it was so traumatic I never got over it, she wailed
or the woman who chased her up Regent Street shouting at her for not returning her calls from around the same time
who do you think you are, you pretentious show-off theatre luvvie? you’re nothing, that’s what you are, nothing
you must be off your meds, love, Amma shouted back, before escaping into the subterranean warren of Topshop
Amma long ago lost interest in bed-hopping; over time she began to crave the intimacy that comes from being emotionally, although not exclusively, close to another person
non-monogamous relationships are her thing, or is it called polyamory now? as Yazz describes it, which as far as she can tell is non-monogamy in all but name, child
there’s Dolores, a graphic designer based in Brighton, and Jackie, an occupational therapist in Highgate
they’ve been in the picture seven and three years respectively and are both independent women who have full lives (and children) outside of their relationship with her
they’re not clingy or needy or jealous or possessive, and they actually like each other so yes, sometimes they indulge in a little ménage à trois
upon occasion
(Yazz would be horrified if she knew this)
the middle-aged Amma sometimes feels nostalgic for her younger days, remembers the only time she and Dominique went on a pilgrimage to the legendary Gateways
hidden down a Chelsea basement in the last years of its fifty-year existence
it was almost empty, two middle-aged women stood at the bar wearing men’s haircuts and suits and looking as if they’d walked straight out of the pages of The Well of Loneliness
the dance floor was dimly lit, and two very old and very small women, one in a black suit, the other in a forties-style dress, danced cheek-to-cheek to Dusty Springfield singing ‘The Look of Love’
and there wasn’t even a glittery disco ball spinning from the middle of the ceiling, sprinkling stardust on to them.
3
Amma throws her coffee in a bin and walks directly towards the theatre, past the concrete skateboarding area emblazoned with graffiti
it’s way too early for the youngsters to begin their death-defying leaps and twists without helmets or protective knee pads
the young, who are so fearless
like Yazz, who goes out cycling without a helmet
who storms off when her mother tells her that wearing a helmet might be the difference between
a/ getting a headache
b/ learning to talk again
she enters the stage door, greets the security guard, Bob, who wishes her well for tonight, makes her way through the corridors and up the stairs and eventually on to the cavernous stage
she looks out at the empty, auditory wilderness of the fan-shaped auditorium, modelled on the Greek amphitheatres that ensured everyone in the audience had an uninterrupted view of the action
over a thousand people will fill the seats this very evening
so many people gathered to see her production is quite unbelievable
the entire run almost sold out before a single review has been filed
how’s that for demand for something quite different?
The Last Amazon of Dahomey, written and directed by Amma Bonsu
where in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries women warriors served the king
women who lived in the king’s compound and were supplied with food and female slaves
who left the palace preceded by a slave girl ringing a bell warning men to look away or be killed
who became the palace guard because men couldn’t be trusted not to chop off the king’s head or castrate him with a cutlass while he slept
who were trained to climb naked over thorny acacia branches to toughen up
who were sent into the hazardous forest for nine days to survive on their own
who were crack shots with muskets and could behead and disembowel their enemies with ease
who fought the Yoruba next door and the French who came to colonize
who grew to an army of six thousand, all formally married to the king
who were not otherwise permitted sexual relations and any male child born to them was killed off
on first hearing about this Amma decided they must have been at it among themselves because wasn’t that the case when the sexes are segregated?
and the idea of her play was born
the last Amazon is Nawi, who enters the stage as a vulnerable teenage bride presented to the king; unable to bear his child, she’s cast out of his bedchamber and forced to join his female combat troops where she survives the hazardous induction and rises up the ranks through her powerful physicality and cunning battle strategies to become a legendary Amazon general who shocked foreign observers with her fearless ferocity
Amma shows Nawi’s loyalty to her many women lovers long after she tires of them, making sure the king assigns them lightweight domestic duties rather than kick them out of the compound to a life of destitution
at the end of the play, old and alone, Nawi reconnects with her past lovers, who fade in and out as spectres, courtesy of holograms
she relives the wars where she made her name, including the ones the king instigated to provide captors for the abolished slave trade in the Americas, with outlaw slave ships outrunning the blockades in order to do business with him
she’s proud of her achievements
video projections show her battles in action, thunderous armies of charging Amazons brandishing muskets and machetes
hollering and swelling towards the audience
spine-chilling, terrifying
in the end
there is Nawi’s death
lights slowly fading
to blackout
Amma wishes Dominique could have flown over to see a play she was the first to read ten years ago when Amma wrote it
a play that’s taken this long to get staged because every company she sent it to turned it down as not being right for them
and she couldn’t bear the thought of resurrecting Bush Women Theatre to put it on
when Dominique left, she was left to steer the battleship alone
which she did for a few years, feeling abandoned, never finding someone to replace Dominique who had provided the practical solutions to Amma’s creative ideas
she dismantled the company in the end
and went freelance
Shirley
her oldest friend will be here tonight, she’s attended every one of Amma’s shows since she was a teenager, has been a constant in her life since they met as eleven-year-olds at grammar school when Shirley, the only other brown girl in the school, made a beeline for her in the playground when Amma was standing alone one lunchtime amid the excitement of green-uniformed girls screeching and whooping and having fun skipping with ropes and playing hopscotch and games of tag
there was Shirley standing before her
Shirley, with perfectly straightened hair, her face so shiny (Vaseline, Amma later discovered), with her perfectly-knotted school tie, white socks pulled up to her knees
so composed, so neat, so nice-looking
unlike Amma’s own messy hair, mainly because she was unable to stop unpicking the two braids her mother plaited for her every morning
or stop her socks slipping down to her ankles because she couldn’t help rubbing one foot against the other leg
and her school cardigan was three sizes too big because her mother had made it to last three years
hello, she said, my name’s Shirley, do you want me to be your friend?