Needlepoint
Claire O’Brien
In winter, Jennet loved to sit in front of the fire and indulge her passion for embroidery.
The tall stone house was full of the things she had made. Crewel work cushions scattered
her bed, and her pillowcases were monogrammed with a lustrous, looping “S” in olive
silk. The old fireside chair which had been her mother’s had been recovered in bright Flo-
rentine work, and even the apron she wore as she stood at the kitchen sink was bordered
with cross-stitch medallions.
The pleasure always began when she opened the old rattan box in the alcove and
pulled out the glossy coils of embroidery silk. There were greens from the forest, parrot’s
breast blues, gunmetal greys and royal purples; scarlets, crimsons and plums, fluorescent
whites and rich browns like a horse’s flank.
Then there was her needle case, worked in black suede, with its collection of tiny sil-
ver darts, each eye open, eager to be chosen. Selecting one, she would hold it up to the
light to be threaded, bringing the flattened end of the silk to the hole to be led through
and doubled up, careful all the while not to catch and spoil the fibres. Her work stretched
tight on the wooden frame, she would let her needle puncture the picture’s surface again
and again, and with each tiny wound the design would grow in complexity. Roman
chain and herringbone, thorn stitch and French knots, backstitch and lazy daisy; each
scrap of tradition merged with the rest in an uproar of illusion.
Mostly she stitched rioting flowers or patterns of abstract geometry but sometimes
Jennet let her pictures tell a story, taking pleasure in the lives of her creations in the
realm she had made. She would whisper words of encouragement as she made their
sun shine or brought their sky alive with stars, tracing her creatures’ paths through the
embroiderery maze. She liked to imagine that somewhere, out there in the world beyond
her windows, her needle was guiding the lives of real people, their fates sewn into her
bright canvases. Hunched over her frame, surrounded by her silks like a spider in its
web, she would stitch and stitch until the moon went down and the sky turned red.
When spring came, Jennet cleaned and polished the grate, setting an arrangement
of dried sea heather where the fire had been. As the days grew brighter she nurtured
her long red hair, massaging it with henna to protect it from the ravages of the sun. She
braided it into waves, piled it on top of her head in a smooth chignon, or let it course
down her back in a rich red stream. She hid from the sun under a wide straw hat that
shaded her shoulders and breast. Beneath the hat, Jennet’s mind was still. Thinking
made her discontented; she did not like to wonder about what might have been had she
done other things or travelled to other places. She was happily alone, she had money
and she had peace. Until, one summer night, she met a man.
She was tempted from her work by the cool breeze of the evening. As she sipped
wine in her friend’s garden before dinner, the man walked right up to her and bowed his
head, smiling. The hostess, ready with a witty introduction, slipped away in amusement.
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Cauldron Anthology