“What happened to him?” asked Kate. “Did it work out? That’s very young.”
“No, we were happy all right. But he’s dead now.” Martha was talking to Kate but watching Sandra, and saw the small pause as she laid out the spoons.
“What happened?” Kate asked.
“Give her a break,” said Sandra. “What is this, the Church Interrogation Society?”
“I don’t mind,” said Martha mildly. “It was a long time ago. He was a lovely boy. Twenty years old and beautiful. Big muscles, with a nice rose tat on one shoulder. Accident.”
Kate brought the soup to the table.
“Anyway,” asked Martha. “What’s your bloke up to, Sandra?”
Martha could not interpret Kate’s sudden alertness. “Wish I knew,” Sandra said, and laughed tightly. “He’s dead too. Ten months ago. Cancer.”
Ah, now Martha understood.
“But you still feel married, don’t you?” she said. “It takes a long time to get over it.”
TO SAVE Martha the trouble of catching a bus into the city and out again, Sandra offered her a ride home. It had been a pleasant afternoon after all, and in the end Martha had fitted in well enough: even if she wasn’t quite their sort, at least she had a creative turn of phrase that made them laugh. And Sandra was pleased with herself for making the effort, putting her grief aside for a while and managing to relate to someone not only new but different from her usual companions. She had made a good fist of it for once.
Martha too had seemed to enjoy herself, taking out her knitting after lunch, deftly weaving in the many-colored strands of a complicated sock. Kate had fetched her quilting basket and sewed a few pieces together for a patchwork sampler. Sandra, not to be outdone, secured some dangerously loose buttons on her jacket. The three women sat peaceably through an afternoon punctuated at intervals with cups of tea.
At one point they discussed knitting, the making of Sandra’s shawl, and Sandra’s work teaching textile history and theory. Sandra offered a few pieces from her current research, about the resurgence of home crafts in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, and the trend toward complex yarns rather than complex stitches as a new generation learned to knit. Interest in knitting was cyclical, Martha said, like yo-yos, only the craze lasted several years instead of a few weeks. Kate said she always had to be doing something with her hands, that some life force at work in the creative act kept her sane.
WHEN they arrived at Martha’s place, Martha invited Sandra in to show her a wartime pattern book. Turning from the small porch area into Martha’s living room, Sandra was startled by the head and forequarters of a life-size orange horse. At first, absurdly, she had thought it was a real horse—the shape had loomed at her from beside the closed curtains of Martha’s darkened living room.
Martha pushed the curtains back, and Sandra saw that the head and withers were suspended from the ceiling by transparent fishing line, and the whole was made of knitted stocking stitch. Only the front was complete, but that was well made with fine attention to detail; something in the blaze under the woolly forelock, the flare of the nostrils, and the angle of the ears cocked to the front was focused and endearing. Anyone standing in front of it had that horse’s full attention. The sheer size—thirteen hands, at least, thought Sandra automatically—was impressive.
“Do you like old Mickey?” asked Martha.
“He’s beautiful.”
“A bit of fun in my spare time. Just knit a new bit here and there every now and again. Starting on the saddle blanket next.”
“I never thought you’d keep a horse in your flat!”
“Well, there you go. You can’t always tell by appearances. I didn’t know you had a swimming pool till you mentioned it today. You can’t tell from the front.” Martha stepped back and looked critically at the horse.
“Don’t know what I’ll do with him when he’s finished. He’s already getting too big, and he’s not half done yet.”
“What’s he for? Anything special?”
“Nup. Just a bit of fun and games. Keeps me amused when I’m not doing tea cozies and socks.” A tea cozy, Sandra thought, must be a tedious bit of nonsense for such an artist.
“Have you ever done anything like this before?”
“No.”
“You could knit a whole zoo! Or a farmyard.”
“I don’t think so. One animal is enough. I just wanted to see if I could do it. It’s not that hard. See, I’m working from these.” Martha showed Sandra photocopies of anatomical drawings. “Got them from a vet book in the library. Helps me get the proportions right, because it’s hard to remember. I had a horse once, but I still need these drawings for instructions. You forget how the muscles work.”
“I wouldn’t call those instructions.”
“They’re the best sort. Pictures to follow.”
“But there’s no words, no rules. How can you do it with no words? How do you know how many stitches to cast on?”
“You just try it out. If it doesn’t work, you try a different way. If you have words, you have rules, and rules have to be obeyed. But this way, when you look at the drawings, the pattern gets into your heart somehow. The rules are still there but you hardly notice. It’s much bigger and better than rules!”
Sandra tried to take it in: knitting without rules. No, beyond rules—that’s what Martha was saying.
“What are you going to do with him?”
“I dunno. Would you like him?”
“No, no. I mean, I couldn’t. But he should be shown off somewhere. He’s so beautiful, so unusual. It’s definitely a ‘he’?”
“Yes, he’s Mickey. Poor old Mick. The first Mickey is just worm food now, down the bottom paddock.”
“Are you going to do the whole thing? The tail and everything?”
“Probably. Take me another six months though, maybe more. Meanwhile he’s good company. Doesn’t talk too much. I just fit him in around other stuff. Now come in here, and I’ll find that pattern book.”
They turned into a spare room that smelled like mothballs. It was like walking into a wool shop. Along one wall was a low honeycomb of triangular shelving, each one jeweled with balls of richly colored wool: rose, amethyst, amber, jade, sapphire, opal, emerald, jet. Sandra couldn’t help feeling she’d walked into some kind of adult playground. In one corner was a huge bag of orange yarn, the same color as the horse, and next to it a large basket of un-spun fleece and a spinning wheel. Silver cylinders—were they really jam tins?—bristled with knitting needles, and glass-topped pins were stuck in the back of a hand-knitted hedgehog. The walls were dense with pictures cut from calendars and magazines, each with a different theme. The wall opposite the window was filled with galaxies, stars, moons, a large solar system, photos of the earth and various planets taken from outer space. There were no rockets or spaceships. Next to a fiery nebula was an illustration Sandra recognized from an article in Time about black holes.
On Sandra’s left the wall was covered with pictures of leaves and trees, close-ups of daisies, orchids, and roses, large rain-forest landscapes of towering trees and matted ferns, here and there a gleaming beetle or a backlit scattering of seeds. Bright greens, secret shadow corners for tiny glowing fungi, echoes of flapping wings, bird song, and the critching sound of cicadas. The wall throbbed with energy and growth.
The third wall was large with deserts and silence. Movement that must be measured in months and years and eons, minimalist landscapes of sand dunes, moraines, flat red gibber plains, green ice, blinding snowfields, rock crevices, the crater of an extinct volcano. Behind her back Sandra felt the exuberant plants budding and bursting, pushing out fruit and flowers, while in front of her were silence, solitude, the bare whisper of wind.
Martha was flicking through folders in a large filing cabinet. Sandra was surprised by the number of files, more consistent with academic research. Her heart leapt.
“Are these all knitting files?”
; “Mainly. But I also keep diaries and other things. Here you are.” She held out an old knitting book, illustrated in black and white, with a man in army uniform on the front and the words Home Comforts for our Fine Brave Boys in white copperplate cursive. Sandra accepted the thin pattern book, but her attention was on the filing drawer.
“Are these all patterns?”
“No, lots of things. But all to do with knitting.” Martha took out another folder. “Look here. These are all pictures of knitters. They seem like old friends to me.”
Sandra leafed through them. A gallery postcard of The Sock Knitter, a 1915 painting by Sydney artist Grace Cossington Smith; a black-and-white photo torn from a magazine, showing a large woman, cigarette dangling from her lips, sitting on a stool and knitting a straggling scarf; a color photocopy from a textile-arts book of an 1869 painting by Bouguereau, The Knitting Girl. Here they were, representations of the knitter. Without her even asking.
“Martha, these are wonderful files! Do you have any more war patterns? I’ve been interested in textiles for years, but I haven’t collected knitting patterns.”
“A few, I think.” Martha went on searching.
Sandra went home with five slim black-and-white pattern books, all more than fifty years old. Such an unexpected return.
THE following day the yarn sample cards Martha had ordered arrived in the mail. She made a cup of tea for her card-opening ceremony, then, using a fine knitting needle, opened all the envelopes. The blue and green silks were wonderful; the light from the window played over the lustrous fibers like water. But the cashmere was so soft.
Martha held the threads against her cheek and read aloud from the notes. “More warmth per weight than any other natural fiber in the world. Goats can take between four and six years to grow enough cashmere for one average sweater. The soft underfleece is gathered by hand-combing every spring. In the past most cashmere has come from Afghanistan, Iran, Outer Mongolia, India, and China, but in the last decade or so Australia and New Zealand have begun producing their own.”
The cashmere was beautiful but too soft, perhaps. The lambswool-cashmere blend might hold its shape bet ter, but the wispy texture would lessen the effect of any patterning. And the yarn had to be fine. Two ends at most, knitted carefully together.
Martha needed a second cup of tea before she could decide. She would go for lambswool after all. She was more familiar with wool, how it handled and how to care for it, and the micron count was very similar to the cashmere. The untrained touch would hardly be aware of the difference, and practicality had to be considered.
Lambswool, then. And white. Yes, it had to be white. Pure as the driven snow.
SANDRA wasn’t exactly sure why she had asked Martha about the patterns, though she knew it was connected to the article about Greek artifacts: an idea was forming in the back of her head, a collection or display. Something to demonstrate the intersection of language and women’s work, or the development of metaphoric language—spinning a yarn, weaving a story, seamlessness. Stitching, embroidery, knitting, handcraft. Something like that.
At home she took the knitting patterns to her study. The first book, printed in 1945, had a matte black-and-white cover. The end of the war, then, with rationing still in place. Clothing coupons. Yes, just as she thought, the writing had a certain turn of phrase, a definitive language, slightly jingoistic. The language of genteel survival in the face of war.
Next was a women’s pattern book from the same era. Sandra looked at the copy on the front cover:
FOUR PRETTY KNITTEDS TO MAKE FOR YOURSELF
A lacy knit frock, the prettiest you’ve seen for some time
A sleeveless pullover with embossed motifs for the outdoor girl
A sweater in unusual fuchsia design for the more mature woman
This time it’s smart to wear your heart on your sleeve in this romantic fluffy cardigan adorned with double intarsia hearts
She’d use it for next Wednesday’s class and see what her students made of it. And she must remember to register for that textiles conference. Later, just before sleeping, Sandra suddenly thought of Martha’s luggage. What could be so important that she needed to lug it around all the time? Those bags were heavy; Sandra had seen that it took a fair amount of effort to carry them. Perhaps she really was a bag lady who collected bottles and cans to supplement her income.
FRESH green leaves were sprouting from the trees, but it was still chilly. Sandra bought herself a small black coffee in the little café next to the supermarket and positioned herself by the window, where she would have the full benefit of the afternoon sun. It was Saturday, shopping day, but the shopping could wait till she had read the paper.
She was halfway through the book pages when a shadow fell across the table. Deep in an interview with a favorite author, she ignored it, but a finger tapping on the other side of the glass made her look up.
Outside on the pavement stood Martha and Cliff. Martha was motionless, two bags in one hand and the small suitcase in the other. Cliff tapped again with a brown finger. They were laughing. Sandra smiled uncertainly. Were they laughing at her?
Martha raised her eyebrows and pointed at Sandra’s table. It was clear she was asking if they could join her. Martha would be all right, but Sandra could have done without Cliff. Oh, well, she could excuse herself. She beckoned them in.
Cliff moved through the tables with surprising grace and sat down in the chair adjacent to Sandra’s. Martha, encumbered by her bags, struggled to find passageway. One bag caught on the back of a chair and tipped it over. She righted it and apologized profusely to the smart young couple at the table. They smiled icily. When she sat down, Sandra saw that her eyes were full of tears.
“Can I get you both a coffee?”
Cliff inclined his head regally. “For this, good thanks, m’lady.” Sandra wanted to laugh.
“Martha?”
“Oh, you don’t need to,” began Martha awkwardly, then said meekly, “Oh, yes, please, tea if you don’t mind. White with one.”
Sandra ordered at the counter and went back to her seat. Martha still looked embarrassed. Cliff spoke first.
“Do you come here often?”
“Well, I come here to shop, but I don’t often stop for coffee. What about you?”
“Not me. Just tagging along with Mattie here, who was wanting some wool. But they didn’t have what she wanted, did they, Matt?”
Sandra couldn’t figure Cliff out. He seemed a patchwork of roughness and gentility.
The tea and coffee came. Sandra would have to stay a little longer to avoid seeming rude. Cliff put four spoons of sugar in his coffee and saw Sandra watching.
“Well, it’s free, isn’t it? Lots of calories. Just what I need.” Cliff’s skinny frame certainly didn’t have calories to spare.
“What do you want the wool for, Martha?” asked Sandra.
“Not wool, cotton. To make a hat for summer. You know, those floppy ones, like a washing hat, to shade your face. I lost mine on the bus last year.”
“Wouldn’t it be cheaper to buy one?”
“Probably. But I make all my things, like in the old days. More environmentally friendly. No plastic packaging, no heavy transport from one side of the country to the other. I hand-sew some things. Slow work like that is soothing.” Martha was talking fast, not quite at ease.
“You don’t make everything by hand, surely?”
“Pretty much. It’s very satisfying, making things from scratch. Fabric, needle, thread. Scissors. That’s all you need.”
“No machine?”
“Not now. I did once. A few years ago I used to spin and dye all my own wool too, but I stopped that. I like bright colors, and I like them colorfast. You can’t do everything. But with sewing and knitting you can make most things. I buy my bras, though, and my shoes. That’s about all.”
“You don’t really need them,” said Cliff, grinning.
Martha looked quickly at Sandra.
�
��Behave yourself,” she said. “Mind your manners. And weren’t you going somewhere?”
Cliff looked surprised, then gulped the last of his coffee and stood up.
“Well, ladies, I’ll leave you to it.”
“What’s with him?” said Sandra as they watched him cross the car park. “He’s a bit strange, isn’t he?”
“Oh, he’s all right. That’s just how he is. He reads, you know. He spends whole days in the library. And he’s in love with me.” She spoke matter-of-factly.
“Do you mind?”
Martha, more relaxed now, laughed out loud. “Mind? Why should I? It’s a compliment. Look, don’t touch, I told him.”
“Did he try?”
“No, no. He’s not creepy like that. He’s honest and straightforward.” She saw the doubting look on Sandra’s face.
“He is. Trust me. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. Got a heart of gold—you should hear him talk about his sister. Just doesn’t care about money and houses like most people.” There was a pause while Sandra tried to imagine such an existence.
“Martha, after your husband died, how was it?”
Martha looked her in the eye.
“It was terrible,” she said. “We’d only been married a few months. I nearly went mad with it. In fact, I did go mad.” She looked away.
“And then what?”
“I started knitting. And here I am.”
“Are you still sad?”
“No. Just—” Martha paused.
Sandra waited. It was a good interview technique, she’d found. Hold the pause. Something useful usually came out.
“Just what, Martha?” She spoke very gently. Martha was still looking into the distance.
“You can’t undo things. You can’t go back. And all those things you did wrong, they just about kill you.”
Sandra was disappointed. This wasn’t relevant to the line of inquiry. Martha laughed suddenly.
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