A Month of Sundays Read online

  Arriving home early the following year she was stunned by the unexplained disappearance of her dearest friends and hurt by their failure to stay in touch. Why hadn’t they told her they were leaving? Why was there no contact address?

  ‘They just left, sold the house and left,’ her mother had told her, tight-lipped. ‘We don’t know why, it’s not our business.’

  Simone felt she was hitting her head against a brick wall. It was incomprehensible that Geoff, Doug and Claire would have gone without leaving any trace. Her mother’s stubborn intransigence on the subject, and the way her father flew into a temper at the mention of them, convinced her that there was more to the story. Then, one night after a blazing row with her father in which she accused him of hiding something from her, everything changed. Within a few weeks she left home. Her parents continued to live there for the rest of their lives. Suzette had died twenty years ago, Carlo the year before last.

  From time to time over the years Simone had tried to find the Marshall boys, but it’s a common name and she had nowhere to start. They could be on the other side of the world for all she knew. And then, about a month ago, she had decided she would try one more time on Facebook, where she had often searched before. There were always dozens of Marshalls that showed up with the same first names and none looked as though they could be her Marshalls. But this time there was a Geoff Marshall, who looked as though he could be an older edition of the one she knew. What Simone could see from the limited information was that he lived in the Blue Mountains and was an architect. After so many years of wondering, she had almost made a friend request on the spot. But then she’d got cold feet. Would they really want to hear from her after all these years? Had they wanted to find her it would have been easy, as her parents had lived on in the same place all their lives. The part of her that longed to see them again was in conflict with the hurt and resentment she felt that they had never bothered to contact her.

  She looked at the bare lines of information and the photograph in which this Marshall’s face was half in shadow. Yes, she’d thought again, it could possibly be him. An architect? She remembered that Geoff had been studying civil engineering but he’d always had a passion for drawing buildings – had he moved sideways into architecture? Doug had wanted to be a chef, and when he’d got his undergrad degree he had stayed on in Melbourne with Geoff and got an apprenticeship. She remembered how when they came to Paris, a few years later, he had impressed her aunt by producing Crêpes Suzette, which she had admitted were better than her own. Simone had gone back to the Facebook list several times and checked that the possible Marshall was still there. And then, a couple of days ago, Adele’s email had arrived. Simone was keen to meet the other three women face to face, and felt she could do with a change. She had always planned to travel in Europe once she retired and the house was sold. But right now, a few weeks in the Blue Mountains was just what she needed. And maybe I’ll get in touch and see if it really is Geoff, or maybe I won’t. I’ll see how I feel when I get there, she thinks.

  Chapter Two

  Four days have passed since Adele emailed her idea to the others and both Judy and Simone have responded but there is still no word from Ros. Four days is not much of course, but how long does Ros need? Adele wonders, driving into the office underground car park. She is wavering, this morning, between anxiety and irritation; she wants it settled, wants to know if it’s all going to happen. As she swings into a vacant bay her phone starts to ring. Reaching for it she misjudges the proximity of a concrete pillar and scrapes the front right wing of the car.

  ‘Shit, shit, shit, that’s just what I need!’ she says aloud, dropping the phone. And she reverses out to straighten up, sacrificing more paintwork in the process. By the time she has safely made it into the bay the phone has stopped ringing and the caller hasn’t left a message. Adele sits there staring at the offending pillar, postponing the moment when she will get out and inspect the extent of the damage. The phone rings again, making her jump, and irritably she snatches it up.

  ‘Adele?’ The voice is familiar. ‘Hello, Adele, it’s me, Ros. I called just now but then I thought I should have left a message so I was ringing again to do that. Sorry to bother you, is this a difficult time?’

  Adele sits bolt upright. ‘Oh, Ros, how lovely to hear from you, no, it’s not a difficult time, not at all.’

  ‘Good, good, look; it’s about your invitation. I’m sorry not to have got back to you sooner, I’ve just had to think about it a bit . . . work out if I can do it . . .’

  ‘You mean you’d actually like to come?’

  ‘Well of course, I’d love to come, but it’s the logistics, you see.’

  ‘Logistics?’

  ‘Yes, I haven’t been too well recently. I’m not very mobile, I’ve stopped driving, so I wondered whether . . . I hope you won’t mind my asking this, but if you’re flying into Sydney and driving up, I wondered if I could come with you?’

  Adele is gobsmacked. ‘You mean you’d like us to drive up together?’

  ‘Yes, we don’t need a hire car; we could go in mine if you don’t mind driving. It’s a Volkswagen – automatic, very comfortable . . . only three years old, so if you could drive . . .’

  ‘I’d love to, Ros,’ Adele says, ‘and I’m so sorry you haven’t been well. Hopefully you’ll be fine again by the time we set off. So if you do want to drive . . .’

  ‘I don’t think so. It will be so nice to go with you,’ Ros says. ‘I just want to ask you one more thing, and it’s perfectly okay to say no, it’s not like it’s a deal-breaker, and I know it’s a bit of a cheek, but is it remotely possible for me to bring Clooney with me? I mean, I’d quite understand if . . .’

  ‘Clooney, your dog?’

  ‘Yes, I apologise for even asking, but the usual kennels are fully booked. He’s a cocker spaniel, very friendly and clean and reasonably well mannered. He wouldn’t damage the furniture or anything like that.’

  Adele has the strange feeling that Ros is sounding just like she herself frequently sounds: too apologetic, too much explaining, concerned about asking too much, anxious about how she, Adele, might react.

  ‘I think it will be fine, Ros,’ she says, with unusual confidence. ‘Obviously I’ll have to check with my cousin, but she and Brian love dogs, and other friends have taken their dogs to stay there. I’ll call them, and I suppose I should check with Judy and Simone too, just in case. Why don’t I email them all and then get back to you?’

  ‘Would you? That’s very kind, and look, as I said, it’s not vital. I have a new tenant moving into the upstairs flat, so I might be able to ask him to feed and walk Clooney . . . but if you wouldn’t mind checking . . .’

  *

  A couple of weeks later, reflecting on her original conversation with Adele, Ros is still puzzling over her own determination to accept the book club invitation. Asking Adele about Clooney had been difficult, as had asking her to drive; she always hated asking favours, but this was especially hard because it had a hint of dependence and neediness about it. The easiest thing would have been to decide not to go at all, but from the moment she’d read Adele’s email Ros had known that she would get there, whatever it took. Her determination to go to the Blue Mountains, to be part of this odd little gathering, has surprised her. Ros is not a naturally sociable person; she is an introvert who senses herself dissolving into nothingness if she doesn’t get enough quiet time alone to recharge her batteries. The book club was larger when she first joined, and it was the fact that it was online that had attracted her. It meant she didn’t have to socialise, and it was easy to sit back and just listen and think about what was said, without contributing much if that suited her. They talked about the books they read each month, and other books as well, but their lives had not become entangled.

  The phone call had proved easier than she had anticipated. Adele had always seemed to be a very nice person, but l
acking in self-confidence. It’s hard in a group like theirs to get to really know someone, and Ros feels that she knows Simone and Judy, who are more recent members, better than she knows Adele who, like Ros herself, has been part of it since the very early days. What she does know about Adele is that she seems to lack the resilience or the confidence to offer a conflicting opinion, and that had been on Ros’s mind when she called her. She had been super careful to avoid any of the sort of remarks which, James had once told her, were not half as amusing as she assumed, and sometimes potentially upsetting. But it had gone well, especially the bit about driving there, and she knows that having Clooney with her will make her more confident; not that she would ever admit that to anyone else.

  ‘I thought you didn’t like sociable things, getting together, staying in other people’s houses, Ros,’ Leah says when she pops in later to see both her and Tim upstairs. ‘You used to avoid things like that, and be all grumpy about having to find a way to say no.’

  ‘I know,’ Ros says. ‘Perhaps I’m going soft. Tim’s turning out to be an ideal tenant, by the way, pleasant, quiet and very helpful. He even takes Clooney for walks.’

  Leah nods. ‘He’s a really nice guy, I’m very fond of him.’ She reaches down to stroke Clooney, who immediately rolls over for a tummy rub.

  Leah has arrived tonight wearing a long black dress, a purple jacket, and new purple suede boots. Ros studies her, smiling, thinking how gorgeous she looks, how different from the pale and scruffy fourteen-year-old who, twenty-five years ago, had sat just where she is sitting now, clutching her violin in its battered case.

  ‘Of course you can stay here,’ James had said. Leah was his niece and he knew his younger brother’s capacity for drunken violence. ‘I’ll deal with your father.’ Then he had marched out of the house and they heard the car roar off down the street. Ros and Leah had been left facing each other across the kitchen bench.

  ‘What about you?’ Leah had asked, her eyes dark with misery. ‘Will it be all right? Do you mind?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Ros said, ‘of course I don’t mind. Tonight you’ll have to sleep in the little spare room. But tomorrow you and I will sort out the back bedroom, the big one that has its own small bathroom. We’ll make it into a proper place of your own. You’ll be quite safe here, Leah.’

  In fact, Ros had minded, she’d minded quite a lot. She and James had decided years earlier that they would not have children; they cherished their quiet life, and the freedom that it provided for them both to concentrate on doing the things they loved most. James had just been made a professor, and in addition to teaching was researching a book on British fascism in the pre-war years. Ros was playing with the Sydney Symphony and a quartet, and giving a few private cello lessons at home. The last thing either of them had wanted or needed was a distressed teenager in the house.

  Ros drags herself back to the present, pulls out a cheese board, takes brie and cheddar from the fridge and tips crackers from their packet into a small wooden bowl.

  ‘I think I’ll enjoy it,’ she says. ‘After all, a few weeks in a beautiful house in the Blue Mountains is not to be sniffed at, and I probably need a change of scene.’

  ‘It’s great,’ Leah says. ‘You may discover a new talent for sociability! And you’ll start going to parties and openings, hosting soirees, and cruising down the Rhine with a bunch of other women.’

  Ros chokes on the merlot Leah has just poured for her. ‘Don’t hold your breath,’ she says eventually. ‘James used to say that I was already a grumpy old woman when he married me, and I was only twenty-nine then, so I doubt I’m going to become all sweetness and light and hostess with the mostest at this age!’

  ‘Nothing is impossible,’ Leah says, ‘and this will do you good. You look worn out. Did you get the results of all those tests yet?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Ros lies. ‘Maybe next week.’ And she quickly changes the subject.

  Later, when they have polished off most of the wine and Leah has headed off home, Ros joins Clooney, who is now stretched out on the sofa.

  ‘I’m looking forward to it, I really am,’ she says. ‘You and me and the dames from the book club, up in the Blue Mountains. What d’you think of that?’ She tugs his ear and he looks up at her expectantly, and then farts.

  ‘Shit, Clooney, that is truly revolting,’ Ros says, waving her hand to dispel the fumes. ‘I know you’re getting on a bit now but so am I and I don’t fart at people. I think I’ll have to get you some charcoal tablets before we head off, or you might be banned.’

  Ros picks up the television guide, searching for something to watch. It’s all rubbish these days, she tells James. You’d go bananas if you could see it. She discovers a documentary on SBS and flicks through the channels. So what do you think of this Blue Mountains caper? I bet you’re having a sneaky laugh up there, aren’t you? Wondering how those three nice women will put up with me? Well I’m wondering that, too, so I shall try to be on my best behaviour.

  *

  ‘I’m leaving in two-and-a-half weeks,’ Judy tells Donna on the phone, ‘so I won’t be down until after I get back. Tell Ted that if he wants anything else sent from here he’d better let me know as soon as possible. I’ll be away for five or six weeks.’

  ‘That’s quite a long time, considering you barely know each other,’ Donna says. ‘It sounds like that book you gave me years ago – the one about the four women who rent a villa in Italy and all sorts of strange and wonderful things happen. A husband turns up, and the man who owns the house falls in love with one of the women . . .’

  ‘The Enchanted April,’ Judy cuts in. ‘I have a DVD of that; I might take it with me. Anyway, I don’t think there will be any husbands or lovers turning up at this gathering!’

  ‘You never know, Ted might decide to join you.’

  They both splutter with laughter at the prospect of Ted spontaneously taking off to the Blue Mountains.

  ‘Well it’s up to you to make sure that doesn’t happen,’ Judy says. ‘But I doubt you’ll have to nail his feet to the floor.’

  ‘I’m so glad you’re going, Jude,’ Donna says. ‘Who’s going to look after the shop?’

  ‘Melissa, and her mum. Remember I took Melissa on part-time recently? At the moment she’s doing two afternoons a week. She’s a single mother with an eighteen-month-old baby, but she’s very organised and terrific with the customers. Her mother, Pam, is helping out with the shop as well, and babysitting for Mel. They’ll both do a great job, and –’

  ‘And they do exactly as you instruct them to the letter and are not allowed to have ideas of their own,’ Donna cuts in.

  ‘Well . . . well . . .’ Judy hesitates. She and Donna have had this conversation before. ‘It’s complicated,’ she says.

  ‘No, Jude, it really isn’t. You just need to get things in order and then let go.’

  ‘Oh well, maybe we’ll talk about that when I get back.’

  ‘I bet we won’t,’ Donna says. ‘Anyway, I am delighted you’re doing this reading retreat thing, darl. It’ll be a nice break. What about your Suffolk project, how’s it going?’

  Judy sighs. ‘I was going to take some of it with me, but then I decided to make a little visual tour of it on my iPad to show them – that is, if I feel confident enough when I get there. At the moment you and Ted are the only people who know about it.’

  When they hang up Judy stays behind the counter watching a couple of women discussing wool colours. She feels a sudden twinge of envy at their obviously easy relationship, their shared involvement in this decision. She imagines them shopping together for all sorts of things, talking and laughing over lunch or coffee, the way she and Donna had done sometimes years ago when they could both get away for a weekend in Perth. She has missed that, missed Donna; in fact she has missed Donna more than she has missed Ted, ever since the day she left the Wheatbelt, and that was a life
time ago. But since her recent panic attack she hasn’t missed either of them. She has, instead, been entirely focused on getting away, escaping to the Blue Mountains, escaping from Mandurah, the business, and Donna and Ted. This will fix everything, she keeps telling herself. I’ll come back rested and refreshed and put this behind me. And she is intent on drawing up a plan for Melissa, so she can find her way through the business side of things. Fortunately Melissa herself seems undaunted by the lack of proper files, although she does venture in to the office and start tidying things from time to time. One saving grace is that some years ago Judy did get someone to show her how to save things to the cloud, and how to use Dropbox. She’s never used them but she’s determined to go through the instructions again before she goes.

  ‘We’ll be able to read the same things and update them and save them,’ she’d told Melissa. ‘That’ll make things easier.’

  ‘Whatever,’ Melissa had said. ‘It’ll be fine, we’ll sort it out.’

  But while Judy tries to absorb the information on clouds and dropboxes she daydreams about escape. And her nights are filled with dreams of being trapped in a small dark room, hammering on a door, screaming for help, and she wakes with her head spinning, her bedclothes tangled, hands clasped into fists leaving fingernail marks on her palms.

  *

  It’s a freezing cold evening in Hobart and Simone is curled up on the sofa watching a movie when her mobile rings. She sees it’s Adele. This is a first, she thinks.