Mr Dibbs Fixes Bikes

25

He had put it off for far too long and, as he moved around the big shed, casting an appraising eye over the bicycles he had fixed, he could see it had affected his work to a shoddy degree. Alfie reached a hand out to one of his recent favourites and shook his head. Were his old boss, Mister Fanshawe, to see this work, he would have clipped Alfie's ear, no matter how old he was. The new glasses, in his old frames, proved his stubborn refusal to visit the opticians had cost him dearly.

Out of all the bicycles in the shed, he counted four that he would have to revisit and care for in the way he should have in the first place. Paintwork with blotches and bubbles. Missed signs of rust. Forks that he should have ensured were straight, but now he could see the slightest kink. He couldn't take pride in this and nor should he. He wasn't an amateur, but a man that had spent the best part of his life repairing bicycles.

"Ee, thy's a daft old bugger and no mistake." He reached into his pocket and retrieved a new handkerchief, rubbing his nose and stuffing it away without folding it. "Put things off and put things off afore doing what thy's supposed to do. The Duchess would have tutted at that and she'd be right to."

He was never one to talk to himself, not to any great extent, but he had taken to doing so in recent days. The lad had a friend, now, and spent his days doing what children were wont to do. Rushing about and laughing, not spending time with silly old beggars that had a mind to talk to themselves. Better than silence, he supposed, and wondered whether he should play music as he worked to stave off that oppressive, weighty silence that pressed upon him as it had never done before.

The daily trip to the wall no longer happened and he considered whether that weighed upon his mind more than anything. A lone old man, sitting on a wall watching the morning slide by. No greater vision of sadness could he think of than to have no friends. He could, should he wish to, entreat others at the allotments to strengthen ties, build new friendships, but most everyone else lived far away. As far as he knew, only he lived on this side of town of his age.

No friends, save a lad and his mother who both had better things to do than coddle an old man. Better places to be. He had never felt so alone. Even after the Duchess left him, and Charlie, he had still had people that ensured he didn't retreat from the world. Good friends. Old friends, whittled away by unforgiving age and unstoppable disease. And he stood as the last. A final warrior of a forgotten age, with no fight left in him.

Not that he had ever served. That was Charlie's world. Twice in a few minutes he had thought of his son, and the Duchess, becoming maudlin in his creeping, brittle elder years. A mind bearing upon a past that he could not fix as he fixed bicycles. Not that he had performed that well at fixing the things he could fix. He felt broken and lost.

A stool, tucked to the side and pulled out using his walking stick, gave him a seat and he bent his aching knees to press his expanded backside upon it. Another thing that had started to play on his mind. He had not used his walking stick often, only to make the journey to the wall and back, before. Now he found himself relying on it all the more.

Using the stick for support, he rested his chin upon hands that linked fingers, resting on the walking stick's curved handle. Looking around the big shed, he surveyed the sum total of his life. Little in the house could show folks the man he was, either now or in the past. Here, this place, would tell them everything they needed to know. This was him. This was his life. And, perhaps, that life had lasted for too long.

He jerked up his head, the walking stick slipping from his fingers and he watched it fall toward the floor of the shed. Like something from a movie, it appeared to fall in slow-motion, toppling, twisting, clattering to the floor and bouncing end-to-end until it came to a stop. He leaned over, trembling hands reaching for the stick, afraid of the thought that had passed through his mind. A thought that brought back painful memories.