Divas Don't Knit (11 page)

‘What are you doing up there, darling?’

Ellen’s whispering from the bottom of the stairs.

‘Nothing. Just checking they’re asleep.’

‘Well hurry up. Vin’s opening another bottle of wine and we’re going to play strip scrabble. And Harry’s practically dyslexic. He can’t spell to save his life.’

‘I’ll be right down.’

I’m opening up on Saturday morning at ten past nine, with the help of two Panadol and my sunglasses. God, I never realised
the seaside was such a terrible place for hangovers, but there’s just too much light and I’ve got a terrible crick in my neck; Archie climbed back into his bed at about three so I ended up on the blow-up mattress and spent the rest of the night feeling slightly seasick and having my shipwreck dream again. The boys are at home with Vin, who heroically staggered downstairs as I was leaving, so they’ll be watching telly for most of the morning, while Vin drapes himself somewhere dark and tries to recover from not knowing how to spell rivet.

By the time I’ve had my first cup of coffee I’m feeling slightly more human: opening up the shop is definitely one of my favourite times of the day now. Mrs Davis is putting her buckets of flowers out while I wind out the awning, and our postman, Sam, stops to tell us about his six-week-old baby, Jackson, who sleeps all day but is awake all night. We commiserate and say they grow out of it, which isn’t strictly true but we’re trying to be encouraging because he’s got dark circles under his eyes and looks exhausted, and then I make a start on moving the last of the horrible pastels in between serving a dribble of customers. I’m starting to think about another cup of coffee when Ellen and Lulu arrive, both wearing dark glasses, and bearing croissants. Hurrah.

Lulu puts the paper bags on the table in the back room.

‘We thought we’d bring you breakfast; the boys are watching cartoons at full blast and Vin and Harry are playing trains and we couldn’t stand the racket.’

Ellen nods, very slowly.

‘She’s not kidding. They’ve got train track all over your living-room floor and they’re bickering about where to put the tunnel. There’s boxes of the stuff everywhere.’

‘That’s down to Nick. He just kept buying more bits for it and then he’d spend hours laying out some complicated pattern, and yell at them if they touched it. I was seriously thinking of buying him a stationmaster hat for his birthday.’

They both smile, and the memory of him lying on the floor laying out train track makes me feel slightly wobbly, which I think Lulu notices.

‘Anyway, we’ve come to help, so is there anything you want doing?’

Ellen gives her a pleading look.

‘Anything that doesn’t involve moving your head too much, and can we have coffee first, please, or I think I might pass out. All this sea air really does you in, doesn’t it?’

Lulu takes her sunglasses off.

‘That’s better, I feel more awake now. Shall I put the kettle on? It’s upstairs, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, and the milk’s in the fridge, and don’t worry about the door, it’s broken, so if it falls off just slot it back on the hinge thing.’

‘Okey-dokey.’ She goes upstairs, humming.

‘Christ, she’s a bit chirpy, isn’t she?’

‘She’s just young, Ellen. We were like that once.’

‘Thanks very much, that’s very encouraging. And why have you got a fridge with a detachable door?’

‘Because it still works and it’s only for milk for the shop so it’s not worth getting a new one.’

‘You’re not going to turn into one of those mad women who collect bits of string, are you?’

‘Definitely.’

‘God, that’s a fabulous colour.’

She picks up a ball of one of the new winter yarns in sage green with flecks of black.

‘Yes, madam, and it knits up beautifully. You could have a scarf, or a shrug, in next to no time.’

‘Not if I was doing the knitting I couldn’t, darling, and anyway I’m not that convinced by shrugs, not unless you’re sixteen and some old bastard asks you what you’re planning to do with your life.’

‘What about a scarf then?’

‘Actually I was thinking about a jumper, for Harry. The symbolism appeals to me. Me sitting knitting for my man. Very post-feminist, don’t you think? Although the chances of us still being together by the time I’ve finished it are pretty slim.’

‘You seemed great last night.’

‘Oh yes, it’s all hunky-dory at the moment; he’s off on a job next weekend, ten days in Moscow, some drunken Russian oil mafia special, but he’s already booked dinner with me for the night he gets back. If he doesn’t end up with a one-way ticket on the Trans-Siberian Express, that is.’

‘Well that sounds like progress; advance bookings.’

She nods.

‘Christ, every time I move my head I feel like I’m going to fall over. Do you think I could manage a jumper then?’

‘Maybe a scarf might be better to start with, and you could knit him a pair of gloves too, or maybe mittens – the fingers on gloves can be tricky, but mittens are easy, and they’d help keep the cold out in Moscow.’

‘Brilliant. Will you help me get started?’

‘Sure.’

‘And we can put them on one of those strings you put gloves on. I used to have them when I was at school, inside my school coat.’

‘So did I, but Vin always used to pull one end so I ended up with a glove under my armpit.’

‘Bastard.’

‘I know. He did it most mornings, while we were waiting for the bus.’

‘Another bonus of being an only child, darling: nobody pulling the string on your gloves.’

Lulu comes down with the coffee and we start looking through the folders of patterns, but Ellen won’t look at anything where the models look retarded, or have funny hair, which discounts pretty much all of them until we finally find an
Aran pattern with a family who appear to be standing halfway up a mountain, and by the looks of things they’ve just had a big fight. Probably about the kids being forced to wear jumpers with bobbles up the front.

‘Is that plait thing tricky?’

‘The cable? Yes, it can be – you need an extra needle – but we can miss that bit out and do a plain version, with some rib. The mittens look easy though.’

‘Actually, I’m rethinking the mitten thing. I think a scarf might be enough of a challenge to start with.’

‘Well if you’re just doing a scarf we don’t need a pattern. I’ll start you off and you can keep going until you get bored.’

‘It’ll be a bloody short scarf then.’

Lulu’s looking through the Rowan books.

‘Some of these are beautiful. I think I’ll do this tank top.’

‘Have you done Fair Isle knitting before?’

‘I don’t think so. My mum taught me to knit, but I haven’t done any for years.’

Ellen sighs. ‘I wish my mother had taught me stuff like that, instead of concentrating on advanced sulking. What’s Fair Isle knitting, anyway? It sounds rather sweet.’

‘It’s when you knit with lots of different colours and carry the wool along the back. It’s fairly easy if you don’t get the wool tangled, but you have to make sure you keep it loose enough or it pulls everything out of shape.’

We look at the pattern Lulu’s chosen, which is a fairly simple shape, in lots of fabulous colours.

‘This will be fine, or you could do a plainer version, with fewer colours. That way instead of six balls of the main colour and four of the contrast colours you’d be okay with eight.’

‘Are you sure? Isn’t that a lot less wool?’

‘Yes, but that’s why they design patterns with so many different colours: so you have to buy a ball of each, even if it’s only for a couple of rows.’

‘Well if you’re sure, that’d be great, and it’ll save me a fair bit too, won’t it?’

‘About nine quid, yes. If you were paying for it, which you’re not.’

‘Oh, but we want to pay. Don’t we, Ellen?’

She nods. ‘Christ, I’ve done it again. Has anyone got any more Panadol? I think I need a booster dose.’

I show Ellen the Aran-weight wool and she chooses a flecked grey and black, and Lulu goes for a pretty felted tweed in a lovely plum colour, with a ball of slate grey and one of violet for her contrast colours. I check the labels on the plum to make sure they’re from the same dye lot, and tell her she should be fine with five because she’s knitting the smallest size, but I’ll keep a ball aside for her, just in case.

‘Do you do that, for normal people?’

Ellen laughs.

‘Speak for yourself, darling.’

‘No, I mean do you keep wool for all your customers?’

‘Yes. All the shops used to do it years ago, when people couldn’t afford to get all their wool in one go; most of them make you buy the whole lot now, and then let you return any balls you haven’t used. But Gran carried on with the putting-it-by thing, and I think it’s nicer. And you don’t get loads of wool being returned all squashed. Elsie tends to weigh it, though. She’s convinced people sometimes use a bit and then pretend they haven’t, but I’m trying to get her to stop, so I’ve hidden the scales.’

‘Do people really do that?’

‘I don’t think so, but that doesn’t stop Elsie doing her
Crimewatch
routine. They had some woman a few years ago who went through a phase of knitting up a ball and then deciding she didn’t like it and unpicking it, and then bringing it back for a refund. Gran said you could see it had gone all coggly, but they both knew her, and she was starting on HRT so they just gave her a refund and put it in the bargain bin.’

Ellen puts her cup down.

‘They all sound like nutters to me.’

‘Some of them are, but most of them are lovely. Although what I really need are much younger ones who buy all the expensive stuff.’

‘How much do you make on one ball of wool, if you don’t mind me asking? Don’t say, if you’d rather not.’

Lulu’s gone a bit pink.

‘Of course I don’t mind, and it varies, but it’s about half, usually, including VAT. The pattern books don’t have VAT, but the loose patterns do.’

‘I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about, darling, even if Lulu has. Tell me in money.’

‘On a seven-quid ball of wool, I make about three quid.’

‘And what about the VAT? Who does all that?’

‘Mr Prewitt. He’s been doing the books for years, so we just note down the sales in the cashbook and he does the rest. He’s very deaf, so you have to shout, but he’s really sweet.’

‘Well, it all sounds very complicated. Have you decided about the group idea yet?’

‘The Stitch and Bitch thing? Yes, I’m definitely going to give it a go.’

Lulu’s busy casting on.

‘What’s Stitch and Bitch?’

‘Like a reading group, only with knitting. I’m thinking of starting one in the shop.’

‘That sounds good.’

‘Yes, and I’ve been thinking, darling, you could do special cocktails. I’ll teach you how to make pink zombies so you can really liven things up; it’ll be like one of those Ann Summers parties, only without the batteries.’

‘I was thinking more like a book group to be honest, Ellen.’

‘Well be careful, because mine’s gone weird ever since Miranda joined. She’s doing a PhD or something pointy like
that, and she keeps lecturing us about symbolism, and then they all start showing off and I’m left sitting there hoping nobody talks about the middle bit because I skipped it. Do you know, she even asked me to leave a few weeks ago, because she said I was too disruptive.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I outflanked her of course.’

Lulu looks impressed.

‘How did you do that then?’

‘I got them all invited to an awards lunch full of celebs, as my special guests. They all loved it, except Miranda, who couldn’t make it that day. Shame.’

I almost feel sorry for Miranda, because it’s a very bad idea to tangle with Ellen. She’s one of the most generous people in the world when she’s on your side, but she also holds a grudge longer than anyone I’ve ever known, and settles scores, big time, sometimes years later. People think they’ve got away with it, and she suddenly creeps up behind them and gets them in the back of the neck. Metaphorically speaking, of course. Usually.

‘And that fucker Steve Simpson was there, looking like he’d been on the sunbed again, which is quite brave, given how much plastic surgery he’s had. They’ll probably go in one day and find most of him has melted.’

Steve used to co-anchor with Ellen, and when they were on a shift together they were known as the Anchor and the Wanker.

‘He seems quite nice when you see him on the telly.’

Lulu’s really terribly sweet.

‘Well he bloody isn’t. He used to elbow me out of the way and spread his stuff everywhere, and he never knew what was going on, which really pissed me off. People think we just turn up and read what’s put in front of us, but we don’t, we do at least an hour or two before each shift, catching up on what’s going on, reading background notes, sometimes more if it’s a big day. But I saw him off eventually. I managed to talk for
nearly nine minutes when that siege in Russia broke, with just a crap map and a couple of photos, and trust me, nine minutes is a fucking long time live, with everyone running around trying to get the satellite link back up and find out where the fuck the town is, and he just sat there, being totally useless. It was brilliant. They moved him after that; he’s our business correspondent now. And he’s fucking useless at that, too.’