Poppy Shakespeare

by Clare Allan

  'Why can't she stay a month?' asked Sue, but Verna just shook her head.

  'So did what they say?' Rosetta asked.

  Poppy blinked. For one awful second I thought she was going to start crying. 'Well that's when they said about having me admitted.'

  'Who?' said Rosetta.

  'I don't know,' said Poppy. 'That blonde woman I think it was.'

  'Dr Clootie,' said Rosetta.

  'And everyone agreed,' said Poppy. 'Everyone! Sat nodding their heads. So that's when I walked out.'

  'You what!' they gone.

  Poppy shrugged. 'I walked out. I told you; I don't need to be here. Whatshisname, Tony?, must have followed me out. I could hear him shouting at me to come back, so I legged it, killed my fucking feet in these heels. I almost made it but that bloke downstairs, that security bloke, he locked the doors.' She had them now. They was well impressed.

  'What did Tony say to you, N?' Rosetta suddenly asked.

  'When he asked you to guide, did he say anything?' I shrugged. I weren't even listening. Had my head turned away gazing out through the windows, watching a plane glide across the glass. To be honest I just thought the whole thing was fucking stupid.

  Now ever since his morning break, Brian the Butcher been outside washing his hands. So the way it worked out he'd missed everything. He hadn't seen Poppy and he hadn't seen Michael and he hadn't seen the flops taking Michael out; fact he hadn't seen nothing at all. Course he'd heard all about it from the flops in the toilets, all the highs and lows of the morning, each one right after it happened. He'd heard as they surfed in on every wave, buzzed up or harping, depending, but either way full of it. And of course he'd wanted to see for hisself, but he knew how he had to finish his washing or the tower was going to fall over.

  At five to twelve Middle-Class Michael come in and give him a run through his speech on account of he'd missed it. And Middle-Class Michael stood on the seat of a toilet and done it proper and Brian the Butcher tried to listen, but he had to keep counting till he'd finished his washing, 'cause if he didn't we'd all be killed and half of London too most probably and everything dust and rubble.

  So it weren't till twelve-fifteen exactly, Brian the Butcher turned off the taps, and on and off and on and off, seven times till he was happy. And he shaken his hands 'cause there weren't no paper to dry them properly with, and he felt a bit anxious on account of the paper and he hoped it would be alright. And exactly the same time Brian turned off the taps, Middle-Class Michael started to think about peas. And he couldn't see his cards no more 'cause all he could see was peas, and he couldn't speak his speech no more 'cause all he could taste was peas, and all he could smell was sweet green peas and all he could hear was frozen Birds Eye pouring into the pan. So Middle-Class Michael stepped off of the seat and he broke off his speech mid-sentence, and he put the cards in his jacket pocket, ready to file them later down Patients' Council. Then Brian the Butcher and Middle-Class Michael they stepped out the door and on to the first-floor landing.

  Well us day dribblers should of been queued up already, waiting for dinner, but like I say the flops got behind on account of Middle-Class Michael. And on top of which a scrap had broke out in the ruins of the fag-butt sheep pen. Like not content with starving us, the flops had been cramming their pockets with butts and stuffing their slippers and anywhere else they could think of to squeeze them into. So the flops stood behind seen the butts disappear and they reckoned it wasn't fair, and it weren't democratic neither they said 'cause they should of got shared out equal. And they all pushed forward to grab their butts and the flops behind them pushed forward as well and just as Brian and Michael come in, the whole thing collapsed like dominoes and everywhere's flops on top of each other all kicking and fighting and scratching and biting and Brian he turned white as a sheet, grabbed a hold of his chest and fallen on to the floor.

  'Press the alarm!' called Middle-Class Michael. 'Astrid! Press the alarm!' So Astrid reached round, all puffed up and pleased, and pressed the alarm by my head and instantly there's this shrieking screech like drilling a hole through your eardrums and the flops all stop fighting and jump into line, and everyone gets up and rushes over to have a look at Brian. Everyone except me that is; I stayed sat where I was with one eye on the queue. 'Cause whatever gone on with Brian the Butcher, I didn't see how me missing my dinner was going to help no one at all.

  Brian was laying flat on his back on the floor and his skin was so white it looked like marble - like a tomb in Ream's cathedral, said Michael, and Astrid sniffed and said how she wouldn't know. And Tina said they ought to loosen his collar. She didn't know much about first aid, but she did know they ought to loosen his collar. So Wesley pulled down the neck of Brian's sweatshirt and taken a look at his shirt underneath and the top button weren't done anyway - 'It's not done up,' said Middle-Class Michael - but Wesley undone another one just to be sure.

  'He sweatin' man,' White Wesley said.

  'Oh Lord!' said Rosetta. 'Think he's taken something?'

  'They'll have to pump him out,' said Candid. 'Same as they done with me.'

  Well I reckoned I'd heard enough by then, do you know what I'm saying, that's the trouble with dribblers, overdosing all over the place, it done your fucking head in; so I gone and joined on the end of the queue, stood with my back to it all, and I stuck my fingers in my ears and shuffled along behind Jacko the Penguin, kept checking his wrist - he weren't wearing no watch - see how long till the hatch come down.

  So all I'm saying is what happened next, I didn't actually see it, which I ain't got a problem repeating stuff, but I can't swear to it, that's the only thing, I mean not like I seen it myself.

  With a single sweep of her manicured hand (I believe that alright), Poppy brushed everyone aside. And she knelt beside Brian and looked in his mouth to see if he'd swallowed his tongue, and she put her ear to his nose to check he was breathing, then what happened next depends who you listen to. Most people said Brian was breathing OK, so she taken his wrist (right, said Sue; left, said Michael) and felt for his pulse and started to count his heart rate. But Astrid said Brian weren't breathing at all. She said Poppy had gave him mouth-to-mouth, she'd seen her do it, she said. And when that didn't work she ripped off his sweatshirt, straddled him and started to pump his chest. Just like on Casualty, she said, and after a bit Brian come back to life and started to beep and everyone sighed with relief. But he couldn't of beeped, Rosetta said, there weren't no monitor to beep, and Astrid said he did because she heard it.

  Tina said he might of beeped, but then again he might not, she couldn't remember. And she couldn't remember if Poppy had straddled him neither, but if Astrid said she did then she must of done. Poppy said the whole thing was bollocks and she couldn't believe the fuss they was making. All she done was ABC. And ABC was what she'd learned at Harbinger Krapwort Harbinger. Airways, breathing and something else, 'cause every floor got two first-aiders and she'd been made first-aider for her floor. Like Patients' Council, said Middle-Class Michael, but it sounded more like guiding to me, and Poppy said it weren't like neither it was just like first fucking aid. 'What you so uptight about?'said Astrid, really nasty. But there's me getting ahead of myself, 'cause she never said nothing, not at the time; it was only later when everything changed, which I ain't got up to there yet. That day the sun shone out Poppy's arse 'cause she'd saved Brian the Butcher's life.

  Course everyone had their own explanation why Brian the Butcher fainted. Which seeing as he couldn't remember nothing, he weren't in no position to say and all he could do was sit in his chair and nod and say, 'Very much so.' Sue the Sticks said it was love at first sight, she'd seen it happen she said. Which being as she sat with her back to the door she couldn't of done unless she got eyes in her crutches. But that didn't stop her seeing him in her imagination and what Sue imagined and what Sue seen was one and the same, pretty much. So from that time on, she always sworn the moment he first set eyes on Poppy Brian the Butcher got blown off his feet
by love. Literally, she said, blown off his feet, she'd seen it happen herself. And she said Brian should go on the breakfast TV. 'They always have stuff on like that,' she said. 'Give everyone a bit of something to hope for.' And she even offered to go on with him, like just as a witness to say she'd seen it happen.

  Michael said Brian had had a premonition. Said he'd seen everything that was going to happen if they sold off Mental Health Services and it was such an awful terrible sight, he'd fainted clean away. And he told us all the things Brian seen and Brian's sat there nodding his head, but when I asked him later he couldn't remember none of it.

  Course six months later people remembered, said maybe Brian did have a premonition, and they tried to make out they'd said so all along. It weren't no coincidence he fainted the morning Poppy arrived they said; there was even dribblers who'd have you believe Brian the Butcher was some sort of prophet. When all actually happened was Brian come through seen the flops hadn't got their dinner yet. And he started to panic on account of that meant he must of stopped hand-washing early, and that meant the tower was about to fall over and seeing the flops kicking about on the floor he reckoned it already started. And that's when he fainted and fell to the floor like a tomb on the shit-coloured carpet.

  Not that it mattered to me either way. By the time they got Brian back on his feet I was through in the canteen eating my fatty lamb stew. And I ain't saying it was nice exactly, but it weren't the worst I've tasted. And I felt pretty lucky to of squeezed through in time, the last before the hatch come down. And I felt kind of sorry for the others as well on account of they'd missed their dinner.

  18. How everyone reckoned the sun shone out Poppy's arse

  That first day Poppy gone down alright. After she'd saved Brian the Butcher's life, people give her the benefit. So when she started slagging the doctors off, how she shat better crap than they come out with, I ain't saying there weren't a bristle gone round but people was prepared to overlook it. On top of which she got novelty value; no one met a dribbler like Poppy before, and when they finally got their heads round the fact she meant what she said, she didn't want to be there, they was that fucking jiggered, that stunned to the core, it never occurred to them they should be offended.

  All afternoon they sat round her asking questions. How many times she been sectioned? (She hadn't.) Where had she been in before? (She hadn't never been nowhere.) What meds was she taking? (She weren't taking meds and she weren't going to take none neither.) What rate of MAD money was she on? (MAD money? What the fuck's MAD money?!) She never heard of MAD money? She never heard of MAD money? She never heard of MAD MONEY!!!! And so it gone on. And each time they asked her and each time she answered, their shrieks of surprise got louder and louder and louder. And the shrieks got so loud that the dribblers down the line couldn't hear what Poppy was saying. So Astrid told Michael and Michael told Verna and Verna told Candid and so on all round the room. And you heard the shrieks like rippling through the flops.

  But the more Poppy's answers got passed around, the more they got stretched out of shape. 'Cause everyone wanted to try them on, do you know what I'm saying, they couldn't resist it, and giving a little tug here and there, and not too concerned with drying them flat or nothing. So sometimes when they come back round they never even recognised the answers they'd passed on two minutes before, and they passed them again and they give them a good old yank as they handed them over. And once a rumour got that overstretched there weren't no way of shrinking it back into shape if you even wanted. Which I reckon that's how half the stuff 'bout Poppy Shakespeare started in the first place.

  Some of the flops come over to look at Poppy. Clifton give her a poem he'd wrote on a napkin from the canteen. Something like, 'Poppy, red as your name. Your hair is like a glowing flame.' Which it weren't anyway, it was black/ brunette, but he said he'd changed it 'cause of poetic licence. Fifth-Floor Elijah give her a blessing and Safid shown her this passport photo and asked her if she was his mother.

  'You not got a question for Poppy, N?' Rosetta said, patting my arm.

  'She's sulking,' said Astrid.

  'Fuck off!' I said.

  'Go on, man,' said Wesley. Do you know what I'm saying! It was like some fucking celebrity come to visit the Dorothy Fish!

  'No it's my fault,' said Poppy. 'I was really rude. I'm sorry.' She looked across at me but I made like I never seen.

  It was when Poppy didn't show up next day the tide begun to turn. It weren't strictly logical maybe, but we'd sort of assumed she'd come in the gap where Pollyanna should of been. So when Astrid and Middle-Class Michael come in and seen the 'P' chair empty, it was like already we sensed there was something wrong. When Dawn turned up we was getting that edgy we forgotten to tell her our names, or where to sit or anything, so she walked up and down between the rows, looking around, like she'd lost the sugar down Kwik Save. But when Brian the Butcher finally come in, left his coat on his chair, had a quick look round, and gone off to wash his hands, that's when people begun to say how Poppy weren't going to show.

  'She's not coming in,' said Astrid. 'What did I tell you!'

  'Maybe she's lost,' whispered Tina.

  'Lost!' said Astrid. 'She can't be lost! You can see the tower a hundred miles away!'

  'She could have got lost on the Darkwoods,' Rosetta said. 'Even if she could see the tower.'

  But Astrid snorted. 'She's not got lost!' she said.

  'Poor Brian,' said Sue the Sticks. 'You see how he looked?'

  'I know,' said everyone, 'cause everyone seen.

  'It's cruel,' said Sue. 'That's what it is. Poor Brian! I knew he should of spoke to her yesterday. I said to him, I said "Grasp the nettle!" "Go for it, Brian!" I said. "You're only young once!"'

  'He's not young, is he?' said Candid Headphones.

  'He's younger than me,' said Sue the Sticks. 'Watch your mouth!'

  I ain't saying I was over-concerned if Poppy come in or not. But the rest of them, they got that worked up, how she'd led Brian on, how she'd led them all on, how she'd took Pollyanna's place, cost her her life, then just chucked it away like an empty packet of fags.

  'Pollyanna could of been sat there now,' said Astrid.

  'Don't,' said Rosetta.

  'Well she could,' said Astrid.

  'I know,' said Rosetta. 'But that not Poppy's fault.'

  'Whose is it then?!' said Astrid.

  They got themselves that worked up about it, that when Poppy walked in at half-eleven, I reckon they was almost disappointed. She sat herself down in the empty 'P' chair, lit up a Bensons, crossed her legs and the toe of her boot switching left right left like the tail of an angry cat.

  'We was wondering where you were,' Astrid said.

  Poppy looked up and she glanced around and everyone looked away. She lit up a second fag and sucked it down.

  'You found us alright?' Rosetta said.

  'Can't miss us, really,' Astrid said.

  'Something like that,' Poppy said, and she lit up another.

  'Brian come through,' said Sue the Sticks. 'Think he was looking for you.'

  'Do you still feel you shouldn't be here?' whispered Tina. But she gone bright red 'cause Poppy didn't answer.

  The clock with no hands gone round and no one said nothing. Poppy's boot kept switching left right left.

  'Where did you get your boots?' said Sue. 'They real or just imitation?

  'I had some like that once,' she said. 'Well similar, different heel. They're nice,' she said.

  'I give mine away in the end,' Sue said to Verna. Verna nodded. 'I give them to my niece,' she said. 'Don't know if she wears them.

  'I couldn't no more with my leg,' she said. Sue the Sticks, she was Slasher Sue then, had a leg cut off when she jumped out a tenth-floor window. 'Not practical, do you know what I'm saying?

  'Shame,' she said. 'They was nice boots as well. You'd never of known they was only imitation.'

  'How often do you see the doctors?' asked Poppy, suddenly.


  And everyone turned to her, like reflex, and I met her eye like just for a second before I looked back out the window.

  'The doctors?' said Astrid. 'What do you want to see them for?'

  'Does it matter?' Poppy said. 'I just asked how often you see them.'

  Astrid snorted and turned away.

  'Once a year,' Rosetta said. 'Once a year for our assessment.'

  'But for other stuff,' said Poppy. 'How often?'

  'What other stuff?' Rosetta said.

  Astrid tutted and rolled her eyes.

  'She wants to know how often we see the doctors,' Sue the Sticks said. 'Once a year,' she said to Poppy. 'We see them once a year for our annual assessment.'

  'And what about in between?' said Poppy.

  'What about what in between?' said Astrid and she bit her lip 'cause she hadn't meant to say nothing.

  'We don't normally see them in between,' Rosetta said. 'Unless it's to change medication.'

  'I'm not on medication,' said Poppy.

  'Well you don't need to see them then, do you!' said Astrid.

  'Shhh!' said Rosetta, shooking her head.

  'Don't tell me to shhh,' said Astrid.

  'But how do they know if you're better?' said Poppy. 'If they never see you, how can they tell?'

  Middle-Class Michael been quiet up to then, like he'd wore hisself out the day before with keeping on giving his speech. But now he seen Poppy wanted an explanation. And if there's one thing Middle-Class Michael loved it was doing an explanation. So he started explaining about the assessments, how every year on your anniversary the doctors would call you in and decide if you'd got better or worse or stayed the same. And being Middle-Class Michael he didn't stop there, he has to go into every system they ever come up with ever for measuring madness. There was the Reichman Scale and the Blunkett Spectrum and this Chinese one I can't remember but Quok-ho said it meant something to do with gibbons. In the olden days, Middle-Class Michael said, they could tell just from the shape of your head, or by testing your humours, not humours ha-ha, but humours you got inside you. There was two different systems now, he said, an American one and one for everyone else. Then he started to list all the diagnoses, what symptoms you needed definite and what's like your bonus ball.