My niece Jess lives with Grant and Bec in the very hot Western Suburbs of Sydney. And as the sweat on the back of my shirt is only just drying, there is no need for me to do a double take on what season it is.
‘A beanie?’ Jeff presses.
‘It’s in the colour of Jake’s team,’ Mum clarifies.
Jake is Jess’ partner . . . who plays soccer . . . in winter . . . also in the usually mild temperatures of the Western Suburbs.
There are so many crafts verging on extinction, which would have probably died out a generation ago, were it not for our mothers. Every once in a while a resurgence of one or other will occur, but it’s questionable whether they will continue into future generations. For her part, Mum churns out any number of projects a year – knitted grapes for our wine tasting room, a cuddly toy of our naughty black cat Leroy, twin twinsets for twins born to a woman I once worked with sixteen years ago . . . though she has stopped short of whipping up some cushion covers for Jeff.
‘Do you think you’ll be able to knit me a jumper next, Jude?’ Jeff asks.
‘Oh, I can’t knit anything too big in summer, no way. It makes my hands all sweaty. But don’t worry, Jiffy, come the cooler months I’ll get cracking on your jumper. I’ve already got the pattern and bought the acrylic wool.’
‘After Jeff’s jumper, do you think you could knit me an oversized cardigan with enormous pockets?’ I ask.
‘But why?’
I silently note that Jeff’s request was not questioned, nor the fact that he already owns two jumpers courtesy of Jude.
‘I saw a host on telly wearing one and I thought, “Gee that looks comfy. I’m gonna get Mum to knit me one of those.”’
‘I can . . . but it just depends on how far I get with Jeff’s jumper. I don’t want to take on another big project late in winter or anything.’
‘Yes Jude, best to prioritise my jumper over anything for your own son,’ Jeff says.
‘My thoughts exactly!’ she agrees a little too readily.
‘Maybe you should just wear gloves and knit large things in the summer months too, Mum?’
Suddenly her needles stop clicking so I prepare myself for a fingernail tap to fill the silence.
‘Actually, it’s too hot even for a beanie today,’ Mum says with a sigh and pops the wool and needles back into her bag.
‘I can drive you home and put you under the air-conditioning so you can get a start on that jumper for Jeff, if you like,’ I offer.
Mum just frowns, then happily informs the car, ‘Bec’s going to teach me to krosher.’
‘What’s that? A form of Jewish knitting?’ I can’t hide the smile on my face.
‘Oh, you can be a little smartie when you want to be. Okay, crochet – is that better?’
‘If you can get your head out of one of your puzzle books for more than a minute.’ Dad’s words are less clue-like and more straight answer.
‘That reminds me, I need a new jumbo one,’ Mum says to no one in particular.
It’s true that if Mum isn’t in the family room knitting or reading a book, she will be found at the dining room table with a black and white crossword magazine in front of her, her reading glasses poised on the end of her nose, pen in mind air, head slightly tilted while she digs deep in her brain to unearth the answer to yet another clue. Like military service for youth in some countries, I think the Australian government should make word puzzles compulsory for all those over the age of sixty. They definitely keep my Mum’s mind sharp.
On my arrival, Mum will get up from the table to make me a cup of tea, so I take the opportunity to help her out with her puzzle, just on the few really tricky clues that are clearly beyond her.
‘Thirty-two across. Commandeer. Six letters. Something something something A something K,’ I test her aloud.
‘Well, I hadn’t got to that one yet, Toddy,’ she protests although all other clues in its vicinity have been solved.
‘It’s “hijack”, Mum,’ I cheer victoriously.
I fill in several more answers while the kettle boils. In truth, her skills as a cruciverbalist (I just googled that) far exceed mine.
Sometimes, well after I’ve left, I will receive a text message from her: You got two answers wrong on my crossword. Thanks for nothing!
‘How can she always have her face in a crossword book Dad, if she’s always out in the garden?’ I egg him on as he looks out at the scenery we pass.
‘Eh?’
‘THE PLANTS!’
‘Loves them more than me!’
‘Didn’t Costa feature your garden on Gardening Australia, Jude?’
‘Wh—?’ she begins to take the bait but to save her the indignity, Jeff gets straight to the punchline.
‘As an example of a plant hoarder? Took him four and a half years to thin out your garden to just six thousand species!’
‘I like plants.’ Mum delivers just a slight understatement. ‘So what? I don’t see you two complaining when I hand over fresh veggies!’
Unfortunately, Mum lacks one of the key ingredients to successful gardening. Patience. Her lack thereof results in the early harvesting of most things, well before they’re ripe. Still-green carrots, capsicums so hard you need a chainsaw to slice through them, and oranges so bitter they make your cheeks meet in the middle of your mouth. Rather than carefully separating carrot seedlings to plant each one individually, for example, she has a ‘shove it in any which way’ approach, meaning much of her produce is horrendously deformed. Sometimes beyond recognition.
‘Thanks for the . . . veggies,’ I’ll say, for fear that I’ll incorrectly identify what she’s given us.
