Poppy Shakespeare (3 page)

7. How I gone to the toilet and heard someone crying in the cubicle next door

Sometimes I sat with Rosetta and Pollyanna, sometimes I sat with Elliot and Dawn and sometimes I sat by myself. I weren't
one of those dribblers who has to have like a best friend, do you know what I'm saying. Even as a kid I weren't into that
stuff. I used to sit where I felt like mostly and if I didn't feel like nothing I sat by myself and I kept my eyes fixed firm
on my plate, so no one couldn't catch me a glance and ask to sit down.

I had my eyes fixed so firm that day, I couldn't tell you nothing 'cept the food on my plate and in less than the time it'd
take to describe it ('The Shovel', my mum used to call me) I'd swallowed it down and gone back out to the common room. It
was almost empty, just a couple of nurses rounding up the last few flops and prodding them back to the wards for their midday
meds, and I reckoned I'd just like use the toilets, on account of once Verna the Vomit come through we'd be queuing up all
afternoon. So out I gone through the double swing doors, on to the landing, round to the left and into the cold blue glare
of the ladies'toilets.

There was three cubicles and two of them already taken. The one on the far end weren't never free 'cause that was where Fifth-Floor
Fran lived. Fifth-Floor Fran was a funny sort of dribbler, should of made her a hermit or something instead 'cause all she'd
ever wanted was a bit of peace and quiet, she said, and she couldn't get
that.
She done up the inside of the cubicle and everything, with photos of her childhood all black and white, 'cause she must of
been over a hundred easy, and her all in frills and her dad like as stiff as a post. There was this little china spaniel on
top of the cistern and a coronation mug and a crucifix hung from the door lock. I know 'cause this one time I climbed up next
door and had a snoop over the top. Fifth-Floor Fran was sat there on the toilet, knitting up her jumper with a little pair
of plastic knitting needles. A lot of the older dribblers done that, the ones as was allowed the needles anyway. They'd knit
up their jumpers and then when they'd finished, they'd unravel them and knit them up again.

The middle one was empty so that's where I gone, but I'd hardly sat down before I heard this sobbing, or that's what it sounded
like, come from my left-hand side. At first I'm like hoping my ears is playing tricks and really the sobbing sound come from
my right and all it was was Fifth-Floor Fran upset herself over her photos. I could still hear her needles like click— click—click
and I'm sat there like hoping and praying it's her but I never been one for fudging the facts and sooner or later I got to
admit I'mhearing stereo.

So what I done was I sat for a second and Weighed Up the Pros and Cons. 'Cause Weighing Up the Pros and Cons was this thing
we got taught in Life Skills. What Rhona done was she drawn these scales on the flip board, and everyone had to say a dilemma
which was something they weren't sure whether to do or not. Then she gone round us all in turn 'cept Brian the Butcher, who
felt too anxious on account of not washing his hands, and we had to give all the reasons for doing it and all of the reasons
for not doing and she wrote them down on either side and the side which come out heavier, that side won. Course we soon worked
out that the way to swing it was just to give more reasons for what you wanted. Like I done whether to clear out my cupboard,
and the truth was I knew I just couldn't be arsed so I come up with that many reasons she gone off the paper, like all the
things I might find in there and it raking up the past and shit, and needing somewhere to put stuff first, and not being too
hard on myself (she loved that), and waiting till the time was right, and by the end of the third sheet there weren't no question and clearing
it out seemed the stupidest thing in the world. I could say more about that group 'cause it turned out pretty lively once
we got hold of it, and Middle-Class Michael done his dilemma 'bout politics or something and Astrid got the hump and walked
out and said how he'd done it deliberate to make her feel stupid, but I won't 'cause I got to get on.

It didn't took me more than a second to spot how the scales was tilted. And the side they was tilted said GET OUT QUICK! And
that is precisely what I done; still pulling up my tracksuit bottoms, I unbolted the door and out I run and the crash of the
scale pan bashing the floor behind me.

But just as I grabbed the door to the landing, this voice come blaring from down the far end. ' 'Ere!' it gone, 'cut out the
racket can't ya! Some of us is trying to get a bit of peace and quiet!' And as I turned back to give it 'Fuck off',the door
of the cubicle nearest me opened and there was Rosetta with eyes like marshmallers and I knew I hadn't made it in time.

'I thought the tower had fallen down! Are you alright?'she said.

'I'm fine,' I said.

'Hold on!' she said. 'I'll just wash my face.'

So I stood and waited like I got to, innit, with one hand still on the door. Her fag-scarred hands kept scooping up water
and splashing it over her face. She splashed it all over her throat as well and round the back of her neck. A few of the droplets
stuck to her hair like little sparkling jewels. When she'd finished she gone for a paper towel but there weren't none left.

'Alright?' I said. I started to open the door.

'You don't have a tissue, do you?' she said.

She was rubbing her face with this black woollen glove, must of took about five layers of skin off. 'I'm sorry,' she said.
There was tears in her eyes.

'I'll leave you, if you want,' I said.

'It's just . . .' she said, and she started crying again. And she carried on crying louder and louder, one hand on the sink
just to hold herself up. And I got the door but I can't just go, but I can't stay neither, do you know what I'm saying, so
I keep on moving it backwards and forwards like I'm trying to fan her or something.

' 'Ere!' shouts Fran. 'Can't you go somewhere else?' And she rapped on the door of her cubicle like three sharp raps and her
knuckles sounded like steel.

'Thinks she fucking owns the place.' I tapped my head.'Fucking mental,' I said.

' 'Ere,' said Fran. 'I heard that, you know!'

'I'm just being selfish,' Rosetta said. 'I should be happy to know she's better. But I can't help worrying,' she said. 'I
mean what if they made a
mistake,
what then? But they don't make mistakes, do they, N?' she said. 'Not after all that studying. Doctors don't make mistakes,'
she said.

'She'll be fine,' I said, still holding the door.

'I should have more trust,' Rosetta said. She started crying
again.

'You going to be out there all day?' shrieked Fran.

'It's just Tony, he wasn't himself at all. He was really strange . . .'

'Always is,' I said. 'Look I'm not being funny, Rosetta,' I said. 'But . . .' The door swung towards me suddenly, Wham!, winding
me in the chest, as Verna the Vomit pushed her way past, slamming the door of the cubicle behind her. And even though that's
the rudest behaviour I ever seen in my life, I couldn't of been much more gratefuller if Gabriel hisself had come and saved
me.

8. How Elliot grabbed Tony's leg by mistake and we practically pissed ourselves laughing

Tina and me was always the first ones in. It gone Tina and me, then Manic Pollyanna, then Astrid and Middle-Class Michael
neck and neck, then Rosetta then Dawn and finally Brian the Butcher, who had to climb up the hill seventeen times, else the
tower would fall like a tree in a storm, killing us all and clearing a path through the Darkwoods to Armageddon.

When Tina and me reached the common room, Elliot would still be sleeping under the chairs, his sweatshirt rolled under his
head like a pillow and one sleeve over his eyes to block out the light. 'Seems a shame to wake him,' Tina would say, and she'd
fetch him his coffee, milk with six sugars, and put it beside him and tap him on the shoulder. Well the morning after I told
you about, she give him his coffee like normal, but her hand shook a bit as she put the cup down and a bit of the coffee,
it slopped over on to the carpet. And Tina being Tina she picked up the cup and taken it back to her handbag to fetch a tissue.
And she's just heading back to mop up the splash when Tony Balaclava appears through the double swing-doors.

There's two things you should know right off 'bout Tony Balaclava. The first is he was a genius. What Tony didn't know about
dribblers and dribbling weren't worth wiping your arse on. And he weren't just smart, he was psychic on top: he could read
what you was thinking. Fact half the time he could tell what you thought before you'd even thought of it yourself. The second
thing is he was the most thinnest person you ever seen in your life, anorexics included. His legs was as thin as a skinny
old pigeon's and his shoulder-blades stuck out that far he could pick things up with them. His face weren't no more than a
great bony beak come shooting out his forehead and down to his chin, with these tiny black eyes set one either side what never
blinked in case they missed something.

So in comes Tony starts walking towards us, and what happened next is like science. You remember that coffee Tina spilled,
it started evaporation. And as Tony opened the double swing-doors, it sent this gust of wind across what drove that coffee
smell up Elliot's nose. And Elliot, still fast asleep, with his sweatshirt rolled under his head like a pillow and one sleeve
over his eyes, he smelled that milky sugary coffee come drifting up his nostrils, and very very slowly right it started to
wake him up. And it weren't like he was properly awake, but just sort of meds-like drowsy and he reached his hand out from
under the chairs to take his cup like he always done but instead of his cup he found he was grasping at nothing. So his hand's
kind of waving backwards and forwards trying to find his coffee, and me and Tina stood there frozen, and Tina with the coffee
cup still in her hand and the packet of tissues to mop up the spill, when, without no more noise than a sparrow would make,
crossing the carpet on tiptoe, Tony Balaclava reaches the chairs.

I seen it coming a mile off, but I still couldn't never believe how perfect he done it! Elliot's hand come from under the
chairs and grabbed Tony's leg round the ankle. And without even realising what he done, on account of his still being half-asleep
and half-doped up to the eyeballs, he started trying to pull the ankle towards him. I'm not sure what give the game away,
maybe the fact the cup didn't feel right, being no more thicker than a blade of grass, or maybe the way it pulled as he tugged,
'stead of coming towards him full of sweet coffee, but suddenly this terrible shriek come from under the vinyl cushions and
the hand shot back with a crack and a yelp as he whacked his elbow hard on the leg of the chair.

Well I was just pissing myself; I couldn't help it, and before very long I'd set Tina off too and the more we tried not to
the more it just seemed even funnier and every time one of us managed to stop, the other one would set them off again and
I never seen Tina so out of herself, and the coffee cup shooking so bad it was flowing down the sides.

But Tony Balaclava never said nothing. Just straightened his trouser leg, took the cup off her and put it on the table. And
Tina and me we stopped laughing then, like instantly like turning off a tap. And that's when Tony turned to me and said how
he wanted a word.

9. What Tony said

As I followed Tony down the corridor, all I could think of was what it could be he wanted. Rational speaking I knew they weren't
going to discharge me. I might not of been the
most
maddest dribbler attended the Dorothy Fish (though speaking objective I ain't saying I weren't) but I weren't the most
normalest,
not by a very long margin. And even despite of all my anxieties, I knew even then no one in his right mind would of worried
for half of one second, 'bout getting discharged. The fact of it was though, I
weren't
in my right mind, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't
help
worrying, and the more I worried the more I got certain, I
was
going to get discharged. And I got so certain, tears come in my eyes, and the floor started swimming, and Tony in front like
Jesus walking on the water.

Well I needed to get a grip of myself, so what I done was I started to count off the doors as we gone past. There was the
staff room and the locker room and two rooms for doing one-to-ones in and the room where they held the weekly meeting, and
each time we gone past a door I give it a number and said what it was for and that way I distracted myself and I started to
feel a bit better. There was the woodwork room where Dawn done her tables and the art room as well for making candles, 'cept
the woman been off sick for about ten years. Then after that the Quiet Room and the large group room like for Life Skills
and stuff, then a couple of small group rooms and after that . . . the doors they just gone on forever and I begun to wish
I'd wore my other Nikes 'cause the ones I had on was rubbing the side of my toe.

We walked on and on past door after door but Tony never stopped outside none of them. And he never spoke neither, but every
so often he'd spin round his head like a bird without moving his shoulders, and give me a quick look just to make sure I was
there.

Then suddenly Tony stopped, so sharp I jarred my knees with trying not to walk in the back of him. And he unhooked his keys
and opened the door, and as he waved me in front of him, I seen we was outside the interview room, where I come every week
for my one-to-one and I couldn't see how it had took us so long to get there.

The dirty-pink chairs was a step up from those in the common room, with cloth-covered seats what itched your arse through
your trousers. Between the chairs was this small square table, chipped on one corner, and on top of that an empty box of tissues.
I seen it all in detail like a camera done close-up.

Tony sat crouched forward with his elbows on his knees and his leg muscles twitching inside of his skinny black jeans. He
didn't say nothing for maybe a minute and all you could hear was the rain outside tap-tapping against the window. Then suddenly
he clasped his hands. 'So how
are
you, N?' he said.

I give a shrug, I weren't going to say nothing more till I knew what he wanted. Now we'd stopped walking my fears had woke
up and begun to wriggle about like a pile of puppies.

'Well I won't beat about the bush,' he said, and he rubbed his hands like a football rattle; I practically shat my load. 'How
would you like to do a job for me, N?'

It was like coming round, the nurse's face, then the rails, and the curtains, and the drip and the lights and I started to
realise I weren't being discharged after all.

'Shakespeare?' I said when Tony told me. 'Fuckin'ell! Bet she's smart!'

He smiled at the carpet, like this flicker of a smile, like a lighter running low on fluid.

'So what am I s'posed to
show her?'
I said, ('Careful, girl' I says to myself. 'You ain't out of this one yet.')
'I
don't know nothing, do I,' I said.

'Just show her around the place,' he said. 'Introduce her to people; that sort of thing.'

'Nah,' I said, and I shaken my head. 'Ain't up to it, Tony. Sorry; I'm not. Does my head in, that sort of thing.' (Like still
looking for the trap, do you know what I'm saying.)'What you asking
me
for?' I said.

'Because,' he said, 'we think it might help. You need to connect with people, N . . . And for Poppy as well. She's new to
all this. Imagine how she must feel,' he said. 'She needs someone in the know . . .'

'Don't trust no one though, do I,' I said. 'Not after . . .'

'You know you can always ask for time. That's what we're here for, N,' he said. 'I know it might seem like we're always busy,
but we
are
here to help; you just have to ask.'

And he gone on and on about how much they cared and how it might seem like they didn't but they did, and on and on and on
till he done my head in.

'Alright!' I said. 'Alright, I'll do it!'

'I'm sorry?' he said.

'I'll show her around.'

'Oh right,' he said. 'Yes, thank you, N.' It was like he'd forgot all about it. Then he give me the info, like when she was
coming and where to meet and stuff.