The Woolly Hat Knitting Club

by Poppy Dolan

  * * *

  In the locker room at the gym, I check my work phone first, on impulse. An email from Ben. Pfft.

  From: Ben

  To: Delilah

  Blackthorn, what’s the situation with your family emergency? We’re all concerned.

  As if I’d give him more intel to trip me up with. I almost want to reply: got to try harder than that. But instead I’ll take the high road and just delete it – 23 emails needing a reply have come in over the last hour and a half. It’ll be the late train back to the shop tonight, then.

  On my personal phone there’s a short message from JP visible on the lock screen. Comments! it says. And that’s it. Doesn’t seem to be a cry for help, so that’s a relief. Unless he used voice dictation again and it really is ‘comets’. A deadly meteor shower seems a bit random for Fenwild.

  Then another message comes through. Vlog! I open up my browser and google his YouTube channel. It’s the vid I helped him brush up for yesterday, titled, ‘Crafters unite! A tiny baby needs you!’ In his usual unrehearsed, slightly sloppy style, JP had explained his accident (leaving the bunting bit out – quite wisely) and that he couldn’t knit anything for Chester, but would anyone else be able to help out? I’d found, under his instruction, a free pattern online for tiny baby hats and pasted it into the description bar.

  When I scroll down through the messages posted underneath, there are 17 already. And they all say yes!

  Standing there in my Sweaty Betty leggings, I lean back against the locker door for a moment. It’s amazing to think there are17 people ready to knit Becky a tiny hat that will fit. Kind people who’ll happily help a stranger in need.

  I reply, Crafters are the best! Becky is going to love this. Clever bro.

  And he replies, with his limited skill, Yaaas.

  But then my work phone buzzes in my other hand and I switch back from knitting and purling to the here and now. Devon is asking for a full report on Dunreddy by first thing tomorrow. Definitely the late train then.

  Chapter 4

  When I open the side door to the flat behind the shop, I hear an odd thing: Maggie, but squeaky. It’s been a week since I first raced back here to find JP plastered up and immobile and so far the arrangements for Maggie and me to share giving him our helping hands (since his are about as useful as a cheese calculator right now) is working out just about OK. Getting the late train back is a bit wearing when there’s so much to do at work. I swear something is going bonkers with the email server as new messages and tasks pop up without me seeing them and then are super urgent: ‘Do this by the end of the day or my head will explode’ kind of things. Clive is on the case with the IT guys but so far no luck as to why. And it’s hardly giving Devon any joy that I’ve missed a few emails from him. Pretty shitty timing. Maybe the email exchange has it in for me.

  But at least when I do get back to the row of thatched cottages and the funny little house names – Ramblers’ Rutt, Spiggle Cottage and Durr Barn – I know I am far from the City and all that stuff is just going to have to wait for twelve hours, explosions or not.

  Maggie’s voice is coming from the kitchen and I listen in as I hang my coat on the overloaded hooks. She’s gone all high-pitched, like she’s trying to hit a difficult note in The Sound of Music. But she’s not describing hills and goatherds, she’s detailing the recipe for her pesto sauce.

  ‘Sit down, Auntie,’ I hear JP say.

  And then another male voice, one I don’t know, saying, ‘Please, do have a seat. I assure you it’s fine. It’s just lovely of you to offer in the first place.’

  Maggie then goes super trill and giggles, punctuated by the odd snort. She jumps another foot in the air when she sees me in the living-room doorway. ‘Another late arrival! Now, I really must cook you both something.’ She turns to a tall, skinny cupboard wedged next to the oven and starts to dig around. ‘What kind of young man doesn’t have pine nuts close at hand?’

  I can sense JP is opening his gob to give a cheeky reply to that so I shoot him the big-sister look and his teeth clamp shut.

  It’s gone ten p.m. so I have no idea who this bloke is, crammed on to the tiny sofa next to JP. His balding hair is neatly cropped and he has two leather bracelets on his wrist. Maybe he’s a knitting crony? Though I can’t see a crocheted belt or Fair Isle socks from where I’m standing.

  Bracelet man hefts himself up into a standing position, and puts out his hand. ‘I’m Stan. JP’s OT. Ha! That’s a mouthful, isn’t it? I’m his occupational therapist, here to help while his arms are healing. Sorry it’s so late, but I wanted to check he’s doing OK with his bedtime routine.’

  I wince. With Devon’s surprise deadline thrown at me, I’d been working so hard all night that I’d forgotten my role of pants-puller-upper to my dear little bro. I don’t want him to struggle, of course, but it doesn’t mean I have to enjoy being that close to his boxers. Or his bum. Thank God he can just about manage his bathroom business alone. I mean, seriously: thank God. Sign me up for a monthly donation to whichever church we have in the village, because I could not go that far even for my beloved brother.

  ‘But by the sounds of it, you have him all sorted between you. Which is great. It doesn’t get better than family.’ He winks at Mags and she almost melts into the tea towel she’s been wringing in her twitchy hands. Oh, I get it: Mags fancies him! Man, my brain is slow tonight. I have to shake my head to dislodge the Dunreddy stats and take in this fit-to-bursting room properly.

  ‘Have you got a cup of tea, Stan?’ When my frontal lobe kicks in, it takes me back to my Brownies hostess badge.

  He sits back down. ‘I’ve had two, thank you, care of your very kind aunt. And she’s been offering me a late dinner, which sadly I have to turn down this time.’ Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Mags lift on to her toes when he says ‘this time’.

  I perch on the side of the armchair. ‘To get back to…?’ Maybe JP isn’t the only one I can help while I’m staying.

  ‘Just Matilda. My cat. Right, fella. You’ve got my number if you have any problems before my next visit. And if the pain gets too much, you know what to do, right?’ They nod in a manly fashion at each other and Stan waves us all a jolly goodbye and says he’s happy to see himself out. In this flat, you can see everything from everywhere so it does seem a bit weird to follow him to the door.

  Maggie turns back to the bubbling water on the hob. ‘Well. Well,’ she says into the rising steam, I think to cover her very pink cheeks.

  I’m going to file this in the back of my head for the weekend, when my brain isn’t quite so scrambled. We should make sure Mags is coming over the next time Stan is. Just coincidentally, like. But now to shovel in some carbs and flop down in front of some fancy Scandi crime box set. Wait, that requires too much thinking. Maybe a Come Dine with Me rerun.

  JP tries to hook one of his casts round my neck in a clunky hug. ‘Aah, sister. So glad you’re home at last.’

  ‘What do you need?’

  He tries to look aghast. But the smile pokes through. ‘Couldn’t borrow your awesome touch-typing skills for half an hour, could I? There’s been so much response to the blog post, and loads of emails pinging through to the shop account.’ He drops his voice to a gravelly whisper. ‘I did ask Mags but she opened up a browser and just typed EMAILS into Google. She didn’t even hit return. She just sat there for five minutes wondering why my laptop was so slow. I can’t break it to her, sis. I just said, “Yeah, it’s the Wi-Fi. Bit bunged up tonight.”’

  I punch him in the thigh to stop us both cracking up. ‘Fine. But just half an hour, OK?’

  * * *

  It’s now 1.00 in the morning. I’ve gone past that stage of being dog tired and have circled back into hysterically alert. I’m fuelling this with coffee and adrenalin.

  I really didn’t mind typing up emails for JP – I just sort of went into a trance and let my fingers fly as he dictated. Lots of messages to his online craftaholic mates who’ve said they’
ll repost his hat appeal to their blogs, replies to suppliers asking how his arms are doing and does he still need a job lot of stitch markers for Friday. But we very easily went past thirty minutes into sixty, then ninety, and then I realized I had taken up the challenge of weeding his inbox of loads of spam and newsletters. When I turned round to ask him if he ever read the daily bulletins from Wow Wools, JP’s chin was resting on his chest and a pool of dribble was leaving a dark patch on his T-shirt. I pulled the crocheted blanket from the end of the sofa over his legs and kept going. I knew my brain was too buzzy to stop there.

  His junk mail is stupidly full so I have a trawl through. Nigerian princes, poorly designed phishing, and so many emails with the subject ‘Hello’ that I almost miss a gem.

  It’s the email address I recognize, from a Bloomberg article the other week – MCJ Invest. A really progressive investment firm with a squeaky clean reputation for ethical and environmentally-friendly business affairs. I’ve heard they are so committed to being a paperless office that the CEO has even banned Post-its.

  Maybe JP has a mate there, from his time in London? He wouldn’t want to miss the message being gobbled up by junk, so I take the risk that I’m not about to read anything too grossly laddish or abuse JP’s trust. (I mean, just tonight I’ve helped him in and out of a bath, so no one could accuse me of not being kind to my little brother.) I click open the email and quickly read through the scant paragraphs. No friendly chat, just a business introduction. It’s from a junior exec called Lorraine, so no big cheese but still, what she is saying is interesting – they are looking to invest in small craft businesses outside London and want to meet JP. Very interesting. JP is happy with how things are going, and if he’s happy then I’m always happy, but sometimes I worry about what might happen to the shop – and more importantly, him – if the craft trend dies down and the stress of a failing business sends him into another spiral of anxiety. A solid investment could be just the right kind of safety net.

  I leave JP a note for the morning:

  Look at the starred email in your inbox. I’m going to do some research on MCJ but let’s talk? Be back late. Maggie’s coming to help you get dressed xxxx

  * * *

  I suppose I don’t really take much time to look around me when I’m in London: I wake up early, do some HIIT at the gym, slide into my office chair at eight a.m. with a sweaty glow and a flat white, leave at eight p.m., grey and with flat energy levels, and in between all that my eyes are glued to my phones for any news or client contact. I hardly notice my shoes, let alone the streets or the scenery or the weather. But shivering on the Fenwild train station platform, I can’t look away from the sunrise that’s making the most incredible silhouette of the copse and the thatched roofs beyond. The sky is inky blue at the top, turning violet and then burning with a rosy pink at the bottom, with the trees and houses so black they look like an illustration from my childhood copy of 1,001 Arabian Nights. I am a city girl, through and through, but I can see why you might swap concrete streets and abandoned mattresses for this kind of countryside view. JP always says it helps keep him centred, calm and still.

  And though I agree Fenwild is looking gorgeous at 7.03 a.m., I’m sadly anything but centred, calm or still. I don’t like that I’m in Devon’s bad books this week. It leaves me with a nervous jigging leg as I sit down on the empty train. The handful of other commuters promptly lean against windows and fall into deep snoozes, but I’m just too twitchy. Three hours of sleep before handing in a big report was not my best plan, but Michelangelo designed a helicopter and he only slept for 45 minutes at a time, right? Besides, the report is done, emailed over to my assistant late last night. Clive will have it printed and bound in the post room first thing, so I can hand over a sleek, polished article to Devon and get back all those Brownie points that are so rightly mine. And if Ben so much as raises an eyebrow in my direction about the office time I’ve been missing, I’ll ask the post room if they can possibly fit his lips in the ring-binding machine too and shut him up for a while.

  I’m at my desk at 8.30. I’ve chased off the lurking nerves with a cheeky croissant and downloaded a meditation app in the loos. Maggie is always telling me I should take a leaf out of her mindfulness book. Literally, she means that – she has so many self-help books and colouring books and books on tape, and each birthday and Christmas I get something similar. Whatever floats your boat, I say, though I’ve never found myself with ten spare minutes and thought, I’ll just colour in a picture of a Buddha and be Zen. I usually think, God, the dry cleaners have had those shirts for three weeks now, better pick them up and be clean. The app didn’t really seem to take the edge off, but it did give me an idea for one of our clients who runs business skills workshops and seminars – they should develop an app, get a third party involved to spread the cost. I email myself the idea and feel a glow of confidence which then squashes any leftover niggles about Devon’s grump. He does this sometimes: if he’s had a bad kickboxing class, he might criticize our choice of font on a PowerPoint. If he couldn’t get the Nobu reservation he wanted, he might make us all stay late at work and order a Japanese takeaway around the boardroom table. But then the next day it’s all forgotten and he’s praising the inventive range of tropical fruit on display in reception. Swings and roundabouts. Underneath the ballsy business speak and expensive ski-and-surf tan, he’s actually a kitten. A kitten who takes home a healthy six figures and has a house in Belsize Park.

  Clive waves me a good morning as he puts his bag down. I open my mouth to ask a question, but he anticipates me before I’ve even said a word. ‘Yup, the print room are on it and have promised to deliver copies directly to Devon, right about,’ he looks at his iWatch, ‘now. So he’s got thirty minutes to read before your nine a.m. meeting. Tea, boss?’

  I lean into my ergonomic office chair, enjoying with a childish thrill the way it stretches all the way back, almost to toppling point. I should have known that Clive would take the wobble out of today with his reliable perfectionism. He nails every task, usually before I’ve even finished asking him for something. ‘You’re a star! And yes, please, a strong builder’s for me this morning.’

  I turn back to my emails, whizzing off replies and reassurances and adding new jobs to my task list, pinging a few to Clive as well. When I see him out of the corner of my eye, standing at my shoulder, I smile. ‘Just the ticket, cheers, chuck.’

  ‘Well, that’s a warm reception. Good morning to you too, Blackthorn.’

  Balls, it’s Ben. ‘Morning, Cooper. Anything pressing you need to discuss? A new hair gel supply, as I assume you’ve emptied the Boots warehouse?’ It’s a bit personal, this kind of ribbing, but I’m now mixing sleep deprivation with excited adrenalin ahead of getting in with Devon and giving him the old Dee dazzle. So I’m feeling a bit bolshy.

  Ben rolls his eyes, but colours slightly. ‘Hilarious. Just wondered what the deal is with you and Devon? He seems like he’s on the war path. Did his basement extension get denied again? He seems dead set on that disco room.’ He folds his arms over his perfectly wrinkle-free suit. Ben is one of those people that you know comes from money: maybe it’s his perfect skin and teeth, his non-stop confidence, the suit that clearly hasn’t come from the sale rail, but he has private school written all over him. In fact, I think that’s his school tie he’s wearing. He’s said more than once that he went to the same prep as the CEO’s son. In fact, he shoehorned it in last week in the break room, as Brenda from accounts showed us a video of her daughter’s cello recital. Apparently Ben is grade six. Whoop di do.

  I’m not biased against Ben purely because he’s posh, don’t get me wrong. I have a list of legitimate reasons to dislike him that are unique to him and him alone (the over-gelled hair that he sweeps back dramatically when he’s about to say something ‘important’; the fact that he’s always the first person to leave after work drinks, thereby avoiding his round; his sense of entitlement to power and leadership). But I suppose growing u
p the way we did, with no spare money for anything, it does put me on edge when I see someone flaunting their gold cufflinks and their fancy ‘boys’ club’ maroon tie. There were some very lean years in the Blackthorn household when I was a teen, sadly because our chosen family business for generations had been an independent travel agent. When the bottom fell out of the high-street travel industry, our world bottomed out too – living with Gran temporarily in her little bungalow, selling the car, home-made birthday presents. My mum even pawned her engagement ring so we could have some sort of chicken at least for Christmas dinner. I watched my parents carry the weight of the world on their shoulders as the credit card bills came plopping through the door, but the job offers were sadly much scarcer. And I knew then that when I grew up, I’d earn my own money. I’d work hard, yes, just like Mum and Dad did to retrain as actuaries even though it bored the pants off them, and I’d make sure there was always a big fat turkey at Christmas. So seeing someone swan about without even an idea that nice things in life mean a lot of sacrifice and blood, sweat and tears, well, it doesn’t make me warm to them, let’s put it that way. And the only thing that sweats from Ben on a typical work day is his lemony aftershave as he rushes out to a lunch with one of his cronies, probably all put on Daddy’s tab, I bet.

  But today is not a day to think about Ben Cooper. Today is about smashing it in the meeting room, taking Devon through my concise yet carefully strategized document to push for maximum growth at Dunreddy (who, I discovered last night poring over the scant files, make pasties and pork pies for motorway services, and that’s a valuable pie to have a slice of, even if your arteries won’t thank you). I’ve hit on the core brand values they need to strengthen in their business approach. This is what I do. This is my bread and butter. Or pasty with cheese, if I ever get face to face with these new clients. In fact, if I push hard enough, this would be a great project for me to take the lead on. I have it in the bag.