Poppy Shakespeare (4 page)

10. How I never got a chance to say on account of Pollyanna

The corridor shrunk like a concertina and in less than no time I was back through the doors to the common room. I knew right
away Tina must of told them 'cause it all gone hush and the only sound was the double swing-doors flap-flapping behind my
back.

The flops was slumped in their chairs like usual, bug-eyed with meds and madness, but as I gone past their heads turned to
follow, like dogs looking after a biscuit, and as I sat down, I seen them all shifting to make sure they got a good view.
The day patients tried to act normal like nothing had happened, and even though they was burning to know, so I reckoned I'd
wind them up a bit, not nasty or nothing but just for a laugh, so without saying a word I lit up a fag and sticking my feet
on the edge of the table I sat back and puffed like I didn't got a care in the world. And next to me Astrid, who'd made up
her mind they'd kicked me out already, she started to look a bit huffy at that, like I done her down or something.

I give a great yawn, so open and wide, the furthest flop seen straight down my throat to the breakfast still sat in my stomach.
Then I slouched myself sideways, like right towards Astrid, with my head on my hand and my elbow on the arm of the chair,
and very slowly,
very
slowly, I let my eyes close, like I just couldn't help it, I couldn't stay awake another second.

I sometimes think life would be more easier if I weren't so sensitive to people's feelings. I don't know if I was born that
way or if it's because of all stuff that's happened but sometimes, do you know what I'm saying, it's like I got fucking radar!
I mean, I hadn't hardly shut my eyes before I knew something was wrong. It weren't the fact that Astrid tutted, or the fact
that nobody spoke, or the fact I could feel them all sat there staring and there's me grunting and grumbling away like fast
asleep in the middle, it was more I just suddenly tuned in that something weren't right.

'What?' I said.

They're like, 'Ain't you heard?'

'Heard what?' I said.

They're like, 'Pollyanna!'

'Heard
what?'
I said.

'Last night,' they said.

'At two in the morning,' said Middle-Class Michael.' Suicide Bridge, so we understand. Apparently, a cyclist found her . .
.'

'Called on his mobile,' Astrid said.

'Lucky she didn't hit him,' said Wesley.

'Shut up, Wesley!' said everyone. Except for Rosetta. Rosetta didn't say nothing.

'Can't believe you just sat there,' said Astrid.

'Fuck off' I said. 'I didn't know, did I!'

'So what did Tony want?' she said.

'Nothing,' I said and I rolled my eyes, like who'd give a fuck about
that
at a time like
this.

'Rosetta's got a letter,' whispered Tina.

'She was going to read it when you came in,' said Astrid Arsewipe, pardon me for breathing.

So everyone's like, 'Go on, Rosetta! Read it! We want to hear!'

Then the flops joined in. 'Go on, Rosetta!', the ones that could shout did anyway, and the ones what couldn't mouthed the
words and Schizo Safid drummed on the arm of his chair.

'I'll read it if you like,' said Middle-Class Michael.

So Rosetta unzipped her handbag and got out the letter. Weren't much, just a page from a spiral-bound notebook, folded in
half with her name on and underlined. She stood up holding it out in front like reading in church or something.

'Get on with it!' I says to myself. It's not that I weren't
upset,
upset me as much as anyone, more I should think, with all of
my
issues; I mean, not just my mum but my dad as well before I was even born, and my nan, and Mandy down Sunshine House, who
I found as well, do you know what I'm saying. It was more just her timing could of been better, the one time
I
got something
to say, but that's rappers all over, got to be centre stage.

So Rosetta read the note out and everyone listened. She done it alright, never cracking or nothing and I looked at the empty
chair as she read with the 'P' on the back wrote in red marker pen and the fag-burnt arms and the stuffing come through and
I give it a bit of a stare.

My friend when you receive this letter

I will be gone. I think you know

How much you mean to me, Rosetta,

But also that I have to go.

My hope has died, not merely faded;

My light extinguished, not just shaded.

I feel completely unprepared

For life outside. I'm old and scared.

I feel no pain, nor even sorrow,

But rather one enormous blank.

As fish thrown out the goldfish tank

Know only that there's no tomorrow.

Goodbye my friend, don't grieve for me;

I'm going to where I want to be.

I I. What everyone said about the note and how they started rowing about the rhyme

When Rosetta had finished she bowed her head and stood there for a moment and the flops all bowed their heads as well and
us day dribblers too, except for Dawn, who'd come in for her coffee break somewhere around the middle, and forgot Pollyanna
ever existed anyway. Then Rosetta sat down, refolded the note, and zipped it back in her handbag and she sat there quiet for
a bit with the bag on her lap.

'She post it through your door last night?' said Astrid. Rosetta nodded.

'I should have called round,' whispered Tina. 'I knew I should have.'

'There weren't nothing none of
us
could do,' said Astrid.

'It's down to
them!'

'I called round last night,' Rosetta said. 'When I left here I went straight round. I knocked and knocked but there wasn't
any answer. I was thinking she must have gone round to her sister's. I never thought for a second . . .'

'It's down to
them,'
said Astrid. 'Ain't that right, Brian?'

But Brian didn't answer, being outside washing his hands.

'Excuse me,' says this whiny voice, and we all looked up and there was Professor McSpiegel.

He was stood by the pillar behind Pollyanna's chair, with this black bin-liner all stuffed full of papers and more papers
under each arm as well, all covered in writing and all in a jumble and upside down and back to front, not that that made no
difference to him, being happy to read however it come, left to right and right to left and diagonal and foreign languages
too.

'Excuse me,' he said. 'I wonder, could I see it?'

'See what?' said Astrid.

'The note,' said Rosetta. Rosetta got respect for Professor McSpiegel. 'You want to see the note?' she said.

'If you don't mind,' he said. 'I'll be very careful. I just want to look at the rhyme scheme.'

White Wesley cracked up. 'You hear that man?'

Rosetta unzipped her bag and took the note out. She handed it to Professor McSpiegel across the empty chair.

'It weren't even rhyming anyway,' said Astrid folding her arms.

'I think it was,' said Middle-Class Michael.

'Not
rhyming,'
said Astrid.

'I think so,' said Michael.

'Don't hassle,' said Wesley. 'What difference it make?'

'I'm sorry,' said Dawn. 'What difference does
what
make?'

'The
rhyming,'
said Astrid, never spoken to Dawn, or not unless she was making a point. 'He wants to see the
rhyme
scheme,' she said. 'And I said to him, said it weren't even rhyming.'

'What wasn't?' said Dawn.

'The note,' said Elliot, peeped out from under his chair.

'I thought she had!' said Professor McSpiegel. 'She's modelled it on Pushkin!'

'She
hasn't!'
said Michael. He got up to see.

Rosetta stood waiting.

'It weren't even rhyming,' said Astrid.

'Look here,' said McSpiegel. He shown Rosetta. 'You see the endings?'

Rosetta nodded. 'Why did she do that?' she said.

'It's a sonnet you see,' said Professor McSpiegel, which actually I knew without being told or I did once I'd remembered.
Fact is I written a poem myself, must of been nine or ten at the time, 'bout this fox in the garden of Sunshine House, not
that I never seen a fox, not that we had a garden neither, more just a yard full of pig bins. But my teacher, Mr Pettifer,
said it was one of the best poems he'd ever read by a kid my age, or something like that, and he sent it in for this competition
and it come back highly commended. 'There's a poet in you,' Mr Pettifer said, 'bout the only nice thing any teacher said ever;
he was alright, Mr Pettifer. My mum was fucking over-the-moon, decided we got to celebrate. 'I always knew you were gifted,'
she said. 'Come on, you choose, what shall we do?!' I'd only been home about five minutes. Last time I'd seen her she was
laying on a stretcher with an oxygen mask clamped over her mouth and her skin like the colour of Blu-Tack. We gone for a Mexican
I think; they had this place they stuck sparklers in your pudding and sung you 'Happy Birthday'. We taken it in turns, me
and Mum, like every time we gone there, but they never realised, or if they did they never
said
nothing anyway.

Professor McSpiegel finished his bit and give the note back to Rosetta. I can't remember what he said on account I weren't
paying attention but I know it was all big words and bollocks, like how many beats you got to have, which
I
never knew none of that when I wrote my fox poem. Then he smiled and give her a pat on the arm and walked out the common
room dragging his bin-bag behind him.

'He's off his fucking head,' said Astrid. 'It weren't even rhyming anyway.'

'It's a sonnet,' Rosetta said. 'Some of it rhymes.'

'I
thought
it was a sonnet,' said Verna, who done a year of college or something, or reckoned she knew anyway.

'Some of it!' said Astrid Arsewipe. 'Either it does or it doesn't.'

'Do you know,' said Dawn, 'the strangest thing; I fancy making a table!'

'Some of it rhymed,' Rosetta said.

'Do you think I could make one?' Dawn asked Wesley.

'Yeah, man,' said Wesley. 'Do one for my bruwer.'

'I don't
know,'
said Dawn.

'It weren't even rhyming!' Astrid said. 'Not
rhyming,'
she said. 'Not like she normally done.'

12. How Tony Balaclava come through
and landed me right in it

Well I kept myself out of the rhyming row, what carried on all through the morning and dinner time too when we filed in the
canteen to eat our fish and peas. 'Just show her the
note,'
said Sue the Sticks, formerly known as Slasher Sue, before she give up self-harming. 'Just show her the
note.
She's giving me a headache.' But Rosetta wouldn't show her the note, and she kept her handbag under her arm holding the straps
with both hands.

It was right after dinner and we'd gone back out to the common room, and we's sat in our chairs with our feet on the tables
smoking our fags and finishing our coffee. And it's still pretty tense with the row, but relaxing a bit, 'cept for Astrid
who's still got the hump 'cause of what Sue the Sticks said. When suddenly the doors swing open and in comes Tony Balaclava.

'Uh-oh!' I says to myself. 'That's me in the soup.' I hadn't forgot about the new girl of course, just 'cause I hadn't said
nothing. But the fact of it was with all of their rowing there hadn't been no chance to tell them. And now Tony come in, do
you know what I'm saying, and I still hadn't said and I weren't sure how they'd like take it.

The moment he come in, the room gone quiet and the flops all turned to look at Second-Floor Paolo. Now I got to admit that
up to then I'd never
noticed
Paolo, being more took up with Rosetta and that and how she must be feeling, but as the flops all turned to look, we turned
to see where they was looking, and there he was with St Paul's by his ear and Canary Wharf just a bit to his right, and Fat
Florence wedged in the chair to his left with her hand round his like he'd stuffed it into a Cafe Diana sponge pudding. He
looked so different I had to look twice to be sure it was even him, same Second-Floor Paolo been curled up under the dead
plant the day before. But that's who it was.

Second-Floor Paolo always worn pyjamas, or if he didn't these scaggy old jeans so worn and faded they looked like pyjamas
anyway. But today he had on this crisp white shirt, all clean and ironed, like fuck knows where from, and these shiny black
trousers, creased down the front, and his hair like slicked back and I couldn't see his shoes but I'll bet they was shining
too. He weren't looking over-comfortable, kept glancing up at the clock with no hands, and his lips was moving but no sound
come out and I reckoned he must be praying to hisself, else going through his lines of what he had to say.

'He's got a nerve,' said Astrid Arsewipe, perking up like instant. 'She ain't hardly cold, and he's eyeing her chair!' And
they all joined in how bad it was and how insensitive and that and there's me thinking
any second now
... as Tony Balaclava walks over our end and he goes right past Paolo without even stopping, and all the flops are like 'Eh?'
all at once, and they turn their heads to follow Tony, then they turn back to check on Paolo; then they turn to look at each
other, like gobsmacked, and then they turn back to Tony, and all of these heads turning this way and that like some giant
machine gone mad.

Tony come and stood between our two rows of chairs and he kept sort of nodding and trying to be friendly and not meeting nobody's
eye. And he crossed his legs so one foot was over the other, then he crossed them again so his legs was like in a plait. And
he tried to stick his hands in the pockets of his jeans 'cept they wouldn't go in further than the tips of his fingers on
account of his jeans was so tight. And once they was in he couldn't get them back out. So he's stuck with his elbows bent
outwards like wings sort of flapping and trying to get free.

'I gather you've heard about Pollyanna,' he said. 'I just want to say that if anyone needs time, you only have to knock on
the staff-room door. I realise it must have raised difficult issues for many of you.' His arms flapped again. 'And we want to support you as much as we can.'

'So why d'you kick her out?' said Sue. Astrid rolled her eyes.

'I can't discuss Pollyanna,' he said. 'It's not appropriate.' And he give such a tug I thought his fingers come off, but they
stayed where they was anyway.

'We do our best to help,' he said, 'but we can only do so much. Sometimes, tragically, that's not enough.' I looked at Rosetta.
She didn't say nothing. Tony gone red, but that could of been his fingers.

'On a happier note,' he said, looking down at the carpet. 'A decision has been taken to admit a new patient.' Well that was
it with the flops, I tell you. All fucking hell broke loose. Above our heads started raining fag butts, dirty old slippers,
anything
they could get their fag-burnt hands on. But Tony didn't move, just carried on talking like he never even noticed, and the
weird thing was, crap flying all sides, not a single piece ever hit him. Not a MAD money form, not a screwed-up Coke can;
nothing even come within six inches. It was like he had this invisible body and everything just bounced off of it. And it
did
as well: this bottle of Lonzadine bounced off what would of been his shoulder and I reached out my left hand and caught it
like that and I downed them quick before anybody seen me.

White Wesley started throwing things back and Rosetta told him to stop but he just thrown harder, and he tried to get Elliot
into it too but he'd hid underneath the chairs, reckoned the snipers might see their chance to take a shot at him.

Verna, down the other end, was going for it full throttle. Every time she thrown something, she shouted, 'Get that! Yeah!'
Candid started lobbing CDs, and even Sue the Sticks joined in till she thrown her crutches and had to sit down again.

And through it all Tony kept on talking, how Poppy was starting on Monday and stuff and how he was sure we'd make her feel
welcome and I'm bracing myself for the bit about me but just
exactly
as he said it, like you couldn't of
timed
it more perfect, this filthy great trainer come flying past my ear and hit the panic alarm. And I know I said my luck's been
bad, but you know what I'm saying, I'm like maybe there
is
a God.

I ain't into violence, however it calls itself, and general speaking I'm pretty much a pacific. But there's violence and
violence,
you got to admit, and some of it has its uses. That riot, I tell you, by the time Tony left us, the last few flops was just
being injected and stacked to go back to the wards. And instead of us dribblers all scrapping and fighting, the sun come out
and the birds started singing and we weren't even sat in the common room no more, but lounged in the park in deckchairs and
we felt like we'd had a few beers as well, least
I
did anyway, on account of all that Lonzadine begun buzzing around my system.

And as the sun come out all the frostiness melted. Astrid and Sue made up and was friends and Sue said she never even
meant
it like that, but just that she
did
have a bit of a headache on account of her meds and nothing to do with Astrid; and Astrid give her a pill out her handbag
and Sue the Sticks took it, said thanks very much. Verna the Vomit was on such a high she never even bothered with throwing
up her lunch, and Elliot crawled out from under the chairs, sat laughing and smiling as Wesley described him all of the flops
he'd knocked out. And then, I couldn't believe I was seeing it, Astrid, right, she turned to Rosetta and said how she could
of been wrong. She said maybe the letter
did
rhyme after all, just not what she'd
thought
of as rhyming, and Rosetta reached over and give her her hand and Astrid took it and give it a squeeze, like right in front
of my nose. Even Brian the Butcher was happy, going around tidying up. Said some ways it worked even better than washing his
hands.

It was Michael said about Poppy first, and just for a second I felt a chill as a cloud come over the sun, but I needn't of
worried. Turned out there wasn't a single dribbler hadn't run into Poppy before, and no one had a word to say against her.

Middle-Class Michael met Poppy at the MAD symposium. Said she'd come up to him in the bar and told him how much she'd enjoyed
his speech and how well it gone down. 'She said I'd have made a politician,' he said and his ears gone red, then he coughed,
said of course he knew she was just being kind.

Rosetta said Poppy had shown up at church and she'd been in a terrible state. And she didn't have no support at all. And it
just shown how Good could come out of Evil and the Dorothy Fish was a sheepfold or something like that.

Elliot reckoned he known her at school. 'I'm sure she was called that,' he said. And he said how everyone picked on her and
taken the piss and that, but he'd got them all to stop and they'd been like friends. And when he was up on the ward, he said,
she visited every day and brought him presents and stuff. But then he begun to worry he'd got her name wrong, and maybe it
weren't Poppy after all, and he must of got confused with his medication.

Astrid reckoned he must of done, 'cause
she'd
met Poppy up on the wards and she was far too old to of been with Elliot at school. Said she couldn't remember that much about
her, on account of she'd been so ill at the time, she couldn't remember nothing; and she started on about how ill she'd been
and she gone on and on and on; and she gone on so long they all fallen asleep, on and on about how ill she'd been and everyone
round her sleeping like corpses till I was the only one
wasn't
asleep on account of all that Lonzadine still buzzing around my insides. But she could of been talking to herself s'far as
I was concerned. All I could think of was Poppy Shakespeare and how we was going to be friends. 'Cause I'm not being funny,
I knew even then, I known all along we was going to be friends; it was like a premonition. And all down the hill I was showing
her things and cracking jokes and stuff, and beside me White Wesley, who'd just woken up, rattling on how she'd fancied him,
but he'd had to say no 'case his girlfriend got jealous, 'cept he couldn't remember if maybe he'd dreamt it, he said.