Cally Phillips' Another World is Possible
Episode Fourteen – RESOLUTION
Genre: Drama
Swearwords: None.
Description: 2004 London – ROISIN
Swearwords: None.
Description: 2004 London – ROISIN
8th October 2004. It’s thirty seven years after Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara was captured. It’s not a good day for Roisin. Not a good day at all. The worst. The worst day of her life. Definitely. The last day of her life. She is thirty nine years old. The same age Che was when he died. In a couple of weeks she’ll be forty. Except she won’t because she won’t exist. She’ll finally ‘be like Che’. A memory. A myth. Nothing more.
9th October 2004. It’s thirty seven years after Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara was murdered. The day Roisin has planned to kill herself. The day Roisin kills herself. The end of the story. The end of her story.
So how did she come to this?
2004 is a difficult year for Roisin. They have all been difficult years since the millennium. Nothing much worth living for any more. Just more of the same. And worse.
1999 was the last good year. The trip to Cuba. Meeting Tom. Trying to make sense of it all, but finally finding that it was all as far away as ever. Even if she is Che’s daughter, what does this mean for her life? She can’t tell anyone, she can’t talk to anyone about it. The most important part of her identity has to remain secret. And she never sees Tom again.
At the turn of the millennium Roisin decides to break all links with the past, to move on. But living without Che just makes her miserable. She feels purposeless, pointless, without identity. She doesn’t know who she is without him. She doesn’t know who she could be with him.
Mary is, it seems, in remission. The last re-hab seems to have done the job and she’s been clean for six months or so. Clean, but needy. Roisin and Mary meet, clash and part time after time. Both realise the relationship is damaging but neither can finally walk away. They are mother and daughter after all. They share a bond. A history. They are all each other has. Apart from Patrick. But Patrick has followed his father Liam and we never see him any more. Just as well. He is a career criminal and on the inside more often than the outside, so not a very successful one.
In 2001 Mary moves to Kent. Gets a new partner. One who isn’t into drugs but, yes, one who also has a history of mental health problems. Gary. Gary and Mary are wrapped up enough in themselves and their joint psychoses to give Roisin a break for a while and Roisin dreams of moving out of London. But dreaming is all she does about it. She changes jobs, begins to drift, stops being able to hold it together. She’s thirty five and life seems to have passed her by. No husband, no children, no mother (relief), no father (pain) and no emotions left to share with anyone.
2002 continues where 2001 left off. Roisin gets another job. With each job change she seems to go spiralling down the career ladder, not progressing upward. There is no upward for Roisin. Not now.
Roisin doesn’t see Mary all year until her birthday. When Mary turns up on her doorstep, having left Gary. Or having been kicked out. It’s not clear. But whatever the situation, it’s enough to have got Mary back on drugs. Drugs are the only relationship Mary really knows, the one constant in her chaotic life, the one she turns to when things go more wrong than the usual bad, which is standard.
Roisin gives up her job to look after Mary. To try to get her finally off the drugs. But Mary doesn’t really want to come off drugs. She protests and demands and emotionally blackmails and tells Roisin that if only Roisin paid her more attention, gave her the love due to her, she wouldn’t need to depend on the drugs. Roisin feels it’s all a ruse because she’s come to understand that drugs are Mary’s only reality.
Roisin has given up trying to be like Che. But in 2003 when the Iraq war breaks out she once again wonders what the world is coming to and what the point of it is. She has begun to think that Che wasted his life because however great he was, however strong his moral character and his ideology, ultimately he died. End of. His life was wasted. Alive, he would have been so much more important. Roisin knows a live person will always be more significant than a memory.
There’s an epiphany. All of a sudden in 2003, Roisin realises that she is like Che after all. Neither of them are appreciated. Neither of them can achieve what they should in life because the world will not let individuals change things. Everything is subject to politics and economics and whatever little you try to do (however little or however much) your life is, in the end, worth nothing. While you are alive you are worthless and when you are dead your value is created by others and you are forgotten or commodified.
Roisin decides that no one will commodify her. She hates the world for what it has done to her father. She cannot stand the posters, she doesn’t want to engage with the myth. She finds it all distasteful. But she cannot bring herself to get rid of her images of Che. He is her father after all. She has a right. It’s all she has of him. She is different. She needs Che.
About this time Roisin reads an article by Aleida, Che’s daughter, demanding that people stop capitalising on and commodifying him through his image. Roisin re-discovers a sense that there is a reality of Che beyond her imagination. She had never thought about his other family. She feels mixed emotions; jealousy and anger as well as empathy that none of the other children really knew their father either. But Aleida at least had some memories of her father. He existed for her as a person, not just as a poster. At four years old Aleida sat on her father’s lap. At four years old, Roisin was introduced to her father as an icon. She might kiss him but he could never kiss her back. She could not throw her arms round him, sit on his lap, run her fingers through his hair. She could not smell him or touch him or feel loved by him.
Roisin reads a description by Che’s daughter Aleida, ‘I have few memories of my father… I think the most beautiful is of the day he saw us for the last time. We didn’t know it was him, because he was disguised as old Ramon. I was five and a half years old…. I banged my head on the table. He immediately took me in his arms… I said to my mother, ‘Mama, I have to tell you a secret. I think this man is in love with me’
On reading this Roisin becomes convinced she must meet Aleida. She must be re-united with her family. Somehow. She begins to re-read all the old books about Che she’s kept in a box since after she and Jim split up. She reads Che’s last letter to his children,
To my children
Dear Hildita, Aleidita, Camilo, Celia and Ernesto,
If you ever read this letter, it will be because I am no longer with you. You practically will not remember me, and the smaller ones will not remember at all.
Your father has been a man who acted on his beliefs and has certainly been loyal to his convictions.
Grow up as good revolutionaries. Study hard so that you can master technology, which allows us to master nature. Remember that the revolution is what is important, and each one of us, alone, is worth nothing.
Above all, always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone, anywhere in the world. This is the most beautiful quality in a revolutionary.
Until forever, my children. I still hope to see you. A great big kiss and a big hug from
Papa.
The letter speaks directly to Roisin. She cries. She reads and re-reads it. She comes to terms with the reality that Patrick is not her only sibling. She has three older sisters and two older brothers in Cuba. More links to her father. She feels the injustice. She cannot see what she can do to help the revolution but increasingly realises that in her current life she is, indeed, alone and worth nothing.
Roisin realises that in order to be ‘a good revolutionary’ she needs to do two things. Firstly, go to where the revolution is, because there is no way of making a revolution in the life she has now; and secondly, she has to meet her family. She wonders if there was ever a moment where Che knew he was her father. She knows that during Mary’s pregnancy Che was in the Congo and returned to Cuba in disguise around the time of her birth. Does anyone else in her family know she exists? Somehow she feels that if she just meets them, she will get peace, resolution, answers. Maybe this was why her previous trip to Cuba was so unsatisfying. She was looking for the dead and ignoring the living.
For the rest of 2003 Roisin saves money, all the money she can, with the goal of going back to Cuba as soon as possible. She works two jobs, both low paid and pointless because she can’t hold it together enough to do a ‘proper’ job, not with Mary in and out of her life. Not with the thought that maybe instead of inheriting Che’s fighting spirit, she may have inherited Mary’s mental health problems. Is she like her father or like her mother? She has to know.
Roisin is struggling with her demons all through the opening years of the new millennium. She can’t talk to anyone, least of all Mary. She refuses prescription drugs for depression, convinced that this is just a sanitised version of what has caused Mary’s problems in the first place. Roisin cannot see how drugs can be an answer when drugs are the problem. So she battles on without medication. Without help. Without anything or anyone. And it takes its toll.
When she arrives at Havana airport again in April 2004, five years after her last trip, her tiredness is more than just the jet-lag or culture shock. This time she stays for two nights in a small, cheap hotel and two days is enough to show her that Havana has changed. That Cuba is changing and changing fast. Tourists are starting to infiltrate. Consumerism is hitting the town, not in a big way, but you can see brand names and jeans on the street and of course it’s not long before she finds that you can buy anything these days on the streets of Havana, even Coca-Cola, if you have the money to pay for it. Even here there is no escape. There’s no McDonald’s, but it will come.
It’s when Roisin finally realises that it’s pointless to fight against capitalism. Che couldn’t do it, she can’t do it, it can’t be done. Like 1984, we’ve all lost before the story even really begins.
Roisin only has a week in Cuba this time and she wants to return to Santa Clara. But before that, she wants to meet her siblings. If she can’t have Che at least she can have them. Some kind of family. But how will she do it?
She has a smattering of Spanish now, but not enough to make real inroads. She goes from pillar to post, trying to find Aleida or Camilo at their places of work, trying to find out where Celia lives. At one point she thinks she has tracked down Ernesto’s house, but it turns out not to be the case and she leaves some very confused Cubans in her wake.
Then, as she has given up, and is about fly out to Santa Clara, she literally bumps into Aleida. At the airport. Roisin has always been good with faces, and she spots Aleida coming towards her and steps into her path.
‘Hola.’ Well, how else would she begin?
Aleida looks surprised, but surprise turns to complete amazement when Roisin begins babbling about the fact that she is also Che’s daughter and that consequently Aleida is her sister.
‘Nearly 40 years ago my mother met your father at the airport and spoke to him, like I am speaking to you. Then they met again and I am their daughter. I am your sister and I’ve been looking for you…’
The conversation goes on for a good ten minutes, in pigeon Spanish, but eventually Aleida takes in what Roisin tells her. She doesn’t believe her, of course. Thinks that Roisin is crazy (maybe she is, she’s certainly acting crazy) and it all sounds so improbable.
Even if Aleida thinks that Roisin is crazy, she is still kind. She makes it clear that she doesn’t think it’s possible that Roisin is Che’s daughter (and that she is in a hurry) but she gives Roisin a card and suggests that when Roisin comes back from Santa Clara, if she goes to this address they could do a DNA test and that will reveal any relationship. It gives Roisin some hope and peels her away from Aleida. Roisin makes it onto the plane to Santa Clara with only minutes to spare. But with hope in her heart. At last.
In Santa Clara beside the statue of Che, Roisin once more finds peace and reflects upon the meeting. She makes a promise to Che that if she is proved to be his daughter she will come and live in Cuba. With the rest of the family. Mary is useless. Roisin needs to be with people who understand, who have the same values. If Mary had really loved Che, would she not have moved to Cuba years ago? Silently, Roisin also makes a promise to Che about what she will do if the test results prove negative.
The mausoleum in Santa Clara in April 2004 is the last peace Roisin ever finds. It is the place she truly belongs.
Back in Havana, Roisin has only one day before her flight home. She goes to the address, where they are surprised to see her, but polite. She takes the test. She imagines the result will be immediate but they politely tell her it will take a few weeks for the results to come through. Roisin explains that she’s supposed to leave for Britain the following day. They politely tell her they will post her the results.
Outside the building, Roisin thinks that maybe she should stay in Havana till the results come through and goes to try to change her documentation. But it is not to be. The Cuban officials look at her with something between disdain and disbelief and tell her politely but firmly that she has to use her return ticket. Yes, of course she will be welcome in Cuba again but now she has to leave.
So Roisin leaves. She returns to London and waits for the results. They don’t come and they don’t come. She hasn’t enough money to go out to Cuba again. She can’t get through on the phone. She doesn’t have an email contact that works. She tries time after time to contact Aleida, Camilo, Celia, Ernesto. She can’t believe she can’t speak to any of them, that they are ‘protected’ and begins to feel there is a conspiracy against her. Then, in calmer moments, she reminds herself how impossible communication to Cuba is and tells herself just to wait. It’s all she can do. And it will be worth it in the end. She will be vindicated. She will have a new life. A new purpose. A new family.
In September, she can wait no longer and she goes to see Mary. She’s made a decision.
‘Mum, it’s really important. You have to tell me the truth. Is Che Guevara really my father or not?’
Mary doesn’t want to talk about this. She thinks Roisin is trying to upset her. She is in a particularly paranoid phase, having just taken up with Gary again, who is like a fan to flame her mental distress. Especially now they are both on drugs. It’s the way of the world. Have a relationship with a junkie and before long to sustain the relationship you have to join the party.
‘Why does it matter? Why do you want to know? Why don’t you trust me? I’m your mother. And you have no time for me…’
‘Yes, but I have to know the truth.’ Roisin is desperate.
‘You’ve never trusted me. I gave up my life for you, a better life that I could have had than this one, and you…you don’t deserve Che for your father.’
This is going nowhere. Then Roisin drops the bombshell. ‘Anyway. I’m going to Cuba.’
‘Two holidays in one year, you’re lucky, I haven’t had a holiday since I can remember.’
‘You have a holiday every day, mum, you just inject it, or smoke it, or drink it,’ Roisin replies.
‘Get out,’ Mary shrieks. Roisin always does this to her.
‘I’m going to Cuba to live, mum. I’m not coming back. I belong there.’ She’s voiced the decision. It’s not just a thought. It’s going to be reality.
Mary sneers. ‘Don’t be so stupid, Roisin. If you belong anywhere it’s in Ireland. That’s where we both belong and that’s why our lives have been ruined. I should never have left Ireland. I would never have left if it hadn’t been for you.’
Roisin leaves. It hurts to leave Mary, but it hurts to stay. She is serious about returning to Cuba. She’s going to Cuba to find the DNA tests, or take them again. She has to know. Meanwhile she has had time to reflect on what the future might hold. If she can prove she is Che’s love child. It would rock the world. She’s determined to return to Cuba, to speak to her siblings and explain to them that she is no threat. That she doesn’t want world recognition. She just wants to be part of the family. Quietly work with them to promote and preserve his memory, peacefully try to ‘be like Che’ once more.
Mary last sees Roisin on September the eighteenth. Roisin leaves in a terrible state. And Mary never sees her alive again. Roisin is refused a visa to Cuba on September the twenty first, without reason and again on the first of October. So she makes other plans. No one will lie to her again. No one will tell her who she is again. She will create her own identity, take control of her own destiny. She will keep her promise to Che one way or the other.
On the ninth of October 2004, Roisin writes the note that will explain everything to anyone who can be bothered to read it. And shoots herself. The blood spills onto the note, making it unreadable. We’ll never know. Not really know. The little details are unimportant. Where she got the gun, why she did it, none of these matter in the face of the act itself. Roisin is dead. That is the reality. Nothing else matters.
Roisin’s death, as her life, is inconclusive. Motive and identity and purpose remain forever unclear and unresolved. Her secrets and her truth die with her. As with all of us. Whatever we tell other people, the real truth is carried inside, never to be revealed. You have to be there to know it. If you don’t live it, it isn’t real. And Roisin isn’t real. Passing from life to death, she becomes more like Che. A memory. A myth. A story. A commodity. A character in a story.
‘I don’t want to talk about Roisin any more,’ Mary says, and stops talking.
9th October 2004. It’s thirty seven years after Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara was murdered. The day Roisin has planned to kill herself. The day Roisin kills herself. The end of the story. The end of her story.
So how did she come to this?
2004 is a difficult year for Roisin. They have all been difficult years since the millennium. Nothing much worth living for any more. Just more of the same. And worse.
1999 was the last good year. The trip to Cuba. Meeting Tom. Trying to make sense of it all, but finally finding that it was all as far away as ever. Even if she is Che’s daughter, what does this mean for her life? She can’t tell anyone, she can’t talk to anyone about it. The most important part of her identity has to remain secret. And she never sees Tom again.
At the turn of the millennium Roisin decides to break all links with the past, to move on. But living without Che just makes her miserable. She feels purposeless, pointless, without identity. She doesn’t know who she is without him. She doesn’t know who she could be with him.
Mary is, it seems, in remission. The last re-hab seems to have done the job and she’s been clean for six months or so. Clean, but needy. Roisin and Mary meet, clash and part time after time. Both realise the relationship is damaging but neither can finally walk away. They are mother and daughter after all. They share a bond. A history. They are all each other has. Apart from Patrick. But Patrick has followed his father Liam and we never see him any more. Just as well. He is a career criminal and on the inside more often than the outside, so not a very successful one.
In 2001 Mary moves to Kent. Gets a new partner. One who isn’t into drugs but, yes, one who also has a history of mental health problems. Gary. Gary and Mary are wrapped up enough in themselves and their joint psychoses to give Roisin a break for a while and Roisin dreams of moving out of London. But dreaming is all she does about it. She changes jobs, begins to drift, stops being able to hold it together. She’s thirty five and life seems to have passed her by. No husband, no children, no mother (relief), no father (pain) and no emotions left to share with anyone.
2002 continues where 2001 left off. Roisin gets another job. With each job change she seems to go spiralling down the career ladder, not progressing upward. There is no upward for Roisin. Not now.
Roisin doesn’t see Mary all year until her birthday. When Mary turns up on her doorstep, having left Gary. Or having been kicked out. It’s not clear. But whatever the situation, it’s enough to have got Mary back on drugs. Drugs are the only relationship Mary really knows, the one constant in her chaotic life, the one she turns to when things go more wrong than the usual bad, which is standard.
Roisin gives up her job to look after Mary. To try to get her finally off the drugs. But Mary doesn’t really want to come off drugs. She protests and demands and emotionally blackmails and tells Roisin that if only Roisin paid her more attention, gave her the love due to her, she wouldn’t need to depend on the drugs. Roisin feels it’s all a ruse because she’s come to understand that drugs are Mary’s only reality.
Roisin has given up trying to be like Che. But in 2003 when the Iraq war breaks out she once again wonders what the world is coming to and what the point of it is. She has begun to think that Che wasted his life because however great he was, however strong his moral character and his ideology, ultimately he died. End of. His life was wasted. Alive, he would have been so much more important. Roisin knows a live person will always be more significant than a memory.
There’s an epiphany. All of a sudden in 2003, Roisin realises that she is like Che after all. Neither of them are appreciated. Neither of them can achieve what they should in life because the world will not let individuals change things. Everything is subject to politics and economics and whatever little you try to do (however little or however much) your life is, in the end, worth nothing. While you are alive you are worthless and when you are dead your value is created by others and you are forgotten or commodified.
Roisin decides that no one will commodify her. She hates the world for what it has done to her father. She cannot stand the posters, she doesn’t want to engage with the myth. She finds it all distasteful. But she cannot bring herself to get rid of her images of Che. He is her father after all. She has a right. It’s all she has of him. She is different. She needs Che.
About this time Roisin reads an article by Aleida, Che’s daughter, demanding that people stop capitalising on and commodifying him through his image. Roisin re-discovers a sense that there is a reality of Che beyond her imagination. She had never thought about his other family. She feels mixed emotions; jealousy and anger as well as empathy that none of the other children really knew their father either. But Aleida at least had some memories of her father. He existed for her as a person, not just as a poster. At four years old Aleida sat on her father’s lap. At four years old, Roisin was introduced to her father as an icon. She might kiss him but he could never kiss her back. She could not throw her arms round him, sit on his lap, run her fingers through his hair. She could not smell him or touch him or feel loved by him.
Roisin reads a description by Che’s daughter Aleida, ‘I have few memories of my father… I think the most beautiful is of the day he saw us for the last time. We didn’t know it was him, because he was disguised as old Ramon. I was five and a half years old…. I banged my head on the table. He immediately took me in his arms… I said to my mother, ‘Mama, I have to tell you a secret. I think this man is in love with me’
On reading this Roisin becomes convinced she must meet Aleida. She must be re-united with her family. Somehow. She begins to re-read all the old books about Che she’s kept in a box since after she and Jim split up. She reads Che’s last letter to his children,
To my children
Dear Hildita, Aleidita, Camilo, Celia and Ernesto,
If you ever read this letter, it will be because I am no longer with you. You practically will not remember me, and the smaller ones will not remember at all.
Your father has been a man who acted on his beliefs and has certainly been loyal to his convictions.
Grow up as good revolutionaries. Study hard so that you can master technology, which allows us to master nature. Remember that the revolution is what is important, and each one of us, alone, is worth nothing.
Above all, always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone, anywhere in the world. This is the most beautiful quality in a revolutionary.
Until forever, my children. I still hope to see you. A great big kiss and a big hug from
Papa.
The letter speaks directly to Roisin. She cries. She reads and re-reads it. She comes to terms with the reality that Patrick is not her only sibling. She has three older sisters and two older brothers in Cuba. More links to her father. She feels the injustice. She cannot see what she can do to help the revolution but increasingly realises that in her current life she is, indeed, alone and worth nothing.
Roisin realises that in order to be ‘a good revolutionary’ she needs to do two things. Firstly, go to where the revolution is, because there is no way of making a revolution in the life she has now; and secondly, she has to meet her family. She wonders if there was ever a moment where Che knew he was her father. She knows that during Mary’s pregnancy Che was in the Congo and returned to Cuba in disguise around the time of her birth. Does anyone else in her family know she exists? Somehow she feels that if she just meets them, she will get peace, resolution, answers. Maybe this was why her previous trip to Cuba was so unsatisfying. She was looking for the dead and ignoring the living.
For the rest of 2003 Roisin saves money, all the money she can, with the goal of going back to Cuba as soon as possible. She works two jobs, both low paid and pointless because she can’t hold it together enough to do a ‘proper’ job, not with Mary in and out of her life. Not with the thought that maybe instead of inheriting Che’s fighting spirit, she may have inherited Mary’s mental health problems. Is she like her father or like her mother? She has to know.
Roisin is struggling with her demons all through the opening years of the new millennium. She can’t talk to anyone, least of all Mary. She refuses prescription drugs for depression, convinced that this is just a sanitised version of what has caused Mary’s problems in the first place. Roisin cannot see how drugs can be an answer when drugs are the problem. So she battles on without medication. Without help. Without anything or anyone. And it takes its toll.
When she arrives at Havana airport again in April 2004, five years after her last trip, her tiredness is more than just the jet-lag or culture shock. This time she stays for two nights in a small, cheap hotel and two days is enough to show her that Havana has changed. That Cuba is changing and changing fast. Tourists are starting to infiltrate. Consumerism is hitting the town, not in a big way, but you can see brand names and jeans on the street and of course it’s not long before she finds that you can buy anything these days on the streets of Havana, even Coca-Cola, if you have the money to pay for it. Even here there is no escape. There’s no McDonald’s, but it will come.
It’s when Roisin finally realises that it’s pointless to fight against capitalism. Che couldn’t do it, she can’t do it, it can’t be done. Like 1984, we’ve all lost before the story even really begins.
Roisin only has a week in Cuba this time and she wants to return to Santa Clara. But before that, she wants to meet her siblings. If she can’t have Che at least she can have them. Some kind of family. But how will she do it?
She has a smattering of Spanish now, but not enough to make real inroads. She goes from pillar to post, trying to find Aleida or Camilo at their places of work, trying to find out where Celia lives. At one point she thinks she has tracked down Ernesto’s house, but it turns out not to be the case and she leaves some very confused Cubans in her wake.
Then, as she has given up, and is about fly out to Santa Clara, she literally bumps into Aleida. At the airport. Roisin has always been good with faces, and she spots Aleida coming towards her and steps into her path.
‘Hola.’ Well, how else would she begin?
Aleida looks surprised, but surprise turns to complete amazement when Roisin begins babbling about the fact that she is also Che’s daughter and that consequently Aleida is her sister.
‘Nearly 40 years ago my mother met your father at the airport and spoke to him, like I am speaking to you. Then they met again and I am their daughter. I am your sister and I’ve been looking for you…’
The conversation goes on for a good ten minutes, in pigeon Spanish, but eventually Aleida takes in what Roisin tells her. She doesn’t believe her, of course. Thinks that Roisin is crazy (maybe she is, she’s certainly acting crazy) and it all sounds so improbable.
Even if Aleida thinks that Roisin is crazy, she is still kind. She makes it clear that she doesn’t think it’s possible that Roisin is Che’s daughter (and that she is in a hurry) but she gives Roisin a card and suggests that when Roisin comes back from Santa Clara, if she goes to this address they could do a DNA test and that will reveal any relationship. It gives Roisin some hope and peels her away from Aleida. Roisin makes it onto the plane to Santa Clara with only minutes to spare. But with hope in her heart. At last.
In Santa Clara beside the statue of Che, Roisin once more finds peace and reflects upon the meeting. She makes a promise to Che that if she is proved to be his daughter she will come and live in Cuba. With the rest of the family. Mary is useless. Roisin needs to be with people who understand, who have the same values. If Mary had really loved Che, would she not have moved to Cuba years ago? Silently, Roisin also makes a promise to Che about what she will do if the test results prove negative.
The mausoleum in Santa Clara in April 2004 is the last peace Roisin ever finds. It is the place she truly belongs.
Back in Havana, Roisin has only one day before her flight home. She goes to the address, where they are surprised to see her, but polite. She takes the test. She imagines the result will be immediate but they politely tell her it will take a few weeks for the results to come through. Roisin explains that she’s supposed to leave for Britain the following day. They politely tell her they will post her the results.
Outside the building, Roisin thinks that maybe she should stay in Havana till the results come through and goes to try to change her documentation. But it is not to be. The Cuban officials look at her with something between disdain and disbelief and tell her politely but firmly that she has to use her return ticket. Yes, of course she will be welcome in Cuba again but now she has to leave.
So Roisin leaves. She returns to London and waits for the results. They don’t come and they don’t come. She hasn’t enough money to go out to Cuba again. She can’t get through on the phone. She doesn’t have an email contact that works. She tries time after time to contact Aleida, Camilo, Celia, Ernesto. She can’t believe she can’t speak to any of them, that they are ‘protected’ and begins to feel there is a conspiracy against her. Then, in calmer moments, she reminds herself how impossible communication to Cuba is and tells herself just to wait. It’s all she can do. And it will be worth it in the end. She will be vindicated. She will have a new life. A new purpose. A new family.
In September, she can wait no longer and she goes to see Mary. She’s made a decision.
‘Mum, it’s really important. You have to tell me the truth. Is Che Guevara really my father or not?’
Mary doesn’t want to talk about this. She thinks Roisin is trying to upset her. She is in a particularly paranoid phase, having just taken up with Gary again, who is like a fan to flame her mental distress. Especially now they are both on drugs. It’s the way of the world. Have a relationship with a junkie and before long to sustain the relationship you have to join the party.
‘Why does it matter? Why do you want to know? Why don’t you trust me? I’m your mother. And you have no time for me…’
‘Yes, but I have to know the truth.’ Roisin is desperate.
‘You’ve never trusted me. I gave up my life for you, a better life that I could have had than this one, and you…you don’t deserve Che for your father.’
This is going nowhere. Then Roisin drops the bombshell. ‘Anyway. I’m going to Cuba.’
‘Two holidays in one year, you’re lucky, I haven’t had a holiday since I can remember.’
‘You have a holiday every day, mum, you just inject it, or smoke it, or drink it,’ Roisin replies.
‘Get out,’ Mary shrieks. Roisin always does this to her.
‘I’m going to Cuba to live, mum. I’m not coming back. I belong there.’ She’s voiced the decision. It’s not just a thought. It’s going to be reality.
Mary sneers. ‘Don’t be so stupid, Roisin. If you belong anywhere it’s in Ireland. That’s where we both belong and that’s why our lives have been ruined. I should never have left Ireland. I would never have left if it hadn’t been for you.’
Roisin leaves. It hurts to leave Mary, but it hurts to stay. She is serious about returning to Cuba. She’s going to Cuba to find the DNA tests, or take them again. She has to know. Meanwhile she has had time to reflect on what the future might hold. If she can prove she is Che’s love child. It would rock the world. She’s determined to return to Cuba, to speak to her siblings and explain to them that she is no threat. That she doesn’t want world recognition. She just wants to be part of the family. Quietly work with them to promote and preserve his memory, peacefully try to ‘be like Che’ once more.
Mary last sees Roisin on September the eighteenth. Roisin leaves in a terrible state. And Mary never sees her alive again. Roisin is refused a visa to Cuba on September the twenty first, without reason and again on the first of October. So she makes other plans. No one will lie to her again. No one will tell her who she is again. She will create her own identity, take control of her own destiny. She will keep her promise to Che one way or the other.
On the ninth of October 2004, Roisin writes the note that will explain everything to anyone who can be bothered to read it. And shoots herself. The blood spills onto the note, making it unreadable. We’ll never know. Not really know. The little details are unimportant. Where she got the gun, why she did it, none of these matter in the face of the act itself. Roisin is dead. That is the reality. Nothing else matters.
Roisin’s death, as her life, is inconclusive. Motive and identity and purpose remain forever unclear and unresolved. Her secrets and her truth die with her. As with all of us. Whatever we tell other people, the real truth is carried inside, never to be revealed. You have to be there to know it. If you don’t live it, it isn’t real. And Roisin isn’t real. Passing from life to death, she becomes more like Che. A memory. A myth. A story. A commodity. A character in a story.
‘I don’t want to talk about Roisin any more,’ Mary says, and stops talking.
About the Author
Cally Phillips has written fiction and drama in English and Scots, much of which is published through HoAmPresst. She also currently works as editor for Ayton Publishing Limited and runs a number of online projects, including The Galloway Raiders, which is the online hub for Scots writer S. R. Crockett. Her latest project to hit the virtual shelves is the #tobelikeche serial, which started in October 2016.
For the archive of Cally’s fiction and drama, follow this link.
For the archive of Cally’s fiction and drama, follow this link.