by Clare Allan
It was then this shouting starts up outside, like swearing and crashing around and stuff. 'What the fuck is this fucking place! Don't tell me I know!' and other voices, low so I couldn't hear them. Then the shouting again, 'I'm telling you, mate, you lay a finger on me, I'll sock you!' And I reckoned it must be some dribbler lost it and heading for The Floor of No Return. I seen Sharon prick up his ears as well, and he spun round the dumb-bell, like twirling a pencil, psyching hisself for action.
Then the doors slid open and in come these nurses, one male, one female, gone up to the desk. 'Visiting's not till six,' said Sharon, without looking up from his mag.
'We're not visiting,' the male nurse said. He weren't so much fat but his sides bulged over his belt top. 'I'm bringing in a new patient,' he said. Outside the noise had all gone quiet, must of give her a shot up the arse.
'So who are you?' Sharon said to the woman, dragging his eyes up from off of his mag. 'I'll have to see some ID.'
The woman was stood, arms folded, leant on one hip. She worn this little black suit, a lacy white blouse, black tights and snakeskin heels. Maybe she ain't a nurse, I thought. Maybe she's an executive. I'd never met an executive but I reckoned they might look like that.
'You don't understand,' the male nurse said. He got curly fair hair, didn't like him. 'This is the patient. I'm bringing her here.' Sharon put the dumb-bell back on the stand, picked up a towel and mopped his head, then slung it around his shoulders. He looked at the nurse. 'OK,' he said. He pointed at the woman. 'You're telling me she is a psychiatric patient?'
'Thank you!' said the woman. 'Do you know what I'm saying!'
The male nurse nodded.
Sharon thought for a minute, then he shrugged like what can you do? 'I'll have to check upstairs,' he said; the phone disappeared inside of his fist. 'What's the name?' he said. 'Poppy Shakespeare,' says Goldilocks.
I don't know when the sofa stopped farting, but I reckon it must of been saving them up for half an hour at least. 'Cause now as I jumped up, it let rip a stunker. The loudest, smelliest, most inignorable stunker you heard in your life! And Poppy and the male nurse, they spun round like the sofa exploded behind them.
I couldn't of told you what I said. It all come tumbling out so fast. All jumbled together and tangled so bad Professor McSpiegel couldn't of made no sense of it. I know I told them I was her guide, and I must of said it like seventeen times, if not seventeen times seven, and the three of them stood there staring at me, least Poppy and the nurse was stood; Sharon sat like a mountain behind them. And each time I said it I kicked myself, but almost straightaway I said it again.
Later when we was friends and remembered about it, Poppy said I didn't come over too bad. She said maybe I'd seemed a bit hyper and that but it weren't like I said nothing stupid. I kept holding out this leaflet, she said, then pulling it back and shooking it up and down like a leaf of lettuce ('Welcome to the Dorothy Fish', the leaflet was called; I'd got it off Tony). But apart from that I come over alright. And she said, 'cause I asked her, it didn't even show how this was my first time guiding. But she weren't really focused on me, she said, being as how she was having a stressful morning.
I don't remember shooking the leaflet, maybe I did; I know I give it to her. And she held it up, like to have a quick look and I noticed the skin on her hands was as smooth as butterscotch Angel Delight, and her nails wasn't chewed but filed to perfection and painted to match her lips. And I'm stood there staring at her hands, one either side of the 'Dorothy Fish' on the leaflet, and I'm thinking this must be some strange sort of dribbler when all of a sudden, that perfect right hand it takes the leaflet, scrumples it up and lobs it at the bin beside the sofa.
I thought it was going to miss it at first, but it caught the far side and balanced right on the edge, and all four of us staring; it balanced for maybe a minute, sometimes leaning a little bit one way, sometimes leaning the other, but balancing all the time like a pair of scales, till suddenly it give up and fallen inside, and we heard it bounce off the empty metal bottom.
We was halfway up the stairs to the first-floor landing. The fag smoke funnelling down from the common room, it made like this tunnel around us and in the tunnel everything seemed echoey and louder. I could hear Poppy's breathing next to me, and the tap-tap-tap of her snakeskin heels on the stairs.
'It ain't much further now,' I said. But Poppy didn't say nothing.
'I'll take you to meet Tony first,' I said. 'He's the manager. Then probably you'll see the doctors.'
'I don't care who I see,' said Poppy. I've just got to get this sorted! I've got a fucking kid, do you know what I'm saying!'
'You got a kid?' I said.
'I just said so, didn't I?'
'Alright,' I said. We gone on a bit in silence.
'So you neurotic, psychotic or what?' I said, like just making conversation. Ask most dribblers what's wrong, they's that fucking grateful, they'll talk till their throats is raw, but Poppy just stopped where she was, head down, not moving so much as a muscle and she didn't say nothing for maybe a minute then, I can't describe it like anything else, she turned to me and she give me this look like I'd pissed on her mother's grave. 'Let's just get one thing straight,' she said. 'I Am Not A Nutter. There Is Nothing Whatever Wrong With My Head! Alright?' She spelled out the words like I was foreign or stupid, tapping her head to make sure I got the point. Then she pulled out her Bensons, lit up a fag and carried on climbing the stairs.
Now it weren't like I hadn't met dribblers before made out there was nothing the matter, but they made sure everyone realised it was just on account they was mad. Like Candid Headphones said she was normal then got so worried case someone believed her, she slashed her throat with a sweet-pickle jar; took thirteen stitches to sew her back up, left a scar like a great jagged grin. There was plenty like that, do you know what I'm saying, but this was something different. I mean, the clothes she got on, the whole way she come over; not being funny but you couldn't help thinking, like watching her striding up the stairs with her shoulders pushed back and her tits stuck out, you couldn't help thinking unless this Poppy got something like mental hid up her sleeve, the most yours truly be showing her was the way back down Abaddon Hill.
I ain't sure if I was more relieved or more disappointed to tell you the honest truth. She was arsey as fuck, no doubt about that; weren't going to be no walk in the park showing this dribbler round but, at the same time, there was something about her you just sort of felt you'd be missing out if she left.
You never seen nobody smoke a fag as fast as Poppy Shakespeare. Seemed like she sucked them straight down to the butt with a single drag of her perfectly lipsticked lips. And before the one butt had hit the stairs, she'd lit up again and was halfway down through her next. By the time we reached the first-floor landing she was on to her second pack, and as we turned into the corridor, where if anything she begun to speed up, I reckoned I got to say something.
'I'm not being funny, Poppy,' I said. 'But you's not s'posed to smoke down here. I'm not being funny; it's just staff don't like it.
'You can smoke in the common room,' I said. 'I'll show you after. You can smoke in there.
'Everyone smokes in there,' I said. I kept on saying 'cause it was like she hadn't heard. Every time I opened my mouth another butt hit the floor. 'I'm not being funny,' I said. 'I'm just saying.' And I kept on till I ground to a halt like a car run out of petrol.
Poppy waited a bit, then she started laughing. 'So what you going to do?' she said. 'Chuck me out?' She lit up another, smoked it down in one long drag then crushed it under her heel.
'I don't know,' I said. 'I'm just saying.'
She stopped laughing then, stood and frowned at the floor. A molehill of fag butts appeared by her shoe. 'Hang on,' she said. 'Who was it you said you were?'
So I told her again about me being a guide. And how Tony had asked me special. And I told her how Astrid weren't even a guide, and neither was Middle-Class Michael. And I said how the
y'd thought it would do me good and help me with some of my issues and stuff, which I weren't going into I said, but they weren't nothing minor. 'Cause I'd been a dribbler all my life, I said, since before I was even born, and as I begun to tell her about it, I seen her face clear like the frown just melted. And by the time I'd finished she was smiling ear to ear.
'I'm sorry,' she said, and she shaken her head. 'I thought you were one of the staff!' she said and she carried on smiling and shooking her head like ain't I got shit for brains.
'The what?' I said. I didn't get it. I'm stood there staring back at her, shooking my head and smiling like a reflection.
'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I didn't realise. I thought you were one of the staff!'
'What, me?' I said. 'Like a nurse,' I said. 'You thought I was a nurse?' I said.
'I'm sorry,' she said.
'It's alright,' I said. 'I don't take the hump that easy.'
'Shit!' she said suddenly. 'That thing I said on the stairs I'm really sorry.' I stared at her. 'About not being a nutter? I didn't realise; that's all.'
'You thought I was a nurse?' I said.
'Well maybe not a nurse,' she said. 'Maybe some sort of assistant or something.'
'Fuckin'ell!' I said.
Then suddenly Poppy started laughing and before I know it I was laughing and both of us stood there just laughing and laughing like we'd known each other for years.
'You can talk,' I said.
'How d'you mean?' she said.
'Well,' I said, but I couldn't think how to put it.
'It's not that I've got a problem with mental illness,' Poppy said. 'It's just there's nothing the matter with me. Do you know what I'm saying?'
'I wouldn't worry 'bout that,' I said. 'They must think you's mad or you wouldn't be here. Candid Headphones don't reckon she's mad. Never stopped her,' I said. 'Schizo Safid don't reckon he's mad - Schizo Safid, do you know what I'm saying! At the end of the day it don't matter,' I said. 'It's what they think that matters,' I said. 'Least you's here,' I said. 'That's a start.'
We set off walking again in silence. A couple of times she glanced at me and taken a breath like to speak but she changed her mind.
'Poppy?' I said, 'cause I got to say it. Be like watching a blind man walk under a bus. 'You know what you said 'bout not thinking you's mad?'
'Yes,' she said, like what of it?
'Well I wouldn't say nothing to them about that,' I told her. 'Not at the moment. I mean, don't get me wrong, I ain't saying nothing. It's just the doctors, you never know. They might decide to pick up on it. I mean, it's up to you, do you know what I'm saying, but maybe if you stick to your other symptoms.'
'Alright,' she said.
'Not being funny,' I said. 'I just thought I should warn you, that's all. They're really weird, the doctors here.'
'No,' she said. 'Thank you. That's useful to know.' And I seen she was grateful I'd told her.
'Anyway,' I says to her, and I give her a nudge with my elbow. 'You must be pretty mad,' I says, 'if you reckoned I was a nurse!'
It was then we reached the end of the corridor; I'd seen it coming and everything. I knew as the staff-room door gone past I was going to have to turn us around but the fact is I'd been enjoying myself and I couldn't help thinking this might be the last I'd be seeing of Poppy Shakespeare.'Cause even with what I'd warned her about I didn't hold much optimistic. I'd only ever met one dribbler ever could pull off a look as glossy as that and that was my mum which, like I say, my mum was in a class of her own.
'In here?' said Poppy and she reached for this door and almost walked straight in the doctor's room without even knocking or nothing.
So then I had to explain how we'd come too far. 'Least we had a good chat,' I said. And Poppy said yes, least we'd had a good chat, but now she'd best get to Tony 'cause she'd got some stuff to sort out.
As I gone back to the common room, I gathered Poppy's butts up. And they filled my backpack right to the top and the pockets too and the pack was so heavy I couldn't hardly walk.
16. How Middle-Class Michael should of got in the Guinness Book of Records
I hadn't been sat in my chair ten minutes, and all of them burning to know what had happened, and what Poppy looked like and what was her problem and was she the same one who fancied White Wesley or the black girl Rosetta had seen down the church who needed the help so desperate, when suddenly the doors burst open shooking the room like a cardboard box, and the cups on the tables slopped over their sides, and one of the windows gone CRACK, right across, snapped Canary Wharf like a twig.
You never seen nobody move so quick as Elliot, reckoned the snipers had started. Inside of a half a millisecond he was under his chair and didn't come out for a fortnight. The rest of us, we all looked up and everyone gasped, all exactly together as we seen Security Sharon come in, ducking his huge head to fit through the doll's house doorway. And there on his shoulder this tiny speck like a flea on the coat of a dog, and as he come closer I seen the speck got legs and the legs was kicking, and closer still and I seen the legs got snakeskin heels on the end.
Security Sharon come over our end and he set Poppy down and give her her bag, what he'd stuffed in the pocket of his jeans. Then without saying nothing he turned and gone out and everything trembling behind. There was total silence.
To say she weren't looking best pleased is putting it mild. Where her eyes should of been was balls of flame and the smoke come puffing out her perfect ears in rings. As we sat there staring, Poppy fished in her bag and pulled out a packet of Bensons. She ripped off the wrapper with one angry swipe, taken one, lit it, and started to pace in circles. Round and round and round she paced in front of the canteen doors, fag after fag sucked down to the butt. Round and round the small group of flops already stood waiting for dinner, and they huddled together like nervous sheep, as Poppy kept pacing and smoking and it was like the pack didn't got no bottom as fag after fag come out of it, and soon the sheep was stood in a pen of butts.
Well I weren't sure what to do, to be honest, like go and say 'Hi' or leave it or what. I couldn't work out what the fuck had happened and why was Poppy so pissed off and was it something to do with me, which I didn't see how but I felt a bit sick all the same. All I could think was they must of said she wasn't mad enough, which at least I'd warned her, do you know what I'm saying. But then what was Sharon doing fetching her through? It didn't make sense, nothing didn't make sense; and the more I thought the less sense it made, till in the end I got so confused, my mind just crashed like a DSS computer. 'Poppy!' I said.
Now every head in the common room been following Poppy round. But the moment I spoke, it was like a hypnotist snapped his fingers or something. 'Cause they all spun back and stared at me and you heard like this gasp as the bolt gone home: 'You're telling us that is Poppy!'
'Funny sort of dribbler,' said Astrid, and Sue the Sticks giggled and so did Candid, and Wesley as well though he sworn he never; I seen him, stupid wanker. And Omar Bombing laughed so hard a mouthful of half-chewed pic 'n' mix come flying out his mouth and stuck upside down on the ceiling.
'Hadn't you better introduce her?' Middle-Class Michael said. And he got to his feet like he was going to, fucking cheek of it, so that's when I got up and gone over, almost trod on Elliot's head, peeping out from under the chairs.
Now either Poppy was so took up with being pissed off she never seen me or else she was one of the rudest dribblers you ever met in your life. Either way she just keeps walking and all I can do is like follow behind, asking her how it gone with the doctors and whether she's alright and stuff and she never even replies or nothing, just keeps on walking round and round like we never known each other. And I ain't even looking where everyone's sat but that don't mean I can't hear them sniggering and one time Astrid catches my eye and gives me a wink and a thumbs-up.
Then Middle-Class Michael cleared his throat — you'd of known him a mile off, weren't nobody cleared his throat like Middle-Class Michael. 'Ladies and
Gentlemen, fellow patients, service users, comrades in the struggle . . .' He done it so professional, you couldn't help but stop, even Poppy stopped and turned and I had to step round and stand next to her on account she was blocking my view.
Middle-Class Michael had stood hisself on one of Dawn's coffee tables. Though you'd hardly of known it was one of Dawn's tables 'cause all the crap been cleared off, and he'd covered it in this red tablecloth and that was what he was stood on. I'd never seen he was wearing a suit, but he was and a waistcoat and tie, and in his hands he was holding this stack of white cards. And as he finished reading a card he'd put it to the back and start on the next one and I kept on thinking this must be the last but then he begun on another. And it seemed like the speech never ended, just kept on going round. But this is what he said anyway 'cause he published it after in Abaddon Patients' News.
'It gives me great pleasure to welcome Poppy on behalf of the Patients' Council.' I glanced across; I couldn't resist it. Fat Florence was shooking her head so hard her chins swayed side to side like sailors' hammocks, and beside her sat Paolo with his arms tightly folded, scowling down at the carpet. Michael coughed and started to clap, holding the cards in one hand. I seen the top one was covered in tiny black writing. Some of the dribblers begun clapping too, slowly at first, then more and more till pretty soon everyone was clapping - everyone except for Fat Florence and Paolo - and even the flops too out of it to know why they was clapping, and some of the flops kept missing their hands so they stamped their feet instead. Made a fucking racket.
When he reckoned they'd clapped enough, Middle Class Michael raised his hand like a copper holding up traffic, but everyone just carried on, they was all enjoying it so much, and Schizo Safid was up on his feet clapping away and whooping, and it taken about ten minutes of shushing to get them to quieten down, and after that each time Michael paused, just to take a breath or start the next card or something, Schizo Safid would jump to his feet and set them all going again. Even Paolo had to sit on his hands, 'cause he kept forgetting and joining in, earning hisself a nudge in the ribs from Fat Florence.
