The More You Ignore Me (19 page)

‘Come
on then, let’s eat,’ said Keith and they all went downstairs together like a
proper family and sat at the tiny kitchen table with Keith and Alice trying to
ignore the fact that Gina was eating like a toddler and managing to get more
dinner on her clothes than in her mouth.

About
nine o’clock the phone rang and Keith answered it. He held the phone up towards
Alice.

‘It’s
Mark,’ he said.

Mark
was ringing from a call box in the village. Alice took the phone out into the
hall and sat tugging the lead as far as it would go while she talked to him.

‘I’ve
left home,’ said Mark.

‘What,
forever?’ said Alice.

‘I
haven’t really thought that far ahead,’ said Mark and he explained that after a
trip to casualty where he had been checked over, X-rayed, had a few stitches
and his wounds dressed, he had gone back home only to face an avalanche of
abuse from his dad, the content of which concentrated mainly on what a disgrace
and embarrassment he was to his family.

‘What
did your mum say?’ said Alice.

‘Not
much,’ said Mark. ‘She’s scared of my dad so although I know she’s on my side,
she doesn’t actually say anything to support me in case it winds him up.’

‘Do you
want to stay here?’ said Alice. ‘You can, you know.’

‘I’d
better not,’ said Mark, ‘it’s the first place my dad’ll come looking for me.
I’m going to sleep in the woods tonight. Is there any way you can meet me up
there and bring me some food? I left the house pretty quickly’

‘Sure,’
said Alice. ‘Do you mind if I tell my dad about it?’

A
silence.

‘Not
sure,’ said Mark. ‘Will he cave in and tell my dad where I am?’

‘Not a
chance,’ said Alice.

‘All
right then,’ said Mark, ‘but no one else, OK?’

‘Not
even Karen,’ said Alice.

‘Especially
not Karen,’ said Mark. ‘She can’t keep any sort of secret, as you know.’

‘All
right,’ said Alice. ‘Where are you going to be?’

‘Do you
remember where we built that shelter in the woods round the back of McCabe’s
farm?’ said Mark.

‘Course.’
Alice’s heart somersaulted. It was where she had gone the night of the
miscarriage.

‘Meet
me there in half an hour or so,’ said Mark.

‘What
shall I bring?’ said Alice.

‘Food,
drink, a sleeping bag, torch and a waterproof sheet of some kind if you’ve got
one?’

‘I’ll
see what I can do,’ said Alice and went back into the sitting room.

‘Dad,’
she said, ‘Mark’s left home for a bit.’ Keith nearly said, ‘Sensible boy’
Instead he said, ‘Why, what’s going on?’

Alice
explained, feeling relieved that she didn’t have to keep this secret too.
Although Keith’s face didn’t betray any feeling, inside he seethed with hatred
towards Phil whom he had always believed to be an ignorant bully.

‘He can
always come here, you know,’ he said to Alice. ‘Thanks, Dad,’ said Alice, ‘but
he doesn’t want to put you under pressure in case his dad comes here looking
for him.’

‘I can
handle Mark’s dad,’ said Keith; compared to Bighead and Wobbly, Mark’s dad was
a lightweight.

‘Well,
I’ll talk to him,’ said Alice. ‘I said I’d meet him up behind McCabe’s.’

‘Is he
sleeping out?’ said Keith.

‘Yes,’
said Alice.

‘Better
take some extra blankets,’ said Keith and turned back to the telly.

Alice
was used to scrunching about in the woods in the dark. She had never felt the
fear that many people do of all the unexplained rustlings and calls from birds
and foxes, and although a person from a well-lit town would describe the
countryside as pitch black, it was not long before she could see where she was
going and turned off the torch to conserve the batteries.

As she
neared the meeting place to see the father of her lost baby a huge longing came
upon her to tell Mark what had happened, but she knew that this was not an
appropriate time, given his other more pressing problems.

‘Mark,’
she called softly.

‘Here,’
came the reply and Mark’s dirty, slightly tear-stained face appeared from
behind a beech tree.

‘Give
us a hug,’ he said. ‘I bloody need one.’

They
stood there hugging for several minutes and a kiss wasn’t too distant a
prospect when Mark pulled away and tensed at the sight of a pair of headlights
flooding the lane nearest McCabe’s, which led down to Alice’s cottage.

‘Shit,
I wonder if that’s my dad,’ he said.

It
wasn’t.

Keith
had steeled himself for a nasty encounter but the door opened to reveal Marie Henty.

‘Is
Alice in?’ she said.

‘No,’
answered Keith.

‘Great,’
said Marie Henty. ‘Can we talk?’

Keith
motioned towards the sitting room.

Gina
sat upstairs in Alice’s room and softly crooned ‘This Charming Man’ to herself.

Marie Henty just wanted to
see Keith. She arrived at the cottage on some spurious pretext, having told
herself she must maintain Alice’s confidences. She found herself, however,
somewhat disappointed that Alice had told Keith everything.

‘I
think Alice is quite angry with Gina’s lot in life,’ said Marie, feeling
simultaneously that she wanted to put her arms round Keith and rock him
backwards and forwards in the squeaky rocking chair, and — rather unsettlingly
for a girl from a family of prudish agnostics — that she wanted to fuck his
brains out. Even the phrase going through her head strangely excited her and
she looked up in alarm towards Keith in the hope that he hadn’t picked any of
this up.

Of
course he hadn’t. He sat looking benignly at her face.

‘What
are the chances of her ever making a recovery?’ he said after a few minutes,
even though he knew the answer.

‘I’m
sorry, Keith, they’re pretty slim,’ said Marie, who had been reading up on
Gina’s condition. She knew from letters that had been sent to her from the hospital
that the doctors in charge of her care had never been sure whether she suffered
from paranoid schizophrenia or De Clerambault’s syndrome. The fact was that
Gina’s symptoms had now been so dulled by the amount of chemicals coursing
round her system that it was very difficult for anybody to tell what was going
on with her.

Poor
Gina, Keith found himself thinking. Standing in a huge pit of fog, unable to
think, to sparkle or to be what she had been when he first met her. Just like
Alice, a part of him wanted Gina to have another chance.

‘I can
really sympathise with Alice’s feelings,’ he said to Marie. ‘She wants her mum
back. She can hardly remember the old Gina but it would be so wonderful if she
had the chance to see just what a great woman her mum is.

Marie’s
heart started to sink gently Did he mean that for himself or just for Alice?
Did he want his wife back? She would have to try and find out.

Right,
she thought to herself. I’ve loved this man for years, he’s had a shit time
with his ill wife, bringing up his daughter on his own virtually and there’s so
much I could give him. I’m going to kiss him because I’ve got to know one way
or the other whether he wants me or not.

She got
up, moved towards him in the darkened room.

‘Keith,’
she said.

‘Yes,
Marie,’ he said.

She
couldn’t think of anything to say Instead she put her hands on his face and
just managed a glimpse of his nonplussed expression before she pulled his head
towards her and touched his mouth very gently with her lips.

‘You
cunt!’

Gina
stood in the doorway clad only in a very scruffy diaphanous nightdress which
outlined her figure against the miserable electric light in the hallway.

Keith
wanted to say ‘Which one of us are you referring to?’ for a joke but knew this
might encourage some sort of violent episode, so he said very quietly to Marie,
‘I think you’d better go now.

Marie
thought the same and as she walked, trying to look purposeful, towards the
door, she realised she would have to run the gauntlet of Gina to get out.
Holding her head up in a semblance of innocence, she got her hand on the door
handle before she felt a sharp pain in the back of her head. She didn’t look
back but pulled the door open, ran to her car and drove blindly through the
lanes, not even allowing herself to think until she was safely in the
emotionally sterile area of her small cottage.

Gina,
meanwhile, was laughing hysterically in the bedroom, Morrissey turned to full
volume, while Keith sat downstairs thinking about Jane Eyre, waiting for Alice
to come in and pondering the implications of the evening’s proceedings.

He
liked Marie Henty, even quite fancied her, but his feelings over the years had
become almost as dampened down as Gina’s because he’d had to live for so long
denying himself the pleasure of being able to relax and just be content with
his life. And had it not been for Gina’s illness, he would have been perfectly
happy He loved the brooding, dark nature of the Herefordshire countryside with
its bloody history, he liked his undemanding job, his home and his family, and
he could have stayed contented for the rest of his life living out an
uneventful day-to-day existence full of pleasure at the lack of pressure.
Instead, the duress he felt from having to be father, mother and housekeeper to
his child had pushed his naturally humorous optimism to the back of his being
to be replaced by a weary resignation.

He
looked at the clock. Ten past ten. He had supposed Alice would be back a long
time before now given that it was cold and slightly damp. Perhaps he should go
and look for her and ask Mark to come and stay and bugger the consequences. He
wondered if Gina would burn the house down if he went out. He wondered if Marie
Henty had gone mad. There was a knock at the door.

Oh God,
is it Marie back? What shall I do? What the fuck will Gina do is more to the
point, he thought bitterly to himself.

He
opened the door to Mark’s father.

‘Hello,
Phil,’ he said as neutrally as he could manage. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘Just
tell me if my son is here,’ he said wearily.

‘No,’
said Keith. He wanted to keep the conversation as brief as possible with this
alien being.

‘I
don’t believe you, Keith,’ said Phil.

‘Nothing
I can do about that,’ said Keith. ‘Now excuse me, I’m busy.’ He started to shut
the door but Phil put a hand up to stop him.

‘I want
to have a look in the house,’ he said.

‘Be my
guest,’ said Keith, opening the door, thinking he wasn’t taking a battering
from this thug tonight.

Phil
stepped into the hall and then Gina, with perfect timing, came to the top of
the stairs, now wearing only a very small towel and, for some reason Keith
could not fathom, an old hat of his.

‘Is it
Morrissey?’ shouted Gina down the stairs.

Phil
looked up at her with an expression of pure terror. He turned to Keith.

‘It’s
all right,’ he said, ‘I believe you.’ He turned and disappeared, calling
behind him as he went, ‘Let me know if you see him.’

‘Not
Morrissey,’ Keith shouted to Gina, ‘more like Meat Loaf.’

Gina
seemed happy with that answer and disappeared back into Alice’s bedroom and
tried to turn the volume up even higher.

Keith
was just climbing the stairs to ask her to turn it down when he heard the door
go. It was Alice.

‘I just
saw Mark’s dad’s car,’ she said. ‘You didn’t tell him, did you?’

‘Course
not,’ said Keith, putting his arm round her. ‘How is he?’

Alice
didn’t really know whether to tell her dad the whole truth. That Mark was damp,
cold, tearful but determined to shun offers of help and comfort.