Tread Softly (20 page)

Sharon was eyeing Clare. ‘If I'd known you had a visitor I'd have brought two cups.'

Lorna refrained from saying that even one cup was an improvement on this morning. Breakfast had been cupless, knifeless, porridgeless and butterless. ‘What's for lunch?' she asked, craning her neck to look at the tray.

‘It was meant to be mixed grill, but …'

Clare and Lorna exchanged glances.

‘…
this
chef's buggered off now, so it's cold meat and salad. And fresh fruit for afters.'

‘Well, that sounds nice and healthy,' Lorna said brightly, her sanguine tone faltering as Sharon put the tray in front of her. Marooned on a large white dinner-plate sat an anorexic slice of luncheon-meat, a quarter of a tomato, three cubes of beetroot in a pool of purple liquid and a teaspoonful of coleslaw distinctly past its prime.

‘You're lucky to get anything,' Sharon said, noticing Lorna's grimace. ‘The cold meat's just run out. God knows what they'll dredge up for the poor sods in the dining-room.' Suddenly she clutched her stomach and let out a harrowing groan. ‘Sorry, must dash – need the loo again.'

‘I can't believe it!' Clare said, as the door slammed. ‘If that girl's got diarrhoea she shouldn't be working with frail old people. It's criminal, Lorna. And, good grief!' – she gestured to the minuscule apple and shrivelled tangerine – ‘they have the cheek to call that fresh fruit?'

Any
fruit was a bonus, Lorna thought, pouring some tea for Clare into the cup, and hers into the glass.

Clare took a cautious sip. ‘Ugh! It tastes of chlorine.'

‘Yes, I'm afraid it often does. It'll kill the germs, though!'

‘Lorna, you're incorrigible! You ought to complain.'

Clare didn't understand that it took energy to complain and that she was glad to be allowed simply to lie back and do nothing. At home she would have to hop around doing everything for herself – shopping, cooking, cleaning, ironing – plus answering the phone umpteen times a day and feeling constantly guilty about not pulling her weight in the business.

There was another knock at the door and in walked a cadaverously thin man of about thirty, his long, greasy hair tied back with a flamboyant yellow ribbon. More coarse black hair – whorls of it – covered his arms and sprouted between the buttons of his shirt. Lorna stared at him in trepidation.

‘Hello. I new nurse, Antonio.'

‘Oh,
parle italiano
?' Clare said, proud of her Beginners' Italian.

Antonio looked blank.

‘Are – you – Italian?' Lorna asked slowly and clearly.

‘Me Spain.'

‘Ah …' Neither she nor Clare knew a word of Spanish. What they needed here was a linguist and a team of psychotherapists – these last for the staff as much as for the patients. Last night she had counselled Sunil, a new carer from Sri Lanka, who did speak (basic) English but who was homesick, anxious and apparently alone in the world. Antonio, too, looked far from cheerful as he handed her her pills, and she caught a whiff of cigarettes and beer on his breath. Comfort in adversity perhaps.

On his way out he was steamrollered aside by another visitor – Anne Spencer-Armitage: just about the last person Lorna wanted to see. ‘Oh, Anne … How nice.' She managed a weak smile. ‘Come in.'

A redundant instruction, as Anne was well and truly in already, and her arrival was anything but nice. For one thing, she and Clare detested each other. She also had the knack (amply demonstrated at the Princess Royal) of leaving you feeling ten times worse than before.

‘Good gracious, Lorna, you look absolutely terrible! What have they been
doing
to you?' With a curt nod in Clare's direction, she ensconced herself in the only chair and continued her mission of mercy. ‘I hear you've got shingles, you poor darling. When a friend of mine had it it affected the nerves of her face. Post-herpetic neuralgia I think it was called. Anyway, the cornea was scarred, which left her sight permanently impaired.'

Lorna blinked nervously. Even the Monster hadn't mentioned eye damage.

‘For Christ's sake, Anne,' Clare snapped, ‘Lorna hasn't
got
it on her face.'

‘It can spread, though. That's the trouble with shingles. Mavis kept having these new flare-ups just when she thought she was cured. The pain went on for years.'

Lorna swallowed.

‘Mind you, at least you got out of hospital alive – that's something, I suppose. Did you see the programme last week about medical negligence? I was utterly appalled. Nearly sixty thousand people die every year just from being in hospital.'

Yes, she
had
seen it. And so of course had the Monster, glued to the screen and positively drooling over the figures.

‘And another four hundred thousand are injured.'

Five hundred thousand, according to the Monster.

‘That's one in twenty-five patients, Lorna. And it said even minor surgery can be lethal.'

Clare shot her a withering look. ‘Quite the little ray of sunshine, aren't we?'

Ignoring her, Anne gave Lorna's arm a condescending pat. ‘All things considered, I think you're being amazingly brave. I know what courage it takes to suffer in silence. I've been ill as well, with bronchial asthma.' Whereupon she doubled up in a paroxysm of coughing.

‘Well, how kind of you to share it with Lorna.'

Anne was still rasping and snorting, and luckily didn't hear.

‘Would you like some lemon barley?' Lorna suggested quickly, to pre-empt further sarcasm from Clare.

‘Yes please,' Anne spluttered.

‘Damn! There isn't another glass.' Lorna was reluctant to call Sharon in case Anne was infected with the ‘galloping trots' on top of bronchial asthma. ‘Clare, could you be a darling and wash this glass?' In fact she should have thought to wash it before using it herself: Dorothy Two had said that drinking-glasses frequently doubled as receptacles for false teeth. ‘The bathroom's just at the end of the passage.'

Clare departed huffily, banging the door with a vehemence worthy of Sharon. Anne meanwhile rummaged in her bag for her inhaler and took a series of urgent puffs, contorting her face into an expression of martyred agony.

Lorna closed her eyes. Her tolerance of other people's afflictions was beginning to wear thin. Besides, the doctor had told her to rest. Little did he know …

‘Oh my goodness!' Anne shrieked, jumping up from the chair. ‘Now I'm having a hot flush.' She wrenched her coat and scarf off. ‘Mind if I open the window? I'm sweltering.'

‘No, please do.' It was only minus two outside.

Sharon chose this moment to reappear. ‘Oh …' She stopped short at the sight of Anne leaning out of the window, gasping for breath and frantically clawing at the neck of her blouse. ‘Bit nippy in here, innit?' she said at last, with a histrionic shiver. ‘I've brought a cup for your friend. Your other friend. Where's she gone?'

‘To wash a glass.'

‘You don't say? She wouldn't like a job here, would she? The dishwasher's packed up. As if we didn't have enough grief …'

Between anguished fits of coughing, Anne managed to bark an order at Sharon. ‘Fetch me some tea please, Nurse. Earl Grey if you have it.'

‘Come again?' Sharon looked perplexed, evidently unfamiliar with any classification of tea beyond strong or milky, with sugar or without.

There was a sudden shrill from a phone. Surprised, Lorna reached for her mobile (a present from Ralph). For some obscure reason it had been displaying an ‘Out of Service' message all morning. Had it relented at last?

‘It's mine,' Anne said, locating the phone in the depths of her bag. ‘Hello? … Oh, darling, it's
you
… No, I'm terrible – coughing my guts up. And the flushes are just vile. I'm having one this very minute. I'm wet through, literally.'

And I'm frozen stiff, Lorna thought, shivering in her thin nightie as the litany of symptoms rattled on. Maybe it was time she got under the covers, not just to prevent hypothermia but also to conceal her distorted right foot. Clare was used to the bunion, but Anne (wearing enviably smart shoes) must find it rather grotesque. Not that Anne had the energy to concern herself with defective feet.

‘Sorry, Katie, no can do. We're going out this evening … Yes, dinner, then the theatre … It's madness, of course, in my condition. There's a risk of complications if I so much as put my nose out of the door. Basil says I should stay in bed, but you know me, darling – even at death's door I feel duty-bound to soldier on. Yes, speak to you tomorrow – if I'm still in the land of the living.'

On the way back to her chair Anne noticed Lorna's cache of pills. ‘Good God! What's that lot for?'

‘I'm not sure – pain-killers and stuff.'

Anne stood, arms akimbo, hot flush and coughing fit subsumed in indignation. ‘Do you mean to tell me, Lorna Pearson, you're taking drugs without knowing what they are? You could
kill
yourself that way.

Only the other day I was reading about people in residential homes being dosed up to the eyeballs with tranquillizers and sleeping-pills.'

Lorna wouldn't have said no to a few tranquillizers, as an antidote to Anne. Perhaps the Monster had lost his voice and sent her in his place. Whatever, she was doing a marvellous job.

‘I wouldn't be surprised if that's why you collapsed. Valium affects your sense of balance.'

‘Right on the nail, Anne! They're drugging her deliberately, to beat her into submission. No wonder her bowels won't work. It's the morphine, I expect. It bungs you up – then kills you.'

Lost his voice? What an absurd idea! His squawk was as loud and malevolent as ever. ‘Go to hell,' she hissed, before turning to Anne. ‘I think these are only ibuprofen.'

‘That's nearly as bad. It can cause internal bleeding and stomach ulcers and –'

Clare barged back in, minus the glass. ‘Sorry I was so long. I got collared by some weird old boy who didn't seem to know where he was. He kept asking me to take him home.'

‘Oh dear. That'll be Arthur. He's ninety-six and his wife's just died. They brought him here against his will.' Lorna had stumbled upon the poor old man herself, wandering around in a daze and desperately repeating, ‘I want to go home. Please take me home.'

‘Heavens, there's my phone again! Hello? … Barbara? … Good – I was hoping you'd ring … No, I'm
dead
at the moment. The asthma's worse. In fact they've made me an appointment with a lung specialist – best in the country, they say.'

Clare shut the window with a bang. ‘You'd better get his name, Lorna. You'll need it if she's given you pneumonia.'

‘… well, Harley Street, naturally. He got an OBE last year. And he's frightfully well connected. He's married to the Duchess of Kent's second cousin. And his son-in-law's the …' Anne momentarily halted her name-dropping to call out, ‘Come in!' in response to a knock on the door.

‘Bloody cheek,' Clare muttered. ‘Does she think she's taken up residence here?'

‘Get
rid
of her,' Lorna mouthed.

‘Gladly. Just give me a gun.'

‘Come in!' Anne carolled again.

And in came bald, fur-coated Frances with the twitch. ‘Oh, I'm sorry, Lorna, you're busy.'

‘No, please stay!'

Lorna had been touched at how gratefully, even joyously, Frances had greeted her return to Oakfield House. Some of the others, too, had welcomed her back with genuine warmth. They had become her friends, in a sense – Frances especially. ‘Sit here, Frances,' she urged, patting the bed and wishing (not for the first time) that there was more than one chair – which Anne, of course, was monopolizing. Clare, meanwhile, stood leaning against the wall, bemused by all the comings and goings.

‘Barbara, I'll have to ring off – I can't hear myself speak … Yes, I'll keep you updated, darling, but prepare yourself for the worst. He's already said my lungs are in a shocking state.' Anne coughed again, authoritatively.

‘Good gracious!' Frances clucked. ‘You do sound bad.'

‘Yes, I was plagued with bronchitis in childhood. And now' – Anne adopted a wistful, consumptive tone – ‘my lungs are affected.'

‘How dreadful. Poor you.'

Lorna fumed silently. If anyone deserved compassion it was Frances, who since her early twenties had been in and out of psychiatric hospitals where the regime was not only ineffectual but brutal into the bargain. Anne, however, revelling in the sympathy, continued to elaborate on her parlous condition. ‘I can't breathe at night,' she confided. ‘And' – lowering her voice – ‘I'm going through the change, which is a nightmare, I can tell you.'

Frances doesn't
need
telling, Lorna wanted to shout. Some cretin of a doctor yanked out her womb when she was only twenty-nine, as a cure for her depression. And when she complained about hot flushes they silenced her with years of electric-shock treatment.
That's
a nightmare, Anne.

‘I get these fearful sweats. Sometimes I have to change my nightie half a dozen times a night.'

Gingerly Lorna tried to ease her own nightie away from the blisters. The honey had made it stick, while doing nothing to alleviate the itching. Yet, whatever her problems, talking to Frances had made her realize what a lucky escape she'd had. In her twenties she, too, had been unstable and depressed and might well have been incarcerated like Frances in some horrendous institution, had Ralph not come along and saved her.

‘It's been going on for years. My GP can't understand it. He says most women of my age –'

‘Anne,' said Clare with undisguised hostility, ‘I'm sure Frances would like a private word with Lorna. I think it's time we left.'