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it turned out that she was the daughter of Amma Bonsu, and like their first encounter Yazz was so excitable, it was infectious

fancy me bumping into Mx Morgan Malinga! how cool is that? all the way down from oooop North, wey aye, man, I bet you love being in London, are you going to move down? you so belong here, everyone will love you, wasn’t the play great? have you met my mum? whadyamean you haven’t met her? she’s the Queen of the (old) Dykes, I’m well proud of her and relieved I won’t have to stop her jumping off Hungerford Bridge tonight because the play’s gone down like a lead balloon

I’ve been following you on Twitter, have you noticed? probably not with, like, a million followers, I retweet practically everything you post, no, not stalkin’ just supportin’!

what do you mean you were just leaving, no way, come inside and say hi to Waris and Courtney who’ll be mega-pleased to see you, and let’s hope the prosecco hasn’t run out because all the old pissheads are here and trust me

they don’t know when to stop.

Hattie

1

Hattie

GG to her descendants

aged ninety-three and counting

sits at the head of the banqueting table in the Long Room of Greenfields farmhouse built over two hundred years ago

her ever-growing gene pool crammed all the way down it

and their spouses

either side of her are her two children, both in their seventies

Ada Mae (named after Slim’s mother) and Sonny (named after Slim’s brother what got lynched)

then there’s the grandchildren in their forties and fifties

Julie

nurse

Sue

shop assistant

Paul

former body-builder turned gym manager

Marian

secretary

Jimmy

car mechanic

Matthew

plumber, self-employed

Alan

copper (who everyone gives a wide berth to)

a few of the great-grandchildren in their twenties and thirties are here too, God knows what most of them do

great-great-grandchildren are seated at a separate table, can’t remember most of their names, a couple of adults are acting as minders to stop them using food as missiles instead of fodder for their mouths

then there’s the newly-borns she’s only just met – Riley, Zoe, Noah

she’ll remember their names

for a few hours

everyone is digging into Christmas lunch, a giant turkey as centrepiece, selected for the honour for its inordinate size and robust demeanour

she overfed it all year, wrung its neck yesterday, plucked it, put it in the ice house and then into the stove first thing this morning

Morgan and Bibi helped with the rest: roast spuds (Hattie’s Own from the potato pit), stuffing, Brussels sprouts, Yorkshire pudding and black pudding (both Hattie’s Own), peas (Hattie’s Frozen Own), gravy

Ma’s mildewed tapestry of the house dominates one wall of the room

the blackened flagstone fireplace dominates the other, big enough for a person to stand inside

when it’s not lit, which it is, flames hungrily attacking the air

there’s a big Christmas tree which Young Billy (in his sixties now) from the village cuts down from what Slim used to call the Forest of Firs out back

Young Billy installs one every year: lights, fairies, tinsel, baubles, pine needles creating a mess, especially as she likes to walk barefoot inside the house, even in winter

it’s one of the secrets of her long-lasting mobility, keeping her toes spread and feet grounded, same as all the other beasts of nature

hooves, that’s what she’s got

hooves

Polina soaks them once a week, gives her nails a scrape-out, file-down, pumice and moisturize – the latter against Hattie’s better judgement, seeing as she stopped poisoning her body with chemicals after Slim went in 1988

Polina says your feet they will crack and the germs they will have the field day, Hattie

so she obliges, even though the body makes its own oil, if you allow the pores to breathe

although try telling that to the women in her family who slather themselves in unguents and other toxic substances in the name of beauty

then wonder why they get cancer

presents are piled underneath the tree, people giving each other things for the sake of it, nothing to do with religion, Christmas should be called Greedymas

a time when people over-eat and over-indulge in the name of Jesus Christ

she hasn’t bothered with presents since Slim passed, has given up telling everyone not to bother with her

they give her things she doesn’t want like gloves, tissues, pill boxes, slippers, electric blankets and bottle grips, as if she can’t still open lids with her strong hands

Young Billy takes it all to a charity shop for her

she’s got what she needs, not the same as what she wants

Slim wrapped up in a parcel underneath the tree

waiting to jump up and surprise her

Hattie sits quietly at these Greedymas affairs

can’t hear above the racket they’re making anyway, hates putting in those wretched hearing aids that irritate her ears and distort sounds

they carry on without her, amusing themselves, happy to ignore her like she’s of no consequence, most of them don’t listen to what she says anyway

she sinks back, watches their performances, quite content to be left to her own devices, nodding off, until people prod her to see if she’s all right, the equivalent of checking her pulse

she’s sure they’re disappointed when she wakes up and shouts, aye-what? aye-what?

Ada Mae and Sonny can’t wait to get their hands on the inheritance they think is their right, except she’s thwarted them – they’re not getting their hands on Greenfields farm what’s been in her family over two hundred years for them to sell off to foreigners like those Russians or Chinese to build a luxury hotel or turn it into a golf course

they keep pestering her to go into a home and sort out her ‘power of attorney’

she knows full well it means giving them power over her life

far as she’s concerned

if she falls down the stairs and nobody’s there to call an ambulance, so be it, at her age death won’t be prolonged anyway, one bad fall and she’s a goner

if they try and force her to leave, she’ll be meek and compliant, say, just a moment while I go to the loo for one last crap in my own house, if that’s all right with you

once inside, she’ll blow her brains out with the pistol Slim kept from the war

they’ll find her brains splattered on the toilet walls

they won’t forget that in a hurry

most of them don’t deserve to inherit, anyhow, can’t be bothered to visit from one Christmas to the next

even then the slackers try it on, complain they can’t get up the hill from the village when it’s snowing or icy

car won’t make it up, GG, they say down the line of the crackling phone she’s had since 1952

better than those mobile phones the young ones check hundreds of times a day which makes them go mental

she’s read about it in the paper

besides, why replace her old phone when it’s still in good working order, sits on the console by the front door, attached to a wire that’s attached to a socket

telephone conversations should be kept short and had standing

far as she’s concerned

she tells those lightweight relatives of hers to walk up the hill from the village instead, it’s only a two-mile hike, a bit perpendicular, but none of them is suffering from vertigo, last she heard

not that the village is a village any more, it’s a ghost town, with one corner shop and a public house, even the Co-op (to think there were protests when it opened in the seventies) closed down a few years back