Xavier Leret

Here is the final installment of Agnes and Jim. I've been away re-opening my adaptation of Moll Flanders, which is why I have not written for a week. Rehearsals were great and our opening week at the Winchester Theatre Royal was fantastic - totally sold out and a rapturous reception. I'm finally pleased with show so, if anyone fancies it, you can get to see the production on tour - tour dates are here http://www.kaostheatre.com/molldates3.php. It's a very funny, filthy and ultimately touching piece.

I'll have some more of the Jimmy story sometime this week.

Agnes and Bim

32

Bim is woken by the doorbell ringing. It rings a couple more times.

He looks at his mum. Her breathing is very weak. He takes hold of her hand.

The doorbell rings again.

He ignores it.

33

Later. Agnes is asleep. Bim is on the phone.

"Hi, Mrs. Johnson. Yeah, I know it's late. I just needed someone to talk to that's all. Is that alright? It's mi mum. She's not well."

He listens to Mrs Johnson.

"I'm with her now."

Her voice is concerned for him, "are you coping alright?

"I reckon. I could do some company is all. She don't look so good. Won't be long. It's better this way, her being with me.

She asks him what his mum looks like.

"Her eyes are like puckered up plum sockets, kissed by the Reaper."

Mrs Johnson has a warm voice all the way down the other end of the line. She says she knows a Grim Reaper, that he comes round ever now and then. He's a client.

"Well, he lives in a room next ta me," he says.

Mrs Johnson asks about his mother's breathing.

"Her breathing? Kind a slow. She's got a rasp."

"A rasp?"

"Yeah, she's breathing like a ghost."

"A ghost?"

"Yeah, she might haunt me. I think that would be nice."

Mrs Johnson knows all about that because her own mother is a ghost.

"Your mum haunts you? And what's that like?... A pain in the ass?"

He laughs.

He listens some more and starts laughing. He starts to get an uncontrollable fit of the giggles.

"Stop it, I'm sitting right next to her."

He can't stop himself from laughing so he hides his face from his mother.

34

An hour or so later Bim is holding his mother's hand.

35

Bim is in the kitchen. It's the middle of the night.

36

It is early morning. Bim is in Agnes' room looking out of the window.

A flock of birds fly over head, they can see Frank working in his garden, the street, an old car pull away, a main road jammed with traffic. Streets slowly dissolve into countryside to coastline to sea.

Bim looks round to his mum.

37

Later that morning Bim is sitting beside Agnes' bed, holding her hand. The doorbell goes. He doesn't move. It goes again.

"Don't worry Mum," he says, "it can't be that important."

38

Bim is still sitting beside Agnes' bed in his wheelchair. Her breathing is very weak. Her eyes are shut. Bim is holding her hand.

"There ya go mum. You just breathe. Nice an slow, don't rush, there's no need."

He looks at his mother. Her breathing is long and slow and heavy.

"You want I should call the doctor?.. No... no, I won't leave ya."

"Hey? No, you just takes your time. Don’t worry about me, I'm fine here."

"Would ya like me to... to hold ya? Is that what ya wants?"

He gets up onto the bed and cradles her.

"There you go mum. There's no need to be afraid, no need at all. Did Dad hold you like this? Yeah, I spects he did. Held ya close. Bet there was nothing like it, not a thing."

"Yeah?... I thought so. I bet it was beautiful."

He can feel that she is beginning to go.

"Go on then Mum. Go on. I loves ya more... more than... Oh, I don't know really... I just does, that's all... I just does."

She dies by relaxing into him, a gentle letting go through a nuzzle.

He continues to hold her and after a short while he falls asleep.

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29

Bim is lying on the bed next to Agnes. She is barely with him.

“I wish mi dad was ere,” he says, “yeah I do, bin wishing for im plenty of recent, like. I don’t know why? He’d be in a right swelter of a mood with the way things are an all, never did like being still, that’s what I remember.”

“He don’t seem too bad, does he? Frank I mean. All these years and he’s kept himself to himself. Funny world. People don’t share things like they did.”

30

Bim is looking up the stairs. He slips out of his wheel chair and drags himself up. His legs always made hard work for him. Always. They offered to cut them off once, but he loved them even though they were crippled. He hated seeing stumps hanging over wheel chairs.

At the top of the stairs he crawls into one of the rooms. There is the frame of an old iron bed with a stained old mattress. He gets himself onto the bed, as he does so he becomes a boy again.

“What you doing in ere?” asks his mum.

“I just wanted to look out the winda.”

“What for?”

“I don’t know.”

“Ya drag yaself up ere all on yer tod and ya don’t know what brought ya.”

“The views better an down there. Can see more that’s all.”

“And what more do ya want see?”

“Just to the end of the street Mum and then around the corner.”

“There ain’t nothing round the end of that corner Sparky. Just more streets. That’s all.”

“Where’s Dad?”

His mum doesn’t say anything for a while. “I don’t know.”

A flock of birds fly over.

“No use running when you can fly, eh?” and she puts her arm around him. His head is on her shoulder.

The doorbell rings. He’s alone with himself. He gets down from the bed and crawls out of the room.

The bell rings again.

31

Bim is sitting beside Agnes’ bed. “Here, I made you a nice cup of tea,” he says before he hoists himself out of his wheelchair and climbs up onto the bed. He takes the cup of tea and gives it to her.

“Come on then Mum,” but she can’t drink.

He holds her in his arms.

“Ya know, it’s a funny old world,” he says after a while, “with people not happy where they are. Its a right old shame for some that we’re not born with wings, which might have bin well fine for the likes of me, cept I have a feeling, like, that mine weren’t meant ta work. Me? I ain’t happy none if I can’t be still where I am.”

“World should take a thing or two from you, she should. There ain’t nothing around the corner to run to, cept more streets.”

He kisses her head.

“Me, I don’t need no legs ta run. I’ve set mi roots.”

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27

A little later, the storm has cleared.

The kettle is boiling.

The doorbell rings.

Bim opens the door. A man is standing there with a bunch of flowers. He’s in his late forties, a little weathered. “I’m Frank," he says, “I live next door.”

They both look at each other. Finally Bim says, “Yeah?” “Thought I’d bring these over,” says Frank. “I knows ya ma ain’t well and flowers are a good thing for a woman and it don’t make no difference how old they might be.”

Bim looks at him. “I picked em myself,” adds Frank.

“Cheers.”

They look at each other some more and Frank is the first one to break “So how is she?”

“Eh? Oh, you know.”

“Can I come in?”

Bim does not like to be rude but he isn’t quick to answer. “Yeah, I suppose.”
Frank walks in.

“I’ll get some water for those, says Bim.

In the kitchen Bim fills a vase with water. Frank is standing behind him. “They’re nice flowers. You shouldn’t ave.”

“Ain’t nothing.”

Bim turns around and looks at Frank. Frank is nervous. Bim points to the flowers, “Can I have them?”

Frank hands the flowers over to Bim who puts them in the vase.

“They looks lovely,” says Frank. “Yeah,” replies Bim. “Can I sees where ya going ta put em?” asks Frank. Bim looks at the floor, “Sure,” he says.

28

Bim places the vase on Agnes’ bedside table. Agnes is awake. Her eyes are red. Frank stands at the foot of her bed. “This is Frank, Mum. He lives next door. This is my Mum, Frank. Her name is Agnes.” They all look at each other. “She can’t talk, adds Bim”

Frank smiles at Agnes.

“I do most of the talking,” continues Bim.

Frank points to the flowers “I picked em out back of mine. I likes the garden. Ya feeling alright Agnes?”

Bim answers for her “she’s fine.”

“Ya thinks?”

“Best as can be spected.”

“That right?” Frank is not sure.

Bim re-assures him, “Yeah tis.”

Frank smiles at Agnes, “Weather was a right ripper this morn, right near tear the place apart. Cleared a portion now, wouldn’t have stood a chance pickin them flowers otherwise.”

Bim keeps a watchful eye over Frank.

“Right, spose I’d better be off,”says Frank.

“Frank?”

“Yes, Bim.”

“Could you keep the noise down?”

Frank looks at him.

“Ya play ya music real loud.”

“Right.”

On the way out they both look upstairs.

“No-one live up there?”

“Na,” answers Bim, “it’s a dead space. No use ta either of us.”

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21

Agnes is barely awake. Bim looks at her.

“You alright, Mum? Took a bit longer today, Mum. Sorry. Don’t think Georgie was that pleased. Funny ain’t it, when someone says “take ya time” that ain’t what they means, is it.”

“How was it? Alright? Ah, she’s nice enough. Means well, I suppose. Did she have anything ta say?”

“Na didn’t think so.”

“What’s the point of helping out if ya’s got nothing worth saying? People who wants ta help should read a bit so as they ave summut ta say. I mean it’s alright ta sit in silence with some one ya knows but ya do have ta work ta get there. Georgie ain’t read a book that’s her thing. Reckon she goes home and cooks up a meal for her an her kids and they run riot, an her ole man carries his belly like a liquor pouch, an they have oven chips most nights, cause that’s what they got used to, an “meaning well” ain’t nothing no more cause they don’t pay well enough for her time, an who can blame her? Yep who can blame her?

He looks at Agnes who is a sleep and breathing weakly.

“Good night mum”.

He leans over her and gives her a kiss.

Bim comes out of Agnes’ room. He looks up the staircase.

22

A young Bim is lying on his bed. He’s upset. A middle aged Agnes is sitting next to him.

“Listen, he loves you, I know as sure as the day is the day, it’s hard for him that’s all, he works all he can an he gets tired. He’s got more love in him than you can imagine, and sometimes love makes ya hurt. And the more a person’s got the more it hurts an that just means we got more ta put up with, a little more than others, but they don’t have someone who loves them quite like he does.”

“Try not annoy him, love. Remember it hurts him.”

23

Bim is woken suddenly by an argument next door. He looks at his clock. It says midnight. He gets up. He sees his small children’s microscope standing on a chest of drawers. He takes it and starts banging it against the wall. For a moment the banging stops. Bim pauses for a moment, his hand still raised.

There is a steady thumping on the wall.

Bim backs away from the wall.

After a while the banging stops.

24

Bim turns on Agnes’ bedside lamp. She is asleep and lying on her back. She looks like she has two black eyes.

25

Bim is sitting in the darkness. His face is close to Agnes’. She is fast asleep.

He is listening to her breath. “Don’t you worry, mum, don’t you worry”.

26

Bim is holding his mother’s hand as she wakes up. There is a terrible storm out side. Her eyes open slowly. She looks over at him. There is the hint of a smile.

“Ya know what Mum? When they gone took that blood test they took enough, just to gone make another one of ya, an what I’ve told them to do is pickle ya brain, well freeze it really, and then when they’ve grown a new you, they’ll transplant your brain into your new body, and they’ll like have enough of ya, you know from your blood, that they can make like loads of copies of you, so that they can get the process right, cause a brain transplant, it’s a bit complicated.”

“Hey? No they don’t need ya whole head just ya brain, well think about it, your head, your old head stapled on a new body, be silly.”
“No, they’d be no scars.”

“No, it won’t be like key hole surgery, cause that would involve putting a Dyson in ya head so that they can suck ya brain in, and then there wouldn’t be no room cause the Dyson would be there. No what they will do is like cut ya here, around the scalp, an pull the skin down over ya face, cept it wouldn’t be your face yet, and then they would saw the skull and plop the brain in, though it won’t be as simple as that, as they’ll have ta tie all the nerves, like, together, and that be a bit of a job cause there’s quite a few.”

“Of course I’d feel a bit sorry about your spare brain, ya know the one they throw away, cause the poor thing would have spent its life, like, working on its own things and stuff and then ya know, you’d have the right to it’s body, cause the government would have set it all up like, yeah, that’s right, this service would like be available on the National and it wouldn’t matter how much tax you might have paid, you’d have a right to it and that’s that.”

“I’ve bin thinking about offering my blood like so that they can put me a body that’s works, you know cause they can sort it out when you’re a foetus. Amazing ain’t it. Yeah, Jesus, amazing”.

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