Page 65 of Thursdays at Orange Blossom House
She sits without being invited, directly opposite Grace Maud. Dorothy takes another chair and folds her hands in her lap, her plait resting on her shoulder.
‘What’s happened?’ Patricia asks, more gently.
Grace Maud wants to say that she’d have told them already if she wanted them to know. But she can’t blame them for being curious. The three of them have become fairly familiar with each other. She might have withheld details about herself, but Patricia has talked about the difficulties of managing her parents, and Dorothy has been completely honest about her challenges falling pregnant. They’ve indicated that they are including Grace Maud in their lives, but she’s done nothing much to include them.
This is the first time she’s thought about that, actually. She’s taken lifts from Patricia, offered advice to them both when it’s been asked for – and sometimes when it hasn’t – and talked about yoga poses with them. They’ve chatted about Sandrine, discussed tourists in town and politicians in Canberra, and whether or not they still watchA Country Practice(Grace Maud has never watched it but she reads about it in the newspaper) – the sorts of things that friends talk about. Thatfamiliarfriends talk about. No wonder they’ve turned up at her doorstep.
Still, she’s unsure of what will happen if she tells them; she doesn’t know how this script will run, and at her age maybe it’s too late to take those sorts of chances.
‘Nothing you need to worry about,’ she says, which is the truth. They can’t unburn the farm.
‘But weareworried,’ says Dorothy, her face pinched. ‘We’ve been very worried. It’s not like you to just not come to class three times in a row.’
‘Maybe I’m sick of it,’ Grace Maud says, pursing her lips.
‘We all know that’s not true.’ Patricia stares at her in an accusatory way. ‘The last time you were there you said how much looser your back feels.’
‘I really don’t have to explain anything to you,’ Grace Maud snaps.
Patricia glances at Dorothy, who looks upset.
‘No, you don’t,’ Patricia says. ‘But we’d like you to. We may not be able to help you. But maybe we can. Have you ever considered that?’
For so much of her life Grace Maud never considered if she needed help with anything. She had Ellie Maud on the end of the phone, always helpful and encouraging. They never unburdened themselves to each other; they never had to. They knew the nuances of each other’s voices and that was enough. That shorthand they had – it took her a long time to realise that other people may never find that. After Ellie Maud died, Grace Maud missed it so much; missed knowing someone so intimately. She never wanted to know someone like that again, even if she could, because losing them was so hard.
Tom had told her once that she kept him at a distance because she was so used to having her sister to talk to. He said she didn’t understand what it was like for him, knowing that his own mother chose her sister over him. Her response was to tell him that he was being selfish. But he wasn’t – he was being honest. If she’d tried harder with him then, maybe they wouldn’t be so far apart now.
If she tries harder with Patricia and Dorothy, maybe they could become … not replacements for Ellie Maud, but, at the least, a reconnection to the world around her.
She looks at Dorothy’s worried face, then Patricia’s more stern visage, and sniffs. ‘Fine. The farm burned down.’
Dorothy gasps.
‘How much of it?’ Patricia asks.
‘All of it.’ Grace Maud closes her eyes briefly. ‘Well, most of it. The house. Most of the fields. The wind picked it up …’
She closes her eyes again. Someone takes hold of her shoulder, and when she opens her eyes she sees Patricia.
‘That’s terrible.’ Patricia’s eyes fill with tears. ‘I’m so very sorry that this happened to you.’
‘Grace Maud, I had no idea.’ Dorothy’s hands are entwined, her knuckles white. ‘I read in the paper about a fire near Atherton but I didn’t know it was your place. They didn’t say who owned it.’
‘Was anyone hurt?’ Patricia asks.
‘No. Thankfully. Tom and his wife and my great-nephew are staying with their neighbours. They don’t want to come to town. And I …’ Grace Maud glances around. ‘I don’t have room for them anyway.’
‘What will happen now? Will you rebuild?’ Patricia has let go and Grace Maud misses the feeling of warmth on her skin.
She nods. ‘They’ll replant the cane. As for the house – I don’t know.’ She feels her resolve faltering and knows it will show on her face. ‘I don’t think they can ever replace what was there.’
‘Did you lose much?’ Dorothy says softly.
‘Photos. Some letters. I brought a lot of it here but I left a few things there …’ She laughs at herself. At the absurdity of thinking that everything would stay the same. That she could move from that place and keep it the way it was when she lived there. That Tom and Viv would never change it, or time would never alter it. That fate wouldn’t have its hand in everything. ‘I made it a shrine. To my family,’ she says. ‘How ridiculous.’
Her inhalation is ragged and Patricia’s hand is back on her shoulder, squeezing gently.
‘I feel as though my whole life has been lost,’ Grace Maud whispers, and she bows her head because she feels it’s true. ‘That’s why I haven’t been to yoga.’
