1. SALLY AND HER DREAM
Sally ­ not her real name ­ is a single Mum, who tries to make ends meet, living in a cramped
flat on the second floor of a tenement block. To get from ground level to her place you have
to negotiate the stairs, because the lift is invariably out of order, and carrying shopping with
two youngsters in tow is no joking matter, and often tempers get frayed and then the howling
begins which sets things up for an argument with the old battleax who lives at the bottom.
She clearly dislikes having children anywhere near her. Sally thinks she may be frigid and
has therefore never had a man even pinch her, let alone kiss her. When Sally reaches the
top, at least it is on the level to her front door, but she has to manoeuvre through all the junk
that people leave behind them ­ such as the remains of several takeaways. The council
workmen have not been round to clean the landings for months. Perhaps they are afraid of
being mugged or set upon by a local gang of youths, most of whom are out of work and
probably unemployable anyway. They just roam the streets, looking for mischief like a
parked car, waiting to be stolen, or a pile of bricks, waiting to be thrown at windows, even
those behind which people are eking out a miserable existence just like them. It is dog eat
dog around there. No mercy for the weak and vulnerable. If you are out on your own or with
your children, you are a sitting target. That is why Sally never goes out at night. She has no
social life at all. She is too afraid for her safety and that of her children, when she is out.
Besides there is no­one to look after them who she could trust. Even her family have all
abandoned her. She has been without them for years. Ever since they found out about
Kevin, that wastrel, as they described him, who had moved in with Sally. Everyone had
warned her that he was up to no good, but would she listen? No. Well, she can rot in hell, as
far as we are concerned. That was the universal opinion of her family. Sally had experienced
the cold shoulder and the brick wall, to mix metaphors. Eventually she had managed to
persuade Kevin to leave after he cheated on her with another woman once too often. She

2. had to get the help of the police and local council who were extremely reluctant to get
involved, but somehow it had all worked out. She had even managed to meet a kindly Good
Samaritan who paid the County Court to get Kevin served with the injunction, banning him
from within a far enough distance away from the flat. And from that day onwards she had not
seen hair nor hide of Kevin. She was relieved but very lonely. The Good Samaritan moved
on and disappeared from her life. That was a few years back now.
Sally’s daily routine never varies. From the time she wakes up until the time she manages to
get to sleep in the early hours of the following morning, it is a constant battle satisfying the
needs of her children, both of whom have not yet reached school age. They always crave for
her attention, and she is unable to decline their wishes ever. She is always at their beck and
call. She loves them both so much. She is their mother, who protects them from the outside
world which is cruel and unyielding in its opposition to families like theirs.
She is absolutely exhausted. There is no let­up in the drudgery of the day. She tries not to
look at herself in the mirror, because she doesn’t want to shock herself. She wants to have
this romantic image of her in a ball­gown, being wined and dined by a handsome prince. She
even visualizes what he looks like. She is Cinderella to his Prince Charming. Somewhere
she has the golden slipper, which will transform her situation and she will one day become
Queen. For the moment she can’t find it, so she dreads the knock on the door, in case his
manservant turns up and she is not ready. What a disaster! While she daydreams, she
forgets she has two little ones to look after, and they belong to her. Will her Prince Charming
also make them princesses in the royal household?
Bang! Something crashes to the floor, and wakes her out of her reverie. It is a saucepan full
of hot boiling water she left on the stove and one of the children has managed to grab hold

3. of the handle and tipped the whole thing up all over herself. There is screaming!
Pandemonium! Sally cannot think straight, except to wrap her poor darling in a wet towel.
She has not the faintest idea if she is doing the right thing. With the casualty in her arms and
the other one holding her hand tightly and walking by her side, she grabs the keys and her
purse and rushes out the door.
Suddenly in front of her stands her Prince Charming, who smiles and takes her child from
her arms. “You poor thing! Let me cuddle you in my arms! Now we are going to a place
where you can get better.” Sally follows with her other little one in his wake, as they proceed
along the passageway and then down the stairs. The lift of course yet again is still not
working.
Sally is aware that everything is happening so quickly that she can hardly catch her breath,
but she enquires: “Where are we going? To the hospital?”
“No, my dearest. To a much better place where you and your children can all be looked after
and live in safety with me. Now, come along. Look, there is the coach, all in its shining livery,
waiting for us down on the pavement. The footmen are keen to get us on our way.”
POSTSCRIPT
Here is a woman who is trapped in circumstances which are beyond her control. She is
alone and without any assistance, and so with scant resources to face the challenges that
come from living where she does with her precious family of two little children. The
authorities have all let her down. Even though these organisations employ people to work
within their hierarchical structures, they come across as entities without any “soul” or
“compassion” ­ which prevent their employees from being human beings. This woman

4. deserves better treatment, but gets it neither from the latter nor from her own family, whose
high moral principles also prevented them from engaging with her and seeking to help their
kith and kin, and in fact whose same high moral principles were used to ostracize Sally from
their midst as though she did not belong to them ­ a totally unnatural state of affairs. As the
saying goes, blood is thicker than water. Sometimes, people behave in ways which are
completely alien to their true nature.
I believe that in this story we see a woman who is experiencing a crisis which destabilizes
her so much that she has literally taken leave of her senses, in order to cope with her
situation. However, she has just put off the moment when she has to confront it and it in a
way “hits her in the face”. She is awakened from a deep sleep, but finds herself in a
nightmare. Her response is flee back into her unconscious state in order to exist in her
daydream. This is the only way out for her, but it is a blind alley. What actually happens to
her and her children we will never really know?