*****
Somewhere, not so far from here, there is a land of Nearly Perfect People. In that land there lives a girl called Eve Day Knight. What made Eve Day Knight nearly perfect was that every time someone in the world said “Good Evening,” “Good-day” or “Goodnight” Eve just got more and more good. Eve had a grandmother who was absolutely perfect. That was because she had lived longer, had the same name or so very nearly the difference is so small no-one notices it. The grandmother decided it was time to teach Eve how to knit. She showed her how to cast on stitches. She showed her how to plain then purl. She showed her how to rescue stitches when they slipped away from the needle’s point. She showed her how to join the wool at the seams so that the knot need never show in the body of the work.
The grandmother told Eve to knit a sampler all by herself. Eve cast on 23 stitches and knitted purl then plain on one row and plain then purl on the next row. She discovered moss stitch. She ran to the grandmother and in an excited voice cried, “Look what I’ve found. If you do it this way, then that this is what you get.”
The grandmother stared sternly at Eve. It was a long time since any of her grandchildren were as quick to pick up knitting as this. Secretly the grandmother was very proud of Eve, but it doesn’t do to show it. Like moss, pride has a knack of rubbing off on people who don’t deserve it. Instead putting a sharp tone on her tongue, she said to Eve, “You didn’t find it for it was never lost. All you have done is uncover a family secret and I will thank you never to tell anyone.”
This was not the response that Eve was expecting to hear. She thought her grandmother would say what a clever girl she was. But the grandmother kept Eve’s cleverness to herself. This was going to be her new family secret.
As Eve had picked up moss stitch of her own accord, the grandmother decided the child was ready to go straight onto Fisherman’s Rib. This stitch is an even greater secret as it is shared by so many.
The grandmother could tell when Eve was ready to knit a complete garment all by herself. How could she tell? The tension of the thread between her fingers flowed taut but not tight, easily slipping over the needle instead of carrying a load of slack. Together they went to the shop for some wool.
This was no ordinary shop.
This was really a ship that looked like a shop.
The sign on the window said,
“This window was a porthole
until the Captain swallowed the anchor
and left his soul at sea. R.I.P.
On the doorstep was a sign that read,
From ship to shore
and shore to ship
be assured your wheels
will not slip upon
this gang-plank
kindly donated
by especially
disabled seamen
Eve gazed around the store in wonder. There was wool by the ball in the barrow-load. Hanks of wool were heaped in their hundreds. There were colours and variegations of colours such as you have never seen. Eve had no idea of how much these wonderful wool’s might cost for she had never heard of anyone asking the price of anything. Within the world of Nearly Perfect people it was taken as given as what you pay is what you get. So the price of things was not fixed by what people had, but rather by what they had not. The grandmother went to the bargain counter and selected some wool. Eve tried to hide her disappointment. Her grandmother had chosen skeins of grey wool. It looked drab and very ordinary. How could she turn such a common looking colour into something really splendid?
As this bargain basement wool had been skeined instead of wound into balls the grandmother sat Eve down, held her hands wide enough apart to hold the wool while she wound it into a ball cupped within her hand.
As she watched the wool unwind from the skein, Eve noticed that among the grey were flecks of black and little flecks of white.
Not for the first time Eve wondered if she had spoken her thoughts out loud. It sometimes seemed that her grandmother could hear what she was thinking for this is what she sang as she wound the wool.
You haven’t yet met the fellow
to warrant you knitting yellow.
You’ll never know where’s he’s been
the one for whom you knit in green.
It may be that when you’re dead
You’ll wish that you had knitted red.
Eve listened to her grandmother and watched the strand as it unraveled from her hand into growing balls of wool.
The grandmother was getting on in years and her arms began to ache with all that moving. Just about as much as Eve’s arms ached in being still. So they swapped over and Eve did the winding while the grandmother held the skeins.
And all this while there were still people saying “Good Evening,” “Good-day” or “Goodnight.” Sometimes a person could say all three in one day many times over. So Eve Day Knight got to be an even better sort of good.
“Well,” Eve thought to herself, “if I can’t have bright, exciting colours and I haven’t graduated to feather stitching, then I must make a garment fit for a King.” She started to cast on the stitches and while her fingers were busy her mind started keeping up. The idea came to her that she might be slow at knitting and that a King would get fat before she finished. So she cast on some extra stitches, just in case. How was she to know she could knit like lightning? The grandmother played the piano and watched Eve at her knitting. When the grandmother was sure that Eve was keeping in time with the metronome on top of the grand sounding piano she closed the lid and went to bed. She was the kind of grandmother most children would like to have. She let Eve stay up as late as she wanted.
While she had been listening to the music Eve had a great idea. A challenge. She held the wool just tightly enough so that on one side of her knitting there would be a black fleck against the grey and on the other side there would be a white fleck in the grey. Knitting very carefully she soon got the knack of double-sided knitting. As only part of the brain is used in concentration, Eve had an idea come into focus in the back of her mind. If she were to be very, very careful and join the beginning of a new ball to the last few inches of the used ball then no-one would know which was the right side and which was the other side of the garment. Two for the price of one. Eve had to admit that her grandmother could recognise a bargain. Because she was concentrating on the white flecks and the black flecks, Eve overlooked a few details. Details such as the length of the sleeve and the depth of the neck. Eve is ingenious as you may have gathered and she soon compensated for such mistakes. So it wasn’t perfect, but it was nearly perfect and that is good enough in the land of Nearly Perfect people.
Which King should she send that now completed garment? She picked up the telephone directory, found the ‘K’ for Kings. With a pencil in her hand she closed her eyes and move her hand in a circle above the air. “Dear Heaven,” she prayed. “Please guide this pencil to the most perfect of all Kings.” She put the pencil on the page and then she opened her eyes and read the name King Paul. She bought a PostPak to fit at the Post Office and posted her Parcel to P. King being careful to put the return address on the back should Paul have moved away.
The next but one day the parcel was returned to her. He wrote to thank an anonymous donor - she had forgotten a covering letter - for the garment which covered him to perfection but for two faults. One fault he could forgive, but the second drew attention to his own one fault and he thanked her for reminding him of it and wished her luck in placing the garment elsewhere. He suggested that she try the first of the Bishops in the Land of Nearly Perfect people. Eve took no offence at what may look like an objection. It had been kindly worded. It did not occur to her to wonder if most people are so polite after receiving anonymous parcels in the post.
Eve looked in the telephone book and then posted the parcel containing the garment to Archie Bishop in Palace Road. Archie Bishop returned the garment with a note inside the parcel. He told her that her gift was too f
ine a piece of work to be given to anyone less than God Himself. Archie Bishop had lost the address but asked Eve to go and find God so that the garment could be given to someone with a neck like a bull. What Archie did not tell Eve was that he had a very small head. Because believing is such an easy thing to do if you have a little faith Archie Bishop had not had to exercise his head in years and years. He had been very relieved to be taken out of the monastery as soon as he had remembered what he had to believe. Eve had unwittingly reminded him of his only flaw which is not quite the same as being next to nearly perfect.
Eve tucked the parcel under her arm and walked along the edge of the canal. Mr. Bishop had told her where to go but not how to get there. She came to a seat and, being a person to use things for the proper purpose, sat down. She was so wrapped up in her own thoughts she did not see the tramp sit on the bench beside her. He asked her where she came from. She told him she was from the land of Nearly Perfect people. “Ah-ah,” said the tramp. “I heard a rumour that a grand-child had made a gift too good for a King and too fine for an Archbishop.”
“Who told you that?” asked Eve.
“Oh, some little winged thing,” said the tramp, knowing that most people would assume it to be a bird. “But,” he asked, “is it true?”
“How can it be?” demanded Eve. “The garment is fine enough for King-Paul, but not good enough for Archie Bishop. He told me to give it to God.”
“You sound as if you are angry,” said the tramp. “I am,” said Eve. “We all know that God is perfect, yet even here in the Land of Nearly Perfect people there is no-one who can say that they have met God. So how am I supposed to give God a garment if I don’t know where to go?” “Well,” said the tramp, “I am a stranger here, but in the land where I come from we believe that God lives in the person sitting next to you.”
“That can’t be,” said Eve. “I am the person next to you and I know I am not God.”
“How do you know you are not God?” asked the tramp who had last seen God in a near-by pub called the Old Mariner. “God is a Perfect Being,” she replied. “I am far from perfect. I am not even a very good example of being a Nearly Perfect person..”
“Why is that?” asked the tramp. “You look a very Nearly Perfect Person to me.”
“I have insulted Mr. King with the gift not fine enough; I have offended Mr. Bishop with a gift unfitting for a man of the cloth. And, if that’s not enough, I talk about myself too much.”
“To talk about yourself is not an imperfection,” said the tramp. “It may be a bit boring to other people at times to persons whose imperfection is impatience. Being a bore has it’s own saving grace. At least people who are talking about themselves are not talking about other people. Gossip is a flaw, not an imperfection.”
“That you for that. I am being rude. I have not asked your name. Mine is Eve, how do you do,” said Eve, holding out her hand.
The tramp shook her small hand and replied “I’m alright. Jack’s my name. Jack Leeming.”
“I must say I am pleased to meet you, Jack.” lied Eve. He had not been any help in finding God, she thought. (In case anyone thinks that to tell a lie should count as an imperfection, lying is one of those things seen only by a blind eye.)
“Well,” said Jack, “it seems to me that you have a garment too good for a King and too fine for a Bishop. Is that the strength of it?”
“Yes,” said Eve. “That describes it nicely. If it is no good for them, it won’t be much use to anyone else. Who would ever want something that has been insulted by a King and by a Bishop?” She asked.
“I’m glad you were wondering about that,” said Jack. “I do hear tell that in this land of Nearly Perfect people that there is no-one so flawed as to flinch from abusing the poor and trodden-upon. Is that so?”
“I don’t know,” replied Eve. “I have never seen a poor or a down-trodden-upon. What do they look like?” “You wouldn’t want to see them,” said the tramp. “That is until they are so rare they have to be saved and kept in a zoo as an endangered species. But I will tell you this - their arms are stretched like the neck of a giraffe. As their necks are like large cauliflowers they are very difficult to clothe.”
While Eve was brought up to be disbelieving of everything she was told, she found this so hard to believe it had to be true. It seems an ideal solution, she thought. This would be one way to get the garment into another land so that the grandmother would never see what a hash she had made of it. “Mr. Leeming,” she asked, “would you be kind enough to take this garment to the land of the poor and trodden-upon?” “Now why would you be wanting to give them such a splendid piece of work?” asked the tramp.
“Well,” says she, “as you said, it is too good for a King and too fine for a Bishop. There must be someone it would suit. Besides I don’t know how to go about finding God, but you seem to be the sort of person who is wise in the ways of this world.”
“I know just the person,” said the tramp. “Leave it with me and I will guarantee that not only will it go to the poor and trodden-upon, but will eventually end up in the hands of God. Will that do you?”
“Bless you, sir,” said Eve. She thrust the package into the hands of Mr. Jack, gave him an impetuous kiss on the cheek then ran away as only the shy can run after a brave bout of boldness.
Jack Leeming undid the wrapping covering the parcel and laid the garment out on the park bench. Only a man with very short arms would think the arms too long; in fact they were just of the length that, at their full length, they would keep a man’s hands warm under his armpits on a crisp autumnal evening. The cuffs were elasticated so they would not go out of shape should a man decide to push the sleeves up and get down to some work. But then Kings are not noted for physical labour. Only a man with half a brain would think that the neck was too wide, too deep. It had been made that way to accommodate a collar which was also a cowl when uncurled. But then too often Bishops forget the feeling of a cowl over the head as protection from the storms in the darkest nights on the road. These days they tend to use telephone boxes in which to shelter against raging winds of winter.
Eve’s endeavours were not wasted. Mr. Leeming knows how to find God and by his reckoning God had been sitting next to him just a while ago. A god-child has to have a god-father and Mr. Leeming figured that he had just been appointed to that role for the day. For he had been praying for a pullover with sleeves long enough to keep his hands warm in the coming winter and a scarf to keep the wind from his neck. Now if this pullover wasn’t an answer to his prayer he did not know what was. Not only was it an answer to his prayer, but the Good Lord had improven upon it. Now he would not have to worry about having his scarves lost or stolen. Business first.
(Did you think that tramps have no business being what they are? Wrong. Tramps, no matter how down and dirty or pretty and tarted up they are, play a very useful part in the Kingdom of God. They are messengers between this place and that, recording and reporting how they are treated by people who are strangers to God. God is pleased when strangers first meet Him through his daughter, Faith; He is delighted when Hope is the daughter who makes the introductions; but His heart is full to over-flowing when Charity brings someone home to meet Him.)
The tramp hurried off to the anchorage in Hull and found the ship-shape shop. At the back of the shop was a tea-room for travellers; a place where they could have a cup of tea, a shower or bath if they wanted. There was a washing machine and dryer. While people waited for the cleansing of their only change of clothes they dressed in a terry towelling robe once used by a World Light Heavyweight Champion. This was so that some of his strength would rub off and give them hope to carry on. Jack sat in the bath-robe, drinking a cup of tea and chatting to the lady behind the washing machine. He told her of the grand pullover he had just acquired. He got carried away with his description of its perfection which means he ended up letting out the secret that it was really very more that merely Nearly Perfect;
it was as perfect a thing as had ever come out of the land of Nearly Perfect people.
The lady behind the washing machine pressed a button under the counter. Another flawless garment had been found. The hit-men paraded up the stairs from the dank basement beneath the bargain basement and took the pullover Eve had given to Jack away out of sight. Their second sighting of it confirmed their worst fears. It was perfect. Such a pity. It would have to be sent to the Unravellers.
The man who had sold the wool to the grandmother was reprimanded for selling inexpensive wool to a lady who knew quality when she saw it. For his pains he had to run flags up the mast of the ship-shape shop. To those who can decipher the language of flags the message read:
PERFECTION IS AN INSULT
The same message is also woven into genuine Persian carpets. Read it in many markets.
Good-night.
Oh, you want to know what happens in the unravelling. That would be telling but I will give you a clue. Nit-picking night nurses with nothing to do because the sick are sleeping sit in their slippers and cardigans, unravelling garments with no fault simply so they can stay awake. And as they wrap the wool into balls within the palm, they watch over the world and see that no harm comes to sleepy-heads who dream of catching on to something new.
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I do hope you have enjoyed these stories.
Having now uploaded the writing I have saved over the years, I now feel free to get on with writing the Big Book (reference to which brings a laugh to my friends.)
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Short Stories : A Small Collection Page 5