Boys Don't Knit (17 page)

Nothing happened between me and Miss Swallow. Of course. She was very upset. Turns out I'd been wrong to think she wasn't that cut up about her split with Joe. She'd been putting on a brave face.

‘I really loved him,' she said as we drove slowly back into town. The streets were dead; everyone still at their parties, or tucked up in bed.

‘What happened?' I asked.

She shrugged. ‘He's a footballer. They're not known for being faithful.'

He only plays for Hampton in the UHU Glue Conference League (South), I thought. He's not David Beckham.

‘He made a mistake,' I said. ‘If you're this upset maybe you should give him a second chance?'

‘I don't really think he's that bothered, to be honest,' she said. ‘He didn't pay me much attention when we were together.'

I directed Miss Swallow to my house and she pulled up outside.

‘Wanna come in and see my ziggurat?' I asked, jokingly. Though then got slightly worried she might say yes. I don't have much of a ziggurat to show her.

She laughed. ‘Tempting, but no.'

‘Sorry to unload on you,' she said as I got out. ‘Totally unprofessional.'

‘That's OK,' I replied. ‘I won't tell the Head if you don't tell my probation officer about me being in a nightclub.'

‘Deal,' she said, then winked at me and drove off.

First day back at Mrs Frensham's after the Christmas break. It was too wet to paint, or sand. So she came out with a big pot of tea, some Hobnobs and her box of knitting.

‘Look what I got,' she said, her wrinkled old face shining. She opened the box to show me some fat balls of merino wool in pastels.

‘Amazing,' I murmured, dropping to my knees like a pirate inspecting a treasure chest. It was good-quality wool.

‘Four-ply?' I asked. She nodded.

‘Scarf? Jumper?'

‘Balaclava, I think,' she said. ‘I remember how to do them.'

‘When are you going to start?' I asked.

‘No time like the present.'

The shed-renovation abandoned, Mrs F and I sat around and knitted and drank tea and ate Hobnobs and listened to the rain drumming on the roof. At first I wished I'd brought Patt3rn so I could work on that, but then I realised that it wasn't the right time. Mrs Frensham liked to chat while she knitted and Patt3rn required concentration.

I decided to start on a new tank top, borrowing both needles and wool from Mrs Frensham. She talked about her job, her niece and her other, estranged family. She asked me about school, and girls and my parents. She seemed fascinated by the fact that Mum is a magician.

There's an old cupboard in the shed, uncovered now I've cleared it all. When it was time for me to go, she suggested we store the knitting there and have another session the next time it was raining. I remembered the magazines and we put those in there too, except for one which she wanted to take into the house with her.

We parted very amicably. I'm starting to think that maybe knitting has healing powers greater than I ever imagined.

Went to see Hampton play today, with Dad, Freddie and Freddie's dad. It was freezing, but I didn't mind for once. Not because I have suddenly developed a liking for the sport, but because I was curious to see how Joe was and whether there would be a new blonde cheering him on from the sidelines.

There wasn't, as it happens, though a few of the local wags in the crowd were concerned about Miss Swallow's absence, if you count ‘where's the posh bird then?' as concern. But Joe looked tired to me. He played back, not coming up the pitch as he usually does. Even a football idiot like me could see Joe wasn't at his best.

‘What's wrong with him?' Dad said.

‘Bust up with Jessica, weren't it?' Freddie's dad replied.

‘That was weeks ago,' Dad said.

‘Move on, Joe!' Freddie's dad yelled as Joe ran jogged past, head down.

Joe clearly heard this and I watched him as he ran back to his spot. He stopped and put his face into his hands, almost as if he was crying.

After the game (Hampton 1, Godalming 4) I asked Dad to wait while I ran down to the sidelines where I could see Joe signing autographs. The line of small boys clutching bits of paper was noticeably shorter than it usually was, and I joined the end. I wasn't really sure why I was doing this. I just felt I needed to see him. To see how he'd been affected by the break-up.

When it was my turn, Joe looked at me and held out his hand. He looked terrible. Grey-faced, red-eyed, gaunt. I looked at his hand for a moment, wondering if he wanted me to shake it before I twigged, just in time. I jammed a hand into my coat pocket and found a pen. I was relieved to find a notebook in the other pocket. I pulled it out and presented it to him for his signature.

He grabbed the pen and notebook, then stopped, staring at it in surprise. It was then that I realised it wasn't a notebook at all, but a pattern for a winter skirt I was planning on knitting for Mum's birthday.

Joe Boyle looked up at me, as if registering me for the first time.

‘You're that kid,' he said. ‘The knitting kid.'

My heart sank. Joe Boyle, local hero, first among Alpha Males, had recognised me as ‘the knitting kid'.

‘Er, yeah,' I said looking around to check no one else had heard.

‘You're mates with Jess, yeah?'

‘Well,' I mumbled. ‘I wouldn't say mates. She's my teacher.'

‘She talks about you all the time, though,' he said, a bit miserably.

Uh-oh, I thought. Was he actually jealous of me? Did he somehow blame me for the break-up? Maybe he thought that tank top was a curse?

‘Come on, Ben,' Dad yelled. I looked over to see them headed off towards the car park.

Joe leaned in to me.

‘Do you have time for a chat?' he asked.

I looked back at Dad and the others, shrugged and nodded.

‘I'll just let my dad know,' I told him.

‘Let me have a shower, OK?' he said. ‘Meet me back here in fifteen minutes and I'll drive you home.'

When I told Dad Joe was driving me back he looked surprised, but then nodded at me. I hung around outside the small clubhouse in the cold, wondering what this was all about.

‘Cheers for waiting,' Joe said as he appeared twenty minutes later. The other players drifted past, ignoring us as we got into Joe's flash Beemer. It was only when I got inside that I realised that the car had seen better days. The gear stick was slightly worn and some of the trim looked a little shabby.

‘The thing is –' Joe said as we drove off. ‘– What's your name?'

‘Ben.'

‘The thing is, Ben,' he went on. ‘I've made a terrible mistake.'

‘OK,' I said.

‘I suppose you heard that Jess and I broke up?'

‘Yes, I heard,' I said.

‘Did you hear why?'

‘Um  … '

‘Yeah, you did. And it's true. I played away. I cheated on her. I'm scum. I know it.'

‘You made a mistake  … ' I said, limply, echoing my words in Miss Swallow's car, on a similar journey I'd made with her two weeks before.

‘It seems like he doesn't care,' she'd said.

‘I love Jess,' he said. ‘I love her so much. My life feels empty without her.' We'd stopped at a red light and he turned to me, a desperate look in his eye.

‘When I got injured, and Pompey didn't renew my contract, I thought my life was over,' he said. ‘Two years of rehab, and I end up here. After the Premier League, this shit-hole  …  no offence,' he said.

‘None taken,' I replied as we pulled off again and headed onto Jermaine Street.

‘But then I met her, and she turned it all around,' he went on. ‘I realised that I didn't need all the fame and the money and the new cars. I've got enough to live on, I have a nice house and can play football again. I have Jess. I only figured it out recently.' He paused for a moment, then said, ‘But I'm happy. I was happy.'

‘You need to tell her this,' I said.

‘No, it's over,' he said. ‘She won't take me back. My mate Johnny says he saw her down at Wicked straight after we split up, dancing with some kid. I can't blame her. What would she want with an old wreck like me after what I've done?'

I directed Joe to my house.

‘So why are you telling me?' I asked as he stopped and turned off the engine.

He shrugged but said nothing.

‘Do you want me to talk to her?'

He said nothing, his head was low over the steering wheel.

‘Joe?' I said peering to see his face. It was then I realised he was crying.

‘Sorry,' he said, after a while.

I sat for a moment, shocked and uncertain what to do. A part of me thought he deserved to suffer for a while. Throwing away a goddess like Miss Swallow. But here he was, reaching out to me, man to man. It was hard not to feel sorry for him.

I sighed, and thought for a minute.

‘OK, Joe,' I said, after a bit. ‘Leave this with me.'

He sniffed and looked up at me. ‘What are you going to do?' he asked.

‘You don't need to know the details,' I said. ‘But I'm going to sort this out for you, OK?'

He stared at me for a while, then nodded. I held out a hand and he took it. Firmly we shook hands.

‘Oh, one more thing,' I said. ‘The knitting thing. It's a bit of a secret for me. You know, some of the lads wouldn't understand  … ' I left it hanging there.

He nodded seriously. ‘I get it,' he said. ‘Not a word. It's our little secret, yeah?'

‘Thanks,' I said. Our little secret, along with Mum, the Hooper family, Jasmine Cook, Mrs Frensham, Miss Swallow and half the people at Hampton Community College.

I am obviously delusional if I imagine I'm going to be able to keep this from the rest of the world.

It was only later, after I'd got out of the car and watched him drive off, that I wondered if Joe chose me to open up to not so much because I knew Miss Swallow, but because he knew I was a knitter. Like he saw me as the one man he could talk to about personal, sensitive matters, because I was obviously a bit of a drip who was in touch with his feminine side. The thought was irritating, yet at the same time understandable.

As it hasn't rained for a few days, I've been sanding down Mrs Frensham's shed, ready to start painting. It's not unsatisfying work, but I find myself thinking and worrying a lot while I'm scrubbing. I keep thinking about Megan and Sean, and I'm worried I'm falling behind in Maths. And I'm worried about Patt3rn and even more worried about what Dad will say when he finds out I've been lying to him, and so many other things that I don't even want to list them. Perhaps worst of all was when I pulled out the tank top from the knitting cupboard and realised it had chocolate Hobnob crumbs woven all the way through it. I hadn't noticed last time, it had been so gloomy. I spent ten minutes picking them all out, and now the stitches look a bit fluffy. I'm thinking about scrapping the whole thing.

But after half an hour of this Mrs Frensham came to my rescue. She came out with a tray. On it were two mugs of hot chocolate, a plate of custard creams and a tangled pile of yellow yarn with needles poking out. She dumped the lot down on the table inside the shed and beckoned me in.

‘I need some help,' she said. ‘Can you sort this out for me?'

I inspected it. She'd started on what looked like a scarf, but it had so many dropped stitches and misshaped purls that it was hard to distinguish it from the tangled ball of wool she was using.

‘You'll need to sit down for this,' I told her importantly. I took the other seat and began to untangle the yarn.

‘Hold out your hands,' I said. ‘This might take a while.' I began winding the de-tangled wool onto her hands.

‘Well, go on, then,' Mrs Frensham said after a while. ‘What are you so miserable about?'

I looked up. ‘Is it that obvious?'

She nodded.

So I began to tell her about everything. About Lloyd Manning, and Megan and Sean, and how I wanted to get away from my friends, but felt guilty about it, and not telling Dad about knitting and about the trouble with Patt3rn, and Joe breaking down and everything. She was a good listener, she grunted occasionally, but didn't jump in, she waited till I'd finished. I took the neat loops of yarn off her hands, tied it up properly and took a custard cream from the plate.

‘So,' I said, smiling expectantly. ‘Any advice?'

‘About what?' she asked.

‘About my troubles.'

‘Which one?'

‘Any of them,' I said.

She shook her head.

‘I'm sure you'll sort it all out,' she said. ‘You're a smart lad.'

And with that she left, taking her knitting with her. I couldn't help feeling slightly short-changed. Mrs F was old, and wise in the ways of the world. She was supposed to guide me on the uncertain path through the foetid swamps of adolescence. I hadn't expected her to be quite so useless.

After I got home I realised I did feel a bit less worried. Maybe just having someone listen is all you need.

Along with a couple of custard creams.

I got the results of the mocks back and found I'd dropped a few marks.

I've got to work harder on my revision, but it's hard because I am knitting like a demon every free moment I have. Also, I'm starting to get a bit obsessional again. I used to have this thing where both ends of the belt of the dressing gown on the back of my door had to dangle at the same height. I couldn't sleep for worrying if one hung lower than the other. I'm not saying it's OCD, but it must be on the spectrum.