Page 12 of Thursdays at Orange Blossom House
‘Grace Maud,’ Sandrine says in a tone that suggests command, ‘this class is not very energetic – I like it to be a place of refuge not a … a … anaerobicsclass, you see?’
Sandrine’s accent is more pronounced, Grace Maud notices, when she is searching for a word, but her English is perfect. Even with her old-age hearing deficit, Grace Maud knows she’ll understand it.
‘I do,’ she says.
‘Still, we move. Wemustmove otherwise the body … pfft!’ Sandrine gestures with her hands to indicate a collapsing mound. ‘But I will tell you if there is something you should not do. And maybe you will surprise yourself with what youcando.’
Grace Maud doubts it – she hasn’t surprised herself in many years – but she decides to humour this Frenchwoman with her curls and her mascara and red lipstick and her leotard and noisy bracelets. She’s the most interesting person Grace Maud has met this week.
‘Okay, we shall begin,’ Sandrine says.
Cecilia unrolls their mats, which stay curled up at the edges.
Looking down, Grace Maud realises it’s a long way to the mat. She hasn’t willingly been on a floor for quite some time, and she’s not sure her hips will allow her to make it back up again. With help, yes; on her own, no.
She has a flash of realising the indignity of having to be helped to her feet in front of these strangers and the spry Frenchwoman, then immediately castigates herself for it. She has changed tyres on trucks and whacked machetes at cane. She has murdered snakes and accosted aggressive dogs. Her body has bent and folded and stretched and hauled and pushed for most of her life. Just because it has wrinkles on it now doesn’t mean it’s forgotten how to do all those things simply because she’s withered a little since she moved into town. Somewhere inside this crepey-skinned shell is the warrior she used to be. And Grace Maud will need to find her again to get off this floor at the end of the class.
She takes a breath and props herself against the wall to help her lower to her knees, sure she can hear them groaning.
Cecilia looks at her expectantly and Grace Maud smiles in response. ‘I’m fine,’ she says, pulling her legs in front of her as she sits, only to see Sandrine getting to her feet.
‘We will start with thebreathing,’ Sandrine says, catching Grace Maud’s eye and giving her a wink. ‘Everyone please find a comfortable position to sit in for a few minutes.’
Although Grace Maud isn’t sure if a comfortable position is possible on this flimsy piece of foam on this hard wooden floor, she does the best she can to follow Sandrine’s instructions. If it all gets too difficult, she thinks, she can just stay like this and breathe.
Grace Maud closes her eyes and, as Sandrine talks, realises how nice it is to have someone else take charge. Sandrine will tell her what to do. Grace Maud’s only job is to listen and follow. The relief of it – after years of the pent-up worry that comes with taking responsibility for everyone else, for her family, for her workers and their livelihoods – feels temporarily enormous.
She pulls herself back from it, though, because there is nowhere for that relief to go in this room on this sunny Saturday morning amidst an assortment of a dozen different women and their different bodies and faces and hairstyles. It feels too big, and too old, and too scary, to be let out. So Grace Maud focuses only on her breathing, as Sandrine instructs, and waits for the rest of the class to unfold.
CHAPTER NINE
As Patricia puts the key in the car door she feels a pinch in her neck and shoulder. The slightest of movements and it’s complaining. She feels like sighing, but that will just make her mother cross.
‘Stop sighing,’ she used to say when Patricia was practising piano and became upset each time she made a mistake. Which was often, because that’s the nature of practising anything: one makes mistakes far more often than one gets it right. Sighing was an alternative to bashing the keys, which was what Patricia truly wanted to do. But that would be bad-tempered and she couldn’t be that. She had to be polite. Controlled. Presentable. Just like her sister. Just like her mother. And her mother’s mother. And every other woman they knew. Nice girls didn’t lose their tempers, no matter how badly they played Chopin’s nocturnes.
Once sighing wasn’t an option, Patricia took to biting the inside of her cheek, which is what she finds herself doing now as she unlocks the door, stows her handbag behind the driver’s seat, then walks around to the passenger side.
‘Are you sure you want to come, Dad?’ she says, hoping she doesn’t sound irritated.
It’s her mother who needs to go to the doctor – her mother is the reason Patricia’s missing the staff meeting after the last lesson – and her father could easily stay at home watchingThe Price is Right. Except these days he doesn’t seem to ever want to be alone, and that’s starting to worry Patricia as much as her mother’s changeable moods, forgetfulness and, now, rattly chest.
‘Oh, yeah,’ her father says vaguely as he sits heavily on the back seat, newspaper clutched to his chest. For the crosswords, he told her. He’s going to do them while they wait for her mother to see the doctor. Crosswords he could have done at home, in front ofThe Price is Right.
‘In you get, Mum,’ Patricia says as brightly as she can, half tempted to buckle her mother in like her mother did her many years ago. Because that’s what’s starting to happen: she’s becoming her parents’ parent. Telling them to watch as they cross the road. Offering to cut up their food. Making sure they’re not catching a chill. It’s not the life she imagined for herself but it’s the one she has, and she’s trying to do it with love instead of nails-pressed-into-her-palms tolerance.
‘Work without expectation of reward is karma yoga,’ that teacher, Sandrine, had said in yoga class the other day. Because it was Patricia’s first class she hadn’t been sure she wanted to hear about philosophy or whatever that concept was. It had stuck, though. Work without expectation of reward – it doesn’t apply to her teaching job, because she does expect the reward of being paid, and of her students managing to move on to their next year of schooling, or leaving school with at least a pass mark. It describes her work at home, though: there’s no expectation of reward here. So the yoga class gave her something, at least, even if it didn’t fix her neck and shoulder.
‘You have to go more than once for that!’ Marjorie had said when Patricia had remarked on it. ‘It’s not magic!’
But I want it to be. That’s what Patricia wished she could say out loud. She wants the quick solution to the pain in her body. She wants someone to wave a wand and say everything is going to be all right. She doesn’t want that person to have to be her, even though that was something else Sandrine managed to slip in: ‘No one can make you happy but yourself.’
At the time they were all holding a posture that Patricia wished would end immediately, and she thought Sandrine was a bit … well, cruel to say that. Marjorie had mentioned that Sandrine could be mean. Except Patricia remembers what was said. Almost as if the pain she was feeling in her body helped imprint the words on her mind. That’s quite a trick. Perhaps she could use it on her own students.
With all the car doors closed, Patricia starts the engine and reverses onto the road just as their neighbours pull up, honking a hello.
‘Wave, Mum,’ Patricia urges.
‘Hm?’ Her mother blinks slowly.
