Boys Don't Knit (7 page)

No news yet from Ms Gunter about a new date to start Giving Something Back. I'm hoping the Mrs Frensham gig falls through and they send me somewhere else, where I'm less likely to be maimed. Until then, my Mondays are my own. I've started on the tank top using the navy Merino. I'm going quite slowly for now; I don't want to drop any stitches and there's no hurry. I've been doing just six or seven rows after I've finished my homework or just before bed. It's brilliant for helping me to de-stress.

Murder on my back, though. If I keep this up I'll be a hunchback by the time I'm 21. Maybe I should take up yoga. I'm halfway to Loserville anyway, may as well take the train to the end of the line.

There's definitely something wrong with the plumbing in the house. Taps cough and splutter, then spew out milky white stuff. The kettle doesn't work properly and last night Mum couldn't get the SodaStream to work. Of course, this has prompted my parents to ramp up the innuendos again.

‘There's no fizz coming out of the nozzle,' Mum shouted through to Dad.

‘That's not what you said last night,' Dad called back.

‘No!' I screamed, putting my hands over my ears. ‘Just. No.' Dad wiped away a tear and said he'd check the pipes.

‘I'll check your pipes,' Mum said and it all kicked off again.

I went up to my room at that point and unfortunately missed the rest of the double-act.

Natasha has this totally infectious laugh and had a fit of the giggles when I was telling her about the Siege of Frensham at Knitting last night.

‘You're funny, Ben,' she said. ‘You do make me laugh.'

I'll take it. Given that enrolling in Knitting 101 is a sure-fire repellent to most of the opposite sex I can't afford to be fussy when it comes to these random compliments.

‘Thanks,' I said, trying not to look too pleased.

I was still on a high as I was walking down the hall afterwards and Miss Swallow popped out of her classroom and asked me how the ziggurat was coming along.

‘Really well,' I lied effortlessly. ‘I'm working on the sacrificial victims at the moment. It's a total bloodbath.'

‘Do you need more clay?'

‘Er, yes?' As it happened, I had some in my pocket. I've been keeping a few lumps in wet newspaper under the bed, along with my needles and yarn in a cardboard box I'd begun thinking of as the ‘Box of Shame'. But I could hardly tell her that.

She popped back inside the class and came back a moment later with another lump, wrapped in plastic.

‘Thanks,' I said, shoving it into my other pocket.

‘So. When can I see it?' she asked, leaning against the door frame in a provocative kind of way.

‘See what?'

‘The ziggurat!'

‘Oh, it's a bit too big to bring in,' I replied, cleverly.

‘So take a photo,' she said.

‘A photo?' I replied. ‘I could take a photo.'

‘Next week,' she said, pointing a perfectly formed finger at me.

‘Next week,' I replied.

What an idiot. When am I going to have time to make a bloody ziggurat?

Nearly got rumbled today. I wandered up the hill into town this morning. It was a beautiful, cold day, clear blue skies, with so many vapour trails criss-crossing the sky that it looked like a giant had been knitting. With jets. Badly.

Joz and Freddie had said they would be in town today too, possibly accompanied by the secretive Gex, who no one's seen for ages. I toured their usual hangouts; the low wall behind Dyas, the rotten old park bench under the oak tree by the church, just outside Tesco Metro, where Freddie likes to stand and make the automatic doors open and close over and over, driving the check-out girls slowly insane. Apart from a thousand empty crisp packets and a million discarded Lucozade bottles, I found nothing and no one, so I wandered up to Smith's to see if the October issue of
Knit!
was in yet.

It was! I grabbed a copy off the shelves and checked out the cover stories.

Autumn Weaves – Eight new yarns for the fall season

Goats in the Machine – We investigate animal welfare in industrial yarn-making

Cable Knits – The Industry Minister Vince Cable puts down his red box and picks up his red yarn to show us what he can do

Jimmy Carr – The moon-faced comic has us in stitches

General Pattern – Our regular feature returns, bringing you this year's four patterns you simply can't do without

Happy as a pig in muck, I started flicking through. It's not cheap,
Knit!
but in my view it's the best knitting publication available, and the competition is stiff, let me tell you. The
Knit!
editorials are thought-provoking, rather than simply provocative. There are some highly investigative pieces too. The goat story was shocking, and last month they looked at child labour in the subcontinent, and the economic woes of the knitting-machine industry.

I was deeply involved in an article about ecological damage caused by industrial wool dyes when I heard a cry from the front of the store.

‘Bellend!' My heart rate accelerated as I looked up to see Joz, Freddie and Gex heading towards me at pace. How could I have been so reckless, so casual? I was going to get busted.

Thinking on my feet, I shot out a hand and snatched a copy of
Loaded
off the shelf and jammed it inside
Knit!

‘What's this?' Freddie asked, grabbing hold of the magazine. ‘
Knit!
You're reading
Knit!
'

I winked and opened the magazine and showed him the copy of
Loaded
inside. He looked at me as if I was a loony.

‘Why're you hiding that?' he asked.

Gex and Joz peered over his shoulders to see what I was up to.

‘In case Mum comes in,' I said. ‘She thinks it exploits young women.'

Joz looked puzzled. ‘In what way?'

Even Gex and Freddie looked a bit surprised by Joz's question at that moment, which was good for me. I silently thanked Joz for being such an idiot.

‘Well, like that?' I said, showing him a picture of a girl who looked like she might be both cold and uncomfortable, bent over the wooden chair as she was, in that warehouse.

‘Let's see,' Freddie said, craning to look. He shook his head. ‘You think that's exploitation  … '

He grabbed another magazine off the top shelf and tore open the plastic bag it came in. Opening it at a particularly intimate spread, he jammed a finger at it and said, ‘That's exploitation.'

So then we all had to look through all the dirty mags for half an hour until the manager came back from her break and told us to clear off. It's not that I hate looking at that stuff but it gets a bit repetitive after a bit. And while they were there, examining each girl's boob or bum with such thoroughness that they seemed to be hoping to find the solution to the Da Vinci Code, I found my eyes wandering down, to the copy of
Knit!
I'd sheepishly replaced, or over to the left, where I'd just noticed this month's new knitting patterns had arrived.

I couldn't wait to get home and crack on with the tank top.

I had a dream last night that I was up at the top of the Shard. I was in a dark office, after hours, just mooching around when something caught my eye. I looked at the window and saw there was a piece of paper on the outside, pressed against the glass by the wind. As I approached I realised it was a knitting pattern. But not just any knitting pattern. This was crazy, insanely complicated. I could make out enough of the detail to know that if I could just knit this pattern, all the way through, that something would happen. Something good. Things would be made complete. But it was just so complex. And how could I reach it, out there on the other side?

I heard something behind me and I turned to see Frank Lampard. He nodded and smiled.

‘Go on, Ben,' he said in his Black Country lilt. ‘Go and get the pattern, mate.'

Then it all got a bit confused and it wasn't Frank Lampard any more and I was on a spaceship about to crash-land and Molly was there wearing my cycling helmet and I can't remember the rest.

But that must mean something, mustn't it? About the knitting pattern? And Frank Lampard?

Finally gave Joz the edited text for
Fifty Shades of Graham
. We were in the common room, supposedly studying. The weather was crap. Icy rain outside.

Joz was really eager to see what I thought.

‘Thanks,' he said breathlessly as he read through it. ‘This is brilliant!'

‘Let's not go overboard,' I replied.

‘I think we could really have something here,' he went on, not to be discouraged.

‘Are you sure about the title?' I asked.

‘Oh yeah,' he replied, nodding furiously. ‘I read a book about it. How to get your self-published ebook to the top of the Kindle charts.'

‘And it suggested you blatantly rip off the title of another book?'

‘Yes. It's about what search terms people put in.'

‘What do they put in? Clumsy rip-off of badly written sex book?'

‘Something like that.'

‘Fair enough.'

He looked at me and grinned. ‘Thanks for your help on this, Ben,' he said. ‘I couldn't do it without you.'

‘Oh, shut up,' I said suspiciously.

‘No, really, I'm serious about this. I just want to be the best I can be.'

I put my hand on his shoulder and nodded. ‘You already are, Joz,' I said. ‘You already are.'

‘Thanks,' he said uncertainly.

‘It's just  …  well  … ' I began, before tailing off.

‘Well what?'

‘It's just  …  one of the central characters is called Graham.'

‘Yeah? It's like Grey. Grey Am.'

‘I know why you chose it, I'm just not sure it's very  …  sexy.'

‘Hey, you just stick to the editing, Brainiac, I'll do the sexy.'

Anyway, that made me feel a bit sick so I went outside after that.

Tonight at knitting, Mrs Hooper told us that there will be an assessment in the course. Apparently if we complete it successfully we get a Certificate in Knitting Proficiency – Level 1. I'm used to this kind of thing. Everything's tested these days. You can't go thirty seconds at school without someone quizzing you on what you learnt twenty-five seconds before.

So the assessment is in two parts. There's a brief written examination, which she says will be pretty simple, mostly multiple choice. The other thing is that we have to Complete a Garment of at Least Moderate Complexity. Extra credit is given if you design your own pattern.

I'm definitely going to create my own pattern. I now know what the Shard dream was about! I have some brilliant design in my head which is locked away just now but if I learn the right codes I can unlock it and access the pattern. I'm going to sit down tomorrow with some blank sheets and see what I can come up with. There's no hurry, the garment doesn't need to be finished until Christmas.

Dad's embarked on another mission to get me interested in football. He dragged me down to Hampton FC again today. The pitch is located about a mile out of town. They used to play on a pitch in the town centre but the council sold it to Tesco and the club moved out. There isn't a tree for miles, it's right on the edge of the South Downs and the wind comes howling up from the sea from October to April. The few supporters who can be bothered to come all the way out here sit together in a clump in the uncovered stand, like male emperor penguins protecting their eggs, waiting for the females to come. Freddie wasn't there, unfortunately, so I ended up having to make conversation with Dad while we watched Joe Boyle running rings around everyone else on the field.

‘He'd still be playing for Portsmouth if he hadn't done his knee in,' Dad said.

‘His knee looks all right to me,' I said as Joe nutmegged a defender and slotted Hampton's third goal. He turned and held out his arms like an aeroplane, a huge grin on his face. He looked like he was the happiest man in the world just then.

‘Go on, my son!' Dad yelled, standing up and clapping.

‘All right, calm down, Dad,' I said quietly.

‘He's not so quick on the turn as he used to be,' Dad mused. ‘It was a bad job; he was out for two whole seasons. No coming back from that, not at thirty-five.'

‘Shame,' I murmured.

‘He's doing all right,' Dad said. ‘Doesn't earn much now, but I heard he invested wisely while he was getting the big wages.'

‘His girlfriend's nice,' I said, a bit out of my depth and looking down at the front row, where Miss Swallow was sat.

‘Not half,' Dad agreed, dragging his eyes away from Joe Boyle for a moment.

Miss Swallow was wearing an attractive roll neck top, quite loose. From where we sat, we could see just a hint of her modest cleavage. We sighed as one, then turned our attention back to the game.

‘Chelsea had a good win yesterday,' Dad said.

‘How'd Lampard get on?' I asked politely, but not caring.

‘Couple of near misses,' he said, sounding slightly embarrassed. ‘But that's the thing about Chelsea, someone'll step up when they need to.'

‘Better a champion team than a team of champions,' I said, feeling quite pleased with myself.

He nodded. ‘Fancy coming to watch them sometime? Up to London?'

‘Yeah, maybe,' I said, my heart sinking. Last time he'd taken me to a game in London it hadn't ended well. He'd forgotten I was with him in the pub afterwards. A fight had kicked off and he'd scarpered. I managed to get out eventually but was accidentally kicked in the face by a Man City fan.

But Dad is persistent, I'll give him that. He promised he would ask his mate about some tickets for Chelsea.

‘That would be amazing,' I lied. Football's so dull. If only you could do something else while you were there. Like watch something more interesting, for example. Hmm, I wonder what would happen if I pulled out my knitting during the first half. I couldn't do that to Dad.

Speaking of knitting, the tank top is coming along nicely. I was right to think it was a simple pattern. It's taking a long time though, because the yarn is thin and I have to use tiny needles to get the tight weave. Tank tops aren't supposed to be fluffy, they should be sheer and smooth to the touch. I think I was wise to go with a dark colour.

If only I could talk to Dad about knitting. Then I wouldn't have to rely on clichés to make conversation with him.

Hampton 6, Haslemere 1.