Fixing a gate wasn’t a big deal, he told himself. It was just saving her a job. Giving her one less thing to think about when simply existing was going to be hard enough for the time being. Maybe it was for the purely selfish reason that he wanted to feel good about himself for once. Plonking his cup down over a dark brown tea stain on the bright white coffee table, he leaned over the edge of Freddie’s iPad. ‘Come on then. Let’s get that done, then I can beat you about twenty-nil at football.’

‘Ha! Twenty-nil to me you mean.’

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’ He ruffled his hair and went out the back to grab some tools.

The wind whipped around the trees that dotted the lane, pitching the ragged branches to and fro. Nick sent a begrudging Freddie back inside to put on his scarf and gloves, even though he argued that he wasn’t cold, and his fingers were pink because he’d been squeezing them together. When Freddie came back out, he was holding a stack of papers.

‘What’s that, mate?’

‘It’s the Christmas play. I’m a narrator. I’ve got lots of lines to learn.’

‘When did you find that out?’ asked Nick as he screwed the loose hinge back into place.

‘Yesterday. I told you last night.’

Had he? Nick felt shame rush up his neck and he was back to feeling a failure. How had he missed that? He’d been so tired last night it was all he could do to keep his eyes open. He loved being a self-employed landscape gardener, but it was hard work. The gardening side wore him out physically while the business side used every ounce of his quite limited brainpower. He’d done okay at school, but he wasn’t exactly academic and keeping an eye on costs, writing quotes and pricing jobs addled his mind.

‘So, a narrator,’ Nick said. ‘Pleased?’

Freddie nodded bouncing on his toes. ‘Yeah. I get to wear my own clothes and at least I’m not a guinea pig. And I don’t have to dance.’

‘A guinea pig? In the nativity?’

‘It’s a pantomime this year.’

‘That’s cool.’ Odd, but cool.

Nick had always wanted to go to the pantomime, but his mum and dad had thought it a waste of money and lowbrow. Nick had once been dragged along to The Nutcracker and he’d hated every minute of it. At ten he’d had no interest in boring classical music and men in tights prancing around on stage. This sounded much more fun and considering his son was basically doing schoolwork on a Saturday as he read through his script, he couldn’t moan. Yet, Freddie had told him all of this last night and he’d already forgotten, which meant he really needed to get his shit together.