The More You Ignore Me (3 page)

Gina’s
temper always subsided quickly but never down to the point of shame. She
rearranged herself and harrumphed off home where Keith got the abuse intended
for Mr Jarvis, delivered with both barrels.

Alice
gained a huge amount of kudos as a result of her mother punching the
headmaster, although the calibre of those who were impressed left something to
be desired.

They
included three eleven-year-olds who had pretty much already signed themselves
up for a few short spells in prison, and Mrs Jarvis, who would have liked to
take the occasional swing at Mr Jarvis herself but trod the path of least
resistance. The mothers, however, shied away from Gina, even though they had
known her since they were children. They had been slightly unsettled by her
behaviour as a six-year-old but were far less judgemental then than they were
now. As adults, having taken on board the ignorance and prejudice commonly
displayed to the outsider, they kept their distance. And when they noticed a
subtle change in Gina’s manner which grew into increasingly frequent episodes
of really strange behaviour, they became even more wary.

Although
Alice couldn’t really understand the lack of invitations to tea and was
perplexed by children being gently moved away from her when the clutter of
mothers who hung around the school gates came to pick up their brood, she
didn’t really mind; her inner life was becoming much more exciting than the
superficial life she lived in public.

Inside
herself she was like a good witch who controlled the world and made it the way
she wanted it. So when her mother raged through the house, Alice retired to a
rotting shed in the garden where she kept a shoebox full of spells (a dead
dragonfly, some string, two dead beetles and a handful of tadpoles she had
plucked from a pond, not realising that the lack of water would soon finish
them off). She only came out when she heard her dad’s gentle voice calling her
in for tea.

Life
improved immensely when her mother was absent or ‘lying down’, as her father
put it, which meant, in Gran Wildgoose’s language, she was ‘pissed out ‘er ‘ead’.

When
Alice was about five, television and especially the weather reports began to
take on a huge significance in Gina’s life. Alice would notice her, transfixed,
in front of the screen, smiling, and she would turn to Alice and say things
like, ‘He’s a bit tired today,’ or ‘Look at him, the little devil, he’s
flirting with me again.’ Alice didn’t really understand what Gina was talking
about and didn’t care because at least, her mother seemed calmer and happier.

One
day, a Saturday, Gina announced to Keith that she was going shopping in
Hereford for some curtain material, and Alice noticed that he looked at her
mother as if she had said, ‘I’m going to learn how to ride an elephant today’
This was understandable. Curtains were as far down Gina’s list of important
things to do as keeping the house looking nice.

‘And
I’ll take Alice with me,’ added Gina.

Keith
stiffened and a look of concern flitted across his benign features. He, too,
had noticed the hitherto subtle changes in Gina’s behaviour.

‘It’s
all right, I’ll have her,’ he said. ‘I’ll take her up Coxall Knoll and show her
where the owl lives.’

This
was something he’d been promising to do for ages and Alice immediately rose to
go and find her wellingtons and slightly too big denim jacket bought at the
village jumble sale.

‘Sit
down, Alice,’ said Gina. ‘You’re coming with me.’

Alice
knew better than to try and argue. Last time she had tried to change her
mother’s mind, Gina had thrown a cup at her which had shattered on the fridge
and knocked off her picture of Miss Mount.

‘What’s
the big deal?’ said Keith. ‘Have a day out on your own and enjoy yourself.’

‘Alice,
go in the garden,’ said Gina.

The
words ‘Alice, go in the garden’ usually prefaced a row and Alice, not wanting
to see her sweet dad once again at the receiving end of her mother’s temper,
obediently headed out to the shed and chanted a ‘Don’t Make Me Go To Hereford
With Mum’ spell over the dead tadpoles.

It
didn’t work. After some pretty concentrated shouting, Gina appeared, handbag on
arm, and beckoned to Alice.

They
got the bus from the village and as it moved slug-like through the
Herefordshire countryside, Alice felt an inexplicable sense of dread wash over
her as if something really bad was going to happen. Gina, however, seemed
cheerful, as if she was anticipating something wonderful, like a day at the
seaside. Some time later they alighted, not as Alice had expected in the town
centre but on the outskirts, and began to walk down a suburban street of
thirties houses that looked well kept if not a little dull. This passed for the
posh bit of Hereford.

Gina
stopped outside a house where a pristine silver sports car was parked in the
drive.

‘Wait
here,’ said Gina, and Alice sat down on the pavement while her mum walked up
the short lavender-lined path to the front door and rang the bell.

A man
in his thirties answered and the rictus grin that obviously sat very easily on
his attractive yet rather doughy features turned to a frown. Although Alice
could not hear what was said, it was clear to her that the man was not very
pleased to see her mum. There was a short exchange before her mother reacted
almost as if she had been slapped and turned sharply back down the path,
muttering angrily and looking like Grandpap did when the cider ran out.

‘Don’t
say a word,’ said Gina to Alice. ‘I’m not in the mood. Wait a minute.’

She ran
to the sports car and kicked it, shouting a very loud ‘Bastard!’ at the top of
her voice. Then she shot off down the road and Alice raced to keep up with her.

The
word ‘bastard’ was not a stranger in the Wilson and Wildgoose households and
Alice knew it meant a bad thing.

Are you
cross with bastard?’ she said to Gina.

‘Yes I
am,’ said Gina, ‘and if you tell Dad about this, I’ll be even crosser with
you.’

Alice
didn’t like having secrets with her mum. It felt dangerous and out of control
but she knew it would be even more dangerous if she disobeyed Gina.

They
spent a couple of hours looking round the shops but Gina was in such a bad mood
it wasn’t a pleasure and every time Alice asked for something, Gina tutted
loudly, looked straight ahead and carried on walking, so in the end Alice gave
up.

They arrived
home in time for the news. Keith always made an attempt to shield Alice from
the more tragic and violent stories but he wasn’t in, so Alice sat through a
couple of horrible murders and a war story and was just about to try for a
sandwich and a drink when the weather came on and Gina shushed her loudly and
urgently.

Alice
was aware of her mother once again staring transfixed at the screen and
realised that the man talking and pointing to a map with clouds and sun on it
was ‘bastard’ from the house in Hereford. Gina became agitated and took her
shoe off and threw it at the television. It missed the screen and bounced off
the controls at the bottom, somehow managing to turn the television off. Gina
began to sob uncontrollably, managing to say through her tears, ‘Bastard
weatherman. Look what he’s done, he’s turned me off from his life, I hate him, I
hate him.’ Her tragic snot-covered face put Alice in mind of Susan Winston, a
girl in her class who often burst into tears if even slightly reprimanded by a
teacher. Alice wanted to give her mum a hug but knew there was a good chance of
this escalating the proceedings to hurricane level so she sat motionless,
wondering what to do, when like a mud-spattered knight in shining armour her
dad stepped into the room to rescue her.

‘What’s
up, sweetheart?’ he said to Gina. ‘Nothing much in the shops?’

‘Don’t
take the piss,’ said Gina. ‘Can’t you see the state I’m in?’

‘Come
on, Alice,’ said Keith perkily ‘Shall we go and see how Smelly is?’

Smelly
was Alice’s guinea pig who lived in the porch; the overpowering aroma from the
emissions he was responsible for had been deemed too unpleasant to allow him
access to Alice’s bedroom.

While
they checked Smelly’s progress, Alice said to Keith, ‘Mum’s gone a bit funny,
Dad.’

Keith
tried to retain a normal expression but his heart jumped. It hadn’t occurred to
him that Alice had picked up the nuances of Gina’s deteriorating mental health.

‘Don’t
worry, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘I’ll sort it out. Did you and Mum have a nice
time at the shops today?’

‘Not
really,’ said Alice. ‘Mum kicked bastard Weatherman’s car.

Oh
Jesus, Keith thought. It’s happening again.

Just
after Alice was born, Gina had had what psychiatrists might call a psychotic
episode, which is to say she lost touch with reality for a few weeks. She was
eventually deemed to be a danger to others and sectioned under the Mental
Health Act and admitted to a local psychiatric hospital. This episode had
involved Gina becoming obsessed with a mechanic at the garage where Keith took
his van for servicing. The unfortunate mechanic in question had been
terrified, being a small, mousy and spotty little thing who still lived with
his mother. Eventually Gina had to be forcibly removed from under a Morris
traveller by the police and was taken to hospital. Alice had been only a few
weeks old at the time and Keith had had to take on a tiny baby, visit his wife
in hospital and somehow manage to keep the offers of help from the Wildgoose
family at bay One day, desperate to find someone to have Alice for the
afternoon while he went to see Gina whom he still loved fiercely with a blind
loyalty, he foolishly allowed Wobbly and Bighead to take Alice out for a walk.
The walk, of course, was to the pub and they took great delight in letting her
pushchair run down the hill and then racing to see who could catch up with it
first. The pair then decided to take her fishing and accidentally dropped her
in a pond while they were trying to show her a big carp that kept rising to the
surface. Keith only found this out some years later when Grandpap had had too
much cider and related it fondly as one of the few stories that showed Wobbly
and Bighead in a good light.

In the
porch with Smelly, Keith attempted to get some more information from Alice but
she realised that she shouldn’t have said anything and her mouth set into a
determined line, out of which came no more details of the day’s proceedings.
She looked a bit frightened, thought Keith, and he left her alone. Together
they tucked Smelly into bed, even though Smelly didn’t want to be tucked into
bed, and then Keith took Alice up to her scruffy little room and read her a
particularly silly story to try and take both their minds off the lurking
explosion downstairs.

When
Gina had gone to bed that night, exhausted by her racing thoughts and rejection
by Hereford’s weather forecaster, Keith phoned Marie Henty the local GP, whom he
had got to know well during Gina’s last psychotic episode. He felt he could
tell her anything and he even thought that if he asked her to come round and
give him a cuddle, she wouldn’t refuse, such was her capacity to fling herself
wholeheartedly and empathetically into her work. Keith had no idea that it was
he himself who provoked these feelings because of his sweetness, his humour and
his grinding, thankless job of looking after Gina at her most mad.

‘Marie,
sorry about the time of night, it’s Keith,’ he said, causing her stomach to
give a slight lurch.

‘Is it
Gina?’ she said.

‘I
think she’s on the road to Bonkersville again,’ said Keith, trying to sound
relaxed about the fact that his wife was metamorphosing once more into a scary,
stigmatised member of society. ‘She’s been chasing that weather forecaster off
the local news, according to Alice. She took her to his house today and there
was some sort of incident that Alice won’t talk about.’

Marie
wanted to laugh.

‘What
do you want to do?’ she said with her fingers crossed.

‘Could
you talk to her?’ said Keith.

The
crossed fingers having failed to secure the right result, Marie asked a question
she already knew the answer to.

‘Can
you get her to the surgery?’ she said.

Keith
did a horsey sort of snort down the phone.

‘You’re
joking, aren’t you?’ he said.

‘Yes, I
suppose so,’ said Marie. ‘Shall I try my usual very normal stroll past the cottage,
bearing in mind that last time she threw a cabbage at me?’

‘Would
you?’ said Keith. ‘Be ever so grateful.’

‘All
right,’ said Marie. ‘Tomorrow afternoon after surgery.’

‘Thanks,’
said Keith. ‘Tomorrow it is then.’

‘Was
that bastard?’ said a voice and Keith turned to see Alice sitting on the stairs
in her teddy pyjamas.

‘No,
silly,’ he said. ‘Now back into bed before Mum catches you.’ And given the
circumstances, that was all he needed to say.

The following afternoon,
Gina saw Marie Henty’s head going along the top of the hedge, back again and
then past again, until, curious to know why their GP seemed to be out for a
very boring walk, she went outside.