Poppy Shakespeare (9 page)

'Don't think so,' said Sue the Sticks. 'Listen to this!'

'I don't know for sure,' said Verna.

'Just tell them!' said Sue.

'Well one of them . . .' said Verna the Vomit.

'Which
one?' said Rosetta.

'Dr Swazzle, I think,' said Verna. 'Or Dr Proctor.'

'They all look the same,' said Sue the Sticks.

'I heard him saying he could give them the best laugh in town,' Verna said.

'He said they got free drinks as well,' said Sue the Sticks, looking round. 'And if they give him a kiss he could get them
a front-row seat.'

'All for a pound,' said Zubin. 'Ain't bad value.'

'I'm going to talk to the Patients' Council,' Middle-Class Michael said. 'This is a serious breach of patients' rights.'

'Well I wouldn't know about that,' said Sue. 'But it ain't what you'd call confidential.'

'They should charge more,' said Zubin. 'Fuck patients' rights. I'd
sell
my rights if they'd give me a cut.'

'Yeah man!' said Wesley and he sat there laughing at the thought of all the money pouring in. Then he remembered how Zubin
had called him Watson. 'Tosser,' he said.

I ain't saying I thought it was true exactly, being no one like dribblers for cooking up paranoia, but the only thing was
there wasn't no proof it wasn't. And the more I thought, the more I could see that room behind the mirror, and I seen it so
clear and precise it was like I'd been there. Row after row of seats going up like a giant cinema, and ushers with torches
showing in sniffs till every seat was full, and the sniffs all sat there chatting and laughing and snogging and stuffing their
faces with popcorn, served in great fists by Sharon downstairs in the foyer. Then the screen gone up and everyone fell silent,
and there was the window into the room and there was the doctors sat in a circle and Tony with his microphone. 'Come in, N!'
he was saying.

So I felt pretty grateful when Verna and Sue offered to check things out. 'How you going to do that?' said Astrid. 'Buy yourselves
a ticket?'

But Verna and Sue said they'd check all the doors with what they knew was behind them. And Middle-Class Michael said he'd
give them a plan 'cause they got one down Patients' Council.

And after that it was dinner time so we lined up behind the flops. And even though we'd missed our dinner the day before and
was practically starving, most of us, we all let Verna and Sue go first on account of they had to get going.'Cause that's
how dribblers is, magnaminious, but none of the flops wouldn't let them in at all.

19. How Poppy eaten a piece of humble pie

Dinner that day was fatty lamb curry, the same we'd had the day before with curry powder mixed in. Dinner on Tuesdays was
always fatty lamb curry. When Canteen Coral give me mine, she said, 'Who's that new girl peas or carrots.'

'Peas,' I said. 'Oh, her; that's Poppy. I'm showing her round,' I said. And I looked back down the queue where Poppy was stood,
in between Candid Headphones and White Wesley. Her arms was crossed and she leant on one hip like a piece of designer gear
in a charity shop.

'And what's supposed to be wrong with "Poppy" peas or carrots,' said Canteen Coral, but she'd already moved on to Middle-Class
Michael, who begun to explain how he only wanted peas.

I got my orange eventually, but Verna was doing for Sue the Sticks as well, 'cause Sue couldn't carry it. So I had to wait
while she taken the first tray and then come back for the second and all the time my dinner was getting cold.

I was so busy downing my fatty lamb curry before it grown frost on top, do you know what I'm saying, and my head more or less
on a level with the table, and my mouth like a great open cave as I shovelled it in, that I never even noticed Poppy come
over.

'Do you mind if I sit here?' said this voice, and my head jerked backwards to see where it come from and shown her a mouthful
of curry.

I nodded; I couldn't do nothing else. It was full five minutes before I'd emptied my mouth enough to speak.

Poppy taken the seat across from me diagonal. 'I just need a bit of sane conversation,' she said. 'Do you know what I'm saying?!'
And she smiled at me like she knew I was trapped; I couldn't come back at her till I'd chewed my mouthful.

'What a fucking morning!' said Poppy. 'These last two days; I can't get my head round it! I said to them yesterday, I said,
"You've
brought me here so why don't you tell me what's wrong?"

'And do you know what they said to me?' she said.

I shaken my head; there weren't nothing else I could do.

'They said, "That's for
you
to tell us!'" she said. So what did you expect, I thought to myself.

' "No, mate," I said,' said Poppy. '
"You're
keeping me here. So how about
you
tell me why?" And do you know what that Tony said?' she said.

I grinned. I couldn't help it. It was just the thought of her calling Tony 'mate'. A small bit of lamb fallen out of my mouth
and landed back on my plate. Poppy hadn't ate none of her dinner at all.

'He said,' she said, 'that that's what I was
here
for. "These things take time," he said. "You need to be patient." "I haven't
got
time," I said. "I've got a kid! Do you know what I'm saying! I've got to earn money. I can't be sat on my arse in here all
day!" No disrespect,' she said. ' "Well perhaps you'll have to
make
time," he said. "It's taken thirty-four years to develop your problems, you can't expect to solve them overnight." "But that's
what I want you to tell me!" I said. "What
are
my problems exactly?!" "We can help you out with benefits advice," he said, and that was it. Jesus, N! - it
is
N isn't it? - I mean where do I go from here? That's what
I
want to know.'

I'd been chewing so hard my jaw was aching, felt like it been chewing elastic bands. To my right I seen Astrid and Tina sat
down at the table next to us, 'stead of taking the one at the back like they always done. Astrid was straining so hard to
hear, her ears was flapping like pair of great pink fans.

I nodded at Poppy like 'carry on'. She still hadn't touched her dinner.

'So this morning, right, I take Saffra to school, and then I go straight back home,' Poppy said. 'And I'm just ringing up
the agency - I rang them on Friday as soon as I knew, but they didn't have anything in, same as always, which is how I wound
up signing on, do you know what I'm saying! — so anyway, I'm on the phone and they're checking through to see what's come
in, when the buzzer goes, and it keeps on going. So I'm like "Alright, mate! Calm down!" and I push the thing and all these
fucking police come rushing up the stairs.'

She looked at me like, 'Do you know what I'm saying!' And I give her a nod and glanced to my right; Astrid was leant out halfway
across the aisle.

'There was more of them outside,' said Poppy. 'This group in the road with
riot
shields. Do you know what I'm saying, N?' she said. 'My neighbours must have thought I'd murdered someone! So then they tell
me I've got to go with them and I'm s'posed to be up here. "I'm not," I said. "There's nothing wrong with me. Do I
look
like a nutter!" No offence,' she said. 'And they said it wasn't up to them and I needed to calm myself down. "If you refuse," they said. "We'll
have to section you." "Fuck off" I said. "You need to calm down," they said. "You're not making this easy." And then they
handcuffed me. Do you know what I'm saying!'

I nodded and swallowed and felt it go down like a snake just eaten a cow. 'Did they give you a jab up the arse?' I said. My
jaw felt like it run a marathon.

'What?' said Poppy.

'A jab up the arse,' I said. 'They usually do.' It didn't
look
like they had, the way she was buzzing, but I weren't sure Poppy be normal with anything. 'So you on a section?' I said.

'I don't think so,' said Poppy. 'If I don't come they will though; they'll put me on the wards.'

'Thing is,' I said. 'There's lots of people waiting for the places. That's why they's funny about it.' And I told her about
the waiting list, how long it was, and all the people on it. 'There's people,' I said, 'go on when they're born and they's
drawing their pensions before they've moved up three places. There's people whose
grandparents
was on, and
their
grandparents too, and they taken their place when they passed and they still ain't here yet. I don't know if it's true,'I
said, 'but I heard if Jesus been put on the list like when he was born - or even before, when Gabriel told Mary he was coming
- I heard if they'd put his name down then, he'd still only be at three hundred and fifty-seven.'

'But I thought,' said Poppy. 'That bloke on the table . . .'

'Middle-Class Michael?' I said.

Poppy grinned. 'I thought he said it had only been going about twenty years or something.'

'I don't know,' I said. 'I'm just saying what I heard. And anyway,' I said. 'They would still of been waiting. Maybe that's
why it got so long in the first place. They couldn't even
begin
moving up till twenty years ago. You going to eat your lamb?' I said.

'Think I'll leave it,' she said. And she pushed the tray away from her with a look on her face like a cat what sicked up his
dinner. With anyone else I'd of helped myself, and I ain't saying my fork didn't start drifting over, but anyway I put it
down; I weren't no Jacko the Penguin.

So then I explained how the waiting list was only the tip of the iceberg. Before that there was the pre-waiting list and before
that you was just pre-list; your name got typed in a MAD computer and no one never heard of you again. Poppy begun laugh at
that and I felt my face gone red. 'But it ain't like it's news to you,' I said. 'How long was
you
on the list, anyway?' Astrid was leant so far towards us, her great flabby arse was practically touching the floor.

'I wasn't
on
any list,' said Poppy.

'You must of been,' I said. 'Unless you come down through the wards, which you didn't.' She shaken her head.

'Or unless you got prioritised, but you'd still have to be on the list. Most probably you've been on it so long you've forgot
you was even on it. Maybe your mum was on it,' I said.

'I don't think so,' said Poppy.

'Maybe they never told you your name was down. Either way,' I said. 'You must of been on it. There ain't no other explanation. And you must of got randomised,' I told her.
'Everyone's
randomised. They don't even let you in through the door without you been randomised.'

But Poppy said she'd never heard of randomising neither. So I had to explain about that as well, how they got to do it because
of the law, to prove how the Abaddon worked. 'When you've got to the top of the list,' I said, 'they flick a coin so it's
fifty-fifty: heads they admit you; tails, they don't. That's how they get their statistics, innit,' I said. 'So if more tails
kill theirselves than heads, they know the Abaddon's working. And the other way round, they know they got something wrong.'
And all the time I was telling her, I felt Astrid just to my right straining further towards us. So as I kept talking I dropped
my voice and the more I dropped it the further Astrid leant over and Poppy seen what I was doing and she started to grin and
she put up her hand so Astrid couldn't see she was laughing. 'They do it on the wards as well,' I whispered. 'It's sort of
like science. That's what psychiatry is,' I was practically mouthing. 'It's all. . .' And just at that moment there come this
enormous crash like a bomb exploded, and Astrid had leant that far she'd fell off of her chair, and she landed so hard on
the floor she made like a crater and Tina had to push and pull and lever and lather to get her back on her feet. But me and
Poppy,
we
couldn't help on account we was laughing too much. We laughed till we cried; we practically pissed ourselves laughing. And
even after Astrid gone out, the worst hump you seen in your life and Tina fetched her a cup of tea and taken her arm and trotted
along like a calf besides its heifer, we still couldn't stop; we laughed and laughed and laughed.

And after that, whatever I said, it seemed like the funniest thing you ever heard. And I ain't saying I was nothing special
or nothing but I must of got on a roll. 'Cause I tried to finish explaining Poppy about the randomising but I couldn't even
finish my sentence before we was screaming again. 'We's just the
lucky
ones,' I said. 'We's just the
lucky
ones!'

And Poppy was laughing so much the tears was streaming down her face.

'We's just the
lucky
ones,' I said.

'Do you know what I'm saying!' said Poppy and we started again.

20. A bit about my childhood, you can skip if you ain't interested

When I was a kid, I got moved around more than a pass-the-fucking-parcel. I once tried to count all the places I been, and
I couldn't remember half of their names, but I reckon it must of been well over fifty easy. Some of them I was a regular,
like Mrs Dalrymple I gone to about twenty times, but only just for a couple of nights like emergency till they found me a
long-term placement. Mrs Dalrymple had a bright red front door and you slept in this creaky bunk-bed. On the wall by the bed
there was writing and that left by the kids gone before and sometimes she tried to scrub it off but you could still read the
words if you looked at it close enough. I used to find stuff I'd wrote myself like messages from a younger me what didn't
exist any more.

The longest I stayed anywhere was a year, which was when I was four till five 'cause they'd found me and Mum up near Ally
Pally laying on the railway line. Mostly it was like three or four months, then they let her out and I gone back home for
a bit till she lost it again. My favourite place was Sunshine House and as I got older they sent me there more and more. Sunshine
House weren't too bad to be honest; you didn't have family dinners and shit, and no one to tell you to do your homework; you
just sniffed glue and done what the fuck you wanted. But when I was younger, they used to try and place me. They placed me
every which way they could think of, this way and that way and turn me around and how about over here, but wherever they placed
me, they just couldn't get me to fit. It was like I was this jigsaw piece got into the wrong puzzle by mistake, and in the
end they give up and stuck me in Sunshine House.

I ain't expecting sympathy, do you know what I'm saying; I couldn't give a shit. 'Cause it weren't just chance I didn't fit
in, I
seen
to it I didn't. All them families wanted was to turn you into a sniff, and it didn't make no difference how nice they done
it, you always known what was going on underneath. And I ain't saying nothing do you know what I'm saying but sniffs got to
be the most arrogant people ever. I never met the sniff yet who didn't reckon
everyone
should be one - and I never met the dribbler neither willing to oblige. And even as a little kid, I known which team I played
for, so as soon as they started their sniff stuff on me, and they give me presents or belted me one or whatever they reckoned
worked best to win me over, that's when I told them just where they could stick it and pretty soon I gone back to Sunshine
House.

Dribblers don't go in for none of that shit. They ain't trying to convert no one. Mostly they ain't even
noticing
no one; they's thinking about theirselves. The way dribblers see it there's dribblers enough already. There's hospitals, day
centres, drop-ins and projects all packed full to bursting with dribblers. If anything, there's too many dribblers; there
ain't enough care to go round. There's waiting lists, thousands of pages long, of dribblers sat waiting for places, and there's
more lists of dribblers waiting to go on the lists. The way dribblers see it, there's dribblers enough already. And there
ain't no need to go making any more.

I remember this one time my mum come to see me. I don't know how old I was, maybe eight, or how the fuck she'd got let out
on leave, maybe she hadn't; maybe she'd give them the slip, she was clever like that. Anyway, it's Saturday and I'm sat in
my room watching
Swap Shop.
And Mrs Dixon's hoovering 'cause that's all she ever done, hoovering, and I don't know where Mr Dixon is, out most probably
'cause the hoovering done his head in. Mrs Dixon's a stupid bitch; once she lost it and screamed at me, 'You're only here
to help with the fucking mortgage!' There's this ring on the bell, not a ring exactly; the doorbell done chimes like Big Ben,
and the hoovering stops and she goes to answer, all huffing and sighing on account she don't like her hoovering interrupted.
'Oh!' I hear her say, and I know. Before she's even finished the rest, like 'We weren't expecting you today,' I'm down those
stairs with their new stair-carpet three at a time and wrapped in the arms of my mum. 'Why don't we have a nice cup of tea?'
says Mrs Dixon, thinks everyone's as stupid as what she is. (Why don't we have a nice cup of tea while I call them to come
and get you?) 'It's alright,' my mum says. 'I haven't got long. I thought I'd just take N out for a drive,' and she waves
to this car, which I ain't never seen another car like it before or since. Golden it was, with huge tail fins and the mirrors
stuck out like wings. It must of been about twenty-foot long unless I'm remembering wrong, 'cause one of its front wheels
had mounted the kerb outside Mrs Dixon's front gate, while its back wheels was up on the pavement opposite. 'Perhaps I'd better
just check,' says Mrs Dixon. 'Check what?' says Mum. 'Well, you know,' says Mrs Dixon, shatting her pants at the thought of
her mortgage payments. As we driven off, Mum tooted the horn and we waved all the way till we disappeared round the corner.