Chapter 12
We didn’t stop talking the rest of the way.
Lucy asked questions, listening hard, and then answered mine in turn.
She explained she’d been living in London for years and only moved back to Sandycove this time last year, just before the fateful regatta.
‘It was now or never. I could see myself living in Stepney forever…’ She paused.
‘I’d become totally Stepneyfied. It’s an actual condition.
You start speaking a different way, dropping consonants, wearing tinted glasses during the day, only eating food if you’ve met the person who grew it.
Cycling becomes your entire personality.
I even went around wearing an aviator hat, and I’m scared of flying.
Anyway, I used to bring over Gran’s jumpers and people would fall on them, giving me far too much money for them.
Gran would have been mortified, so I made a few donations to Women’s Aid, but then it was time.
There I was, fully living the Stepney dream, wearing the ridiculous glasses, the handmade shoes, eschewing deodorant, brushing my teeth with a twig… ’
‘Urgh!’ I said, making her laugh.
‘Not quite that bad, but that was next on my Stepney bingo card. Anyway, so I knew my heart had always been in Sandycove. I was missing Mam and Gran, of course. And Henry, as much as you can miss an interfering big brother. And my best friend Ellie. So I left the bedsit, waved goodbye and came home. Arrived on my mother’s doorstep with a shaved head like a Tibetan monk, wearing the tinted specs.
Somehow they were lost that first night I was home. I haven’t seen them since.’
We were passing a large house on the corner of the road, the outside a little shabby compared to the others on our journey, but there was something beautiful about it.
There was a large porch running along the front of the house, with a wheelchair just outside the front door.
The garden was overgrown with gnarled and twisted apple trees, the lawn covered in daisies and dandelions, the old rose bushes were a tangled mess, the roses fading to brown on the branches.
I was about to ask who lived there, when Lucy hurried on.
‘I’ve been talking too much,’ she said. ‘Gran will be wondering where we’ve got to.’
Just beyond, we turned into a smaller road to a row of small terraced houses and there was one with a yellow door which Lucy pushed open and I followed her inside.
‘Gran?’ she called. ‘We’re home! And we’re starving!’
We walked through the house into the small but beautifully overstuffed kitchen.
There was a large pine table, the sink as part of a unit from perhaps the 1980s, a kitchen dresser which looked ancient and a large modern unit that was crammed with piles of papers, glassware, cups, photographs of Lucy and Henry through the years, both of them in various boats, smiling and squinting at the camera.
In one corner was an old armchair, faded and sagging, a basket of wool on the floor.
Coming in from the garden was a woman around Granny Annie’s age: small, with white hair cut short, and a long linen dress with a harlequin-pattern hand-knitted waistcoat on top.
‘Gran, this is Kerry-Anne Daly, from Boston,’ said Lucy, who was drinking apple juice straight from the carton.
The woman took hold of my hands in hers. ‘Well, you’re very welcome. I’m Mary. You’re from Boston, aren’t you? I’ve always wanted to visit. And you’re a Daly, so an Irish family?’
‘My grandfather’s family was from Waterford, I think. I keep meaning to go there.’
‘Well, you should…’
Lucy interrupted. ‘Gran, where are the jumpers? Shall I go and fetch them?’
‘Something to bring back to Boston with me,’ I said.
‘I heard a Boston winter is a thing to be reckoned with,’ said Mary. ‘Now, how bright do you like your colours?’
‘Not too bright. Navy?’
‘That would suit you,’ said Mary, ‘with your blonde hair and all. And your smart blazer.’
‘She’s not going to wear it with the jacket,’ said Lucy. ‘And I am surprised you want a hand-knitted jumper. You’re very smart. You’d stick out like a sore thumb in Stepney.’
Mary was on her knees, the doors of the kitchen dresser wide open, and then she pulled out an exquisite cardigan. The wool soft, like cashmere, the knit was intricate and complicated. I held it in my hands, marvelling at it.
‘It’s incredible. And you could sell it to me?’
‘There’s an imperfection,’ said Mary. ‘The ribbing is slightly wavy at the side. I’ll give it to you.’
I peered at it, trying to see this supposed imperfection, but I couldn’t find it. ‘I’ll only take it if you will accept full price.’
‘But what use is it to me, not being worn?’ said Mary. ‘I knit for people, as gifts. Or they just give me money for the wool and all that.’
‘Why don’t you sell them professionally?’
‘Kerry-Anne’s job is getting people to start up businesses,’ explained Lucy.
‘Well,’ said Mary, ‘funny you should say that because my two friends Finnuala and Sheila were saying exactly the same thing.’
‘Well, you should,’ I said.
‘I’ll tell you something, I will give it to you for free, if you meet with Finnuala and Sheila and give them some advice,’ said Mary.
‘They’re mad keen to turn this into a business.
There are other knitters in the village and, years ago, there used to be a knitting circle, a co-operative cottage industry. My own mother was on it.’
‘I’ll meet them,’ I said. ‘I’d love to.’
Mary looked pleased. ‘I’ll give Finnuala a quick call now and tell her. Lucy, make sure you both serve yourself.’
We listened to her talk. ‘Yes, from Boston… a business guru… well, it is a good idea… we could, we could… it’s worth talking about. The Pier? 11.30 a.m.? I’ll tell her…’
She put down her phone. ‘Finnuala and Sheila will be at the harbour in the morning. At the Forty Foot. Would that work for you?’
‘Of course. I’m not doing anything else.’ And it would give my day a little shape and structure, which it so badly needed. ‘How will I recognise them?’
‘Oh, they’re hard to miss,’ said Lucy. ‘They never stop talking.’
Mary flung a red-checkered tablecloth over the table, and lit a small candle in the middle, as Lucy laid out cutlery and crockery, and we sat down to eat.
And I have to say, it was the most delicious thing I’ve perhaps ever had.
Mashed potatoes and also floury potatoes with butter, and then more butter, the chicken pie was delicious, the kind of food Granny Annie makes but perhaps even tastier.
And then for dessert we had custard and stewed apple and cups of tea.
We talked for a while in that small kitchen, the candle flickering, and they asked all about life in Boston, and told me about Sandycove, until I felt my eyelids begin to close as the jet lag kicked in, and Lucy walked me back to the hotel.