Book of Lost Threads

8
Mrs Pargetter and Lusala Ngilu

WHILE MRS PARGETTER AND ERROL III discussed the details, a young man, newly arrived in New York, was nervously presenting his credentials to a frowning official.
‘Lusala Ngilu, University of Nairobi, Kenya,’ he said. ‘I’m here for the internship.’ A diffident young man, with serious eyes and a slight facial tic, he had been chosen from his year at the University of Nairobi to work in the office of the United Nations. He wore one of the crisp white shirts his mother had lovingly starched and folded, and the silk tie his father had given him before he left. He looked at the other man’s tie and wondered if his were not too colourful. The official’s eyes strayed to Lusala’s chest, and the young man almost apologised. A present from my father, he could have said with a smile that would show him to be a man of the world. Shamed to have even thought this, Lusala flushed. His father was a good man, worthy of respect.
After a brief orientation, he was sent to the mailroom, where, some weeks later, he opened the first consignment of tea cosies with Mrs Pargetter’s letter.
23 Mitchell St
Opportunity
Victoria
Australia

Quartermaster
United Nations
New York
United States of America
Dear Sir,
Please find enclosed one dozen assorted tea cosies to be distributed amongst the world’s poor as you or the Secretary General sees fit. It is my aim to send these every year around September. As I have no family to knit for, I expect to be able to send around one hundred in each parcel.
You may save some for yourself and your colleagues, although I imagine that you have all the necessary supplies.
I would expect that no more than half a dozen, preferably from the next consignment, would be used in this manner.
Hoping this finds you well as it leaves me.
Yours faithfully,
Lily Pargetter (Mrs)
Nonplussed, Lusala took the parcel and letter to his boss, a dour little man in a black waistcoat.
‘Excuse me, Mr Kennedy. Who is the quartermaster?’ Lusala asked, handing him the letter and the parcel, which he had clumsily rewrapped. A knitted object fell onto the desk. Kennedy picked it up and stared at it.
‘What on earth is this?’
‘It’s a tea cosy. You know, to keep teapots warm.’
‘And why is it on my desk?’
At Lusala’s request he read the letter.
‘Some batty old dame. Throw them in the waste basket. Unless you need one.’ He sniggered. ‘I’m a coffee drinker myself.’
The young man obediently disposed of the parcel in the waste bin where it lay, exuding reproach. He retrieved a blue and yellow cosy for himself and felt slightly better. When Kennedy went to lunch, Lusala could stand it no longer and mounted a rescue, stuffing the bundle into his desk drawer, where it continued to brood for a week. Lusala was a business student, but he had imagination, and could clearly see an old lady knitting somewhere in a strange land. He saw her earnestly composing her letter, and imagined her smile as she dropped her parcel in the letterbox. He thought of his grandmother. And he stole some letterhead.
Dear Mrs Pargetter,
Thank you for your extreme kindness in knitting tea cosies for the poor of the world. The Secretary General has asked me to thank you on his behalf. They are most welcome.
Yours sincerely,
Lusala Ngilu
Quartermaster
United Nations Organization
Before his eighteen-month internship was over, Lusala wrote one more letter of thanks, folded it into a United Nations Christmas card and then passed the baton to his successor, Ahmed Hussein, who passed it in turn to Cecile Piquet. As each new intern arrived, they would be briefed on the tea cosies.
‘It’s like a rite of passage—even a good luck ritual,’ Andrew Nicholls told his successor, Chang Kyong-–sil. ‘Apparently it started way back when the current Kenyan Ambassador to the UN was a mail clerk. We always sign the letter Lusala Ngilu, Quartermaster. It’s part of the continuity. This Mrs Pargetter must be about a hundred and eighty by now. Some of us even wonder if she’s the same one who started it all.’
‘What happens to the tea cosies?’ Chang Kyong-–sil was a practical young woman.
‘That’s the challenge. Apparently most of the first lot went to countries that drink tea, although some were distributed around the UN complex. The second “Lusala” sewed up the holes and sent them to a hill tribe in China for hats. They’ve been used to incubate eggs. And so on. My solution was to use them for the safe packing of medical supplies.’
Chang looked thoughtful. ‘And no-one thinks this is strange?’
‘Strange, yes. But comforting, somehow. It’s a bit of old-fashioned kindness in a world where kindness is not valued nearly enough.’
Two months later, Chang wrote her letter and carefully signed the name Lusala Ngilu in a fair copy of the original. As she despatched the cosies, metamorphosed now into foot warmers, she felt a quiet sense of achievement. The following year, around the time Mrs Pargetter was making scones for Moss and Finn, Ana Sejka became the next Lusala, and listened with special interest to Chang’s briefing.
‘This Mrs Pargetter is Australian,’ she murmured. ‘I wonder where Opportunity is, exactly.’