The Woollen Jumper

1

Despite the bitter chill of November making her wheezing worse, Catriona insisted on having all the windows wide open. But, even after washing the freshly sheared fleece five times in lukewarm water, the stink of the Jacob's ewe impregnated the most remote corner of the cottage.

Through a gap in the feather duvet that cloaked her, Catriona gave me one of her rare smiles. ‘I'm icing up over here. Get off your lazy arse, shove a couple more sticks on the stove, then plonk your Sassenach feet on the pedals.’

Every Friday after fixing frozen pipes, putting in new water heaters or whatever moonlighting odd-job I could lay my mitts on, I would trudge from house to house picking up whatever leftover scraps the neighbours left us to make the organic dyes Catriona needed to stain the yarn.

Sacks overflowing with onion skins, beetroot tops, and used tea bags lay scattered round the kitchen floor. Strips of banana peel shared hooks with spanners and pipe cutters in my workshop. Jars full of rusted nails soaked in apple cider vinegar to fix the dyes piled up in the garage.

We spent every weekend carding the wool with a special contraption she rescued from her uncle’s farm, combing it out meticulously so as not to snap the fibres. In the evenings, Catriona would tease it through her grandmother’s spinning wheel.

While I gave the pedals hell, she twisted the fibres of the wool till a thread of uneven thickness snaked round the teak spindle. For her, it was perfect.

‘Every knot in the sweater will remind you of me.’

All the while, she sang Gaelic waulking songs picked up from her mother, and looked at me with tearful eyes. We both knew she didn't have long. ‘I want this garment to be a special present for you. Only for you.’

Before carrying Catriona upstairs to bed, my final task of the evening was to stretch my hands out for her to make sheaf after sheaf. Then I’d put the balls of wool to soak overnight in one of the three tin buckets according to what colour she wanted to dye them. Crimson, ochre or lavender.

2

She presented me with the knitted sweater on Christmas Eve, the last we would spend together. When I tried it on, a peculiar energy inundated me, a pleasant glow I had never experienced before. A marvellous present. A creation of art and of love. I felt my muscles more vigorous, more sculpted. It was as if Catriona was hugging me in the same manner as she did when she could.

Everybody remarked on how grand it was and how suitable it would be for the bleak winter we were having.

The morning of her funeral, on the twelfth day of Christmas, I put it on instead of the conventional black.

3

On the last Friday of February, during a cold snap, I first met Gloria when I went to fix her boiler. We arranged to go out the following evening to have a drink. On Sunday morning, while we were having breakfast in her living room, she commented on the jumper. I didn't fancy going into many details and limited myself to stating it was a gift.

When I got out of the shower, Gloria was wearing it and admiring herself in the mirror. ‘Look. What do you reckon?’

Before she could finish the sentence, the bay window gusted open with a savage force. The look on Gloria's face changed. Her grin evaporated and an expression of horror took over her face. ‘I can't breathe. Get it off me.’

The jersey was tightening more and more round her neck and wrists with every second, rendering its removal impossible. Gloria’s hands went white, then blue. I tugged and yanked in vain. She nodded towards the back yard, but I didn't understand. Desperately, she made a scissor cutting gesture with her swollen fingers.

The pruning shears snapped in pieces. The hedge cutters went blunt immediately, but I took some half metre pliers from my tool case and, strand by strand, I cut her out of the wool corseted constrictor.

Gloria got out of hospital three days later with four cracked ribs and both wrists sprained. Since then, she hasn't returned my phone calls or read my messages. I spotted her two days ago on Johnson Street, but she dashed across to the other pavement and hailed a taxi.

I’ve never believed in magic, but every time I visit Catriona’s grave, I only wear cotton clothes. 

 

by Alan Joseph Kennedy