14 The nice little girl

“There are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents, and only one for birthday presents, you know.”
Lewis Carroll

Some things in life soon get forgotten. Other things stick in one’s mind and refuse to budge.

From a very early age I am sent to keep Aunt Jane company during the school holidays and I learn ladylike things from her that I might not have learnt elsewhere. How could I avoid it, given that Aunt Jane is a whizz at anything connected with nearly all the elegant pursuits a gentlewoman has to have at her finger-tips, not counting playing the piano? To compensate for her lack of musical education, she could invent and sing an alto part to any hymn tune. I don’t know if Mama could do that. It is traditional Welsh and I never went to chapel with Mama.

Exactly when the twinset made its first appearance I cannot remember, but it rocked the foundations of my trust in human nature for months if not forever.

I am, as usual, sitting on the stool next to her chair in the warmest room in the farmhouse. They call it ‘the bruce’ and it is the room for cooking, eating, sitting and – in the afternoons and for grownups - snoozing. The farmhouse is centuries old and all the rooms are quite small. It’s one of those buildings that look bigger from the outside than they really are. That’s because it’s built like a fortress. Some of the outside walls are a yard thick. The windows are set into the outside so that there is a really deep inside window shelf to sit on. When you enter the house through the back porch, on your left is an outhouse where they used to deal with the milk before the new buildings were erected. You go down a couple of steps into the house. The bruce is immediately on your right. That is where the family congregates unless there are important visitors, which would mean going through another door into the parlour, which is normally unheated. There is even another room on the other side of the stairs leading up to the bedrooms. That’s where my Aunt’s father-in-law spent his last days. Auntie Ada lived in the room above. Her room smelt much better. After a normal dinner, which is at one o’clock, it’s snooze time, also called a nap but never a siesta. Rich food promotes drowsiness in adults and forty winks are the order of the day. I don’t forty-wink. I just practise whatever skill I am supposed to be mastering.

Push the needle through the left hole made in the previous row, drag the wool round, sling the stitch through, let go. My knitting is more holes than stitches and I frequently lose loops and ought to wait till someone rescues them for me, but I’m not to disturb snoring relatives, so I struggle on. My knitting get holier by the minute. Childish hands are not as skilful as grownup ones. My wool is obstreperous, especially when I get to the let go bit. The tightly wound ball likes to escape and roll somewhere inaccessible. If I loosen my hold on a needle while retrieving it, the stitches unstitch themselves and I’m back at square one, which is a nuisance because I can’t cast on by myself.

All in all, my knitting is not very successful. Is it because I’m having to do it right-handed? Aunt Jane has told me I won’t know any difference since I can’t knit left-handed. Would I have got on better with a hook like in crochet? I have no choice in the matter.

Little snorts from the direction of the armchair tell me that Aunt Jane is well into her forty winks. Her knitting lies smooth, crisp and even over her knees. Her needles would not dare to disengage themselves from the work in hand. The rib is an even right-left-right-left garter stitch. The wool is royal blue. I like royal blue. Sometimes the sky is royal blue. Aunt Jane is also weaving gold coloured wool into a pattern she calls ‘Fair-isle’, which reminds me of George’s pullover, though that was purple, black and green and not very pretty. The blue and gold are like the sun in a blue sky. I’ll never be able to knit like that.

“Who’s it for?” I query when Aunt Jane finally regains consciousness and the rapid clackety-clack of her knitting is resumed.

“It’s for someone a bit like you.”

I am curious. Like a Lewis Carroll character I don’t give up that easily.

“Who is it?” I persist.

“A nice little girl,” I am told.

A nice little girl? What nice little girl?

The jumper grows and grows. First the back, then the front and then the sleeves.

“Can I use your arm to measure the sleeve length for the nice little girl? She’s about your size.”

Begrudgingly, I hold my arm at ninety degrees and the garment is pronounced a perfect fit.

An affront to my intelligence, this misuse of my arm. I hate the nice little girl.

The jumper is finished and stitched together. Now the nice little girl will have a new jumper and I won’t.

A second lot of royal blue knitting is started. I can’t believe my eyes.

“There’s lot of blue and yellow wool over. I think I’ll make the nice little girl a cardigan, too.”

My resentment is great.

I vow not even to think of the nice little girl. I am severely indignant that the twinset is not for me. I am a nice little girl, aren’t I?

I ponder over my recent misdemeanours. Auntie Ada called me a nasty little girl recently. But Auntie Ada has no judgment of human nature. She’s only an infant teacher and she smells of tobacco and Chanel 5.

I realize that I will have to rethink my relationship with Aunt Jane as I have seen it hitherto. My status as favourite niece is being severely challenged by this nice little stranger who deserves a whole twinset while I go empty-handed.

My stay at the farm reaches its inevitable conclusion. This is the first time I am heartily glad when Dada arrives to deliver my little brother, who is to have his turn on the farm, and to take me home. Two of us at once are more than the farm can handle.

“Take your wool home and practise!”

I won’t, I won’t, I decide. Nasty little girls don’t knit.

I don’t, either, until Mama wants to know why. After all, Aunt Jane has given me the wool and needles and will expect improvement by the time I visit her again.

“I can’t cast on and I’ve dropped all the stitches,” I confess.

“Well, bring it all here and I’ll show you how.”

What? Mama has known all along how to do it and hasn’t told me? She probably can’t be bothered. Though she is a bit envious of Aunt Jane’s prowess, she can’t get her act together and show her own skills. Modesty gone mad.

“I’m not a good teacher. Your Aunt Jane is better at it.”

My Aunt Jane is not jealous of anyone. Mama seems to ooze resentment. That makes me sad. Aunt Jane looked after me when I was tiny and called me by a name I liked. Mama is strict and calls me by a name I can’t live up to.

But Mama really can knit. She takes the wool and needles and in the twinkling of an eye there is a row of nice, even starting stitches on the needle. Mama casts on differently from Aunt Jane and it’s a bit of a struggle to coax the needle through, but at least the stitches don’t disengage themselves. My esteem for Mama goes up by leaps and bounds.

I don’t tell Mama about the nice little girl and the twinset. Maybe I should, but Mama does not encourage confidences, so I just torture myself with the notion that the nice little girl is about to be blessed with a twinset knitted with love and affection by nimble fingers and I will have to wear a bought one. I resolve to put Aunt Jane out of my mind. After all, Mama has lots of good qualities, too, like being able to sing, play the piano and knit. And her cooking is much tastier. The dream of being Aunt Jane’s real daughter is no longer desirable and I’m going to make a special effort to be a nicer little girl, if only to prove that I deserved the twinset.

On my birthday, months later, Dada hands me a large, soft parcel. This is from Aunt Jane, he explains. She says the nice little girl doesn’t want it, so you can have it.