Chapter 11 of 14 · 3'06"
Da has a job offer in England: permanent, management, a free house, and enough to clear the family's back tax. Ma answers with the neighbourhood's claim on their children and the hostility waiting across the water: “If we go over the water, them people's not gonna understand a word we say.”
Da's Case for Moving to England
❝ Monologue · 12 lines I Want My Family With Me
At a crowded Belfast bus station, Da tells Ma about a permanent job in England: more money, a house for each boy and a garden. Buddy is with them, and he asks whether he can play football there. Ma pushes back, listing everything they would lose by leaving, and the argument narrows to one question: Christmas, and who really gets to decide.
On the surface this is logistics — money, a house, a school run. Underneath it is a tug of war over who the family belongs to. Da measures the offer in what it fixes: the back tax, the cramped house, the danger of staying. Ma measures it in what disappears: streets where everyone knows her children and looks after them. Her worry is concrete, not sentimental — “half of them, they'll take the hand out of us for sounding different,” she says, and the other half will hate them for what Belfast men are doing on Belfast streets. When Da says “Things change,” she agrees; she just refuses to pretend the change is free. Even the last exchange about who has to decide keeps the choice between them, unsettled, as the bus to Aldergrove is called.
A1–C2 is the CEFR scale. Cards above the level you pick fade, and playback will not auto-pause on them.
“This family's not gonna get another chance like that in this town, not now.”
A flat, final sentence that closes the door: this is the last chance, and everyone knows it.
Informal
“I want my family with me.”
Six plain words strip away every excuse and leave only the wish underneath.
Neutral
“We've known this street and every street round it all our lives.”
She never says she will miss it; she just lists the streets she has always known.
Neutral
“You and me, we've known each other since we were toddlers.”
One line puts decades of friendship on the table, the softest and heaviest argument for staying.
Neutral
You and me, we've known each other since we were toddlers. We've known this street and every street round it all our lives. And every man, woman and child that lives in every bloody house, whether we like it or not. I like it. And you say you've a wee garden for them boys? But here, they can play wherever the hell they like, 'cause everybody knows them, everybody likes them and everybody looks after them. If we go over the water, them people's not gonna understand a word we say. And half of them, they'll take the hand out of us for sounding different. And the other half, they'll hate us 'cause men here are killing their young sons on our streets. They'll think we don't give a shite. And you think they're gonna welcome us with open arms?
Up next · 12money's a bit tightThe scene: Grandpa Tells Buddy Who He IsShe believes the family would lose a street where everyone knows and looks after the children, and would face mockery for their accent and hostility over what is happening in Belfast.
It is an Irish expression meaning to mock or make fun of someone. Ma says people in England would laugh at them for sounding different.
Not quite. He says the family needs to decide by Christmas, but Ma corrects him — “you need to decide” — pointing out that the choice is ultimately his.
He asks whether he can play football in the new garden, and later whether his father is coming back. Da answers the first kindly and deflects the second.
