murmur of music and radio chatter coming from her bedroom in the morning
the sight of her daughter curled up on the sofa under a duvet in the living room on Saturdays, watching television, until she’s ready to go out at midnight
Amma can just about remember that she too used to go out late and return home on the morning bus
the house breathes differently when Yazz isn’t there
waiting for her to return and create some noise and chaos
she hopes she comes home after university
most of them do these days, don’t they?
they can’t afford otherwise
Yazz can stay forever
really.
1
Yazz
sits on the seat chosen by Mum in the middle of the stalls, one of the best in the house, although she’d rather be hidden away at the back in case the play is another embarrassment
she’s tied her amazingly wild, energetic, strong and voluminous afro back because people sitting behind her in venues complain they can’t see the stage
when her afro’d compatriots accuse people of racism or microaggressions for this very reason, Yazz asks them how they’d feel if an unruly topiary hedge blocked their view of the stage at a concert?
two members of her uni squad, the Unfuckwithables, are seated either side of her, Waris and Courtney, hard workers like her because they’re all determined to get good degrees because without it they’re
stuffed
they’re all stuffed anyway, they agree
when they leave uni it’s gonna be with a huge debt and crazy competition for jobs and the outrageous rental prices out there mean her generation will have to move back home forever, which will lead to even more of them despairing at the future and what with the planet about to go to shit with the United Kingdom soon to be disunited from Europe which itself is hurtling down the reactionary road and making fascism fashionable again and it’s so crazy that the disgusting perma-tanned billionaire has set a new intellectual and moral low by being president of America and basically it all means that the older generation has RUINED EVERYTHING and her generation is doooooomed
unless they wrest intellectual control from their elders
sooner rather than later
Yazz is reading English Literature and plans to be a journalist with her own controversial column in a globally-read newspaper because she has a lot to say and it’s about time the whole world heard her
Waris from Wolverhampton, seated to her right, is reading Politics and wants to become a Member of Parliament, to re-pre-sent, and will go down the community activism route first, à la Barack ‘Major Role Model’ Obama
Come Back Barack!
Courtney from Suffolk, seated to her left, is reading American Studies because she’s really into African-American men, and she chose her course because of the option to study in the States for her third year where she hopes to pick up a husband
the theatre is predominated by the usual greyheads (average age one hundred)
Mum’s friends and diehard fans are dotted all over, they should be grey but are more likely to shave it off, dye it or cover it up with head-wraps
she looks over at Sylvester, slumped in his seat, scruffy as hell in his tatty blue ‘Communist China’ overalls, his beard makes him look more like an Amish farmer than an urban hipster
way too old for it, Sylvie
his arms are crossed and he’s scowling like he really wants to not enjoy the play before it’s even begun, when he notices her ogling him, puts on a smiley face and waves, probably embarrassed that she’s read his mind
she waves too, putting her nice-to-see-you-face back on
he’s one of her godfathers, but was demoted to the C List when he sent her the same birthday card three years in a row – a cheap recycled charity one at that, as for birthday presents, he stopped them when she turned sixteen, as if she had no need for financial support once she could legally have sex
the A List goddies part with money, lots of it, every year on her birthday, they’re the best as they really want to keep in with her as their conduit to the younger generation
a couple of goddies have disappeared altogether on account of falling out with Mum over some pointless melodrama
Mum says Sylvester should stop sniping at other people’s success (hers) and that as he won’t change with the times, he’s been left behind
you mean the way you felt not so long ago, Mum?
ever since she landed the National gig she’s got very snooty about struggling theatre mates, as if she alone has discovered the secret to being successful
as if she hasn’t spent way too many years of her life watching crap television while waiting for the phone to ring
this is the problem with having a daughter with X-ray vision
she can see through the parental bullshit
Uncle Curwen isn’t with Sylvester tonight because he believes politics is way more dramatic than anything on stage at a theatre: ‘Brexit & Trumpquake! – behold the comedy of errors of our time’ being his latest mantra
as a Lambeth Labour councillor, he’s usually at meetings firefighting, or as Sylvester counteracts, causing them, because he likes to drag the carpet from underneath Curwen’s political self-importance who needs enemies when your life partner undermines you on a regular basis?
Curwen uses antiquated expressions like ‘right on’ and likes to keep it real by frequenting the dingiest pub in Brixton where the old timers sit around still moaning about Maggie Thatcher and the Miners’ strike, one of the few pubs that haven’t been turned into a wine bar, gastro-pub or champagne bar, as Mum whinges
as if she herself wasn’t part of the gentrification of Brixton years ago
as if she herself isn’t a frequenter of the artsy hotspots like the Ritzy
as if she herself didn’t take Yazz to one of the very champagne bars she supposedly scorns to celebrate passing her ‘A’ levels a year early
just this once, Mum whispered as they entered the part of the indoor market that’s now frequented by posh banker types who looked at them as they walked down the lane between bars as if they were looking at natives on their cultural safari
yet who was it who was spotted at the Cereal Lovers Café in Stockwell by one of Yazz’s mates not so long ago?
a café that specializes in selling over a hundred types of breakfast cereal at extortionate prices
a café that only those who’ve truly sold their souls to Hipster Hell would even think of venturing into
a café that’s so outraged the locals they keep smashing the windows in
as for Dad
(you can call me Roland, no, you’re my dad, Dad)
he’s sitting a couple of rows in front of her, wearing one of his Ozwald Boateng suits – brilliant blue on the outside, purple satin on the inside
his head is shiny, thanks to cocoa butter first thing