Boys Don't Knit (4 page)

Right, that couldn't have gone much worse. I've just got back from the college. It was my first knitting class tonight and it was a bit of a disaster from start to finish. Dad gave me a lift as he needed to be there to teach his class.

Dad and I arrived at the college early, which I was glad about. I was a little worried Megan might be around. I had no particular reason to think she might be there, other than the fact her mum was teaching the pottery class. But I was a little paranoid about it. I really didn't want anyone to find out what I was doing, especially her. I didn't really want to run into her mother either, so once I'd found out what room Knitting was in I scuttled along there and ducked in through the door.

‘Hello, can I help?' a voice said from the back of the room. I spun to see Mrs Hooper standing at the open door of a cupboard. She looked as surprised to see me as I was to see her. She's lovely, Megan's mum. She's no Jessica Swallow, but she's not bad-looking for an older woman and I get a bit tongue-tied whenever I have to talk to her.

‘Oh, sorry,' I said. ‘I thought this was Knitting.'

As I said this, Mrs Hooper took from the cupboard a cardboard box teetering with balls of wool. I realised she also had a pair of knitting needles stuck into the bun at the top of her head, and a sheaf of knitting patterns clutched in her right hand.

‘This is Knitting,' she said, looking at me as if I was a total idiot.

‘I thought Jess— Miss Swallow was taking this class.'

‘No,' she said. ‘Here, hold this.'

Mrs Hooper passed me the cardboard box and began placing a knitting pattern sheet on each desk.

‘Jessica Swallow takes pottery. She couldn't knit a scarf.' Mrs Hooper snorted as she said this. Apparently not being able to knit a scarf is the knitting equivalent of not being able to organise a piss-up in a brewery.

‘There was a mix-up on the course list, as usual,' Mrs Hooper said, pausing in her work and smiling at me. ‘Sorry. Will I do?'

I looked at her, torn. In many ways she would do, but this meant Megan would certainly find out my yarny secrets. Pottery, should have bloody done pottery, I thought. Too late though. I couldn't back out now.

‘Let's knit,' I said, as enthusiastically as I could.

I've just re-read my journal entry for Thursday and I think maybe I was a bit harsh. The evening wasn't a complete, unmitigated sad-case disaster. Not once the class got under way at least. See, I was expecting a bunch of old ladies smelling of lavender and mothballs. But I suppose most old ladies already know how to knit. I mean, they were all definitely older than me, it's true, and all women. But most of them were about my mum's age, and a few were about twenty or thirty and nobody smelled of mothballs. Though one of them smelled a bit of Lynx body spray, which was strange. Being the only male I was subject to a few whispers and funny looks, but mostly from the twenty-year-olds, I suspect because they fancied me. I could have taken advantage of the lack of competition, but they weren't my type, and they looked a bit like they could swallow me whole for breakfast. Not that they were fat, maybe fuller-figured. Which is what Joz calls fat. But then he's an ignorant twat.

Mrs Hooper gave us a little talk, to start with, about the origins of knitting, I made a few notes and this is pretty much what she said:

The word knitting comes from the Old English word cnyttan, to knot.

We know that the Ancient Egyptians used to knit two thousand years ago, using stranded knit colour patterns which are actually quite complex.

Mrs Hooper looked at me as she said the next bit.

Knitting was originally a male-only occupation.

I smiled at Mrs Hooper when she said that. It was nice of her to make me feel more comfortable and to make it clear she for one didn't have any doubts about my masculinity, thank you very much.

The first knitting trade guild was started in Paris in 1527. With the invention of knitting machines though, knitting by hand became more of a leisure activity.

Hand-knitting has gone into and out of fashion many times in the last two centuries, and at the turn of the twenty-first century it is enjoying a revival.

These days it's less about the ‘make-do and mend' attitude of the 1940s and early 50s and more about making a statement about individuality as well as developing an innate sense of community.

After that we looked at the different-sized needles. Quite simple really, big ones make big stitches, small ones make small stitches. Then Mrs Hooper showed us the difference between a plain stitch and a purl stitch.

‘Those two basic stitches are the most important building blocks of knitting,' Mrs Hooper said. ‘Once you've mastered those, then you're already a long way along the road to being a knitter. There's very little you can't create if you can knit and purl.'

So I gave it a go. I stared at the needles and the yarn for a bit, trying to figure out how these two little bits of steel could turn a one-dimensional thread into a two-dimensional sheet of fabric. I ran Mrs Hooper's words over in my mind again, closed my eyes and tried to visualise. Then I blinked my eyes open again and got to it.

And you know what? I turned out to be quite good at knitting. It took me a few tries before I made my first stitch, but I got it quickly enough and was soon at the end of the first row.

‘You've picked this up really quickly,' Mrs Hooper said to me as she showed me how to start the next row down. ‘You're a natural.'

I went red, but that was mostly due to the fact that I think she caught me looking down her top as she leaned over the table.

‘It's great to have a male presence in the class,' she went on. ‘It would be wonderful to break the stereotype of knitting as a female-only pursuit.'

‘Yes, about that,' I said, looking up at her as the rest of the class clicked away with their own needles, someone uttering a curse every now and again. ‘I'm not sure my friends would necessarily understand about breaking down stereotypes. I was sort of hoping there might be some sort of confidentiality thing going on here.' I sensed my face heating up and waved my knitting pattern up and down in front of it.

‘You mean like between a parishioner and a priest?' she asked.

‘Yes, or a doctor and a patient?' I suggested hopefully.

‘Um. No. No, there isn't really,' she said.

‘Oh,' I replied, my heart sinking.

‘But if what you're saying is that you'd like me to keep your attendance here under my hat, I'm happy to do that.'

‘Great. And would you keep your hat on at all times? Even at home?'

Mrs Hooper blinked at me. Then she twigged. ‘Don't worry, Ben. I won't tell Megan.'

If I'd gone red before, I was now puce.

‘Of course. I understand,' she said, tapping the side of her nose.

I'd thought I was going to totally hate it and screw everything up as usual and possibly accidentally stab one of the full-figured girls in the eye with a needle but no, I'm a ‘natural'.

I had punctured the mystique of the art of knitting. Uncovered the mechanics behind Stitch and Bitch. And I've gotta say: I totally aced it. It's a bit like finding out what goes on with the Masons (not that I have, but I bet it's boring) and realising it's all been a bit of a fuss about nothing. But now I think of it, it was a similar thing at Boy Scouts too, with knots. I couldn't light kindling with flint and I capsized a rowing boat four times and I accidentally knocked Daniel Jacobs into the camp fire at the jamboree but I was always a natural at the knots. I could see them in my head, three dimensionally, in HD. It's hard to explain, but I just have that sort of mind, I suppose. A knotty, stitchy sort of mind.

Not going to analyse that too much.

Anyway, once I got into it, knit purl, knit purl, I found I just lost myself in it. I loved the neatness of it, the repetition, the same thing over and over. I could stop thinking about anything else for a while, just the click of the needles, the floating movement of the yarn, the stitches appearing as if Mum had clicked her fingers and created them out of thin air. Except it wasn't Mum, it was me, making something from nothing.

As soon as the class was over though, I started to panic again. I had this dumb idea that Megan was going to be outside, waiting for her mum. I hung about for a bit until the coast was clear, then went down to the workshop where Dad runs his class. He was alone when I came in. The masculine smell of machine oil hung in the air, accentuating by comparison just how effeminate my chosen course was. I felt bad about deceiving Dad; after all, he'd been so supportive of me since the court case. Maybe it was time to come clean.

‘How was pottery?' Dad called. He was at the sink, washing oil from his hands.

‘Great,' I said quickly. ‘I'd rather be here, but it's a good alternative.'

What is wrong with me? Why do I have to lie all the time?

‘Want to wash your hands?' he asked, holding up a bar of oily soap.

I looked blank. Wash my hands, why?

He peered at my clean hands quizzically. ‘Did you wash up in the toilets?'

Oh bollocks. Clay, he's expecting me to have clay-ey hands.

‘Oh, yeah, yeah I did that,' I said. ‘Totally washed my hands already.'

‘Cleaned under your fingernails, too?' Dad looked suspicious.

‘Yes,' I said, holding up my hands to show him.

‘Right,' he said. ‘Well done. But next week come straight down here and wash up. You shouldn't really be washing clay down the upstairs plumbing.'

Crap. I'd have to work that one out next time. It occurred to me, quite rightly, that I was simply building a rod for my own back here. Or knitting a particularly stiff poncho for my back, possibly. Either way I was an idiot. But I'd gone too far down this stupid road now; I'd have to see it through.

Dad kept quizzing me on the way home, asking if I had anything to show yet. I didn't know what to say. Eventually I told him I'd tried to make a vase but it had collapsed. I hadn't expected Dad to be so interested in my pottery class, to be honest. If he keeps this up, I'm going to need to bring something home. But what? A mug from Robert Dyas? A flower pot from someone's garden? A 48-piece dinner party set with gravy boat from Ikea?

The house was dark and cold when we got in and suddenly I felt worried about Mum and about the web of lies I was already creating. Up until a few weeks ago I was neither a criminal nor a liar, and now I am both. So maybe that's why I said the evening had gone so badly when I went upstairs to write about it.

But it didn't go that badly. Not really. I'm already looking forward to next week.

Had the Jennifer Lawrence dream again. I'm not writing down the details, but she wore her bow and arrows throughout.

Went to Joz's house today to play on his Xbox. He revealed he's writing a book based loosely on his own sexual exploits and calling it
Fifty Shades of Graham
.

‘The title is clever marketing,' he told me. ‘People looking for
Fifty Shades of Grey
might accidentally come across my book.'

‘As it were,' I said.

‘Eh?'

‘Never mind.'

‘I'm going to self-publish,' he said confidently.

‘Really? I asked. ‘And turn down all those six-figure book deals?'

‘If you self-publish, you get a higher percentage of the profits,' he said knowledgeably.

‘True. But one hundred per cent of nothing is still nothing,' I said carefully.

‘It's not one hundred per cent,' he said. ‘It's more like sixty- five per cent.'

‘Oh, well in that case  … ' I replied, nodding encouragingly. ‘Am I allowed to have a look at what you've written so far?'

He eyed me suspiciously.

‘You know, like a second opinion  … '

‘OK,' he agreed, after a bit of thought. ‘But it's copyrighted.'

‘Don't worry, I'm not going to steal your intellectual property,' I assured him.

‘Though maybe you could, you know, sort the spelling and that,' he said.

‘Edit the text?' I asked. ‘Yeah maybe.'

He said he'd email me what he had so far. I am interested to see what he comes up with. Genuinely interested  …  and genuinely terrified too.

I'm not really sure I should do this. Not because of copyright issues, but because of taste issues. In the back of my mind I'm conscious that someone at West Meon Probation Services will read this journal at some point, which is a worry. And what of future generations of scholars tasked with poring over my writings? I must think of them, my devoted readers, before unleashing this. But of course I'm going to do it anyway. Here's an early version of Chapter One of
Fifty Shades of Graham
:

There was this one time when I was walking past the toilet blocks on my way home, minding my own business. I heard a voice coming from inside. I knew that no one had used these toilets since Lloyd Manning had his Episode in there. So I was surprised. I stopped to listen. It sounded like a sob or crying.

I went in and called out, ‘Hello there, is there someone there?'

The noise stopped. I went in further. It was dark, like a fridge with a broken light. But it was warm, like a microwave oven on low.

Then I heard a scuffling sound and I flung open the door to a cubicle.

The most beautiful girl I had ever seen was sitting there, tears on her face. She was wearing a very short skirt and had sexy legs and big b***s.

‘What's wrong? Do you need the toilet?' I asked.

She shook her head.

‘I'm so sad,' she said. ‘Because my dog died. And my kitten.'

‘You poor thing,' I told her. ‘Come here.'

I hugged her for ages until she stopped crying. Then she looked up at me.

‘I'm totally grateful,' she said.

‘It's OK,' I told her. ‘You're safe now.'

‘What's your name?' she said.

‘Graham,' I replied.

‘Kiss me, Graham,' she said.

That's enough of that for tonight. Sometimes reading is tiring, especially when the author can't even spell his own name. Still, I'm intrigued to find out what will happen between Graham and the toilet girl. Stay tuned.