Boys Don't Knit (18 page)

Last night at knitting class Mrs Hooper made an announcement.

‘I'm pleased to tell you that the date and venue of the National Knitting Championships have been confirmed. It will be held at the Knit Fair, at Olympia on the seventeenth of February. As you all know, Ben will be representing Hampshire, in the junior category.'

There was a small round of applause and I felt myself blushing.

‘Well done, Ben,' Mrs Simpson said.

‘Nice one, Ben,' Amelia called.

Natasha high-fived me. I just felt more worried than ever.

After class, Mrs Hooper handed me an application form in a manila envelope. It was surprisingly heavy and when I opened it a massive wodge of documentation fell out. There was a sheet asking for any known medical conditions. Bed-wetting, angina, senile dementia. There was a media waiver form, a PR questionnaire asking about hobbies (other than knitting), favourite films and foods. There were information sheets about how to get to the venue, how to get home again, where to eat, local hotels etc. Then there was the application form itself, which ran to twelve pages. I glanced through it and noticed that it asked for confirmation that I had my basic proficiency certificate, which reminded me I haven't submitted my pattern.

‘Will you be going?' I asked Mrs Hooper.

‘Oh yes,' she said. ‘I always go to the Knit Fair anyway, but even if I didn't, I wouldn't miss your event for the world.'

I took the lot home to look at properly tonight. Dad's out at five-a-side football thankfully so Mum and I looked at it together. The first thing Mum noticed was the date.

‘Oh,' she said. ‘I might not be able to go.'

‘What?' I replied. ‘Why not?'

‘Edinburgh,' she said.

I sat back in my chair and sighed. The Edinburgh Magic Festival. Of course, it always ran for a week in mid-February.

‘I'm launching my new show,' she explained. ‘With the floating coffin.'

The floating coffin trick is actually pretty good. Mum demonstrated it for me in the garage, but she used a shoe box because there wasn't room for an actual coffin. She also used one of Molly's Bratz dolls instead of a real live person, which was just as well as a real person would have been burned quite horribly when the shoe box got stuck against the light bulb and went on fire.

‘Can't you leave a day early?' I asked.

‘The last day is
Britain's Got Magic
,' she explained. ‘I have to do a short slot there, judging.'

'She could tell I was disappointed though.

‘Though it says here your actual event doesn't start until 5.30pm,' she said. ‘My slot is at lunchtime. If I race down I might be able to get there in time to see the end.'

‘That'd be great,' I said, smiling. I didn't really expect she would make it but it would be nice if she tried. ‘I suppose I can go up with Mrs Hooper.'

She paused for a moment before speaking. ‘Or you could ask your father?'

I winced. ‘I'll think about it,' I said.

‘He'd be proud of you,' she said.

‘Hmm.'

‘Once he got over the shock. He's not a Neanderthal, you know.'

‘I know. It's just that I've left it so long now, I'm not sure how to tell him.'

She nodded. ‘Yes. I know what you mean. He'll be cross with me too, for keeping the secret.'

Oh good. On top of everything else I will be the source of my parents' acrimonious and bitter divorce now, too.

Or perhaps I am just a bit over-anxious?

I told Mrs Hooper that Mum wasn't going to be able to make it to the final. She looked concerned.

‘And your father  … ?'

‘I haven't exactly told him about the knitting thing yet,' I admitted.

Mrs Hooper shook her head. ‘Ben! You really need to tell him.'

‘I know, I know,' I said. ‘It's just not that simple really  … ' I tailed off.

She regarded me for a moment.

‘You're very welcome to drive up with us, you know,' she said. ‘If you don't mind sitting next to Megan.'

‘Megan's coming?'

‘Of course, she'll be there to cheer you on.'

Well, that's nice at least. Maybe we could be friends after all. Maybe I can get away without telling Dad. I can say I'm off on a school trip to a museum or something. He never checks up on things like that. I do feel a bit guilty about the idea though. Lying to my father and going off with another family. I don't know. I'll have to think about this.

Gee, thanks, Ms Gunter. As if I don't have enough pressure on me these days. Now the very existence of West Meon Probation Services, not to mention the career of Claudia Gunter, rests on my unmanly shoulders.

Mum and Dad are shouting at each other downstairs and I can't concentrate. This is all my fault.

Dad's gone. He's taken the camper van and broken for the Mexican border. Or Southsea, possibly.

‘He'll be back, Ben,' Mum said confidently this morning, but I could tell she was upset. This isn't the first time Dad has done a runner when he can't handle things. He's got form, according to my mother. She says it will all blow over, but it seems to me that my masculine dad is not being much of a man at the moment. Ironic much?

It's still nearly all my fault though.

This is how last night unravelled.

Mum and Dad went out as usual. They were going to Guildford for 80s School Disco. Mum has one of her old school uniforms she wears for such occasions. Personally I don't think it's an appropriate look for a woman in her forties, but Dad says she hasn't changed in 25 years, which makes me wonder what he saw in her in the first place. Can frizzy hair and torn tights really have been ‘The Look' back then?

Dad wears an untucked shirt and ties a stripy tie around his head. He looks like a giant version of the bloke in that old rock-metal band, AC/DC. I know he has all the albums. This must be his inspiration.

But what kind of school did my parents go to if that's their idea of school uniform? Mum's skirt is almost obscenely short. It would definitely have got her suspended from Hampton Academy. And Dad would have been referred to a school for maladjusted children, surely?

Anyway, I'd pushed my sister off to bed quite early and had become heavily involved in Patt3rn. I'm trying out a few experimental stitches to see if I can pull off a kind of loopy effect on the sleeves. Very mathematical and complex. I lost track of time, to be honest.

It was 10.30pm, and I ‘d just completed an extensive section of one sleeve and was pulling it on over my top and admiring myself in my bedroom mirror when the door was flung open and Dad stood there, tie still around his head. It took him a second to register what was going on. It was like that scene in
Pulp Fiction
where John Travolta comes out of the loo to find Bruce Willis pointing a machine gun at him. We stood there like that, gauging the situation, waiting for the Pop Tart to go ping.

It was Dad who went ping.

‘I knew you were up to something,' he shouted. He began opening drawers, cupboards, then he looked under my bed and pulled out the Box of Shame.

He grabbed hold of a half-completed tank top and a sheaf of patterns. He thrust one out at me.

‘Classic Borgen!!' he yelled.

Mum appeared at the doorway, looking anguished.

Suddenly I snapped.

‘So I knit!' I yelled. ‘So what?'

‘So you lied to me!' he growled.

‘I didn't think you'd understand  … ' I began.

‘You saying I'm not understanding?!' he cried, incredulous. ‘I put up with you, don't I? Did I give you a hard time when you tried to kill that lollipop lady?'

‘Oh yeah, throw that back in my face  … '

‘You stole from Waitrose,' he said, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘Waitrose!'

‘David, calm down,' Mum said.

‘And you? You kept this a secret too,' he said, rounding on her. ‘How long's this been going on?'

‘Just since September,' Mum said quietly.

‘I just th—' Then Dad stopped and looked at me quizzically. ‘You're not really doing pottery, are you?'

I shook my head.

‘You've been knitting,' he said, with a contemptuous tone. ‘All that stuff about you not being able to do my course, because of a conflict of interest. That was all lies too?'

I stared at Dad. ‘Yeah. OK. I kind of lied. I did, in fact, lie.'

Dad's expression was still thunderous.

‘Dave  … ' Mum said.

‘Enough,' he said, holding up a hand to silence her.

‘You can't stand to be around me, is that it?' he asked me. ‘You'd rather sit with a bunch of gossiping women than do anything with me?'

‘No, Dad, that's not it,' I replied, sighing. ‘It's not you.'

‘Then what?'

I took a deep breath and told him.

‘I hate cars,' I said. ‘I hate cars, and I don't like Jeremy Clarkson, and I think James May looks like a serial killer and I don't understand why Frank Lampard is still in the England squad.'

He gasped, shocked.

‘Take that back!' he hissed.

‘He always boots it over the crossbar!' I cried. ‘Why does he do that?'

‘He's aiming for the top corner!' Dad yelled back. ‘Where the keeper can't get it!'

‘It's not working!' I yelled back.

‘So you're a pansy?' Dad shot back, evidently stung by my attack on Frank Lampard. ‘A nancy boy? Don't like cars, don't understand Lampard. You like knitting, do you? What's next? Ballet? Flower arranging? Man-bags?'

‘Dave!' Mum said, upset. ‘Stop it now!'

But then Molly woke up and started crying and Mum dragged Dad out of my room, giving me a sorry face, and Dad stomped downstairs and doors were slammed, peace talks broke down, and World War Mum and Dad broke out properly.

And when I woke up this morning, Dad was gone.

I stopped in to see Miss Swallow before knitting class last night. I pretended I needed more clay, but in truth I had more than enough. Most of it was sitting in the Box of Shame, going dry.

‘How are you?' I asked. She looked at me with a sideways smile.

‘I'll live,' she said.

‘I saw Joe last week,' I said. ‘At the football.'

‘Really?' she asked. ‘How  …  how did he seem?'

‘He didn't score,' I said.

‘Makes a change,' she sniffed.

‘I spoke to him afterwards,' I said.

‘You spoke to him?'

‘He really misses you,' I said.

‘He's got a funny way of showing it,' she said. ‘I thought he might at least make an effort, you know? Come around with flowers. Send me a letter?'

I shrugged. ‘He thinks there's no chance,' I said. ‘He thinks you hate him.'

‘I do hate him,' she said. ‘And I love him.'

‘He loves you too,' I told her.

‘Then he needs to show it,' she said, and turned away.

Later on I told Mrs Hooper that I'd like to take her up on her offer of a lift to London with them.

‘OK,' she said. ‘You haven't spoken to your father, then?'

‘Actually, I have,' I said. ‘But he's  …  he's taking some time to come to terms with it.'

‘Oh,' she said. Then, seeing my face, added, ‘Is everything OK?'

I nodded. Then shook my head.

‘He didn't take it very well,' I told her.

‘At least the truth is out there now,' she said.

‘Yeah, that is a comfort,' I said, unable to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.

I couldn't concentrate during the class. I didn't do any proper knitting. I asked Mrs Hooper if I could work on Patt3rn and she agreed. But Patt3rn is not proceeding well. The loopy arm thing isn't working. I think it needs something else but I can't think what. Maybe I need to abandon it and move on to the Pattern Mk 4. Not sure what I'll call it yet but I need Pattern Mk 4 to be extremely good. I have a germ of an idea that Pattern Mk 4 could solve a number of my problems at one stroke.

Joz has given me another bit of
Fifty Shades of Graham
. Must be the comedy aspect, which I badly need right now, but I'm starting to enjoy it. Poor Daisy has had a rough time of it, but does Graham really offer her long-term happiness? After following him to New York, she caught him in a clinch with another woman and has decided she needs to confront him about it. Now read on  … 

‘I saw you with that girl last night,' Daisy sobbed. She threw a vase at me and it smashed against the wall. I didn't even flinch.

‘That was my sister,' I said to her.

‘So why did you have your tongue down her throat?' she screeched.

‘What? Oh, you mean the other girl,' I said. ‘Yes, but it was only because I thought you didn't love me. I was in shock, I was angry.'

Why didn't she understand?

‘You think I don't love you because I won't dress up as a milkmaid?'

‘It's not just that,' I sighed. ‘You never phone me any more. I feel like we're drifting apart.'

She stared at me, eyes blazing, then without a word she tore off her clothes and leaped at me, wrestling me to the bed  …