The More You Ignore Me Read online

  She learned from her uncles Wobbly and Bighead how to effect socially unacceptable behaviour and on occasions would dribble whilst clasped to a fervent do-gooder. This resulted in an immediate loosening of the hug and on one or two occasions a swift plummet to the ground, accompanied by an exclamation of disgust. Word quickly went round that ‘the Wilson child’s a bit simple’, and this meant that people were wary of her, which, to Alice, was a good thing.

  When Alice started at the local primary school, she quickly became known as the problem child by the teaching staff. This was not because she was a problem but because her mother Gina was. Teachers would hold their breath most mornings until they saw Keith amble into view, because on the rare days when Gina appeared with Alice in tow, it would be like negotiating with a hostage-taker. Some mornings Gina was all right but her unpredictability only served to increase the frisson of fear amongst the small group of teachers.

  This stemmed from an incident when Gina had thrown a tantrum following a slight disagreement between herself and the headmaster, John Jarvis, who found it absolutely inconceivable that anyone would challenge his authority On a frosty February morning, as he stood at the gates redefining the meaning of welcoming children to school, given that his face disagreed so violently with his relaxed posture, he threw out a remark to Gina as she passed, on the inappropriateness of her daughter wearing short socks in such cold weather. Gina, who had spent some twenty minutes trying to find any socks at all that remotely resembled each other in colour, let alone a pair of long ones, was in no mood for this rebuke and turned, still holding Alice’s hand, to face Mr Jarvis.

  ‘Pardon,’ she said, with a homicidal glint in her eye.

  John Jarvis, who was incapable of either predicting impending human storms or indeed preventing them, blithely repeated his statement.

  He could not quite believe he had heard the words, ‘Mind your own fucking business, fat arse,’ and launched into a speech concerning the use of bad language in front of children. This was curtailed by a sharp pain in his stomach and he realised that the child’s mother had hit him.

  The altercation began to catch the notice of the other parents and John Jarvis escalated it tenfold by attempting to restrain Gina with what he would describe as ‘a firm hand’ and she ‘a pervert’s clamp’. Had not one of the teachers, a little bird-like creature called Miss Mount, intervened at this point, serious injury might have occurred. Miss Mount knew Gina Wilson of old and her instinct to steer John Jarvis away from her proved to be the saving of his reputation, as his anger at being challenged was rising so ferociously that he was about to slap her.

  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.

  ‘Marie,’ she said. ‘What the hell do you want?’

  ‘Well,’ said Marie, ‘I haven’t seen you at the surgery for a bit and I just thought I’d pop down and see how you’re doing.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ said Gina. ‘Someone’s been talking about me. It’s not that creep John Jarvis, is it?’

  ‘I’m not allowed to say,’ said Marie, thereby getting Keith off the hook and implicating John Jarvis, a good result.

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Gina. ‘In fact, couldn’t be better. ‘Her appearance belied this statement. She looked unwashed and out of control and Marie wondered how Keith cou
ld have let it go this far without trying to do something. But she knew the answer really Keith’s head was buried in the comforting mire of denial, because Gina’s threats to kill him last time and her screeching accusations of betrayal as she disappeared into the back of a police car were something to be avoided at all costs even if it meant allowing her to deteriorate further.

  Marie wished she could just lay it on the line. In an ideal world she would say to Gina, ‘Look, Gina, it’s obvious to everyone, even your five-year-old daughter, that you’re as mad as a snake and you need some treatment. Let’s not let it go any further or we’ll all be up shit creek and the emotional debris will cause even more damage than last time.’

  Instead, she smiled a benign smile, which irritated Gina enormously, causing her to look for a missile. Marie encouraged her to call if she needed to and quickly walked away A handful of chicken droppings landed a few feet behind her, accompanied by Gina’s personal parting shot.

  ‘There’s more of that in your face if you come back, you nosy cow!’

  Marie knew it wouldn’t be long before the woman would be sectioned again.

  And it wasn’t. The following day, a Monday, Keith took Alice to school before work up at the farm. Gina seemed to be completely absorbed in a book about the weather in space that she had managed to pick up in a second-hand bookshop in Ludlow on one of her shopping trips. The more disturbed Gina became, the less likely she was to come back from a shopping trip with what she had originally intended to buy On the Ludlow trip she had gone on market day to get some fresh vegetables and meat but had come back with a book and a barometer she’d found at the back of an antique shop. Inner Keith said, ‘What the fuck are we going to do with a barometer, you silly mare?’ Outer Keith said, ‘Hmm, a barometer. Well, I suppose that’ll come in useful.’