I handed Bill his specs, and he peered at the dog, tutting to himself as he did so.
"Aye, Old Bram, lying out in the yard. Waiting for his life to start up again." He shook his head, wistfully.
"Lay out yonder, just outside the door there. If you could see to the sides of the picture you'd see the yard hasn't changed all that much. Well, my mother kept the flower beds better than me ..."
I was surprised, I had always thought Bill's family had lived in Clare Street, a street up from this one.
"Oh, we did, but we moved when I was a baby. I can't remember ever living there."
I looked out of the window into Bill's back yard. I could see the back door. Bram had lain in this yard, just near to the door. Just a couple of feet from the door.
On my way home, stepping carefully through the ice and snow, I turned thoughts this way and that.
Ross and his patch of dry path in the rain.
Cats rarely went into Bill's yard.
Bingo's sudden halt in mid attack, and refusal to enter Bill's gate.
I thought of all of us.
Bill, living in his bubble in time, powered by old steam radio and Woodbines.
Bingo - wanting to attack the present, and curl up in his past.
I thought of myself, waiting for my life to start.
One day, I thought, one day, things will be different for me. But only if I make it so. I was no longer a boy, but I still thought like one. I still thought of myself as one. I took myself terribly seriously, but knew deep within, that no one else did. I kept trying to re-invent myself, but I never created a me that could last more than a few months, then it was back to this ... boy.
How far was I willing to let go and move on?
Perhaps I might find myself a comfortable place, and lie there, and forever wait for the footfalls of my destiny to come and find me. But it could, I thought, take a long time - a lifetime of waiting. Did I want to wait like Bram still did?
Because he still did.
Through winters, through summers - fifty odd of them.
Bram still waited out there.