by Clare Allan
Poppy Shakespeare
CLARE ALLAN
BLOOMSBURY
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
1. How it all begun
2. How Tony Balaclava got a point
3. A bit about the Dorothy Fish and the Abaddon and stuff like that you can skip if you been there already
4. How Brian the Butcher was late for his break and how he broke us the news about Pollyanna
5. How everyone reacted different, accorded to how self-centred they was, and how secure in theirselves
6. How Middle-Class Michael done my fucking head in
7. How I gone to the toilet and heard someone crying in the cubicle next door
8. How Elliot grabbed Tony's leg by mistake and we practically pissed ourselves laughing
9. What Tony said
10. How I never got a chance to say on account of Pollyanna
11. What everyone said about the note and how they started rowing about the rhyme
12. How Tony Balaclava come through and landed me right in it
14. A bit about the weekend you can skip if you want, and what happened Monday morning
15. A bit about the weekend you can skip if you want, and what happened Monday morning
16. How Middle-Class Michael should of got in the Guinness Book of Records
17. How everyone turned to Poppy and what Poppy said
18. How everyone reckoned the sun shone out Poppy's arse
19. How Poppy eaten a piece of humble pie
20. A bit about my childhood, you can skip if you ain't interested
21. How I offered Poppy to show her Banker Bill
22. Next morning outside Abaddon Patients' Rights
23. What Poppy said
24. How me and Poppy gone to see Mr Leech
25. How none of Poppy's friends wouldn't borrow her the money
26. How Brian the Butcher was late for his break and I knew before he'd told us what had happened
27. How paranoia begun to spread like wildfire
28. How Rosetta heard something she shouldn't of, and what she heard had everyone give Poppy a second look
29. How the dribblers gone on about fetching the sangers till it done me and Poppy's heads in
30. How I walked past the 'Urine Samples' sign without even noticing and I had to go back and hand it in and what happened when I did
31. About my assessment and how it weren't at all what I been expecting but I done my best to use the resources God give me
32. How Rosetta gone and done a Captain Oats
33. How me and Poppy done mirroring and it was, it was really weird
34. How Poppy asked me to help her out and I done it 'cause I was her friend
35. How Middle-Class Michael done this speech and everyone switched off
36. How Poppy finally heard about her MAD money claim
37. How Poppy had to prove she was a dribbler
38. Why I like fireworks and stuff like that you can skip if you can't be arsed
39. How me and Poppy gone up the tower looking for proof
40. How Poppy come along pretty remarkable good
41. How me and Poppy got more and more closer and told each other stuff
42. How Tony Balaclava washed his hands
43. How Tony give us a piece of good news and Middle-Class Michael called a crisis meeting
44. How I shown them the back of my head, every single one of them
45. How 17 March was a sad day for anyone, cares about truth and justice
46. How I done my best to be a good friend, despite of everything
47. How I remembered and how it done my head in
48. How the last piece fallen into place
Acknowledgements
A Note on the Author
Imprint
For Bernadette
An insufficient tribute
'Since prisons and madhouses exist, why,
somebody is bound to sit in them' Anton Chekhov
1. How it all begun
I'm not being funny, but you can't blame me for what happened. All I done was try and help Poppy out. Same as I would of anyone, ain't my fault is it, do you know what I'm saying, not making like Mother Teresa, but that's how I am.
It weren't like you realised anyway, not at the time, not that first Monday morning. It weren't like you seen it all then and there when Poppy come stropping in them doors with her six-inch skirt and her twelve-inch heels; it weren't like you seen it all laid out, the whole fucking shit of the next six months, like a trailer, do you know what I'm saying, the whole fucking shit of the rest of our lives, which the way I'm feeling, do you know what I'm saying, most probably come down to the same.
Poppy Shakespeare, that was her name. She got long shiny hair like an advert. 'Shakespeare?' I said when Tony told me. 'Fuckin'ell bet she's smart.'
Tony 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. ' 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. What you asking me for?' I said.
But Jesus, if you'd of heard him go on! Weren't nobody else would do, he said. Weren't nobody else in the world, he said, not Astrid Arsewipe - couldn't argue with that not Middle-Class Michael, not no one at all, alive or dead or both or neither, known as much about dribbling as I did.
2. How Tony Balaclava got a point
Fact is I been dribbling since before I was even born. My mum was a dribbler and her mum as well, 'cept she never seen her hardly, grown up in a home while they scooped out bits of her mother's brain, like a tater, taken the bad bits out, till she never even knew she got a daughter no more and all she could do was dribble and shit, and one time I seen her, went with my mum, and it done my head in a bit to be honest, all humps and hollows and whispy white hair but afterwards Mum said what the fuck. 'Come on, N,' she said, 'let's what the fuck!' and we gone to this massive like stately home except it weren't it was a hotel, but that's what you'd think, you'd think, Brideshead Refuckingvisited, which my mum loved that programme, give her ideas, and she gets us this room like the size of a church, starts ordering salmon and champagne and shit and dancing around in her underwear, which I don't know why she was down to that but she was, I remember it certain. And then I remember the knock at the door, she was twirling her tights round her head at the time, and policemen and handcuffs and, 'You come with me, love. Your mum will be fine; she's just not very well.' Like news to me, do you know what I'm saying, and I give her 'Fuck offl' and wriggled her arm off my shoulders.
When Mum weren't twirling her tights round her head, she was hanging off bridges and slashing her arms and swallowing pills by the bottle and shit, till one Tuesday evening 6.15, Mill Hill East station, not that it matters, she jumped in front of a train and that was the end of it.
When I weren't living with Mum I got fostered out, or I stayed down Sunshine House which was better 'cause none of the staff give a fuck, and you done what you wanted. Back then we was into sniffing glue and the longer you sniffed, like the harder you was, and this one time it's me against Nasser the Nose and everyone's cheering, do you know what I'm saying, and the next thing I know I come round six months later playing pool on the caged-in balcony of this unit for fucked-up kids.
After that it was like I never looked back. By thirteen I been diagnosed with everything in the book. They had to start making up new disorders, just to have me covered, then three days before I turned seventeen, they shipped
me up to the Abaddon to start my first six-month section.
Don't get me wrong. I ain't after the sympathy vote. The only reason I'm telling you this is just to prove how for once in his life Tony weren't talking out of his arse; he got a point and a fair enough point and in the end I had to admit, weren't no one better qualified to show Poppy round than me.
3. A bit about the Dorothy Fish and the Abaddon and stuff like that you can skip if you been there already
At the time all this happened I was going to the Dorothy Fish, which in case you don't know is a day hospital, and in case you don't know what one of them is, it's this place where you go there every day and when it shuts at half-four you go back down the hill to your flat on the Darkwoods Estate.
Most probably you's wanting the history as well, like why did they call it the Dorothy Fish, but I ain't going into none of that on account of I don't know. Middle-Class Michael said they called it after this lady or something, 'The widow of Thompson Fish,' he said, 'the haulage man,' like you ought to know, who give all her money to dribblers when she fallen out with her daughter. Rosetta said she'd heard they'd called it after this nurse, like a tribute. But Astrid said bollocks to both of them. Everyone knew Dot Fish, she said, she was manageress down the Kwik Kleen launderette, got stabbed to death and stuffed in the spin drier when a customer mistaken her for a tiger. Sue thought it must be an anagram and she used to get Verna to try and crack it, but they never got further than 'history' and some shit that didn't work out.
The Dorothy Fish was on the first floor of the Abaddon that's Abba-dons how you say it. And the Abaddon Unit was this huge red tower as tall as the sky, stood on top of this enormous hill. Above the Dorothy Fish you got inpatient wards, stacked up like a chest of drawers. No one even known how many; the lift stopped at seven but there was loads more than that. If you looked from the bottom of Abaddon Hill, the tower was so tall you couldn't even make out the top of it. It gone up so high you couldn't see the windows and it kept going up until all you could see was this faint red line disappearing into the clouds. Professor Max McSpiegel said that even if you could see all the floors, you'd run out of numbers to count them with before you got halfway up. Said the tower was so tall if you got to the top you'd see right around the world and back in through the windows behind you.
The way it worked at the Abaddon was the madder you was, the higher you gone, then they move you down through the floors as you get better. And as you moved down you could do more things. On the seventh you couldn't do practically nothing, you couldn't even take a piss in private 'cause the toilets hadn't got no doors on them. On the fourth they'd let you have a bath though you had to use your foot for a plug and they checked you every three minutes. When you reached the second you was allowed to go out, like round to the Gatehouse or Paradise Park, so long as you come back in time for your meds and didn't take the Michael. It was all meant to get you to lay off the mad stuff and start acting normal, like showing a dog a treat to make it sit.
From the eighth floor up it was one-way traffic and that's about all I can tell you. If you gone up the eighth floor you never come back, just disappeared like crap up the hose of a hoover. In the Dorothy Fish we used to call it 'The Floor of No Return' 'cause even with all the bragging and bollocks what pours out of mouth of your average dribbler as thick as the clouds of cheap fag smoke, you never met no one who'd claim they been there, or no one aside of Candid Headphones which just proves my point that I'm saying.
The Dorothy Fish was the best of both worlds: you was getting the help but you done what the fuck you wanted. All day long we sat in the first-floor common room, with its wall of windows looking down over London: St Paul's the size of a teenager's tit, Canary Wharf, the London Eye, the Thames twisting through like the width of a worm, fuck knows how many flats and streets and shops and offices and shit, and all those millions of sniffs, crossing the windows every day and back again each evening, all shrunk into ten panes of reinforced glass. Us day dribblers sat across the back with our feet on the tables smoking our fags and flicking our ash in the brown metal bins at our sides. The flops, what was allowed off the wards, they sat in two rows under the windows, smoking their fag butts and flicking their ash on the carpet. The carpet was the filthiest carpet you ever seen in your life. You couldn't even tell what colour it was on account of it was so fucking filthy. The walls was a pale shitty brown from the smoke and across the back wall above our heads was this line of yellow rectangles where there'd used to be pictures but they'd took them down 'cause the flops kept throwing their cups at them and breaking the glass. You could still see the splashes where the coffee exploded and run down the shitty brown walls. In one of the rectangles Zubin drawn this picture of Tony Balaclava, with his beaky nose and his purdy hair and triangular fangs like his teeth had been sharpened with a nail file.
The reason the flops kept throwing their cups was on account of the fact they was jealous. What they said was we clogged up the system, like stopped them from getting moved down. The flops said we eaten their cake or whatever, and we didn't want to leave. Which was bollocks, and even if it weren't, if we wanted to stay then that proved we was mad and if we was mad we weren't ready to leave. It was Zubin worked that out and Zubin was smart; you couldn't even tell if he was joking half the time.
4. How Brian the Butcher was late for his break and how he broke us the news about Pollyanna
Everyone talks like it started with Poppy, but really it started before she arrived. The first thing was Manic Pollyanna and this is what happened.
We was all sat in the common room one morning completely like usual, when Sue glanced up at the clock with no hands and noticed how Brian was late. 'He's late for his break,' she said. 'I wonder what's happened.' So we all had a look and seen it was true: Brian the Butcher was nearly three minutes late.
Well just as we's sat there puzzling and wondering what could of happened, there's this huge crashing boom as Brian bursts in, sending the swing-doors flying either side, hurries across without checking the carpet and sits in his chair bolt upright with his hands in his lap.
'Is everything alright?' said Middle-Class Michael. And Brian he give this quick look round and he rubbed his hands on his trousers. Behind him the double swing-doors still flapping, open and shut like the gills of a fish.'Pollyanna's been discharged,' he said.
No one said nothing. No one moved even, just froze how we was, with our fags halfway to our mouths.
'She's what?' said Astrid, had to be Astrid. Then everyone jumped in. And we asked Brian that many questions he panicked and sat there just shooking his head, and saying, 'Very much so.'
So after that Rosetta took charge 'cause Rosetta and Pollyanna was like best friends. And Brian he taken a few deep breaths and rubbed his hands on his trousers. And his hands made a sound like sandpaper scratching and bits of skin floated down to the carpet like sawdust. Then he told us how he'd seen Pollyanna when he come out the toilets for his break, and he never even known it was her, he said, on account of she looked so different, and he said she weren't manic no more, not at all. 'In fact, quite the reverse,' he said. And she looked all kind of deflated, he said, like someone had let half the air out. Then he said what she'd told him about being discharged, and we got him to tell it us three times over on account of we couldn't believe it. But the fourth time we asked he said he had to get going, 'cause his break was up and he needed to wash his hands.
5. How everyone reacted different, accorded to how self-centred they was, and how secure in theirselves
Well there weren't a dribbler amongst us could make no sense of it.
Rosetta just sat there shooking her head, staring across at the empty brown vinyl with the foam poking up through the holes in the seat and the red letter 'P' wrote in marker pen on the back. 'Just can't believe it,' she kept on saying.'She wasn't normal last night, Lord knows! She was high as the sky last night,' she said. 'How's she turned normal all of a sudden . . . Must be the counselling,' she said, 'and th
e medication.' Must be that. Must be the Lord done a miracle! Let's hope he'll be helping the rest of us soon . . .
'Just can't believe it,' she kept on saying. Her fag-burnt fingers played with the bracelet she got off Pollyanna for her fiftieth birthday, with a gold-link necklace and a pair of studs, all out of Littlewoods, two pound a week for the next five hundred years.
'They're no fools, those doctors,' Rosetta said. 'You got to admit they know their business.'
'Well I'm glad someone thinks so,' said Sue the Sticks, formerly known as Slasher Sue before she give up self-harming. 'Ain't that right, Vern. I'm glad someone thinks so.'
'Just like that!' Rosetta said. 'They'll be curing us all and shipping us out.'
'Speak for yourself.' said Astrid Arsewipe, taken the hump like usual.
Weren't every dribbler was so convinced the doctors knew their business, but the more Rosetta kept saying they did, the more the doubts crawled in. And the flops as well, you could see in their faces, even the ones what was so drugged up they looked like they been whizzed in a blender and poured back into their bodies; you seen their eyebrows twist into frowns as one by one they realised what had happened.
'You'd think they'd be happy about it,' said Astrid. 'This is what they've been waiting for: us lot to get discharged so they can move down!'
'Nah,' said Zubin. 'They're shitting theirselves.'
'They look quite excited,' said Middle-Class Michael.
'Shitting theirselves,' said Zubin, again. 'If there's one thing flops can't stand,' he said, 'even worse than nothing not changing, it's anything changing at all.
'Just take a look at him,' he said, and he jerked his head to the corner beside him and everyone turned to look, but all you could see was the plant in the corner, a 'weeping fig', which I known 'cause it said so, still got the label tied round its trunk like a tag on the toe of a corpse. Then we spotted him. Second-Floor Paolo; he'd curled hisself up like a wintering hedgehog under the scaly dead branches, half of him covered in crispy brown leaves and his dark hair stood up in spikes.