Mr Dibbs Fixes Bikes

23

The waiting area was much like any other waiting area. Oh, people tried to make them less dreary and more colourful than they were in Alfie's youth, but it still felt more than a little demeaning. Sitting there awaiting others to finish what they were doing while the customers, or patients, twiddled thumbs, leafing through magazines they would never think of reading at any other time.

In the opticians, Alfie sat like a chastened schoolboy, fingers laced together on his lap, nervous shifts of his feet. Every so often, he would start to reach for his pocket, where the handkerchief would normally sit, only to pause and then return to his other hand. Ms Matheson, Frederick's mother, had offered him her own handkerchief twice and he had refused both times.

He knew he didn't need it. His nose wasn't running, nor was he sniffing. It was a habit, nothing more. A little reminder of the Duchess that he would turn to at various times, as though to show her an accomplishment, or to evoke memories of the times she cared for him far more than the care he showed her. He had no need for glasses for hindsight.

"It shouldn't be long now." Ms Matheson glanced at her watch. One of those flashy 'smart' ones that told her everything she probably never needed to know. "It's the waiting that kills you."

"Aye." He flickered his eyes upward, eking out a strained smile. "That it does."

Without his handkerchief, he turned to his other habit, touching the brim of his cap, adjusting it though he had no need to, his hand returning to the other, gripping together. She looked better, today. Her cheeks taut with a loose smile, rather than drooping with a sadness she could not control. He knew the good days were better served with family than wasting them upon an old man like him, but she had insisted. Probably to ensure he did get to the opticians after all.

He had spent days fretting over the disappearance of the handkerchief and the medal. Flitting back and forth between considering that either she, or Frederick, had taken them, and then feeling anger at himself for even thinking it. They were good people, without a doubt, and he couldn't see either of them stealing his two precious keepsakes.

Besides, what worth were they to anyone else? What reason could make someone, anyone, take such things? They were worth nothing but the memories they evoked. Worthless and lost. Were he a better man, he would forget about them and move on, but the losses irked him. Especially the handkerchief that had not only seen better days, but better decades. A lifetime of wear, giving him comfort in his old age. Comfort such as he should have given to the Duchess.

"Having said that, I can't stay for much longer." She looked at the watch again and eased out a sigh, reaching a hand over to cover his. "No. That doesn't matter. I said I'd come with you. Anyway, knowing you, you'd disappear before the glasses are done. Don't like to think you're causing trouble. Always thinking of others. They don't make them like you anymore."

"Ee, lass! Thy'll have me blubbering if thy carries on." Even at his advanced age, he could still blush, the urge to reach for that handkerchief almost making him lift his hands from hers. "And thee? Is thy alright? Owt bothering you?"

Would that he had asked the Duchess that more often, but he had asked so few times he may as well have never asked at all. Never mind that she would chime 'I'm fine' in that fake, cheery voice if he did ever ask. She always said that. 'I'm fine'. As though no-one could see through that grim smile. That no-one could see the lines beside her mouth, deepening, the eyes wavering. 'I'm fine'. Never a more duplicitous phrase had Alfie heard in his life.

"No. I'm fine." As though she had read his mind. Choosing the one phrase that would worry him more. "Work is work. Home is home. You know how it is. I would ask, though, has Frederick been trouble? It's just you two haven't really spoken for days."