Bim, in his dressing gown, wheels himself down his own path and then wheels himself down the path of his neighbour. He looks through the letterbox and can see a light up stairs. He rings the bell. The light goes off. He waits. He looks through the letterbox. He rings the doorbell. He waits.

He wheels himself back up his neighbour’s path and back down his own.

Bim appears out the back of his house out with a torch. He wheels himself along the edge of the garden. His neighbour’s wall is tall. All along it are small holes where bricks have been removed. Bim removes a brick from the wall and pointing his torch peers through it. The view is obscured by shrubs on the other side.

An insect flies out of the hole.

Bim flies with the insect across the neighbour’s garden bouncing on the breeze. He’s a commando peeping tom. He flies towards the window with the light. The curtain is drawn, pulled right across. Light frames the curtain edge. The air is fresh. Bim listens intently, but there isn’t a sound. He persuades the fly to take him a bit further around the house. The fly is not convinced. It senses something, like horses and dogs in films. Its joints freeze and then it jumps unexpectedly. Bim nearly falls off.

The back door opens and a shadow peers out. Bim drops the torch. The shadow suddenly stops. The backdoor shuts.

10
Bim is sitting in the darkness beside his sleeping mother who still has the cotton wool in her ears.

“Yeah, yeah that’s right…” he mumbles, “I heard the same…But it was heavy like ffff heavy….Eh? No…It’s mi legs, keeps me from going out. Yeah that’s right… keeps me…Yeah course, I’d like to, but ya know it just… it just…kind a keeps me.”

“I like ya hair…Yeah I do…it’s… it’s lovely.” He pauses. “Beautiful.”

11
Agnes is lying in her bed with cotton wool in her ears. Her breathing is shallow and slow, her eyes sucked back, the sockets puckered.

The door opens. Bim comes in on his wheel chair with a tray lying on his legs. He looks tired and unshaven. He crosses the room, places the tray on the bedside table and then opens the curtains. The sunlight is too strong for Agnes. Bim stops and smells the air. He pulls the bed covers back and looks. “Oh dear. Never mind Mum.”

12
A little later, Bim has finished cleaning Agnes and pulls the covers back. “All done,” he says. He looks over her breakfast, which is cold. “Not to worry, I can make it again.”

As Bim is cooking eggs and bacon, the radio is reading the news. It’s war.

Bim brings Agnes her fresh breakfast but she is too ill to eat. Bim looks over her. “Never mind mum. Not feeling so good eh? You just lie there, it’ll be alright. I’m ere. I’m ere.”

“Cor, the news is rough today. A right rough fracass going on. I don’t suppose its ever gonna end. No I don’t. Well don’t you worry, I won’t be going, not with the way things are with you an all. Spects they’ll just leave me ta get on with things wi’you. That’s what I reckons. Course if they asked I’d go cause they’d get sommut to look after you. And they’d look after you better than I does, it’d be proper and professional. You shits in the bed and before you’d know it, you’d be clean. Not the effort I have go to and gourmet food an all. I mean I does mi best, but we’ve all had better and I wouldn’t be hurt if ya said so.”

“Course Dad’d go. That’s right wouldn’t he? Had the temper for it. Not half. Woof, could throw a right wobbly if ya caught his goat and that would be what them blokes needs out there. A good temper to thrash em terrorists with. That’s exactly what ya needs at a time like now. My Dad….My Dad.”

Bim looks at his Mum. Her eyes are closed. Her breathing steady.

“That you are mum. That you are.”

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.