Poppy Shakespeare (27 page)

44. How I shown them the back of my head, every single one of them

I weren't even going to go to the meeting, was I, anyway. Poppy weren't going. 'I can't!' she said. 'What do you mean you
can't?' I said. 'I can't,' she said, 'I'm meeting Dud.'
'Dud!'
I said. 'What you meeting
Dud
for?' 'I don't know,' she said. 'He wants to talk . . . About Saffra,' she said. 'Oh, right,' I said. 'And what Dud wants,
Dud gets,' I said. 'Don't, N!' she said. 'Please. Please, don't!'

To be honest, I was a bit pissed off. It weren't like I wanted to go to the meeting, I could think of plenty of stuff I'd
rather than spending all evening sat in a room with the same bunch of dribblers I'd spent all fucking day with. But Poppy,
she never done
nothing
no more, do you know what I'm saying; she was getting as bad as what
they
was. I'm like 'Why don't we go into town tonight? We could go to a club, get a Chinese or something.' But Poppy just stares
at me, like
'Town?'
like I'm saying let's go to the fucking moon; I'm like, 'Alright, let's get a DVD, if you ain't in the mood for going out.'
Do you know what I'm saying, like bent over
backwards,
but she don't feel 'up' to a DVD, so I'm 'Alright, what
do
you feel like doing?' and she's 'Maybe I'll just get an early night.' And not just the once, I mean the
whole fucking time.
I'm like, 'Lighten up!' do you know what I'm saying, 'You ain't in a concentration camp!' I mean I never
said
that, but I
felt
like it. 'You ain't dying of cancer; do you know what I'm saying!' I'm like pull yourself together!

I made myself pasta with pesto sauce and when I'd ate it I sat on the sofa, smoked three whole packs of B&H straight, and
tried to work out when Poppy had got so boring. And I'm not being funny but it seemed like years, it seemed like fucking
centuries
ago we gone to the cinema that first time, shared a bucket of popcorn, best night of my life; now she weren't no different
from the rest of them, like all she fucking cared about was getting through her next assessment. And then I suppose I just
decided I might as well go to the meeting, like nothing to lose, do you know what I'm saying; it weren't like she give me a
whole lot of choice side of staying sat in on my own.

I was late. As I gone down the steps to the drop-in, I seen through the windows everyone already there. Michael up one end,
stood on a crate, and this whole crowd of dribblers like squeezed on to sofas and sat on the floor and perched on the tables,
and crammed in five deep at the back. There was Dawn, sat next to Robert the Cab, and Wesley and Chip and Swiller Steve; and
then I seen Astrid; she never seen me, she was sat half-turned away from the window, gazing up at Middle-Class Michael, licking
her lips and lapping up every word, but there was something about the way she was, I couldn't of said no more than that, it
was like some sort of a stunk she give off, do you know what I'm saying, I
knew
I was in the shit. Then Verna right, ain't seen her in months, she suddenly looks up and clocks me. And she says something
and everyone turns, and suddenly everyone's staring at me, the whole fucking lot of them staring at me, the whole fucking
lot of them lit up inside and staring outside at me.

'Uh, oh, girl!' I says to myself but I walked past and rung the buzzer, ain't no scuttler.

It was Jike on. She answered the door, 'We haven't seen
you
for a bit,' she said. Dawn's tables was all piled up in the hall, stacked both sides, as high as the ceiling; you walked down
a tunnel between them. 'Can I get you a cup of tea?' she said. You could tell she knew. 'I'm fine,' I said. I gone past her
into the sitting room.

You never heard nothing so deafening loud as the silence of all of them dribblers. I could hear my own tea churning round
in my stomach; the taste of pesto come back in my mouth as they parted to let me walk through. 'Alright everyone?' I said,
'Alright Rosetta.' There she was, must of come down to the Darkwoods special, still in her Abaddon nightie. 'Alright Candid
Headphones,' I said; she'd even turned her music off. 'Alright Tadpole. Alright Brian. You done your checking,' I said. I
was only being friendly, but no one said nothing. Weren't like I give a shit, know what I'm saying, but you couldn't help
feeling edgy. 'Zubin!' I said, 'cause I suddenly seen him, stood by the notice-board. Got this red-and-white scarf tied round
his head. 'Didn't recognise you!' I said. 'Thought you was a pirate, stood there!' Not one of them laughed. 'So where's the
treasure?' I said.

Weren't nowhere to sit, so I just got to stand there. Everyone staring. Total fucking silence.

'N,' said Middle-Class Michael. He coughed and pulled at his nose and his ears gone red.

'Ain't
her
fault!' said Sue the Sticks suddenly. 'Ain't
N's
fault, is it, Verna!' she said but everyone told her to shush. I don't know why 'cause I weren't upset, but I felt these
tears well up in my eyes and for one awful moment I thought I was going to start crying.

'You haven't brought Poppy?' Michael said.

'Ain't her fucking keeper,' I said, least I would of. I couldn't; just stood there.

'It ain't though, is it?' said Sue the Sticks. 'How was
she
s'posed to know? None of
us
realised, did we?'

'She's right,' said Rosetta.

Astrid tutted.

'I'm not
sure,'
said Verna. 'I thought there was
something.'

'It was obvious!' said Astrid. 'I knew it. The way she waltzed in with her nose in the air. I said to myself, "Steer clear
of that!" It's just a pity . . .'

'Hold on!' said Rosetta. 'You really
can't
blame N!'

But Astrid Arsewipe said she could, and what was more than that she would, and what was more than either of them she weren't
about to be told what to do by a fucking flop thanks very much! Which gone down about how you might expect and inside of around
two seconds flat, the whole room's scrapping and hurling crap, slippers and trainers and mugs of tea — a Big Mac Happy Meal
flown past my nose — being about half for and half against whatever it was they was scrapping about: me, I suppose, at the
end of the day, not that none of them couldn't remember.

The weird thing was the longer I stood there, the more I just didn't give a shit. I don't want to sound ungrateful or nothing,
fact sometimes that worries me a bit, like Rosetta and Sue, do you know what I'm saying, but the fact of it was that the longer
I stood there, and Middle-Class Michael coughing and stamping - 'This is
no
way to conduct a meeting. I must ask you to
control
yourselves' — I felt the tears dried up from my eyes and then suddenly, it was only a moment, it was like I risen above them
all, and I mean that literal, 'risen above'. My feet, they stayed where they was, by the crate, splintered it was now from
Michael's stamping, but the rest of me, it was like I grown, like all in an instant as tall as the sky and I'm looking down
and I can't hardly see them, like ants scrapping over a couple of crumbs and taller until I can't see them at all and the whole
of the Darkwoods the size of my fist, and the tower, one finger, 'Up yours!' in the middle.

Then just as quick I'm back down to myself, normal size, in my trainers, and Michael's explaining all about Poppy and everyone's
quiet, 'cept a tatty old slipper, a Coke can and two MAD money forms, still flying back and forth till they's evens.

Looking back, I fucked some things up. Maybe I fucked a lot of things up. My whole life even, except for the parts what hadn't
already been fucked up for me before I was even born. But if there's one thing I'm proud of, still to this day, if there's
one thing I want them to play at the end, do you know what I'm saying, like my
Big Brother
highlights, it's when I walked out of that drop-in. I turned round. Never said one single word. I waited till Michael had
finished his bit, then I turned round and shown him the back of my head. I could feel them all waiting, like holding their
breath, and I walked, didn't look, just walked straight out the door, and I shown them all the back of my head, and I turned
and I walked down the tunnel of tables, heard Jike behind me: 'N,' she said. And I shown
her
the back of my head and all, then I opened the door and gone out.

By the time I reached Poppy's it must of been midnight, or maybe even later. I know it was after one when the ambulance come.

In between, I'd been walking about, not going nowhere special, just walking about. I maybe gone in a couple of pubs, but mostly
I just kept walking. Eventually I wound up on Borderline Road and I kept walking on and on. It was cold. I walked fast. Started
raining a bit. I remember the feel of the wet on my face and the street lights reflecting off the shiny pavement. And all
the time just this one single word, I kept on repeating it over and over, turning it round and around in my mouth, like chewing
gum, till it lost all flavour, over and over and round and around, till it didn't got no meaning, just a series of sounds,
and I kept on repeating it, 'Normal. Normal. Normal.'

An hour gone by, maybe two, even three; I was just at the bottom of Abaddon Hill where it crosses Borderline Road and turns
into Sniff Street. 'Fuckin'ell girl!' I says to myself, like snapping out of a trance. 'How many times you crossed over this
junction! You must of walked round that hill seventy times! Do you know what I'm saying!' I said to myself. 'I
thought
you was getting shorter!' And I laughed; I did. I laughed so loud, that gum I'd been chewing shot out of my mouth, done this
massive arc over Borderline Road and stuck to the window of Leech's. Which if you don't believe me, you can still see it now;
if you stand and look up outside Cafe Diana at the blue plastic letters transferred on the glass, first 'O' of 'SOLICITORS',
bang in the middle: bull's-eye.

Then without even really thinking about it, instead of crossing Abaddon Hill I done a left, over Borderline Road, and set
off down Sniff Street for Poppy's. I don't know if all of that going round and round, it done something weird or what - like
winding up one of them Happy Meal toys - but all of a sudden I'm wanting to skip and I can't see no reason why
not
to start skipping, so I do, and I'm laughing and skipping along and I ain't even out of breath, know what I'm saying, and
I run a bit too, and my body feels light and I know I could run round the world.

It was hours before Poppy answered the buzzer and when she did she dropped the phone, then she clattered around for another
hour picking it up.

'Whoothhaa?' she said.

'It's me,' I said.

'Whoothmee?' she said.

'It's me!' I said. 'Open the door.'

Now anyone who knows me, have to say I was easy going. But if there's one thing fucking winds me up it's dribblers overdosing.
Ain't saying I never done it myself, ain't saying I'm perfect neither, but there I am with my wine in the one hand, my Phileas
Fogg's in the other (twenty-four hour shop, no questions asked), bounding up the stairs three at a time, 'Poppy!' I'm shouting.
'Listen to this!' Someone hammered on a wall but I give them fuck off, weren't nothing couldn't dampen my spirits. 'Poppy!
It's all OK! It's fine! You're normal, Poppy; you ain't mad at all. I got proof!' I shouted. 'Open the door!' I'd reached her
landing but she hadn't come out. 'I got wine,' I shouted. 'I'm leaving as well! I'm going to be a receptionist. We can work
together! Open the door!' Then slowly she opened the door.

It weren't even hardly an overdose what Poppy had took, do you know what I'm saying. Fifteen Plutuperidol. She'd bought them
off Banker Bill. But it was still enough to write off the celebrations.

'Dithuun mean id, N,' she said. 'Pleasth dhon be aaan-gry. I dithuuun mean id!'

'But there ain't nothing
wrong
with you!' I said. 'That's the whole fucking point! You was right all along!'

Poppy frowned at me, gone slightly cross-eyed. 'Wha-whathaa?' she said.

'You's
normal,'
I said. 'That's
why
they picked you. They needed somebody normal,' I said. 'They been measuring us lot against you,' I said.

'Whafffor?' she said. 'Whaddyoutalkingabou?'

'I'm saying there ain't nothing
wrong
with you!' I was shouting by now, you just couldn't get through, like talking to someone who didn't speak English. 'Middle-Class
Michael can
prove
it,' I said. 'They been using you like a fucking bench!'

'Dithuunn mean id, N,' she said. Her knees give way and she slid down on to the floor.

45. How 17 March was a sad day for anyone, cares about truth and justice

Next day when I gone up the Dorothy Fish, I never even made it as far as the first-floor common room. You could hear the shouting
from down in the lobby. 'Sounds like the shit's hit the fan,' said Sharon, and he winked at me as he give me my pass. I couldn't
believe he done it.

But as soon as I gone through the sliding doors I caught the force full in my face. You never heard shouting so loud in your
life! It whirled round your ears like a fucking tornado; it whirled around Abaddon Patients' Rights, whirled all the leaflets
out of the racks, whirled them around and around in the air so I had to keep batting them off with my arms to force my way
through to the stairs. All up the stairs it got louder and louder till everything was vibrating with sound and the stairs
shooking so bad beneath my feet, I thought they was going to collapse. It weren't till I got to the first-floor landing, I
started to make out the separate words 'cause even though it was still fucking loud, it weren't like the same distorted.

'Compromise!' it gone. 'Compromise! There's nothing else
left
to compromise!'

Someone said something; you couldn't hear what.

'But Tony, that's the whole damn point!' Jesus! I thought, that's Rhona the Moaner. Wonder what's ruffled
her
feathers! 'She could have been
killed!
What's happened to you!'

Tony said something else; I'd of give my MAD money to know what it was he said.

'No, Tony! No! This has all gone too far!'

Tony said something else.

'The
Beacon!'
she screamed. 'You think I give a
shit
about the
Beacon?!
You know what you can do with your
Beacon;
you can stick it up your sad little arse!'

Then suddenly she's storming down the corridor towards me. You never seen no one so mad in your life! I swear to God; her
eyes was balls of fire.

Fowler stuck his head out the staffroom doorway. 'Get off of your moral high horse!' he yelled.

And you know what she done, that Rhona the Moaner! Without even looking back, she give him two Vs up high in the air, and
she kept them up too, all the way down the stairs, which I know 'cause I seen from the landing.

'What's so funny?' shouts Malvin Fowler. I made like I never heard him. 'Oi!' he gone. 'N! Wipe that smirk off your face,
and down here; Tony wants you.'

For three weeks after they kicked me out, all I done was lain in bed. Didn't eat, didn't smoke, didn't take my meds even,
just lain on my side underneath the duvet and stared at the clock on the table beside my pillow. The furthest I gone was through
to the bathroom, taken a drink out the tap, then I'd fit myself back in the hollow I'd left, like climbing back into my polystyrene
packing.

Hours I lain there, watching each minute come and go on the clock. Sometimes there seemed like so many of them I couldn't
believe I'd get through. I set myself landmarks like 5.45; if I could make it to 5.45 that meant it was only forty-five minutes
until it would be 6.30. I got through whole days, whole nights like that. It was like I was waiting for something but I didn't
know what.

That first afternoon I thought I was waiting for Poppy, but when she knocked on the door, 17.03, my body wouldn't move. 'N,'
she called, 'open the door; it's me!' It was like I was froze, just my eyes staring out, like holes in the ice on a pond. 'Come
on, N; I know you're in there!' 17.03 seemed to last forever but eventually it become 17.04. 'N, everyone's really upset you've
gone . . . They all saying it's my fault. . . N please let me in!' But I couldn't; I just couldn't move. 17.05, 17.06. At 17.12
Poppy gone.

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.