The Woolly Hat Knitting Club

by Poppy Dolan

  * * *

  ‘You’ve lost the plot.’ Devon slaps the ring-bound report down on the shiny boardroom table, making me flinch just a little.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘This…’ Devon gestures with one hand as if pointing to a discarded dog-poo bag in the park. ‘This is not good enough, Delilah. Not good.’

  My mouth goes dry and I reach for my green tea. ‘I… I think this is a fair study within the time frame. I laid out…’

  Devon snorts and rolls his eyes. It doesn’t make for a pretty picture. ‘This is the work of someone who threw together two ideas on the train and dropped in some Clip Art to pad it out. Nice try on the ring binding. For a second it made me believe this was the work of a professional. What’s going on with you, Blackthorn? This is not like you. I’m starting to worry.’

  I know by ‘worry’ he doesn’t mean about me, but about his bottom line. He’s worried I’m going to piss off a client, make a costly error of judgement. He’s worried I’m going to do a Nigel from the second floor who broke down in tears in a client presentation to a cosmetics firm because his wife had just left him and theirs was her favourite hairspray. Devon deemed that was ‘no grounds to scare off the cheque-signers’. And then he sacked him.

  ‘Don’t worry, sir. I will… redraft something for you. By end of play.’

  His well-groomed eyebrows draw down into a wide V. ‘I’m listening.’

  Think, Dee, think. Thinking on your feet is your speciality, remember? Don’t trip over your laces now, girl. But I’m struggling to see what I could do differently: I laid out the current market climate, the challenges and strengths, the key strategy to move forward and the kind of agencies we might use to help the company achieve that. It was like so many reports Devon has enthused about in the past. Could the basement thing be pissing him off so much? All I can do is play for time and hope he’s calmer by six p.m.

  I clear my throat and take a deep breath. ‘I have a second strategy up my sleeve. I’ll work it up and come back to you.’

  Devon’s frown is still there, angled right at me. ‘Are you committed to this, Blackthorn? You ran out of the TechBank meeting, you claim some “family issues”.’ The air quotes tell me all I need to know about Devon’s sympathies for that term. ‘I’ve heard rumours of unpredictable behaviour for a little while now but I didn’t want to believe them. But this seems to back it all up. Where’s your head at?’

  Rumours?! Unpredictable behaviour?! I’m so predictable, so reliable at work that the cleaners set their watches by me for the eight p.m. shift.

  My lips move about uselessly, like I’m a ventriloquist’s dummy and the person operating my mouth is just trying to scratch his thumb. I’m not thinking on my feet; I’m stumbling into panic.

  Just then, my phone vibrates against the table. A picture of three lime-green baby hats lights up the screen. Perfect.

  Before I can snatch it away and throw it out of the window, Devon’s eyes dart down and take in the tiny knitted caps, each with a white bobble on top. And a few words of text that caption the image: For us?!

  Oh, JP, your timing is sometimes not the greatest.

  I’m trying to bluster out my reply. ‘Devon, this is all actually simple to explain. I’m—’

  He holds up his well-manicured hand and stands suddenly. ‘I’m going to stop you right there. Whatever you’re… doing, I from this point have no further vested interest. We’re letting you go, Delilah. Right now. Due to disappointing performance. Within ten minutes security will be at your desk. I hope you remember that you can now no longer contact clients? Right, goodbye.’

  And then it’s quiet. Bar the subtle swish of Devon’s expensive trousers and the clunk of the door closing behind him, it’s quiet. I’ve never been so silent in my working life. My head goes blank, all the explanations and arguments floating off, above my head, like the smoke rings I tried to blow as a teenager. There’s nothing. I’m blank.

  I’m not sure how long I’ve been sitting in the leather chair, my hands leaving clammy circles on the chrome arms, when a cough from the doorway makes me leap out of my skin.

  ‘Boss?’ Clive’s face is pale. ‘Everything OK?’

  All I can manage is to shake my head by half an inch. I slowly walk past him, down the hall to my desk, pick up my bag and without stopping march to the lift. I ignore the persistent deep voice behind me calling, ‘Blackthorn? Blackthorn!’

  I can’t be here to see Ben’s victory dance.

  Chapter 5

  ‘She won’t even take a Jaffa Cake. I know. No, we’ll be OK, Mum. Honest. Mags is taking great care of us. And I’m sure Dee just needs some time to come round. I’ll keep wafting chocolate under her nose. Don’t worry! You do not need to change your flights back. Please don’t. Anyway, I don’t think Dad would come with you by the sounds of it. He’s loving the barbie life too much. Got to go, will email you tonight with an update.’

  JP awkwardly brings his right hand down in a slow karate chop to his phone, just about brushing the screen with his little finger to end the call. It would be funny if I wasn’t so numb. His phone has been on loudspeaker on the kitchen counter so of course I’ve heard all of Mum’s nervous squeaks and worried objections. But I’m glad he put her off coming back early – I can’t bear to see anyone right now.

  Fired. Fired! Me. Me, fired!

  That one clunky thought rattles around in my head like a pinball and I just can’t seem to bat it away. On impulse I checked my work phone on the train home, only to find that I had no network access to my emails or files and even my password had been voided. I was shut out. I was gone. Devon has washed his hands of me because… because… I missed a meeting, a few emails went astray and he didn’t like one report out of hundreds of brilliant ones?! It’s utter crap. It’s unfair. It’s bullshit. But I know he can do it. Our company employment contracts are tailored to reflect the fact that we’re expected to work round the clock, way above EU guidelines for acceptable working hours, and our commensurate pay and bonus schemes mean that the termination clause is pretty brutal. With no chance of appeals or tribunals, even. You can’t have all carrot and no stick in this game. And now the stick has an imprint of my arse on it, as it whacked me out the door.

  I hide my work phone under the sofa cushions. I’ll post it back another day, or something. Whatever.

  JP lowers himself onto the arm of the old sofa, his face creased with concern. ‘Sis. Sis, what can I do? You’ve said three words to me since you’ve got back. How can they do this? You’re such a badass! You’ve earned them millions. Not that they need more. You should get angry, tear some stuff up…’ he turns his head around the room, looking for something breakable. ‘I never liked those bookends, with the yarn balls glued on them? Dad’s cousin sent them, remember? Bloody naff and a waste of yarn. Smash them! Pulverize them! And then I might need you to help me have a wee.’

  The way he sneaks this last bit in starts a small laugh in me that becomes a big one. And soon I’m struggling to catch my breath.

  ‘Well… that’s something.’ JP narrows his eyes at me. ‘Something, at least. Right, our plan is loo break – I’m getting really good at sitting-down wees now, all on my own – tea break and then I’m going to take your mind off things.’ He nods confidently and I think for once I’m going to let him be the big one between us. I’m just too poleaxed to think straight, let alone be the bossy sibling today.

  * * *

  Which is perhaps why he has managed to get me here sitting, his crocheted blanket over my knees, a big ball of thick navy wool by my feet and two smooth, cool knitting needles in my sweaty hands.

  ‘So, just let the yarn hang between your fingers on your right hand and it’ll feed through nicely. Then the needle goes in, yarn wrapped over, pull up and out and – there! There, see! You’ve made a new stitch.’ With JP craned over me, I can see the flash of happiness in his eyes, and a little green shade of envy. The poor sod really misses his favourite hobby right no
w. He is living his craft passion vicariously through me, which is one sure sign of desperation. ‘Now you try on your tod, no guidance.’ He leans back against the wall, itching a shoulder blade on the door frame.

  Trying to keep hold of the two needles, the wool itself and the soft rows of JP’s knitting feels a bit like the panicky manoeuvre when someone passes you a tiny baby at a family do, and you have to concentrate so hard on supporting their head and not squashing a small arm and not dangling your hair in their mouth. So much going on at once, just a hair’s breadth from everything unravelling.

  I push the needle through the little hole that I think is the right one on the left-hand side. The wooden knitting needle is thick like a school paintbrush and I remember JP telling me that different yarns need differently sized needles. Each one has a perfect lifelong match, like penguins, apparently. This is a really chunky wool so it needs a chunky set of needles and JP said it was lucky he’d started this thick pullover before his accident, as chunky is good for beginners. He’d got about 30 centimetres in before he’d taken that tumble. His knitting is beautiful: soft, even, regular. It’s actually mesmerizing how perfect it is.

  So the needle is there, poking through, and now I have to wrap the yarn around it. But does it go over or under again? And am I supposed to be pulling hard like this? JP said something about tension and not making your work tight and inflexible but at the word ‘work’ all I could see in my head was that ring-bound presentation being slapped down in front of me on the boardroom table.

  That was good work. I know it.

  Well, the yarn is round. OK. Wait, what now?

  What now? What will I do? I’ve lost my job. I got sacked! Me!

  ‘That’s a bit tight on the old tension,’ I hear JP say, but I’m only half in the room. I’m thinking about what everyone will be saying in the office, right this minute. Any rumours about me being unpredictable are just going to seem valid, the way I ran out of there. Ben will be lapping this up, I bet. He’ll be strutting about, pushing his oily hair off his forehead and doing that fake wincey smile people do when they’re trying to give an impression of care and concern. ‘I did think she was stretching herself too far,’ he’ll be saying. ‘Not everyone is cut out for this kind of work, you know.’ He’ll wink at one of the interns who’ll giggle in reply.

  I’m not really seeing the needles move in front of me, but I can feel the awkward, lumpy movements in my hands as I struggle to pull the needle through and get the new stitches on the flaming stick. I’m seeing my flat up for repossession, my savings account withering away to nothing, I’m seeing cardboard boxes being loaded into Mum and Dad’s spare room. My eyes sting and I shake my head. No. No, it won’t come to that.

  ‘Just let the yarn go a bit there, sis. You’re yanking it pretty hard, yeah?’

  But I work hard and I work fast – I don’t deserve this! What was Devon on?! And where did he hear these rumours? That’s got to be my first mission: get to the bottom of this rubbish. Get my reputation back. Make Devon rue the day he pushed me out. Push him out, even! Yeah, get comfy in his seat. Send him out the door with his tub of protein powder and framed picture of his beloved speedboat. Hell, I’ll have the damn boat too while I’m at it!

  ‘Whoa there! Whoa!’

  I feel JP nudge the back of my hand with his own and I look down to see a knotted, tangled mess on my lap.

  His eyes wrinkle. ‘I think you might have managed to knit four times into the same stitch. Five times over. Which is, weirdly, quite an advanced stitch but not what we were after here. You’ve gone so full on with the tension that you’ve left yourself almost no room to manoeuvre, Dee. We can start again.’

  ‘Aargh!’ My scream surprises even me. ‘I don’t want to start again! I had everything just the way I wanted it!’ I drop the wonky knitting on the floor and kick the yarn ball under the TV stand.

  ‘Hey!’ JP admonishes. ‘Respect British wools in my house! That’s valuable stuff.’

  ‘Ha! Ha, ha! That’s perfect. Wool is valuable, OK, I see. Because I’m not, am I? All my work, all my career building, all my five a.m. alarms and working dinners and client parties, that all means nothing, that’s not valuable.’ I can feel my neck flushing as my voice gets louder and hoarser.

  JP nods. ‘Now we’re getting somewhere.’

  ‘All that and – poof – I’m just gone. In the blink of an eye. How dare they? How dare they?! And now it’s me who’s got to start again. Brilliant!’

  I seize my demented attempt at knitting, letting the needles clatter to the floor, and wrap the hanging yarn around my hand, pulling and pulling as one knotted stitch pings free after another. Soon I’m speedily unwinding through my rubbish stitches and I’m into JP’s perfect ones. Ping ping ping, they’re gone and they’re nothing, the only proof they ever existed in the kinks of the thick wool as it pools on the sofa cushion. Not a jumper. Just a puddle of nothing.

  And when there’s nothing whatsoever left, I look at JP. He’s smiling, just.

  ‘Exactly!’ he chirrups. ‘That’s better, right? Out is always better than in. A part of creating something is also, sometimes, destroying it. But you can always start again, with anything in fact. Knitting. Jobs. Stuff ’em, Dee. They’re idiots. You’re so much better than them.’

  I realize that I need to catch my breath. I try to remember my Pilates rhythms and count out for five. ‘I will try again. And this time I’ll do even better.’

  * * *

  I might not be able to manipulate wool into anything pretty or useful or even closely resembling a pattern, but I can appreciate how lovely it is to hold. It’s like having a little soft guinea pig in every colour of the rainbow, except yarn balls don’t squeal and poo in your hand when you gently stroke them. Some of it is crazy fluffy, with a fine fuzz like a haze surrounding each ball. (Skein, I should say. I’m still getting to grips with the lingo.) Some of the yarns are tweedy and robust, with flecks of grey and brown sprinkled amongst racing green or navy blue. I can just imagine these being turned into a professor’s cardigan, with elbow patches sewn on after. Some yarns are lighter, softer, and feel almost like cotton as I pick them from the cubbyholes and double-check the dye lot numbers before slipping them into a labelled envelope.

  JP gave me a refresher on dye lots before letting me loose on his online orders this morning. He’s happy to keep my hands occupied as a way to exorcize my stress and I’m happy to keep busy and not visualize different ways to remove Devon’s stupid head from his orange body. Anyway, dye lots are a big deal to knitters, he said: you could order the exact same colour wool from the exact same brand from two different websites and if they weren’t from the same batch of wool dyed together, the shades could be just that essential fraction out. Then you’d change over wool halfway through a project and be able to see the difference. JP says this is why he can’t bear to see the purple cardigan he made Mags years ago now – his first full garment, when he was still learning the ropes – as on one sleeve there’s a slight shift in colour. Invisible to anyone but a total perfectionist, but then JP and I definitely have that in common, so I can’t really bring him up on it. Anyway, it’s important I make sure that if someone has ordered four or five or fifteen of the same colour wool, that we’re sending them all the same dye lot number. And given that customer satisfaction and online reviews are key to keeping a small online business like JP’s afloat, I’m not going to skimp on these kinds of essential details.

  With two orders packed up and ready for the post office, I’m enjoying finding a rhythm to this work. Scour the shelves for the right yarn, take in names like Angel, Snuggly and Super Chunky, check the numbers, double-check address label matches printed order, stick label on put it to one side, on to the next. I’m on my sixth order and rooting through a big clear plastic bag of small but perfectly formed balls of yarn for baby clothes with a mix of cashmere. To be honest, I’m rooting more than necessary but it’s just so soft and smooth against my fingers. I’m searching
for one last skein in a shade of the subtlest duck egg and when I go back to double-check the order, I see this customer has bought a pattern book too. So, over to the bookshelves and I’m looking for Sweet Baby Knits to Treasure. On the cover is a very apt sweet baby, rolls of fat forming lines at his wrists and neck. He’s wearing a blue-and-white striped knitted romper and a matching hat.

  Becky. In everything that happened at the office yesterday and my boiling rage that followed, I have completely forgotten about Becky and the hats! I whip my phone out from my back pocket and send her a speedy text.

  Delilah:

  How’s it going, love? I’m actually free and in the village all day today if you want to meet up? Or I could bring you some bits and pieces, if you like, just say a quick hello.

  I wasn’t expecting a reply; even with my scant knowledge of babies and motherhood I know that when you’ve got a newborn you’re not exactly sitting pretty and waiting for a social event to kill time. And I don’t know if Becky and her boy have got home yet – maybe if she’s in the hospital her phone has to be switched off. But my phone buzzes almost as soon as I’ve put it down on the shop counter.

  Becky:

  Yes, please! We’re home! All the tests came back clear, thank God. I’m knackered and so messy but couldn’t care less because we’re home! Come and meet Chester. He’s totally fine. Tiny still but we’re working on that. Please come! Would love to see you, hun. xxxx

  A warm tingle spreads out through my ribcage and up my arms. They’re home. He’s fine. This is greater than great. I look up at the ceiling and mutter a quiet ‘thank you’, I’m not sure to who exactly but maybe the knitting gods can have this one. Perhaps all those teeny hats waiting for Chester in the living room have brought us good luck. The positive karma JP put out into the world by calling on his crafty buddies has definitely reminded me that people can be kind and generous and trusting, at any rate, even if my working life would seem to prove otherwise. But today isn’t a day to think about that. Today is a day to buy a bulk load of chocolate fingers and go and visit an old friend and a very new, box-fresh baby one.