Read Online Tread Softly by Wendy Perriam - Free Book Online Page A

better make myself scarce.’
    â€˜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.
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜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.
    â€˜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.
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜ Scat! They don’t allow Monsters in X-Ray.’
    â€˜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.
    â€˜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.

Chapter Five
    â€˜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.
    â€˜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