i arrive at the white house without shoes, as i always do, because the gravel is a text and i refuse to read it. the east room smells of hairspray and old carpet, and somewhere beneath it, the ghost of a beetroot. trump is at the lectern. a reporter from the bbc, a man with a face like a wet weekend in swindon, asks: ‘mr president, did you break the hat?’ trump says: ‘i never touched the hat. i have the greatest respect for hats. everybody knows that.’ i am so shocked i have to sit down on a marble floor that is cold and honest. he said respect. respect. i write the word in my notebook and it looks like a small coffin. i am not wearing shoes. i mention this to a secret service agent, who does not care.

fifteen witnesses and a footman called derek

the bbc then produces fifteen witnesses. one is a footman called derek who says he saw trump stamp on the hat three times while humming ‘my way’. another is a photographer who has a picture of trump’s foot on the hat. a third is a minor royal who says ‘he looked me in the eye and said, i’m having that.’ trump calls them ‘absolute nobodies’ and ‘low iq individuals’. he produces a notarised letter from the hat’s milliner, a woman from luton called sharon pratchett, saying the hat was already broken. sharon later tells itv news she was paid £200 in cash and a signed photograph.

“i’ve got a mortgage,” she says.

i am not wearing shoes. the marble is still cold.

the hat goes to parliament and is valued at three pounds fifty

the hat is entered into evidence at a select committee on wednesday morning. it is a brown felt trilby, size 7, with a sweat stain and a tear in the lining. a museum curator values it at £3.50. the committee chair, a tory mp called giles farquhar-blythe, holds it up and says ‘this hat was asking for it.’ labour’s angela rayner asks why the committee is spending time on a hat when children are going hungry. farquhar-blythe says ‘we are a nation of hat lovers.’ the committee votes 7-4 that no further action will be taken. i am not wearing shoes. i am eating a cold beetroot from my pocket. it tastes like justice, which is to say it tastes of nothing.

trump says the hat was a communist and i have a small breakdown

outside, trump tells reporters the hat was ‘a communist hat, a very bad hat, probably made in china.’ he says he will be suing the hat’s owner for defamation. i ask him if he has any regrets. he says ‘i have no regrets, i have the best regrets.’ i am so shocked i have to lie down on the pavement. a policeman asks if i am alright. i say ‘the hat, the hat’ and he walks away. i think about borscht. my grandmother made borscht that could strip paint. she said the potato was a spy for the state. i miss her. i miss the taste of dirt.

the hat is now worth two hundred thousand pounds on ebay

by thursday the hat is listed on ebay for £200,000. the seller is sharon pratchett. she says she found it in a skip. trump tweets: ‘the hat is a fraud, just like the election, just like the bbc.’ the white house press secretary says the president has ‘no recollection of any hat’ and that the hat ‘should apologise.’ the select committee announces it will reopen its inquiry next tuesday. i am not wearing shoes. i walk home through the park. a man asks me for a light. i say ‘the hat was asking for it.’ he nods. we stand there in the dark, two people who understand nothing, and it is the most honest moment of my life.