by Clare Allan
'Who's that?' said Dawn.
'Him?' I said 'Second-Floor Paolo. They'll be moving him down 'cause of Pollyanna.'
'Oh!' she said. She thought for a bit. 'Who's Pollyanna?'she said.
It weren't Dawn's fault she couldn't remember, they'd give her too much ECT. It was years before, on the wards, they done it. They got her all wired up on the bed, and all of these students stood around, who was s'posed to be learning how to do it - loads of them, I mean, all squashed round - and this one he leant on the thing by mistake, and they hadn't set the dial or nothing, so Dawn she got this massive electric shock. It was so fucking massive it blown every fuse in the Abaddon, and all the lights gone out and all the tellies gone off, and all the flops started rioting and hurling their slippers. And it blown all the memory out of Dawn's brain as well.
But every cloud got a silver lining, 'cause Dawn was brilliant at making tables. The Dorothy Fish got this wood workshop. No one gone in there except for Dawn but Dawn gone in there pretty much all the time. She made that many tables you couldn't give them away but she never got bored 'cause she couldn't remember she'd ever made one before. We'd all took about six hundred home each. Every flat on the Darkwoods was full of them and the drop-in was so packed you couldn't get in through the door. And we still had about a thousand left over for the common room.
'Who's Pollyanna?' she said again. She always picked me on account I was patient.
'She's gone,' I said. 'Don't worry about it.'
'Who's gone?' she said.
'Pollyanna!' I said.
'Who's Pollyanna?' she said.
Then Rosetta stood up and everyone gone silent. Rosetta got skin like deep-polished wood. The light from the windows shone off of her face as she stood there besides me, hands spotted black with fag burns. 'I'll go and ask Tony what happened,' she said. 'I'll ask him how come she got cured so sudden.' She glanced along the line of dribblers, Verna and Middle-Class Michael and Astrid, picking their letters and paring their nails and scratching their arse respective. I never even thought - it was that automatic -just leant down and tightened the lace on my Nikes, and Rosetta she passed right over my head and straight on to Elliot, two seats down, who dived underneath his chair.
6. How Middle-Class Michael done my fucking head in
Lunch at the Abaddon was always fatty lamb, 'cept for Fridays, you got flabby fish instead. Sometimes the lamb was curried, and sometimes it come in chops, and either way you ate it with a plastic knife and fork what melted into the curry sauce leaving trails like a couple of slugs. Canteen Coral ladled out the dinner plate by plate. She never looked up on account of she couldn't stand dribblers, and when it's got to you she gone, 'Peas or carrots,' like with no question mark on the end, and if you said 'Both' she gone, 'Peas or carrots,' like you was totally stupid. That was Canteen Coral.
The flops lined up first 'cause they got fed at quarter to twelve in the morning and by quarter to ten there was always like six of them, shuffling side to side in their slippers and sucking their fingers in front of the bolted doors. By eleven o'clock the queue gone over the landing and round to the lifts, where nurses herded them down like cows in batches of eight from the wards. The flops already sat in the common room eyed each other to see who was going to move first, then suddenly they'd all charge forward, all at once and all together, all of them forward and into the queue what grumbled and shuffled and grumbled some more as it stretched to fit them in.
Canteen Coral opened the doors at quarter to twelve and not one second before. Sometimes they started to hammer on the glass but Canteen Coral never heard nothing, just sat on her stool by the fire escape, smoking her Superkings, resting her back and thinking about how in Abaddon Tower weren't nobody who'd suffered as bad as what she had. One time the van broke down with the food but Canteen Coral never explained or nothing, just sat on her tight arse smoking her fags, and outside the flops, who know the time like cows know it's time for milking, they got a bit restless and started to twitch, and then they begun to stamp their slippers, then suddenly there's tables flying and panic alarms going crazy, and Curry Bob, he butts the door and cracks the glass with his head, and the nurses grab him as everyone cheers, and then the police rush in and everything's batons and helmets and shields till they've got them all rounded up in a pen, then in come the crash team in rubber gloves and give them all jabs up the arse. And all the time it's kicking off there's Canteen Coral, sat on her stool and smoking her fag and flicking her ash out the door of the fire escape.
We never seen sight nor sound of a flop three days after that, just lain on their beds from A to Z like slaughtered carcasses. Curry Bob needed that many stitches, his head looked like one of them patchwork blankets everyone knits a square of, and Fat Cath got trampled and sprained her wrist, and Gunga Din broke three ribs, he said, and one nearly punctured his lung, he said; doctors never seen nothing so close in their lives, and even in textbooks, he said they said. He was full of it, Gunga Din.
Us day dribblers ate at twelve-fifteen. As the last of the flops gone shuffling through we followed on behind. And sometimes we give them a bit of a shove, on account of twelve-thirty the hatch come down and Canteen Coral stopped serving. And even in the middle, if she'd give you your lamb but not done your peas and potato, the hatch come down and what you got was all what you was getting.
Dinner time come and Rosetta still weren't back. The rest of us, we all lined up. Astrid and Tina and Brian the Butcher, and Middle-Class Michael who only ate peas, then me and then Wesley, give Big Nose Jase two fags for his morning meds. And Middle-Class Michael kept going on about this fucking petition, and I ain't saying it was a bad idea, not as such, but he just gone on. And everyone he'd send it to and everyone who'd sign it and so on, and on and on and on and on and the queue shuffled forward that slow it was doing my head in.
'I'm not going to bother with Tony,' he said. Like total waste of time. 'You need to go straight to the top,' he said. 'If there's one thing I've learned in this business,' he said, 'it's not to waste time on people with no authority.'
'I thought he did,' I said . . . 'Tony?!' I said.
'He's a puppet,' said Michael. 'Just has to do what other people tell him. No genuine authority.' He give his nose a pull. 'You need to go straight to the top with these things, get to the people who make the decisions.'
'Like who,' I says, 'Dr Diabolus? He don't even talk to dribblers!' I says.
'Not Derek! he says, like I'm half backwards! 'Not Derek! Someone with influence.'
I give a shrug, like who gives a fuck anyway. 'Like who?'
I said.
'Do you know what I'm going to do?' he said. He was that hopped up, his pale blue eyes was watering over the edge. 'Strictly between you and me,' he said. 'I have a contact at the Ministry.'
The queue shuffled forward that slow, it was going backwards.
'The Ministry,' says Middle-Class Michael and he raises his eyebrows and nods, like get where I'm headed.
'You what?' I says.
'The Ministry! You know!' he says. 'The Ministry? The Ministry for Madness?'
'Oh, right,' I says.
'Friend of my brother's,' said Middle-Class Michael. 'Chap he was at school with. Works in the press department, I think, or public relations, that sort of thing. Knows everyone from Veronica down.'
'Oh right,' I said.
'Veronica Salmon . . . You know her,' he said.
'Not personal,' I said.
'The Minister for Madness? The new Mad Tsar? They appointed her a few months ago.'
'I know who she is,' I said. 'What you said's did I know her!'
'Poisoned chalice, if you ask me,' says Michael. 'Give me Northern Ireland,' he said. 'Give me Transport, any day!' like waving his hand like they's fucking asking him.
'I ain't political,' I said, 'to tell you the honest truth.'
'Give me Education!' he said. 'Anything but the MAD portfolio! I heard her on the Today programme! She said what was needed was a comprehe
nsive cost/benefit analysis . . .'
'Peas or carrots' said Canteen Coral, 'cause we'd reached the front of the queue and even though Michael only ate peas and even though that's all he'd ate in seventeen years and Canteen Coral knew it, she give him a ladle of stew just the same and wiped her nose on the palm of her hand when he said how he didn't want it. Then she slammed the plate back on the clean white stack and the gravy dribbled over the edge and down the side and all the way down to the bottom. 'Well you don't get no more peas,' she said, just 'cause you ain't having stew.' And Middle-Class Michael said that was fine and she give him a spoonful of peas in a saucer and tutted a bit and said how she hadn't got time to 'mess about' and Middle-Class Michael taken the peas and a sachet of salt and put them on his tray, then he slid it along for his orange squash and gone to join Brian the Butcher at his table.
7. How I gone to the toilet and heard someone crying in the cubicle next door
Sometimes I sat with Rosetta and Pollyanna, sometimes I sat with Elliot and Dawn and sometimes I sat by myself. I weren't one of those dribblers who has to have like a best friend, do you know what I'm saying. Even as a kid I weren't into that stuff. I used to sit where I felt like mostly and if I didn't feel like nothing I sat by myself and I kept my eyes fixed firm on my plate, so no one couldn't catch me a glance and ask to sit down.
I had my eyes fixed so firm that day, I couldn't tell you nothing 'cept the food on my plate and in less than the time it'd take to describe it ('The Shovel', my mum used to call me) I'd swallowed it down and gone back out to the common room. It was almost empty, just a couple of nurses rounding up the last few flops and prodding them back to the wards for their midday meds, and I reckoned I'd just like use the toilets, on account of once Verna the Vomit come through we'd be queuing up all afternoon. So out I gone through the double swing doors, on to the landing, round to the left and into the cold blue glare of the ladies'toilets.
There was three cubicles and two of them already taken. The one on the far end weren't never free 'cause that was where Fifth-Floor Fran lived. Fifth-Floor Fran was a funny sort of dribbler, should of made her a hermit or something instead 'cause all she'd ever wanted was a bit of peace and quiet, she said, and she couldn't get that. She done up the inside of the cubicle and everything, with photos of her childhood all black and white, 'cause she must of been over a hundred easy, and her all in frills and her dad like as stiff as a post. There was this little china spaniel on top of the cistern and a coronation mug and a crucifix hung from the door lock. I know 'cause this one time I climbed up next door and had a snoop over the top. Fifth-Floor Fran was sat there on the toilet, knitting up her jumper with a little pair of plastic knitting needles. A lot of the older dribblers done that, the ones as was allowed the needles anyway. They'd knit up their jumpers and then when they'd finished, they'd unravel them and knit them up again.
The middle one was empty so that's where I gone, but I'd hardly sat down before I heard this sobbing, or that's what it sounded like, come from my left-hand side. At first I'm like hoping my ears is playing tricks and really the sobbing sound come from my right and all it was was Fifth-Floor Fran upset herself over her photos. I could still hear her needles like click— click—click and I'm sat there like hoping and praying it's her but I never been one for fudging the facts and sooner or later I got to admit I'mhearing stereo.
So what I done was I sat for a second and Weighed Up the Pros and Cons. 'Cause Weighing Up the Pros and Cons was this thing we got taught in Life Skills. What Rhona done was she drawn these scales on the flip board, and everyone had to say a dilemma which was something they weren't sure whether to do or not. Then she gone round us all in turn 'cept Brian the Butcher, who felt too anxious on account of not washing his hands, and we had to give all the reasons for doing it and all of the reasons for not doing and she wrote them down on either side and the side which come out heavier, that side won. Course we soon worked out that the way to swing it was just to give more reasons for what you wanted. Like I done whether to clear out my cupboard, and the truth was I knew I just couldn't be arsed so I come up with that many reasons she gone off the paper, like all the things I might find in there and it raking up the past and shit, and needing somewhere to put stuff first, and not being too hard on myself (she loved that), and waiting till the time was right, and by the end of the third sheet there weren't no question and clearing it out seemed the stupidest thing in the world. I could say more about that group 'cause it turned out pretty lively once we got hold of it, and Middle-Class Michael done his dilemma 'bout politics or something and Astrid got the hump and walked out and said how he'd done it deliberate to make her feel stupid, but I won't 'cause I got to get on.
It didn't took me more than a second to spot how the scales was tilted. And the side they was tilted said GET OUT QUICK! And that is precisely what I done; still pulling up my tracksuit bottoms, I unbolted the door and out I run and the crash of the scale pan bashing the floor behind me.
But just as I grabbed the door to the landing, this voice come blaring from down the far end. ' 'Ere!' it gone, 'cut out the racket can't ya! Some of us is trying to get a bit of peace and quiet!' And as I turned back to give it 'Fuck off',the door of the cubicle nearest me opened and there was Rosetta with eyes like marshmallers and I knew I hadn't made it in time.
'I thought the tower had fallen down! Are you alright?'she said.
'I'm fine,' I said.
'Hold on!' she said. 'I'll just wash my face.'
So I stood and waited like I got to, innit, with one hand still on the door. Her fag-scarred hands kept scooping up water and splashing it over her face. She splashed it all over her throat as well and round the back of her neck. A few of the droplets stuck to her hair like little sparkling jewels. When she'd finished she gone for a paper towel but there weren't none left.
'Alright?' I said. I started to open the door.
'You don't have a tissue, do you?' she said.
She was rubbing her face with this black woollen glove, must of took about five layers of skin off. 'I'm sorry,' she said. There was tears in her eyes.
'I'll leave you, if you want,' I said.
'It's just . . .' she said, and she started crying again. And she carried on crying louder and louder, one hand on the sink just to hold herself up. And I got the door but I can't just go, but I can't stay neither, do you know what I'm saying, so I keep on moving it backwards and forwards like I'm trying to fan her or something.
' 'Ere!' shouts Fran. 'Can't you go somewhere else?' And she rapped on the door of her cubicle like three sharp raps and her knuckles sounded like steel.
'Thinks she fucking owns the place.' I tapped my head.'Fucking mental,' I said.
' 'Ere,' said Fran. 'I heard that, you know!'
'I'm just being selfish,' Rosetta said. 'I should be happy to know she's better. But I can't help worrying,' she said. 'I mean what if they made a mistake, what then? But they don't make mistakes, do they, N?' she said. 'Not after all that studying. Doctors don't make mistakes,' she said.
'She'll be fine,' I said, still holding the door.
'I should have more trust,' Rosetta said. She started crying again.
'You going to be out there all day?' shrieked Fran.
'It's just Tony, he wasn't himself at all. He was really strange . . .'
'Always is,' I said. 'Look I'm not being funny, Rosetta,' I said. 'But . . .' The door swung towards me suddenly, Wham!, winding me in the chest, as Verna the Vomit pushed her way past, slamming the door of the cubicle behind her. And even though that's the rudest behaviour I ever seen in my life, I couldn't of been much more gratefuller if Gabriel hisself had come and saved me.
8. How Elliot grabbed Tony's leg by mistake and we practically pissed ourselves laughing
Tina and me was always the first ones in. It gone Tina and me, then Manic Pollyanna, then Astrid and Middle-Class Michael neck and neck, then Rosetta then Dawn and finally Brian the Butcher, who had to climb up the hill seven
teen times, else the tower would fall like a tree in a storm, killing us all and clearing a path through the Darkwoods to Armageddon.
When Tina and me reached the common room, Elliot would still be sleeping under the chairs, his sweatshirt rolled under his head like a pillow and one sleeve over his eyes to block out the light. 'Seems a shame to wake him,' Tina would say, and she'd fetch him his coffee, milk with six sugars, and put it beside him and tap him on the shoulder. Well the morning after I told you about, she give him his coffee like normal, but her hand shook a bit as she put the cup down and a bit of the coffee, it slopped over on to the carpet. And Tina being Tina she picked up the cup and taken it back to her handbag to fetch a tissue. And she's just heading back to mop up the splash when Tony Balaclava appears through the double swing-doors.
There's two things you should know right off 'bout Tony Balaclava. The first is he was a genius. What Tony didn't know about dribblers and dribbling weren't worth wiping your arse on. And he weren't just smart, he was psychic on top: he could read what you was thinking. Fact half the time he could tell what you thought before you'd even thought of it yourself. The second thing is he was the most thinnest person you ever seen in your life, anorexics included. His legs was as thin as a skinny old pigeon's and his shoulder-blades stuck out that far he could pick things up with them. His face weren't no more than a great bony beak come shooting out his forehead and down to his chin, with these tiny black eyes set one either side what never blinked in case they missed something.
So in comes Tony starts walking towards us, and what happened next is like science. You remember that coffee Tina spilled, it started evaporation. And as Tony opened the double swing-doors, it sent this gust of wind across what drove that coffee smell up Elliot's nose. And Elliot, still fast asleep, with his sweatshirt rolled under his head like a pillow and one sleeve over his eyes, he smelled that milky sugary coffee come drifting up his nostrils, and very very slowly right it started to wake him up. And it weren't like he was properly awake, but just sort of meds-like drowsy and he reached his hand out from under the chairs to take his cup like he always done but instead of his cup he found he was grasping at nothing. So his hand's kind of waving backwards and forwards trying to find his coffee, and me and Tina stood there frozen, and Tina with the coffee cup still in her hand and the packet of tissues to mop up the spill, when, without no more noise than a sparrow would make, crossing the carpet on tiptoe, Tony Balaclava reaches the chairs.
