Cable Knit

Cable Knit

Her entry way was curiously empty, bare linoleum with no soul, only the small kitchen at the back beckoning with its sound of the kettle whistling.

Ah, tis grand altogether, she said, as I hovered on her threshold. It was the height of the three day fair that came in like a pagan carnival ruled by a great long-horned mountain goat and went out like a drunken flea circus—the smells of cattle and sheep at my back—the bleating and crying in the street, mud and piss spilling into the doorways. Only the dirty little children sticky with boiled sweets gave us any sense this was supposed to be fun.

She stood with her arms crossed keeping a life of celibacy close and tight against her chest, keeping the cold Irish morning at bay with knotted limbs, keeping those strong fingers warm and ready for her next fierce battle of the knitting needles.

Tis the sweater, ye call it—we'd be calling it a jumper, or a pullover, sure—isn't that what ye're after?

Neither sweater nor jumper seemed adequate descriptions for the thick patterned arrangement of lanolin-heavy wool called an Aran. Yes, yes, I said.

My God, I can smell the turf burning in her back room to this day. And there the stairs that led to her life as spinster seamstress, to the room at the top where miles of fleece combed and spun into yarn struggled against her fingers till they succumbed to the ancient patterns, twists and turns willed into being by this remarkable woman whose keen memory needed no plan written down to make for you something that would ward off wind and cold and much, much more for a very long time.

She jerked her head with half a nod, a timeless country shrug, eyebrows and all, and gave a short tut with her tongue. They say this one's The Tree of Life, she said.