Going before the fall

It was all a matter of pride, I tell myself. But it really was not, when you think about it. I make a habit of it, having done it at various memorable occasions during my long life time. I am talking about my relationship with stairs. It has never been happy. I have a fairly serious issue with vertigo and have never been able to handle stairs or bridges (I have no idea what the connection is there) very well, going into a cold panic or a nicely deep freeze when confronted with either without warning. When I drive over a bridge, I focus on the car in front of me, or the far end of the narrow strip as I can see it, and steer blindly almost towards it. Where stairs are concerned – well, the bond has always been rather more tenuous.

Many years ago, when I was a mere child, I would be picked up from school by my parents. When the end of the day bell rang, I would be the last one to come downstairs, walking cautiously, one hand holding tightly on to the banister. It was a family joke, but got rather more serious as I grew up. It wasn’t only a matter of my heels growing too – I graduated fast from flat sneakers and school shoes to perilous spiky sandals that needed a course in ballet to navigate with. But they always allowed me to keep my toes on the ground; no platforms for me. And then there were bicycles – I have not yet managed to ride one, mainly (according to me) because it meant I had to take my feet off the ground and look down from what seemed like a tremendous height. The doctors diagnosed vertigo. I thanked them politely and stayed off platform heels and bicycles.

So when it came to walking down stairs, I allied myself to the side of caution. I took it easy, no matter how loud the horn was being sounded in the car waiting for my downstairs, and told myself it was always better to be dignified than end up in a battered heap at the bottom. I have, of course, done that too on various occasions. The result has rarely been pretty, with vari-shaped bruises punctuating me regularly and unaesthetically in different portions of my nicely rounded anatomy. Perhaps my most spectacular feat of this kind was the time I was hopping happily down some shallow stairs at a friend’s house; I was wearing warm booties with soft soles and slid neatly off the carpeted step to rise up in the air and land rather hard on my behind, not losing a drop from the two loaded plates of food that I was carrying. It was a little painful to sit for about a week after that, and the balancing act is still spoken of with some awed admiration in those circles.

But the other day was rather more fun to watch, I would think. I was in town on some small errands that had to be done before it was too late, and stopped at one of my favourite stores to wait for Father, who would meet me there later. Walking up the three steps into the shop, something happened. I am not sure why and how and all that, but I found myself very suddenly scrabbling for a foot and hand hold, neither of which was on call. I landed very hard on my left knee and felt a very odd kind of movement in my ankle and foot. The gentleman who was trying to walk out of the store was perhaps more startled than I was, while the security guard rushed to haul me back to my feet. There was no feeling for a moment and then, as my friends at the shop gathered, the pain flooded over my mind. They all twittered and scuttled around looking for ice, for a chair, for some kind of relief, while I stood there looking down at my foot, two toes already swelling fast, the foot itself red, my scarlet jeans marked with a patch of pale dust.

That day, as my foot and ankle swelled and darkened and the toe closely resembled an overcooked sausage, I sat with Father in a swanky restaurant having lunch, my toes wrapped in a napkin full of crushed ice while the waiters hovered making soothing noises as they served up delightful food. The story is still in progress – I am confined to my home with a bandaged foot, strained and bruised and painfully limited in movement. I am not sure what hurts most: my dignity at such an ungraceful descent, the fact that I cannot wear heels for a while, or the lack of clothes to match the ever-changing colourscape that is my left foot.