Old Ken is crying. The tears roll down his wrinkled cheeks into his grey stubble. His misty green eyes are reproachful. His head sinks into a mountain of pillows.

This isn’t the Ken I used to know – proud of his toughness, assertive, and loud. “No one gets one over on Ken,” they said. The dodgy car salesman, the insurance twister, even the girl in the café who fiddled his change -they all got their comeuppance. Not that Ken enjoyed being nasty. Only the bad guys got the wrath of his tongue and more besides. Fairness was his guiding light. He’d misquote Marx: “From each according to what he can give and to each according to his needs.” He’d mumble this as he wrote another cheque to pay for clean water in a far-off country or a children’s playground nearer home.

The bedroom is stale, so I open the window, and a breeze billows the parted curtains, pushing a medicine bottle off the bedside table and flapping a tissue. It’s difficult to find a space for the bottle amongst the packets of pills, the spectacles and the half-drunk glass of water. Ken shivers, and his hands grasp his shoulders, so I close the window. There’s mould near the handle which squeaks in protest as I force it to turn. When Ken’s gone, I think, a builder will buy this place and strip it down to a shell.

The duvet covers Ken up to his chest. The rest of his body makes little impression beneath its bulk. He clasps my hand. Implores me. My other hand can feel the bones in his lower arm.

“It’s John,” he says and gulps at the thought of it. “It’s John.” This time he sighs.

“What about John?”

“I always liked John,” he says. “Been a great son-in-law. Always ready to help. Never complains. Never a bad word for anyone.”

He pauses and squeezes his eyes as if hit by a sudden pain.   “I could never suss out why the hell he married Diane. She has him on strings. John, do this. John, do that. John, get a second job to fund my lifestyle – hairdressers and manicures don’t come cheap. John, I’ll need two new dresses and a handbag for so-and-so’s wedding, and my gym membership’s overdue.”

“So, what about John?”

“I can’t say.” Ken’s voice is weak now, exhausted after the rant. It’s the voice of a frightened child — a child who wants to tell you everything but is afraid that they’ll be punished. Now he’s sobbing again.

“You know you can tell me anything, Ken.” I squeeze his hand. “It won’t go past me.”

Ken stares at the ceiling for a minute as if considering the matter. “It’s shocking,” he murmurs, “bloody shocking.”

“Close that door,” he says. “Carol might hear.”

There’s no one else in the house. The carer has rushed off ten minutes ago to her next client shouting “Cheerio Ken,” from the bottom of the stairs as if she’s an old friend. Even so, I push the bedroom door quietly as if not to alert anyone and twist the handle to check it’s shut to show Ken his secret will be safe with me. “Her name is Jennifer, not Carol,” I say, “and she’s gone.”

I sit on the side of the bed. Ken studies me for a moment, as if wondering how I’ll react.

“Two nights ago,” he begins,  “I was woken by someone coming up the stairs. Suddenly, a light was shone into my face. For a moment, I couldn’t see anything but this light and someone had their cold hand across my neck. Then I heard John’s voice. You greedy old man, he said. You lie here like a useless lump in this four-bedroom house while me and my family, your own daughter and grandkids,  crawl around in a cramped rented semi. How can you live with yourself? Then he shook me hard. How can you he shouted. How can you?”

“No way.”

“Oh, yes. It’s true. You’ve got plenty of cash, he said, and it’s time we got some of the action. I know you keep it in that safe under the stairs. If you don’t give it to me, I’ll kill you. I know how to do it without raising suspicion. Tell anybody and you’ll get this, he said. And his hand squeezed my neck hard.

“Ken,” I chuckle, “that’s ludicrous.”

Ken raises his head from the pillows. “It’s not funny.”

“You’ve had a bad dream, Ken. John wouldn’t do that. No way. Anyway, how could he get in?”

He doesn’t seem to have heard me. “So, I had to get up and give him the money. Twenty grand.”

He pauses. His chest rises and falls with a rattle as he lies back again reflecting on what he’s done. “All these years I’ve given them plenty -paid their rent when they were short, council taxes, a fine when she got done for careless driving. And now this.”

He turns to me. “Please, please don’t tell anyone. I shouldn’t have told you.”

“It hasn’t happened Ken. It’s all in your mind.” 

In an instant, Ken is sitting up, glaring at me. Now he’s the old Ken, chin pushed forward, lips covering his teeth, primed to challenge and fight injustice. “Do you think I’m bloody old and stupid?”

I hold my palms up. “Okay, okay, calm down.”

“I am damn well calm,” he yells. “I tell you it happened.”

“Look,” I say, “You’ve got a condition, Ken. It’s common these days when people are getting on. It can cause you to  imagine things and think they’re true.” I point to the bedside table. “I reckon those pills don’t help. They can do all sorts of funny things to your brain. The doctors only prescribe them cos they get a cut from the pharma companies.”

Ken pinches my hand. “Feel that?”  he asks. “That’s real, isn’t it? Just as real as what I’m telling you.”

Ken studies my face again. “When we were kids,” he says, “I always believed in scout’s honour and telling the truth. And I stuck to it through thick and thin. You were the one who lied to Mother when she heard you’d skipped school.   You were the one who lied about the den you’d built in the bushes at the top of the Johnsons’ garden. So why don’t you believe me?”

I don’t reply. There’s silence for a moment as I stand to look out the  window. “The carer seems a nice woman,” I say. “It must be hard work having to dash between appointments. She was running late this morning.”

There’s astonishment in Ken’s voice. “What the hell are you talking about. Haven’t you heard what I’ve been telling you?”

“I’ve told you what I think Ken.”

He lurches towards me. “Some brother, you are. Well, you can just bugger off. I wish I hadn’t told you anything. Go on, get out! Out of my house or I’ll have you done for trespass.”

“Look Ken…”

“Out!”

I head for the door and struggle down the steep twisty stairs. No old person should have a house with stairs like this, I think.

“And don’t come back,” Ken yells. I know he’s crying again.

A cloud of dandelion seeds rises over the front garden, and I take care not to trip over the brambles that stretch across the path.

Diane has been idling the car’s engine two doors away. “You’ve been ages,” she complains. I told you I’ve got an appointment at eleven.” She pushes her hair behind her ear, checking her lipstick in the rear-view mirror. Her perfume stings my nostrils.

“He remembers it all,” I sigh, “but he thinks I’m your Uncle Len, God rest his soul.”

She giggles, revs the engine, eases the car forward and pats my hand. “Don’t worry darling. Nobody’ll believe him.”

Suddenly, she stamps on the brake and turns to me her eyes wide with fear. “Will they?” she asks.

– Paul Goodwin