by T. S. Easton
The pattern we had to follow for the first section wouldn’t be revealed until we were all seated. We’d have five minutes to choose needles, yarn and to plan our approach. We had one hour to work on the fixed pattern. Then there’d be a ten-minute break before we’d go back in for the freestyle section. I was still uncertain what I was going to do in the freestyle. To a certain extent it depended how I went with the pattern. If I was feeling confident, I might do something more complex. If the first section had been a disaster, I would probably just stick with a sock. Or scarf. That’s if I hadn’t slit my wrists in the toilets during the break.
I don’t remember much about the next few minutes. Just noise, the smell of the goats, the bright lights overhead hurting my eyes, the sweat rolling down my back. I was not confident.
Then I heard my name being called and Mrs Hooper said, ‘You’re on,’ and pushed me gently towards the entrance to the Cauldron. I walked in to a blaze of light and a smattering of applause. Camera flashes were going off, presumably from the Home Office photographer, and I heard a few whoops of support from my posse. I stumbled towards an empty seat, my mind a muddle, my vision blurred.
I sat and scanned the stands. At first I couldn’t see anyone I knew. I blinked to clear my vision and saw Ms Gunter, with the Home Office lady, who was gazing at me intently. The cameraman was at the back filming everything. I carried on looking and saw Megan, waving at me. I waved back. Then I saw Miss Swallow, looking ravishing; Joe was next to her playing on his phone. She waved, elbowing Joe to make sure he did the same. He gave me the thumbs-up and went back to his phone. Then I saw Joz, and next to him was Amelia and next to her Natasha and there was Mrs Frensham, right at the front, arms folded, looking grumpy. Even Rob the bus driver had turned up to watch, and had sat himself next to Mrs Frensham.
I suddenly felt much better. Everyone was here. I turned to my neighbour to wish her luck, and it was only then that I realised it was Jeanette Fairbanks. The Lance Armstrong of the knitting world. She eyed me coldly, perhaps wondering why I’d chosen to sit next to her. My heart skipped a beat and I considered moving seats, but it was too late. The last of the contestants had taken her seat now and the circle was complete. Oh well, what did it matter? She wouldn’t try anything here, I told myself, not with so many people watching.
‘You may turn over your patterns now,’ Julie called out. Taking a deep breath, I flipped my paper over and my heart sank.
It was a tea cosy. With stranded colourwork – a green tea leaf. The worst possible combination. My bête noir. I sat staring straight ahead, feeling the colour drain from my face. A tea cosy? A bloody tea cosy?
Everyone else had begun rummaging through their boxes of yarn, inspecting needles, flipping them like drummers flip sticks. I sat there, slowly, gently panicking.
But then I looked up into the stands and saw Mrs Hooper working her way along the aisle towards Megan. Further back, at the top of the stand, in the dark, I saw a merino sheep sitting texting. It coughed. That had to be Gex. Then I saw Mrs Frensham give me the thumbs-up. I couldn’t let them down, I thought to myself. I could do this. I just had to visualise the pattern, get it fixed in my head. Handle hole, spout hole, base hole, lid hole, green wool for the leaf. This was not impossible. I had to smash the mental block. Get over myself.
‘You may begin knitting … now!’ Julie called. Everyone else sprang into action, needles clicking like a monkey on a typewriter. I didn’t move.
I closed my eyes and tried to imagine against-the-odds success. Frank Lampard wandered through my consciousness. I moved him gently aside and replaced him with Mo Farah. Then I thought of the pattern. I didn’t need to look at the sheet again. I had taken what I needed from it. I just had to knit it in my head first.
I cut everything out, the noise of the clicking needles, the more distant hubbub of the fair. I cut out the lights and the smell and focused on nothing but the pattern.
And slowly it came, weaving itself together. The tea cosy formed itself, spinning slowly, growing inside my mind. I could see the rows, the columns, the stitches. I could see where I needed to increase and where to decrease. I saw where I needed to change wool, where to add in the holes. I knew what yarn I needed, what needles. I had it. I had it!
I grabbed the needles and yarn, cast on and I was away, lost in my own world, content, sure of myself. Calm and relaxed for the first time in weeks.
That lasted about ten minutes, at which point I became aware of something in front of me and a rippling of laughter from the crowd. My concentration was broken immediately. I tutted and looked up to see a goat staring at me. I stared back, hypnotised. Then the goat trotted forwards and began to eat my yarn.
‘Get off,’ I yelled, kicking at it just as a security guard arrived and crash-tackled the beast. It went down with a thump and a truncated bleat.
‘Sorry about that,’ Julie said, rushing up. ‘I’ll get you some more yarn.’
By the time she came back the tea cosy had disappeared from my mind. I risked a quick glance at Jeanette, who was still knitting as if nothing had happened, but did I notice a tiny smile on her angular features?
I sighed, closed my eyes again and tried to re-capture the vision. It took longer to come this time. I was unsettled and angry. But come it did, and after a few minutes I was back into it. A deathly silence had fallen across the audience; they were engrossed in this, watching twenty-two people sitting in a circle, knitting.
Then someone’s mobile phone went off. An N-Dubz song played at top volume.
I looked up in annoyance.
‘Sorry!’ the merino sheep called, fumbling with his phone.
Jeanette tutted.
‘Please turn off your mobile phone,’ Julie shouted out.
‘S’off, s’off now,’ Gex yelled back.
‘Give me strength,’ I muttered.
Again I had to re-capture the vision. I tried breathing exercises to calm myself and after a while found myself back in it, knitting furiously. After fifteen minutes I was going at a fair rate, and didn’t think I’d made many mistakes so far. If only I could get through the next half-hour uninterrupted, then maybe …
Crash!
We all leaped a mile as a partition wall fell inwards, revealing the scaffolding that supported the grandstands. Also revealed were three figures who’d been crouching behind it. One of them was covered in green dye. The other contestants stared in alarm at the intrusion.
‘Oh, crap,’ I muttered, standing. ‘Not now.’
‘KNITTING TOSSER!’ Manning’s gang screeched in unison and rushed towards me. I heard a yelp of terror from Bush Baby and a gasp from Jeanette.
Time slowed. Julie stood watching, open-mouthed, apparently at a loss at what to do. The security guard had disappeared, wrestling the goat back to its pen, no doubt. I stood alone as the gang rushed towards me, Lloyd’s face gurning with twisted malevolence.
I braced myself, ready to meet the charge, my sword an 8mm acrylic needle, my shield a half-finished tea cosy. There was no way I was backing down. It was time to face the bullies.
But the charge of the shite brigade never reached me, for over the sides of the Cauldron came the cavalry. Joz was there first, followed by Freddie, who’d apparently sprung from nowhere. Then finally came the merino, landing heavily and nearly tripping over his ill-fitting fleece. They came roaring, cheered on by the crowd, and Manning’s gang stopped in surprise.
And so battle was joined. The details are hazy in my mind, but I remember Joz performing an extraordinary barrel-roll to knock Jermaine’s legs out from under him. Freddie grabbed the other one around the neck and hung on, being flipped from side to side like a puppy biting a walrus. Manning and Gex went mano-a-mano. Chief vs Chief. It turned out neither of them was very good at fighting. Lots of slaps and face-protection.
‘Stop this, stop this!’ Julie was yelling, to no effect. Bush Baby had disappeared.
‘Where’s security?’ someone else called. I stood, clutching my k
nitting, wondering if I should get involved, but conscious there was a cameraman and a lady from the Home Office in the audience. Unfortunately, it looked like Manning’s gang were getting the better of the good guys. Gex was by now on the ground, with Manning on top of him, banging his head into the AstroTurf flooring. Freddie was walking unsteadily, dazed, having been thrown from the other one’s shoulders. The other one was approaching him now to finish the job, growling. And Joz? Well, he hadn’t actually recovered from the initial spectacular roll into Jermaine’s legs. He was writhing on the floor, clutching his shoulder and looking pale.
Jermaine looked up at me and grinned. I was next, clearly. He took a couple of steps towards me.
But then there was the sound of someone clearing their throat behind me and Jermaine stopped, looking over my shoulder with an expression of horror. I turned, expecting to see the security guard had returned.
It wasn’t security. It was someone better. Mrs Frensham, in full warrior-queen mode, ready for battle. She walked over to the giant knitting display and seized her weapon, one of the 8-foot-high needles. Lifting her lance, she pointed it towards Jermaine and roared like St George.
‘You go, girl,’ Alana cried from the audience.
Jermaine’s eyes bugged and his jaw dropped. Manning was still banging Gex’s head on the AstroTurf and hadn’t registered this new development, or the fact that Mrs Frensham had by now received back-up. Joe stood beside her, and on her other side was Rob the bus driver, looking mean.
‘It’s the lollipop lady!’ Jermaine cried, finding his voice, which sounded like an eight year-old’s. ‘It’s Mrs crapping Frensham!’
Manning looked up, alarmed. He got to his feet. Suddenly, his gang didn’t look so hard. They huddled together in the centre of the arena, like Christians surrounded by lions.
Then Mrs Frensham charged.
Manning’s gang stood for half a second, momentarily frozen in terror before they were able to get their legs moving. They turned and sprinted for the gap in the partition wall, Mrs Frensham and her two brave knights following.
Once they’d gone, the Cauldron was suddenly quiet, as everyone tried to get their heads around what had just happened. Except it wasn’t entirely quiet. To my left I could hear the unmistakeable sound of needles clicking. I turned to see Angular Jeanette knitting away, as if nothing had happened. She glanced up at me, and smirked as her eyes flicked over to the giant clock.
I knew she was low, but to do this? To take advantage of a pitch invasion to get an advantage over the rest of us? Katniss would never have done that. As the rest of the contestants realised what was going on, they too began to resume their knitting. Julie looked surprised at first, but then she called, ‘The clock is still running, please carry on.’
I sat back in my seat, heavily, closed my eyes and tried to re-visualise.
24th February
Somehow I got through the first session. I completed more of the tea cosy than I expected to. But Jeanette finished hers completely. She rested it on her knee as she waited for it to be collected, displaying it so I could see. Showing off. I could see a couple of dropped stitches, but apart from that it looked amazing. I was still a dozen rows short, but the stranded colourwork was neater on mine, and I thought maybe my leaf was a little more lifelike than hers.
Either way, I was definitely behind the eight-ball on this. Even at a distance I could see some of the others had made a much better job of things than I had.
During the break Mrs Hooper came rushing up to me to see if I was OK.
‘Not really,’ I said. ‘Mrs Frensham was amazing, though.’
‘You’re amazing, Ben,’ she replied, warming my cockles. ‘That’s why you have such supportive friends.’
I felt myself blushing and looked at my feet. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t win the trophy for them.’
‘It’s not over yet,’ she said. ‘Your cosy was wonderful, so neat.’
‘I didn’t finish it.’
‘That’s not the only consideration,’ she said. ‘Anyway, there’s another session yet. Have you decided what you’re going to knit?’
‘I think I’d better just play it safe,’ I said. ‘I can’t afford any mistakes, and if my concentration is broken again … ’
‘Up to you,’ she said. ‘But you have a talent, Ben. Now’s your chance to display it.’ She turned around and I saw that Megan stood behind her.
‘I’ll give you two a moment,’ Mrs Hooper said, and walked away.
‘Are you OK?’ Megan asked.
‘Well, let’s see,’ I said. ‘My parents have abandoned me, the school is counting on me to pull off the impossible and win this final, as is the entire UK Probation Service. I haven’t done any study for three weeks, my life is in danger from Lloyd Manning and I have no idea what I’m going to knit in the next session.’
I stopped talking then as Megan leaned close and kissed me.
She pulled back a little, and looked me in the eye. ‘You can’t worry about everything at once,’ she said.
‘You sound like my mother,’ I told her.
‘I hope I don’t kiss you like your mother.’
‘No. It’s different with her,’ I admitted.
‘Stitch by stitch,’ she said. ‘You can’t do everything at once.’
‘What should I do first?’ I asked.
‘Kiss me, obvs.’
I did as she suggested, then pulled back and smiled at her. She smiled back.
‘Stitch by stitch?’ I said.
‘Stitch by stitch,’ she repeated.
‘Thanks,’ I said.
‘Any time,’ she said. Then she was gone.
So as I re-entered the Cauldron, this time to a huge round of applause, I still hadn’t decided what to knit. The crowd seemed to have grown. Maybe word had got out that this was the place to come for that new extreme sport Combat-knit. I scanned the crowd as I sat down, looking for my friends. I waved at Alana and Marie, who whooped loudly as though this were a college basketball game. I sat well away from Miss Angular this time.
And then I saw Dad. In the back row, watching me. He raised a hand. I waved back, smiling. He should be at the game. At Stamford Street, or wherever, watching Lampard score a hat-trick. He’d given up the chance to see his beloved Chelsea for me. For this. I felt a huge surge of confidence. I felt I could do anything. If I was going to win this thing I needed to do something amazing.
And that’s when I decided it was time to bring out Patt.r.n.
I knew I might not be able to get the whole thing completed. But if I used huge needles and made massive stitches I could do a lot of it. I had another advantage too. There was someone modelling the Hoopie for me in the audience. My muse.
I grabbed the biggest needles they had, wooden ones, huge fat things, like candles. I selected the heaviest wool available, dark blue with hints of silver glitter and decided to double it up. I could see Jeanette watching me curiously from across the circle.
I looked back at her, raised an eyebrow and curled my lip slightly. Like a more vulnerable and slightly built Clint Eastwood. She sneered right back.
‘Ladies and gentleman,’ Julie called. ‘You may knit.’
There were no more interruptions after that. Even Jeanette was playing fair from then on. We all put our heads down and got stuck in. I quickly entered the zone. I don’t remember much about the next hour, but Joz filmed some of it on his camera phone and I watched it later, gobsmacked by how fast I was. I’d never watched myself knit before, of course. My face takes on this weird, trance-like look. Making me look a bit dopey, to be honest. But it’s my hands that the eye is drawn to. So fast. I’m like a robot: under, lift, over, off, under, lift, over, off. I got through six balls of yarn during the hour-long session and successfully completed Patt.r.n. An entire hooded top in an hour. Admittedly, the stitches were huge, there were only thirty rows. But the hood is tricky, as is the neckline.
I could see the other contestants looking at it, astonishe
d. Jeanette had made a cushion cover with a bow and arrow motif. It was good, but she’d only completed one side. And it was just a cushion cover.
Marian Joyce had done a baby’s woolly hat. Pretty and complete it may have been, but it was just a hat. The Scottish girl, Kirsty Thingummy, had kept it really simple and done three squares of a patchwork quilt.
I was happy. I was sure the disaster over the tea cosy had taken me out of the contest, but I’d pulled off a real achievement. I looked up at my supporters in the crowd, who were all grinning and giving me the thumbs-up. I looked for Dad, who nodded at me, smiled and pointed towards the Cauldron entrance. I turned around and saw Mum standing there, waving at me. She was wearing full magician regalia, clearly not having waited to change on the way down.
All was right with the world.
7.22pm
We had to clear out quickly to let them get prepared for the senior competition, which was due to start at eight. The results would be announced just before that. We went back to the café while we waited. I was ravenous and ate two sandwiches, a packet of crisps and a muffin. We took over about six tables, there were so many of us. Everyone kept clapping me on the back and congratulating me.
Joz was still looking pale. He was worried he’d broken his shoulder.
‘You’re a goddamn hero!’ Gex told him.
‘Sod off,’ Joz replied, looking green.
Mrs Frensham told me they’d chased Manning’s gang all the way down Kensington High Street, where they escaped by jumping on one of the new Boris Buses. They wouldn’t be bothering us again tonight.
Soon it was time to go back for the results. We all crowded into the Cauldron, the contestants standing in the middle, surrounded by our supporters and knitfans. Julie stood on a chair.
‘I have here the results from the judges,’ she cried, holding up an envelope, to raucous applause. ‘Firstly, can I just say how impressed we all were with the extremely high quality of the knitting here this evening. I think I can quite honestly say that the junior category has never before produced so many excellent contestants, including some who have only been knitting for a few months.’