Poppy Shakespeare (10 page)

21. How I offered Poppy to show her Banker Bill

When Poppy and me gone back through the common room, you could tell Astrid told them we'd laughed, and most probably she'd
exaggerated, made out it was All Our Fault, but we didn't give a fuck.

Poppy kept looking around like expecting something. She smoked a couple of fags and that but her mind didn't seem to be on
them. She glanced up and down the line of dribblers, smoking their after-dinner fags, and she kept turning round and checking
the doors; it was like she was waiting for something. The dopey dribblers was settling down to sleep for the afternoon. Gita
blown her cushion up what had sagged a bit during the morning and stuck it around her neck and off like that. Harvey taken
a little bit longer, but inside of three minutes he was gone too, snoring away with his chins sunk on to his chest. The flops
begun to drift back down after their lunch-time meds and some of them still got butts left over and some of them didn't and
just had to sit and watch.

And all the time Poppy kept looking around and fidgeting this way and that. 'So what do you lot
do
all day?' she suddenly said to me.

'How d'you mean what do we
do?'
I said. I could feel Astrid glaring at me.

'Well don't know,' said Poppy. 'You must do
something!
'

'Depends what you mean, I suppose,' I said. 'You see your worker once a week. Sometimes there's groups, but most of them's
cancelled usually.'

'What about weaving baskets,' said Poppy. 'Aren't we supposed to weave baskets?'

'Baskets?' I said.

'She's joking,' Rosetta said.

'I'm not!' said Poppy. 'I wouldn't mind weaving a basket. I'm not being funny but I
can't
just sit on my arse.'

No one said nothing.

'Don't see why not,' said Astrid. 'The rest of us have to.'

'Sit on
my
arse?' said Poppy. 'I
hope
not.' She was joking of course and I started to laugh but nobody else joined in.

'But don't you get bored,' Poppy said, 'just sat here all day?'

I glanced at Astrid; she rolled her eyes at Tina, like 'What did I tell you?'

'Perhaps you could go and ask Tony,' whispered Tina.'The art room's locked, but they might have some materials.'

'Tony Balaclava!' said Poppy. 'Talk about the blind leading the blind!'

There was total silence. Poppy glanced round. She caught my eye and pulled a face like 'Oops!'

'What's that supposed to mean,' said Astrid and she give me a glare 'cause she seen Poppy's face. Do you know what I'm saying,
like
I'm
fucking pulling her strings!

'Is from the Bible,' said Rosetta. 'Matthew, fifteen, I think. "If the blind lead the blind they both shall fall in the ditch."'

'I know what it
means!
' said Astrid Arsewipe. 'What I'm
saying
is what's she
implying?'
And she added Rosetta's name to the list of people she got the hump with. And you might think with three names now on her
list - Poppy and me and Rosetta - you might think the hump got divided in three, and it didn't feel so bad. But that weren't
the way with Astrid at all; she didn't got no divide button. So instead of we each got a third of a hump, we each got a hump
times three.

But Rosetta didn't care anyway; you seen she was running through Matthew fifteen in her head.

My mum always said you got to accept the cards you's dealt in life. There ain't no point ranting and raving, she said, you
just got to play your hand. But a couple of times that afternoon, I got to admit, I found myself wishing they'd dealt me a
different card. It weren't that I didn't get on with Poppy, it was more the others; they didn't know how to take her. And
me being me, I felt responsible. Fact is it seemed pretty obvious, it weren't Poppy's fault she didn't know the rules, so
when I managed to catch her eye for a second and no one weren't looking, I'd give her a wink just to show I was on her side.
But the thing was it weren't no one
else's
fault neither, and I didn't want nobody thinking I weren't sympathetic, so when Poppy
weren't
looking I'd be shooking my head and rolling my eyes along with the rest of them. This one time I got me a bit confused and
winked at Tina when I should of been shooking my head, and she frowned like she must of missed something so I had to make
out I got something stuck in my eye.

Like I say, it weren't Poppy's
fault
exactly, but she weren't doing herself no favours. I never met no one so under-concerned about making the right impression.
By the time Banker Bill come through with his stall, she done Dr Azazel ('Dr fucking Dazzle'), the common room ('Couldn't
they
do
something with it?'), the dead plant ('That s'posed to brighten things up?'), Canteen Coral ('Looks more depressed than the
patients, do you know what I'm saying?'); and when Wesley told her how
he
was depressed, Poppy driven him nearly to suicide by telling him he looked alright to her.

So at two twenty-five, when Bill come through with his little fold-up desk under one arm and his blackboard under the other,
I seized my chance. 'I'm going to see Banker Bill,' I said. 'Anyone fancy coming?'

I didn't say Poppy's name out of tact but I give her a look and I reckon she got it 'cause she stood up right away. 'I don't
mind if I do,' she said. 'If I sit here I
will
fucking lose it,' and she followed me down the queue what was already forming.

Banker Bill was second-floor, not Dorothy Fish at all, but he was a slippy sort of dribbler, could of carved his niche wherever
he wound up. He carried his folding stool with him, so he'd always have somewhere to sit, and his blackboard and his fold-up
desk and an end of white chalk in the pocket of his dusty brown jacket. Every Tuesday from half-two till four, whilst the
staff was having their meeting with Dr Diabolus, Banker Bill would set up his little stall. He took out his chalk and wrote
on his blackboard a list of what meds he was trading, and beside it two columns with prices for buying and selling. This is
what it looked like:

As me and Poppy gone down the queue, we passed Banker Bill at his stall, with the blackboard leant against it and in front
of him four piles of meds, like chips on a roulette table, and next to them the grey metal box, relocked after every transaction,
held his stash of fag butts.

Schizo Safid was stood in front of the table. He kept reaching deep in the pockets of his combats and pulling out handfuls
of meds. Banker Bill weren't looking too happy about it. He kept picking out tablets and holding them up to the light, squinting
his eyes like a jeweller inspecting a diamond. And all the time Safid kept opening pockets and scooping more tablets out of
them.

'What's he
doing?'
said Poppy behind me, and I turned round and seen she was stopped right in front of the table.

'Oh that's just Safid,' I said. 'He's always like that. Don't show for ages then trades in the whole lot at once.'

'But what's he
doing?'
said Poppy, staring. Safid's combats shown us the crack of his arse.

'How d'you mean?' I said.

'Well what's he
doing?'

'He's trading, innit!'

'Trading?' said Poppy.

'Trading,' I said. 'You must of heard of trading. I'll show you,' I said, and I moved up a bit so Poppy could see the blackboard.
The queue looped round again inside the first one, and then again and then again it looked like. 'Alright!' I said, as the
flops begun harping. 'We ain't pushing in! I'm just showing Poppy round. Safid's on Plutuperidol,' I told her. 'But the thing
is now he's give him so much, Banker Bill will have to change his rates. That's why they's all pissed off,' I said and they
was as well, all steaming and stamping, like pay-day down Planet Kebab.

'So what does he do with it now?' said Poppy.

'Who, Bill?' I said.

'Does he chuck it away?' she said.

'Chuck it away? Of course not!' I said. 'What would the point of that be? No,' I said, 'he trades it back. That's how he makes
his mark-up. Come on,' I said - she was still stood staring — 'we better keep going or we'll
never
find the end.'

Tony had put me through fast track for guiding 'cause he reckoned I had the skills in me innate, but after that first day
I got to admit, I'd gone home a little bit doubtful. Now, as me and Poppy gone all down the queue, right round the room past
the point where we started, then round again, inside the first line, and round again and round again like tracing the shell
of a snail, I begun to think Tony might of been right after all. I ain't trying to make like I was a natural - that ain't
for me to say - but the fact is to of seen me guiding, you'd never of thought it was only my second day. 'Cause other people
thought so too; as we gone past the flops you couldn't help notice the looks they give me, all sort of shy and admiring, and
some of them even started clapping -
spontaneous,
just started clapping - and I heard Fat Cath tell Curry Bob, who was stood alongside her one line in, clutching a handful
of fag butts, I heard her tell him clear as mud, 'You'd think she been guiding since before she was even born!' Fact was I
found stuff to say 'bout everything and everyone we gone past. I opened my mouth and out it come; I never even had to
think.
Sometimes that much stuff come out we had to stop, just so's I could finish before we moved on again. I told her about the
flops we was passing and things they done when they lost it, I told her about the time Carmel got spooked and Fifth-Floor Elijah
exercised her by reading the Bible backwards. I told her about when Max McSpiegel eaten six whole chapters of his history
of the Abaddon, then forgotten he done it and tried to make out Safid stole them for Al Qaida. I talked about flops who'd
never been talked about their whole lives before, and Poppy she listened to every word, like totally fucking gobsmacked and
she kept saying things like 'You are kidding!' and 'No fucking way!' and 'Tell me you're having a laugh!' and sometimes I
even made up a few bits just to make her say it, and they come so natural, I hardly even realised.

'So what's with Elliot?' Poppy asked. 'Why's he keep diving under his chair?'

'Elliot?' I said. 'Reckons there's snipers trying to shoot him. Never goes home,' I said. 'Reckons they's out in the bushes
by the entrance. Hides in his locker till the flops had their supper then he comes and sleeps under the chairs.'

The way Poppy was I could tell she felt bad 'bout the day before and how rude she'd been, and how wrong as well, which I reckoned
she should of done too, but I let it go.

We gone round that common room over a hundred times. Each time I seen my chair come round, I counted another lap, but after
a while there was too many flops stood in between blocking my view. And soon I couldn't see nothing at all, just flops and
flops and more flops, and they could of been queuing on the moon for all you could tell. As we worked our way in towards the
middle, I kept on thinking we
must
be there, just another bend and we
must
be there, but we never was; the flops just kept on coming. 'How do they all fit in?' said Poppy. 'Good job they're not claustrophobic!'

'Dunno,' I said. 'They're used to it, I s'pose,' but I seen what she meant. I'd begun to think the spiral didn't
have
no middle, and the dribblers kept appearing out of nothing.

Poppy tapped me on the shoulder. 'Want one?' she said and she held out a pack of B&H.

'Alright,' I said.

'I'm trying to cut down,' she said. 'Do you know what I'm saying?' And she taken one herself and lit it, the first since we'd
set out. This flop alongside us begun to drool, eyes trained on her fag like a hungry dog.

'For fuck's sake,' said Poppy. 'Here,' she said. 'Have one!I can't smoke with you doing that.'

He taken the fag and she lit it for him and he shuffled away without saying thank you or nothing.

'Careful,' I said. 'You'll start a riot if they think you's handing out fags!'

Poppy laughed. 'Let's take a breather,' she said. 'I'm getting dizzy.'

So we stood for a bit just smoking our fags and watching the flops shuffle slowly past on their way towards Banker Bill. Some
had their butts out ready in their hands, and they clutched them so tight they gone soggy and spoiled and some held their
tablets in palms that sweaty, when they got to the front they was ruined and turned to mush.

'That's the thing with flops,' I said. 'They never think ahead. Do you know what I'm saying! All this queuing,' I said, 'just
a waste of time, if you ain't got nothing to trade at the end of it. There's no way Banker Bill will take that!' I said as
this flop gone past with his tablets that mushy they squeezed out between his fingers. 'He's very strict,' I said, 'Banker
Bill. If they ain't fit for trading, they ain't fit for trading and that's the end of it, no exceptions made. And he knows
his stuff,' I said. 'There ain't no fooling him. You seen him with Safid holding them up to the light. And if he still ain't
convinced, he'll take a quick lick, 'cause he knows the taste of every tablet ever been invented. One time,' I said, 'Curry
Bob give him Moscazil, tried to make out it was Minozine on account of they look the same. Sussed him straight off,' I said.
'He got banned for three months.'