Mr Dibbs Fixes Bikes

4

To see that smile on his mum's face, a genuine smile, not one of those forced ones she had put on for so long thinking he wouldn't notice the difference, made Frederick's day. She looked tired and he knew he hadn't helped at all to make her life any better recently. He wished he could change how he felt about the divorce and moving up here, but he couldn't. He still hated it, even if he hated making his mum's life difficult.

"Oh. That's beautiful. So lovely. Thank you." She took some time to look at the flower and, for some reason, it made her look sad, as well as happy. Then her mood changed altogether. "Where'd you get this anyway? Frederick! Please don't tell me you stole it from someone's garden!"

"It was that geezer next door give it me." What chance did he have of people thinking the best of him if his own mother thought him a thief? "The weird old bloke."

"Hush your mouth! He's not 'weird'." Her mood changed once again and Frederick could hardly keep up with her. She smiled again, sniffing the flower. "I hope you thanked him. It's lovely."

Now she looked part sad, part happy and part angry and Frederick couldn't understand why. If he was honest with himself, his mum had been acting different for a while, since long before she and Dad divorced. Sometimes she would just cry, for no reason. Other times he could hardly keep up with her energy. She would take him to the park and be as giddy as him, or, rather, as giddy as kids younger than him, then, the very next second, she'd sit down with her head in her hands.

Dad was no better. Before the divorce, he'd spend all his time at work, sometimes coming home really late, dragging a smell of beer into the flat. Beer smell and, sometimes, most times, different flowery smells, or sickly sweet smells. At those times, his mum would shout at Dad even more than usual. And they shouted at each other a lot. Still, Frederick would prefer the shouting to not having Dad around at all. Mum felt different about that.

It took hours to get everything out of the van before it got dark. He had urged his mum to get everything inside before they had to leave it on the street with stuff inside. They wouldn't have anything left in the morning. Geezers nicking stuff that wasn't tied down happened all the time. He'd seen it, back home. Sometimes they didn't even try to hide it. Proper wide boys taking advantage.

Dinner was a take-out delivered from the nearest kebab shop. Not the best pizza he'd had, but not bad for Northerners. Nothing could beat the pizzas back home, or the kebabs, or the Chinese. Every food style you could think of, right on the doorstep, and every one of them better tasting than anything they had up here. They probably cooked cats and dogs up here. Still, he demolished most of the pizza himself, even eating the crusts his mum never ate.

The only thing left to do was get ready for bed. Teeth brushed, a good wash and into a bed set in a room he didn't know. Back home, he could close his eyes and remember every crack in the ceiling and walls, every blemish on the paintwork. He could look out of the window and see the tops of houses spreading out around their block of flats. If he listened carefully, some nights he swore he could hear Big Ben, even though his dad told him they were too far away. Frederick knew he could hear it, though.

They didn't have Big Ben up here. They didn't have anything. In London, he could get on the Tube and go anywhere. The bustling, rushing shopping areas, rammed with people. He could set off in the morning and watch the Arsenal, then go through the underground again to watch the Spurs in the afternoon. Not that he supported either of those teams. And not that his mum would let him go anywhere on his own. But he could, if she let him.

After what felt like hours, he threw back the covers, unable to sleep, and shuffled out of his room to the toilet. It was separate from the bathroom, which was stupid. They didn't waste space like that back home. Once finished, he cringed as he flushed, forgetting Mum's room was next door to the bathroom. In the flat, you had to go through the living room to get to the loo, away from the bedrooms. Everything was just wrong here!