Divas Don't Knit (40 page)

It’s Friday morning and we’re all standing outside the library with our knitting, ready to storm the barricades. Although actually, we’re rather short on the barricade front, but we have got a rather nervous-looking policeman who Gran knows because he does the Neighbourhood Watch meetings where you’re supposed to call him Mike and tell him about any suspicious incidents. He takes notes, apparently, and there’s a special number you can use if you think you’ve spotted a bogus caller. He’s just told us we’re not allowed to cause an obstruction in the lobby, so we’re standing outside on the pavement in a sort of semi-circle, feeling rather self-conscious, until Angela rather surprisingly takes charge.

‘Do you think we ought to sit down? We could go and get some more chairs, I’ve got two folding picnic ones in my car,
and then it would look like more of a demonstration, wouldn’t it? Like those people who lie down in the middle of roads.’

Linda’s not convinced.

‘I’m not lying down in the road with my back, Ange, thanks all the same, and anyway it’ll be filthy and I’ve just had this coat dry-cleaned. And you know what some of those bus drivers are like: they’d drive right over you.’

‘Yes, but we don’t have to actually be in the road, we can stay on the pavement. I think it would look more serious than if we’re all standing about chatting.’

Elsie nods. ‘Yes, and we’ve still got nearly an hour to go before the meeting, and that’s quite a long time to be standing up, especially with my legs.’

Twenty minutes later we’ve got a collection of camping stools and picnic chairs and a deckchair, and we’re all sitting knitting and having a fabulous time. Gran and Reg are passing round beakers of tea from the giant thermos flasks they’ve borrowed from the Bowls Club, and Mark and Connie have brought a selection of mini-muffins, which PC Mike is looking at rather longingly, but when we offer him one he says he’d better not because he’ll probably be tucking into a banana muffin just as his sergeant drives past, and it’s not really approved police procedure at public demonstrations. But he puts one in his pocket for later, which as Gran says will be a nice treat for him when he gets back to the station.

Reg hands me a plastic beaker full of tea. ‘No, sugar, that’s right isn’t it, love?’

‘Yes, thanks, Reg.’

‘We should have a song. We always had songs in the war, and it keeps your spirits up if you’re all singing.’

Gran smiles at him. ‘Go on, then, start us off, Reg.’

We’re singing I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside, and Maggie and Miss Kingsley, the head librarian, are standing
watching us from the window, looking delighted, when Lady Denby arrives on a very rickety old bicycle which she leans up against the railings.

PC Mike steps forward. ‘I’m afraid you can’t leave that there, madam.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. I always put it here when I come to the library.’

He gets his notebook out of his pocket. ‘Can I have your name, madam?’

‘No, you cannot. Absolute cheek.’

PC Mike is looking a bit shaken now, and starts writing something down in his notebook as Angela comes to his rescue.

‘Could we just move it over here, Lady Denby? It’ll be out of the way, and we wouldn’t want to risk it falling on anyone, would we? Oh good, I see you’ve brought your knitting.’

Elsie stands up and offers Lady Denby her seat, and Angela wheels the bike to the railings by the pedestrian crossing.

Reg holds up his thermos. ‘Would you like a cup of tea, Lady Denby? It’s only beakers, I’m afraid.’

‘I would, thank you.’

Gran hands her a yellow plastic beaker.

‘What shall we sing next then, Reg? What about Daisy, Daisy, Give Me Your Answer, Do? Does everyone know that one?’

‘Shouldn’t we be chanting as well? You know, like they do on the telly.’

Tina looks at Linda. ‘What do you mean, chanting?’

‘You know, where they say, What do we want? and When do we want it? Now. That one.’

Everyone thinks this is an excellent idea, and we’re having a practice run when the man from the local paper arrives. I think they must have sent their most junior reporter because he isn’t the same one who did the piece on the shop, and he only looks about fifteen. He’s brought his camera with him though, and
nearly gets run over standing in the road trying to fit us all in. Cath helps him get all our names written down, and gives him a muffin, which cheers him up, and then everything suddenly steps up a gear. Ellen arrives with an outside-broadcast van, which half blocks the high street, and Maxine rings to say Grace is on her way, and they’ve told a few people about it so we better brace ourselves for snappers, and then we’re surrounded by young men in jeans and trainers and woolly hats snapping away and shouting things like ‘Over here, darling’ at Gran and Betty, who are thrilled and doing their best smiles.

Lady Denby starts giving an interview to the man from the local paper, dictating to him and making him read back what she’s said about how important local libraries are for the community, and how she likes a good Agatha Christie herself, or historical fiction, and she’s just read a marvellous one about India, only she can’t remember the name, but it had a dog in it, and then a familiar black jeep arrives and Grace gets out and the boys in the woolly hats go into a complete frenzy.

I’m standing with Ellen, watching Elsie and Betty surreptitiously trying to move their chairs a bit closer to the action.

‘This is fabulous. So what’s the plan now, darling?’

‘Plan?’

‘You want her sitting in the middle of you all, otherwise they’ll just run with ones of her and the library won’t get a mention. And then you’ll have to get them to back off for a bit while I do my interview. Yes?’

‘Oh, yes, right.’

I spot Maxine standing by the car, and together we manage to get Grace sitting on Tina’s deckchair with her knitting, which is the perfect shade of lavender cotton to match her dress, and PC Mike starts talking on his radio as the photographers go into overdrive again. Getting Grace back up out of the deckchair turns out to be a bit more of a challenge than I’d anticipated, and with hindsight perhaps it wasn’t the perfect
choice of seat for a heavily pregnant megastar, but she copes very well and Tina’s thrilled to have been of assistance. We make our way over to Ellen, but before we get to her Lady Denby nips in for a quick word.

Maxine nudges me. ‘Christ, it’s that mad woman who came round the house. You’ll have to rescue her, I got stuck with her for hours last time. Go on, quick, before she gets going.’

‘I’m terribly sorry, Lady Denby, but we need Grace over here for a moment.’

‘Right you are. Isn’t it all absolutely marvellous? This’ll put a spanner in their pipes.’

We walk towards Ellen, and Maxine steps forward, back in professional mode. ‘Grace, this is Ellen Malone, who’s doing the interview we talked about.’

‘Oh yes, sure.’

Ellen does one of her Big Smiles.

‘It’s lovely to meet you, and thank you so much for agreeing to talk to us.’

Maxine stays standing in front of Grace. ‘No problem. Two minutes, and no questions, right?’

‘Of course. I thought maybe over here?’

Grace stands in front of everyone, and does her piece to camera, looking very beautiful and completely calm, while everyone sits knitting and trying to look determined. I’m standing to one side with Maxine and feeling rather nervous; this would not be a good time for Ellen to ask one of her tricky questions.

‘So, Grace, why are you here today?’

Grace smiles, and looks directly into the camera, which is usually a mistake, but of course with her it’ll be great.

‘Because they’re threatening to close our local library, and I’ve always been passionate about libraries. My mum used to take me every week, and it opened up a whole new world for me. And I want to help make sure that other children have the same chance.’

She pauses for a second or two, and puts her hand on her tummy. ‘Making sure our children have access to as many books as possible, for free: it doesn’t get much better than that, does it, Ellen?’

‘So you’ll be bringing your baby here, when it’s old enough?’

Grace smiles. ‘I’d love to. I’m really looking forward to reading some of my favourite books again, ones my mum used to read to me when I was little, and I’m hoping we can come here and read with the other children. But we won’t be able to if they’ve closed the library, which I’m sure you’ll agree would be a complete tragedy. We need lots more libraries, not less.’

Maxine steps forwards and Ellen nods.

‘Let me just check we got that.’

The cameraman gives her a thumbs-up.

‘Thanks so much, Grace, that was great. And any time you fancy an interview, you know who to call, right?’

‘Sure.’

‘And good luck with the baby.’

‘Thanks.’

‘When’s it due?’

Grace laughs. ‘Yesterday, tomorrow, next month, who knows? Lovely to have met you, Ellen.’ She turns to Maxine and me. ‘Jo, walk with us to the car, would you? Oh, look, here come the enemy.’

Two men in very smart suits are walking towards the library steps, carrying expensive briefcases and looking extremely annoyed.

Cath starts up the ‘What do we want? To save our library’ chant as they go inside, rather quickly. In fact, they almost sprint up the steps.

‘Thanks so much, Grace. You were brilliant.’

‘Happy to help.’

Maxine smiles. ‘We’ve got a statement ready if we get any
calls, so just put them on to me if they ask you anything about Grace, yes?’

‘Of course.’

‘And thanks, Jo, this was great. Ed’s really pleased. It’s exactly the kind of thing we want to be doing – local issues and all that. I’ll call you later, and let you know what calls we get, shall I?’

‘Thanks, and I’m sorry about the deckchair.’

Grace smiles, and there’s another flurry from the snappers as she gets back into the car, and a round of applause from everyone sitting knitting and chanting, which goes down very well because she opens the window and waves as the car drives off, and she doesn’t usually do that.

Ellen’s looking very pleased. ‘That was great.’

‘She was brilliant, wasn’t she? I was a bit worried it seemed so short, though.’

‘No, it was fine. She knows exactly what she’s doing, and it was great that she said my name. Very classy. Her skin’s bloody amazing, isn’t it?’

‘I know.’

‘Oh, here we go, they’ve brought in reinforcements. It’s amazing how megastars always bring out the top brass.’

She turns to look at a police car arriving with its blue lights flashing.

‘God, I hope they haven’t come to arrest us.’

‘What for? Knitting in a public place?’

‘No, but they don’t look very happy, do they?’

A rather senior-looking policeman arrives and goes over to talk to PC Mike, while the driver gets out and starts rather unnecessarily directing the traffic.

‘Go over and do one of your special charm offensives, would you, please, Ellen?’

‘Oh Christ, do I have to? I thought we could go to the pub.’

‘I can’t go to the pub in the middle of the knit-in. And
anyway, it’s shut; Connie and Mark are both here. Just go over and sort him out, please, before he arrests Lady Denby or something.’

The snappers take a few more photographs of us all sitting knitting as the councillors and the people from the Planning Department start to arrive, and Ellen signs autographs for PC Mike and the new grumpy one, and shows him inside the camera van, and he starts looking a great deal happier and stands by the doors of the library, evidently quite pleased with himself while the snappers take lots of pictures of Ellen, and then the men in the smart suits come back out, and walk very quickly back up the high street.

Linda laughs. ‘Looks like the meeting didn’t last quite as long as they planned. Should we stay here until the rest of them come out?’

‘Let’s give it a bit longer, shall we? They’re bound to come back out soon.’

I’m standing with Connie and Ellen when the man from the local paper comes over, looking a bit panicky.

‘I don’t think I got any good photographs of Grace Harrison. I mean, I tried but they kept pushing me out of the way; they’re very aggressive, some of those photographers. She won’t be coming back by any chance, will she?’

‘Sorry.’

‘I got one of you and Miss Malone, though, and I got a good one of her getting back into the car. Do you think that will be enough?’

Ellen smiles. ‘I’m sure it will.’

‘I couldn’t have your autograph, could I? Only I know my boss would like it, and it might help when he sees my photographs. He tends to throw things when he gets angry.’

‘Of course. I’ll give you a quote, if you like. Would that help?’

‘That would be brilliant.’

The planning department people come out first, in a little huddle, and practically run up the road, and then the local councillors, including Angela’s husband, Peter, who looks livid.

‘What on earth are you doing here, Angela? I thought I made myself perfectly clear.’

We all pretend we’re not listening.

‘I’m making my own mind up for a change, Peter.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I’m just doing what I think is right.’

‘It’s only a proposal, I’ve told you. It might not happen.’

‘Well, it had better not.’

He starts to splutter.

‘I mean it, Peter.’

He stomps off towards the car park.

Tina laughs.

‘You certainly told him where to get off, Ange.’

Angela’s gone pink. ‘I think it’s about time, don’t you? I’ve let him have his own way for far too long.’

Linda stands up. ‘We’re all off to the pub for a sandwich. Why don’t you join us?’

‘Do you know, I think I might.’

Linda smiles. ‘Good for you. Right, then, everyone back to the pub, and mine’s a double. Come on, Connie, we’ll race you.’