Read by Lin Sagovsky
John Lennon ruined my life. It was the summer of 1971. ‘Imagine,’ he said. I did, and where did that get me and my kids? Not much further than my hometown, not very far in my education and no way closer to my dreams. College, in ‘71, was marches, boycotts and leaflets. We went to protests instead of classes, carried the placards, wore the T-shirts and covered ourselves in flowers, badges and pins. We flew banners and flags but kept them and our clothes safe from open flames. It was a perilous time, not just in Vietnam. And all we got for our troubles was thrown out of college, and less than ten years later Lennon got shot.
‘What?’ I ask, squeezing the ketchup packet dry.
‘I can see through it,’ he says, holding the beef patty from his burger up to the light.
‘No, you can’t,’ I say, hoping instead of believing. ‘There’s two, so that makes up for it.’
‘Yeah Ma, but it’s supposed to be a double burger, not two slices of the same burger.’
That kid’s smart, I think to myself. He’s going places.
So that summer I didn’t think I’d end up feeding my kids on leftovers from the three part-time jobs I have, at least one of which I’d have boycotted back then. So I don’t tell my kids to dream. They’d only get let down. I tell them to forget fairy-tales, religion or superstitions. If they can’t see it – it’s not there. And even if you do see it – you still can’t be sure. So no point in birthday wishes or lottery tickets. Hard work is all there is, and even then, it’s not enough. Everyone’s working hard. But like my Da said, if you keep your head down and shoulder to the grindstone, you just might get to keep the miserable job you have, long enough for your kids to grow up without rickets, to have read a book or two and not to have found other ways to make money.
‘Ma, tell him to gimme the bucket,’ says my middle kid.
‘Give her the bucket, it’s her turn,’ I say, squeezing the mayo packet onto my plastic tray.
‘But Ma,’ says the oldest, ‘She always picks the best chicken, leaves the worst for us.’
‘We take turns,’ she says, like a compromising middle-kid would, ‘It’s my turn and it’s not my fault if I’m good at picking the best bits, is it Ma?’
‘No,’ I say, ‘Anyway, just because other people’s food looks better than yours, doesn’t mean it is. Like the grass being greener.’ Or like a family-size chicken bucket being big enough to feed a family.
Maryann, the youngest of the three, was six when she found the T-shirt in my old college bag in ‘78. Wouldn’t take it off all summer. Wore it like armour. I only got to wash it if I carefully peeled it off her while she was asleep. The surprise she felt when she woke up finding it smelling sweeter than before was magical, just like her innocent acceptance of it as something that could happen to a T-shirt. She still believed in things. Wasn’t phased. Even the so-called ‘cold war’ didn’t dampen that spirit. She thought if she wore a T shirt saying ‘Ban the Bomb’, it would happen. Even from under her desk at school, in the duck-and-cover drills, she was confident. Even when the siren went at night and we got out of bed to go to the ‘bunker’, not knowing if it was a drill or not, she believed.
Of course I knew dreams die, but however much I tried to convince her, she wouldn’t have it. Being right brought me no comfort and being wrong … well, let’s put it this way, it didn’t matter that there was no bomb, and that she didn’t die in a nuclear attack but instead got caught in the crossfire of a neighbouring family dispute ‒ isn’t the dream still dead however it died?
‘Ma,’ says Maryann, ‘I don’t mind whatever pizza you bring home, I can just take the meat off, so get whatever the others want.’ She keeps it short because I’m on the work phone.
‘You sure?’ I ask, knowing it’s what she always says and how it makes sense but also knowing the older two won’t even notice.
Maryann was shot. It was not intentional. Nobody meant to kill her. But she died anyway. The T-shirt was ruined. No amount of scrubbing would clean the blood, but I buried her in it anyway, gunshot hole and all. I still owe money on the funeral, but the headstone’s paid in full. I know it’s stupid, and I don’t even know what I meant by it, but I put ‘Another Dream Died’ over her death-date. All I know is that they were grand enough words for her, and all I could afford even on credit. Can you call credit hope?
‘Ma?’
I remember in my first year at college an Irish professor told me about a poet called Yeats. He talked about wishing for the cloths of heaven like a patchwork to spread out under the feet of his love. But because he was poor, he had only his dreams, so he asked his love to ‘tread softly’ because they tread on his dreams. After Maryann was shot, I thought differently about the poem. I thought that no one should offer up their dreams to be tread on, no matter how poor they were or how softly they could be tread on. The professor was my first kid’s dad.
‘Ma?’
I would like to say that after Maryann died that I went back to college and got my diploma in education and got a better job and was able to help my kids achieve their dreams. I didn’t. It’s an awful thing to say, but it was easier with one less mouth to feed. And when the eldest got a paper-round, it was easier again. And when the middle one started baby-sitting, they both had their own money for their lunches, clothes and books, so it was easier still. Can a kid still be a middle-child when the youngest is dead?
‘Ma?’
Time passes but I still don’t pray or wish or even hope. I live. More than Maryann got to do. I don’t care how many magpies I see or ladders I walk under or mirrors I break, the worst that can happen already has. Even before Maryann died. Before she was even born. Back when the first gun was made. Did you know the word ‘gun’ comes from the Norse for war? So we are at war, not just in foreign countries, but in our homes, our schools and our streets. While we have guns, we have war. Imagine that.
‘Ma?’
I am a reader. I read. That much I do. Don’t always have time for it, so it’s mostly magazines from the library or a book I force myself to read every month. I only read non-fiction. No point in reading if it’s not real. More dreams and lies won’t help. So I write down things I read about that I think will help the kids. I learn it so I can drop it into conversation and make out I knew it all along, so the kids might think I know more than just how to ask if someone wants fries with that. So they might think better of me. And not blame me too much. I start a conversation with a question or a fact or sometimes a ‘Did you know?’ Some ideas I just play out in my head because they aren’t yet conversations children should hear.
Like, did you know, this guy Fisher from Harvard wanted to put the nuclear codes inside a volunteer so the president would have to kill that person before they could get the code? It was supposed to make the president think before killing. I’d volunteer for that. I’d make my case for our lives. I could do that. Though what if the president said they could surgically remove the code without me dying? I’ve thought of that. Wouldn’t work as well. I’d make the president kill me with his own hands. Nothing too removed from me like a gun or detonator or a code. That’s the point. You have to feel the physical and emotional energy it takes to kill a human being. That’s what the book said. Not just remotely press a button or pull a trigger. You can’t just imagine it. You need to feel connected. I have a better idea. We could implant the codes in the person the president loves the most because in reality that’s what a nuclear war would mean, everyone the president ever loved would die in the end, the person with the code would just be the first to go. That would bring it home. That would make it real.
‘Ma?’
I used to be a dreamer. But now all the dreamers are either standing in a food bank line or hiding under their desks from a classmate with an assault rifle or praying to a God that doesn’t care but for convenience will take cash or credit. Hopes, wishes and prayers don’t solve anything. Like I said, hard work is what’s needed. And that’s not so easy. And it takes time. Nothing’s going to be solved before breakfast, it might take until supper. It might even take until after a good night’s sleep and breakfast next morning. Nothing wrong with dreaming while you’re asleep. But you got to be awake to live and be living to dream.
‘Ma?’
‘What?’
‘Where’s Maryann?’
We didn’t know then she was dead, so even though she was dead, until we knew, she was still alive.
(c) Rosaleen Lynch, 2020
Rosaleen Lynch, an Irish community worker and writer in the East End of London, pursues stories whether conversational, literary or performed and believes in the power of words to make the world a better place. Recent words appear in Jellyfish Review, Crack the Spine, Lunate, EllipsisZine, Reflex, Fish and @quotes_52
Lin Sagovsky is currently playing William Shakespeare in a solo show, Bard in the Yard, a kind of Deliveroo theatre for gardens all over London. Apart from her voicework and acting in various media, she also helps non-actors become better communicators - especially, these days, on Zoom and Teams.
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