Mr Dibbs Fixes Bikes

9

The young lady stood true to her word. The lad did come to check up on him, though they had no need to. Then the next day and the next. Twice each day! It all made Alfie feel as though he were burdening them and he never had much truck with that. They had their own lives to lead without having to check on a doddering old codger like him.

True, he had taken the loss of Arthur a little more strongly than he had expected and, mayhap, he should not have tried to honour his memory, and those that had passed on before, by sitting on the wall in the rain. That was a daft thing to do, and no mistake. Now, he had no-one to talk to at all, however. No-one to pass the time of day with. All he had left were his bicycles, his fishing and his allotment, and he had neglected all three for too long.

The workbench sat empty, though, without a bicycle to repair. That boy's bicycle had sat there, beside his squeaking gate, for days before it disappeared and he never did get around to cleaning up the gear mechanism, even after he had spent some time watching videos to understand the new fangled system. That was probably for the best. At his age, learning new things came harder than they once had.

As far as the allotment, he would need to spend a couple of days seeing to that before too long. The out-of-season rain had helped him there, but he would need to do some weeding, clear away any pests that may have set up home since he last set foot there, and, maybe, simply sit there, staring out of his shed with a flask of hot tea to coddle.

On his mind for today, though, was fishing. Or, rather, preparing to go fishing in the morning. First light. Rod and reels cleaned and tended to. A little folding stool and a good few hours teasing and coaxing the fish in the canal to take a bite, or not. Whether he caught a fish or not wasn't the purpose of fishing, after all. The Duchess never took to his fishing and, he supposed, she had good reason for that. It wasn't a task to share with others, and he had shared himself so little back then as it was.

Another reason to thank that rain sat beneath his chubby fingers that now lacked the sensitivity they once held. At one time, he could tell the quality of the worms from a passing touch. Now he had to squint and stare through spectacles that had long since become more and more useless. A free eye check wouldn't go amiss, but he didn't care for bothering other folk less he needed to. He'd get by. As he always had.

As luck would have it, he'd found himself a good selection of fat worms that had burrowed their way to the surface of his garden, drawn by the rainwaters that had sodden the soil. A little turn of the topsoil with a garden fork and he found a nice amount of the little buggers. Dirty and slimy, moving with that slow, weaving fashion that had always turned his stomach. They would move no more, soon, as he picked out the first one from the plastic tub, holding it ready for the craft knife.

"Morning, Mister Dibbs." The lad shouted when he could as easy knock on the door, and Alfie pulled a shaking hand away from the worm. "That's disgusting! What is it?"

"Has thy never seen a worm afore, lad?" The craft knife had almost sliced his own finger as he jumped, but he couldn't say anything to the lad. He picked up the worm, letting it squirm in the air. "There. A worm. Now, thy's seen one and thy's done thee daily check on the old fool. Thy can be off."

"Why do you talk funny?" The boy sidled in, leaning against the bench as a little finger hovered near the worm. "You sound like an old movie. Mum wants to know if you like Ackee and Saltfish? She's making some and she always makes more than we need, but if you say you like it, she'll probably make even more, so there'll still be leftovers. Why do you have worms?"

The way the lad switched between different thoughts beggared Alfie. Bad enough that he'd never even heard of 'Ackee and Saltfish', but then with the thoughts about how Alfie talked and the worms, Alfie hardly knew where to begin. To give himself time to work out the order of replies, he spread the worm out once more and began slicing the creature into sections. The disgusted groan and pretend retching from the lad didn't help Alfie's concentration.