someone to take your tray away.'

She cast a last lingering glance at the breakfast, tasting the refreshing tang of grapefruit on her tongue, the tea slipping down hot and sweet and strong. Well, at least she was saved from salmonella and – another blessing – the nurse was actually helping her on with her dressing-gown, concealing the offending hospital robe.

‘Goodbye, Lorna,' Diane called, teetering to the door. ‘Good luck!'

Yes, I'll need it, Lorna thought, as she was wheeled along the corridor, her leg up on a metal strut and sticking out at a right angle. It felt horribly vulnerable – she was terrified the orderly might bang it against the wall.

Mercifully, though, she arrived unscathed at the X-Ray department. He parked her just outside and, with a jaunty ‘Cheerio!', strode off.

Stay, she begged him silently. I can't move without you.

Suddenly, above all else, she longed to stand up and walk away. She couldn't, of course: she was trapped. For endless weeks she would be reduced to limping and hobbling, and dependent on other people to help her do the most basic things. The prospect was appalling.

‘You'd better get used to it. Judging by the mess that stupid surgeon made, you'll probably be permanently disabled. And there's still the other foot, remember. Once he's let loose on that you might as well make your will and be done with it.'

‘
Scat!
They don't allow Monsters in X-Ray.'

‘It's so crowded I doubt they'll notice.'

True. All the casualties in this morning's news seemed to have congregated there – broken arms, broken bodies, crocks like her in wheelchairs or supine on trolley-beds. Despite their common plight, the famous English reserve prevailed. Not a single person spoke; each sat in their own separate purgatory, unwilling (or unable) to communicate.

‘No man is an island …' Her island was drifting further and further from the mainland; Ralph and her friends were tiny dots in the distance waving her adieu.

No! she pleaded desperately. Come back.

‘It's perfectly simple, Mrs Pearson,' Phil explained. ‘When you go upstairs you lead with the good foot, and when you go down you lead with the bad.'

Lorna gazed at the flight of stairs looming before her as if into the stratosphere. Nothing was simple on crutches.

‘Remember that little tag I told you: “The good go up to heaven and the bad go down to hell.'' Right, let's try again. Transfer the crutch to your other hand – hold it horizontally and try to balance its weight. That's it. Now put your good foot on the first stair and pull yourself up. No, no! You must support yourself on the banister-rail and the left crutch, not on your bad foot.'

Phil was female, not male, with a burly physique and a baritone voice to match the masculine name. Her manner of barking instructions made Lorna feel distinctly cowed – especially just now, when she could barely tell right from left. She had experienced the same confusion when learning ballroom dancing – slow, slow, quick, quick, slow. There was nothing quick about
this
process, though. Dragging herself up even a single step was a major undertaking.

‘That nightie's most unsuitable,' Phil admonished. ‘It's too long. It'll trip you up. Have you nothing shorter?'

Lorna shook her head. She had borrowed the exotic lacy creation from a friend, concerned less with its length (the friend was five foot ten) than with arousing Mr Hughes's passion.

‘Well, hitch it up and tie it with your dressing-gown cord.'

The dressing-gown was borrowed too: Ralph's navy-blue-striped towelling one, which must have looked a shade incongruous with six inches of frilly pink satin trailing below it. But her own night-clothes were non-existent. Normally she slept in her skin or a T-shirt, and, working such long hours, had never found much use for dressing-gowns.

Phil held the crutches for her while she balanced on one foot and made the necessary adjustments.

‘Right, let's continue,' Phil said testily, handing back the crutches. ‘We haven't got all day. Bring the bad foot up with the crutch. No, leave your right foot where it is. You want both feet on the same stair.'

Lorna tried to concentrate. She was going home the day after tomorrow, and if she didn't learn to negotiate the stairs she would starve when Ralph was out.

‘Now we'll try going down. The bad foot leads, remember – “The bad go down to hell.'''

Agnes had been a great one for hell. Adulterers were banished there without mercy or exception – including adulterers in intent. When Mr Hughes had popped in yesterday Lorna had stripped him naked and seduced him. Strangely, today she had lost all vestige of desire. If he came slavering to her bed she would simply show him the door.

‘Now we'll walk along the corridor back to your room. Both crutches forward first, please, then move the bad foot up to them, resting it on the heel. It's not hurting, is it?'

‘Yes.'

‘Well, it shouldn't be.'

‘And so's my back. In fact my back's almost as bad as my foot.'

‘That's because you're not mobile.'

‘Actually, Janice said she thought it might have been damaged during the op.'

Janice was the other physiotherapist and as different from Phil as Mary Poppins from Attila the Hun. She was young, petite and giggly – a friendly chatterbox who had admitted in an unguarded moment that patients were sometimes manhandled in theatre. ‘And, you see, if you're moved awkwardly when you're anaesthetized it can cause an injury.'