by Clare Allan
I ain't expecting sympathy, do you know what I'm saying; I couldn't give a shit. 'Cause it weren't just chance I didn't fit in, I seen to it I didn't. All them families wanted was to turn you into a sniff, and it didn't make no difference how nice they done it, you always known what was going on underneath. And I ain't saying nothing do you know what I'm saying but sniffs got to be the most arrogant people ever. I never met the sniff yet who didn't reckon everyone should be one - and I never met the dribbler neither willing to oblige. And even as a little kid, I known which team I played for, so as soon as they started their sniff stuff on me, and they give me presents or belted me one or whatever they reckoned worked best to win me over, that's when I told them just where they could stick it and pretty soon I gone back to Sunshine House.
Dribblers don't go in for none of that shit. They ain't trying to convert no one. Mostly they ain't even noticing no one; they's thinking about theirselves. The way dribblers see it there's dribblers enough already. There's hospitals, day centres, drop-ins and projects all packed full to bursting with dribblers. If anything, there's too many dribblers; there ain't enough care to go round. There's waiting lists, thousands of pages long, of dribblers sat waiting for places, and there's more lists of dribblers waiting to go on the lists. The way dribblers see it, there's dribblers enough already. And there ain't no need to go making any more.
I remember this one time my mum come to see me. I don't know how old I was, maybe eight, or how the fuck she'd got let out on leave, maybe she hadn't; maybe she'd give them the slip, she was clever like that. Anyway, it's Saturday and I'm sat in my room watching Swap Shop. And Mrs Dixon's hoovering 'cause that's all she ever done, hoovering, and I don't know where Mr Dixon is, out most probably 'cause the hoovering done his head in. Mrs Dixon's a stupid bitch; once she lost it and screamed at me, 'You're only here to help with the fucking mortgage!' There's this ring on the bell, not a ring exactly; the doorbell done chimes like Big Ben, and the hoovering stops and she goes to answer, all huffing and sighing on account she don't like her hoovering interrupted. 'Oh!' I hear her say, and I know. Before she's even finished the rest, like 'We weren't expecting you today,' I'm down those stairs with their new stair-carpet three at a time and wrapped in the arms of my mum. 'Why don't we have a nice cup of tea?' says Mrs Dixon, thinks everyone's as stupid as what she is. (Why don't we have a nice cup of tea while I call them to come and get you?) 'It's alright,' my mum says. 'I haven't got long. I thought I'd just take N out for a drive,' and she waves to this car, which I ain't never seen another car like it before or since. Golden it was, with huge tail fins and the mirrors stuck out like wings. It must of been about twenty-foot long unless I'm remembering wrong, 'cause one of its front wheels had mounted the kerb outside Mrs Dixon's front gate, while its back wheels was up on the pavement opposite. 'Perhaps I'd better just check,' says Mrs Dixon. 'Check what?' says Mum. 'Well, you know,' says Mrs Dixon, shatting her pants at the thought of her mortgage payments. As we driven off, Mum tooted the horn and we waved all the way till we disappeared round the corner.
21. How I offered Poppy to show her Banker Bill
When Poppy and me gone back through the common room, you could tell Astrid told them we'd laughed, and most probably she'd exaggerated, made out it was All Our Fault, but we didn't give a fuck.
Poppy kept looking around like expecting something. She smoked a couple of fags and that but her mind didn't seem to be on them. She glanced up and down the line of dribblers, smoking their after-dinner fags, and she kept turning round and checking the doors; it was like she was waiting for something. The dopey dribblers was settling down to sleep for the afternoon. Gita blown her cushion up what had sagged a bit during the morning and stuck it around her neck and off like that. Harvey taken a little bit longer, but inside of three minutes he was gone too, snoring away with his chins sunk on to his chest. The flops begun to drift back down after their lunch-time meds and some of them still got butts left over and some of them didn't and just had to sit and watch.
And all the time Poppy kept looking around and fidgeting this way and that. 'So what do you lot do all day?' she suddenly said to me.
'How d'you mean what do we do?' I said. I could feel Astrid glaring at me.
'Well don't know,' said Poppy. 'You must do something!'
'Depends what you mean, I suppose,' I said. 'You see your worker once a week. Sometimes there's groups, but most of them's cancelled usually.'
'What about weaving baskets,' said Poppy. 'Aren't we supposed to weave baskets?'
'Baskets?' I said.
'She's joking,' Rosetta said.
'I'm not!' said Poppy. 'I wouldn't mind weaving a basket. I'm not being funny but I can't just sit on my arse.'
No one said nothing.
'Don't see why not,' said Astrid. 'The rest of us have to.'
'Sit on my arse?' said Poppy. 'I hope not.' She was joking of course and I started to laugh but nobody else joined in.
'But don't you get bored,' Poppy said, 'just sat here all day?'
I glanced at Astrid; she rolled her eyes at Tina, like 'What did I tell you?'
'Perhaps you could go and ask Tony,' whispered Tina.'The art room's locked, but they might have some materials.'
'Tony Balaclava!' said Poppy. 'Talk about the blind leading the blind!'
There was total silence. Poppy glanced round. She caught my eye and pulled a face like 'Oops!'
'What's that supposed to mean,' said Astrid and she give me a glare 'cause she seen Poppy's face. Do you know what I'm saying, like I'm fucking pulling her strings!
'Is from the Bible,' said Rosetta. 'Matthew, fifteen, I think. "If the blind lead the blind they both shall fall in the ditch."'
'I know what it means!' said Astrid Arsewipe. 'What I'm saying is what's she implying?' And she added Rosetta's name to the list of people she got the hump with. And you might think with three names now on her list - Poppy and me and Rosetta - you might think the hump got divided in three, and it didn't feel so bad. But that weren't the way with Astrid at all; she didn't got no divide button. So instead of we each got a third of a hump, we each got a hump times three.
But Rosetta didn't care anyway; you seen she was running through Matthew fifteen in her head.
My mum always said you got to accept the cards you's dealt in life. There ain't no point ranting and raving, she said, you just got to play your hand. But a couple of times that afternoon, I got to admit, I found myself wishing they'd dealt me a different card. It weren't that I didn't get on with Poppy, it was more the others; they didn't know how to take her. And me being me, I felt responsible. Fact is it seemed pretty obvious, it weren't Poppy's fault she didn't know the rules, so when I managed to catch her eye for a second and no one weren't looking, I'd give her a wink just to show I was on her side. But the thing was it weren't no one else's fault neither, and I didn't want nobody thinking I weren't sympathetic, so when Poppy weren't looking I'd be shooking my head and rolling my eyes along with the rest of them. This one time I got me a bit confused and winked at Tina when I should of been shooking my head, and she frowned like she must of missed something so I had to make out I got something stuck in my eye.
Like I say, it weren't Poppy's fault exactly, but she weren't doing herself no favours. I never met no one so under-concerned about making the right impression. By the time Banker Bill come through with his stall, she done Dr Azazel ('Dr fucking Dazzle'), the common room ('Couldn't they do something with it?'), the dead plant ('That s'posed to brighten things up?'), Canteen Coral ('Looks more depressed than the patients, do you know what I'm saying?'); and when Wesley told her how he was depressed, Poppy driven him nearly to suicide by telling him he looked alright to her.
So at two twenty-five, when Bill come through with his little fold-up desk under one arm and his blackboard under the other, I seized my chance. 'I'm going to see Banker Bill,' I said. 'Anyone fancy coming?'
I didn't say Poppy's name out of tact but I give her a look and I rec
kon she got it 'cause she stood up right away. 'I don't mind if I do,' she said. 'If I sit here I will fucking lose it,' and she followed me down the queue what was already forming.
Banker Bill was second-floor, not Dorothy Fish at all, but he was a slippy sort of dribbler, could of carved his niche wherever he wound up. He carried his folding stool with him, so he'd always have somewhere to sit, and his blackboard and his fold-up desk and an end of white chalk in the pocket of his dusty brown jacket. Every Tuesday from half-two till four, whilst the staff was having their meeting with Dr Diabolus, Banker Bill would set up his little stall. He took out his chalk and wrote on his blackboard a list of what meds he was trading, and beside it two columns with prices for buying and selling. This is what it looked like:
As me and Poppy gone down the queue, we passed Banker Bill at his stall, with the blackboard leant against it and in front of him four piles of meds, like chips on a roulette table, and next to them the grey metal box, relocked after every transaction, held his stash of fag butts.
Schizo Safid was stood in front of the table. He kept reaching deep in the pockets of his combats and pulling out handfuls of meds. Banker Bill weren't looking too happy about it. He kept picking out tablets and holding them up to the light, squinting his eyes like a jeweller inspecting a diamond. And all the time Safid kept opening pockets and scooping more tablets out of them.
'What's he doing?' said Poppy behind me, and I turned round and seen she was stopped right in front of the table.
'Oh that's just Safid,' I said. 'He's always like that. Don't show for ages then trades in the whole lot at once.'
'But what's he doing?' said Poppy, staring. Safid's combats shown us the crack of his arse.
'How d'you mean?' I said.
'Well what's he doing?'
'He's trading, innit!'
'Trading?' said Poppy.
'Trading,' I said. 'You must of heard of trading. I'll show you,' I said, and I moved up a bit so Poppy could see the blackboard. The queue looped round again inside the first one, and then again and then again it looked like. 'Alright!' I said, as the flops begun harping. 'We ain't pushing in! I'm just showing Poppy round. Safid's on Plutuperidol,' I told her. 'But the thing is now he's give him so much, Banker Bill will have to change his rates. That's why they's all pissed off,' I said and they was as well, all steaming and stamping, like pay-day down Planet Kebab.
'So what does he do with it now?' said Poppy.
'Who, Bill?' I said.
'Does he chuck it away?' she said.
'Chuck it away? Of course not!' I said. 'What would the point of that be? No,' I said, 'he trades it back. That's how he makes his mark-up. Come on,' I said - she was still stood staring — 'we better keep going or we'll never find the end.'
Tony had put me through fast track for guiding 'cause he reckoned I had the skills in me innate, but after that first day I got to admit, I'd gone home a little bit doubtful. Now, as me and Poppy gone all down the queue, right round the room past the point where we started, then round again, inside the first line, and round again and round again like tracing the shell of a snail, I begun to think Tony might of been right after all. I ain't trying to make like I was a natural - that ain't for me to say - but the fact is to of seen me guiding, you'd never of thought it was only my second day. 'Cause other people thought so too; as we gone past the flops you couldn't help notice the looks they give me, all sort of shy and admiring, and some of them even started clapping - spontaneous, just started clapping - and I heard Fat Cath tell Curry Bob, who was stood alongside her one line in, clutching a handful of fag butts, I heard her tell him clear as mud, 'You'd think she been guiding since before she was even born!' Fact was I found stuff to say 'bout everything and everyone we gone past. I opened my mouth and out it come; I never even had to think. Sometimes that much stuff come out we had to stop, just so's I could finish before we moved on again. I told her about the flops we was passing and things they done when they lost it, I told her about the time Carmel got spooked and Fifth-Floor Elijah exercised her by reading the Bible backwards. I told her about when Max McSpiegel eaten six whole chapters of his history of the Abaddon, then forgotten he done it and tried to make out Safid stole them for Al Qaida. I talked about flops who'd never been talked about their whole lives before, and Poppy she listened to every word, like totally fucking gobsmacked and she kept saying things like 'You are kidding!' and 'No fucking way!' and 'Tell me you're having a laugh!' and sometimes I even made up a few bits just to make her say it, and they come so natural, I hardly even realised.
'So what's with Elliot?' Poppy asked. 'Why's he keep diving under his chair?'
'Elliot?' I said. 'Reckons there's snipers trying to shoot him. Never goes home,' I said. 'Reckons they's out in the bushes by the entrance. Hides in his locker till the flops had their supper then he comes and sleeps under the chairs.'
The way Poppy was I could tell she felt bad 'bout the day before and how rude she'd been, and how wrong as well, which I reckoned she should of done too, but I let it go.
We gone round that common room over a hundred times. Each time I seen my chair come round, I counted another lap, but after a while there was too many flops stood in between blocking my view. And soon I couldn't see nothing at all, just flops and flops and more flops, and they could of been queuing on the moon for all you could tell. As we worked our way in towards the middle, I kept on thinking we must be there, just another bend and we must be there, but we never was; the flops just kept on coming. 'How do they all fit in?' said Poppy. 'Good job they're not claustrophobic!'
'Dunno,' I said. 'They're used to it, I s'pose,' but I seen what she meant. I'd begun to think the spiral didn't have no middle, and the dribblers kept appearing out of nothing.
Poppy tapped me on the shoulder. 'Want one?' she said and she held out a pack of B&H.
'Alright,' I said.
'I'm trying to cut down,' she said. 'Do you know what I'm saying?' And she taken one herself and lit it, the first since we'd set out. This flop alongside us begun to drool, eyes trained on her fag like a hungry dog.
'For fuck's sake,' said Poppy. 'Here,' she said. 'Have one!I can't smoke with you doing that.'
He taken the fag and she lit it for him and he shuffled away without saying thank you or nothing.
'Careful,' I said. 'You'll start a riot if they think you's handing out fags!'
Poppy laughed. 'Let's take a breather,' she said. 'I'm getting dizzy.'
So we stood for a bit just smoking our fags and watching the flops shuffle slowly past on their way towards Banker Bill. Some had their butts out ready in their hands, and they clutched them so tight they gone soggy and spoiled and some held their tablets in palms that sweaty, when they got to the front they was ruined and turned to mush.
'That's the thing with flops,' I said. 'They never think ahead. Do you know what I'm saying! All this queuing,' I said, 'just a waste of time, if you ain't got nothing to trade at the end of it. There's no way Banker Bill will take that!' I said as this flop gone past with his tablets that mushy they squeezed out between his fingers. 'He's very strict,' I said, 'Banker Bill. If they ain't fit for trading, they ain't fit for trading and that's the end of it, no exceptions made. And he knows his stuff,' I said. 'There ain't no fooling him. You seen him with Safid holding them up to the light. And if he still ain't convinced, he'll take a quick lick, 'cause he knows the taste of every tablet ever been invented. One time,' I said, 'Curry Bob give him Moscazil, tried to make out it was Minozine on account of they look the same. Sussed him straight off,' I said. 'He got banned for three months.'
Poppy grinned. 'You're joking,' she said.
'I'm serious! You don't want to mess with Banker Bill,' I said. 'He keeps up to date as well,' I said. 'When he ain't trading meds he's reading the National Fornicatory.'
'He looked pretty sharp,' said Poppy.
'He is,' I said. 'Used to work in a bank,' I said. 'Used to run a bank, least that's what he says. Had a secretary f
or every day of the week. And a chauffeur,' I said. 'Least that's what he says, and a thousand employees or sometimes ten thousand or sometimes five hundred; depends on how he's feeling. Bit of a Candid Headphones,' I said and I give my chin a stroke like I seen people do.
Poppy laughed, like 'Tell me about it!'
'One time,' I said. 'He shown me this picture of a house. Like really posh, do you know what I'm saying, fountains and everything. It must of been worth ten million easy, probably more in London with house prices rising.'
Poppy looked a bit surprised. 'And that's where he lives?' she said.
'Not now,' I said. 'That's where he used to live. Now he lives on the Darkwoods,' I said. ' 'Cept he's been on the wards fifteen years. Anyway, this picture right - it was like a proper postcard - and on the back I seen it said The Palace of Versize, and I've heard of that, do you know what I'm saying. It's France or something innit?'
'Dunno,' said Poppy.
'It is,' I said. 'Or Spain, maybe. Somewhere foreign. I know it ain't in London.'
Poppy dropped her fag on the shit-coloured carpet and ground it out with a twist of her heel. 'Got to give up,' she said. 'I don't even like it. Makes me feel sick.' She pulled a face like someone about to chuck. 'It's alright at work; you can't smoke out on reception. You don't even miss it,' she said, 'when you can't. Just a couple at lunchtime. I don't smoke at home anyway.'