Poppy Shakespeare (5 page)

14. A bit about the weekend you can skip if you want, and what happened Monday morning

Unbefuckinglievable! I finally get there and look where I am with my chapters! Now I'm not being funny, but d'you know what
I'm saying, that ain't coincidence. When I started writing about me and Poppy, I reckoned I'd do it all in one go. I made
up a cafetiere of coffee, taken some Penguins from out the cupboard and sat myself down with an exercise book and an old
Marie Claire
to lean on. But that weren't how it happened 'cause once I'd begun, it was like it just kept on coming. It was like - I'll
tell you what it was like - it was like Fifth-Floor Fran, right, sat in the toilet, she drops her ball of wool. And it rolls
out from under the cubicle door, and she can't go and get it on account of she's sworn she ain't never leaving her toilet
again, or not this side of paradise, and she ain't even going to open the door till the priest comes to give her her ticket.
So she just got to keep on pulling her end, but the more she pulls, it just keeps on coming and she's wrapping it round and
around her hand and the wool just keeps coming and coming.

I didn't choose the chapters, that's just how it come; all
I
done was keep on winding and hoping like Poppy'd show up in the
end. Which finally, do you know what I'm saying, I can
see
her under the door, maybe two, maybe three loops maximum, and that's when I realise: chapter**; I mean what are the chances
of that! It give me a shiver, right through my insides, which if you think I'm being paranoid you ain't heard
nothing
yet! By the time I finished you'll be too scared to
think,
case they've planted bugs in your brain.

Poppy never stood a chance. But I ain't making things no worse by starting her off in a chapter like that. Fact thinking about
it the least I can do . . .

15. A bit about the weekend you can skip if you want, and what happened Monday morning

At the time this all happened, I was living on the Darkwoods at the bottom of Abaddon Hill. It weren't such a bad estate
to be honest, packed full of dribblers on account of being so handy for the Abaddon, and sanity-free 'cause no sniff in his
right mind would take a flat so close to a mental hospital. It weren't exactly what you'd call peaceful. There was always
music thumping away, and tellies blaring so loud the windows rattled. You had schizos on balconies hurling plates whilst beneath
them old ladies pissed in the gutter and alkies threw beer cans at passing cars as naked rappers tried to direct the traffic.
In fact the only time the noise stopped was at night and then it stopped altogether, and the whole of the Darkwoods gone quiet,
I mean really kind of spooky kind of quiet, 'cause everyone was zonked with medication.

Personally I never minded the noise. I liked the feeling of all of them people around me. And even at ten when it all gone
quiet, it weren't like you felt on your own, 'cause you knew all around to your right and your left, and above and below and
behind your back wall, there was all of these dribblers just a few feet away, laying there like you was, waiting for their
meds to kick in.

The only thing I
would
say about was the numbering system. They must of had dribblers design it, I reckon, 'cause it definitely didn't make no sense.
I lived in 17B Rowan Walk, which was in between 66D and 17F. Above me was 36DD and the whole of the Darkwoods was numbered
like that, like they ordered it flat-packed and screwed it together all wrong. The thing with the Darkwoods was you just
had to trust your instincts. You couldn't afford to stop and think, 'cause the moment you thought was when you gone wrong,
and once you gone wrong it taken forever to find your way back where you was. Like Rapper Rashid upstairs from me, he gone
for a can of Tennent's and didn't come back till two years later and he never even got the drink anyway, on account of the
offy was shut by the time he got there.

That weekend, it seemed like it gone on forever. I mean, dribblers always hate weekends; bank holidays is extra bad and Christmas
and Easter is worst of all, you can wind up with four fucking days on the trot and nothing to do 'side of laying in bed or
watching TV till your eyes start to melt in their sockets. Sometimes I gone up Paradise Park with a couple of cans, seen the
ducks and stuff, and Sundays I gone down Cafe Diana; I always gone down Cafe Diana (Sunday Special £ 3.95, meat, roast potatoes,
veg
and
pudding) but it still seemed to leave like a million hours to fill up with doing nothing. Even the Darkwoods' drop-in was
closed, used to be open eight till eight, but now 'cause of staffing they only done two to five-thirty Saturdays, and the
queue stretched right down on to Borderline Road, circling around the estate like a giant 'No Entry' sign.

But that weekend before Poppy arrived, it felt like the longest ever. I even thought of going up the tower, score some Minozine
off of Banker Bill to knock me out for a bit, but in the end I couldn't be arsed. I couldn't be arsed with doing nothing at
all, 'cept for sit on the sofa and wait for Monday morning.

By the time Monday morning finally come I felt so fucking shattered, was all I could do to light up a fag and drag myself
through to the bathroom. And what I seen in the mirror when I did, it didn't look much like a guide at all, not even a mentally
ill one, but I give my face a bit of a splash and checked again and splashed some more and the thing in the mirror, it grown
a nose and a couple of ears and a pair of eyes blinked roughly in time with my own.

I gone through, put the telly on and made a cup of tea. The only thing was now I'd woke myself up, I'd woke up my nerves as
well. I sat there watching the GMTV, staring at the numbers in the corner of the screen as they marched through the minutes
to the time when I'd have to go out. If you've ever watched GMTV, you'll know how it keeps going round. And they give you
the news every fifteen minutes and it's always the same unless something's happened like
exactly
the same I mean, word for word — so even if you ain't really watching, you start to know it by heart. Well I'm sure they had
something on that morning about that Mad Tsar woman, Veronica Salmon. She was stood outside of this hospital and all these
reporters asking her stuff, and as soon as they said like 'Veronica Salmon' I remembered what Middle-Class Michael said. I'm
like, 'know her! Ain't she Minister for Madness!' And two seconds later they said it theirselves, and when they did, I felt
pretty smart, I can tell you.

I got to the Abaddon ten past nine. Sharon was sat at his desk by the entrance. 'You're early,' he said, and he give me my
pass. He never looked up on account of he didn't, just carried on reading his fitness mag, turning the pages with his huge
right hand while his left one pumped a dumb-bell up and down above his glistening black head.

The lobby weren't big, maybe twenty foot long with double sliding doors either end. The only place to sit was this black leather
sofa with a trailing plant beside it on a stand. It weren't the sort of sofa you sat on easy. With its smooth leather cushions
and its soft leather arms, there was dribblers I could think of I'd of sat on more easy, but there weren't nowhere else so
in the end I just gone ahead and done it. Well as I sat down it done this fart, ain't no nicer way I can say it. And I swear
I seen Sharon smirk to hisself, but he never looked up and he never said nothing, just tossed the dumbbell over his head,
caught it like a rattle in his huge right hand and carried on reading his mag. And it didn't stop there, do you know what
I'm saying, 'cause every time I moved it done another. And I sat so still I weren't even
breathing,
but each time the sliding doors slid open, I just couldn't help it, it give me a jump, and each time I jumped, it let off
a thumping stunker. So then all I could do was like look at the floor and sit and hope and pray it wouldn't be Poppy.

I don't know how long I stayed sat in that lobby, but I seen Sharon's hair grow from bald to a number four. I tried counting
nurses to pass the time, but with so many of them, they all seemed to merge, till I couldn't no more count them than counting
the drops in the Thames. Dr Clootie gone past and Dr Azazel, and Dr Neutral, wheeling his bike, with the veins in his legs
stood out like thin blue worms. I even thought, being sat there so long, I might get to see Dr Diabolus, 'cause I only ever
seen him twice and that was from a distance. Some dribblers never seen him at all, reckoned he must have a separate entrance,
either that or he never gone home at night but covered hisself in MAD money forms and slept on his desk with a pile of psychiatry
journals for a pillow. I seen Rhona the Moaner, looked suicidal, and Malvin Fowler, red in the face, with his fat pink fingers
wedged down the back of his trousers. I seen the day dribblers coming in too, all of them in order, and, after Tina gone through,
I wondered if Poppy might come next, in the gap where Pollyanna should of been, but there wasn't no one. As the dribblers
gone past me, I nodded and said 'Morning', and most of them give me a 'Morning' back, and Middle-Class Michael wished me luck,
and Astrid as well, though you seen how much it cost her.

What I couldn't get was how Sharon knew who was who. He never looked up, just reached out his hand and give them a pass, red,
purple or green, depending on what they was. And he never once made a single mistake. He never give a doctor a dribbler's
pass or a dribbler a nurse's pass or nothing like that, and I couldn't work out how he done it.

So after that Dawn come in with her son - he walked her right into the lobby - and she kept trying to tip him 'cause she thought
he was a cab and he kept going 'Mum!' and giving it back. And after Dawn the flow begun to slow down.

So after Brian the Butcher come in for his seventeenth time that morning and taken his pass off Security Sharon and pinned
it on, and taken it off and pinned it on, and taken it off so many times I lost count, after he'd finally disappeared on his
final climb up the stairs I begun to worry. I started to think I should go up and check, 'cause maybe I'd missed Poppy somehow.
Or maybe I'd just imagined it all, do you know what I'm saying, just made it up, 'cause I weren't uncapable. And the more
I thought, the more it seemed weird that
Sharon
didn't know nothing.

'Cause Poppy's name should of been on the list, and I couldn't believe I didn't check. So then I thought I'd better ask Sharon,
but just as I was about to get up he tossed the dumb-bell over his head and started again with his left arm, and I made up
my mind I'd wait till he finished his set.

It was then this shouting starts up outside, like swearing and crashing around and stuff. 'What the fuck
is
this fucking place! Don't tell me I know!' and other voices, low so I couldn't hear them. Then the shouting again, 'I'm telling
you, mate, you lay a finger on me, I'll sock you!' And I reckoned it must be some dribbler lost it and heading for The Floor
of No Return. I seen Sharon prick up his ears as well, and he spun round the dumb-bell, like twirling a pencil, psyching hisself
for action.

Then the doors slid open and in come these nurses, one male, one female, gone up to the desk. 'Visiting's not till six,' said
Sharon, without looking up from his mag.

'We're not visiting,' the male nurse said. He weren't so much fat but his sides bulged over his belt top. 'I'm bringing in
a new patient,' he said. Outside the noise had all gone quiet, must of give her a shot up the arse.

'So who are
you?'
Sharon said to the woman, dragging his eyes up from off of his mag. 'I'll have to see some ID.'

The woman was stood, arms folded, leant on one hip. She worn this little black suit, a lacy white blouse, black tights and
snakeskin heels. Maybe she
ain't
a nurse, I thought. Maybe she's an executive. I'd never met an executive but I reckoned they might look like that.

'You don't understand,' the male nurse said. He got curly fair hair, didn't like him. 'This
is
the patient. I'm bringing her here.' Sharon put the dumb-bell back on the stand, picked up a towel and mopped his head, then
slung it around his shoulders. He looked at the nurse. 'OK,' he said. He pointed at the woman. 'You're telling me
she
is a psychiatric patient?'

'Thank you!' said the woman. 'Do you know what I'm saying!'

The male nurse nodded.

Sharon thought for a minute, then he shrugged like what can you do? 'I'll have to check upstairs,' he said; the phone disappeared
inside of his fist. 'What's the name?' he said. 'Poppy Shakespeare,' says Goldilocks.

I don't know when the sofa stopped farting, but I reckon it must of been saving them up for half an hour at least. 'Cause now
as I jumped up, it let rip a stunker. The loudest, smelliest, most inignorable stunker you heard in your life! And Poppy and
the male nurse, they spun round like the sofa exploded behind them.

I couldn't of told you what I said. It all come tumbling out so fast. All jumbled together and tangled so bad Professor McSpiegel
couldn't of made no sense of it. I know I told them I was her guide, and I must of said it like seventeen times, if not seventeen
times seven, and the three of them stood there staring at me, least Poppy and the nurse was stood; Sharon sat like a mountain
behind them. And each time I said it I kicked myself, but almost straightaway I said it again.

Later when we was friends and remembered about it, Poppy said I didn't come over too bad. She said maybe I'd seemed a bit
hyper and that but it weren't like I said nothing stupid. I kept holding out this leaflet, she said, then pulling it back
and shooking it up and down like a leaf of lettuce ('Welcome to the Dorothy Fish', the leaflet was called; I'd got it off
Tony). But apart from that I come over alright. And she said, 'cause I asked her, it didn't even show how this was my first
time guiding. But she weren't really focused on me, she said, being as how she was having a stressful morning.

I don't remember shooking the leaflet, maybe I did; I know I give it to her. And she held it up, like to have a quick look
and I noticed the skin on her hands was as smooth as butterscotch Angel Delight, and her nails wasn't chewed but filed to
perfection and painted to match her lips. And I'm stood there staring at her hands, one either side of the 'Dorothy Fish'
on the leaflet, and I'm thinking this must be some strange sort of dribbler when all of a sudden, that perfect right hand
it takes the leaflet, scrumples it up and lobs it at the bin beside the sofa.

I thought it was going to miss it at first, but it caught the far side and balanced right on the edge, and all four of us
staring; it balanced for maybe a minute, sometimes leaning a little bit one way, sometimes leaning the other, but balancing
all the time like a pair of scales, till suddenly it give up and fallen inside, and we heard it bounce off the empty metal
bottom.