Page 30 of Thursdays at Orange Blossom House
She squats and puts her hands on Dorothy’s shins. ‘We don’t want the distress to become overwhelming,’ she says, in such a soothing tone that Dorothy wants to curl up and go to sleep. Instead she glances at Patricia – who doesn’t look pitying, thank goodness.
‘I have been this way,’ Sandrine says. ‘So I know. Not long after I started this practice I was crying all the time.’ She flops a hand around. ‘Hopeless. Rideee-culous. I did not know why. But I found out.’ She shrugs. ‘I did not want to be married any more. My body knew before my mind did. That is part of the mystery of this work we are doing here. I know not to question it now.’
She cups her hands around Dorothy’s face. ‘What is it your body is telling you?’
Dorothy opens her mouth and Sandrine holds up a finger. ‘Non. It is not for us to know. You do not have to share. But I would like you to think about this.’
‘What did you do?’ Dorothy asks.
‘I left my husband,’ Sandrine says with another shrug. ‘I have never regretted it. My body knew and I trusted it. Why shouldn’t I?’
She glances around at Patricia and Grace Maud. ‘The same might apply to you ladies, but that is none of my business, of course. All I will say is that once you start on this path it will take you back to yourself, if you let it. There are so many ways to get lost. So many years to spend away from yourself. Yoga is the way home. This I know.’ As she stands up her hand goes back on her hip, which she then juts out. ‘And it keeps you young!’ she trills. ‘I do not mind if that is the reason you come.’
Patricia gets to her feet and holds out a hand to Dorothy. ‘Up you get,’ she says, then turns to Grace Maud. ‘You too.’
Dorothy takes Grace Maud’s other arm and they both pull her up.
‘Keeps me young, you say?’ Grace Maud looks sceptically at Sandrine.
‘Yes, but it does not work miracles,’ Sandrine says with a laugh, then she twinkles her fingers at them and Dorothy half expects her to be like Tinkerbell and vanish. Instead she makes her way to another student who looks as though she too has been crying.
Grace Maud regards Dorothy with curiosity. ‘Would you like to talk at all,’ she starts, ‘about why you’re crying? It’s none of my business, of course, but I, ah …’ She makes a face. ‘Think it would be rude to not ask. Since it’s happening here, and we have come to know each other a little. And I can be a good listener, on occasion.’
Grace Maud looks disinterested in a polite way, Dorothy thinks: not bored, not turning away like she has somewhere else to be, yet not burning with curiosity either.
Patricia is frowning the way Dorothy knows she frowns at Cornelia – like a big sister. ‘You don’t have to say anything,’ Patricia adds quickly. ‘I mean, unless you want to.’
‘Do …’ Dorothy stops and wonders how to start again. ‘Do you ever cry at the end, like that?’
She asks Patricia, because she’s fairly sure Grace Maud hasn’t shed a tear since childhood.
‘Not yet,’ Patricia says carefully. ‘But I have in one of the poses.’
‘Because it hurts?’ Dorothy asks.
‘Yes, but … no.’ Patricia shakes her head like she’s trying to remove something from it. ‘It’s strange. It hurts my muscles but it also feels like some gate opens in my hips and something comes out. Some … emotion, I guess. Maybe it’s the same sort of thing?’
Grace Maud raises her eyebrows. ‘How intriguing. What comes out of the gate, exactly?’
‘Stuff,’ Patricia says and lowers her eyes. When she lifts them again, she smiles encouragingly at Dorothy. ‘I think we all have things we’ve stashed away. So crying is to be expected.’
It had felt brave to Dorothy to come to this class when she didn’t know anyone. So it probably felt brave for the others too. Braver still for Patricia to try to ease the way for her, because that’s what she’s doing, and for Grace Maud to offer to hear her troubles when they hardly know each other.
Except maybe they do. They’re having this rather odd experience together, and no one else Dorothy knows is there. Why shouldn’t she tell them why she’s been so upset?
‘I keep having miscarriages,’ she says, then lets out a long, slow exhalation. She’s never announced it to anyone before. ‘And no one can tell me why. And I— ’
She stops as she feels the shock of it; the same way she felt when she lost the first baby. The sensation is as sharp each time.
‘That’s a very hard road to travel,’ Grace Maud murmurs as Patricia bites her bottom lip.
‘But IknowI make too much of a fuss about it!’ Dorothy goes on. ‘They’re just miscarriages. No one has said I’ll never have a baby. I just— ’
‘They’re not “just miscarriages”,’ Grace Maud says almost sternly. ‘I knew someone who had two and the worst part was that her doctor used to tell her to “just get back on the horse”, as if she even felt like doing that.’ She smiles reassuringly. ‘But she had a baby in the end.’
Patricia reaches towards Dorothy as if to hug her, then stops and puts a hand on her shoulder. ‘I’m so sorry, Dorothy. No wonder you cry at the end. Sandrine puts us through all that, and as soon as your body has a chance to rest it lets you know that it’s been in the wars.’
‘Maybe,’ Dorothy says. It’s a reasonable explanation, except she knows that’s only part of it. The tears come from a place that isn’t made of muscle and bone. There’s a cave inside of her where she keeps all her wishes and hopes and dreams, and all her hurts. When her body is open at the end of the class she feels like the tears are coming from that cave, and they may be made of dreams or of misery. There’s no way to tell.
