A Month of Sundays

by Liz Byrski

  ‘Judy’s really sick,’ she says to Simone and Adele. ‘Gwenda put me on to the Blue Mountains Hospital, and they said to bring her in. We need to take her there straight away and pack a bag to take with us in case they admit her.’

  ‘Admit her?’

  ‘Yes, it’s possible that when they have the X-rays they may admit her for a few days. They said it sounds like a chest infection or possibly pneumonia.’

  Ten minutes later they are all packed into Ros’s car, Adele driving, Judy in the back seat, wrapped in blankets, her legs stretched out on Simone’s lap.

  ‘You didn’t all need to come,’ she says weakly. ‘It seems such a fuss.’

  ‘We just have to be sure you won’t make a dash for it,’ Simone quips. ‘This way we can keep an eye on you.’

  Judy laughs and coughs, and then coughs a whole lot more.

  ‘Don’t make her laugh again,’ Adele says. ‘I’d like to get her to the hospital conscious and in one piece.’

  ‘You are all mad,’ Judy says wearily. ‘But you are also rather wonderful.’

  ‘You sound drunk,’ Ros says. ‘Close your eyes, and stop talking.’

  *

  Simone takes the spiraliser, secures a zucchini in it and starts winding the handle. ‘It’s weird without Judy,’ she says. ‘We haven’t been here long and already the three of you feel like my family.’

  ‘Me too,’ Ros says. ‘What on earth are you doing?’

  ‘I’m making zucchini noodles,’ Simone says. ‘We’re having them tonight with peas, bok choy and fish in ginger.’

  Ros shakes her head. ‘That’s serious vegetables,’ she says. ‘But what is that spiral thing again?’

  ‘A spiraliser. I use it almost every day at home.’

  ‘Hmm. So what’s wrong with good old pasta?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Simone says, ‘except this is much healthier, cheaper and easier to digest.’

  ‘And I bet it –’

  ‘Stop!’ Simone says, holding up her hand. ‘I know you were going to say “I bet it tastes like shit!” So don’t even think about it. Don’t you dare comment on it until you’ve finished your meal and then you can say whatever you like. I will not be terrorised while cooking.’

  Ros laughs. ‘Fair enough. I reserve judgement. Poor old Judy, thank goodness she’s in the right place.’

  Judy had been admitted to hospital a couple of hours after they arrived there. The X-rays confirmed that she had pneumonia and although she had protested and Simone had been close to believing that they might not be able to persuade her to stay, the doctor had insisted.

  ‘A couple of days,’ he’d said, ‘maybe three.’

  ‘But I didn’t bring my phone with me,’ she protested. ‘I won’t be able to call Melissa.’

  ‘Well that might be a good thing,’ Simone said. ‘Have you been calling often?’

  ‘Twice a day,’ Judy said. ‘Suppose something goes wrong?’

  The doctor had looked up from his clipboard. ‘You do need to let go of work and other responsibilities, Mrs Castle,’ he said. ‘All the signs are that you are quite rundown, and that’s partly why you’re so unwell now. You really need to rest or we’ll be keeping you here for at least a week, maybe more.’

  Simone wondered how Melissa felt about getting calls from Judy twice a day.

  ‘I could call for you, if you like,’ Adele said. ‘I’ll just say you have a bit of a sore throat. I doubt she’ll panic. From all you’ve said she sounds really competent.’

  ‘Oh she is, she’s terrific,’ Judy said between bouts of coughing. ‘I just don’t want her to worry or feel cut off.’

  Simone exchanged glances with Ros and Adele. ‘You know what, Judy?’ she said. ‘I think it’s you who’s worried and cut off. I suspect Melissa is efficiently doing her job and enjoying having the shop to herself. She might even be wishing that you wouldn’t keep phoning.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Ros said. ‘She might feel you don’t trust her.’

  ‘Well that’s just rubbish,’ Judy said angrily, her face reddening by the minute. ‘Of course I trust her.’

  The doctor raised his eyebrows. ‘Look, it really would be best for you to stay calm and discuss this when you’re well again. You need to rest and relax. I’m sure your friends will look after things for you. Meanwhile you’ll be able to go up to the ward in about fifteen minutes and you can use the telephone there if you need to.’ With a nod to the other three, he’d walked off through the sliding doors.

  ‘Okay,’ Judy said reluctantly, ‘you’re probably right. So would you ring her please, Adele? But don’t say anything that would make her panic.’

  ‘Let’s hope she’s settled down a bit this evening,’ Simone says once they’re seated at the dinner table.

  Adele sighs, helping herself to fish. ‘It’ll be interesting to look at the business with her. Some people fall into the trap of thinking that because their computer is in a mess their work or business is too, but sometimes it’s just a matter of tidying things up.’

  ‘Wow! These noodles are terrific, Simone,’ Ros says. ‘Really delicious, as is the fish –’ She’s interrupted by the buzz of a mobile phone, reaches into her pocket, then shakes her head. ‘Not mine,’ she says.

  Adele rummages in her bag, which is on a nearby chair. Simone reaches down to the end of the table where hers is sitting on top of today’s newspaper.

  ‘Oh! Oh my god, there’s something . . . a message – a Facebook message from . . . Geoff.’ She sits there rigid, phone in hand, looking at the other two.

  ‘Open it,’ Adele says.

  ‘It might not be him . . . it could be another Geoff Marshall, it’s a very common name and I’m not sure –’

  ‘Oh for heaven’s sake,’ Ros interrupts, ‘open the bloody thing, I can’t stand the suspense.’ And she leans across to Simone, takes the phone from her hand, taps the icon on the screen and hands it back to her. ‘Now – tell us what he says!’

  Chapter Ten

  Adele walks out to the hospital car park, gets into her car and starts the engine. After a couple of days in the hospital she could see a definite improvement in Judy, who looks better, less feverish, more relaxed. The nurse had told Adele that she was doing well and Judy said she was making progress with Truth and Beauty, although it’s hard for her to concentrate.

  ‘I can only take in a bit at a time,’ she said, ‘it must be the antibiotics.’

  ‘No, it’s that sort of book,’ Adele said. ‘I have to keep putting it aside because it makes me uncomfortable.’

  ‘Simone said it might be like that,’ Judy said. ‘It’s very intense in some places.’

  ‘And intensely annoying in others.’

  ‘Well, a bit, but it’s pretty interesting and strange too. The more I read it the more I like it. I’ll have finished it by Sunday,’ Judy insisted.

  ‘But if you aren’t home by then . . .’

  ‘Of course I’ll be home.’

  ‘Whenever it is we won’t start without you,’ Adele had promised.

  She drives out of the car park now and heads for the town centre. They need tomatoes and broccoli, Ros has asked her to get her a monthly magazine that’s due out today, and Simone has lost the earpieces for her phone. But what Adele needs first is a cup of coffee. She parks the car, heads for a small café where she had once been with Marian, settles into a corner by the window and sits, sipping her coffee, gazing out onto the street, where the late morning sunshine has brought people out to the street after so many days of rain.

  How strange this all is, she thinks, being in the house with people she is only starting to know, and yet feeling so much at ease. As Astrid had pointed out, being the director of the bureau gave her confidence in her working life, something that she didn’t have outside it. But at the same time the energy and stress involved in perf
orming that role had left her little space to find out how to be herself. Despite the toll it had taken on her, she had loved it, and she knows she was good at it. It was a stressful job made more stressful by her own reaction to it. She was always on the alert waiting for the moment when she would be unmasked as incompetent; always wondering how people were judging her. That feeling of having to live up to unspecified expectations has haunted her all her life. She has always assumed that it came from her relationship with her father, but she is also intimidated in this way by certain women – Astrid for one.

  ‘I think the yoga might help. I’m feeling different, more at ease, ’ she’d said to Simone this morning as they rolled up their yoga mats. ‘No one is judging me, it’s safe to be myself here.’

  ‘Was it not like that at work?’ Simone asked.

  ‘No, not at all. But I’m wondering now if that was real or all in my mind. Whether what I thought was coming from other people was actually coming from within me. It got so bad that when Jenna came home for a holiday last year, I even felt that way with her. I started to fumble with things, apologise unnecessarily, I kept expecting her to find something wrong with me.’

  ‘And did she?’ Simone asked.

  ‘Of course not. I realised later, when she’d left to go home, that it was all in my head. She’s the least critical person you could imagine, and she was incredibly patient with me. Just told me it was time to break my obsession with Radio National and get a life, but in the gentlest possible way.’

  ‘So where do you think it comes from?’ Simone asked.

  ‘I’m still working on that,’ Adele said, and she’d changed the subject.

  She sits here now enjoying being alone, enjoying the feeling of being okay with herself. Eventually, she finishes her coffee and walks out into the street to do the shopping. In the nearby newsagent she finds Ros’s magazine, and a new set of earphones for Simone. Heading for the greengrocer she passes a wool shop, then turns back and looks in through the window. It’s decades since Adele bought wool or knitted anything – in fact the last thing she remembers is struggling with a matinee jacket just before Jenna was born, and making a terrible hash of it. The shop looks really inviting and she pushes open the door and walks in.

  It is not remotely like the poky little shop where she’d bought skeins of white three-ply and needles for the jacket. It’s bright and warm; the walls are mainly lined with white pigeonholes each packed with different yarns in a huge variety of shades. There are casual tables with patterns spread out on them, and in a small alcove there is a coffee machine with a sign on it inviting customers to help themselves. Nearby, two women who have done just that are sitting at one of the tables comparing patterns as they drink their coffee.

  Near the front window of the shop, where it can be seen from the street, is a spinning wheel set up with sheep’s wool and a sign that says Spinning classes every Tuesday 6–7.30pm, enquire at the counter. And at the far end half a dozen women and a couple of men are sitting at a big worktable with their knitting, watching something on a large wall-mounted television screen. Adele is amazed to see men at the table but then remembers that Judy had said something a few days ago about men becoming interested in knitting, and that it actually began with men. Adele wishes she’d listened more closely now.

  On the screen a woman is demonstrating the use of some form of stitch that Adele, not surprisingly, has never heard of. There is something familiar about the woman on the screen. Adele walks closer, gets her glasses out of her bag, stops, blinks, moves closer still and clasps her hand over her mouth.

  ‘Can I help you?’ a voice says beside her. ‘Did you want to join the group?’

  Adele points at the screen. ‘That’s . . . is that . . . ?’

  ‘It’s Judy Castle,’ the woman says. ‘Great, isn’t she? We love her here. You must be a knitter?’

  Adele can barely drag her eyes away from the screen. ‘Er . . . no, not really, well actually not at all,’ she says finally, looking at her. ‘It’s just that I know Judy and I didn’t expect to see her in here.’

  ‘Oh, her videos are brilliant,’ says the woman. ‘I’m Linda by the way; I’m the owner of the shop. Yes, we have people in every day following the videos. In fact, if you’re interested we’re having our own little Judy Castle promotion.’

  She steers Adele to the opposite side of the shop where there is a poster-size photograph of Judy holding a knitted hat with two ears and beneath it the words: Special Offer: Free Judy Castle Pussy Hat Pattern when you buy the wool. And below it is a basket of needles and wool – mostly fleshy pinks, browns and yellows, but also brighter colours – and alongside them laminated patterns with a small picture of Judy in the top left-hand corner.

  ‘It’s for those pussy hats that those girls in America are wearing to protest about Donald Trump.’

  ‘Yes,’ Adele says, ‘I see that.’

  ‘Judy’s pattern uses a fantastic two-colour brioche stitch. It’s selling like hot cakes,’ Linda says. ‘She’s great for business. Get yourself a coffee and sit and watch the video if you like. I must go and talk to that lady at the counter.’ And she hurries away.

  Adele sits down, still watching the screen where Judy is now showing some examples of a particular design used first on a scarf, then on a baby’s blanket. She puts the examples down and starts talking about the pussy hats, holding one up just as shown on the poster. Then she puts it aside and goes on to describe how knitting has played a role in various political protests throughout history.

  ‘Beanies,’ she says, ‘scarves and gloves, jumpers and waistcoats, but also some different and more complex forms.’ She shows photographs of knitted wall art on public buildings, a VW Kombi entirely covered in green and white knitting, the words Green Peace cleverly worked into it. She talks about groups of men ‘yarn bombing’ for peace in America, and other protests and support movements that use knitting as a tool in their campaigns.

  ‘Of course,’ Judy says, winding up, ‘there were also women knitting at the guillotine in the French Revolution, although I guess they were there for the spectacle rather than the knitting! Bye for now, and good knitting.’

  For some time after it finishes Adele sits there watching the knitters pack up their wool and needles, gather up their coats, and wander out into the street. Finally she gets to her feet and walks over to the counter.

  ‘Do you have a business card for the shop?’ she asks. ‘I’d like to give it to Judy next time I see her, tell her I saw one of her videos here.’

  ‘Of course.’ Linda opens a drawer, takes out a couple of cards and hands them to her. ‘Please tell her it’s Linda from The Knittery. I often email her. Tell her if she’s ever here we’d love her to come to the shop.’

  ‘Thanks, I’ll tell her for sure,’ Adele says, slipping the cards into her bag. ‘Lovely shop, by the way, almost makes me want to knit again.’ And she walks out onto the street and has to stop to think about what she’s doing and where she was heading.

  *

  Simone pushes open the door of the restaurant and looks around. Geoff had offered to pick her up but she’d insisted she could find her own way there. It’s a small Italian restaurant: white tablecloths and low lights. Being Friday evening it’s nearly full. In the far corner a man gets to his feet and raises his hand in greeting and, taking a deep breath, she walks towards him, head spinning, heart thumping with anticipation.

  I could barely believe it when your message arrived, he’d said in his message. Doug and I have talked of you so often and hoped one day we’d hear from you. You didn’t send your phone number, Simone; we both want to talk to you, see you again if possible, our numbers are below. I’m in the Blue Mountains, Doug’s in Melbourne. Where are you? Is it remotely possible that we could meet again? I have tears in my eyes as I write this. Please call me or Doug as soon as possible. We’ve missed you so much. Love from both of us. An
d beneath it were their two phone numbers.

  She had called him straight away, barely able to speak with the joy of being in touch again. He lived, he told her, very close to Leura.

  ‘Well that’s near where I’m staying,’ she said, and described the house.

  ‘That sounds like Marian and Brian’s place.’

  ‘It is,’ she said.

  ‘They’re away, aren’t they? I remember him saying a group of women were going to stay there. A coven, he said.’

  She’d laughed. ‘We’re actually quite harmless. Just the remaining members of an online book club.’

  He was calling, he told her, from Sydney.

  ‘I came down here last Friday for my granddaughter’s wedding,’ he’d said. ‘I’ll be back late tomorrow, could we meet? Maybe have dinner together on Friday?’

  An hour or so later he had texted the name of the restaurant, and a time to meet. Can barely contain myself, he’d written. Doug, green with envy, is trying to arrange a visit soon.

  For a moment they stand facing each other, neither of them able to speak or take the last couple of steps, caught as they are in a time warp of more than forty years.

  ‘You look just the same,’ Geoff says. ‘No, actually you look more beautiful than ever. I’m so happy to see you.’ And he takes the step forward that breaches the gap between them, reaching out to her, hugging her. ‘I’ve missed you so very much, Simone, I’d almost given up hope of seeing you again. We both had.’

  ‘So, how was the wedding?’ she asks when they are settled at the table and Geoff has ordered a bottle of wine.

  ‘Lovely,’ he says. ‘I must be getting old and sentimental; I had tears in my eyes during the ceremony, and again at the reception when my son-in-law, father of the bride, made a really lovely speech. Then I cried again when I saw your message and replied to it. And here I am in tears again!’

  They talk about their respective children, in Geoff’s case two and in Simone’s just Adam. It’s all much easier than she had anticipated, for despite the pure joy she felt at connecting with him and Doug again she had also wondered if it would be difficult to navigate the gap of the many years since they last met.