Wish Upon a Star

by Olivia Goldsmith

  ‘I don’t see how they’re going to do it,’ a plummy voice commented. ‘They aren’t set up for a class this big.’

  ‘And I’m all thumbs,’ another voice said. ‘I must be the only woman in England who can’t arrange two roses in a vase, so I’m sure I’ll need individual attention. Then it will probably all come to nothing.’

  ‘Oh, this isn’t hard,’ Claire assured her. ‘You’ll be doing it in no time.’ She got over to Mrs Venables who was clearly flustered.

  ‘I can’t tell you how relieved I am to see you,’ she said to Claire. ‘My goodness; I was down here at eight-thirty and there were already three people at the door. Whatever shall we do?’

  ‘One thing we’ll do is sell a lot of yarn,’ Claire said and managed a grin. It was going to be up to her to organize this. Her delight was mixed with a little fear that the whole thing could become a fiasco. She couldn’t let that happen. This meant too much to her. She would deal with the fifteen or so women in the shop first, then talk to the others outside.

  She gave some quick instructions to Mrs Venables, then climbed onto one of the chairs. ‘Excuse me,’ she announced. ‘May I have your attention please? Sorry for the overcrowding, but some of you must not have booked.’ She heard a murmur go through the room. If they thought they were supposed to have a reservation, they might not complain if they were made to wait.

  ‘I did try to phone but the line had ceased to exist,’ someone said.

  Claire just looked at the woman and continued, not wanting to waste any more time on language translations. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘We’ll have plenty of time for everybody. If you’ll just –’ she bent and scrabbled behind her, taking a pad and a pen from Mrs Venables’s counter – ‘if you’ll just line up over here please, and write your name and phone number on this sheet. And those of you from last week –’ she nodded to Ann and Julie – ‘please take seats.’ Before Claire continued she went over to Ann who had chosen a place at the end of the table. ‘Will your mother be joining you today?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m afraid not. She’s not feeling very well. But she is just loving her knitting and she was hoping that you’d be willing to come over in a couple of days to make up for missing this lesson.’

  ‘It would be my pleasure,’ Claire said.

  ‘Great. How about Monday – late afternoon?’

  Claire thought about her schedule. ‘That would work beautifully.’

  ‘See you then,’ Ann smiled.

  Claire had to get back to the rest of the women. She climbed back onto the chair and started in with the organization of the newcomers. ‘Now, as for the rest of you, the class is free and we’ll give you some yarn just to get started. Meanwhile you can take a look around and see what yarn you might want to use for your first project.’ There was a murmur of assent and Claire took a deep breath. ‘As soon as everyone has put their name and number on the list, we’ll begin.’ She stepped off the chair.

  ‘How in the world will we do that?’ Mrs Venables asked her, sotto voce.

  ‘Do you have any chairs upstairs?’ Claire asked.

  ‘Well, yes. But I don’t think you or I could get most of them down here.’ Mrs Venables paused. ‘Claire, why don’t we have some of the women up in my flat and some of them down here?’ She looked around. ‘I don’t know what we’ll do with the others. The ones outside.’

  ‘I’ll take care of them,’ Claire said, greatly relieved. ‘Though the ones from last week must come in.’

  Women were eagerly signing their names and those who had signed seemed equally eager to finger the bright wools. So far, so good. Taking another deep breath Claire opened the door and stepped into the crowd outside. She took a pad of paper with her. ‘How many of you are confirmed for the nine o’clock class?’ she asked. ‘Would you please raise your hands?’

  The group had grown. No one raised their hand but that gave Claire time. ‘Well, you are,’ she said to Charlotte and nodded at her friends as well. ‘And you,’ she said to Emma, who smiled, superior to the hoi polloi. There was a little murmuring here and there but, by and large, the group seemed to accept her ploy. That was one thing she had learned about the English. In New York some wiseass like Tina would shout out, ‘What reservations? What friggin’ nine o’clock class?’ But Claire decided not to push her luck. ‘I’m afraid that the popularity of the class and the fact that there’s no charge has created a problem. You see, I’m afraid we underestimated the demand for classes. So I’m going to have to ask the rest of you to come back at eleven. If that isn’t convenient then we will run the class again at two. Let me just get your names and numbers and you can put yourself in either group.’

  ‘I simply can’t do it later today,’ a woman in a severely-cut black pantsuit said. She walked away, and a young blond girl went with her. But the rest seemed to be willing enough to pick one of the other times.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Claire called to the black pantsuit. ‘You can drop in anytime during the week for a private session with Mrs Venables. Our apologies.’ Then she went through the rest of the crowd and quickly signed them up for eleven or two. It was already twenty-five after nine and it wouldn’t give her much time to deal with the group inside. But she’d do the best she could.

  Mrs Venables, however, had already done surprisingly well. The women from last week, with a few additions, were seated in the shop downstairs, the new ones already kitted out with needles and wool to practice on. Helped by the more experienced students, they were attempting slipknots. Then Claire ran up the stairs to find Mrs Venables had just seated the rest of the group in her lounge and was calmly handing out wool. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were very bright against her white hair. It gave her a charming grandmother-in-a-fairytale look. ‘I can hardly believe it,’ she whispered. ‘What in the world did you do with all the people outside?’

  ‘I think they’re coming back,’ Claire said.

  ‘Coming back?’ Mrs Venables looked around. ‘But there’s no room. That woman in blue is sitting on my shower chair.’

  ‘No, no. They’re not coming back now. They’re coming back for the eleven and the two o’clock classes.’

  ‘Eleven and two? My goodness. I’m not sure we’ll have enough needles,’ Mrs Venables said.

  ‘I’ll go home and get some of mine,’ Claire promised. ‘We’ll do what we have to do.’

  Mrs Venables smiled. ‘It’s just like the war. We muddled through.’

  Claire ran downstairs again. She had less than an hour before the next class began – if any of the women who had signed up came back. She moved from woman to woman, checking their work and helping them correct problems. She was amazed at how many had twisted their yarn, dropped a stitch or simply knotted them here and there, and most had begun ‘loosey and goosey’ as her grandmother used to say, then gotten tighter and tighter. As she helped each woman correct her work she casually mentioned the problems.

  Then it was time for Claire to race back up to the flat to check on what was happening with Mrs Venables. The group there seemed calm and getting along well. Mrs Venables had had them do ribbing – one knit, one purl – instead of stockinette, but there were only eight of them, and a formidable woman called Mrs Lyons-Hatchington was assisting whomever she could get at, though not always usefully. ‘I’ve got them doing stockinette downstairs,’ Claire told Mrs Venables. ‘But we’re both going to have to stop soon. We have to get ready for the next class.’

  Mrs Venables looked up at the clock on her wall. ‘We have almost a quarter of an hour, my dear,’ she remarked, mildly.

  Claire smiled at her. ‘Yes, but we have to give them time to buy things. Yarn, knitting bags, needles. The whole kit, right? And they might even want to take a look at the simple pattern books.’

  Mrs Venables laughed. ‘Of course. I completely forgot that bit. Nigel is right: I’m hopeless as a businesswoman.’ She smiled at Claire. ‘But you, my dear, well you’re just …’

  Before she coul
d hear the praise she craved Claire had to interrupt. ‘I’ve got to get back downstairs,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you check their gauges, I’ll do the same and then we’ll give them the yarn to finish as homework. They don’t have to buy anything, and if they choose not to continue and leave the needles behind, well then, it won’t cost them a thing.’

  ‘Very good, indeed.’

  Claire rejoined her class, took out a small ruler and gauged their work. Leonora was doing fine, having finished several dozen rows since the week before. A new young woman in the shortest of lilac skirts and a very thin older woman in a gray tweed outfit had already done a pretty good and even job. But the youngsters – Charlotte and her friends – were all over the place. Still, Claire encouraged them and showed them where they had gone wrong.

  ‘All right. For new class members, your homework is to finish your little ball of yarn. When you’re done with that, we can pick a simple pattern or you can just make a scarf or a shawl.’

  ‘I’m dying to do a little white bonnet for my granddaughter,’ said Mrs Willis.

  ‘I’d like to do a woolly,’ said the mini-mini skirt, whose name was Jane. ‘Have you any cashmere?’

  ‘Well, let’s take it a bit more slowly,’ Claire told her gently, wondering if a woolly was tights or a sweater or – for all she knew – smalls. ‘Why don’t we put this away and before you plan knitting a Union Jack you can take a look at the wool we have. If you want anything else we can order it and have it by next week.’

  Some of them said that they wanted to come back before next week and Claire encouraged them to stop by any time the shop was open. Only one woman gave up and left her needles on the counter. The rest were joined by the class from upstairs. They all trooped around the shop, looking and touching and commenting on everything.

  Then, in a moment of inspiration, Claire took out her throw, laid it on the table and put Mrs Venables’s cashmere Aran-stitch beside it. ‘Don’t expect to get here right away,’ she said as the women ‘oohed’ and ‘aahed’ over them. ‘But I did knit this sweater,’ she said, pointing to the one she wore, ‘and that’s something you could aim at.’ After all, she might as well motivate them. Good teachers did. But the women hardly needed that to spur them on to make purchases. By the time the eleven o’clock class arrived, the stock had been greatly diminished.

  Mrs Venables looked tired and Claire insisted she go upstairs for a lie down. Claire kept the eleven o’clock class until one, had a quick lunch, and then ran over to her room and brought back all of her needles. She hated to have to give up her vintage ones, but most of the people signed up for eleven had shown up. If the same was true for the afternoon, she couldn’t disappoint the last group.

  In fact, more people showed up for the two o’clock class than had signed on. There were a couple who had not appeared at eleven, and three women had brought other friends who had been interested but couldn’t make the early-morning time. Then, at a quarter after two Imogen waltzed in the door. She displayed no self-consciousness as everyone turned to look at her. In fact she greeted Claire as if the two of them were alone. ‘Are you still at it? I had no idea that knitting was so difficult. I’m thick as a plank and I’ll probably be worse than everyone.’

  ‘Impossible,’ said a young woman called Sarah. ‘I have that distinction. But I must persevere because I’ve been dragooned to help with a layette. Of course my sister’s only just married, but it doesn’t stop Mother from hoping for an heir and a spare.’

  A few of the other women laughed. But Imogen raised her brows, smiled coolly and, instead of taking the available place on the window seat, sat down at the edge of the table itself. ‘Can I catch up?’ she asked Claire.

  By four o’clock Claire was exhausted, but pleased to see the class had changed from a silent group of individuals to happy, chattering clusters. Imogen stepped over to her again. ‘What are you doing later?’ she asked. ‘You’re probably knackered, but would you like to join Malcolm and me for a drink? We could go to a terribly nice wine bar I know near Sloane Square.’

  Claire was touched by this gesture of friendship, but she had to get to Mrs Patel’s before six. ‘I’d have liked that,’ she told Imogen, ‘but I have another engagement.’

  ‘How mysterious,’ Imogen said. ‘Well, I’ll see you tonight then. Or perhaps not until tomorrow morning.’ She raised her brows in a suggestive way.

  Claire ushered Imogen and the others out of the shop. Though she knew it would take her almost an hour to get up to Camden, she sat down for a celebratory cup of tea with Mrs Venables. Then the two of them counted out the day’s take.

  ‘It’s just astonishing,’ Mrs Venables said. They had sold close to three hundred pounds’ worth of yarns, taken special orders for more, and sold out all the needles as well as a significant number of knitting bags and patterns. ‘I’ve never made this much in a month. It’s astonishing,’ she repeated. ‘You’re a wonder.’

  Claire almost laughed with pleasure. ‘As long as we’re not arrested for putting up illegal signs,’ she said.

  Mrs Venables smiled ruefully. ‘Nigel’s not said anything more about that.’ Then she counted out fifty pounds and handed it to Claire. ‘However, if it comes to that, this will help pay for a barrister, though I don’t suggest Nigel.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Claire protested. ‘It’s too much. After all, it was your wool and the rest of the stock was yours and …’

  Mrs Venables folded the money into Claire’s hand. ‘You’re a very foolish girl,’ she said. ‘Now take this and do be quiet. You’ve given me a great deal of satisfaction today and all I’ve given you is some filthy lucre. I think you ought to come back when I’m not so tired, and we can discuss your new job.’

  ‘You mean here? With you?’

  Mrs Venables nodded. ‘Clearly, we have enough business to support it. I couldn’t handle a crowd like this one on my own and I imagine everyone will be back next weekend and perhaps even bring more of their friends.’

  Claire was so happy she couldn’t even thank the older woman properly. Her fatigue seemed to disappear. She would be able to get up to Mrs Patel’s, do whatever was necessary, and come back with energy to spare. ‘Oh, thank you,’ was all she could say.

  ‘No. Thank you.’ Mrs Venables smiled. ‘I’ll just have a word with Nigel.’ She patted Claire’s knee. ‘Oh dear, I expect he’ll worry that I’m getting too tired.’

  FIFTY-TWO

  On the first half of the underground trip to Mrs Patel’s, Claire felt nothing but joy. She looked from one passenger to another and knew that she was the luckiest person in the car. She had found a lovely home with Imogen who might actually become a friend. Then there was Toby, who was someone she hoped might become more than a friend. Mrs Patel and her children were almost a family to her, and now she had Mrs Venables and a new and wonderful job that she had created herself. She put her hand in her pocket and touched the two twenty-pound notes and the ten-pound note folded over it. She couldn’t believe it. All of the women, many of whom looked successful and well-to-do, had turned to her as an authority. No one had questioned her ability and each one had asked for help as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Best of all, Mrs Venables had been not just pleased but, well … tickled by their success. Claire couldn’t remember ever feeling this excited, optimistic or proud of herself, not ever.

  She was so filled with her pleasant thoughts that when the train pulled into Leicester Square station she continued daydreaming until the doors almost rolled shut. She scampered out onto the platform and followed the signs to the Northern Line.

  It was while she waited for a train to Camden that the difficulties of her situation began to nibble at her fragile joy. What would she do about Mrs Patel, the children, her work in the shop, and her tutoring? She hadn’t discussed a salary with Mrs Venables, but she couldn’t imagine a way that she would be able to help in Knitting Kitting, commute to Camden, work in the evening and have any time left for herself. If she had to m
ake a choice, she certainly preferred the work with Mrs Venables but how could she desert the first friends she had made in London?

  She had come to love Mrs Patel, with her delicately arched eyebrows, her protective suspicions, and her warm and loving heart. And once the baby came Mrs Patel would need even more help. She also enjoyed the children, particularly Safta, though the antics of Fala and Devi almost always made her laugh. She hadn’t had any young children in her life back in Tottenville and she was surprised and delighted by how good she was with them and how good they made her feel. Lastly, there was the garden. Creating it had been a real work of love, and Safta’s excitement over it was a pleasure to watch. But it would need care and careful tending. Mrs Patel certainly wouldn’t find the time to dead-head or to pick the slugs off the delectable leaves, nor water daily. If the garden withered and died, Claire was afraid that Safta’s new confidence and optimism would as well.

  The Northern Line train lumbered into the station and as Claire boarded it she felt her shoulders and head droop with dejection. Most important of all, she had proved something to Mrs Patel about trust, and friendship. She had given Mrs Patel as much as she had gotten from her, and she didn’t want to disappoint her now. Quitting the work at the shop was possible but quitting the tutoring or the work in the garden was just not an option. As she got closer and closer to Camden she felt more and more apprehensive.

  The train rolled into the station, the doors rolled open and she made her way slowly to the shop. As she opened the door she was greeted by all three children. ‘Oh, Claire, oh Claire! Come out and see,’ Safta said. Devi took her hand and pulled her in the direction of the back of the shop. ‘Come see. Some of the pansies are opening. And the wallflowers are out as well.’

  ‘And we have two difficult cartons to open. I tried to do it myself but one is washing powder and it’s very heavy indeed,’ Mrs Patel put in.