Poppy Shakespeare (19 page)
Authors: Clare Allan
I weren't even nervous about my assessment. I knew I'd be OK. I knew if Astrid had got through no problem and Candid Headphones
and Elliot and Dawn, there weren't no way they could discharge
me,
even if Tony hadn't of said how worried and concerned they all was, which he had anyway, that same one-to-one when I'd said
about Poppy's arms, which I wished I hadn't.
The flops lined the corridor right down both sides, propped against walls or the doors or each other, like sacks of rice down
the Turkish shop. I had to keep stepping over their legs, which was so close together I tiptoed it mostly, and Fag Ash Devine
said I trod on her hand, which even if I did, do you know what I'm saying, you couldn't fucking see it, being so brown from
tobacco it camouflaged into the carpet; but the flops started harping anyway and hurling their slippers, like any excuse,
and everyone I stepped over so careful; next time, I thought, I won't bother.
Second-Floor Nancy was sat halfway down, holding hands with Nuthouse Neela. Neela got a joss-stick stuck in her ear, a picture
of an elephant hung round her neck and a splodge of red on her forehead looked like ketchup. 'I won't take it
personal,'
Nancy said as I stepped across her veiny white legs; her flesh-coloured pop socks was down round her ankles. 'Just do what
you have to do, love,' she said.
'I will,' I said.
'Not
your
fault,' she said. 'Not
her
fault, is it, Neela, love! We're all on the same side here,' she said. 'We ain't going to take it
personal.
'Just do what you have to do,' she said, and she carried on calling after me, 'We ain't going to take it
personal.
Not her fault, is it, Neela, love!' all the way down the corridor.
'She's off her cake,' said Big-Nose Jase. He got huge great DMs on, the size of two cars so you had to do a Chris fucking
Bonington to haul yourself up and over.
'Don't want to move down,' said Clifton the Poet.'Second-Floor Syndrome: that's what it is.'
'Like when Taz glued hisself to his bed,' said Jase.
'Forgot it had wheels!' said Third-Floor Lemar.
'So they just wheeled him into the lift!' said Jase. Him and Lemar was cracking up.
'Fucking idiot!' said Lemar.
'Still got half a mattress stuck to his back,' said Clifton the Poet. He was grinning as well.
'Just do what you have to do,' shouted Second-Floor Nancy.
There was a sign on the door of the theatre said:
But underneath there was another sign, handwrote in green marker pen:
So I taken the bottle out of my pack (Aqua Pura, Turkish shop) and knocked on the door of the theatre. It was Tony answered,
holding a plate of sangers. When he seen it was me he glanced down at his watch. 'We're not quite ready yet, N,' he said.
'Could you wait out here for a minute?'
'Alright!' I said. 'I'm just handing this in.' And I held out the Aqua Pura. Just a couple of inches, there was, in the bottom,
had a bit of a scum sort of thing on the surface, 'cause I'd tried to dissolved in some Plutuperidol, make my levels up closer
to what they should be. Tony frowned. 'Like it says!' I said, and I tapped the sign with the bottle to show him; you could
hear it sloshing about.
Tony cleared his throat. 'Ah, right,' he said. 'Well that goes down there,' and he pointed back down the corridor. Behind
him, I seen Dr Azazel sipping a glass of wine, and someone was laughing, Dr Clootie, I think. 'You'll see the sign,' said
Tony and shut the door.
So back I gone, climbing over the legs, with the bottle in my hand and a thousand flops all staring. And there it was, maybe
six doors down, opposite Clifton the Poet.
But wrote so small you'd of needed a telescope not to just walk straight past. 'Gis a swig,' said Big-Nose Jase and the flops
all started pissing theirselves, which is flops all over, immature, but anyway I just knocked on the door and gone in.
It weren't no bigger than a cupboard inside, like a meds room up on the wards. Dr Neutral was sat on this stool by the counter
which run down one wall. He worn a white coat, like out of
ER,
and black rectangular glasses. All over the counter was bottles and funnels and jars and a rack full of test-tubes. Seeing
me, he said, 'Come in,' which I had, then looked down at this list on the top in front of him. I seen Middle-Class Michael
one above me then a row of numbers in boxes. His clean, blunt finger run down through the names. 'N, isn't it?' he said, and
taken the bottle.
'One second,' he said, as I turned to go out. 'I just need to check we've got enough.' And he taken this jug with like measurements
on and unscrewed the top off the Aqua Pura. He frowned; I seen he was on to the scum. 'Did you wash this out?' he said.
'It's water,' I said. Do you know what I'm saying!
'I mean after you drank the water,' he said.
'I didn't drink the water,' I said.
'Right,' he said. 'So . . .'
'Why'd I want to drink bottled? I got it fresh in the tap,' I said.
'Some people just prefer the taste.' He held the bottle up to the light. Flakes of Plutuperidol stuck to the surface like
fish food.
'Really?!' I said, like playing it thick. 'But I thought it weren't
s'posed
to taste,' I said and I frowned like I didn't get it at all, like 'Ain't the world confusing when you's totally thick like
me.' 'Cause that's how you got to be with doctors; you got to flatter them. And especially when you's getting assessed; if
you don't want to end up out on your arse, you got to convince them their years of college and swatting non-stop from the
age of three, it's all payed off 'cause it's turned them into the Brains of fucking Britain! And the best way of doing it
is come over so stupid, it makes them feel smart compared. Like if they don't know what day it is,
you
don't know what
year
it is; and if they don't know what year it is,
you
don't know what
century
it is, and that makes them feel a bit better. Course some dribblers find it more easier than others, like not being funny
but Astrid Arsewipe, do you know what I'm saying, they just had to
look
at her.
'I never drink bottled,' I said, which I don't, being as I never drink water at all, prefer Pepsi Max or Fanta. 'Don't trust
it,' I said. 'Could be poisoned,' I said.
There was this knock at the door. Dr Neutral was pouring. His hand give a jerk and he slopped some on to the counter. 'Come
in!' he said, like a bit pissed off and this woman I never seen before come walking in with a plate of sangers and a glass
of wine balanced beside them.
'I thought . . .' she said. 'Ugh! It smells like a stable! I thought you might like some sandwiches.' She smiled. You could
see she fancied him. 'But maybe not,' she said.
Dr Neutral smiled. 'You get used to it. Thanks,' he said, and he put down the bottle and taken the plate. 'Smoked salmon!'
he said. 'Yum yum.'
'You all on your own in here?' said the woman. She weren't even pretty but she reckoned she was. She got blonde hair tied
back in a pony-tail and this badge on her jacket said, 'Beverly Perfect, Phlegyas Pharmaceuticals'.
'If he's on his own,' I said to her. 'Then what am I, a piece of shit, walked in on his shoe off the pavement?' 'Cept I didn't,
but I wished I did anyway.
'So what are you doing, exactly?' she said.
'Just labelling,' said Dr Neutral. 'Measuring and labelling, then packing them up for collection. They all have to go to ten
different places. You know how it is,' he said. 'No one trusts anyone else to do it properly.'
'Sounds fun,' said Beverly Perfect and she laughed this stupid laugh.
'That's fine, N,' Dr Neutral said. He was bent down checking it come to the line. 'That's fine. If you wait by the theatre,
they'll call you in a few minutes.'
Beverly Perfect stepped out of the way, pressing her arse up against the counter so's I could get past to the door. I give
her a look but she made like she never seen.
Like I say, I weren't worried about my assessment but when I seen them all sat there behind that table, even
I
felt my stomach
done a few forward rolls, and then a few more, and then over and over, like a fucking gymnastic, do you know what I'm saying?
Like that Nadia Commonitch, who was Russian, 'cause I watched her with my mum.
So there's me on this little plastic chair and there's them in a row behind this enormous table. Bang in the middle, opposite
me, there's Dr Diabolus' throne. Dr Azazel's sat one side and Dr Clootie the other. Sat next to Dr Azazel there's Tony and
sat next to Dr Clootie there's Fowler, keeps eyeing Dr Clootie's tits. Rhona's on her own down the end, at this little desk
covered in papers. She keeps on sighing and shooking her head and going through her papers and glancing at Tony and shooking
her head again. Aside of Rhona and Malvin Fowler, everyone else is all of them looking at me. They's looking at my scabby
old tracksuit bottoms I got inside out so this label on my leg says 'KEEP AWAY FROM FIRE Made in China'. They's looking at
my sweatshirt with the crap down the front and snot all over the cuffs. They's looking at my hair - ninety-nine per cent fat,
as my mum used to say - and the fag ash under my eyes. And even though they don't say a word, I reckon I'm doing alright.
But nothing prepares me for what happens next. I seen this man on telly once; he'd won like fifty Olympic gold medals, and
every time he won one, he said, it taken like a month to sink in, and even then it still felt like a dream. Which I couldn't
of put it better myself.
I mean even just the one of them, that would of been, do you know what I'm saying, but
all four of them;
I couldn't believe it, still
wouldn't
believe it, to tell you the truth, if it weren't wrote down for all to see in
The History of the
Abaddon, a
history, which it will be Professor McSpiegel said, just as soon as he gets 'official confirmation'. All four of them they
held up their cards, that's Tony and Fowler and Dr Azazel - and Dr Clootie as well, all four - they held up their cards and
give me four perfect 6s. I stared. I couldn't take it in. '6.0, 6.0, 6.0, 6.0.' Just shapes; I couldn't see the numbers. Then
suddenly there's this roll of drums and they start playing the National Anthem, and this Union Jack comes rolling down and
the crowd cheers so loud I get real tears in my eyes.
After that, the rest is a bit of a blur. Rhona read out this list of statements ('I see things other people can't see' 'People
are plotting against me' - the usual) and after she'd read each one out you got one of five choices how you could respond.
You could strongly agree, moderate agree, neither agree nor disagree, moderate disagree or disagree strongly. There weren't
nothing else you could do, just one of them five. If you didn't reply, they marked you down as 'neither agree nor disagree';
it weren't like you got no bonus or nothing, which sometimes you do for 'non-cooperation'.
Every time you give a response, they held up the cards again. I got 6s mostly, a few 5.9s and a 5.8, like fair enough, do
you know what I'm saying; I ain't greedy. But I couldn't help noticing Dr Clootie always give me less. And after a bit it
pissed me off, like I'm doing my best, do you know what I'm saying, and every time, she's marking me down. I mean this one
statement, it gone something like, 'I find it hard to make decisions' and as soon as she said it, I seen the trap straight
off: if I said I strongly agreed they could say I was lying on account I just made one, and if I said I disagreed they could
say there weren't nothing the matter. So in the end I gone number 3, neither agree nor disagree, and Dr Clootie, she give
me a 5.65! 'Up yours!' I thought. 'Up your tight Scottish arse!' and I just ignored her after that, never even looked at her
card, like 'it don't make no difference to me
what
you think', 'cause I knew it was just female jealousy and not proper marking 'cause that's what some women are like.
It's got to be said, I been better assessed. I ain't saying they wasn't accurate, as far as they gone, that is. But that was
it: they didn't go far
enough.
Like all the stuff they
didn't
ask; they hardly scraped the surface. I mean all the stuff I could of said: stuff what happened when I was a kid, stuff would
of give them tears in their eyes at how sad it was and how brave I been and they never even asked. I could of told them stuff
goes on in my head like every day, you'd never believe, like every minute of every day, would of got me four 6s straight off.
But the moment I opened my mouth to speak, like one single word more than what I was s'posed to, Rhona the Moaner would hold
up her hand. 'Just answer the question please, N!' And she'd read out the five different choices again. ' 1 . Strongly agree;
2. Moderately agree . . .' and so on in this monotone voice, 5.9 suicidal, easy.