The More You Ignore Me

by Jo Brand

  ‘I’m hungry, Dougie,’ said Gina in a child’s voice. ‘Help me please.’

  Doug thought he could buy time by making some breakfast and trying to get on the phone to Keith while Gina was eating. He took her through to his little back kitchen and sat her down, popped two slices of white bread into the toaster and flicked the kettle switch down.

  ‘Where have you been, Gina?’ he said pleasantly, as if he was asking her about her holidays.

  ‘Dunno,’ said Gina, staring at the toaster and wanting it to disgorge its booty.

  ‘Does Keith know where you are?’

  ‘Dunno,’ said Gina. ‘Where’s my fucking toast?’

  The bell on the shop door tinkled.

  ‘Hang on, Gina,’ said Doug. ‘I’ll just see who that is.’

  ‘Better not be the fucking Gestapo,’ said Gina, whose hunger was still overriding the urgent voices in her head telling her to get out of there.

  It was Mrs Langforth from the little cottage on the outskirts who managed a brisk walk there and back every morning, despite being well into her eighties.

  ‘There you go,’ said Doug, handing her a Daily Mail and thinking, enjoy having all your prejudices reinforced, you old bag.

  He walked back into the kitchen where Gina seemed to have lapsed into catatonia and buttered the toast.

  ‘Marmalade or jam?’ he asked politely continuing the fantasy that she’d come round for a social breakfast.

  Gina didn’t answer but rose, grabbed the two slices of toast from his hand and tried to stuff all of it into her mouth at once.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Doug, ‘you must be starving. Sit down, I’ll make you some more — and some tea,’ he added, noticing her dry, cracked lips.

  He put some tea bags into the teapot and put more bread in the toaster.

  ‘Just going for a piss,’ he said cheerfully.

  He ran into the little front room and dialled Keith’s number. Keith answered immediately.

  ‘Keith, she’s here,’ he said. ‘Come and help.’

  ‘On my way’ said Keith and Doug heard the receiver crash into its cradle.

  He walked back into the kitchen, only to find an empty seat and an open door.

  ‘Shit,’ he said and ran outside, looking desperately in both directions. In front of Mrs Langforth, running for all she was worth, was Gina, heading for Wales.

  Doug broke into a run, passing Mrs Langforth, whose progress back home was always at half the speed of her outward journey.

  Despite all the years of major tranquillisers and no exercise, the memory of the days when she could run faster than not only all the girls in her class at school but the boys too had stayed with Gina. However, Doug, whose bulky body constantly let him down, was fired with the adrenalin of his work memories and knew that he had to grab her now or they might not see her in one piece again. He managed to grab the tail of Gina’s jacket, causing her to trip and fall to the ground, half in and half out of the hedgerow.

  Doug pounced and landed on top of Gina as she tried to grab a tree stump and pull herself up.

  Mrs Langforth, about twenty yards away, gaped at them short-sightedly Doug looked like some marauding, pillaging Norseman intent on getting his woman. She began to increase her speed, shouting as she went, ‘Stop it, young man, stop it!’

  Gina and Doug were rolling on the ground, Gina screaming, ‘Get off me, you fat fuck! Piss off and leave me alone.’

  Mrs Langforth reached the thrashing pair and brought her walking stick, fashioned with the silver head of a pheasant, cracking down on Doug’s head.

  ‘I told you to get off her!’ she shouted by way of explanation.

  As Doug lay stunned and throbbing in the ditch, Gina made her escape and a smile of satisfaction spread across Mrs Langforth’s face.

  ‘What did you do that for?’ said Doug. ‘She’s not well, I’m trying to hold on to her until her husband gets here and we’re going to take her to hospital.’

  ‘Oh, why didn’t you say?’ said Mrs Langforth. ‘I could have helped.’

  Doug swore under his breath and looked down the road. Gina had disappeared. She must have got to the crossroads. Which way had she gone? Anybody’s guess.

  Keith drew up in his van as Doug was heading back to the shop.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Keith, winding the window down. ‘Bloody van wouldn’t start, had to get some WD40.’

  ‘She’s legged it,’ said Doug. ‘Couldn’t stop her, and that old bird Langforth cracked me on the head with her bloody walking stick, thought I was attacking Gina.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Keith again, but this time because he was starting to laugh.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, very funny’ said Doug, rubbing his head ruefully.

  ‘Shall we get after her then?’ said Keith.

  ‘Shit,’ said Doug. ‘I’ve left the shop unattended. Let me get someone to cover. You have a look now, she can’t have got far, and come back and get me in half an hour.’

  ‘All right,’ said Keith. ‘You haven’t got a shotgun, have you, Doug?’

  Doug looked slightly alarmed. ‘What for?’

  ‘Thought I’d finish off Langforth for you.’ Keith grinned and pulled away.

  For the next couple of hours, Keith and Doug zigzagged backwards and forwards between Shropshire and Herefordshire in a vain search for Gina, who despite her disturbed state was proving extremely adept at hiding.

  Eventually, Doug turned to Keith and said, ‘Shall we have a pint and make a plan?’

  ‘Okey dokey,’ said Keith. ‘And I’ll call Marie Henty to come and join the discussion.’

  Marie Henty arrived at the pub within five minutes and ordered herself a Dubonnet and lemonade.

  ‘Drinking on duty?’ said Doug, one eyebrow slightly raised. ‘Shut it, Doug,’ said Marie. ‘Extenuating circumstances. ‘‘Right,’ said Keith. ‘We need someone to wait at the cottage in case she comes back, someone to go and tell her brothers she’s on the loose and to hold on to her, and someone to drive round looking for her. OK, any volunteers to wait at the cottage?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Doug and Marie together.

  ‘I think perhaps Marie,’ said Keith. ‘No disrespect but we probably need a bit of brute strength when we catch up with her.’

  ‘OK,’ said Marie, ‘but what about Alice, couldn’t she do it?’

  ‘She’s not there,’ said Keith, ‘but obviously when she gets back, you can come and join in.’ He turned to Doug. ‘Do you want to go and see Wobbly and Bighead then?’

  ‘You’re fucking joking, aren’t you?’ said Doug. ‘They’ll kill me.’

  ‘They’ll kill me too,’ said Keith gloomily.

  ‘Tell you what,’ said Doug, ‘let’s go together and then we’ll go and look some more.

  ‘Should we tell the police?’ asked Marie. ‘I mean, it might be useful for them to keep a lookout.’

  ‘S’pose so,’ said Keith. ‘All right, Marie, can you call them?’

  ‘Will do,’ said Marie.

  Keith’s van rumbled up the track towards the Wildgoose smallholding and as he always did at the sound of anyone approaching, Bighead appeared to see who it was.

  As they pulled up, he went over to the car.

  ‘Well, bugger me if it isn’t Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,’ he said. ‘Although neither of you’s exactly butch, are yer?’

  Doug giggled nervously like a schoolgirl while Keith tried to maintain the demeanour of a grown-up.

  ‘What’s happened to your ‘ead?’ said Bighead, looking at the ostentatious sticking plaster Doug had applied.

  ‘Mrs Langforth hit him with her walking stick,’ said Keith without thinking, and then seeing Doug’s thunderous look and realising the endless possibilities for piss-taking, he mouthed, ‘Sorry.’

  Bighead let out a huge throaty laugh which degenerated into an explosive phlegmy cough that nearly doubled him up.

  ‘Oi, Wobs!’ he shouted when he caught his breath. ‘Come ‘ere, we have a vict
im of extreme violence.’

  Wobbly appeared from the outside toilet, pulling up his trousers.

  Bighead pointed to Doug’s head and spluttered, ‘Langforth done that with her walking stick!’

  ‘Yes, all right,’ said Doug. ‘Can we get on with why we came?’

  ‘Some fighting lessons?’ said Bighead. ‘How to pound an old lady? Wrestling a baby? How to keep a teeny weeny little kitten under control?’

  The brothers laughed heartily holding their crotches to communicate to Doug that they were in danger of pissing themselves.

  Keith and Doug gritted their teeth and waited for them to finish pulling faces and punching each other in the arm and doing impressions of old women.

  ‘We’ve come about Gina,’ said Keith at last.

  ‘Oh, right,’ said Bighead. ‘What about ‘er?’

  ‘She’s really not well and we need to get her into hospital again.’

  This time the brothers didn’t protest, given Gina’s recent behaviour and their total inability to fathom it, let alone deal with it.

  It was decided that Wobbly and Bighead would also go out and search for Gina, and local areas were allocated to them.

  ‘Bring her to our cottage if you find her.’

  ‘OK,’ the brothers chorused meekly which was probably the first time in their lives they hadn’t been combative towards Keith.

  Gina, meanwhile, was becoming ever more distressed. She had been wandering about on the outskirts of the village for some time, confused and frightened, and had decided that the only two people who could save her were Jesus and Morrissey A pilgrimage to Manchester seemed out of the question even to Gina, so she slipped quietly into the church to try and find her saviour. But the church was empty, dark and cold. Her footsteps echoed round its huge expanse. The relief she had expected to discover there was nowhere to be found. She called, ‘Help me, Jesus, please come here and help me.’ Echoing silence. Maybe something louder was needed. Gina climbed the bell tower to the little chamber where the ropes were neatly hooked to the wall. She snatched a rope free and began to pull on it with all her might, expecting help to come. The bell had been left in the down position and a professional ringer would have brought it up to rest on the wooden stay in readiness for ringing. But Gina didn’t know this and the harder she pulled, the higher she flew with the rope until she was a good twenty feet in the air. Something about this was exhilarating and she screamed with excitement, lost in the rhythm of it all, until she became aware of the figures of Doug and her husband staring in disbelief at her swinging form. She couldn’t hold on much longer and let go… landing on the pre-positioned heap of Doug and Keith.

  ‘Gina,’ said Keith. ‘Time to go home.’

  Alice was sitting by the fire when Keith and Doug arrived with Gina who was alternately protesting vehemently and singing hymns and Morrissey songs. They brought her into the house between them like two security guards.

  Marie Henty was on her way and had called an ambulance to meet them at the house. The ambulance centre had told her there would be a wait of about two hours. When he heard this, Keith’s heart sank. How would they contain Gina for that length of time? Doug offered to stay in case there were any escape attempts and the four sat together in the sitting room, with Gina glowering at them.

  ‘Gina,’ said Keith. ‘Dr Henty has organised an ambulance to take you to hospital. We’re very sorry this has happened, because in a way it’s our fault. We just wanted to see how you were without too much medication and it hasn’t worked and we wish it had.’

  ‘Reel around the fountain, smack me on the patio,’ sang Gina.

  ‘It’s “slap”, Mum,’ said Alice, unable to let this minor slip go.

  ‘Reel around the fountain, fuck me on the patio.’ Gina upped the volume to an almost unbearable level.

  ‘Mm, that’s a nice song,’ said Doug. ‘Who’s that by then? Des O’Connor?’

  Gina glared at him and then stood up and started to scream. ‘Oh God, can we cope with two hours of this?’ said Keith quietly.

  ‘I have to cope with a whole fucking lifetime of it!’ Gina shouted in his face. ‘Just let me be on my own.

  ‘Do you want to go in my bedroom, Mum, and listen to some Smiths?’ said Alice, desperately thrashing around for some way to calm her mother.

  Gina nodded like an acquiescent five-year-old and put her thumb in her mouth.

  ‘Come on then,’ said Alice. ‘I’ll come with you, ‘No, I want to go on my own,’ said Gina. Alice’s stomach churned minutely when she thought of all the precious Morrissey objects in her room.

  ‘OK,’ she said tentatively ‘I’ll bring you a cup of tea in a minute.

  Gina climbed the stairs and disappeared into Alice’s room and then there was silence.

  ‘Oh God, this is worse in a way’ said Keith. ‘What do you think she’s doing?’

  ‘Go and have a look through the keyhole, Dad,’ said Alice. ‘I don’t want her to ruin anything.’

  ‘All right,’ said Keith. He tiptoed up the stairs and knelt to place one eye against the keyhole.

  Alice and Doug stood at the bottom of the stairs waiting for news.

  ‘She’s eating something,’ said Keith in a stage whisper. ‘But there’s no food in there,’ said Alice. ‘What does it look like?’

  A piece of paper,’ said Keith. ‘Maybe a letter?’

  ‘Oh Jesus!’ Alice took the stairs two at a time and flung open her bedroom door to see the final scraps of her letter from Morrissey disappearing into her mother’s mouth.’

  ‘Oh Mum,’ she shouted. ‘How could you? My most loved and precious thing.’ She launched herself at Gina and grabbed what paper she could from her mother’s mouth. Gina began to laugh hysterically.

  Keith stood helplessly in the doorway as Alice sat on her bed and cried, clutching a tiny saliva-covered piece of paper with some writing on it, and his wife stared out of the window, laughing uncontrollably.

  ‘Fuck, Dad,’ said Alice through her tears. ‘She’s eaten the only thing that means something to me.

  Keith wanted to laugh, even though he was desperately sad for Alice.

  ‘Never mind, love,’ he said as if she’d grazed her knee in the playground.

  Gina turned to them. ‘He’s inside me now,’ she said, ‘and no one can get him out.’

  At a loss to know what to say or do next, Keith was relieved to hear a knock on the door. He went downstairs, followed by a disconsolate Alice. It hardly mattered what her mother did now, it couldn’t be any worse than what she’d already done.

  Please let it be the ambulance, Keith said to himself as he opened the door.

  ‘Surprise!’ His parents were standing on the doorstep, his mother with her arms outstretched. ‘We came out for a drive in the country, love, and Norman said we should make a detour to see you, didn’t you, love?’ She turned to Keith’s dad with a flourish as if they were in a play and it was now his turn to speak.

  ‘Yes, dear,’ said his dad.

  ‘Mum, Dad,’ said Keith, ‘it’s lovely to see you but I’m afraid it’s not a good time. Gina’s very ill and we’re waiting for an ambulance to come. This is Doug, a friend of ours who’s been helping. Say hello to Nan and Grandad, Alice. Maybe another day, Mum?’

  But Jennifer was not to be deterred. Sailing into the cottage like a nylon armada, as if the last and only time she’d been there wasn’t sixteen years ago, she said, ‘We won’t be any trouble, honestly I’ll just put the kettle on and make Norman a sandwich, he hasn’t eaten for a couple of hours and you know what his digestion’s like.’

  Keith didn’t, thankfully and he realised that his mother was not going to be put off by the mere presence of a seriously disturbed woman.

  ‘Have you got any liver pâté?’ said Jennifer, continuing her progress towards the kitchen. ‘Norman loves that.’

  ‘I do,’ said Norman, patting his stomach.

  As Keith foolishly asked himself the fate-tempting question,
‘Can this get any worse?’ Wobbly and Bighead exploded through the front door.

  ‘Is she here?’ said Bighead.

  ‘Yes,’ said Keith, retreating into monosyllables.

  ‘Keith, this bread is days old,’ said Jennifer, re-emerging from the kitchen massaging a perfectly good loaf. ‘And where’s the Hoover, dear? Oh heavens.’ The sight of Wobbly and Bighead stopped her in her tracks. ‘How lovely to see you two boys.’

  Their expressions betrayed the fact that they had absolutely no idea who this woman was, having met her only once at Gina and Keith’s wedding, during which Wobbly and Bighead had only taken notice of those guests they could have sex with or beat up.

  “Ow do,’ said Wobbly, and Bighead released a very loud fart.

  ‘Better out than in,’ said Norman.

  Jennifer looked as if she might faint.

  ‘Too right, mate,’ said Bighead and slapped Norman heartily on the back, making him fear for the continued wellbeing of his ribs.

  ‘Right, who wants tea? Hands up,’ said Jennifer, rallying bravely.

  Everyone raised their hands.

  ‘Would Gina like one?’ said Jennifer.

  Jennifer’s response to any crisis was to make a cup of tea, whether it was for a visiting friend or a daughter-in-law with chronic schizophrenia in the acute phase of her illness. Norman had always assumed that given half a chance Jennifer would have popped into Hitler’s bunker and offered him a cup of PG Tips.

  ‘Hmm,’ said Doug quietly to Keith. ‘Tea as a cure for schizophrenia, it might just work.’

  ‘No muttering amongst yourselves,’ said Jennifer. ‘Come on, lay the table, Keith, and I’ll knock up some rock buns to go with our tea, as you don’t appear to have any biscuits in your tin.’

  And she did. Within twenty minutes tea had been made, cakes had appeared on plates and everyone stood around as though life was completely mundane.

  ‘I’ll just pop a cuppa up to poor Gina,’ said Jennifer. ‘In bed, is she?’ as if she had flu.

  ‘I’d better do it,’ said Keith. ‘She’s in Alice’s room.

  ‘No, it’s all right, dear,’ said Jennifer. ‘Haven’t seen poor Gina in an age, we’ll have plenty to chat about.’