Page 53 of Thursdays at Orange Blossom House
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The first day’s driving was reasonable: they left Cairns in daylight and arrived at Mackay before the sun set. But the second day, to Brisbane, has Dorothy wishing she’d never left home.
She’s never been in a car for this long. Her parents were used to crossing countries in less time than it took them to drive from Cairns to anywhere, so long drives were not an endeavour they endorsed. ‘Why would we move all this way to be here, then get in a car and go somewhere else?’ her father had said when Dorothy asked if they could please-please-please drive her to Townsville when one of her best friends from school moved there.
That friend was far from Dorothy’s mind as she and Frederick went through Townsville the first day. She was surprised to see it was so different to Cairns: it looked wide open to the sky, where Cairns seemed coddled by rainforest. Townsville was ordered, as befitted a garrison town, and the sun covered it in a bright yellow blanket so different to the dappled tones of home.
Brisbane definitely feels like it’s in another country; if they were in the northern hemisphere it would probably be in another continent. It’s not just the distance: Brisbane is a city, and she’s not used to that. There are so many people here, for one thing. For another, it’s dominated by a river and she can’t wrap her head around the geography of that.
‘The river is a double M,’ Ruth had said when Dorothy expressed her concern about being able to navigate her way around, but the explanation hadn’t made any sense then and doesn’t now. How can she orient herself around a letter of the alphabet when she’s used to an ocean?
Luckily Frederick decided she should drive so he can navigate. Driving she can handle, even if she’s slightly flustered by the amount of traffic and the number of traffic lights.
‘Where are we staying?’ she asks as they pass a sign for the airport.
‘Ascot,’ he says, which means nothing to her.
Frederick spent some time in Brisbane before he made his way to Cairns, where they met. He still has friends here, one of whom has offered them a room in his house. Dorothy was reluctant to take it, because she didn’t want to tell a stranger what they’re doing in town. That was until Frederick told her his friend didn’t ask why they were visiting, and if he did Frederick would say they felt like a change from Cairns.
Brisbane certainly is a change – with a glance to her left Dorothy can see tall buildings in what she presumes is the business area of the city. So many buildings so close together. She could never live in a place like this, with all the concrete footpaths and people walking along them. She’s only noticed one park, and there’s certainly no ocean.
When she was growing up and reading novels set in New York and Paris and London – the usual glamorous places people dream about visiting – she thought they sounded wonderful. And exotic. So different to her own life. Sometimes she has to remind herself that she’s European and that if her parents had stayed in Germany those very cities would be mostly easy for her to visit. Because she doesn’t feel European. She feels Australian. And not just Australian: she’s a Far North Queenslander. Brisbane may be a small city by world standards – even in Australian terms – but it’s like it belongs to a different state to the one she lives in.
Her eyes flick to and from the rear-view mirror. People in the city like to drive close and it makes her nervous. What happens if she has to slam on the brakes? They’ll smash right into her rear! She can’t understand why they don’t know that. What’s so good about this place that they’re all rushing to get to it? There’s no beach. There’s no rainforest. There’s no reef. There’s probably yoga. But not with Sandrine.
Dorothy smiles as she thinks of class last week. Patricia passed wind while they were in a posture with their legs over their heads, and Dorothy laughed so much she had to come out of the pose. Grace Maud was cackling away too, in the sitting posture she’d chosen instead of the shoulder stand.
‘It is to-tal-ly nor-mal, Patricia, darling,’ Sandrine said as she sashayed past.
‘Oh god,’ Patricia groaned. She was the colour of beetroot. ‘Did everyone hear?’
‘Oui. And why are you laughing, Dorothy?’ Sandrine’s eyebrow arched. ‘It will happen to you too.’
‘Then you can laugh at me,’ Dorothy had said to Patricia.
‘I look forward to it,’ Patricia muttered, before joining Grace Maud on the floor.
There wouldn’t be a teacher like Sandrine in Brisbane. Maybe not in the whole world. And there would be no Grace Maud or Patricia in the classes here either. Dorothy used to think it was the yoga that brought her back each week, then she thought it was Sandrine. Now she knows it’s both of those things, and it’s also Patricia and Grace Maud. They’re all learning together, and that makes her feel less inept. None of them is pretending to be any better at it than they are. Dorothy has felt vulnerable in the class – because, as Sandrine tells them, the postures open them up in ways that aren’t just physical – but she knows she’s not alone. She and Patricia and Grace Maud may not feel vulnerable all at the same time yet they have such similar experiences that they don’t need to explain anything.
If only they were also about to go through IVF – then Dorothy wouldn’t feel so alone. Frederick is supporting her, but it’s not as if he’ll ever really understand what’s going to happen to her body. She barely understands it herself; after her GP told her how many needles were involved she didn’t hear the rest.
He’d assured her that the doctors in Brisbane would explain everything. Would that include explaining why she has to come this far for treatment? Cairns isn’t a backwater. Not really. They have an airport.
‘You could have the treatment here,’ her doctor had said, ‘but there’s only one specialist and he’s booked up for ages. I tried to get someone in two months ago, but the wait list was so long she went to Brisbane too. It’s a sacrifice travelling so far, I know – but won’t it be worth it when you get your baby?’
Dorothy wanted to ask him what he knew about the sacrifice it would take. It would never be his body being poked and prodded, his subterranean bits getting explored with cold steel instruments. All while in a strange place, with only a stranger’s home to go back to each day. She has to stay in Brisbane to take the hormones, then wait for her eggs to be ‘harvested’.
‘Delightful term,’ Grace Maud said when Dorothy told her and Patricia. ‘We harvest sugar cane. I hardly think it’s appropriate to apply the same terminology to you.’
‘I suppose “collected” would be better,’ said Patricia, then frowned. ‘But “collecting eggs” is what you do to chickens.’
‘How about “gathering”?’ Grace Maud offered.
‘That’s a bit mild considering what the procedure sounds like,’ Patricia said. ‘I really think that when they come up with a new medical process like this they should come up with new words for all the different parts and leave the existing English language alone. Why should a word like “harvest” be used to describe something that’s done to a woman’s body?’ She shuddered. ‘It makes you sound less than human, Dorothy, and I don’t like it.’
Dorothy didn’t like it either. But there was no other word and that’s what she is in Brisbane for: to be harvested. And Frederick will do his bit, and hopefully there will be an embryo on the other side.
Frederick will have gone home by that point – he can’t leave the café for that long – and Dorothy’s parents are paying for her to fly home. Once she’s been implanted. Another delightful term that makes her sound like an experiment.
