when he eventually spoke, his voice was choked, his car had arrived (not cab), he had to dash off
if true, the car (car = limo and cab = taxi) would be to chauffeur him to a television studio because he regularly pops up on the telly to have arguments with people even more arrogant than himself
he’s become a media-whore, Mum opines disapprovingly, he was such a great guy before he became famous and was corrupted by celebrity, he used to believe in something, now he only believes in himself, your father is very establishment, Yazz, that’s why they lionize him, he’s not an outsider like me, trying to get a foot in the door and being given crumbs, Yazz, crumbs
funnily enough, when Mum watches him on the telly, she begrudgingly agrees with pretty much everything he says, and she can’t say she’s an outsider now she’s on at the National
Dad did an epic sulk after Yazz’s epic take-down
he couldn’t have her to stay for that weekend or the next or the next
deadlines-deadlines-deadlines, you know how it is?
the thing is, if she and her father are going to have a healthy relationship into the future, it’s up to her to keep him in check because no one else is going to do it, he surrounds himself with what Mum calls his ‘court sycophants’, the people Yazz meets at his parties, mainly famous white people off the telly who see him as an honorary one of them
she’s almost got there with Mum, although it was a hard slog, especially when she was fourteen or fifteen and Mum was prone to hysteria when she didn’t get her own way
now she knows better than to try to control or contradict her daughter
all Yazz needs to say these days is, don’t sass me, Mumsy! and she shuts up
Dad’s on that learning curve too
he’ll thank her in the end
Kenny (Godfather Number Two, who wisely gives her birthday cheques starring two zeros) is sitting loyally next to Dad
Kenny’s also bald and mustachioed in a 1970s way (not good), he’s a landscape gardener and she and him get along mainly because he has no delusions about his own greatness, they’ll watch X Factor together just for the sake of it, whereas Dad will pretend it’s because he’s going to write about its cultural significance
they go out riding their bikes very early on a Sunday morning before the city wakes up, across the common to Battersea, down the backstreets to Richmond and the river, for the pure enjoyment of it, not because it’s enforced exercise to stay slim
which is the only reason Dad runs marathons
Kenny did ask her to be a bit less negative towards Dad the other day after he’d gone upstairs in a huff over a harmless comment she’d made
Yazz replied she was going through her cynical late teenage years, I just can’t help it, Kenny, once I come out all lovable again on the other side, I’ll let you know
Kenny cracked up at that, he likes to remind her he’s known her since she was a sperm among millions in Dad’s test tube and when Mum used to complain she was giving her a good kicking inside her womb
to which she quipped back that it was because she had an embryonic premonition she was going to be born into poverty
once she’s graduated and working, she’s going to persuade Mum to sell her house, correction, their house, which is now worth a fortune thanks to Mum’s gentrification of Brixton
Mum can downsize to a bungalow, which will be very practical for a woman her age, probably in one of the unfashionable seaside towns where they’ll be cheaper
with the money left over from the sale of the house, Yazz can buy a small flat
a one-bedroom will do for now
helping me on to the property ladder will be the defining act of your life, Mumsy
she didn’t reply
Yazz wishes the play had already opened to five-star universal acclaim so that she can watch it stamped with pre-approval, it matters because she’ll have to deal with the aftermath if it’s slagged off by the critics and Mum’ll go on an emotional rampage that might last weeks – about the critics sabotaging her career with their complete lack of insight into black women’s lives and how this had been her big break after over forty years of hard graft blah di blah and how they didn’t get the play because it’s not about aid workers in Africa or troubled teenaged boys or drug dealers or African warlords or African-American blues singers or white people rescuing black slaves
guess who’ll have to be on the end of the phone to pick up the pieces?
she’s Mum’s emotional caretaker, always has been, always will be
it’s the burden of being an only child, especially a girl
who will naturally be more caring.
2
Yazz has a massive poster of Hendrix in her room at uni with his crazy hair, hippy headband, rippled chest, bulging crotch and electric guitar
a cultural signifier for all those who enter her room to instantly know what kinda badass they dealin’ wiv
although her eclectic and unpredictable taste extends beyond the electric rock riffs of prehistory to A$AP Rocky to Mozart to Stormzy to the Priests to Angélique Kidjo to Wizkid to Bey to Chopin to RiRi to Scott Joplin to Dolly Parton to Amr Diab and so on
she’s even got a recording of the über basso profundo Oktavist singers of Russia who don’t so much sing as make the earth rumble
so much radness and who’s way ahead of da mob dem?
her room is the largest in her block on account of the ‘extreme claustrophobia and social anxiety’ stunt she pulled to get it
it overlooks the canal that runs along the border of the campus through to the wetlands beyond with its otters (or is it badgers?) and herons (or is it geese?) and other birdy, animalistic things she doesn’t recognize and can’t be bothered to look up
she’d rather fill her head with stuff that will help her get on in life and naming the wildlife of eastern England don’t come into it
the other side of her room overlooks the pathways that zig-zag through the campus, from which a stream of caners stagger past her window to their rooms most nights, usually drunk and selfishly loud, having been drinking in town or in the Student Union bar
she’s only been in it once as it was crammed with the drunken dregs of humanity, i.e. the type of boys who get progressively malodorous as the term progresses because their mother isn’t dunking them screaming into a bath every night
the kind of boys who wear increasingly injured expressions because they don’t understand why no one will sit next to them in lectures and no one wants to tell them, yo, you stink, bro
Yazz thought she’d find romance at uni, a nice guy on her level who doesn’t look like the back of a bus and is taller than her (prerequisite)
someone to snuggle up to on Saturday evenings and to laze away Sunday mornings in bed listening to music while she catches up with the New Yorker, Observer, gal-dem, The Root, Atlantic and thegrio
because one day she will write for them
sadly, Mum has more pulling power than her and is actually considered hot in the lesbian world
her girlfriends du jour, as Dad puts it (hey, why speak English when you can speak French?), are two white women, Dolores and Jackie, although Mum has been with every ethnicity known to humankind (it’s called multiracial whoredom)
they’re all very cosy together which is quite heart-warming seeing as Mum’s women have gone to war over her
it’s strange, and suspicious, because with Dolores and Jackie there are no screaming matches, no ranting answerphone messages, no one trying to kick in the front door in the middle of the night, and no one skulking in a corner looking daggers at her rival at Mum’s parties