Sixpence House by Paul Collins

Author:Paul Collins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2010-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Jennifer has been working steadily, for about a month now, on needlepoint. But not just any needlepoint. She does not work from a pattern. Or rather, she does, but it is an exceedingly complex mathematical formula for the number and color of the stitches, the slight variation of which results in total restructuring, a different sum you might say; it is an abstract needlepoint. It is not so much a representational needlepoint as a mathematical equation rendered in yarn. Even people who can’t sew are liable to engage themselves thus; Hobbes was so fascinated by geometry that, when lolling about in bed, he would take to drawing lines and diagrams on his thighs and on the bedsheets.

We are ensconced back in our apartment, Morgan is asleep, I am staring at the ceiling, and Jennifer is stitching. World Report mumbles drowsily from the kitchen.

“You look perturbed.”

“Mmm?”

“Perturbed.” Stitch. “You look perturbed.”

“Oh, I’m thinking.”

Inevitably: “About?”

“The cover of my book.”

“I thought you’d be thinking about the house falling through.”

“Oh. That too.”

“So the design we sent to Dave . . . ?”

This was a sort of phrenological head with a paste-in of a nightmarish Hogarth study that I had found over at the print shop.

“He doesn’t like it. He said a phrenological head will make it look like a how-to book on improving your memory.”

Jennifer pauses to calculate. Stitch. “So you need a new design?”

“Yeah.”

“Honey, maybe you should go to Booth’s.”

“Booth’s? I just got away from Booth’s.”

“I’m just saying. You might get an idea there.”

“I suppose.”

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