Tread Softly

"Lorna, thirty-nine, is married to misanthropic Ralph, who in turn is wedded to his twenty-seven pipes and his artificial-grass business. In fact, it's a menage a trois, the third party being Lorna's Monster, a gleefully sadistic personification of her panic attacks." The Monster has a field day when, after a botched foot operation, Lorna is sent to convalesce among the deaf and demented inmates of a nursing home from hell, where the staff have more problems than the patients. But, despite her surroundings, she begins to blossom, making new friends, discovering untapped talents and even a reawakened interest in sex, thanks to the attentions of an ardent young care-worker. She even gets offered a challenging new job. Meanwhile Ralph is being sued by a vindictive business client and fears he will lose his house and his livelihood.