Granny was rather smelly. Not in a horrible way you understand, but in an overpowering, filled the room and everything that came in contact with her way. Lavender. At least that’s what I think the main smell was in her perfume. She couldn’t always afford to pay to have the heating on, but she always had her perfume. Bought it by the bucket load to save money. I personally think she could have stopped using it and still smelt of lavender for another twenty years it was that ingrained into her skin and belongings.
And she knitted. All the time. Her best friend lived next door and they were usually in one or the others houses, knitting away for hours. Not saying much. Just tap tap tap tap of the needles. Everything that could be made out of knitting was. Dresses, swimsuits (and when mum made me actually wear one, once the EMBARRASSMENT!!! It sagged to the floor when wet!!) towels, table clothes. The woman was knitting mad. But I loved her. She was my Granny and I always popped in to see her on my way home. I’d help her chase some escaped ball of wool and wind it up for her as I told her about my day. She always had time to listen and somehow after I’d untangled her wool, she’d untangled my worries and thoughts.
Anyway it must have been coming up to my fourteenth birthday when things started to change. I didn’t notice it straight away. Biscuits when I turned up. The house was warm. Then one day as I sat holding a ball of wool something glinted. Right in my eye. Granny’s friend Rosie was sitting by the window, her needles flying so fast they were just a blur. And there on her finger was the biggest diamond ring I had ever seen. The light had caught it as her hands flicked backwards and forwards behind a long black shiny tubular shape. Goodness knows what it was she was making now. Granny was knitting with the same type of wool, which was also unusual. They didn’t go in for black let alone shiny black.
“Granny...what are you making now?”
There was a pause as Granny blinked rapidly and for the first time Rosie’s needles came to a stop.
“Oh nothing special. We’re just trying something new.”
The knitting started again. Slower this time, or had I imagined it?
“Be a love and grab me another ball of wool, save me getting up later.”
Granny patted my hand and smiled. But not before I noticed her gaze dart to Rosie and a look pass between them. I was pondering the look as I wandered out into the hall way. And probably why I opened the wrong door. Instead of the door to the cupboard under the stairs where the wool as kept, I opened the door to the front room. The one used for best as Granny called it. No one ever went in there because it was freezing and like something from a museum. As I opened the door a head fell out on top of me. Not just any head. A diplodocus skull. Attached by it’s neck to a rib cage. And I screamed.
Granny and Rosie are actually very nimble when they want to be. Just as my scream was coming to an end and my brain was slowly trying to tell me something, they were in the hall way to see what the commotion was about. Granny pulled me by the hand round to face her as Rosie was trying to shove the dinosaur back into the room and close the door. Granny was saying something, I could see her lips moving, but my ears were still ringing and my brain was now shouting for my attention.
“it’s just knitting. Nothing to worry about.”
“Knitting?! That’s knitted?!”
I pushed past Rosie into the room to take a closer look. I loved dinosaurs especially the diplodocus. I’d make Mum take me to the National History Museum as often as her free time allowed so I could go and just gaze at Dippy in their foyer.
“Yes! Knitted! Now come out of their at once, it was meant to be a birthday surprise!”
I held the skull in my hand and I realised what I’d been thinking. It was exactly the same as the one in the Museum. And that’s why they had been using that colour wool! The stitches were so tiny only if you looked really carefully could you tell that it was knitted and not bone or plaster of paris as Dippy was.
“Granny this is AMAZING!!!”
I couldn’t believe it. My very own dinosaur. I barely registered the tugging on my arm. But it took up so much room. Would Mum let me keep it. I mean the tail nearly covered the whole of that statue. And the fish tank with a shark in it had a leg resting on the top. To be fair there really wasn’t much room in here with those new additions. And was that the Mona Lisa hanging on the wall? My mouth dropped open. The statue was Rodin’s The Kiss. My Mum had a postcard of it on our fridge. And that was Damien Hirst’s Shark....
“Granny is that....?”
I pointed to Tutankhamun’s death mask.
“Oh you know, just little knitting experiments.”
The door was very firmly closed and I was being helped into my coat.
“Better run along now my lovely, your Mum will be back from work soon and wondering where you are.”
As the front door clicked shut behind me I stood still not quite sure of anything any more. I mean the dinosaur was definitely knitted. But the other things? They looked very very real. And can you knit water? Well formaldehyde? I turned round and raised my hand to knock.
“I told you we should have locked that door!” Rosie’s wheezy voice actually carried quite loudly. Normally I had to strain to hear it.
“Don’t worry I don’t think she suspected a thing. And we’ll be shifting this next lot in a few days.”
“The sooner the better. And that shark gives me the heebie-jeebies.”
“Well Larry said Wednesday night...” Granny’s voice faded as they moved away from the door. I peeked through the letterbox but the hallway was empty and all I could hear was the tap tap tap of knitting needles again.
I walked home, kicking at the pavement as I went, barely noticing the fine rain on my exposed parts of skin. Luckily Mum wasn’t home when I got in, so I sat down at her old computer and started it up. I visualised the room, putting in general descriptions of things I could remember. They were all important and almost priceless works of art.
“I’m home!” Mums voice broke through my thoughts. She stopped to kiss me on the head as she passed to the kitchen.
“How was Gran?”
“Fine....” I thought about the unexplained art. The cupboards opened and shut before pans were seemingly flung round. Probably cheese on toast again. I decided to start searching for news stories about missing pieces of valuable art.
“Supper!”
Trailing into the kitchen, past the half blackened pans, wafting my hand in front of my face to try and see the table. Yep. Cheese on toast. With the crusts cut off. Maybe I’d turn into cheese on toast one day.
