Poppy Shakespeare (29 page)
Authors: Clare Allan
48. How the last piece fallen into place
General speaking, if you want to live, jumping in front of a train ain't your easiest option. According to the
Sniff Street
Gazette,
most people die straight off. A few survive with 'severed limbs'. Only Poppy come through without a scratch.
The article was on the front page: SNIFF STREET WOMAN RESCUED UNDER TRAIN! There was a photo of these two men got her out,
stood with their arms crossed on the station platform, smiling 'cause they'd give them a bravery award. Witnesses said she
just jumped in front, 'like diving into a swimming pool'. Nobody couldn't believe she'd survived. Course it didn't actually
give Poppy's name specific.
I stood reading it in the newsagent's. 'Are you
buying
that?' the woman said. I'm like, 'Alright! Who rattled
your
cage.' But I paid anyway just to get out the shop and I sat on the wall of the school opposite like staring until the words
moved around on the page. It was weird, I didn't feel jealous or nothing. Like every dribbler's
dream
you'd of thought. High High High by return of post for the rest of forever, no need to fill out a form. But the honest truth
was I didn't want none of it. I didn't want none of the Abaddon. All I felt was the last piece fell into place. Or almost
the last; there was one thing left, one more thing I still got to do before I could write 'The End'.
It weren't nothing like I'd remembered it. The hill weren't hardly a hill at all, just a bit of a slope, what a ball wouldn't
know to roll down it. Either side was an ugly great housing estate, row after row of brown brick flats, stacked three storeys
high with walkways between them, stunking of piss and stale beer. I ain't saying I didn't
recognise
it, of course I did, ain't fucking
stupid.
But it weren't the Darkwoods . . .At least it was, but it
weren't
if you know what I'm saying. I'm like 'Jesus!' all the way up the street, like 'Jesus, N, where you been!' 'Cause it weren't
how it
was
was freaking me out, it was how it been
before.
The Abaddon Mental Health Centre was this red brick building, halfway along the street. Seven floors; I know 'cause I counted.
Seven rows of windows. Then it stopped like someone just chopped it off, flat roof and cloudy sky. I stood there and I give
it a look, like a
look,
do you know what I'm saying. 'Fucking wankers!' I said out loud. This couple of flops was sat out on the wall, sharing a can
of Tennent's. 'Not you,' I said, but they weren't even listening anyway. 'Fucking wankers!' I said again. It was like, I don't
know, it was like I been conned. Like the tower and all that; I ain't saying it makes sense, but you know what I mean, I'd
give it thirteen years of my life and it was all just a big fucking con.
The sign by the entrance was new alright. 'The Abaddon Mental Health Centre' it said, and right underneath, where you couldn't
hardly miss it, this picture of a lighthouse, or that's what it looked like, and
'Beacon of Excellence 2005'.
'Visiting's two till six,' says Sharon. He was alright, I s'pose, nothing special.
'It's five to,' I said but he didn't say nothing, just shrugged and gone back to his mag.
I stood there, arms folded, leant on one hip. I'd been dreading it to tell you the truth, but now I was here, I needed to
see her; I needed to get it over.
'Alright, seventh floor,' he said.
'Thanks,' I said and I smiled like thanks for nothing.
The lift stunk of fag smoke and months of no washing. I tried holding my breath but it gone so slow, like half an hour practically
every floor, by the time it reached the seventh my eyes was popping out their sockets.
First person I seen was Sue the Sticks, sat in the TV room with a crowd of flops.
'N!' she called.
'Shit,' I thought. 'Alright?' I said. 'I never seen you there.'
'You got a spare fag, N?' she said.
I give her a pack. 'You
sure?'
she said.
'Go on,' I said.
'You
sure?'
she said. 'I don't want to take advantage.
'You just come in this morning?' she said.
'Ain't
in,'
I said. 'I'm visiting!'
'Oh,' she said. 'Oh! I thought you was in! I thought there's N back in again! Didn't I Mohammed; that's what I thought!' Mohammed
grunted, whoever he was, fat flop sat watching the telly.
'You alright though, N?' said Sue the Sticks. 'You coping? You getting the help you need?'
'I'm fine,' I said.
'You
look
alright. I thought that when you come in, I thought, she
looks
alright, but you just can't tell. That's one thing I've learned, you just can't tell. Not any more you can't anyway. You heard
about Poppy?'
'What?' I said.
'You ain't offended are you, N? I didn't mean there weren't nothing wrong with you. The opposite, that's what I meant to say
. . .'
'What about Poppy!' I said.
'Oh!' she said. 'Well what they've found out is: Poppy weren't never right in the head to begin with! She got this flaw in
her psychic, they said. Didn't show up when they done the testing. Most probably born with it, they said, and all her life
she'd been covering it up, trying to survive by pretending she was normal. It weren't till she got to the Dorothy Fish and
started to get the support she needed, she could finally admit to herself there was anything wrong.
'She's told me all about it,' said Sue. ' "Just think if I hadn't of come!" she said. "Don't bear thinking about," I says
to her.
Thirty-three
diagnoses, N, and they's finding more every ward round!'
'So how come they missed it then?' I said. 'How come it never shown up in the tests?'
'Just one of them things, I suppose,' said Sue. 'Something with the computers they think.'
'A bug,' said Mohammed.
'That's it. That's the word. Middle-Class Michael's furious, writing letters all over the place, threatening to sue; you know
what he's like. "Leave it Michael," I says. "Let it go. Every cloud got a lining," I says. "If it weren't for the whatsit . .
'The bug,' said Mohammed.
'If it weren't for the bug then they'd never of found her at all.'
It was the same room we'd come to see the fireworks. The old men's dorm, must of swapped them around. Poppy was laying on
a bed at the end, elbows bent, hands under her head, staring up at the ceiling. A nurse was sat in a chair by her feet, swigging
at a can of Diet Lilt as she rung round words in a wordsearch magazine.
'Alright, Poppy?' I said. 'I brought you some fags.'
She turned and looked. Her eyes was blurred.
'I brought you three packs but I give one to Sue. I can go out and get you some more if you want, if you's running low. Ain't
a problem,' I said. The nurse didn't move so I had to climb around her.
'Least you got a window bed,' I said. There was six beds in the room altogether, three along each side. Opposite Poppy someone
was snoring, bedding pulled right up over her head like a seal trapped under the covers.
'Least you got a window bed,' I said. 'Wish they'd turn their fucking radio's down.' Three different stations was playing
at once from three different bedside lockers.
'Ain't nobody even listening,' I said. 'Do you know what I'm saying! Don't it do your head in . . .?
'I can get you out of here,' I said. 'I'll go and see Leech first thing Monday,' I said. 'You's on MAD money now, innit, Poppy,'
I said. 'You
must
be on MAD money now,' I said. 'We got to get you out of here.' I was crying. I never fucking cry. 'This place'll do your head
in,' I said.
Her face was like all pale and puffed. She was looking at me like she didn't get it.
'I'll get you out of here, Poppy,' I said.
'You want to get out, don't you, Poppy,' I said.
'Least you got a window bed,' I said.
'You can see right the way round the world,' she said. 'When it's clear.'
I would like to thank my parents, Liz and Graham Allan, for their tremendous support and encouragement.
Tash Aw, Bobby Baker, Leala Padmanabhan, Ben Rice, and Kate Weinberg all read the manuscript at various stages and gave generous
and insightful feedback. Many thanks.
Thanks also to Clare Alexander and to Alexandra Pringle, Emily Sweet and all at Bloomsbury.
And to Juliet Allan, Gail Block, Helen Jowett, Kirstin Nicholson, Joanna Price, Jessica Rimmington and Andrew Whittuck.
And, of course, to Bernadette.
And a Palmerston steak for Billie.
Clare Allan was the winner of the first OrangeHarpers short-story prize. She lives in London. This is her first novel.
Copyright ©2006 by Clare Allan
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from
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Published by Bloomsbury Publishing, New York and London
Distributed to the trade by Holtzbrinck Publishers
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
eISBN: 978-1-59691-711-8
First U.S. Edition 2006
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