Page 17 of Thursdays at Orange Blossom House
‘Breathe, Patricia.’
Sandrine’s hands are on her shoulders now and Patricia gulps in a breath, embarrassed to have a witness to her inadequacy.
‘Breatheslowly. Inhale and come up out of the posture.’
‘But— ’
‘Up,’ Sandrine commands, and her hands are still on Patricia’s shoulders, almost like she’s trying to comfort her.
Patricia wonders why, then realises tears are rolling down her face.
She gulps another breath.
‘Oh,’ she says, and wants to run from the room. People areseeing herlike this. Crying. Because of a little pain in her hip. She’s pathetic. Dorothy, the new student, will think she’s loony.
‘It’s normal,’ Sandrine whispers. ‘I promise you. The body keeps our secrets for us and sometimes yoga brings them out. To the light, where they belong. So we can manage them. You didn’t think it would be easy, did you?’ She smiles and wipes the tears from Patricia’s cheeks. ‘This is not a place for anyone who is not prepared to feel pain. I have sobbed. Believe me. You are not the first.’
Then she’s gone, off to attend to someone else, and as Patricia glances around she sees that absolutely no one has noticed what just happened.
Except Dorothy.
‘Are you all right?’ she says quietly as they all shift to a different posture.
Normally Patricia would say, ‘Yes, thank you,’ quickly. As a dismissal. You can’t let anyone know what you really feel. It’s not polite. But she pauses and thinks about it. In this place,lyingwould be impolite. This room isn’t quite a cocoon yet she feels that it’s some kind of protected environment. There’s no judgement here. She doesn’t judge others for what they can and can’t do; no one is judging her.
‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘But I look forward to finding out.’
Dorothy stares at her for a couple of seconds, then her face relaxes. ‘I know what you mean,’ she says.
They don’t talk again until the class ends, the spell is broken and they’re walking out at the same time.
‘So do you think you’ll come back?’ Patricia says once they’re on the footpath. She’s clutching her rolled-up mat to her chest like it’s a teddy bear.
Dorothy nods slowly. ‘Yes. I found it very interesting. And calming, like you said.’ Her face changes, as if a thought is trying to write itself upon her. ‘I think I need it. All of it. I just didn’t know I did until I came here.’
‘It’s strange how that happens, isn’t it?’ Patricia pulls her car keys out of her handbag. ‘I guess I’ll see you next week.’ Or maybe she won’t, if she doesn’t come to this class again.
‘You will. Goodbye.’ Dorothy gives her a funny little wave, then pivots and walks away.
Patricia sighs – long and heavy, as if she’s still holding on to whatever was in that hip. Or maybe she’s simply anticipating how the rest of her night will go. Cook dinner, try to manage whatever is going on in her mother’s brain, let her father rant about Prime Minister Paul Keating and how everything would be better if the Liberals were in charge, but John Hewson was never going to win that March election and they should have let Andrew Peacock have another go.
As she drives home she thinks again about what happened in class. About her tears and how she didn’t realise they’d erupted. About the place in her body they came from. The deep, dark well of her hips and whatever she’s stuffed down there all these years.
Maybe that’s what yoga will teach her: the mystery of herself and what to do about it. Or maybe she’ll just have a good stretch and that will be that.
The latter is what she’ll tell Marjorie. Anything else Patricia discovers will be hers alone.
CHAPTER TWELVE
It’s not in Grace Maud’s nature to be sneaky, but this evening she has been. After telling Cecilia that she planned to do ‘nothing much’, she has driven herself –alone, Heaven forfend – to Orange Blossom House for the yoga class. It’s not that she minds going on Saturdays with Cecilia, but Grace Maud is still an independent person and she can still see at night, no matter what Tom thinks, so it’s partly to prove to herself that she can do it that she’s decided to attend the Thursday class.
Besides, it’s a nice thing to do: she is winding down the day, and is sure she’ll sleep better afterwards.
Sleep is something that becomes erratic as one ages; Grace Maud wishes one of her parents had told her that. She also wishes she had Ellie Maud to discuss it with. They could be crones together, moaning about waking up at four o’clock and turning on the wireless for company. Although if Ellie Maud were alive she likely wouldn’t do that because she’d still have her husband.
The early evening air is cool as Grace Maud walks into Orange Blossom House – the first to arrive, for a change – and positions herself at the back of the studio. She likes being able to observe the room and to copy one of the younger women, even though Sandrine regularly admonishes them to ‘not look at your neighbour – yes, Grace Maud, you too’. She rolls out her mat but won’t sit down on it yet. Instead she leans against the wall, and watches the others arrive.
There’s a hunched-over woman who Grace Maud suspects is younger than she looks; she always walks in slowly, as if her feet are getting caught in something.
