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The Winter Barn

(off Old Woman’s Lane)

Burley Cross

Wharfedale

21/12/06

Ivo,

I just sent you a text – in fact I just sent you an email (I sent you a text about the email) – because I’d just tried to phone you to make sure you downloaded it – and printed it – tonight (all of it, mind? There’s about ten pages. I want them printed and then put into the Threadbare file, pronto – please, please, pretty-please).

When you didn’t answer your phone I left a voice-mail (just ignore it – it was a gratuitous outpouring of hysterical waffle – although, knowing you, you’ll ignore it anyway. You never seem to get around to listening to my messages. Why is that, exactly?).

Oh, God, God, I’m in such a crazy rush! I just want to be sure to catch the six o’clock post (does the post even go at six?). If I don’t manage to catch it then the samples – there’s only two of them, they’re minuscule – won’t reach you until the day after tomorrow and that would be a serious, serious pain in the arse (why am I telling you this? What good will it do? Balls! I’ll definitely miss it at this rate! In fact… Great. I have missed it. I’m screwed. You’re screwed. Carol-Ann’s going to throw the most monumental strop. Brace yourself).

Hang on a minute… It’s just this second dawned on me that it’s Bengt’s Birthday Bash tonight and you’ll probably get pissed as a fart and throw a sickie tomorrow, anyway. I only…

No. No. NO! I don’t believe this! I don’t… My bottom’s soaked! It’s… aaargh! Remember how I told you about that tiny little hole in my bike seat which sucks up water into the foam padding when it rains so that the next time you sit on it…

NOOOO!! I just… I can’t believe I’ve gone and done it again! Tilly, the woman in Threadbare Cottage, told me – she warned me on Friday – to put a plastic bag over it (the seat, Ivo, not my head – although I’m seriously starting to wish I had).

Damn! My beautiful chair’s all wet! It’s that wonderful, padded, red-fabric office chair I got in the Conran Shop sale last year! You told me it was all wrong for The Winter Barn! You told me! You said, ‘Jo-Jo, that thing’s completely at odds with your country aesthetic.’ But would I bloody listen? Would I hell! Well, you were right (again, you smug Teutonic swine)! It’s looked stupid here from the very outset (I was too proud to admit it). And now there’s this huge… Damn, damn, damn!

Okay. Okay. I need to calm down. I’m having a little panic attack. It’s just all been so unbearably … urgh … stressful! I’m on HOLIDAY for Christ’s sake! I just don’t seem able to… that small switch in my head you’re constantly referring to… I just don’t…

DEUTERONOMY!

NEHEMIAH!

ZEPHANIAH!

LAMENTATIONS!

EZEKIEL!!!

YES! YES! YES!

It’s come to me, in a flash, like a divine revelation! The name of the new collection! Scratch the stuff I said in the email (it was all just a pile of crap)! This is perfect! This is fabulous!!!

‘LAMENTATIONS: a modern exercise in old-fashioned restraint,’ The lifestyle collection in colour, textile and print by designer Jo-Jo JOnes with a little help from Ivo-wots-his-name

(Ha ha – serves you right, though).

‘LAMENTATIONS: a tearful celebration of those good,

old-fashioned virtues of

thrift and temperance,’

[I’ve got goose bumps!]

The lifestyle collection in colour, textile and print by…

It’s brilliant! I love it! So timely! So new! So atmospheric! And so incredibly appropriate to the whole ‘Threadbare story-board’ I’ve been working on all these long, hard months… you know – all the bravery and the sadness and the heartbreak and the making-do.

(Yes, yes. I understand perfectly well that ‘Threadbare’ was always the best name for the collection – you’ve said it until you’re blue in the face! But it’s just too blatant! Call me a wimp, but I do happen to want to carry on living here, part-time, in Burley Cross after the collection comes out. Their cottage is literally around the corner! Thirty yards from my front door! It’d be like, ‘Hi, Tilly and Rhona. Yes. Yes. I totally ripped off your entire life’s work, but hey! Whatever…’)

‘LAMENTATIONS: a long, hard journey in

old-fashioned patterns and well-worn threads,’

[Oh, God, I love that! I’m flying now!] from Jo-Jo JOnes, the designer who brought you…

Then, just picture it, Ivo: we’ll use all the other books as paint names, individual fabric names, wallpaper names etc. etc.

Effortless!

I mean, as I’m looking down the contents page, right now, I’m seeing fifteen, eighteen, twenty really, really meaty titles!

LEVITICUS!

OBADIAH!

HABAKKUK!

(Habakkuk? Hmmn. Maybe not). Have I lost you?

Have I…?! It’s a Bible, stupid (you’re always harping on about your deep, Lutheran roots, aren’t you?!)! I’m holding this incredibly, incredibly beautiful Bible in my hands (I’m going to photograph the cover this very second and send it direct to your BlackBerry! In fact, no, I’ll photograph it and send it later, otherwise you’ll just open the document and think I’ve gone loco. Actually, no, you won’t. You’ll understand perfectly. You always do).

I’m holding it in my hands (well, I’m not holding it in my hands – I couldn’t write if I were – it’s sitting on the table, directly in front of me, but I’m holding it in my hands, mentally, while rubbing a tremulous, slightly calloused thumb up and down its well-worn spine) and it’s got this stunning (stunning, stunning, stunning) Arts and Crafts-style design on the front cover: a mix of these three, thick, bottle-green stripes (of irregular width) interspersed with these two very, very red-end burgundy stripes, intercut with four, thin, cream lines, then this absolutely perfect black and cream Coptic-style cross in the middle – the four quarters each with alternating A&C-style graphics going grapes/olives/grapes/olives.

Classic, generous, open font, in cream (I think it might be Baskerville, or something very like… I love Baskerville. There’s something so… so reliable, so trustworthy about the spacing, somehow…).

You’ve just got to see it! I borrowed it from Rhona (it’s hers). She’s the older of the two sisters. Always dresses in grey or black. Very tall with sloping shoulders. Radiates disapproval. Hair drawn back into an unforgiving bun. Should have been a nun. Screams nun. Never smiles. (Why are religious people always so unapologetically bloody miserable? You’d think being religious was a reason to be cheerful! What’s the point of it all, otherwise?)

Well, it’s hers. I asked if I could borrow it last week (just spontaneously). I seriously thought she was going to refuse, but then she handed it over, made some muttered excuse about ‘digging over the raised leek bed’, and left the room (I don’t think she likes me. I don’t think she likes anybody). By rights I should have returned it by now (but thank God I didn’t! Thank God I hung on to it!).

Of course it was at that point – perfect timing, you know me – I discovered the wet bottom thing…

I was astonished! I was horrified! I was like – Oh, my God, my bottom’s all wet! WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE?!?!

Tilly – the younger sister (she’s just so, so gorgeous, Ivo – you’d go perfectly wild for her if she was ten years younger. I’m quite in love with her myself, as a matter of fact. She’s got this wild mass of black curls highlighted with tiny wisps of silver. She’s thin as a pole with dark, dark blue eyes. Skin stretched over her cheekbones like strips of pale brown cow-hide. Dresses like some kind of crazed, pre-Maoist peasant refugee, or a young boy from a lost tribe of ancient Mongolian camel herdsmen; completely unintentional, mind – totally unpremeditated – clothes just look that way when she throws them on her. It’s effortless! Doesn’t have the first clue about how gorgeous she is. Product, make-up etc. an absolute anathema! Barely glances in a mirror… well, she told me… hang on… am I still…?) Hello! – well, she just gazes at my wet bottom, perfectly calmly (she’s so unstintingly practical) and says, ‘That’ll be your bike seat. There’s probably a small hole in it. It was raining earlier. Don’t worry. It happens to me all the time. Just tie a plastic bag over it… the bike