Poppy Shakespeare

by Clare Allan

  All night I lain there watching the minutes. I ain't saying I was hoping exactly. I weren't feeling nothing, just stared at the clock, but when 9.30 come and she hadn't been back, I felt something then, like a sort of a panic, like all of the minutes I got to get through until 17.03.

  She was early that night, more like twenty to five, must of run from the Dorothy Fish. 'I've brought you some cigarettes,' she said. 'N, please let me in. I need to talk . . . I don't know what to think anymore, N. Tony says it isn't true. He says if there's nothing wrong with me, then why did I take an overdose? I don't know what to do, N. Please! I haven't got anywhere else to go . . . I'm sorry. I'm really sorry, N.' She was crying. I lain there, stared at the clock. 'N, I'm worried about you. Are you OK? Just say something, please. Let me know you're alright . . .'

  I felt bad, I did, just laying there, but I couldn't do nothing about it. A couple of tears rolled out my eyes into the pillow.

  'I've got to go. Dud's bringing Saffra round. I'll come back tomorrow. Please N, don't . . .' There was a patter as something hit the floor. 16.53 and she was gone.

  At 19.26 I got up, opened the hall door and there it was, a pack of Bensons, stood on one end, under the letter-box.

  At 21.03 I gone back. The packet was still there.

  It was still there at 22.12 as well.

  At 23.10 I picked it up and taken it back to bed. Didn't smoke them or nothing, didn't open them even, just lain there holding them tight in my hand till the cellophane felt damp against my palm.

  9.30 was the deadline; I give her till 9.34. When she still hadn't come, I gone through the hall and picked up my backpack, still on the floor where I'd dumped it when I got home. I knew my biro was in there somewhere but with so much other crap as well, I had to lug it back through to the bedroom and sit on my bed to go through it. You'd never believe how much crap there was, you had to dig down through the layers like mining. Top layer was mainly make-up and shit - twelve different tubes of lip gloss I counted, from Violet Candy to Midnight Shimmer - then underneath that come Marie Claire and this book I'd picked up round Poppy's one time called Bridget Jones' Diary; we seen the film, it was alright, a bit far-fetched. Then a mass of crumpled MAD money giros, a letter from MAD to Poppy saying how she'd failed her appeal and a couple of copies of Abaddon Patients' News. There was a sheet of paper with typing on too which I couldn't work out where it come from: 'Irrespective of claims to the contrary which have been made by a number of prominent historians, most notably Schatten (Zeitschrift für Psychiatrische Geschichte 30/ 31 1973 S.241-282), the Abaddon's introduction of the Whirling Chair for the treatment of melancholia predates its arrival at Bethlem by more than a month . . .' then I noticed a number at the bottom of the page like 11,248, and I smiled despite of how low I was, remembering how we got stuck in the lift, me and Poppy, with Max McSpie­gel; somehow or other a page of his book must of wound up inside of my backpack. My lucky biro was right at the bottom in a pile of empty meds bottles.

  I written on the back of the MAD money letter:

  Then I read it a few times, thought for a bit and added, 'Thanks for the fags' underneath. I glued it to the door so's the writing shown through the glass and gone back to bed.

  When she come that night 16.48, Poppy didn't even knock. She just called through the letter-box. 'Alright N, I'll leave you if that's what you want.' And then she gone. 'Fuck off then,' I said out loud. 'Yeah, that's right, just fuck off like everyone else!' and I picked up the photo of me and my mum and lobbed it across the room so hard it gouged a great chunk out the top of the wall near the ceiling.

  The banging seemed to come right inside; it was like someone hammered on my coffin. I thought they'd come to section me. I knew they was coming. They got to be coming. I was a danger to myself if not to nobody else. I'd of killed myself already except for I couldn't be arsed.

  'N, it's Poppy. I've got to talk to you . . . N, please, if you're there; it's really important. It's Saffra, N; I'm fucking desperate!' The letter-box flapped shut. I didn't move.

  I never seen the note at first, there was so much crap by the door. A hundred pizza menus easy, Chinese and Indian twenty-five each, six minicab cards, two Council News, two MAD money giros. It was kind of a shock to realise how long I must of been laying in bed. Then I noticed this envelope: Poppy Shakespeare, Flat 6, 43 Selby Street, and I thought, like this is how fucked I was, I thought, 'That's weird. What's the chances of that!' I mean, I used to get stuff for Rapper Rashid, do you know what I'm saying, and him for me, fact everyone in Rowan Walk got everyone else's post all the time, which being as they was mainly just take-away menus it didn't make much difference. But this was a proper coincidence. I mean, Poppy lived maybe a mile away, unless there was another Poppy Shakespeare, but she'd still have to live at the same address... I picked it up to have a look and that's when I seen the writing on the back:

  When she come I was waiting. Been waiting for hours. Sat on the floor of the hall since 5.03. I could see her through the frosted glass of the door, bits of paper still stuck to it where I'd pulled the letter off, could see the shape of her head in the hat as I sat on the floor looking up.

  I opened the door before she knocked. 'N!' she said and she give me a hug. 'I'm sorry,' she said. We was hugging and crying. 'You look awful,' she said. I felt it again: my mum wrapped around me, warm and strong, the softness of her jumper against my cheek, the smell of her, the sense of home. 'I'm never leaving you ever again,' which we both of us believed it for a moment.

  The knock on the glass brought me back where I was, still sat there on the floor of the hall, the cold radiator dugging into my spine. 'N,' said Poppy. 'Are you there? It's me.'

  I remember being surprised I didn't move.

  'N? Are you there?' She knew I was there. 'N, please let me in. Please! I need your help. Dud wants custody of Saffra, N. I've had a letter from his solicitor. He says it's bad for her living with me. It's his parents; I fucking know it is. He says I can't take care of her. Do you think that's true? Do you think I can't? Maybe I can't, N; what do you think? Do you think she'd be better without me, N? Please talk to me!' She started to cry. 'I'm sorry, N.' She was crying really bad. The words come out all juddery. 'I jyjust dddon't know what the fuck to ddoooo.'

  You couldn't make out half of what she was saying; she was so upset she could hardly breathe. Saffra's teacher was really worried. Saffra'd begun self-harming herself. I caught like a line of it here and there as I gradually realised I weren't going to move, which I know it sounds bad but I honestly couldn't. I'd of stood more chance being paralysed, least I could of blown through a straw.

  Eventually she calmed down enough that the words come through again. Then she stopped crying completely, some ways that was worse; her voice sounded hollow and empty.

  'Tony says I need to see the MAD inspector. She's coming to the assessments on Friday. He says if I can convince her I'm fine, they're happy to discharge me. There's no way they can take Saffra then. But what I'm worried about is those MAD money forms. What if she knows about them, N? What if she's read all that stuff we wrote? What if she thinks it's true, what then?

  'Please, N, please will you say it was you! I'll tell them you were helping me out. I'll say I was desperate. I was; it's true. You'll do it, won't you? You'll help me? N?

  'It's his parents; I fucking know it is. They've always wanted me out the way. I wouldn't be surprised if it was them all along. Do you know what I'm saying, they've got the money. It's all who you know at the end of the day. They had me admitted so they'd get Saffra. They planned it. They've been bugging my flat. There's nothing fucking wrong with me. It's a set-up, N; they're all in on it; Tony, Diabolus, everyone.

  'There's nothing wrong with me, is there, N? You told me I'm normal; that's the reason I'm there.

  'You don't think I'm bad for Saffra, N?'

  I could see her hands against the glass. Her palms was pressed white against the glass. 'Do you think she'd be better without me, N?

>   'N? Do you think I'm losing it?'

  As she turned away, I felt it again: that terrible sense of endless nothing. The TV room at Sunshine House, the magnolia walls smeared with scrubbed-out graffitti, where they told me my mum was dead.

  I got up. I banged on the glass. 'Wait!' I shouted. For a second I thought she was still stood there. But all it was was my own reflection looked back at me.

  46. How I done my best to be a good friend, despite of everything

  It taken me hours to get ready. It was 6 a.m. when I run the bath. I soaked for a bit, just to loosen the dirt then starting from the tips of my toes I lathered upwards inch by inch. My toes, then my feet, then my legs to the knee, then I stood up and finished the rest of me, slow and methodic inch by inch, taking care not to leave no spaces. From the tips of my toes to behind my ears, front and back, was a bottle of Dove, which just goes to show how much weight I'd lost; two and a half I'd of took before, easy, fact I'd lifted three down the Turkish shop just to be sure. When I'd finished, I shaved my legs; I'd lifted the razor as well, old habits die hard. Then I washed my hair with a mug in the sink as the steel-grey scum of a month in bed gurgled out down the bathtub plug hole. After that I had another bath and I washed my hair again and after a third bath there weren't nothing left, not a mark on me from top to toe, aside of my scars what wouldn't come off if I scrubbed for the rest of forever.

  I'd lost so much weight, when I tried to get dressed my clothes was falling off of me. Even the new clothes I'd bought with Poppy; that denim skirt I'd been planning to wear, it looked like I'd borrowed it off of Fat fucking Florence. It weren't just the fact I hadn't ate for three weeks; I hadn't took no meds. And especially the Plutuperidol, puffs you up something chronic, remember Tadpole. I'd been on anti-psychotics all my life, do you know what I'm saying, taken Parazine along with my mother's breast milk so I s'pose it weren't surprising when you took out the stopper to find half of me disappeared. The skinny me - I was almost skinny! — it didn't even look nothing like the old N and it weren't going to share no clothes with her. So I tried on a couple of things of Poppy's, them clothes I'd rescued from Oxfam, and they fitted like I'd bought them new, only the skirt left a button undone; and the top was a little bit tight across you-know-where. By the time I'd straightened my hair with the irons and wet it again and done it again and wet it again and done it again and it still got a kink but that might of been intended, it was 07:58. I put on my make-up like Poppy had shown me, a layer of foundation worked on with a sponge, then Touche Eclat smeared under your eyes and another layer of foundation on top - Poppy never said that, but I reckoned it looked better. I used eye-shadow, pencil, mascara and curlers, liquid gold the eye-shadow was, it come in a tube and cost so much I reckon it got real gold in. Poppy said makeup should always look subtle, which meant you could hardly see it at all; I said 'I ain't spending six months' MAD money on something you can't even see.' Truth is since I'd begun wearing make-up my confidence gone up and I reckoned I had a bit of a flair, not bragging I mean, I just knew what looked good, or what looked good on me. And not being funny, do you know what I'm saying, but Poppy weren't hardly best placed to comment, fact I'd have to say something one of these days, like just as a friend, once we'd got her discharged - and Saffra back home, if that's what she wanted. 'Poppy,' I'd say, 'I'm not being funny, but you should make a bit more of yourself.' I given my cheekbones a dusting of pink, proper cheekbones now I got, and finished my lips with three layers of Violet Candy. I could of worked on a make-up counter to look at me, which ain't big-headed; I'm just saying how I looked. And it was Poppy I done it for anyway, I needed to look my best; ain't much point having a dribbler turn up to tell everyone you's normal.

  As soon as you walked in the Dorothy Fish, you could tell they was doing an inspection. The notice-boards on the first-floor landing was covered in bright-coloured posters and leaflets with all of these groups you could do and shit and all of these trips you could sign up for, like ten-pin bowling and the Science Museum and the Dorothy Fish Day Out to BRIGHTON!!! It made you want to puke. There was even a notice how Tony Balaclava was running the London Marathon to raise funds for MIND. 'COME AND CHEER HIM ON!' it said, like we's one big happy family, like any dribbler in his right mind show his face within ten miles of the race or even watch it on telly case Tony seen him, reckoned he must of gone normal. It weren't even nine yet; the common room was empty. The shit-coloured carpet been scrubbed so hard reckon Minimum Wage scrubbed her fingers off. It weren't even shit-coloured properly no more, just a dishwater grey like she'd scrubbed all the colour out of it. There was a new pot plant where the dead one been what Paolo had curled hisself under that day, when Pollyanna gone and the whole thing started.

  I didn't hang about in the common room. To be honest, I started to feel a bit weird. Not like I got second thoughts or nothing but you know what I'm saying, I could of slipped back so easy, just sat in the 'N' chair, smoked a quick fag, feet on the table and before you knew it another thirteen years had gone by; it was like that the Dorothy Fish. I gone in the toilets, gleaming they was, paper and everything. 'Alright, Fran,' I said, but she give me 'Fuck off.', 'Fuck off yourself,' I said. 'Stupid cow!' And again it felt like slipping back. Like Cinderella sworn at the ball. 'You'd better hope Poppy's up first, girl,' I says, ' 'Cause you ain't going to last till midnight.'

  As I come out the toilets what should I see but the great fat arse of Malvin Fowler, squeezed into a light grey suit and heading off down the corridor. I watched as he gone past the staff room, the art room, the room where they held the one-to-ones; when he stopped outside Dawn's wood workshop I thought he was going to go in, but it must be his ear was itching him 'cause he stuck in a finger and wagged it about, checking the end, then wiping it clean on his trousers before going on.

  When he got to the door of the theatre I seen him stop again, and this time he taken something out the pocket of his jacket. I couldn't work out what it was at first; it was square and flat, 'bout the size of a visitor's pass. He held it up in front of his face, started smoothing his hair this way and that, tilting his head to see if he'd covered his bald patch. Then he checked his teeth, quick glance up his nose, a final once-over and slipped it back in his pocket. I held it until he gone inside, then I practically pissed myself laughing. 'Come on Poppy,' I says out loud. 'Get a move on, you's missing the party.'

  I hung around for fucking ever but Poppy never shown up. And neither did nobody else, come to that, not a flop not a dribbler, nobody; I started to get a feeling something weren't right.

  I couldn't of told you why it was I set off down the corridor, or why my heart was thumping so loud, or how come I found the door so easy when Verna and Sue been looking for months. A seventh sense I s'pose is what you'd call it.

  They's all sat around of this great shiny table. Fifteen of them maybe, all in suits and each with a little plastic sign tell everyone who they is. There's Dr Diabolus sat at the head and Azazel and Clootie, one either side, and this woman I never seen before with a mole on her chin and three black whiskers sprouted out of it. All down the middle there's jugs of water and little stacks of glasses. And the lights from the ceiling bounce off of the water and ripple all over the table.

  The reason the water's rippling is Tony Balaclava. Tony's sat with his back to me but I can see his face reflecting off of the table. He's reeling off this list of figures: 'Self-harm down 600%; paranoia 850%.' And every time he says a number he bangs on the table with his small tight fist, like an auctioneer's hammer. The woman with the mole sits nodding her head and the doctors all sit nodding their heads and everyone's like nodding their heads and rippling into each other. 'Since the introduction of our control, day-patient discharge rates have increased by 2450%, even allowing for seasonal variation.'

  'Most impressive,' the woman says.

  'The most tentative projection . . .'

  'Excuse me?' I jumped round. Beverly Perfect was stood in the doorway, holding a tray of sangers. 'I'm not sure
you're s'posed to be in here.'

  'Says who?' I says.

  She looks at me. Ain't nothing rippling 'bout Beverly Perfect.

  'Are you a patient?'

  'Do I look like a dribbler?'

  'I'll have to ask you to leave,' she says.

  'I want to see Poppy. Where is she?' I says.

  It was something about the look on her face. I seen it before. Twenty years before nearly. The TV room at Sunshine House. 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I'm afraid . . .'

  'No!' I shouted. 'No she ain't! She can't of done! There's nothing the fucking matter with her!' The shouting must of brought everyone out 'cause suddenly there's Tony and Malvin pushing their way in the viewing room and somebody's grabbing my legs from behind and Dr Azazel's got hold of my wrist. I can see the woman, the one with the mole, watching me from the doorway.

  'You can't believe them!' I said to her. 'You can't! They never helped nobody! They set it up from the start,' I said, 'cause I got it now, I finally got it, the whole fucking twisted picture. 'That's why they made me her guide,' I said. 'That's why they picked me to show her around; they knew it would do her head in! And all for their fucking targets!' I shouted. 'All for the Beacon of Excellence . . .'

  'I'm afraid N's not very well,' said Tony.

  I couldn't see the woman no more, had me pinned face down on the floor. But I managed to turn my head to the side to have the last word, like my mum used to say, 'You always got to have the last word!' 'Let's just get one thing straight,' I shouted. 'I Am NOT a Dribbler! There is Nothing Whatever Wrong with my Head!' before they jabbed me up the arse.