The More You Ignore Me (26 page)

‘Where
did you get it?’ said Alice. ‘Borrowed it off a leprechaun, did you?’

‘Don’t
take the piss. It’s got to get us to bloody Manchester, this has. It belongs to
my mate’s brother, he’s away for the week.’

‘So he
doesn’t even know you’ve got it then?’ said Alice.

‘No,’
said Mark, ‘and I’m not insured to drive so we’d better be bloody careful.’

Keith
roared with laughter when he saw the car.

‘Yes,
all right,’ said Mark. ‘I know.’

Alice
had packed a small bag and brought her Morrissey folder with her. This
collection of scrappy articles and pictures would give them some idea of where
to look. She knew Gina had been through them many times — there were some tiny
comments in Gina’s hand in the margins and the occasional splodge of coffee or
butter from her rather chaotic breakfasting behaviour.

‘Be
careful, you two,’ said Keith, pressing thirty pounds into Alice’s hand, ‘and
drive carefully in that bloody Noddy car,’ he said to Mark.

‘Do you
want a lift to Uncle Bighead’s?’ said Alice.

‘No
bloody fear,’ said Keith. ‘They’d execute me on sight. Call me tonight,’
shouted Keith as they drove off, waving furiously ‘Let me know you’re safe.’

‘All
right,’ shouted Alice, but the wind carried the words, away before they reached
Keith.

Keith
steeled himself to go and see Wobbly and Bighead. On the way he dropped into
Doug’s shop to tell him the news.

‘Bloody
amateurs,’ said Doug. ‘Wouldn’t have happened in my day’

‘I’m
going to see Bighead and Wobbly,’ said Keith. ‘Want to come and be my
bodyguard?’

‘Ooh,
yes please,’ said Doug sarcastically.

‘Oh,
one thing I nearly forgot,’ said Keith. ‘I was going to get Alice a ticket for
the next Morrissey concert. Can I have a butchers at that
NME
and see
when he’s on?’

‘Be my
guest,’ said Doug.

Keith
discovered that Morrissey was playing in Wolverhampton in about a week’s time
and that all those who arrived with a Morrissey T-shirt would be let in free.

‘Now I
just have to get a Morrissey T-shirt,’ he muttered. ‘You’ll have to go to Brum
for that,’ said Doug. ‘Great,’ said Keith. ‘Doesn’t look like I’m going to get
any work done today’

He
hared off to Birmingham and managed finally to locate a T-shirt. On his way
home he detoured via the Wildgoose cottage to talk to Bighead and Wobbly.

‘Don’t
tell me,’ roared Wobbly who’d had a few barley wines, ‘she’s fucking
scarpered!’

‘Well,
yes, she has actually,’ said Keith.

‘Oh
bollocks. Dad! Wobs!’ Bighead shouted over his shoulder. ‘She’s escaped from
the bin!’

He
looked at Keith as if he was a piece of fishing bait.

‘Wanna
come in, Keithy?’ he said.

Keith
made a quick calculation involving time of day amount of alcohol consumed and
level of social disinhibition achieved, and turned down Bighead’s offer.

‘We
should have a search tomorrow, though,’ he said. ‘Shall we meet in the
morning?’

‘Dunno,’
said Bighead distractedly ‘All right, we’ll come to yours in the morning.’

‘OK,’
said Keith and walked away thankful once again that he was physically
unscathed.

Marie
got up to answer the ring at her door.

Keith
stood there grinning.

‘Want
to come to ours?’ he said. ‘Alice is calling me later so I’ve got to be in.’

All
right,’ said Marie, picking up her bleep and her handbag.

Keith
held his breath as they drew up at the cottage as it suddenly occurred to him
that Gina might have come home.

There
was no sign. I wonder where she is? he thought.

Gina was in a lorry doing
seventy on a dual carriageway heading north. She had promised the driver sex if
he took her to Manchester.

They
overtook a tiny bright orange car.

‘Jesus,’
said the driver. ‘What the fuck is that?’

Alice and Mark arrived in
Manchester about six o’clock. Neither of them had been there before and didn’t
really know where to begin.

‘Let’s
start with a map, shall we?’ said Mark, parking the car on a single yellow
line. ‘There must be a crappy newsagent’s near here that’s got one.’

There
was. They bought a street map of Manchester, two Twix bars and a can of Coke
each and then sat in the car, Alice with the contents of her folder spread out
on her knees.

She
produced a little notebook and a tiny blue pen, the type that come from a
bookies. At some point it must have been in the possession of one of her
uncles, she mused.

‘Shall
we start with the Salford Lads’ Club?’ she said distractedly to Mark. ‘It’s
where that great photo on the inside of
The Queen is Dead
comes from and
it seems to be a bit of a mecca for Moz fans.’

‘Whatever
you like,’ said Mark. ‘Have we got a strategy?’

‘Just
go there, hang about and keep our eyes open,’ said Alice. ‘I’m afraid that’s
all the strategy I can manage at the moment.’

‘What
about Morrissey’s house?’ said Mark.

‘That’s
in Stretford,’ said Alice, ‘King’s Road, but we’ll do Salford first, we might
meet people there who can help.’

They
drove, chewing their chocolate, for quite some time until eventually they found
themselves in Salford. They passed the Salford Lads’ Club and could see a few
people hanging around outside in the rain and cold. A gaggle of Japanese
tourists was obviously trying to re-enact the photo which had appeared on the
inner sleeve of
The Queen Is Dead.

Alice
approached a small group who looked like students, three boys and one girl.

‘Hi,’
she said. ‘I’m sorry to bother you but I’m looking for my mum.

‘Morrissey
fan, is she?’ said one of the floppy-haired boys with a slight sneer.

‘Patrick,’
said the girl. ‘Don’t be horrible.’ She turned to Alice. ‘What does she look
like?’

‘Oh,
about five foot five with wild black hair, a bit odd-looking,’ said Alice. She
put her hand in her pocket and produced a picture of Gina taken about four
years ago. Her features were slightly flattened by the progress of her illness
but there was definite evidence of the wild witchiness that had dominated some
years before.

‘She
looks amazing,’ said the girl. ‘Why are you looking for her?’

This
was the first potential stumbling block for Alice, something she had wrestled
with in the car on the way up. She had no idea how much she should tell the
people she met, but she supposed her questions would anyway alert them to the
oddness of the situation so she went ahead and said, ‘She’s not very well …
mentally, you know, and she needs some help… and yes, she does love Morrissey
and we thought she might come to some of the places that remind her of him.’

‘Wanna lock
her up and give her some of this?’ said the sneery bloke, putting both his
hands to his head and simulating ECT.

‘I’m
sorry,’ said the girl, ‘he’s a bit anti everything conventional, can you tell?
I haven’t seen anyone like that but if you want to give me your phone number,
we come here quite a lot and if I see her I could call you.’

‘Thanks.’
Alice tore a page out of her notebook and wrote down her name and number.
‘We’ll just hang around for a bit and see if she turns up,’ she said, almost as
if she was asking permission.

‘OK,’
said the girl, almost as if she was giving it. ‘I’m Lou, by the way Nice to
meet you.

They
shook hands with an embarrassed laugh. The boys were glowering at Mark who was
returning their gaze with equal ferocity Alice wondered why teenage boys had to
do this and why they couldn’t just relax and get on with each other.

‘Any
suggestions about where we could look?’ said Alice. ‘We were obviously planning
to go to Stretford.’

‘Of
course,’ said Lou. ‘Well, I suppose you could try Canal Street and round there
too.’

‘Yes,’
said Alice. ‘I suppose it’s worth a try.’

Mark
and Alice stood in the rain for an hour, Alice truly convinced that if they
waited long enough, her mother would appear magically from round the corner.
There was occasional communication between her and the students about Morrissey
but Alice found that the almost machine-generated facts spewing from the
sneery one’s mouth sat uneasily with her emotional attachment to Morrissey.

Do I
really care, she thought, what sort of guitar someone has or what key a certain
song was written in? That’s not going to get to the heart of the man.

It got
darker and colder and eventually the little groups who had been there when they
arrived melted away and left the two of them alone.

Eventually
Mark said, ‘Let’s move on, shall we?’

Alice
didn’t want to go.

‘Just
another fifteen minutes,’ she said.

‘All
right,’ said Mark, not wanting to express what he was truly feeling, which was
a sense of utter hopelessness about the task they had set themselves.

After
fifteen minutes no one had arrived and they were wetter and more demoralised.

‘Come
on then,’ said Alice. ‘Let’s go to Canal Street. At least we can get a drink.
I’d better phone my dad first,’ she added.

They
found a phone box and as Alice listened to the ringing tone, she wished she
could see what Keith was doing. Was he pottering around in the kitchen? Watching
sport on the television? Or lying on his bed dreaming and listening to Bob
Dylan, as he often did when he was tired?

Keith
was lying on his bed but it wasn’t Bob Dylan who was there with him, it was
Marie Henty.

They
had started the journey to the bedroom in a very contained fashion, discussing
the current situation with Gina and why Alice had gone to Manchester, although
both of them weren’t really thinking about that. Marie was considering just
coming out with a request for sex and seeing what happened, and Keith was
wondering how long they needed to talk before it was socially acceptable to
stop and go upstairs for sex. The conversation ambled everywhere for a good
twenty minutes. Eventually Marie said, ‘Keith.’

‘Marie,’
said Keith.

And
just speaking each other’s names was the catalyst they needed. Keith grabbed
Marie’s hand and pulled her up the stairs with him into the bedroom and there
in the dark, each with their own issues of fidelity lust and love niggling
somewhere in the back of their minds, they undressed each other in a furious
tangle of awkwardness and laughter. Just as Keith’s pants flew across the room
and hit the window, their progress was halted by Alice’s call.

Keith
looked at Marie.

‘I
don’t want to answer it,’ he said, ‘but I can’t ignore it because I know it’s
Alice and I just want to check she’s OK. Is that all right?’ and he walked
backwards out of the door, trying at the same time to hop back into his pants,
some ancient rule of decorum telling him that you cannot have a phone
conversation with your daughter without your pants on.

Marie
lay on the bed trying to avoid the thought that this was the marital sanctuary
of two of her patients and listening to Keith’s voice downstairs.

Eventually
he returned.

‘She’s
fine,’ he said. ‘They got there safely and they’ve been to look in one spot and
now they’re on their way somewhere else. I’m sure they’re not going to find her
but I know she feels she’s got to do something.’ He looked at Marie. ‘Has the
moment passed for you?’ he asked.

‘Has it
for you?’ said Marie.

‘No,’
said Keith. ‘Far from it.’

‘Me
too,’ said Marie, and the pants flew off again.

As
Keith allowed himself to be sucked into the whirlpool of Marie, he spared a
brief thought for his wife and the pit of his stomach gave a little lurch as he
wondered where she was and what she was doing.