The More You Ignore Me (12 page)

Your letter was so sweet (she felt faint and sick).

Thank you for opening your heart.

Morrissey.

Better than she could ever
have expected, and so poetic. She picked up the letter, carefully slid it back
into its envelope and ran all the way to Mark’s house with it, banging
excitedly on the door.

Mark’s
dad, of whom she was rather scared, answered the door.

‘Yes?’
He always sounded as if he didn’t know her. Little did she know this was deliberate.
He wanted his son to hang around with Joanna, the daughter of Luke Wethersby,
the master of the local hunt. Instead he’d decided to spend his time with this
mongrel from the village. God forbid it should go any further. His heart
fluttered. What if they ended up wanting to marry each other?

I
almost wish he was a poof, he said to himself as Alice’s back disappeared up
the stairs to Mark’s bedroom.

Mark
was on his bed reading and listening to Elvis Costello. Alice shot into the
room like a rabbit.

‘Mark,’
she shouted breathlessly ‘It’s come!’

‘What’s
come?’ Mark looked puzzled.

A
letter from Morrissey! Look! Careful!’ She thrust it under his nose.

Mark
scanned the piece of paper.

‘That’s
really nice,’ he said.

‘Really
nice?’ said Alice. ‘Really nice? Try fucking brilliant or absolutely bloody
amazing! He’s written to me, I’m so happy’ She started to cry.

‘Blimey,’
said Mark, ‘that happy?’

Through
her tears Alice laughed and hugged him. ‘Mark!’ His mother’s voice sounded from
downstairs. She didn’t like him being in his bedroom with a girl. Things could
happen and the thought of being in any way allied to the Wildgooses made her
feel slightly nauseous. Apart from the fact that it would wind her husband up
beyond belief. ‘Can you and Alice come down and feed the chickens?’

All
right,’ said Mark. He turned to Alice. ‘That should stop us having illegal
intercourse,’ he said with a wink.

Alice
grinned.

They
went downstairs and towards the field all but destroyed by the enormous gang of
scratching hens.

While
they were throwing out handfuls of feed, Mark turned to Alice.

‘Can
you help me?’ he said.

‘Sure,’
said Alice. ‘What do you need me to do?’

‘I need
you to use the Morrissey tickets that Karen and I have bought you for Leicester
University on the sixteenth,’ he said.

‘My
God.’ Alice wobbled a bit. ‘Oh Mark.’ She hugged him really tightly ‘I can’t
believe it.’ Her face darkened. ‘Oh God.’

‘What?’
he said.

‘What
if it’s not what I’m hoping? If I don’t like it?’

‘Shut
up, you silly cow, and just go and enjoy it,’ he said.

Are you
coming?’

‘I
can’t,’ he said, ‘and Karen’s parents won’t let her. You’ll have to get someone
to go with you.’

Alice’s
brain flickered through the other possibilities, few as they were.

‘I’ll
ask my dad to go with me,’ she said.

Excited,
she ran slightly less fast all the way home.

Keith
was in the garden.

‘Dad,’
she shouted as she kicked open the gate. ‘Yes,’ said Keith, thinking he hadn’t
seen her this cheerful for months.

‘Mark’s
bought me some tickets for the Smiths in Leicester. Can I go? Can you come? Oh
God, it’s so exciting.’

‘What
about Mum?’ said Keith. ‘We can’t put her in the boot.’ Even though she might
quite like it, he thought bitterly to himself.

Keith
had absolutely no idea who the Smiths were and it didn’t occur to him that
Alice’s mood in recent months may have been controlled or at the very least
affected by the existence of these four boys from Manchester.

‘All
right,’ he said. ‘I’ll get Nan Wildgoose to come down and sit with Mum. We’ll
have a lovely night out. I’ll stand at the back so that people don’t think
you’re with some horrible hairy old hippy twice your age.’

‘Thanks,
Dad, you’re the best,’ said Alice.

‘After
the Smiths,’ he corrected.

16 February 1984

The day that Alice had
been waiting for finally dawned. She found herself in an almost hysterical
state of excitement and had trouble eating any food all day Nan Wildgoose was
due at lunchtime. It was a school day but Keith had allowed Alice to have the
day off sick; she only had PE in the afternoon anyway so it wasn’t too bad a
day to be skiving.

Nan
Wildgoose was dropped off in the lane by Wobbly As he departed with a roar of
exhaust she limped up the drive looking a bit cold and tired.

Keith
had not told Gina that her mother was essentially coming to baby-sit while he
and Alice went out. It seemed safer not to. Gina’s relationship with her mother
was occasionally unpredictable but often operated along parallel lines. The
two of them would sit in a room, with Ma Wildgoose gossiping about her
neighbours, which did not interest her daughter in the least, while Gina
occupied herself with the barely audible show going on in her head. This time,
however, Gina was not pleased to see her mother and as soon as she stepped over
the threshold, Gina spat out the words, ‘What the fuck is she doing here?’

‘Oh,
don’t be like that, love,’ said Keith. Alice and I are going out for the
evening and your mum’s going to sit and watch telly with you until we get
back.’

‘Well.
I don’t want her to,’ said Gina. ‘She’s evil, she’ll try and kill me and I’ll
be all on my own.

Keith
was tempted to say, ‘Come on, you could knock her out with one punch,’ but he
didn’t want to encourage Gina. Instead he said as soothingly as he could,
‘Don’t worry, it’ll be all right.’

Unfortunately
this just proved to Gina that Keith was in on the conspiracy to finish her off.

‘You
both want to kill me,’ she screeched. She picked up a book from the table and
lobbed it in the general direction of her mother. It whooshed past her head and
landed near the front door. Ma Wildgoose, who would have made a crap
psychiatric nurse, picked it up and lobbed it back with the words, ‘Take that,
you silly little fucker.’

A
full-blown punch-up looked likely and Keith positioned himself between them.

‘Just
tell her to piss off,’ said Gina. ‘She’s not watching telly with me.’

Alice,
hearing all this from her vantage point on the stairs, felt despair overtake
her. She couldn’t bear it if her mother ruined the evening. She got up and went
into the sitting room.

‘Please,
Mum,’ she said. ‘It’s really important. Can’t you just get on with Nan for
once, please.’

‘Oh, so
you’re involved too,’ Gina began.

‘Oh,
for fuck’s sake,’ screamed Alice. ‘Why must everything revolve around you and
your pathetic illness?’ She kicked the chair nearest her and walked out into
the garden.

‘Right,’
Keith heard himself say ‘Everybody calm down. ‘To his complete surprise,
everybody did. Desperate for Alice not to miss what seemed to be such an
important night, he turned to his mother-in-law.

‘Will
you go with Alice tonight?’ he asked.

‘Go
where?’ said Ma Wildgoose.

‘To see
the Smiths in Leicester,’ he said.

‘Who
are the bleeding Smiths?’ said Ma Wildgoose. ‘Some friends?’

‘No,
they’re a pop group,’ said Keith. ‘She’s so desperate to go, please, I’ll give
you money for the train and cabs.’

‘And a
stout?’ said Ma Wildgoose, ever conscious of the possibility of a drink.

All
right,’ said Keith. Alice, love?’ he called. Alice came in, looking so sad and
defeated, Keith couldn’t bear it.

‘It’s
all right, you can go,’ he said. ‘Nan’s going with you.

Oh,
what a double-edged sword. Was the purest pleasure of the Smiths show worth the
farting, swearing heap that was Nan Wildgoose? Alice decided it was. There was
bound to be somewhere she could safely dump her near the gig and escape to meet
the Smiths.

Keith
deposited Alice and her nan at the station in record time and they both sat
staring out of the window with their own thoughts for much of the journey When
they finally arrived in Leicester, Alice realised Nan had fallen asleep. She
shook her gently Nan woke with a grunt and her customary emission of wind.

‘Where
are we?’ she said, bad-tempered as ever.

‘In
Leicester going to see the Smiths,’ said Alice, the words giving her a little
frisson of excitement.

They
rose from their seats and trudged along the platform. Outside, taxis stood
lined up and they joined the queue.

An
Asian driver smiled and chatted amiably as they traversed the Leicestershire
landscape, Alice praying that Nan Wildgoose wouldn’t say something offensive.

‘I want
the toilet,’ was what she came up with.

‘We’re
nearly there,’ said Alice.

‘I want
the toilet,’ said Nan louder.

The
driver looked concerned. ‘She won’t have piss in my car?’ he said.

‘No,’ said
Alice.

‘I
have,’ said Nan triumphantly ‘I couldn’t wait.’

‘Oh my
God.’ The taxi driver launched into an unintelligible stream of a language
they didn’t understand.

The
taxi stopped.

‘Out
please,’ he said, barely keeping his temper.

‘I’m
sorry,’ said Alice, ‘she didn’t mean it.’

‘Give
me all your money,’ said the driver, ‘to clean car.’ Alice regretfully handed
over the thirty pounds Keith had given her.

They
watched as he disappeared into the distance, having helpfully informed them it
was ‘bloody miles’ to Leicester University.

Nan Wildgoose
and Alice started to walk. There was a cold and bitter wind and shards of sharp
rain whipped into them.

Nan was
silent for a few hundred yards.

‘I
don’t feel well,’ she said.

‘We’re
nearly there.’ said Alice who could see the concrete jumble of the campus not
far away.

She
looked at her watch. Three-quarters of an hour to go. A bus shelter loomed in
the darkness.

‘Let’s
sit down for a minute,’ said Alice, relieved. ‘We’ve still got time.’

Nan
Wildgoose sat heavily on the narrow plastic seat.

‘What
is it?’ Alice asked.

‘Pain,’
said Nan.

‘Where?’
said Alice, guiltily feeling only irritable. ‘Everywhere,’ said Nan. ‘I want to
go home.’ Oh Christ, thought Alice. Don’t be ill now, for fuck’s sake, not
today of all days.

Nan slumped
over on to Alice’s shoulder.

‘Nan?’
said Alice. Getting no answer, her voice rose with alarm. ‘Nan! Nan!’

It was
no good, there was no response. Nan Wildgoose was just a big heavy heap of
flesh pushing her across the seat. Alice couldn’t hold her and Nan toppled on
to the wet, cold pavement.

Alice
had absolutely no idea what to do. She’d seen nurses on telly put a finger to
the artery on people’s necks but she wasn’t really sure what she was feeling
for. Was Nan asleep? Unconscious? Dead? She had no clue. She tried to lift her
but Nan’s fourteen-stone frame wouldn’t budge and so Alice sat on the pavement
next to Nan Wildgoose and tried to decide what to do. A thought ran through her
head that she could just prop Nan up in the bus stop, go to the gig and then
sort it all out afterwards. She was so close to seeing Morrissey in the flesh
and so desperate for that to happen, surely that would be all right. The
thought exited almost immediately, to be replaced by the horror of sitting on a
pavement in Leicester next to her grandmother who appeared to be dead.
Regretfully she turned away from what had promised to be the best evening of
her life. No one seemed to be about. No one to ask, to scream at, to tell.
Alice pulled Nan into a sitting position and rested her gently against the side
of the bus stop. She took off her coat and laid it over Nan just in case she
was still there in the big tired body and ran up the road until she saw a phone
box. Her cold fingers dialled 999.