Beaty

"Along the wall, behind the park, but never attempt after dark", Thea smiled, reciting a poem her quirky Grandma Beaty had helped her memorise as a child. Unlike the last bazillion times she had made the journey to her Grandma's house, today Thea was in no hurry to get there. She was well aware that today would be the last.

On her passing, Grandma B had left Thea the entire contents of her sewing room in her will.

"I practically grew up in that room!" Thea declared when her distant mother announced the news.

"Yes, well, nevertheless, she was adamant that everything in that room went to you. Enjoy!" Her mother snapped back, clearly bothered by the decision.

Thea's mother was always a little envious that she couldn't have such a close relationship with Grandma Beaty. Thea knew this was because her mother was emotionally guarded. They didn't get along well either. Thea went to university to study for an accounting degree to please her mother. Though she despised the degree and, to her mother's dismay, dropped out as soon as she heard the news that her Grandma was ill.

"I'm looking after her!" Thea shouted, desperate to spend every waking minute with her favourite person on earth.

Her mother grimaced, "No you are not!"

"Just watch me" Thea retaliated before decisively clicking the 'deferred' button on every unit she had enrolled in on the university's online portal.

Whilst solemnly walking along the well-trodden path, Thea's long orange skirt got caught on a twig from a thorny bush. Tugging at it forcefully to release its grip, she tore a small hole in the seam. "Damn it, no!" Tears flooded Thea's eyes as she called out in distress, triggering memories of the hours she spent with her grandma sewing away and then celebrating their fabulous creations with a fashion parade at the end of the day.

Approaching Grandma B's rickety garden gate, Thea clenched her eyes shut tightly, suffocating her dewdrop tears before despondently performing the arrival ritual that she had perfected over the past twenty-one years. She hopped, she twirled, she sprang like a dear before bowing proudly on approaching the rather large red front door. Tears streamed like gushing waterfalls down her face as she swished her arms around her fragile body tightly and held herself with all the strength she could muster. "I love you, Grandma", she whispered, imagining a gentle kiss upon her cheek.

Pushing the long antique key through the matching keyhole and turning softly, Thea steadily entered the house. There was a deathly silence. "You can hear the footsteps of a mouse in here", she stated, distracting herself from the overwhelming sadness she felt from not finding her Grandma B waiting there. Sniffing back her tears and dabbing at her eyes with her white woolen sleeve, Thea listened out for Grandma B's infectious laugh to echo throughout the house. With her gaze firmly at the floor, she slowly made her way along the black and white tiled hallway towards the sewing room door.

Apprehensive, Thea twisted the cold metal knob and pushed the door wide open. She swiftly lifted her gaze, and there, to her surprise, was the sewing room she knew so well jam-packed full of her Grandma's artistic legacy. A faux fur-lined coat, a floral printed dress and a knit fabric blouse greeted her in a row at the doorway. Hundreds of striking handcrafted garments continued the parade, hung on velvet hangers on racks around the room. It was a mass of perfectly arranged beauty.

"Wow, Grandma!" Thea gushed, shocked at the amount of clothing in sight. "I had no idea!" Grandma B had never displayed her creations like this before. As soon as the fashion show was over, she would always hide them away in cupboards and closets, but never on display.

Thea hastily stepped over the large central Persian rug and danced enthusiastically around the room. Bounding from memory to memory of garments she had helped her Grandma to sew. "One floral, pink summer dress here, one violet silk shawl over there", she admired, whilst remembering all the stitches that were too fiddly for her far less experienced fingers to tackle. "A dark leather jacket over here, a buttoned-up emerald lace gown over there", she noted, as she ran her dainty fingers across all the luxurious pieces her Grandma had ingeniously thought up.

Grinning brightly, Thea strode over to a small wooden desk where she had spotted an old metal Singer sewing machine to one side and a rainbow of bobbins to the other. She fell into the central pink office chair in a state of both bemusement and delight. "My grandma was so freakin talented!" She gleamed, shaking her head in wonder and rolling backwards on the wheels of the chair.

Darting her intrigued blue eyes from side to side, Thea inquisitively inspected the wooden desk before her. A pot of sewing tools was positioned on the left-hand side, several sewing books and wallets of well-used sewing patterns were placed on the right, and a rather elegant little black book sat noticeably in the centre. 'Accounting', the front cover read in stamped rose gold lettering. "Well, this is stylish", Thea commented, noticing the book's luminous sheen. "I've never seen a pretty little accounting book like this before." Impressed by her Grandma's stylish organisation skills.

Intrigued, Thea casually flipped over the first page, where to her surprise, she found a loosely hand-drawn coat. The coat was sketched with a ballpoint pen and neatly surrounded by measurements and a description of the fabrics required to construct it. "Tan, fur lining, dark brown body and sleeves. Two-inch cuffs and collar", she read aloud. Her eyes lit up. She immediately realised that the drawing was referring to the first coat she had seen at the door. She gazed down to the bottom of the page, and there, in much smaller print, was a price. "$1500", Thea read. "Was grandma going to sell her clothing?"she was confused. Considering her Grandma had never sold any of her garments before, this all seemed a little odd.

Thea turned to the next page of the book to uncover yet another loosely hand-drawn design corresponding to the following floral dress on the rack. "Capped sleeves, pinched at the waist, white-collar", Thea read aloud before continuing to outline the exact measurements, fabric involved, and again, another price written in small print at the bottom. "$1000", She read. Her eyebrows raised. "Well, she may have wanted to sell her beautiful clothes, but who's going to pay that much for them?" she doubted respectfully.

Thea flipped through the following pages to discover that the entire little black book was full of elaborate hand-drawn designs, descriptions and prices that matched the clothing in the exact order Grandma B had displayed them on the racks.

Suspicious, Thea skimmed her way to the back of the book. In large, bold lettering on the final page, she found the heading, 'Grand total: $20,000' and then in much smaller font at the bottom of the page, 'Instructions: To access the cash, quick unpick to the bottom hem'. Thea's eyes widened. "What on earth!" She exclaimed, her voice vibrating through the house.

Thea bounced out of her seat and grabbed a little pink seam ripper, or 'quick-unpick-stick' as her Grandma liked to call it, from the tool pot at the side. With the little black book gripped firmly in her left hand and the stick held tightly in the other, she steadily approached the first faux fur coat on the rack. "This coat is far too beautiful to destroy", she winced, cautiously kneeling on the jarrah wood floor and pushing the sharp metal point against the bottom hem.

Placing the book in her lap and stick between her teeth, Thea pulled the coat open to reveal the extent of the tan faux fur inside. She noticed that her Grandma had created a stiff double hem with a single gold line of stitching. "I'm pretty sure I could sew this back up", she whispered, giving credit for the first time to her many years of practice.

Placing the point at the bottom left corner, Thea hesitantly unpicked one quality gold stitch after another until she was halfway across the coat. Then, in one swift action, she ran the sharp edge along the remaining stitches, just like grandma B had taught her.

When Thea had successfully broken each stitch, she excitedly unrolled the hem, only to reveal the fabric's opposite side. Flustered, she immediately looked up and located the sewing machine. "I'm sorry Gran, I'll fix it", she vowed, sending her gaze to the sky.

With her heart pulsating loudly, Thea quickly scrutinised the hem, preparing to rectify the damage she had made, when she spotted another row of stitching.

Without a second's thought, Thea pressed the point of the stick up against the hem and carefully began to unpick once more until she eagerly tore through the final stitches of the coat. As soon as the last stitch was unpicked, the hem immediately fell and, as if by magic, released an abundance of rolled-up fifty-dollar notes graciously to the floor. Thea gasped. Dropping the stick, she threw her hands to either side of her auburn hair and sat bolt upright in a state of shock. She was speechless.

Collecting the money piece by piece, Thea counted a total of thirty fifty-dollar notes. "Exactly $1500!" She yelled excitedly, acknowledging the accuracy of the little black book.

Placing the money in a pile to one side, Thea clutched the book in her hands and eagerly turned to the next page, the floral dress design. Enthusiastically, she began unpicking the first bottom hem and then another secret hem of the dress, this time releasing ten rolled-up fifty-dollar notes to the floor. "$1000!" she shouted in delight, adding the money to the pile.

Thea turned to the next page of the little black book and then the next and then the next, eagerly unpicking her way along the bottom hems of the clothing as she went. In the space of two hours, she unpicked every bottom hem in sight and, to her amazement, released every page of Grandma B's accounting treasure.

Thea began counting the money. "A grand total of $20,000!" she yelled in disbelief, referencing the exact words in the book. Thea jumped up and dug around for a thick rubber band in the tool pot. She wrapped up the wad of cash and placed it carefully in her leather handbag. Guilt flushed her face as she stared despairingly at her Grandma's collection of finely constructed hem-torn garments, "I've got some work to do" Thea stated, with commitment gleaming from her eyes.

Starting with the faux fur-lined coat, Thea cautiously sewed up every hem, swapping the colour of thread to match each garment as she went. When finished, she placed each elegant piece back on its designated hanger and continued to the next until all garments were flawlessly complete.

On leaving the house, Thea's thoughts churned over why her Grandma would store her finances in such a peculiar way. It must be memories from the war, she concluded, strolling along the path home. She must have been frightened someone would raid her house. Thea pondered over her Grandma's angst until it sparked an idea, "I know exactly how I'm going to spend that money", she proclaimed.

Within days of discovering her Grandma's hidden legacy, Thea devoted herself to creating a fashion showroom in the centre of town. With a large Persian rug laid stylishly in the middle, racks of velvet hangers displaying each exquisite garment around the sides, antique jarrah wood panels encasing the floor and the name of the honourable designer, ‘Beaty’ presented proudly in rose gold above the door.