Alison Wilson
Beeston u3a
East Midlands region
The Knitter
Ruth arrived at the station.
There was no-one in sight on the platform of the windswept commuter station that Sunday morning.
During the working week, the place teemed with people. Little ants, her parents called them, all hurrying and scurrying along the platforms, onto and off the trains going to and from the city. It was quieter on Saturdays, when people headed out to the Mall at the other end of the line. But not on Sundays, when the Mall didn’t open until mid- morning.
Ruth’s parents were like the ants, working hard during the week in offices in the city, constantly drained by the stress of their jobs. They meant to spend time on Sundays with her, their only child, but increasingly it didn’t happen. Not that she minded.
An automated announcement alerted her to the arrival of the train. As it slowed to a stop in the station he appeared beside her and together they boarded it. They sat in an empty carriage, and he reached inside his coat and took out his knitting.
Today he had some thin pale blue wool, and fine needles. She watched him, not speaking in case it disturbed his concentration. The train stopped a couple of times, but no-one came into their carriage. As it pulled into the station in the city he returned the needles and wool to his inside pocket, and for the first time since getting on the train, smiled at her.
She smiled back, thinking how much she loved his face, with its scar on the forehead (from a fight with his older brother he’d told her), the rings on his fingers, (which somehow didn’t get in the way of the knitting), the tattoos on his arms of mythical creatures (he’d told her they were from the Scandinavian legends his grandmother had been keen on), and his scruffy eco-warrior type dress style. Most people took one look at him then turned away.
But Ruth had been drawn to him the first time she’d seen him. She’d not been able to believe it when she’d got close enough to see what he was doing, his appearance being so much at odds with the activity. They’d not talked much at first, but soon she sensed that he liked it when she was around. He said he liked to listen to her talk while he worked, so she did. She talked about what was going on in her life, and he smiled at her but said little about himself. She was so happy to be with him that she didn’t notice. She knew he was older than her, but that was all she knew.
They got off and walked towards the side entrance of the park. He bought them coffees from the kiosk, then they walked slowly towards their favourite benches, away from the main paths, drinking as they walked.
What he did talk about was knitting. He’d told her that he’d been taught by his mother, to his father’s disgust, when he’d been ill for a long time, as a sort of therapy. He never followed patterns, just worked them out in his mind and could copy almost anything. If anyone made comments he didn’t get upset, or answer back, just put what he was working on back in his inside pocket until he was on his own again. She never saw any of the finished work, as he seemed to be working on something different each time she saw him. He told her he was a member of an online group that were heavily into yarn bombing: not just on post boxes in villages, but large scale ones which included slogans that were being found on public buildings and in public places. His face came alive when he talked about knitting.
They moved away to other parks if it got busy, walking the streets hand in hand. Sometimes he talked about the places he’d like to ‘bomb’, and what he’d put there. He talked about others in the group, many of whom were much older, but who were all dedicated knitters. She loved the way he talked about it, so completely at odds with everything else about him.
All too soon they’d start heading back towards the train station, home. They didn’t say goodbye, just smiled at each other as they went their separate ways at the exit, knowing that they’d meet again the following Sunday.
That was, until he didn’t turn up.
As the train pulled in on the Sunday morning, no-one appeared by her side at the last minute and got on with her. She made the journey into the city on her own, hoping he’d have got on the train late and come to find her. But he didn’t. She waited for a while in the station, in case he was there, then gave up and walked the way they’d always walked, towards the park. At ‘their’ drinks kiosk she bought a coffee, hoping that he’d appear. She walked to the benches they sat on, but he wasn’t there. Eventually she gave up, and went back to the station, taking the next train home, cursing herself for not knowing how to contact him and for being swept up in her idea of the romance of the relationship. During the week she tried to trace him through social media, joining the yarn bombing pages but he had either dropped out, or was well-hidden, and she failed to find him.
The following Sunday she went early to the station, but this time waited, didn’t get on the train. He didn’t appear. For several weeks she did this, just in case.
Finally, under pressure from her parents, she decided to go one last time, on her birthday.
As the time neared for the train that they’d always taken to arrive, the electronic announcement crackled into life – but with a different message.
‘Would Miss Ruth Jones please go to the ticket office, where there is something waiting for her’, came the voice. Looking round, and seeing no-one else, Ruth got up and walked to the ticket office as requested. Although closed earlier, it was now open and an official inside pointed to a box on the floor.
‘Lady asked us to give you this, today,’ he said, watching Ruth’s disbelieving face with a smile. ‘Said she knew you’d be here’. Ruth stammered a ‘thank you’, then took the box back to the bench to open.
Inside was the most beautiful doll she’d ever seen, although the word ‘doll’ hardly did it justice. It was a knitted mini version of him, with the scar on his face, his tattoos, his clothes – even his rings – clearly visible. She recognised some of the blue wool she’d seen him working with, not knowing it was for her.
There were two envelopes as well. One looked like a birthday card, written in what she guessed was his handwriting, and sealed. The other was an unsealed card. She opened this one first, and read the message:
‘So sorry to have to tell you this way, but John died in hospital shortly after you last saw him, finally losing his long battle with leukaemia. We know how much you meant to him, and hope the final knitting that he was able to do will help you get over him.
Love, Ian and Sue, John’s parents.’
It wasn’t until she got home that she could open the card from John.