Hazel (sniffs the air) I can smell burning.

Leanne, Hazel’s elder daughter, appears with cordless straighteners on the go.

Leanne I’ve got a spot.

Hazel Well, don’t squeeze it. (Calls.) Dad? Crumpets are burning! Leanne, go and …  

Leanne I’ve got a spot!

Maggie We can put some concealer.

Hazel (calls) Dad?

Sarah When is my hair being done?

Hazel Not yet, go and check on your grandad.

Sarah leaves.

Sylvia I don’t think I can eat anything.

Hazel You’re going to have to, you’ve had no breakfast. (To Maggie.) She was being sick when I got here. (To Sylvia.) And a glass of milk will line your stomach.

Maggie I was shaking the morning of my wedding.

Hazel Which one?

Maggie (obviously) To Barry: my first. (To Sylvia.) It gets easier.

Hazel She’s not planning on gaining your expertise.

Maggie I meant throughout the day.

Leanne How many times have you been married, Aunty Maggie?

Maggie Four, but only to three husbands.

Hazel I’ll never understand why you married Roy once, never mind twice.

Maggie It was the way he looked at me, how he made me feel … like I was a potato in a famine.

Sylvia I liked Martin.

Hazel We all liked Martin.

Maggie (here we go) I wasn’t happy with Martin.

Hazel He gave into you on everything. (It does ’em no good / to give in.)

Maggie Even on our wedding day, something was just missing.

Sylvia Like a fry-up with no bacon.

Hazel Seven bridesmaids that one, two pageboys, five-tiered / cake.

Maggie Martin wanted all that, not me. I should never have gone through with it.

Leanne So why did you?

Maggie At the time, I was still heartbroken about Barry.

Sylvia (to Leanne) He’d been unfaithful.

Hazel He’d have shagged a frog if he could gerrit to hold still for long enough.

Maggie Why are we talking about my weddings anyroad when it’s our Sylvia’s? I thought you’d be having it up at the Club?

Hazel We don’t want any trouble.

Maggie Trouble? What, ’cause he’s Polish?

Hazel You know what some folk are like especially after they’ve had a skinful.

Sarah appears with a dinner plate of crumpets for all.

They’re charging for use of the stage nowadays, the Club are. They want to wank another forty-five pound out of you just to use the stage, bearing in mind you’re already forking out seventy-five for the room hire and twenty-five for the bar.

Sylvia We couldn’t fill a place that size anyways.

Maggie Are any of his family coming over?

Sylvia (‘no’) We skyped his mam yesterday.

Hazel Does she speak any English?

Maggie Are you gunner learn Polish, our Sylv?

Hazel Polish! How can anyone learn Polish? Have you seen what their words look like? First time I saw it, I said that’s not a language that’s a Wi-Fi password. It’s just Zs and Ws one after the other.

Leanne There’s a place opened with English and Polish menus now.

Hazel Warsaw Diner. It’s been Franny’s Cafe since I can remember.

Maggie (to Sylvia) It’s somewhere for you and Marek to try.

Hazel I don’t see it lasting. The diner, I mean. They did lovely dinners at Franny’s, piping hot too. I’d take Mam sometimes, if I was on the right shift. She loved that place. Now it’s gone …

Maggie You still at the warehouse?

Hazel Where else would I be?

Maggie People do change jobs.

Hazel I applied to be a Team Leader, I dint get it of course.

Maggie You can always reapply.

Hazel Team Leaders are all Eastern Europeans and they look after their own. We don’t get a look-in.

Sylvia (rising) I need to feed Popcorn …

Hazel Let me finish this, our Leanne will do it.

Leanne I don’t like cats.

Hazel I don’t always like you, I still feed you.

Leanne I’m doing my nails.

Hazel Not on that carpet you’re not – you should’ve done them last night.

Leanne Oh my God, they take ten minutes.

Hazel CAT.

Leanne gets up and leaves.

She can be like a bloody black hole.

Maggie We were no different at that age.

Hazel We were. She don’t go out.

Maggie Don’t she have hobbies?

Hazel They don’t have hobbies nowadays, they have phones.

Maggie Has she got a boyfriend?

Sarah I have. I’ve got two.

Maggie Two?!

Sarah Billy and Craig. They’re alright, I suppose.

Maggie So what else is new?

Hazel Next door’s got a sex pond.

Maggie A sex pond?

Sylvia She means a hot tub.

Hazel Why anyone wants to sit in a cauldron of sperm, I don’t know.

Sarah Mum, can I have these slides in?

Hazel He’s built a bar on their garden and all, it’s like Center Parcs round there.

Leanne returns and paints her nails.

Maggie They’ve got the weather forrit. Hottest summer on record.

Leanne They said that last year too.

Sarah Mum, can I have these slides in my hair?

Hazel We’re not doing slides, you’ve got you a bow.

Sarah I want slides and a bow.

Hazel It’s going to be too much, Sarah, too much metal in your head.

Sarah But Mum!

Maggie Come and show me your bow, let me have a look.

Hazel Leanne, do that polish on a surface. What time is it?

Leanne It’s not even eleven.

Hazel Eleven?!

Leanne It’s just gone half ten, Mam.

Sylvia Can everyone stop getting stressed because it’s getting me stressed!

Beat.

How’s my hair?

Maggie It’s looking lovely.

Leanne Really nice.

Hazel I’ll be done done in a minute.

Hazel You do look peaky, our Sylvia.

Sylvia I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t drop back off.

Maggie Too excited.

Hazel (to Sylvia) Was Dad shouting again?

Maggie Shouting?

Hazel He keeps having these work dreams, he thinks he’s back down the pit.