by Clare Allan
'It doesn't work like that,' said Carmel.
'They never even told him,' said Florence. 'Just stood there while he packed up his things.'
'One step at a time,' said Carmel.
'Just stood there,' said Florence. 'And let him think he was going.'
'The same thing happened with us,' said Elijah, 'you know after Ebenezer, when they moved little Elliot down? It should have been Ethel,' Elijah said. 'And I should have moved down to four. The same thing happened.' But turned out it weren't the same thing at all, 'cause Poppy was new whereas Elliot been up on the seventh. And that made it totally different, said Florence, that made it so different there weren't nothing similar at all. So then everyone else tried to think up something had happened to them as bad as what happened to Paolo, but nothing they said weren't a quarter as bad; according to Florence, nothing come close to them slipping in Poppy right under Paolo's nose.
All the time they been debating and in between correcting them and telling them they was wrong and mistaken and didn't know nothing about it, Florence kept looking over and giving me daggers. But with so many people in the way, she had to lean right forward to do it proper, and that weren't so easy for someone like Florence; she give it a few attempts but fell back wheezing. So then she give it one final go and she given it everything she got and I reckon she knocked ten years off her life and bust a few blood vessels too, but she finally done it. She flopped herself forwards like someone been drowning flopped theirselves on to the bank and she stayed there, one elbow leant on each knee, gasping her breath back and giving me looks could kill.
Well I was just sat there laughing; I couldn't help it. I didn't give a shit what nobody thought, especially not Fat Florence. But then the others turned to look on account of she done it so blatant. And it weren't that I felt uncomfortable but I knew what they was thinking. 'Course some people,' Fat Florence said. She had to keep breaking off for breath and all you could hear was these wheezy gasps as her lungs, squashed flat between her chest and her stomach, tried to suck in air. 'Course some people . . . uuuh . . .uuuh . . . uuuh . . .' she said. 'No sense of. . . uuuh . . .uuuh . . . uuuh . . . loyalty. Right uuuh . . . uuuh . . .uuuh . . . and uuuh . . . wrong don't uuuh . . . come into it. Uuuuuuuhhhh . . .' And she started on about the war but I weren't even listening anyway. I reckoned I'd go and have a fag and wait for Poppy outside. Only thing was that as I stood up, the crack in my chair clamped shut on my tracksuit bottoms and it pulled them halfway down my arse before I could yank them out again, and I could of done without it to be honest.
I sat on the wall outside and smoked a fag. The wall was damp and I felt the cold come creeping through my tracksuit bottoms. It was clear and light after all the rain, and both ways you looked to the right and the left you seen straight down the hill, to the Darkwoods Estate, like a jungle all over the bottom, and beyond it the clear ring of Borderline Road, like one of them moats they have round castles, we been with Mr Pettifer, to keep the enemy out.
I'd been sat there twenty minutes easy. I'd seen Tina come in and Astrid and Middle-Class Michael. I'd seen them start out as specks at the bottom, nothing to choose between them, then as they come higher there'd be something about them, something about the way they walked, the way that one nodded his head with each step, the way that one worked his arms like flippers, and suddenly they crossed a line and there weren't no one else in the world they could be except them. As Brian the Butcher gone up and down, I kept myself busy trying to work out where he stopped being Brian and turned back to a speck, but it weren't so easy, not once you knew it was him.
I don't know how many specks I seen. Some turned into doctors and some into nurses and some into care assistants with Bibles reading to theirselves as they walked along. But none of the specks never turned into Poppy and I started to think she weren't going to show up and I strained my eyes with scouring the hill, right down to the junction with Borderline Road, where we'd said goodbye the night before and I'd watched her disappear into Sniff Street, dancing around the buses in her snakeskin heels.
I was stretching and straining my eyes so hard that when I suddenly heard her voice behind me - 'Sorry, N! Have you been waiting long?' - I jumped that high in the air with surprise I seen straight through the staff-room window, Rhona the Moaner slouched over her desk circling words in a wordsearch magazine. 'Saffra's teacher wanted to see me.' 'Saffra?' I said. 'My daughter,' she said. 'Oh, right,' I said. I'd forgot she had a kid.
Saffra was six years old then, like six and three quarters. Her birthday was January twenty-third, which made her just Aquarius, at least if you believe in that shit, which sometimes I do, depending. Poppy believed in it anyway. She got Saffra's star chart printed out and framed on her bedroom wall. This woman done it for twenty quid, but it was only like off a computer. Twenty quid, do you know what I'm saying! But Poppy fucking loved that kid, reckoned the sun shone right out Saffra's arse.
Saffra was alright and everything. She got shiny dark hair like her mum's 'cept tighter curls. Poppy used to go on 'bout how pretty she was and how clever and all of that stuff and most probably she was - though I reckon anyone would of been, the amount of attention she got. Poppy was always like helping her read and tucking her up in bed at night and making her tea all laid out nice - fish fingers and potato stars and beans. And I know she was only a kid and that, and I ain't saying nothing, but I reckon she knew which side her bread was buttered. This one time right, I seen her do it. Poppy and me was sat there chatting and Saffra was laying on the floor doing this picture - Poppy just give her the pens like a second before. So she done this house in pink and a tree besides it and a couple of squiggles meant to be birds. 'Look, Mummy! Pigeons! They're coming to get the bread.'
'Where's the bread?' says Poppy.
She rolled her eyes, really cocky she was. 'I haven't drawed it yet!' she goes.
'Well quick!' says Poppy. 'They look pretty hungry to me!'
So Saffra does a couple more squiggles in blue then jumps up to show her. And as she jumps up she catches her leg, like nothing — she hardly touches it -just a tiny tap, like nothing, on the edge of the table. I seen her do it, I seen her thinking, like 'Shall I, shan't I?' 'Yeah,' she reckons. And then she begins to cry. She starts sort of slow and shy, like looking at Poppy, but then as she sees she's got her, she turns up the volume, and inside of ten seconds she's creaming and crying like you'd think she'd had her fucking leg blown off. 'Oh!' says Poppy, straight up, arm round her shoulders.
'Show me. Where does it hurt?'
'Here,' says Saffra - it don't even hurt - and she pulls up the leg of her little designer jeans.
'Where?' says Poppy.
Saffra points.
'There?' says Poppy. Saffra nods, still crying.
'Oh,' says Poppy. 'That looks sore!' It don't - there ain't no mark or nothing. 'Shall I give it a kiss?' she goes and she does and Saffra looks down at her, pleased.
'Ointment,' says Saffra, as Poppy looks up.
'Magic ointment?' says Poppy. 'I'll have to see if I've got some in my bag.'
Saffra stands watching and waiting, one trouser up, and her little leg with its soft downy hair and not a scratch and her lip starts to tremble and honestly you got to hand it to her.
'I'm coming!' says Poppy. 'Just try and be brave!' And she gives me a look, like 'I won't be a sec . . .' but I make like I never seen her.
'Look what I've found!' she says, coming back and she hands her this little kid-size box of raisins. Saffra takes it.
Then Poppy gets this tube of Savlon, ain't nothing magic I can see, and she squeezes out a tiny smear and rubs it in Saffra's leg - you can smell it, so strong it gets right in your eyes. 'There,' she says, and she pulls down her trouser leg.'Does that feel a little bit better?'
Then Saffra sits on Poppy's lap, pushing the raisins into her mouth and giving me daggers and Poppy's arms all round her. 'Sorry,' says Poppy. 'Where were we, N?' But anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself.
Cou
rse Carmel and Sanya had nicked our seats like I knew they would all along.
'I was sat there,' I said. "Scuse me!' I weren't going to let it go.
'I thought you'd gone,' said Sanya, but she didn't move.
Poppy leant against the wall besides the rack of leaflets on patients' rights.
'You're a fine one to talk!' Fat Florence said.
'Why's that?' I said.
'Why's that?' she said.
'Fuck off!' I said. 'I was only saying.'
'I saved you one,' I said to Poppy.
'I'm alright,' said Poppy.
'I thought you'd gone,' said Sanya, but she didn't move.
'You're a fine one to talk anyway,' Fat Florence said.
'Oh?' I said. 'Why's that?' I said.
And she couldn't even answer 'cause she knew she was wrong, so she just give a huff instead. And she give such a huff it was stronger than a gale or even a hurricane probably, and the piles of proof all taken off and blown around like washing in a drier gone mad, and Lemar and Sanya and Clifton the Poet, they run around in circles trying to catch it. And I kept on waving to Poppy and winking and pointing at Sanya's chair, but Poppy shook her head like it weren't worth the hassle and stayed where she was by the wall, and a piece of the proof fell out her hair and drifted down on to the floor.
'You know how long he's been waiting?' said Fat Florence. And just in case there was anyone left who didn't, she told us again. And all the time she was telling us, Paolo's chin sunk further into his chest, then further still so his forehead was like in his lap and further till he looked like a curled-up woodlouse. She said how he'd come in at eighteen years old with the whole of his life before him, how he'd waited ten years on the seventh floor till a place come up on the sixth, and another ten years on the sixth for a place on the fifth and all the time taking his meds and being good and doing like the doctors told him. After fifteen years on the fifth, he moved down to the fourth and then to the third and finally to the second - which if you added up Fat Florence's maths ought to of made him a hundred easy when even with all the meds he was on, anyone could see he weren't twenty-five. And all those years and years on the wards, when all his schoolfriends was out getting jobs and marrying and having kids, Paolo laid on his plastic mattress and stared at the ceiling and dreamed of the Dorothy Fish. 'He sacrificed everything,' said Florence.'Everything he had, he give up, and this is how they repay him.'
She had a look round to see how her speech gone down, but no one weren't listening. A fight broken out over one of the papers Clifton picked up off the floor. It weren't nothing much, just a small torn-off scrap with handwriting on like a bit of an old school report, but Third-Floor Lemar said it was proof and it come from his pile not Clifton's. And Clifton the Poet said bollocks, been his all along. In the end Elijah had to decide and he torn it in two and give one half to each. And Lemar's half looked bigger but Clifton's got more words on.
Appointments got seen first and emergencies after, but it seemed like everyone had an appointment aside of Fat Florence and us. Lemar gone in and then Fifth-Floor Elijah, who'd stuffed his bag with so many papers the handles give way and he had to carry it hugged to his chest like a baby The reason we didn't have an appointment was it taken six months to get one and, though I seen no need for the hurry myself, I knew without asking, Poppy weren't willing to wait. Fact sat there in that waiting room as one by one the appointments gone in, I could feel how impatient Poppy was without even looking at her. I could feel her stood against the wall, willing each minute on to the next, could feel every time she looked down at her watch, could almost hear her say to herself, 'That can't of been less than a minute!' Even my toes felt it all by their selves and clenched up tight in my Nikes. 'It won't be long now,' I said to Poppy. 'Another three more then it's us. . .' And I kept on saying it just to make her feel better.
Only thing was though, the way the flops was, they never give a thought for no one else. The way they seen it, they'd waited six months and they wanted to get their money's worth. They knew they'd be waiting six months at least till they landed another appointment and the length of time some of them dragged it out, seemed like they was doing their best to make the one appointment last till the next one. They gone on so long and so thoughtless and selfish, I begun to feel almost embarrassed and I found myself making excuses and that like for kids who don't know no better.
'It's those MAD money appeals,' I said. 'They take for fucking ever.' And two seconds later: 'You seen the forms?' I shown her. 'They're like three foot thick!' 'That was quick!' I said, as Elijah come out - he'd been in so long he looked all out of date and he talked like an old-fashioned film. 'See Poppy,' I said. 'We'll be through in no time!'
Poppy give me a smile. 'It's alright,' she said. 'It's not like we're missing much is it!'
I laughed out loud. 'Too right,' I said. 'We ain't missing much!' and I laughed some more. 'We ain't missing much!'I said.
'So what is this MAD money?' Poppy said. 'It's some sort of benefit, right?'
I looked at her. 'It is and it isn't,' I said.
'I mean it is,' I said, 'but it's more than that.'
'How do you mean?' she said.
So then I explained her all about MAD money. Well not all about it, obviously, 'cause if I'd done that, we'd still be there now, but I told her the twenty-seven rates, from High High High to Low Low Low and I told her how the madder you was, the higher the rate they give you.
'So how do they decide?' she said.
'Oh!' I said. 'They know,' I said. 'They got this special company, MAD Assessments it's called, specially for working it out.' And I told her how they given you points according to everything wrong with you, then they added them up and that's how they worked out your rate.
'So let me get this right,' said Poppy. 'The madder you are, the more money you get?'
I nodded. 'Sort of,' I said. 'It ain't about the money, though.' And I tried to explain her what I meant but it weren't an easy thing to find the words for. I tried to explain how the money was only a part of it. 'The money ain't the thing,' I said, 'it's just like one way of seeing it. Same as a flower ain't nature,' I said. 'It's a part of nature, do you know what I'm saying, but it ain't actually nature itself . . . Or like Slasher Sue when they cut off her leg, her leg was hers but she weren't her leg; she was still Slasher Sue when it gone . . . Except for the fact that she weren't,' I said, 'cause I seen the hole before I'd finished the sentence. 'I mean she was but she weren't; she become Sue the Sticks. Maybe that ain't such a good example,' I said.
All the time I'd been talking to Poppy I could feel Fat Florence like a pig at the trough straining to get her snout in. And the moment I lifted my head for a sec, like just to take a breath, in come Florence, crashing in, how they didn't get no money on the wards, 'cause only day patients got money, and this weren't fair and that weren't fair and the other weren't fair neither, and none of it what Poppy wanted to know, but just an excuse for a harp which was Florence all over, and Poppy was leant against the wall, listening out of being polite and practically bored braindead.
'So why's everyone appealing?' she said, 'if you don't get any money?'
And Fat Florence taken the hump at that, thought Poppy was trying to make out they was thick and there weren't no point appealing your rate if you didn't get paid anyway.'Why are they appealing!' she said. 'I'll tell you why they're appealing! Ain't their fault is it if they don't get paid. Might as well just write them off; they's only flops at the end of the day. Don't deserve no fucking respect!'
'It ain't about the money,' I said to Poppy as Florence gone on. 'It's more about what rate you get . . .'
'Why bother appealing! Fucking nerve . . .'
'But I thought they didn't get a rate,' said Poppy.
'She'll be wanting the shirt off our backs next, Paolo . . .'
'Yeah, they do,' I said. 'They get a rate; they just don't get paid for it.'
'Leave us with nothing! Take the lot . . .'
'Sounds complicated,' said Poppy.
But I hadn't told her the half of it, not the millionth part of it even. MAD money was like religion 'cept bigger. MAD money was every religion all added together and timesed by itself and bigger than that as well. Sniffs gone to college to study MAD money and come home knowing less than they did when they gone. People spent their whole lives studying just one single rate. I knew all about it 'cause years before, when I was still on the wards, this student come round doing research for a thesis he was writing on Middle High Middle. And not even all of Middle High Middle, he was focusing just on the second 'Middle' he said, 'for reasons of space'. Course nobody wanted to talk to him, being as they reckoned he must be a spy sent from MAD to lower their rates, but I was bored out my fucking mind and willing to take a chance on it, and besides I'd noticed a carton of Marlboro sticking out of his backpack.
'Guess what rate Astrid's on!' I said.
'Don't know,' said Poppy. 'I'm not sure I've quite got the system.'
'Middle Low Middle,' I said, and I laughed.
'Guess Verna the Vomit! Guess Candid Headphones!'
And that's how I got through the rest of the morning, doing my best to keep Poppy entertained. Fat Florence fallen asleep in the end, snoring away like a pot-bellied pig, with her chins piled up on her chest like a stack of pillows. And as she rolled forwards, Paolo uncurled, and he kept glancing sideways at Poppy and me, like wishing how he could join in.
23. What Poppy said
Abaddon Patients' Rights been a toilet before it got converted and even as a toilet your knees must of rammed the door. It weren't big enough for a dog to of laid down proper, or maybe a Yorkie, but I've never been into them yap dogs anyway. There was a table, no longer than Banker Bill's and half as wide on account it been sawed down the middle. They'd had to saw it to fit in the chairs - two orange chairs like the ones outside and the half they'd sawed off been turned upside down and fixed to the wall for a shelf. If you's wondering how the table stood up with only two legs to hold it, there weren't nothing scientific about it, just so many papers rammed underneath the two legs it did have was six inches clear of the floor. On the wall behind where you sat was a notice-board, least that's what I reckon — you couldn't see 'cause of all the stuff pinned on top of it. There was notices pinned on notices pinned on notices pinned on notices; notices pinned up so thick they looked like an Argos duvet. The top layer had signs about MAD money rates and sections and who to complain to, though the names and addresses and stuff never been filled in. There was a sign for the project my bed come from, and another one 'bout training for work, half-covered by a sign for the Darkwoods drop-in. Like I say, underneath there was lots more signs, 'cept nobody couldn't read them; you just seen at the sides 'cause the papers bunched up so thick.
