The More You Ignore Me Page 16

  Bloody hell, thought Keith. Absence does make the heart grow fonder. I wonder if my mother has early-onset Alzheimer’s.

  Jennifer tripped up the stairs like a teenager, humming a tune from The Sound Of Music.

  ‘Hello, Gina dear,’ she called. ‘Tea.’

  She entered Alice’s room. Gina had torn the big Morrissey poster from the wall and stuck her head through it.

  Jennifer decided to ignore this and put the tray on a chest of drawers.

  ‘So how are you?’ she said.

  Gina sang, ‘It’s time that the tale were told of how you took a boy and you made him old.’

  ‘Nice tune, dear,’ said Jennifer pleasantly, ‘but I think you’ll find that you’re the one who’s made my poor Keith old before his time. Do you ever spare him a thought in all this … this … this … disorderliness, dear?’

  Gina snorted and launched into the chorus.

  ‘We’ll talk later,’ said Jennifer. ‘Try a rock bun, Gina. Everyone at the bridge club swears by them.’ She left the room, shaking her head.

  Gina did try a rock bun — as a missile. She had spotted Marie Henty’s car arrive and as Marie climbed out of it, a couple of rock buns whistled past her ears.

  ‘Piss off,’ shouted Gina. ‘We’re having a nice time without you.’

  This cut right to the heart of Marie Henty’s deepest fear, that everyone did have a better time without her and people said things like, ‘Oh shit, here comes Marie Henty, now the party’ll take a nosedive.’

  She nearly got back into her car, but as she turned she saw an ambulance crawling up the road, seemingly in no hurry.

  ‘After all, it’s only a fucking nutty bird,’ as Gil the driver had remarked to his partner, Shaz.

  The ambulance stopped a few inches behind Marie Henty’s car and Gil wound down the window.

  ‘Nutter patrol,’ he said cheerily saluting Marie. ‘That’s rather unprofessional,’ she said. ‘I could have been a relative or indeed the patient herself.’

  ‘Sorry, love,’ said Gil. ‘Only having a laugh.’

  ‘You’d better come in with me then,’ said Marie. ‘I’m Gina’s GP’

  Gil noticeably stiffened in his seat and muttered, ‘GP,’ out of the side of his mouth at Shazzer, who mentally put on her professional hat too. The pair descended from the ambulance.

  Keith opened the door and relief swept over his face when he saw the trio.

  ‘Great,’ he said. ‘Let’s get going then. ‘Jennifer appeared behind him. ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I’m Keith’s mother, Jennifer.’ ‘Marie Henty GP,’ said Marie.

  What a lovely young woman, Jennifer found herself thinking. If only Keith could have married someone like her.

  Keith and Doug went up to Alice’s bedroom and found her still wearing the Morrissey poster.

  ‘Come on, love,’ said Keith. ‘The ambulance is here, we need to go.’

  In the deepest part of her Gina knew it was the right thing and if she was honest with herself, the fight had gone out of her. She pulled the poster off and stood up. Keith handed her a little bag containing some toiletries and clothes he had packed for her. He put one of his old jackets round her shoulders and she smelt him sitting round her like a protective cape and smiled as a part of her remembered how it had been right at the beginning. Then she was assaulted by how it was now and tears began to roll down her cheeks.

  ‘Don’t worry, sweetheart,’ said Keith. ‘Let’s try and get things back on an even keel.’

  ‘To die by your side…’ sang Gina.

  ‘I know,’ said Keith, ‘I know.’

  Alice volunteered to stay at home. Secretly she had no wish to go in the ambulance, since the last time she’d been in one it had carried her and the recently departed Nan Wildgoose to hospital.

  Keith saw this and nodded in agreement. He, Doug and Marie Henty went towards the ambulance with Gina.

  ‘Shall we strap her in, guv’nor?’ said Gil too cheerily and too loudly.

  ‘No,’ said Keith with a thunderous expression, all his contempt, misery and anger in that one word.

  ‘Shall we come?’ shouted Bighead as the trio propelled Gina into the ambulance.

  ‘No, you’re all right,’ said Keith, and then mischievously he added, ‘Stay and have a cup of tea with my mum and dad. I know they’d be interested to hear all about your lives in the country.’

  Jennifer heard this and blanched. She gazed very pointedly at her delicate, expensive-looking (she thought) lady’s wristwatch.

  ‘Norman, dear,’ she said. ‘I believe some football you might want to watch is on tonight and we should be making tracks.’

  Nonplussed, Norman nodded, hoping against hope that the afternoon’s proceedings had evoked an empathy in his wife which presaged a rosier future together.

  As they stood and waved the ambulance off as if it was going to war or on holiday, he was rapidly disabused of this belief when Jennifer turned to him and said, ‘Well, I had to say something to get us away from these pungent bumpkins. There’s an extended Corrie tonight.’

  His heart sank in rhythm with the sun, which disappeared behind the hill, flooding the countryside with black.

  In the ambulance, a subdued Gina turned to Keith and said, ‘I know I’m not very well, Keith, but Morrissey will make me better.’

  That the one and only time Gina had ever shown any insight into her illness should be tempered by this ludicrous belief made Keith despair.

  Gina’s arrival at the hospital was a slightly quieter affair than her previous admission. Keith was surprised at how calm and compliant she seemed and wondered what lay behind it. After a brief interview with the duty doctor, he, Doug and Marie accompanied Gina down the usual paste-coloured corridor to the admission ward. At the door Keith kissed Gina goodbye and told her to call him if she needed anything. Gina nodded in assent and then walked into the ward as if she was off for a two-day break at a health farm.

  ‘They’ve no idea what she’s planning,’ whispered one of the voices in her head.

  The other voice laughed in agreement.

  In the taxi on the way home, Marie sat next to Keith in the back and Doug sat in the front.

  ‘Thanks, guys,’ said Keith and gave Doug a pat on the shoulder and Marie a squeeze of the hand which woke a few sleeping butterflies in her stomach.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ they said together and laughed at the sound of their chorus.

  Doug was deposited at his shop and the taxi continued on its way with Keith and Marie.

  ‘I’ll collect my car at yours,’ said Marie, ‘and then I’d better be off. I’ve lots to do at home.’

  The years had taught her that as a woman whose physical charms put her some way down the universal list of beddable females, it was always better to appear to be busy, to be on your way somewhere, to not care whether someone invited you for further contact or not. Each time she made one of these self-protective statements, she awarded herself a point which pushed her, in her own eyes, up the scale of independent women who did not give a toss about whether the male in their life cared or not.

  At the cottage Marie followed her rules and did not hang around to see what Keith would do, particularly given that she had so spectacularly broken her rules recently by kissing him. She headed for her car and was about to unlock it when Keith called out, ‘Do you want to come in for a drink?’

  She knew a few strategic refusals might bolster her chances with many men but something instinctively told her that this was a milestone for Keith and that she should accept. Shouldn’t she? Maybe he wanted to talk wife, medication, daughter or — horrors — some physical problem he was suffering from.

  ‘OK,’ she found herself saying, and turned back to the cottage.

  Alice was in front of the television, staring gloomily at it but not really seeing it.

  ‘Hello, Dad, Marie,’ she said miserably.

  ‘Don’t worry, love, Mum’s in the best place,’ said Keith, assuming the fail
ure of her plan to free her mother from the yoke of long-term medication was the reason for her gloom.

  ‘It’s not that,’ said Alice. ‘She ate my bloody letter from Morrissey The one thing I’ve got that’s truly from him, and it was such a beautiful letter as well.’

  Keith, whose raison d’être was to make everyone’s life better, said, ‘I’m sure I could—’

  ‘What, get it back? Get him to write a copy? Oh, for Christ’s sake, Dad, that’s one thing you can’t do,’ said Alice angrily, one of the few times in their relationship when she’d turned on him. ‘I’m going to bed.’ She got up and walked out of the room, with Keith’s hurting, helpless heart following behind.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Marie. ‘Poor Alice, she’s had a rough time of it lately’

  ‘Yes,’ said Keith. ‘I really wish there was something I could do to cheer her up.’

  ‘Well, how about getting her some tickets for Morrissey?’ said Marie. ‘I’m sure he must be playing somewhere reasonably near and perhaps you could write to him and ask him if she could go backstage and meet him afterwards.’

  ‘You’re a bloody genius,’ said Keith. ‘That never even occurred to me. Let’s celebrate with a beer and a smoke.’

  Marie Henty was a little bit naive about drug consumption and assumed Keith was going to produce a packet of Number Six. She didn’t smoke but she grinned encouragingly because she didn’t want to appear too much of an innocent.

  Keith came in from the kitchen with two cans of Heineken.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s not exactly posh.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ said Marie, taking the can and waiting for him to hand her a glass. But he didn’t, so she opened her can and began to drink, thinking her mother would be more than disapproving if she saw her daughter behaving in this loutish country way Keith disappeared and returned with an old tobacco tin, out of which came Rizlas, a rolling machine, filters and a tiny lump of cannabis. He set to work rolling a joint while Marie observed the process with fascination, having bypassed drug experimentation and piss-ups at medical school in favour of dinner parties and behaving like a middle-aged church-goer from the Home Counties.

  Should I say something, she wondered, about never having done this before? Should I point out it’s illegal?

  Keith seemed to have guessed her thoughts.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.’ He lit the joint, had a few big draws on it and then handed it over to Marie, who took it rather gingerly.

  She had only once had a puff of a roll-up at school and it had caused her to throw up in a bin by the hockey pitch, so she was slightly worried about what it would do. But in the spirit of the hour she drew in a huge amount of smoke and then found herself coughing, gagging and laughing all at the same time.

  ‘Steady on,’ said Keith. ‘I’ve only got a little bit, you know. ‘The ‘little bit’ extended to five joints, by the end of which Marie felt distinctly weird. She and Keith were chatting easily about Gina, about the village and about Keith’s parents when Keith turned to Marie and said, ‘I’m sorry to ask you a professional question amongst all this, but my dad, Norman, who was here today, was complaining about his haemorrhoids. Is there anything you can suggest?’ He looked very serious.

  Marie felt an uncontrollable urge to laugh. She attempted to hold her features in an expression of concern but the effort proved too much and she let out an explosive guffaw, soaking Keith’s elderly Aztec-patterned tank top with a mouthful of lager.

  Keith looked horrified and then his features began to crumble and he let himself be overtaken by a fit of the most adolescent giggling he could ever remember.

  This only made matters worse for Marie and through her tears of laughter she suggested, ‘How about poking them back up with a sharp stick?’

  ‘He hasn’t got a stick,’ said Keith simply, which was possibly the funniest thing Marie had ever heard in her life and her laughter became a torrent of hiccupping, scattergun cackling which she could not rein in.

  ‘He’s got some golf clubs,’ said Keith and this set them both off again until Marie felt there wasn’t enough oxygen in the room to supply their breathing.

  ‘I recommend a nine iron,’ she said, at which point Keith sank on to the floor and pummelled the ancient Axminster rug with his fists, shouting, ‘Oh stop it! Stop it!’ between cascades of laughter.

  Marie got up to help Keith off the floor, wobbled and then keeled over on top of him, both of them still laughing. And then out of all the ridiculous, uncontrolled jollity came a moment when they stared directly at each other and their expressions changed.

  Even in this state of advanced intoxication, Marie found her inner self telling her outer self, ‘Don’t pounce, what-ever you do, don’t pounce.

  She didn’t need to because Keith did. Fuelled with two cans of Heineken and five joints, the realisation dawned on him that Marie Henty was the most captivating, most entertaining, most articulate and most intelligent woman he’d ever met. They kissed each other like drunken teenagers and every now and then broke their embrace to stare at each other, giggle and then kiss again.

  Upstairs, Alice started and woke out of her miserable sleep. She heard a thump downstairs and wondered what could be going on. Surely her dad couldn’t be stumbling around at this time of night and there wasn’t a burglar in the county who could find anything remotely interesting to steal in their mean little cottage.

  She went downstairs and, attempting to hold her nerve just in case the noise was an intruder, threw open the sitting-room door to witness her father standing in the middle of the room, trousers round his ankles, in a compromising position with her GP who was kneeling in front of him doing something to him that he was obviously enjoying.

  There was absolutely no point in Keith attempting to make it look like anything other than what it was.

  ‘Oh bloody hell,’ he said as he spotted Alice. Marie, intent upon her task, took this to be verbal encouragement and upped her pace. There was an excruciating moment when Keith attempted to communicate to her that they were being observed.

  Then Alice turned her back and headed upstairs.

  ‘Oh my God, Marie,’ said Keith. ‘That was Alice, she just came down and saw us.

  ‘What shall we do?’ said Marie, pulled out of her lovely real dream.

  ‘Carry on?’ said Keith, and began to laugh.

  ‘Right you are,’ said Marie and they did.

  It was difficult to say, the next morning, which was worse, the emotional or physical devastation. Marie raised her head with a groan from the settee and surveyed the havoc that two middle-aged drunk, stoned people could wreak on a small room. Keith was close to her snoring on the floor, with a cushion she had put under his head and a rug thrown over him from the small chair in the corner.

  She realised what had woken her. It was Alice in the kitchen, putting the kettle on. Marie got up and put on some items of clothing that were draped around the room like washing.

  ‘Hello,’ she said tentatively.

  ‘Hi,’ said Alice, rather more brightly than Marie Henty could have hoped for.

  Marie formed the word ‘Sorry’ with her mouth, but before the sound came out, Alice cut through it.

  ‘It’s all right, Marie,’ she said. ‘My dad deserves some fun in his life.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Marie.

  ‘I just wish I hadn’t seen it,’ said Alice with a grin.

  ‘Yes,’ said Marie, feeling a red-hot flush flood her face.

  ‘Tea?’ said Alice. ‘Toast?’

  ‘Yes please.’

  Keith appeared at the door, his hair so charmingly awry that both women gazed at him with an almost palpable fondness.

  ‘Morning,’ he said, the bravado on his face starting to slip as he watched Alice standing by the kettle distributing cheap tea bags amongst the group of mugs.

  ‘It’s all right, Dad,’ said Alice, ‘but if she’s pregnant, there’ll be hell to pay.<
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  Keith and Marie’s laughter echoed round the tiny kitchen, evoking a thought in Keith that there hadn’t been too much laughter in recent years.

  ‘What time is it?’ asked Marie, realising her watch had escaped during last night’s sexual tornado.

  ‘Nine thirty,’ said Keith.

  ‘Oh bollocks. I’ve got surgery at ten.’

  Keith and Alice looked at her admiringly They didn’t know she could swear.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Keith, ‘you’ve got twenty-five minutes. It’ll take you five minutes to get there. Relax, have some breakfast and you can get yourself together in five minutes in the bathroom.’

  Marie almost cried with relief. It wasn’t often that she spent the night with someone who then treated her with respect the next day and even invited her to stay longer. The last man who’d got into her bed after a few too many spritzers at a medical conference was a drug rep called Malcolm, who left the room in the morning with indecent haste, without so much as a backward glance at Marie.

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘That would be lovely’

  The three sat round the little table in the kitchen and chatted easily The ghost of Gina seemed to be there but in a benign rather than malevolent way, as if somehow her spirit had allowed Keith a little emotional leeway.

  This slightly skewed family breakfast was interrupted by the telephone ringing.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ said Alice.

  She picked up the receiver, said, ‘Yes,’ once and then listened intently for a few seconds, her face reflecting the sombre news being fed into her ear.

  ‘Is everything OK?’ said Keith.

  Alice raised her hand to silence Keith and listened for a few more seconds, eventually saying, ‘Thank you for letting us know, we’ll be in touch in a little while.’ She turned to Keith and Marie. ‘Mum’s escaped from hospital.’

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ said Keith. ‘How the hell could that happen?’

  ‘The doctor wants us to go and see him and discuss what we’re going to do. They’ve informed the police and they think they’ll find her pretty quickly.’