Page 31 of Second Chances at the Board Game Café

Kate must have sensed her anxiety. ‘You’ll be fine, Taylor, honestly. You know about this stuff and you’re passionate about it. That’s all you have to do – pass on the passion.’

Did everything Kate say sound like a slogan? Taylor wondered.

‘Good for the planet, good for the purse,’ she said.

Kate laughed, and said, ‘Come on, let’s go up.’

She was about to follow Kate upstairs, when the door of the café opened and Harry walked in. A familiar face, she thought with relief, surprised at how pleased she felt to see him. He was wearing jeans and a grey jumper. Grey again! Although he looked a lot less stiff without the shirt and tie. He was the last person she’d expected to join the upcycling group, but then it had been his jeans that had kicked this whole thing off, so why not?

‘Hi, Harry.’ She smiled. ‘I didn’t know you were coming to the upcycling group.’

Harry looked confused for a second. He glanced at Emily then back at Taylor and said, ‘The recycling group? I thought it sounded very um… interesting.’

‘Upcycling.’ Emily gave a little laugh from behind the counter. ‘It’s upcycling, Harry.’

‘Of course. Upcycling.’

‘Shall we?’ said Taylor, gesturing to the stairs. ‘Or do you want to get a drink first?’

He hesitated for a moment. She tried to read his expression but was once again flummoxed.

‘You go on up, Harry,’ said Emily. ‘I’ll bring you your usual.’

The upstairs room stretched from the front to the back of the building, so was twice the size of the café downstairs. It was a drab, unloved space, but trestle tables had been set up around the sides and people were standing around chatting, all clutching bulging plastic bags. Harry was the only one who was empty-handed.

‘You ready, Taylor? Shall we start?’ Kate clapped her hands and the hall fell silent. ‘Evening, everyone. Thank you so much for coming. Let me introduce Taylor. She’s a highly skilled and very creative sewist with her own shop in Hebbleswick. She’s going to teach us all about upcycling clothes and in two or three months’ time – date to be confirmed – we’ll be putting on our very own fashion show in the school hall at Hebbleswick Primary. If anyone fancies modelling too, let me know. Taylor will also be making a number of very special garments herself. Please bring whatever you can to our Monday night meetings – any scraps of lace, spare buttons, ribbons, and your unwanted clothes obviously. I can see you’ve all already brought stuff, which is brilliant. I’ve done a charity shop haul too, to get us started. I suggest you place your bags on the tables alongside mine, but first if you’ve brought items that you want to use yourself, take those out and keep hold of them. Anything that’s left on the table is free for anyone to take. Does that sound okay?’

Everyone nodded, then there was a bit of a kerfuffle as people rummaged through their bags extracting the things they wanted to keep, before placing the bags on the tables as Kate had instructed.

‘And now, it’s over to Taylor.’

Taylor cleared her throat. Every pair of eyes was focused on her. She glanced over at the back of the room at Harry. He smiled nervously and gave her a thumbs up.

Encouraged by this, she began. ‘Welcome, everyone. Thanks for coming. So er, upcycling. Where do I start? This all began because I upcycled a very ordinary pair of jeans.’

16

His very ordinary pair of jeans, Harry thought and felt a surge of pride.

He hadn’t intended to be here this evening. In the spirit of getting out and about more and breaking with his usual routines occasionally, he’d come along to the café this evening, even though it was Monday, not Thursday, and had been hoping for a game or two. Taylor had seen him and assumed he was here for her group. He’d meekly followed her up the stairs, rather than admitting he was here for the board games, partly because he didn’t want her knowing what a geek he was, and partly because much as he loved board games, an evening in Taylor’s company was much more appealing.

Now, watching her speak with such passion about the benefits of recycling clothes, he was more fascinated by her than ever.

‘Millions of tons of perfectly wearable clothes end up in landfill every year,’ she said, ‘and yet people keep buying new garments. But if I’m a bit bored of a skirt, I change it. I make it look different so I’m happy to carry on wearing it. Obviously, it saves you money, but my favourite thing about it is that you’re creating unique garments. No-one else has a shirt like this.’

She was wearing a white shirt, Harry noticed now, but the cuffs, collar and the bit down the middle with the buttons were made of fabric reminiscent of peacock feathers. She did a little twirl and there was a smattering of applause. Taylor blushed slightly, and Harry thought how alluring she looked with her rosy cheeks.

‘And how do we go about upcycling a garment?’ Kate was obviously relishing her role as interviewer.

‘Loads of ways. If you want to do something easy, you could tie-dye a plain T-shirt or change the buttons on a jacket for more unusual ones. You could add a pocket to a shirt or a pair of jeans. Appliqué is a very popular technique.’

‘What’s that?’

‘You stitch a small piece of fabric onto a larger one.’

Taylor reached down into the large blue IKEA bag at her feet and pulled out a denim jacket. She showed the front of it to the audience; it appeared to be quite ordinary, even to Harry’s eyes. But then she turned it round to show the back, and a gasp went round the room. A huge red rose had been stitched onto the back of the garment. Even Harry, as uninterested in fashion as he was, had to admit it was rather splendid.

‘I cut the rose from a pair of old curtains,’ Taylor said. ‘It looks impressive, but it wasn’t too difficult. If you want to do something more complicated, you could completely change the shape of a garment. Turn a loosely fitting dress into a fitted one, for example. Or you could amalgamate two garments – take a green shirt and a red shirt, unpick the seams and stitch them together so that you’ve two red-and-green shirts. The possibilities are endless.’