Page 29 of Thursdays at Orange Blossom House
Music starts up again – this time a quite different, more aggressive song that she doesn’t recognise.
‘What is that?’ she asks.
‘Rage Against the Machine,’ Dennis says quickly. ‘Listen, would you— ’
‘Girls! Off!’ she yells and the music stops.
Dennis swallows. ‘Would you like to— ’
‘Miiiisss.’ Damien appears with a cut over his eye and a streak of blood heading for his cheek.
‘Damien – what happened?’ Patricia says crossly and stands.
Dennis is slow to follow. ‘Had another ball, didn’t you, mate,’ he says, raising his eyebrows.
Damien looks sheepish.
‘I’ll take him to get a band-aid,’ Dennis tells Patricia.
‘Thank you,’ she says.
As he trails off behind the sorry-looking student Dennis holds her gaze for a few seconds, then Patricia turns away. She heads in the direction of a group of students who wanted to observe the monkeys. As nice as it was chatting to Dennis, she really shouldn’t let the children roam the zoo unchaperoned. She could trust most to return at the allotted time but some of them may decide to jump into a snake enclosure instead and she doesn’t want to have to explain fang marks to their parents.
She trails from one group to the next but doesn’t see Dennis again until they all meet at their spot.
‘You survived?’ he says, smiling in that knowing way teachers have with each other.
‘Yes. You?’
He holds up two tennis balls.
‘It’s been a lucrative visit as far as the ball cupboard is concerned. The owners of these are repeat offenders so they’re not getting them back.’
Patricia laughs. ‘I only managed to confiscate some bubble gum. Not so lucrative for me.’
She turns to the students amassing beside her. ‘Okay, the bus is up there at the gates. Let’s go.’
‘I’ll go ahead with them, if you don’t mind being at the tail,’ Dennis says. She nods her assent, and he gives her a thumbs-up, and they don’t speak again for the rest of the day.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
‘Meditation is not empty mind,’ Sandrine intones. ‘Focus on the pause that comes after your exhalation has ended. That’s when the mind is naturally empty. That is your meditation.’
Not that Dorothy’s mind empties right then. Oh, no – her thoughts rush to fill every moment they can. Every crevice of her mind is crammed full of what-ifs and what-abouts and if-onlys and I-should-never-haves, and they’re all louder and more insistent than usual. Because that’s the nature of worries, isn’t it? They grow louder and ruder, until they topple you over.
Dorothy feels tears on her cheeks. She cried in last week’s class too. Not loud sobs, just tears flowing out of her eyes without any prompting. Last time she was surprised. This time she feels embarrassed. What if someone sees her?
She feels something rising in her chest – a sob, it seems – and ismortified. This can’t be normal. It’s not as though she’s in pain. The class was fine; challenging, but she managed.
Sandrine asks them all to roll to their right-hand side and sit up with their eyes closed, so Dorothy has to swallow the sob. But that makes it stick in her throat and she feels like she’s going to choke.
Now Sandrine is telling them to open their eyes. As Dorothy does, she sees Sandrine standing in front of her, one hand on her hip and an eyebrow arched.
‘You are struggling,’ she says, just like that, like it’s the most natural thing to say in the world.
Dorothy sees Patricia shuffle over so she’s sitting nearby, and she can feel Grace Maud over her shoulder. She knows she should feel self-conscious but they probably heard her making that noise anyway. Great. Witnesses to her falling-apart.
‘The tears flow when the body starts to open,’ Sandrine continues. ‘It is often part of the yoga practice. It is good for you. But it is also happening every time for you.’
