The Woolly Hat Knitting Club

by Poppy Dolan

  There’s a black sooty circle around the grill at the back of the appliance and a matching one around the socket itself. I would say ‘Bingo’ as I creak open the fridge door, except the smell inside makes me want to gag. So it’s the fridge freezer that’s blown out, tripping the circuit board and leaving the once-frozen chicken breasts and already-too-old takeaway cartons inside to really work up a honk. JP’s been a fixture at Patti’s solidly over the last few days and I’ve had my nose to the grindstone and been lazily eating fish and chips for dinner, so it’s possible neither of us has noticed this for 48 hours. I don’t think this is the kind of thing to share in my weekly email to Mum or she’ll ring social services and ask for the Hopeless Adult Offspring rescue team. I might have to bribe Mags to keep quiet about it too.

  As I step back to get even a little distance from the pong, I realize my shoes have trouble pulling away from the lino. Shit. There’s been a little leak of sticky defrosting juice. This smell is not going to vanish with the fridge to the nearest tip, not if it’s got into the floor. Or the stock! I sprint to the shop floor, only releasing my breath when I can see the floorboards in the heart of the shop are still bone dry. And a little dusty, if I’m honest. But even if the stock is bone dry, the smell is definitely putting the kibosh on MCJ rocking up tomorrow. If selling a stake in your business is anything like selling a home, they say it’s best to have an aroma of fresh rolls in the air, not rotting cabbage.

  Seeing as the offending troublemaker is now unplugged, I try to set the circuit board back to its rightful ways. But the switch just keeps flipping back. I don’t get it. I google Why the fuck won’t my circuit breakers switch back?! But the jargon quickly swims before my eyes. I’m out of my depth. I need help.

  I snatch up my keys and leg it out the back door and four shops down to Sylvia’s Hardware. Sylvia’s has been here for ever, as long as Mags can remember at least, and it’s the kind of warren of a shop where you could find spare plugs, cake tins, light bulbs or lawnmower blades, as long as you have the keen eyesight and endless patience to wander the little aisle and have the owner, Keith, poke around in cardboard boxes for you. But Keith is like an encyclopaedia of DIY – he’s exactly the expert I need right now.

  With a wheeze I pour out the story of what’s happened back at the shop and he nods towards the door and starts trundling out onto the street, flipping his shop sign to Closed as he goes. Keith, all muscles and fat, is the kind of guy who looks sturdy and dense enough to prop up a roof or jack up a car, but only if you want your roof about five off the ground – he only comes up to my shoulders. But despite his less than long legs, he picks up quite a pace and soon we’re both staring at the circuit board as it fails all over again to flick back to life when he tries all the switches one by one. Keith then has a good look at the back of the fridge. His gasp of breath couldn’t be sharper if I’d stabbed him with a bamboo knitting needle.

  ‘Cripes, love. You need this seen to.’

  ‘The fridge? No, I’m just going to chuck it. It’s so old and obviously knackered now so—’

  ‘No, no,’ he waves his thick hands in front of me. ‘The wiring! I don’t like the way that socket’s burned – see, there? I don’t know what kind of survey you might have had when you bought this place, but some of these old shops still have the paper casing around their wiring.’

  I blink. ‘Sorry, I thought you said paper.’

  He nods and tucks his hands in his jeans pockets. ‘Sadly, I did. It’s a very old thing but sometimes it goes unnoticed for a long time. They used to use rubber around the wires, with a paper layer in between. The rubber perishes over time and the paper goes dry and brittle, leaving the electrical wires exposed.’

  Paper. Electrical. Exposed. None of these words feel good as they hit my ears. ‘But… how… why would anyone think paper around wire was a good idea?! It’s bloody flammable!’ My voice cracks on the last word, a sob barely caught in my throat.

  Keith shrugs a little sheepishly, maybe embarrassed on behalf of all DIY practitioners everywhere. ‘Add to the list with asbestos and lead piping, my dear. Look, I’m not saying the house is going to burn down in the middle of the night,’ I grip the kitchen counter behind me with white knuckles. ‘Or anyone is going to be electrocuted as they browse for girdles or whatever, but I don’t like the look of it. I won’t rest easy till you’ve had these double-checked.’

  He won’t rest easy?! What about our livelihoods? Shit, what about our lives?!

  I’m worried that if I don’t swallow down something I’ll be sick all over Keith’s tan work boots. But I can’t switch on the kettle. I can’t even drown myself in tea while I puzzle this out. So an old Nutella glass full of water it is.

  Keith watches me gulp down the water and then thump the glass on the draining board. He scratches the back of his neck. ‘Look, I’ve got the number of a guy – electrical engineer. Best you’re going to get. I’ll ask him to rush out here, as a favour. But in the meantime, I’ll switch your mains supply off. As a precaution.’ I think he adds that last bit because my eyes have gone as big and white as side plates. Keith lets himself out, probably glad to have escaped an emotional disaster zone as well as a potential bonfire of a house.

  I don’t know how long I stand at the sink, rooted to the spot, before my brain switches back into gear. Just as I’m thinking, Let’s get that number. Let’s call that guy. We need a plan, Dee. Now more than ever we need a plan, my foot kicks a paper bag by the washing machine, a heavy bag whose bottom is now ready to tear at the merest nudge since it’s now soaking wet. And as I pull back my foot, about a dozen baby hats spill on to the floor. The stinky, sticky kitchen floor. And then it hits me, as it should have done right away: if the shop is a potential death trap, not only will we have to close to customers but we probably can’t have the event here. JP is going to be utterly heartbroken. One of the tips I remember Mum and Dad giving us when we first set up the shop was that if anything goes wrong, don’t touch it before the insurance man does. If we need to rewire and then replaster and repaint walls and therefore claim on our policy, they’ll need to come and assess it all first. And God knows how long that might take.

  So there’s no way we can open the shop to either knitters or investors. We’re screwed.

  * * *

  I’ve emailed MCJ to let them know – with no hint of my panic – that the shop is ‘just too madly busy to put on pause tomorrow, after all!’ One useful thing the world of work has taught me is how to glide up top while your straggly legs and webbed feet are pedalling for all their worth under the water.

  I keep refreshing for their response, twitchy with the worry that I’ve now blown it and lost my moment with them. What if they’ve been doing background checks on me? What if they’ve called my last employer to check me out? If I was warming up my big-cheque-writing pen, I’d want to know the people I was giving money to were sound and stable. What if Devon’s nasty little rumours have reached them too?

  After another refresh, I pull my Marigolds back on and start on my next round of rinsing, gentle rub through suds and then more rinsing as the baby hats get a thorough sanitizing. The thought of icky fridge juice getting anywhere near a delicate little premmie baby’s head is so, so, so very wrong, and without electricity the washing machine is just a useless white box. Luckily our cooker is gas, so I have one very slow source of hot water; I’ve got a gentle hand-washing detergent for woollens that JP stocks in the shop, I’ve got a washing-up bowl of tepid suds and I’ve got rubber gloves: I’m going old school. At the back of my mind is the warning JP gave me when he handed over my first ever hand-knitted gift: an unbelievably soft beanie hat that was all the colours of the peacock spectrum: green, blue, orange, gold and purple, one stripe effortlessly merging into the next in an ombré style. ‘You don’t hot-wash pure wool!’ he’d said in his best bossy voice, which I knew was only a half-arsed impression of my own. ‘Not unless you want thick, scratchy felt.’ I know JP stipulated that the baby
hats should be knitted in machine-washable yarns of the synthetic variety, but I just can’t take any more chances with this precious cargo. Not only will each of these little hats make all the difference to a new person’s first months in the world; they mean so much to JP. They’re the start of a whole new dream of his. A dream which looks like it’s souring into a nightmare at this rate. And I’m not going to accidentally felt his dreams.

  So each hat gets an oh-so-subtle wash and then several rinses, a careful wringing and then a quick pat dry before I transfer it to my indoor washing line. OK, so JP doesn’t have a washing line. He’s a bloke: he puts wet pants on the radiator, even in the height of summer. But I’ve improvised: I found the offending bunting that had caused his spectacular fall and I string it up around the living room, Sellotaping it to the tops of doorways and picture frames like a Christmas garland. The hats just so happen to fit perfectly between each triangle of the bunting and at least all these blooming, cheery colours side by side are doing a little something to alleviate my mood.

  Despair is not really a Delilah emotion. I see problems and I make opportunities from them. Usually. But now without the MCJ pitch and without the big knitathon on the horizon, I feel rudderless. I don’t even know what I’m aiming for anymore. There just seem like too many problems to pick apart: I got sacked, JP broke his wrists, the investment isn’t yet in the bag, and the charity plans may now be stalled indefinitely. Our shop might well shock me the next time I brush past a light switch. And all our hats smell like sour cream and onions. It all feels like too much. And I don’t feel like me.

  All these thoughts swash about in my head like the foamy water in the sink. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t have a plan. Washing these hats is at least making me feel like I’m doing something, but it’s more a relief to put off the bigger issues than really fixing anything.

  ‘You are a picture.’

  I nearly hit my head on the light fitting, I jump so high. Becks is leaning against the doorway from the shop into the living room, watching me peg the hats onto the washing line.

  I drop a wet, sky-blue bonnet onto my foot. ‘Blimey! You scared me!’

  ‘So you had forgotten the shop door was open?’

  ‘Um, yes. Sorry. I had it propped open earlier, airing out… bit of a smell in here, sorry.’

  Becky wrinkles her nose to one side. ‘I can pick up a faint whiff of something minging. But right now I smell of baby poo and throw-up 24/7 so I’m hardly one to talk. What’s happened?’

  I flop down onto the sofa behind me and tell the story of the combusting fridge, the paper wiring and Rudderless Dee.

  * * *

  It doesn’t take much for Becky to get me out of the shop – we aren’t going to make any sales with that smell hanging around and the thought of the unsafe wiring hiding above my head, about to jump out at us in a ball of fire at any point, is hardly conducive to a nice, relaxing cup of tea at home.

  So, without me really noticing, we’ve come to the library.

  ‘It’s not that weird,’ Becky rolls her eyes at me as I hold the door open for her and the buggy, clearly doing a bad job of hiding my confusion. ‘It’s nice and quiet, there are colourful things for Ches to look at. And it’s not my house. That’s key. Every day I try and see a room that doesn’t live in my house. And going to a coffee shop is costing me thousands in lattes and gingerbread men.’

  She wheels over to the children’s area, marked out with bright – if conspicuously stained – carpets and big wooden boxes full of picture books.

  I feel pretty daft sitting my adult frame down on a toadstool-painted seat clearly made for a toddler’s bum, but hey – it’s not going to electrocute me. So that’s something.

  ‘Here,’ Becks shoves a book my way. ‘Read this one to Chester. It’s his favourite, because of all the dogs. He loves dogs and cats!’ Becky chucks him under his chin, bringing away a strand of drool as she does so. ‘Oops. Well, this is what muslins are for!’ She coos at him. His little feet kick out in different directions. There’s nothing to say it isn’t his favourite book, of course, but I think maybe, just maybe, Becky could be reading too much into Chester’s gurns and arm waves at just ten weeks of age. I’m no Supernanny, but it’s probably more likely that it’s gas than genuine literary affection.

  ‘Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy,’ I start to read out loud, from the cover. ‘Sure. Why not. It’s not like I have a share report to read, or a balance sheet. Or even the Bloomberg Twitter feed. Might as well be a kids’ book. That seems right for me, just about now.’

  Becky drops the now-soggy muslin into her laps and folds her arms. ‘OK. This won’t do.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  She shakes her head. ‘I can’t do mopey. Not on three hours’ of sleep at a time. Not with beach-ball boobs straining at the most God-awful bra you’ve ever seen. If I wanted self-pity I’d… I’d… I’d stay in and let myself wallow in it! But that’s not what this is, Blackthorn. You’ll read that book in a lovely, happy, cheery voice so my son appreciates the fun of books and then we’ll have a chat and get all this sorted out.’ With a decisive nod towards the shiny book I’m holding, she seems to make her ruling.

  It’s pretty hard to do a sing-song voice reading aloud about small dogs and tall dogs and thin dogs and spotty dogs while you feel like you’re about to be called into the headmaster’s office, like a naughty teacher about to be bollocked for stealing pens again. Though with that appalling pay, fair play to any teacher who hocks biros on the sly to make ends meet.

  ‘… straight back home to bed,’ I finish and Chester seems to show his appreciation with a wet ‘Gurrrrr’ sound and a flap of his hands.

  ‘See!’ Becky puts her CBeebies presenter voice back on. ‘Books are fun! Books are fun!’ she chants into his pram. ‘Have a chew of your giraffe, baby boy.’ She puts a long-necked rubbery giraffe into one of his tiny hands, and he promptly whacks it into his own face.

  ‘You. What’s up?’ She swivels to look at me. CBeebies has gone and now the channel’s turned to Question Time.

  ‘Well… the shop is completely out of action, I told you. We can’t open to customers, we can’t have the knitathon there now. JP is going to be gutted. And I – I don’t know where to go next. How to fix this. I…’ I bite down on my bottom lip, unsure whether I should share my plans with MCJ to her. But it just sounds like another embarrassing story of limp failure and after being canned I can do without one more of those in my repertoire. ‘I don’t know where to go next. I need to get my career back on track, but where is it even headed now? Do I want to go back to the City? I’ve never not had a five-year plan that didn’t work out perfectly. And now, not only did my current plan go spectacularly wrong when my boss fired me, but I can’t even think of a new one to get me back in action. I don’t know what I want. What kind of job, what kind of future. What to aim for.’

  Becky blows out a long breath, sending the wisps of hair around her face, the strands that have escaped her loose bun, up on a puff of air. ‘Blimey, chill out, Dee!’

  Not exactly the listening ear I’d been hoping for, if I’m honest.

  I get up and slot the book back into its box. ‘Yeah, no. I will. I’ll go for a run or something, clear my head…’

  ‘No, no,’ Becky pulls me back down onto the stool beside her. ‘I didn’t mean it like that. Sleep deprivation makes me a bit brutally blunt, these days. I literally mean – go easier on yourself, chill out, take a breath. Who has a five-year plan they stick to?! Who even makes one before it sends them mad? If you’d asked me five years ago what I’d want by now, I probably would have said to be married with a kid. But I wouldn’t have said that I wanted to spend three weeks in hospital on a knife edge of panic, or then feel like some frumpy milk machine day and night when I did get home. I couldn’t have planned the way Chester came into this world, not if I had all the baby books on Amazon. And even the part of the “plan” that did come good – having a baby, a bloke, a
family at home – hasn’t exactly been everything I might have planned for.’ She winces as she goes on. ‘The non-stop washing, the lonely days, the bleak nights, when you snap at your other half because they won’t follow the sterilizing instructions properly…’ Her hands grip into fists in her lap for a second. ‘But that’s how things are. And there are a million great things in my life. Some of them by plan, most by accident. And in these last months I’ve realized all you can ever truly control is just deciding to enjoy the little things.’ She looks around the library and smiles.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Um,’ she casts her eyes about for inspiration. ‘The shiny foil on that book, see? Like a disco ball. Or when Chester and I go walking and we see a squirrel do some mad act of acrobatics from one tree to the next. A chat with you,’ she nudges me in the ribs. ‘The smell of Mum’s Victoria sponge as I sit on her sofa and get an hour off from my own mum duty. Even when we were still on the ward, things like the pattern of shade the leaves made through the hospital window. Someone bringing you a cup of hot, sweet tea. Sounds mad and hippy-dippy, but when you have no say in the big things, you can at least choose to notice the small things and enjoy them right there and then. Like hand-knitted baby hats. Small things can mean a lot.’

  ‘Right. I see.’ I fiddle with a small square book on the table beside me. It’s got touchy-feely animals on the front and one battered fluffy chick in particular looks like he’s been nearly completely plucked of his yellow fur by over-enthusiastic little readers. Worn down. I know how he feels.

  ‘No, you don’t, do you? Maybe when you’ve been used to crazy big bonus cheques and business-class flights, marvelling at a squirrel and a cup of tea does sound a bit sad.’ I open my mouth to disagree – that isn’t what I think at all – but she holds up a hand to keep me quiet and continues, ‘But you just need a fresh take on things. Reset your expectations. Tell me, what are your happiest recent memories, from, like, the last year? Be totally honest.’