The Pretty Things

Chapter 1: The Sweatshirt

Alfie had always liked visiting his Gran Violet, though he would have struggled to explain precisely why if anyone had asked.

Most people would have called her house cluttered, but Violet herself preferred the term “comfortably full,” and the distinction mattered to her. Every shelf held something – china rabbits, glass birds, faded photographs, dried flowers tied with ribbon – and the wallpaper in the hallway was covered in tiny roses, the cushions never matching each other. There was always a clock ticking somewhere and usually something baking in the oven, and Alfie liked it because nothing in Violet’s house seemed to have rules. Things simply existed because somebody had liked them well enough to keep them.

On a rainy Saturday afternoon in March, he arrived to find Violet kneeling in front of a large wicker basket in the sitting room.

“Ah, there you are,” she said, without looking up. “Help me stand, would you?”

Alfie put down his coat and offered a hand, and she rose with the careful dignity of someone who had decided long ago not to be defeated by her own body.

“Thank you, dear. My knees are becoming increasingly decorative.”

“Decorative?”

“Completely useless, but still attached.” She patted his arm and returned her attention to the basket. “I have something for you.”

Alfie smiled. Violet often had something for him, sometimes a book she’d found in a charity shop, sometimes a tin of biscuits she was convinced he liked, and once, memorably, a brass doorbell because she’d forgotten why she’d bought it.

“What is it?”

“This.” She triumphantly pulled a folded sweatshirt from the basket.

Alfie blinked. The sweatshirt was pale blue and covered in rabbits, not ordinary rabbits, but rabbits wearing bonnets and carrying flowers and sitting contentedly in tiny embroidered gardens. For a moment neither of them spoke.

Then Violet held it up against him. “Oh yes. About your size.”

Alfie looked at the rabbits. They looked very cheerful. “It belonged to a friend’s niece,” Violet explained. “Well, it was supposed to. Didn’t fit her. Then Brenda gave it to me because she thought I might know someone who’d like it.”

Alfie took the sweatshirt and was immediately struck by how soft the fabric was. “It’s nice,” he said honestly.

“It is nice.” Violet seemed pleased that they had reached the same conclusion.

He examined one of the rabbits embroidered near the pocket, which wore a blue bonnet decorated with tiny daisies, and found himself smiling before he realised what he was doing, and then, realising it, stopped. Violet didn’t notice, or if she did, she said nothing.

“It’s blue,” she announced after a moment, as though presenting a particularly convincing argument.

“Right.”

“So there we are.”

Alfie wasn’t entirely sure what conclusion she had reached, but Violet appeared satisfied with it, and before he could say anything she thrust the sweatshirt back towards him. “Put it on.”

“Now?”

“Of course now. I need to know whether it fits.”

He hesitated only briefly, because he didn’t actually mind, not really. The rabbits were rather charming. He pulled off his hoodie and took the blue sweatshirt and pulled it over his head and it slipped on easily, the sleeves falling to exactly the right length.

“Oh, that’s lovely,” Violet said. Alfie looked down and the rabbits looked back, and somehow the sweatshirt felt even softer once it was on.

“It fits.”

“Excellent.” The matter settled, she marched towards the kitchen. “Dinner in half an hour.”

Alfie followed more slowly, and as he passed the hall mirror he caught sight of his own reflection. The pale blue suited him. The rabbits were impossible to ignore. For no reason he could explain, seeing them there made something warm flutter inside his chest, a small, pleasant feeling of the kind he never quite knew what to do with, and he looked away before he could think about it too much.

By the time dinner was ready, the rain was tapping gently against the windows, and Alfie sat at the kitchen table while Violet stirred a pot on the stove. The room smelled of vegetables and herbs and fresh bread, and everything felt comfortable. Safe.