A Month of Sundays

by Liz Byrski

  In Judy’s case she sees that business success is the result of a lively imagination that not only comes up with ideas but can also visualise and create ways of realising them. In contrast her own success with the bureau has been ruled, and probably limited, by her own self-protective control mechanisms. She can see the contrast between being driven by creativity and vision, rather than a commitment to process, systems and restraint. Who would I be, she wonders, if I had even a small percentage of Judy in me? And who would she be with a small percentage of me? Maybe we’d be one well-rounded person! She can see the possibilities for Judy to escape from the business completely or partially, but it is not so easy to see how to free herself from her own chains. Astrid could have a field day with the two of them, Adele thinks.

  This morning, to Adele’s surprise, Ros has joined them for yoga. She turned up in a pale grey tracksuit, her hair newly styled – from scruffy to stylishly scruffy. Simone, who on day one had discovered yoga mats in the cupboard, fetched one for her and Ros lowered herself cautiously onto it.

  ‘I will give it my best shot,’ she says now, ‘but I might need some help.’

  ‘I’m learning very slowly,’ Adele says, ‘but I’m already feeling the benefit.’

  Minutes later the three of them are lying side by side on their mats, with Clooney alongside Simone, and Adele and Ros following Simone’s instructions, when the door at the top of the steps opens and in comes Judy.

  ‘Is it okay if I join in?’ she asks softly, moving swiftly down the stairs.

  ‘Of course,’ Simone says, fetching another mat.

  Adele lifts her head and looks across at Judy. They had postponed their discussion about the business yesterday when she got the news about Maddie. Judy had disappeared into her room for some time and emerged later, quiet but clearly not grief stricken. Adele wonders if her arrival in the games room this morning is somehow related.

  Before Simone can get them started, Ros lifts her head too and looks across at Judy and Adele.

  ‘You may already have guessed that I have Parkinson’s disease,’ she says without preamble. ‘When Simone took me to the clinic yesterday yoga was one of the recommended activities, so that’s why I’m here.’

  ‘And I’m here,’ Judy says, ‘because Adele thinks I am of unsound mind, and I think she’s probably right.’

  *

  ‘I’m glad I bit the yoga bullet,’ Judy says later, leaning against the worktop in the kitchen where Ros is making coffee. ‘It felt good just being there, very calming.’

  ‘Me too,’ Ros says. ‘It’s odd that we should both have chosen this morning to do it, isn’t it? Now I wish I’d started sooner. Simone said that I should think about “owning” the Parkinson’s – her language of course, but I know what she was getting at. I have to accept it and start planning, rather than trying to pretend it’s not happening.’

  She puts a mug on the table for Judy and then picks up her own, and they sit down together.

  ‘It’s a horrible thing for you to cope with, Ros,’ Judy says. ‘I had noticed that you never carry a tray. If you ever need to talk about it, or need help or support, please let me know. I’m hoping I can sell the shop and that I’ll have a lot more time available then. I may also decide to move away from Mandurah. I need somewhere different, where I won’t be the woman in the knitting shop.’ She lowers her voice and glances over to where Simone and Adele are sitting on the rear terrace outside the kitchen door, the steam from their mugs curling upwards in the cold air.

  ‘I came to yoga because of Maddie. I’m so ashamed of myself, Ros, and I feel I must confess to someone. When Melissa told me what had happened, all I felt was shock, and I went into my room and lay on the bed and fell asleep almost immediately. When I woke up my first thought was of Maddie, and I sat bolt upright and said, quietly of course, “Well, one less problem.” Can you believe it? What an awful thing to think, how callous and selfish. Please don’t tell the others, they might not understand, but perhaps you do? I knew Maddie for years and I did whatever I could for her. I was fond of her, but in that moment I just didn’t care. I felt I was struggling so hard to get well again, and to sort the future for the shop, that I was unable to really feel anything. Does that make sense to you?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Ros says. ‘And I do think it’s to do with age. Death becomes a very personal reality in ways that are probably quite selfish. I noticed that as I got into my seventies.’

  ‘Before I came here,’ Judy begins, and then stops, not clear where she’s going with this, feeling her way. ‘It was just too hard to . . . to let anyone else get close to me. Melissa comes quite close, she and her gorgeous baby, but in a way I need to keep them at arm’s length.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ Ros says. ‘It’s a horrible thing to have happened, you won’t forget Maddie, but you actually feel very little. If it had been Ted or Donna, it would be different, even though you’re a bit conflicted about them right now. And wouldn’t it be true to say that Maddie was something of a burden? Someone you felt responsible for when you are already barely able to cope?’

  Judy raises her eyebrows, shrugs. ‘Well yes, that’s right.’

  ‘So when you knew what had happened you could put that burden down. You didn’t want it to happen, you would never have wished for it, but it did happen, and you felt relief.’

  ‘That is just what it was,’ Judy says.

  ‘I was devastated by James’s death,’ Ros continues. ‘I still am, but I’ve learned to live with it, and without him. But I notice that these days I might read a death notice of someone I’ve known and liked for a long time, and I’m sorry about it, and sad, but in a detached sort of way. Somehow it doesn’t touch me as it might once have done. I do think it’s about conserving emotional energy. Saving it for ourselves and for people whom we’re really close to.’

  ‘I suppose, yes,’ Judy nods.

  ‘Don’t beat yourself up about this, Judy,’ Ros continues. ‘You showed extraordinary patience and kindness to Maddie for years. Respect and affection are sufficient ways to honour her and keep her in your memory.’

  *

  On Saturday morning Ros, alone in the house, is sitting by the window with her copy of Unless but not reading it, even though they’re discussing it tomorrow. She is thinking about the damp purple boots tucked just inside the front door at home. They are Leah’s boots, of course, but what were they doing there on Thursday afternoon? It was not a wet day; in fact it was cold, clear and bright, although there had apparently been a storm with torrential rain the previous afternoon. The Italian couple who own the café had mentioned it when she and Simone were having lunch.

  The more Ros thinks about this the more she wants to know under what circumstances the boots arrived there on Wednesday afternoon, presumably wet, and why they were still there the following afternoon. She can think of only one explanation. When she’d knocked on Tim’s door as they came down the stairs she’d felt a very odd sense of tension, the sort of tension that comes when someone is holding their breath to avoid emitting signs of life.

  Ros has a pretty good idea of what they might have been doing that would make it impossible, or at least inadvisable, to answer the door, especially as they would have known who was knocking. What she doesn’t understand is how this has happened. How this situation has developed without her knowing anything about it. Does Ivan know?

  She thinks back to the time Tim went to get fish and chips for the three of them, a few days before she’d left to come here. She tries to remember her conversation with Leah in the kitchen; they had talked about Ivan, how Ros liked him but had never thought him right for Leah. About how nice Tim was, how like James, and so what a splendid husband he would have made. ‘But I love Ivan,’ Leah had said – or had she? Did she actually say that, Ros wonders now, or did she say, ‘But I loved Ivan,’ past tense? I think that’s what she said, Ros tells h
erself now.

  More important, though, is what she should do about it. Some people might say she should do absolutely nothing; it’s not her business. That’s what you’d say, I suppose, Ros murmurs to James, and I see your point. But Leah is my daughter . . . whoa! Sorry, darling, she’s your niece, our de facto daughter. We were only ever in loco parentis, but she feels to me like a daughter. And you, my darling James, are not here and your absence makes Leah more important than ever. She’s the person who will pick me up if I stumble and fall, and I mean that in every possible sense of that phrase. Besides, I love her to bits and I don’t want her to be hurt. She waits in the silence hoping that James can hear her, wishing that she could hear him. Sure, he’d say, I understand that but it’s still not your business.

  Ros sighs, thinks it through again. Leah might get hurt! Yep! She will leave Ivan and he’ll go berserk . . . or at least he’ll be devastated. Who knows what might happen, what he might do?

  Ros closes her book in frustration. None of your business, she tells herself for the umpteenth time, and stands up. Clooney thumps his tail on the floor at the possibility of a walk. He’s been restless since the others went out a while ago. ‘You’ve been spoiled here,’ Ros says, bending down to stroke him. ‘Walks, walks, and more walks. You won’t get this when we’re home. Come on, let’s just have a stroll around the garden.’ She grabs up her big scarf from the back of the chair and wraps it around her shoulders.

  In the hall she hesitates in front of the umbrella stand where she has parked her walking stick. The garden paths are rough and stony and there is now no reason to conceal her occasional reliance on the stick. She picks it up, laughing. ‘Madness, really,’ she says aloud to Clooney, ‘relying on the ability of a stick held in a very shaky hand to keep me upright.’ They walk out into the luscious green of the garden where the sun feels remarkably warm, and the air is filled with the scent of the gum trees.

  Ros strolls cautiously on the uneven ground while Clooney trots happily between the bushes in an ecstasy of sniffing. She stops and gazes out over the landscape of darkly glistening rocks and verdant slopes stretching into the misty distance. Eventually she turns her back on the view and walks up the path and in through the back door to the kitchen, where she fills the kettle and switches it on. At the sound of a car moving slowly over the gravel at the front of the house Clooney pricks up his ears and to Ros’s surprise the doorbell rings. She puts down the coffee canister and walks through to the hall.

  ‘Did you forget your keys, Simone?’ she calls, unlocking the door. And she opens it to find Leah standing there, in jeans, a black leather jacket and her purple suede boots.

  *

  This morning, while Simone is doing the shopping, Judy and Adele are finishing the discussion that had been interrupted by Melissa’s phone call and they are doing it on the move, walking to the waterfall. They’d been tempted to take Clooney but eventually decided against it, as they needed to concentrate and didn’t want to lose track of him. He had stood in the doorway with Ros looking deeply offended, and even let out a long and agonising howl just as they disappeared out of sight of the house.

  The conversation with Ros yesterday has helped Judy to understand her own reaction to Maddie’s death, and the yoga has helped her to focus. As she lay there in the silence this morning, following Simone’s instructions, and then standing, stretching, bending and trying to find her centre, as Simone had said, Judy felt almost frighteningly calm. Is this really me? she wondered, and she had let the sensation wash over her until she thought she must be glowing with it. An hour or so later, when she was standing in the shower, Judy realised that she felt calmer, almost peaceful, as though she had been given permission to slow down, pull back. Poor dear Maddie, she thought, she’s laid something to rest for me, and in that moment she was determined to keep that in her mind, to remember Maddie with gratitude for closing a door so that a different door could open.

  ‘You mentioned when we went to Linda’s shop that it looked like yours,’ Adele is saying. ‘It does, and that’s deliberate. You have lots of pictures of your shop on the website – Linda has replicated it, even with the spinning wheel in the window. Remember all the ways that she used your ideas and your materials, the patterns, the pictures with quotes, the videos, everything?’

  ‘Okay,’ Judy replies, ‘but do you think that matters? I mean, do you think Linda is doing something wrong? It’s not illegal, is it?’

  ‘I think some of it is borderline. This is your brand, you created it, you own it,’ Adele says. ‘My understanding of copyright law is minimal. It’s complicated, and online work and social media make it even more complicated. Printing the patterns and charging for them, without your permission, is probably a breach of copyright. It seems dodgy to me, as does the use of the videos. But we’d need proper legal advice on that. I don’t think that copying the look of the shop is wrong – in many ways it’s very flattering – but I do think that the extent of the copying overall is a bit cheeky and she should have checked this out with you, especially as she’s in regular email contact. What concerns me is that Linda, and any other shop owners who use your work in this way, are making money out of it and you aren’t.’

  When they reach the boundary gate Adele opens it and ushers Judy through. They turn onto the waterfall path.

  ‘Yes, yes of course, I see what you mean,’ Judy says. ‘But there’s nothing I can do about it. I wouldn’t know how to stop it.’ Judy hopes Adele will let it drop now. She feels like a smoker who, having given up the habit, can’t bear to think they were ever addicted to tobacco. Talking about it makes her feel slightly sick.

  ‘You don’t have to stop it,’ Adele says, ‘you just have to make it work to your advantage. You make them pay.’

  ‘But how would I do that?’

  ‘Well one thing you could do is charge for downloads of the videos, or set it up to pay per use. You could also charge for downloading the patterns. That’s all possible, but we’d have to get advice on it.’

  ‘It sounds awfully complicated,’ Judy says, ‘and they’d think I was a really horrible person.’

  Adele sighs. ‘I knew you’d say that. I’ve done some research and discovered there are a number of knitting shops modelled on yours, and they are raking it in free of charge, thanks to you. Your videos and patterns – and your name – bring customers into the shop, keep them there, and deliver an increase in turnover. Linda takes a small amount from a lot of people. She’s a businesswoman, and she’d understand exactly why she had to pay. The Judy Castle brand has real value and Linda knows that, as do all the others. The only person who doesn’t seem to get that is Judy Castle herself. If you decide to sell the business a buyer might want to own that Judy Castle brand even if you were no longer involved, and that could mean a better deal for you. How many knitting shops are there in Australia?’

  ‘No idea, but hundreds, maybe more. I don’t know. And I don’t care, Adele. I just don’t care if they’re ripping me off.’ As soon as she’s said it she feels terrible. Adele is trying so hard to help her, but even thinking and talking about the business is encroaching on this new sense of calm and distance in which Judy wants to immerse herself.

  ‘Okay, look,’ Adele says, ‘I know you don’t want to talk about this, but whether you decide to keep the business or sell it you need to fix this part of it. You should benefit from what you’ve created. So I would just say we need legal advice on how you maximise the Judy Castle factor, whether you stay or sell.’

  Judy walks on, staring hard at the ground in front of her, wishing Adele would stop. ‘I can see you’re probably right, Adele. And you are so kind to help me like this, but I wouldn’t know where to begin, and my heart isn’t in it anymore. It just isn’t.’ To her dismay her voice breaks and her eyes fill with tears.

  Adele stops abruptly. ‘Oh lord, I’ve been bullying you, Judy, haven’t I? I’m so sorry.’

&
nbsp; ‘No, I’m sorry, for being pathetic,’ Judy says. ‘But you see, I wouldn’t know how to do any of that. I’d have to get some sort of business consultant, and that would cost me a bomb. And I honestly don’t think I could bear to go through it all.’

  ‘I’m not suggesting you do it yourself, and you don’t need to hire anyone. I could easily do most of this for you, and it wouldn’t cost you anything. It would probably be best if I did it in Mandurah so we’re both in the same place and I can actually see the shop. And I imagine there’s quite a bit of paperwork floating around in your office, so we probably need to go through that and get it sorted.’

  Judy looks up. ‘You mean you’d come to Mandurah with me?’

  Adele nods. ‘Why not? It would be easier. I can do some research from here and then I can have a look around the shop as well, and we can match the system in both computers. And I have a lawyer friend who deals with this sort of thing – I could get some free advice from him on that or anything else we need.’

  Judy stares at her, a lump forming in her throat. Adele had said anything else we need . . . we. ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You’d do that for me? You wouldn’t mind?’

  Adele laughs. ‘Of course I wouldn’t mind. I’d love it, actually, love to see how we can add value to the business for you and set you free from it, if that’s what you want. Besides, I have some very happy memories of Perth and I’ve never been to Mandurah.’

  ‘I’d love you to stay with me.’

  ‘Isn’t your spare room occupied by a knitted town? I don’t want you to have to move that and I really want to see it! I could probably get an Airbnb place.’