Mother Pravyk hears the sounds of her children playing on Factor Row...
KIRA PRAVYK : One, two, three, four, five... Hide properly Vovo. Is that you? This is supposed to be hide-and-seek not chase-me-chase-me. Are you ready?
MOTHER PRAVYK : And they grow up too fast.
FATHER PRAVYK : Morning, my lovely. It's best they grow up and go to school and maybe one day they'll be more than just factory grunts, like their no hope of an old man who has no choice but to work the night shift...
MOTHER PRAVYK : You should be in bed.
FATHER PRAVYK : I'll be there soon enough, my heart.
MOTHER PRAVYK : You need to sleep. Have you eaten?
FATHER PRAVYK : We called at the Welfare on the way back.
MOTHER PRAVYK : Good they had food left.
FATHER PRAVYK : Lucky, very lucky. Let out early. And I suppose this week's wages will show it up, but we did all get to see little Pavlo on his way to school.
MOTHER PRAVYK : And our Danylo and Lesya?
FATHER PRAVYK : Danylo will work after school. Lesya is old enough to leave. She works this morning and will go to school this afternoon if the factory will spare her from machine administration. She already makes better money, than her father, than her dear father and all her brothers and sisters put together. So school has worked. She will do better.
MOTHER PRAVYK : Oh, little Lesya, she's only twelve! There is more school. She could have certificates.
Father Pravyk laughs till he sits. And Mother Pravyk flicks him with her tea towel.
MOTHER PRAVYK : She'd do even better with Ordinaries. She might become an engineer. You are jealous of her.
FATHER PRAVYK : Our little Lesya has got bored of school, my lovely.
Quick footsteps hurry along the cobbles and up the stairs to waiting empty beds.
FATHER PRAVYK : There, my love. The others. Back and fit to sleep.
He's moving again, up the old stairs and to bed.
MOTHER PRAVYK : All the children should be at schooling, at learning. We want the best for them, for them to do better than us, out after opportunity. But who pays for room and board? Only their father, no-one else left. How can I leave home to work now? The babies still need me, Kira and Vovo and Leon, too young to be left alone or go to school. What's left? At least we're not in the horrible workhouse, separated from each other, worked to death. If they do well at their jobs, they'll progress, they'll have a better life than their parents, at least we hope so, one day. Working shifts, it's not a way to live, shatters everyone's sleep, lord, doesn't it just make the night long and cold, lonely even when you know there's someone waiting at home or working for you, for all of us that don't work. Can't bear to hear the people who say we won't work. That we're lazy. That we have our babies, our little innocents, just to avoid working like a good citizen, there should be a law, like they work because they want to not because they need money, or like, or as if, this is utopia, there's work for anyone!
KIRA PRAVYK : The baby's not playing prop'ly. He won't play like us.