The More You Ignore Me Read online

  ‘Let’s get back,’ said Marie, slightly puzzled by Keith’s emotional state. ‘You can get some clothes and stuff for Gina, Keith, and maybe pop in and see her tomorrow with Alice.’

  A cloud crossed Keith’s face.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Marie.

  ‘I’ve got to tell the Wildgoose family,’ said Keith, ‘and they weren’t best pleased last time this happened.’ The Wildgoose family being ‘not best pleased’ was like any other family having a homicidal rampage.

  In normal circumstances Marie would have leapt in and offered to go with Keith to inform the Wildgoose family of the situation, but having experienced their particular brand of shoot-’em-up social graces, she kept quiet.

  They all drove off together through glorious sunshine, the outlines of old oaks sprouting from ancient hill forts enclosing them as they traversed the valley Keith dropped Marie off in the village. She wanted to go home with Keith and cook him a meal but the prospect of possibly bumping into the Wildgoose family ensured that she didn’t suggest this option and she exited the van with a cheery wave and an aching heart. Doug picked up his car from the lane. ‘See you, mate,’ he said as if he and Keith had been fishing, and drove off to the local to fend off questions about what he considered to be a private matter. Keith, noticing that both Alice and Smelly had dropped off to sleep, luxuriated in the very rare condition of silence. He almost felt at peace for once. As the van rounded the corner and took a run at the steep drive to the cottage, three figures sitting on the doorstep caused Keith to cross himself — only half in jest. For there sat his mother-in-law, Wobbly and Bighead who was cradling a shotgun.

  ‘I’ve got Alice asleep in the van,’ Keith shouted out of the window as if this might prevent Bighead shooting him on sight.

  The Wildgoose family rose as one and by the time Keith had turned off the engine and got out of the van, they were standing right by him.

  ‘Where is Gina?’ growled her mother.

  ‘Put the gun down, Bighead,’ said Keith. ‘I can’t talk to all of you with that thing about to take off my head.’

  ‘Arse more like,’ said Bighead and he and Wobbly managed a throaty laugh.

  ‘Put it down,’ said Ma Wildgoose and the gun was laid alongside a toy car and a headless Barbie.

  ‘So where is she?’ Ma Wildgoose repeated.

  Keith desperately wanted to say, ‘Oh, she’s having a pedicure at that new salon in Hereford,’ but instead he forced out the words, ‘We’ve taken her to hospital.’

  The ‘H’ word caused a dark cloud to pass across their faces and Wobbly, with his customary head wobble, was the first to speak.

  ‘You’ve never put our sister in that fucking place again, have you?’

  ‘Well.’ Keith hesitated, trying to form a sentence in his head that would absolve him of all responsibility for this heinous act and enable them all to go in for a nice cup of tea and a biscuit.

  ‘You bloody ‘ave then,’ said Ma Wildgoose. ‘What did we tell you last time that happened?’

  The exact phrase they had used was permanently seared into Keith’s grey matter so it was not a problem to call it to mind and repeat it back to them.

  ‘You said you’d have my balls off with the secateurs and hang them up in the porch for the magpies,’ he said.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Ma Wildgoose. ‘Now what’s made you ignore that and put our precious Gina in the bin?’

  The truth was the only option, so Keith detailed the events of the morning and crossed his fingers behind his back as their expressions went through several emotions, including disbelief and horror, and ended up being a sort of quizzical amusement.

  ‘Fucking starkers on the roof?’ said Bighead. ‘You having me on, Keithy boy?’

  ‘No, I swear,’ said Keith. And shouting to the four winds the name of this weather forecaster she thinks is in love with her.’

  ‘Bastard.’ Alice was standing there cradling Smelly in her arms.

  ‘Alice,’ said Keith, ‘that’s not a nice way for little girls to speak.’

  ‘Sorry, Dad,’ said Alice, ‘but that’s what Mum called him when she saw him when we was shopping.’

  ‘Were shopping,’ Keith corrected her. Even in the midst of this potential shooting by his in-laws, he couldn’t stop himself steering her towards correct usage.

  ‘We’ve got to get her out,’ said Bighead. ‘We can look after her at home, can’t we, Mum, seeing as this useless lump ain’t up to it?’

  ‘I reckon,’ said Ma Wildgoose, although to Keith the prospect of the three of them attempting to manage a serious psychotic illness within the confines of their gothic cottage seemed a non-starter.

  ‘Look,’ said Keith. ‘Gina really isn’t well at all. Please just give them a chance to make her better, a few days even, and if things aren’t getting better I’ll come and help you get her out.’ He couldn’t quite believe he had allied himself with the Wildgoose family in a potential attempt to spring his wife from a locked psychiatric ward but, well, he thought, there’s got to be some give and take with this lot. He continued, ‘And if it doesn’t work out after three days you can shoot me then,’ he indicated the shotgun.

  Wobbly and Bighead laughed out loud.

  ‘Thought we was coming to shoot yer, Keithy, did yer?’ said Bighead. ‘No, we’re going after some pheasants up in the woods.’

  Keith wanted to say, I think you’ll find those pheasants belong to the estate and they’re being reared for a lot of posh blokes in Land Rovers to knock off more easily than a clump of skittles, but he knew better than to intervene in the minor criminal activities of the Wildgoose family.

  All right then,’ said Ma Wildgoose, ‘but three days is all you’re ‘getting and then we’re taking over.

  The terrifying trio then turned on their heels and walked down the drive to where their ancient Cortina was parked half in the ditch. With a splutter of exhaust and a dangerous-sounding roar, they were gone down the country lanes.

  The rest of the weekend was spent calmly To Keith, Alice seemed fairly unaffected by the traumatic events of Saturday She spent time playing in the garden with Smelly and drawing some pictures of the hospital that Mum had gone into, and on Sunday they went fishing down on the River Clun together, spending hours with their lines bobbing jauntily in the water although they didn’t catch a thing.

  But a cloud had hovered over them all day, because Keith knew that in the evening he and Alice would have to go and visit Gina and brave the confined space of the acute admission ward which would throw into their path a selection of the Herefordshire mentally ill, an ordeal he didn’t want to put Alice through. He had the option of leaving Alice with his nearest neighbours, a kindly old couple called the Wellingtons, and he put this to Alice, but she had spent one too many afternoons in their fusty front room with some horrible biscuits and revolting-tasting milk, and she opted for the visit.

  ‘I’ve got to pack some things for Mum,’ said Keith before they left. ‘Do you want to help?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Alice excitedly and while Keith laid out a selection of Gina’s least sexually provocative clothes on the bed and some toiletries and towels, Alice assembled a couple of Noddy books, some of her dolls and a packet of Gina’s favourite biscuits from the back of the kitchen cupboard.

  Keith didn’t have it in him to veto Alice’s little collection which she had stuffed into a carrier bag, so they set off for Hereford, Keith in sombre mood, wondering exactly how Gina would be when they arrived, and Alice cheerfully singing a selection of nursery rhymes.

  Keith marvelled at the ability of his five-year-old daughter to seemingly accept without question the admission of her mother to a local psychiatric hospital following weeks of increasingly strange behaviour, but realised he was imposing his own adult values on to Alice; he did not quite grasp the fact that a child who knows no different just accepts what is happening at face value.

  I suppose it’s the intervention of adults and their values who ruin
children’s lives, he thought sadly to himself and wished he could suspend Alice in time to prevent the inevitable encroachment of the shame and distress she would feel when she eventually came to the realisation that her mother wasn’t like everyone else’s.

  ‘You look grumpy, Dad,’ said Alice, breaking off from singing her favourite line about a blackbird pecking off someone’s nose which she thought was enormously funny and wished it was Mr Jarvis the headmaster’s nose.

  The interference of the outside world and its harsh judgements on those suffering with mental illness became apparent even sooner than Keith would have imagined. Alice, back at school the following day, after the visit to Gina, encountered Stephen Matthews in the playground at break time. Stephen, the son of a local cowman, had picked up from his parents’ gossip in front of the television that Alice’s mum had been ‘taken away’ and locked up somewhere. Stephen was two years older than Alice and about twice her size and he threw his considerable weight around whenever he got the chance. The objects of his disdain were always the children of those adults whom his parents felt most threatened by, and mental illness terrified them because it had been identified in successive generations on both sides of the family So Alice found herself surrounded by Stephen and his cowardly mates in a corner of the playground less well policed by the teaching staff.

  ‘Your mum’s in prison, she’s a bloody nutcase!’ Stephen led the chorus and the others joined in as best they could.

  ‘She’s not in prison,’ said Alice, cowering under the eclipse caused by Stephen’s huge frame. ‘She’s in a big castle with lots of circus people. She got on the roof on her own with no clothes on.’ Alice was rather proud of this and communicated it as if her mother had achieved something spectacular.

  The boys simultaneously uttered a honk of disgust.

  ‘Your mum showed her bosoms and she showed her—’

  ‘Stephen Matthews!’ Miss Mount strode across the playground, having spotted Alice surrounded by the little group. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Nothing, miss,’ said Stephen, who had learned at a young age it was best to deny all knowledge.

  ‘Well, off you go then,’ said Miss Mount, who defused many a potential drama this way.

  She had heard some talk in the staffroom about Gina and felt very sorry for the naive husband and his sturdy little daughter.

  Are you all right, Alice dear?’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Alice. ‘My mum has gone to a castle and is with people from a circus.’

  Miss Mount hesitated. Is this what the father has allowed her to believe? she wondered. She resolved to speak to Keith when he came to pick Alice up that afternoon.

  Alice fled back to the safety of the two friends she had managed to cultivate in spite of the whispering campaign against her mum and her strangeness. Mark, whose blond, wild hair seemed to have been stolen from a girl’s head, was sweet-tempered and effeminate and eschewed the ‘hitting things’ games that the other boys seemed to prefer in the playground. His attempts at home to shy away from the more manly pastimes of football and shooting had been met with some despair by his father, a red-cheeked arable farmer, but secretly with huge fondness by his mother whose revulsion towards the ‘huntin’, shootin’ and fishin” ethos of the locals was barely contained. Her unconscious encouragement of Mark’s feminine side from an early age was subtle and all but hidden but the constant questioning by his father of why he wouldn’t pick up a toy gun or why he wanted to indulge in baking with his mother when wading through mud was on offer was frequent and oppressive.

  Karen, on the other hand, Alice’s other friend, was tougher than most of the boys in the playground. Her long black hair, secured in two plaits with rubber bands, had been pulled only once in the playground. It had resulted in such a rage that Stephen Matthews, his little bulbous nose bloodied from Karen’s flailing punch, retired howling to report the incident to Miss Mount. Her pleasure at this nascent bully receiving his comeuppance from a mere girl was well disguised under the mild ticking-off she felt obliged to give Karen in front of Stephen.

  Stephen and Karen accepted the castle and circus performers story without question and both thought this sounded very exciting. Mark wondered if perhaps they could go to the circus, while Karen wisely cautioned a decent waiting time so the performers could get their acts together and find a suitable venue. What she actually said was, ‘Let’s wait till they’re in their tent,’ and Mark and Alice nodded sagely.

  Keith, having managed to get his employer to agree to his having some time off while his wife was in hospital, found Miss Mount waiting at the school gate for him. Keith felt relieved that John his boss had serendipitously mistaken his reluctance to elucidate on his wife’s condition as a sign that her admission was necessitated because of ‘women’s problems’ and he’d escaped without having to explain any further. Now here was Miss Mount telling him that Alice had been saying her mum was in a castle with some circus performers.

  ‘Have you told her the truth?’ said Miss Mount, pushing her hand through her thinning grey hair.

  ‘Um…’ Keith hadn’t and thought this made him seem like a bad parent.

  ‘It’s just that if she goes round saying these things in the playground, other children may tease her,’ she said.

  ‘It’s hard,’ said Keith. ‘She definitely knows it’s a hospital but it’s so hard to explain to her what mental illness is, so when she said they looked like people in a circus, I just let it pass.’

  Miss Mount desperately wanted to ask Keith how it had really been but felt it too intrusive a question. Keith, on the other hand, desperately wanted to tell her but didn’t know if it was appropriate because although she was kindly and sympathetic, she was after all one of Alice’s teachers and he couldn’t be absolutely sure that she wouldn’t gossip.

  The visit to the hospital had been a pretty dreadful experience. Gina had seemed like a different person, drowsy and floppy like a big, smoking puppet, all her personality carried away by the power of the anti-psychotic drugs she had had pumped into her against her will. Her fellow sufferers were in varying stages of madness and recovery. One had stood singing ‘Oh What A Beautiful Morning’ on a table, attempting to conduct the rabble in front of him with manic charm, while ghosts moved around him, seemingly barely in touch with the real world. A man had sidled up to Keith and Alice and conspiratorially whispered, ‘Watch the nurse with the ponytail, she’s working for the government, we’re all being experimented on.’ Keith could only nod helplessly, having not the faintest idea how to handle this half-dressed blank-eyed giant and shielding Alice in case he lashed out. At the other end of the ward, several patients sat on threadbare chairs watching Songs of Praise and singing along barely audibly to Keith’s favourite hymn, ‘For Those In Peril On The Sea’.

  The charge nurse, a middle-aged time-server called Steve, wearily informed Keith that Gina would probably be ‘zonked out’ for a week or so and that once the drugs wore off, a period of assessment would take place. Keith felt it imperative to explain to the nurse that the Wildgoose clan might pay a visit and not be best pleased, but Steve reacted to this with barely a flicker of anxiety, so Keith decided to hand over responsibility and let the Wildgoose family be an unpleasant surprise at visiting time.

  1979, aged 10

  Nan Wildgoose threw back her head and roared with laughter.

  ‘That head nurse’s face when we pushed him into the office, tied him up and took the keys,’ she said. ‘Looked like ‘e thought we was going to kill ‘im. What was ‘e called now? Some bloody dull name like Andy or Dave, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Steve,’ said Alice, who had rather liked the flat, emotionless Steve and his ability to react to everything with the same passive expression. ‘But what did Mum think?’ she asked. Alice got most of her information from Nan Wildgoose and although she had heard this story many times, the retelling of it by her nan was always entertaining and heroic.

  ‘Oh, your mother was completely o
ut of it,’ said Nan Wildgoose. ‘They’d filled her up with drugs, she didn’t know where she was. Wobbly just threw her over his shoulders like a sack of spuds and we opened the doors and ran for it.’

  ‘Did everyone else get out too?’ said Alice.

  ‘Oh Jesus, no,’ said Nan. ‘We didn’t want them running around raping and pillaging.’

  ‘There was one,’ said Grandpap, waking briefly from an elongated snore by the fire.

  ‘You’re right, Bert,’ said Nan. ‘Now I think about it, there was that woman who told Big’ead she was a member of staff and she was so convincing ‘e let her wander through. Why ‘e didn’t cotton on that a real member of staff might ‘ave been a bit upset we was stealing a patient, I don’t know. It was all so quick, I s’pose.’

  ‘You had to take Mum back, though, didn’t you?’ said Alice as if she was describing some shoddy goods from a supermarket.

  ‘Yes, we fucking did,’ said Nan, getting cross as she recalled the defeat suffered by the Wildgoose family at the hands of society. ‘Not without a bloody brilliant fight first, though, was it, Bert?’

  Bert grinned. ‘No, love,’ he said and dropped back to sleep.

  Locally, it had been dubbed the Siege of Dodds Cottage, the name of the mean little cottage occupied by the Wildgoose family The residents of the village still talked about it now and again when the weather wasn’t interesting enough. The local police. with reinforcements from Hereford, once they had familiarised themselves with Wobbly and Bighead’s criminal records, had approached the cottage mob-handed with ten policemen. The senior policeman, who had managed to find a loudhailer in a fusty old cupboard at the station, had taken up a position some twenty yards away from the cottage.

  Inside, the Wildgoose family, if they were perfectly honest, had already begun to regret their decision to kidnap Gina from the hospital. It had only been one night, yet as the drugs had started to wear off, they could see quite plainly that Gina was not her normal feisty and free-spirited self.