Cally Phillips' Another World is Possible
Episode Three – TRUTH
Genre: Drama
Swearwords: None.
Description: 1967 Kilburn – MARY
Swearwords: None.
Description: 1967 Kilburn – MARY
It’s called the summer of love. Love is everywhere. We’ve turned on, tuned in, dropped out. Anyway, we’re out of it most of the time. Is that the same thing?
I’m living in a shared house in Agamemnon Road, Kilburn, North London. I’ve been here about a year. I won’t say it feels like home. But I sort of feel at home here.
I came here when Roisin was just over a year old. She was born in December 1965. The Nineteenth. Too close to Christmas for my liking, but I suppose it gets all the present buying over and done with in one hit. If she wants, when she’s older, she can share my birthday cause it’s the nineteenth of June. I always find that incredible, like it was meant. Six months to the day. It has to mean something, don’t you think? I think everything means something, if you just look hard enough.
She can have an official birthday like the Queen in the summer and we can have a party together. Like sisters. cause I want to be more like a sister to Roisin than a mum. When she’s older, I mean. Right now of course she’s only two and a half and she needs a mum to love her. But one day. I mean, I’m not that much older than her. Most of the time I still feel like a kid myself. Twenty. It’s nothing really, is it? It’s pretty young to be bringing up a kid on your own in a foreign country. Cause just because we’re part of the United Kingdom, or Great Britain, or whatever you want to call the place, England is not Ireland. I learned that very quickly.
So, like I said, I’ve been here in Kilburn for about a year, maybe eighteen months but time’s just a blur right now, days just go on and on and you only tell the difference by what’s number one in the hit parade. Mostly it’s all the same, though, you just go from one party to another. Smoke, drink, drop a tab, have a laugh and try to get through another week with not enough money. I don’t know how I do it really. Don’t think about it too much is the way. Life’s a party if you don’t think too hard.
Before here we moved around a lot. I came over in July 1965 just after my birthday, when Roisin was beginning to show. I was eighteen. And yes, I was scared most of the time. I was lucky I got in with decent people. Mostly. There were a few incidents. A few flits in the middle of the night. But when Roisin was born I reckoned I had to sort things out and stop moving on every few weeks and I got into a house in Kilburn, not this one, and we stayed there for six months or so. I guess I was kind of depressed then. Staying in all the time with a baby and not knowing anyone or what to do. I don’t suppose I was any different to the thousands of single Irish Catholic girls, ‘fallen women’, my mum would say.
That’s one thing that’s different between Ireland and England. At home I was a fallen woman. A sinner. But here I’m just another girl who made a mistake. Not that Roisin is a mistake. I never think that. I love her. I loved her dad. But it was impossible. We couldn’t have made a go of it. Believe me. One day maybe I’ll be able to talk about it. But not now. Now, you just have to believe me.
So… Kilburn. We’d been in that house for six months or so and I decided I had to get out or I’d kill myself. I didn’t want to miss out on everything all my life. I made friends with a girl in the next bedsit called Stacey and that was the beginning of things. Stacey’s cool. She has a big circle of friends and she isn’t ashamed to go out and get what she wants. I started to go out with her and met all her friends. And they liked me. And I liked them. It really opened my mind. Changed my life. Expanded my horizons, I suppose you could say. Anyway, I’m glad I met Stacey.
People get the wrong impression about Stacey sometimes. I’ve heard her called all sorts of names and some people have even said she’s no better than a prostitute. But times have changed, haven’t they, and the older generation don’t understand free love. They don’t understand any of it really, do they?
Stacey never takes money for sex. But if a guy wants to buy her a meal, or some clothes or something for spending time with her and she sleeps with him cause she likes him, why not? She’s a single girl, and you have to live. I just think that Stacey is a modern girl. I mean, sex, it’s like anything else really, isn’t it? It’s a commodity. Love is something different but sex, well that’s like eating or drinking or buying shoes. Or going to the football. That’s what Chris says. He’s quite funny about it really. He’ll give you the whole rundown of when sex is like a 1-1 draw, when it’s a 5-0 hammering and…. Yeah, he’s funny, Chris, but I think underneath it, he’s probably got a point. You shouldn’t take sex too seriously. It’s not something to get hung up on.
I met a lot of guys while I was living next to Stacey. And yes, I went out with a lot of them. Had a good time. Why not? I need a break from Roisin once in a while, need to remind myself that I’m still young. Yes, I know I’m a mum, but I have to retain my own identity, don’t I? And I always put Roisin first. I always do. I always have and I always will. I’m a good mum. You don’t need money or things to be a good mum. Just love. Like the Beatles say, All you need is love. And I do love Roisin. I do. Even when she’s difficult.
Stacey used to stay in and mind Roisin for me when I went out in the evening. I thought that was really good of her. Of course, Stacey isn’t as lucky as me. She’s had some bad luck. Bad situations she didn’t know what to do with. Before she had a friend like me to talk it over with. Now me and Stacey can talk things through together and that’s easier. It’s always easier with someone else to talk to, someone else in the same boat, even if they don’t have answers.
Well, Stacey had an abortion once. She had to really because she didn’t think she could bring up the kid on her own, she didn’t think she had my strength. She wasn’t ready to be a mum. And she was only fifteen. But it does something to you, an abortion. Leaves you without something and wishing and… well, anyway, looking after Roisin once in a while was like a kind of therapy for her. And going out once in a while, forgetting about being a mum was like a therapy for me, so we both benefitted really. And it’s good for Roisin to mix with people. Be exposed to different influences. That’s good for a kid.
I know my mum would think that Stacey was a bad influence on me but I can’t think about what my mum would think now, can I? I mean sometimes I think that if only she could see Roisin she’d be really proud. And forgive me. I nearly went back home once, packed everything up and bought a ticket and everything. But I couldn’t do it. It was an impulse, I suppose, and then I thought about it more and wondered what if she didn’t welcome us home. Where would I be then? And I talked it through with Stacey and we agreed I’d ‘made my bed’ and so I’d better make the best job of ‘lying in it’. I mean, one day I’m sure I’ll go back there. But not now.
There’s lots of things my mum wouldn’t understand. My mum thinks Elvis is the devil. So she’d never get the Beatles, now would she? And Velvet Underground? I don’t think so. My mum thinks drink is an abomination to the lord so you couldn’t explain to her how relaxing it is to light a spliff, how amazing it is to drop a tab, how these things are all positive experiences, things you have to do to appreciate how good they are for you.
Like Roisin. To mum an unmarried mother is a slut or a whore. But to me a child is a precious gift. Roisin was born out of love and you can’t look back and say it should never have happened. You can’t wish her away, now can you? However hard work your kids are, you can’t wish them away.
That’s where I think I’m different from my mum. She thinks she has to forgive me and she can’t. Me, I don’t think there is anything to forgive. And I don’t want Roisin to grow up thinking like that. I’ve got rules for Roisin. But they’re different rules than my mum had for me.
My mum’s rules are down to the church and the village and other people’s views. My rules are to do with freedom and making your own choices and realising that the world is a big and wonderful place and that you can’t really ever know what’s going to happen next so you just have to embrace all possible options. And hope for the best.
Am I a hippie? I don’t think so. I don’t believe in labels. I’m just trying to get by. Do I believe in Free Love? I don’t think love is something you can only have in a marriage. I’ve seen enough married couples who don’t love each other to know marriage isn’t the answer. Monogamy? I don’t know. I don’t think it’s a good thing when you’re young. I think everyone has to find their own way. One day maybe but we’ll see how life turns out.
The one thing I’m sure of is that no one is to say ‘no’ to Roisin. She has to be allowed to develop by herself. However hard that is for me. I want her to feel free and her own person and I want her to be able to make her own choices. So I explain things to her. The best I can, cause I don’t usually understand things that well myself. But we all do it. Everyone who lives with Roisin, they all agree that it’s the right thing to do. We all wish we’d had things explained and been allowed to choose instead of the way we were brought up.
Roisin could be an experiment, I suppose. My life is an experiment at the moment, I think. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I never have. But I’ve realised you can’t say no to things out of hand. You have to try everything once. That’s what I believe. And live with whatever life throws at you.
Drugs. That’s always the big question. People get so worked up about drugs. But really, everyone takes them now. Young people. I mean, the Beatles and the Stones and all the bands take them. They couldn’t write their songs without it and their songs really tell you what it’s all about, don’t they? There’s really nothing wrong with drugs as long as you are sensible. There’s a lot of nonsense talked about it really I think by older people who just don’t want us to experience the world differently to the way they do. But we are a new generation and we have to face the world in our own way.
I’m sorry the summer of love can’t last, but summer can’t last, can it? And in the autumn we’re getting angry, very angry. However much weed we smoke, we’re still getting angry because the rest of the world is determined to make war not love. And blaming us for everything that goes wrong.
Are we to blame for everything? Young people? I don’t think so. We’re not hurting anyone. Here at Agamemnon Road we’re not doing anything that can hurt anyone, we’re just living our lives. But out there in the world, really bad things are happening in 1967.
An example? Okay. Kilburn 1967 the worst that can happen to you is that your dealer runs out of tabs. No trip is worse than a bad trip, let me tell you. And getting out of your mind, changing your reality is a good thing really when you think of what’s going on in the rest of the world. Look at Bolivia. They killed Che Guevara because he was trying to help the Bolivian peasants become free. The American Imperialists. They want to own everything. They think the only value is what you can buy. And we don’t like that. Not us in Agamemnon Road or all the younger generation. Everyone I know. We don’t want the world to be like that. We want people to be free.
So when they kill our heroes we get angry. I mean. It’s like someone killed John Lennon, or Elvis or something; well, not Elvis cause really he’s just part of the whole American Imperialist thing, except I suppose his music was really black music, but I think they’ve pretty much bought and sold Elvis like everything else in America… anyway, they just killed Che Guevara. In cold blood. They didn’t need to do that. But it made him stronger really. Immortal. And that’s for ever, isn’t it? He’s more than a man now. He may be dead as a man but his message lives on. I believe that.
People think that none of us knew anything about Che or world events or anything before we put the posters up on our walls. But we did. I did. We might sit around here getting stoned but what do you think we talk about? We care about the world, too. We get stoned because we can’t stand the pain of the modern world, the ‘real’ world they want us to live in. We want to create our own reality and, you know what, no one can stop us doing that. Agamemnon Road is our own world and they can’t stop us. They try, though. But if we have to we’ll fight back. You have to fight the oppressor. That’s what Che taught the world. No matter if there’s a hundred of you or one of you, you have to fight for what you believe in. There’s a time for love, but when it gets ugly, you have to stand up, and if you have to fight you have to fight.
Like Stacey and I. I mean, Stacey and I are still friends, but things happened. And you can’t forget that. It was over a guy, of course. I mean free love is one thing and we all agree with it, but when you’re living with a guy and he sleeps with your friend and they don’t tell you about it. That’s not right either, is it? That happened to Stacey and me. I don’t like to blame anyone, I mean, I think they were just wasted and I was out with Roisin at the park and probably, yes, I was giving her some of the attention that Jimmy thought he should get, and really, we were all just in a mess and it didn’t mean anything and I was stupid to think that Jimmy loved me, or even that I loved him.
We sorted it out anyway. And Jimmy moved out. And Stacey and I agreed that we wouldn’t sleep with the same guy again. That it was all too much hassle and there are plenty of guys anyway. And we agreed that if there was a guy living in the house with us we’d talk about it first. And if we couldn’t decide Stacey said we should toss a coin. I think she was joking and anyway it never happened again.
So. Stacey and I are in Agamemnon Road and it’s 1967 and we’ve been here for over a year and there’s lots of folk come and gone in that time and we know it’s not worth falling out over a guy. I mean, I know I’ll never love another guy like I did Roisin’s dad. That was special. You can’t have that twice. So it’s not really worth making a fuss about, is it? I think you have one true love and then with the rest you just make it up to keep yourself happy. Cause we all want to feel we’re in love, all the time. But you can’t be in love all the time any more than you can be drunk all the time or stoned all the time, can you? You have to face reality sometimes. Even if you don’t want to. Even if it hurts.
I’m living in a shared house in Agamemnon Road, Kilburn, North London. I’ve been here about a year. I won’t say it feels like home. But I sort of feel at home here.
I came here when Roisin was just over a year old. She was born in December 1965. The Nineteenth. Too close to Christmas for my liking, but I suppose it gets all the present buying over and done with in one hit. If she wants, when she’s older, she can share my birthday cause it’s the nineteenth of June. I always find that incredible, like it was meant. Six months to the day. It has to mean something, don’t you think? I think everything means something, if you just look hard enough.
She can have an official birthday like the Queen in the summer and we can have a party together. Like sisters. cause I want to be more like a sister to Roisin than a mum. When she’s older, I mean. Right now of course she’s only two and a half and she needs a mum to love her. But one day. I mean, I’m not that much older than her. Most of the time I still feel like a kid myself. Twenty. It’s nothing really, is it? It’s pretty young to be bringing up a kid on your own in a foreign country. Cause just because we’re part of the United Kingdom, or Great Britain, or whatever you want to call the place, England is not Ireland. I learned that very quickly.
So, like I said, I’ve been here in Kilburn for about a year, maybe eighteen months but time’s just a blur right now, days just go on and on and you only tell the difference by what’s number one in the hit parade. Mostly it’s all the same, though, you just go from one party to another. Smoke, drink, drop a tab, have a laugh and try to get through another week with not enough money. I don’t know how I do it really. Don’t think about it too much is the way. Life’s a party if you don’t think too hard.
Before here we moved around a lot. I came over in July 1965 just after my birthday, when Roisin was beginning to show. I was eighteen. And yes, I was scared most of the time. I was lucky I got in with decent people. Mostly. There were a few incidents. A few flits in the middle of the night. But when Roisin was born I reckoned I had to sort things out and stop moving on every few weeks and I got into a house in Kilburn, not this one, and we stayed there for six months or so. I guess I was kind of depressed then. Staying in all the time with a baby and not knowing anyone or what to do. I don’t suppose I was any different to the thousands of single Irish Catholic girls, ‘fallen women’, my mum would say.
That’s one thing that’s different between Ireland and England. At home I was a fallen woman. A sinner. But here I’m just another girl who made a mistake. Not that Roisin is a mistake. I never think that. I love her. I loved her dad. But it was impossible. We couldn’t have made a go of it. Believe me. One day maybe I’ll be able to talk about it. But not now. Now, you just have to believe me.
So… Kilburn. We’d been in that house for six months or so and I decided I had to get out or I’d kill myself. I didn’t want to miss out on everything all my life. I made friends with a girl in the next bedsit called Stacey and that was the beginning of things. Stacey’s cool. She has a big circle of friends and she isn’t ashamed to go out and get what she wants. I started to go out with her and met all her friends. And they liked me. And I liked them. It really opened my mind. Changed my life. Expanded my horizons, I suppose you could say. Anyway, I’m glad I met Stacey.
People get the wrong impression about Stacey sometimes. I’ve heard her called all sorts of names and some people have even said she’s no better than a prostitute. But times have changed, haven’t they, and the older generation don’t understand free love. They don’t understand any of it really, do they?
Stacey never takes money for sex. But if a guy wants to buy her a meal, or some clothes or something for spending time with her and she sleeps with him cause she likes him, why not? She’s a single girl, and you have to live. I just think that Stacey is a modern girl. I mean, sex, it’s like anything else really, isn’t it? It’s a commodity. Love is something different but sex, well that’s like eating or drinking or buying shoes. Or going to the football. That’s what Chris says. He’s quite funny about it really. He’ll give you the whole rundown of when sex is like a 1-1 draw, when it’s a 5-0 hammering and…. Yeah, he’s funny, Chris, but I think underneath it, he’s probably got a point. You shouldn’t take sex too seriously. It’s not something to get hung up on.
I met a lot of guys while I was living next to Stacey. And yes, I went out with a lot of them. Had a good time. Why not? I need a break from Roisin once in a while, need to remind myself that I’m still young. Yes, I know I’m a mum, but I have to retain my own identity, don’t I? And I always put Roisin first. I always do. I always have and I always will. I’m a good mum. You don’t need money or things to be a good mum. Just love. Like the Beatles say, All you need is love. And I do love Roisin. I do. Even when she’s difficult.
Stacey used to stay in and mind Roisin for me when I went out in the evening. I thought that was really good of her. Of course, Stacey isn’t as lucky as me. She’s had some bad luck. Bad situations she didn’t know what to do with. Before she had a friend like me to talk it over with. Now me and Stacey can talk things through together and that’s easier. It’s always easier with someone else to talk to, someone else in the same boat, even if they don’t have answers.
Well, Stacey had an abortion once. She had to really because she didn’t think she could bring up the kid on her own, she didn’t think she had my strength. She wasn’t ready to be a mum. And she was only fifteen. But it does something to you, an abortion. Leaves you without something and wishing and… well, anyway, looking after Roisin once in a while was like a kind of therapy for her. And going out once in a while, forgetting about being a mum was like a therapy for me, so we both benefitted really. And it’s good for Roisin to mix with people. Be exposed to different influences. That’s good for a kid.
I know my mum would think that Stacey was a bad influence on me but I can’t think about what my mum would think now, can I? I mean sometimes I think that if only she could see Roisin she’d be really proud. And forgive me. I nearly went back home once, packed everything up and bought a ticket and everything. But I couldn’t do it. It was an impulse, I suppose, and then I thought about it more and wondered what if she didn’t welcome us home. Where would I be then? And I talked it through with Stacey and we agreed I’d ‘made my bed’ and so I’d better make the best job of ‘lying in it’. I mean, one day I’m sure I’ll go back there. But not now.
There’s lots of things my mum wouldn’t understand. My mum thinks Elvis is the devil. So she’d never get the Beatles, now would she? And Velvet Underground? I don’t think so. My mum thinks drink is an abomination to the lord so you couldn’t explain to her how relaxing it is to light a spliff, how amazing it is to drop a tab, how these things are all positive experiences, things you have to do to appreciate how good they are for you.
Like Roisin. To mum an unmarried mother is a slut or a whore. But to me a child is a precious gift. Roisin was born out of love and you can’t look back and say it should never have happened. You can’t wish her away, now can you? However hard work your kids are, you can’t wish them away.
That’s where I think I’m different from my mum. She thinks she has to forgive me and she can’t. Me, I don’t think there is anything to forgive. And I don’t want Roisin to grow up thinking like that. I’ve got rules for Roisin. But they’re different rules than my mum had for me.
My mum’s rules are down to the church and the village and other people’s views. My rules are to do with freedom and making your own choices and realising that the world is a big and wonderful place and that you can’t really ever know what’s going to happen next so you just have to embrace all possible options. And hope for the best.
Am I a hippie? I don’t think so. I don’t believe in labels. I’m just trying to get by. Do I believe in Free Love? I don’t think love is something you can only have in a marriage. I’ve seen enough married couples who don’t love each other to know marriage isn’t the answer. Monogamy? I don’t know. I don’t think it’s a good thing when you’re young. I think everyone has to find their own way. One day maybe but we’ll see how life turns out.
The one thing I’m sure of is that no one is to say ‘no’ to Roisin. She has to be allowed to develop by herself. However hard that is for me. I want her to feel free and her own person and I want her to be able to make her own choices. So I explain things to her. The best I can, cause I don’t usually understand things that well myself. But we all do it. Everyone who lives with Roisin, they all agree that it’s the right thing to do. We all wish we’d had things explained and been allowed to choose instead of the way we were brought up.
Roisin could be an experiment, I suppose. My life is an experiment at the moment, I think. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I never have. But I’ve realised you can’t say no to things out of hand. You have to try everything once. That’s what I believe. And live with whatever life throws at you.
Drugs. That’s always the big question. People get so worked up about drugs. But really, everyone takes them now. Young people. I mean, the Beatles and the Stones and all the bands take them. They couldn’t write their songs without it and their songs really tell you what it’s all about, don’t they? There’s really nothing wrong with drugs as long as you are sensible. There’s a lot of nonsense talked about it really I think by older people who just don’t want us to experience the world differently to the way they do. But we are a new generation and we have to face the world in our own way.
I’m sorry the summer of love can’t last, but summer can’t last, can it? And in the autumn we’re getting angry, very angry. However much weed we smoke, we’re still getting angry because the rest of the world is determined to make war not love. And blaming us for everything that goes wrong.
Are we to blame for everything? Young people? I don’t think so. We’re not hurting anyone. Here at Agamemnon Road we’re not doing anything that can hurt anyone, we’re just living our lives. But out there in the world, really bad things are happening in 1967.
An example? Okay. Kilburn 1967 the worst that can happen to you is that your dealer runs out of tabs. No trip is worse than a bad trip, let me tell you. And getting out of your mind, changing your reality is a good thing really when you think of what’s going on in the rest of the world. Look at Bolivia. They killed Che Guevara because he was trying to help the Bolivian peasants become free. The American Imperialists. They want to own everything. They think the only value is what you can buy. And we don’t like that. Not us in Agamemnon Road or all the younger generation. Everyone I know. We don’t want the world to be like that. We want people to be free.
So when they kill our heroes we get angry. I mean. It’s like someone killed John Lennon, or Elvis or something; well, not Elvis cause really he’s just part of the whole American Imperialist thing, except I suppose his music was really black music, but I think they’ve pretty much bought and sold Elvis like everything else in America… anyway, they just killed Che Guevara. In cold blood. They didn’t need to do that. But it made him stronger really. Immortal. And that’s for ever, isn’t it? He’s more than a man now. He may be dead as a man but his message lives on. I believe that.
People think that none of us knew anything about Che or world events or anything before we put the posters up on our walls. But we did. I did. We might sit around here getting stoned but what do you think we talk about? We care about the world, too. We get stoned because we can’t stand the pain of the modern world, the ‘real’ world they want us to live in. We want to create our own reality and, you know what, no one can stop us doing that. Agamemnon Road is our own world and they can’t stop us. They try, though. But if we have to we’ll fight back. You have to fight the oppressor. That’s what Che taught the world. No matter if there’s a hundred of you or one of you, you have to fight for what you believe in. There’s a time for love, but when it gets ugly, you have to stand up, and if you have to fight you have to fight.
Like Stacey and I. I mean, Stacey and I are still friends, but things happened. And you can’t forget that. It was over a guy, of course. I mean free love is one thing and we all agree with it, but when you’re living with a guy and he sleeps with your friend and they don’t tell you about it. That’s not right either, is it? That happened to Stacey and me. I don’t like to blame anyone, I mean, I think they were just wasted and I was out with Roisin at the park and probably, yes, I was giving her some of the attention that Jimmy thought he should get, and really, we were all just in a mess and it didn’t mean anything and I was stupid to think that Jimmy loved me, or even that I loved him.
We sorted it out anyway. And Jimmy moved out. And Stacey and I agreed that we wouldn’t sleep with the same guy again. That it was all too much hassle and there are plenty of guys anyway. And we agreed that if there was a guy living in the house with us we’d talk about it first. And if we couldn’t decide Stacey said we should toss a coin. I think she was joking and anyway it never happened again.
So. Stacey and I are in Agamemnon Road and it’s 1967 and we’ve been here for over a year and there’s lots of folk come and gone in that time and we know it’s not worth falling out over a guy. I mean, I know I’ll never love another guy like I did Roisin’s dad. That was special. You can’t have that twice. So it’s not really worth making a fuss about, is it? I think you have one true love and then with the rest you just make it up to keep yourself happy. Cause we all want to feel we’re in love, all the time. But you can’t be in love all the time any more than you can be drunk all the time or stoned all the time, can you? You have to face reality sometimes. Even if you don’t want to. Even if it hurts.
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.