The More You Ignore Me (31 page)

Alice tried to make
herself believe that Morrissey and she were destined never to be close and this
thought made her feel very sad. Despite the traumatic events that had occurred
in Wolverhampton, she had been enveloped in the magical anticipation of being
close to him and that feeling had been so strong and so exciting that she
couldn’t help wanting to feel it again. She asked herself if actually seeing
Morrissey would be an anti-climax but she had no way of telling. She thought it
was like trying to give up a lover who was denied to her. Although his presence
in her life both delighted and tortured her, she wondered if she would ever
lead a normal existence with a normal job, a normal partner and a normal family
For some time she had wondered if she was a lesbian. So many of the men and
boys she had contact with seemed brutish and utterly insensitive. She looked at
her peer group and could almost physically experience them fading into the
middle distance, because compared to Morrissey they seemed grey dull and had
nothing to teach her. She and Karen still saw each other from time to time but
they were no longer close. Alice could not tolerate the group of young farmers
Karen aspired to connect herself to and she was beginning to resign herself to
the fact that she would live a life as strange and isolated as her mother’s.

She and
Mark met often and spent a lot of time together talking about their lives and
where they might be going. Mark’s relationship with his family had begun to get
better, thanks to his mother’s efforts. Mark still did not want to move back home
from his mean bedsit, because at least there he had some independence, choice
and freedom. He had very little but what he had was his and this was important
to him. It also meant there was very little to tidy up and the challenge this
presented was minimal. ‘Whenever he saw his mother, she always asked him two
things: was he getting enough to eat? Was he wearing a vest? Even in the height
of summer he expected her to ask about the vest. It seemed to reassure his mum
that he had not allowed his life to descend into the anarchy that she
constantly visualised when she was on her own at home in front of the
television.

Mark
responded to Alice’s disastrous night as if it was his own experience and could
almost physically feel her pain. Karen, however, caught in a world of make-up,
evil-smelling hair spray short skirts and longing, could not understand the
finer feelings this strange person had aroused in her friend. One night at a
party in the home of an old school friend called Sally, they all sat together
talking as Duran Duran blasted out in the background. Karen surveyed the scene
for likely partnerings later on. It was a typical mix, a few posh boys, the
sons of local farmers whose life at private school had been interrupted by a
downturn in their fathers ‘fortunes and who had returned to the local state
school, and some ‘useless yobs’, as Mark’s father called them, feral, unfeeling
troublemakers in the mould of Wobbly and Bighead. Most were average young men
and women, some still at home, many living a slightly desperate existence in
tatty rented accommodation.

Stephen
Matthews was there too with a couple of what could be loosely termed ‘his
friends’, although in reality they were two boys whose suggestibility and
complete lack of social skills meant they were destined to play second fiddle
to a bully.

Karen
had pretty much exhausted the supply of available males in the vicinity,
either by sleeping with them or frightening them so much they avoided her at
all costs. Her well-defined hips and huge chest had ensured that one or two of
the boys she had attempted to engage in private fumbling wondered whether they
were heterosexual at all, such fear struck at the core of them when they saw
her approaching.

Alice
and Mark knew the real Karen, slightly desperate and rather lonely having been
brought up in an emotionally cold home where hugs and jokes were in short
supply and more attention was paid to good manners and acceptable behaviour
than it was to having fun and being close.

Stephen
Matthews, despite his black heart and malevolent intent, had grown up into a
handsome man. Quite a few girls threw themselves into his path, willing
victims, who were then discarded after one night of very bad sex. This
furthered the myth within Stephen’s head that he was a desirable member of the
male sex and, as he said to himself, ‘I could have any fucking bird I want.’

This
wasn’t quite true. There were a few girls in the neighbourhood who didn’t want
to have anything to do with him because they remembered his behaviour at school
towards them or one of their siblings. Stephen Matthews had set himself the
task of gradually working his way through them until he had satisfied himself
that this self-image was accurate. So over the past couple of years he had got
Debbie Sibson so drunk at a party that she could hardly have even known what
was happening to her as he dragged her into the garden as if she were a large
sack of vegetables and pushed himself upon her. He had ignored the weak
protests of Elaine Spry in a friend’s bedroom and carried on, convincing
himself that because she had gone quiet she was enjoying herself. And he had
given Joy Weston ten pounds, calculating that because her family were poor,
this would secure him what he wanted. And it did.

The
only two girls in his immediate social sphere whom he had not managed to
perforate were Karen and Alice.

He
hated the tight little trio of these two girls and Mark. He had been glad of
the opportunity to hit Mark a few times in the market square recently and
abhorred the way ‘that fucking nutter’ idolised ‘that stupid poof from
Manchester. And now here he was at a party with them, boasting to his friends
that he would have both girls tonight. His two sidekicks sniggered and swigged
cider.

The
party progressed pretty much as parties do with no parents present, loud music
and plenty of cheap drink. At first the level of excited chatter and laughter
was reasonably low, then it began to rise as more cider and cheap lager was
poured down throats. The alcohol allowed confidence to grow and soon groups got
up and began to dance in the small space that had been cleared by chairs being
pushed back, tables folded and paraphernalia thrown into cupboards. The usual
people hung around in the kitchen, picking at crisps and mini sausages and listening
to gossip about the progress of various couplings.

People
wandered out into the garden despite the cold weather and little groups passed
round cigarettes from packets of ten. It was hot inside and getting hotter.
Mark, Karen and Alice sat lined up on an old settee discussing Alice’s
disastrous night in Wolverhampton. Karen thought the account of Alice being
relieved of her Morrissey T-shirt and bumping into her mad mother who seemed to
have hitched up with an ageing lorry driver was a bloody good story.

‘I bet
Morrissey was crap anyway, Alice,’ she said, trying to find something positive
about the night. ‘You were better off outside with all the others I would have
had a right laugh.’

Alice
shook her head. ‘Karen, you’ve got no bloody idea. I’d been waiting for this
night all my life. Remember what happened the time before with my nan? I feel
like it’s never going to happen.’ A tear ran down her face and Karen felt
absolutely helpless. She couldn’t envisage a situation which could cause her
such silent grief. Maybe one of her parents dying? Mentally she shook her head.
No, not even that.

She put
her arm round Alice. ‘I’m sure you’ll get another chance.’

‘I just
feel like I won’t,’ said Alice, ‘as if somehow it’s destined not to happen.’

Karen
had very little ability to view life in the abstract and decided not to explore
this statement.

‘Come
on,’ she said. ‘Let’s have a dance.’ She threw off a cardigan which had been
concealing the glory of her magnificent chest tightly contained within a gold
low-cut top and hauled herself up, grasping Mark by the hand as she did so.

The
expression on his face told her all she needed to know about his enthusiasm for
dancing.

He
turned to Alice.

‘Coming?’
he said.

To his
surprise, she rose; he knew she hated nothing more than to be forced into the
swaying awkwardness that was parry dancing.

‘You go
and dance,’ said Alice. ‘I’m just going outside for some fresh air.’

Karen
entered the throng with Mark awkwardly behind her, bouncing a little on his
toes in an approximation of dancing. Alice picked her way gingerly through to
the kitchen, nodding at familiar faces as she passed them. She opened the back
door and the cold air hit her like a wonderful relief. It was a big garden,
illuminated near the house by the light from the windows. She chose not to stay
there but wandered further down, gradually disappearing out of the light
towards a dark clump of trees.

As she
sat down on a rickety chair near the trees, she heard a low giggling and her
natural urge to flee whatever humanity had emitted the giggling stalled as
Stephen Matthews loomed out of the darkness, his face wearing the vacuous
expression she had come to know so well over the years.

‘Well,
fuck me, if it isn’t nutty trousers’ daughter come out to take the air,’ he said,
waiting for a reaction from his two lieutenants.

He was
rewarded by a snort from the two of them.

The
sickly smell of cider was on his breath, combined with a waft of cannabis.

Alice
turned to go. Stephen Matthews grasped her arm.

‘Stay
and have a smoke with us,’ he said. ‘We all know your old man, the skinny
hippy, does it so it won’t be a new experience for you.’

‘No
thanks,’ said Alice, her voice sounding thick in the cold air, a combination of
fear and anger.

‘Oh,
don’t be like that,’ said Stephen. ‘We’ve been waiting for you.’

Alice
felt her heart beat a tiny bit faster. She looked towards the house which
seemed to have moved back several miles.

Stephen
put his arm round her and held tight to her shoulder, adding the smell of sweat
and cheap aftershave to her overloaded senses.

‘Get
off,’ said Alice. ‘I want to go back inside.’

‘No you
don’t,’ said Stephen. ‘Let’s all have a bit of fun out here, shall we?’

Alice
attempted to squirm out of his grasp but before she could, his two friends were
on her, Half laughing, half growling, they pushed her to the ground and three
pairs of hands began clawing at her clothes and slipping under the outside
layers.

Alice
opened her mouth to scream and a hand was clamped over it.

‘Come
on,’ said Stephen. ‘You know you want it.’

In the
parallel universe where Alice was able to coldly observe the incident, she
caught herself thinking, Jesus, what a fucking cliché.

She bit
the hand that was over her mouth, eliciting a loud cry of pain and then a
punch. She screamed as loudly as she could.

‘You
fucking bitch,’ said Stephen. ‘Now you’re going to get it.’

Alice
continued to scream and as dirty hands with bitten nails attempted to drag off
her jeans, she became aware of two extra voices shouting and then two bodies
joining the squirming heap on the ground.

She was
pulled up by a strong hand. Mark and Karen were beside her.

‘For
fuck’s sake, Stephen,’ yelled Karen.

For a
second shame flitted across Stephen’s face and then he regained his composure.

‘She
came out here for it,’ he said, staring at the ground. Mark and Karen took hold
of Alice and steered her towards the house. Alice felt almost too shocked to
breathe and when she did, big sobs catapulted out of her.

‘It’s
all right,’ said Mark. ‘You’re OK.’

‘I’m
sure they didn’t mean it,’ said Karen. ‘Got carried away, I expect.’

‘Shall
I take you home?’ said Mark.

It was
only ten thirty Her dad would still be up. Alice couldn’t face either
pretending she’d had a good time or telling him what had happened.

‘No,’
she said. ‘I don’t want to go home.’

‘We’ll
walk for a bit,’ said Mark.